With a gasp, I jerked awake and immediately regretted it as I promptly swallowed a mouthful of dirt. Hacking and coughing, I burst out of the ground like some third-rate zombie and greedily breathed in the sweet air. Other than the mud pie I’d just eaten, I felt surprisingly good for having just been buried in the ground for over 3 days. The ache in my shoulder had faded to a dull throb, and I just felt a bit sore in my legs.
“Welcome back, Master. I hope you had a pleasant rest,” the small orb next to me cheerily chirped.
“Ah, thanks Melchior. Anything I should know about that happened while I was out?”
“Nothing of note has happened. I have not detected any Lycoph signatures in the vicinity, you appear to have safely escaped their pursuit. However, I would like to take this time to complete my introduction that was interrupted by your previous predicament.”
“Sounds good. Go ahead.”
“Greetings! My name is Melchior and it is my great honor to serve as your guide. Welcome to the first layer of Bellona, known as Canopy. Canopy is a predominantly forest type environment spanning approximately 150,000 square kilometers. It contains a variety of native fauna and flora that vastly differ from those of your world, as well as currently hosting the 100,000 other races present. Before we proceed with further explanation, please designate your display ID.”
“My display ID? What’s that for?”
“This ID will be used to represent you on the leaderboards, as well as to other races you may come into contact with. I am equipped with an automatic translation function, so there is no need to worry about any communication issues.”
“ID huh? Let’s go with.....Adun.”
“Very well, Master Adun. You have been registered on the Nemesis Leaderboards as well as the Points Leaderboards.”
“Nemesis Leaderboards? What’s that?”
“The Nemesis Leaderboards are the rankings of those with the highest number of Nemeses slain. Every combatant is given a randomly selected Nemesis from another race. Both combatants are always aware of each other’s position, ability they were given, and basic information. Whichever Nemesis slays the other is given a varying amount of points and more importantly, inherits the slain Nemesis’ ability. Once they have slain their Nemesis, they are immediately designated another Nemesis to hunt down.”
“So someone could potentially accumulate dozens or even hundreds of different abilities if they were to keep hunting down their Nemesis?”
“Correct. The Nemesis Leaderboards serve as an indirect way to display the current strongest combatants, although they may not be entirely accurate. After all, one high grade ability can easily trump multiple lower grade ones.”
Holy crap, just one of the “F” grade abilities I’d seen earlier had seemed quite strong. I couldn't even begin to imagine how powerful someone with multiple high grade abilities stacked on top of each other would be.
Not that that would ever have anything to me, though. I couldn’t even figure out to use this blasted ability, [Oblivious], that I’d already nearly forgotten about.
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“So Melchior, who’s the Nemesis I’ve been given?”
“Please select the PvP tab on your interface to view details about your designated Nemesis.”
I carefully scrolled through the various tabs and gingerly tapped on the PvP tab with a bit of anxiety. Surely they’d give a weakling like me another weakling as a Nemesis?
ID: Celendis
Race: Chromatic Dragon
Ability: [Conqueror]
Description: [??????????????????????????????]
[Stats]
Strength:???
Intelligence:???
Agility:???
Physique:???
Mana:???
Nemesis victories: 0
Hm, I see. I sat back in the grave I’d made and began covering myself up with dirt again.
“Master Adun, there is no need for your current actions. As I previously stated, I no longer detect any Lycophs in the-”
“Yeah, no. I’m completely screwed, might as well skip any of the nonsense and just die right here. This was rigged from the start anyways. Question marks on all the abilities? It’s obvious they’re so disgustingly overpowered that I’m not even allowed to look at their stats, like some shitty boss that’s way above your level. Just end me now.”
“...................”
After a few minutes of wallowing in despair and self-pity, with a sigh I got up and began brushing myself off. Jokes aside, it was time to get moving again before any other unsavory beings found me.
On my map function, I noticed a red marker hundreds of kilometers away that appeared to be slowly moving. Ah, that must be the Nemesis marker. Oddly enough, it didn’t seem to be moving in my direction and instead seemed to be proceeding even deeper into the Canopy.
“Master Adun, although your chances of victory against your Nemesis are indeed minimal, might I offer some words of encouragement? The Chromatic Dragon race was the victor of the previous Realm Wars, and is one of the clear favorites to win the current one despite the addition of abilities. As such, there will likely be many other races seeking to eliminate them and perhaps even cooperating together to do so. You may be given a new Nemesis without even lifting a finger.”
Yeah, well, let’s hope so because right now I didn’t even have many fingers remaining. Somehow, though, with how my luck had been going, I didn’t feel like that was going to happen. For now though, I wanted to try heading back to the portal spawn point to see if there were any other survivors.
“I’ll listen to your other explanations later. Can you show me the path back to where I came from?”
“Charting course.”
In my vision appeared a bright red line clearly indicating for me to follow. Thank the heavens for this guide function, otherwise it would have been completely impossible for me to find my way in the near absolute darkness of the forest.
As I carefully made my way back, I spent some time familiarizing myself with the various different functions present within the guide device. One of the tabs labelled as Allies in the Tracker function caught my eye and I decided to ask Melchior about it.
“Hey Melchior, what exactly does this tab here do?”
“The Ally Tracker function displays the position of all entities designated as an ally. All members of your original race are designated as an ally by default, but other races can also be added manually.”
Nice! This would save me quite a bit of time regrouping with any of the other survivors. With a bit of luck, there might be some still close by even though it’d been a few days. I quickly activated the Tracker function with a hint of anticipation.
What appeared however, was just another visual of the map, with a green dot indicating my position.
“Hey Melchior, is this thing bugged? It’s only displaying my current position on the map.”
“System diagnostics show no sign of error. All functions are fully operational.”
“Huh?”
“There is no mistake with the Tracker function. You are the only one remaining from your world.”