“On the hunt again!” Lika sang out. “I’m on the hunt again!”
Noah was learning to hear the ‘sounds’ as opposed to the system’s translation when he focused. He could hear the noises actually coming out of Lika’s mouth when she sang, and it sounded to Noah like guttural acapella German death metal.
But when he didn’t focus, and let the system translation do its thing, he would have sworn she was singing to Willie Nelson’s ‘On the Road Again.’ Which meant that was apparently the vibe she was going for.
“You’re going to bring another rattletail monster down on us,” Noah warned.
Lika laughed and pointed to RED. “And then he’ll kill it and we’ll get more cards. I’ve got two tier-two Scavenged Battle Bots now.”
Noah frowned. He hadn’t gotten anything useful from the rattletails so far this trip.
“Technically, fleshloaf hasn’t ordered me not to let you die, shortstack,” RED replied with a dry voice.
“RED, I’m ordering you not to let Lika die,” Noah said to the same cadence.
“You son of a…” RED muttered, trailing off into scatological incoherence.
Lika clapped her hands. “C’mon, you know you want to get more cards, RED. Don’t feed the fish before you have to.”
Noah cut in. “Please, Lika. I do want more cards, but we’re both still hurt—and I need to be as strong as I can to rescue Hope.”
Lika rolled her eyes. “Killjoys, the both of you. But fine, whatever, I’ll just shove it all the way up there and be silent as an alligator after-party.”
“Thank you,” Noah said.
The three of them continued their walk in silence for a few more minutes.
They were headed north along the pathway through the Rattletail Forest. It would have been faster to take a bike, but Noah had never missed the internet and video technology more than when they’d tried to teach Lika to ride a bike. If she went cruising, she was headed for more than a bruising—head trauma, maybe.
Noah glanced at the thin path, occasionally blocked with roots, that they were walking on. In all honesty, they would likely have destroyed the bikes on this road even if she’d known what she was doing, regardless.
RED suddenly spun, calling out “Ware!” The Flechette gun in his hand crackled, a sound distinct from most weapons, and a charging Origin Rattletail dropped along the path.
Nothing else happened, and the spiked rabbit dissolved, leaving behind its namesake card.
“Well, that was easy, at least,” Noah said, glancing around at the rest of the lush forest around him. It was as if a tropical rainforest had used deciduous trees. Everything was thick, and flowers abounded, but it was vegetation that Noah was used to seeing.
“So why is this Hope so important, anyway?” Lika asked as she walked behind Noah. “I mean, I get it, she has your baby in her. But you could probably have, like five women now. You’ve got cards, a place to live, you’ve killed a couple people, saved some other people… I mean, okay, you’re ugly. But your whole species is ugly, so I assume that’s just a thing.”
“Hope is the most amazing woman in the world. I mean, if you could have one perfectly cooked wagyu steak, or five hamburgers, which—”
“Hamburgers,” Lika said immediately.
Noah laughed. “Fair. All I’m saying is, Hope is perfect. She’s brilliant, beautiful, kind, caring, supportive… her laugh is a joy. Everything about her is just—”
“Amazing?” RED said. “That’s what you were going to say, right? For the fifth or so time?”
“It’s utterly true,” Noah said. “Really. And don’t play coy—I remember you thought she was great too.”
“Yes, because she is getting a medical degree and a cybernetics degree both,” RED said. “She can help advance humanity again. But don’t expect me to moon over your woman.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Fair again.”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“How long until we get to this Kansas City place, do you think?” Lika asked.
“I don’t know, because this world is insane. It was two hundred miles from my starting point, maybe half that from here—if things had been normal. But the entire Rattletail Forest is in the way at a bare minimum. If this world is ten worlds stitched together, it would be about three and a third further in each direction… so if we normally had a hundred miles to go, and we hiked thirty miles a day—”
“I seriously doubt I can do that,” Lika said, slapping her club leg.
“If we did, we’d still need eleven days. On the other hand, if there are no more stitched pieces of the world, we could be there in about eight, since I know that we needed five days to go all the way north of the Rattletail Forest.”
“Are we going to have to fight new elves at Beaver Bridge, do you think?” Lika asked.
Noah shrugged. “If we do, we do.”
He really didn’t want to, but at this point, the prospect of more combat wasn’t as big a deal as it would have been ten days ago. It was becoming normalized for Noah. Between monster ambushes, fighting elves, and the dungeon, Noah wasn’t sure he’d had a single day without blood loss since his world had been transported to Arena for the apocalypse.
He sighed. Maybe one of the days heading north would be free of attack.
***
The Beaver Bridge had been unguarded, and Noah had gone two of the last five days without being attacked, although he hadn’t been wounded. Additionally, it had turned out that origin rattletail was decent eating, especially with some honey cooked onto it. While Noah was nervous about attack the whole time, and afraid for Hope just as often, he had found himself coming close to enjoying the trip once or twice over the last couple days.
But now, he was pretty sure any enjoyment was going to disappear like a fart in the wind. He stared from the path out into a dismal field. The whole forest just ended, sharply, against the field. And it was perpetually in shadow.
Literally perpetually in shadow—the sun didn’t shine through thick black clouds that roiled but didn’t rain or flash with lightning. It was almost a permanent late twilight. The trees and grass were already withered, and the air was cooler, with wind blowing from behind Noah into the giant patch of darkness.
And, not but two hundred feet away, Noah saw a large spiked rabbit that had most of its chest missing, skeleton exposed, but that was still hoping around like it was totally fine.
Zombie Origin Rattletail
Undead / Beast [Zombie, Rattletail] Creature
Overland Monster
Health: 4
Attack: 3
Defense: 3
Magical Attack: N/A
Magical Defense: 3
Special: Thorns [Physical 3]: Anyone attacking this creature with a brawl or melee attack takes 3 true damage.
Special: Flammable: +100% damage from Fire
Special: Rattletail Drop: When this monster dies, it drops a single common card. That card has a 50% chance to be rattletail.
“Just when you thought the rabbits couldn’t get any worse.”
“What’s going on?” Noah asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” RED responded.
Noah unlimbered his Springfield 2020 Waypoint Long Action rifle and hefted it consideringly. He had managed to trade back up to two magazines for the Glock and eight bullets for the Springfield, but that was it—and he was fairly sure no one had bullets for the rifle left in the Five Farms. Maybe I can find an old armory in Kansas City or something.
RED held his robotic hand out. “Don’t waste the ammo. I can kill it with my plasma knife and be totally fine.”
Noah placed his gun back against his backpack. Instead, he touched his chest, then splayed his fingers out.
The rabbit snapped its head toward them, then started a slow hop in their direction, its tiny teeth bared as if it were a carnivore and not a turnip eater.
“I think it was close enough for your deck notification to trigger it,” Lika said, but she didn’t sound worried. She pulled her own deck as Noah hit his Discharge card.
A flash of electricity briefly connected RED to the zombie bunny, but it was unaffected.
“It’s based on my power cost, remember?” RED said, disgust in his voice.
“Right, sorry,” Noah replied.
Lika touched one of her cards and a Scavenged Battle Bot appeared near the zombie rattletail. A brief dust-up between bunny and bot resolved in the favor of bot, and a card appeared.
Noah walked from the path toward the dead rattletail. When he stepped onto the field, a pop-up appeared in his vision.
Welcome to the Night City zone. Once the Kansas City zone and divided between one orc and two human factions, but all card-holders were slain by monsters, and the contest lost. The Undead faction infests this zone, and the strength of overland and dungeon monsters is significantly increased.
The zone is now open as the contest has ended, and this has become a monster zone. New local quests and rewards will be available, with new ones appearing regularly.
Over time, the Undead Infestation will become more powerful absent deckbearer intervention. Eventually, it may attempt to spread.
Noah’s blood ran cold when he read the announcement. He had known that Kansas City had probably been hit hard, and that there was no chance that he would find his love… but this made the odds even lower.
Lika reached up and patted Noah on his bicep. “You don’t know she’s dead yet.”
Noah took a deep breath. He would try and save her no matter what, and he wouldn’t quit until he did, or he knew she was dead.
“Let’s go east, along the edge of the forest,” Noah said. “I think we’re more likely to be west of Kansas City than east of it, although with the screwy new geography, who knows. Keep your eyes peeled, though. We might find the 35 again.”