CHAPTER 21_HEX - A Zombie Survival LITRPG

Ray

He stared nervously as the shoreline to Governors Island came into view. The journey itself wasn’t very long, but the danger of capsizing with Goblins at the helm, much less what may be lurking within the water itself, was enough to set Ray on edge. You never knew what was going to go wrong until it do.

Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained he supposed.

It had taken them nearly two more weeks to equip the Orkin, Goblins, and Humans for the move. In addition to packing everything up, all the other logistics of such an event during the apocalypse made such an event quite complicated. Now it was time to gamble. Would they be able to arrive, claim the island, and move forward? Or would it be, quite literally, another battle to the death?

At least they all had equipment now.

Ray fingered his leather cuirass. It was a perfectly fitting, System altered item that he had bought from the shop. He looked around briefly seeing the Goblins wearing similar leather armor and polishing their new spears.

The Orkin had on much heavier armor. Most sported steel cuirasses while a few had opted for chain mail. Every one of them had some form of an axe. Grok was holding a massive double-bladed battle axe, cooing to it as he polished the steel. Ray shuddered at the damage the massive Orkin would be able to do with that thing.

Ray smiled a bit though, thinking back to their earlier conversation. These beings may be System restricted slaves, but they were still his people. Thus they deserved every opportunity to live and excel. He would make sure of it. The equipment was only a part of that promise to himself.

The last skirmish with his Nemesis had shown him that he was woefully unprepared for this new world. He had a bunch of smart people, a sassy intelligent advisor, and friends that surrounded him. He had to do a better job of taking their counsel and advice into account when making decisions. No one ran a group alone, much less tried taking over the world.

He laughed at himself a bit, garnering some odd looks from Gale and Josephine. He was thinking like some supervillain. Maybe if he had a name like Lee or Steve, he would be more feared. But his name suited him perfectly. Just an average guy trying to resuscitate his dying race.

Nothing strange there. No sir. Not at all.

“Dock’s ahead boss,” Grok grunted, walking up to him with his giant axe slung over a shoulder.

Ray nodded. “Bring out your guys in formation. Eradicate anything that isn’t alive … uh, dead? No. Just kill anything that tries to eat us.”

Grok laughed at that and wandered off to get everyone together. Only a half dozen Orkin and a dozen-odd Goblins had survived the fiasco on the bridge. Ray would need to look at getting some more at some point, but couldn’t until the store had been re-established.

Part of moving their base of operations had been to tear down, pack up, or outright remove everything they would need or could use on the island. This included the shop itself. Ray still winced thinking about the notification that the level one shop had been reduced back to zero. They had worked so hard, and come so far, only to dismantle everything for a major move.

Ray's musings were interrupted as the converted trash barge they were on bumped up against the large dock on the southeastern side of the island. The long L-shaped dock made embarking and debarking from the vessel key, as it was loaded with both people and materials.

Grok waved his force of Orkin and Goblins forward as they charged down the impromptu boarding blank that had been laid between ship and dock. They moved forward, killing the occasional undead and clearing the entirety of the pier up the shoreline. There they halted and begin fortifying their position with whatever was at hand.

“Well, this should be interesting,” Ray said as he walked down the makeshift ramp. “I won't say much as the System likes to fuck with us. So no flags people!” he ordered to the response of laughs from the Humans and a confused look from Gale.

The human engineering team fanned out behind Ray, Gale, and Josephine as they headed toward the shore. Only one Orkin and two Goblins stayed behind to secure the ship. Hopefully, if anything went wrong that would be enough.

As the group caught up, Grok looked to Ray for orders.

“Let's secure this series of buildings here. I want to put the core down in the fort on the other side of the island, just as we had discussed,” he explained. “I think the shop should go here though. This will let us get supplies and more troops to clear the island if needed.”

Gale nodded in agreement, “Indeed. Thou hast made a good choice. This series of buildings has everything thou will need to establish a trade port within this location as well. Space-wise, it is ideal.”

Josephine stayed silent at their exchange, intently watching their surroundings for threats. She had taken the missing Nemesis hard, and blamed herself. She couldn’t understand that it was just another threat in this world full of threats. Even if it was a bit more directed.

Turning to the engineers Ray said, “Alrighty. I get it, we spoke about it before but, you are not combatants. That being said, earning some NEX and upgrading yourselves will be of paramount importance! Even a few points of strength can easily put you at an Olympic level. Which means you can survive more, for longer. Break up and pair up with Orkin that Grok assigns you to.”

Grumbles followed that declaration, but no one could argue with the fact that someone with a stamina of ten had, essentially, unlimited running stamina. Ray himself had a startling level of strength. A level that Gale said very, very, rarely happens to those without a class.

Drawing his new blade, also freshly purchased from the store prior to its teardown, he advanced into the factory behind the squads of Orkin, Goblins, and Humans. He, Gale, and Josephine were immediately beset by several of the dozens of undead inside.

He never even had a chance to engage. Josephine ripped through them with such ferocity that the undead lurking behind those in the front paused. As she cut through yet another one, she quickly rolled to the side, dodging acidic bile that landed in a stream where she had just been.

Ray looked up, just in time to see a creature spring off the wall and land on the floor in front of them on all fours. Grok and his squads engaged the other undead in the area while Ray and his crew focused on this odd one in front of them.

It had, apparently, four arms. Two where the legs would normally be. It used these limbs to quickly scurry from one spot to another, never staying still long enough for anyone to approach it.

“Curse you vile creature!” Josephine yelled and unleashed a slash into the air.

He was certain that she had been too far away to hit it. Even the creature seemed amused by the attempt, that was until a bright crescent blade of energy flew from the tip of her blade. Screeching in surprise, the four-armed thing attempted to dodge out of the way but was far too late to do so. Both of the arms on its left side were removed from its body.

It crashed into the floor and skidded several feet, then began dragging its crippled body away and into the shadows. But Josephine was having none of that. With a decisive growl, she stalked over and separated its head from its shoulders.

“Done!” she said, turning to Ray with a smile. “It has now been disposed of.”

“Keep thou eyes on thy front!” yelled Gale as she intercepted more undead that came streaming out of the dark interior of the building.

Ray focused on the battle and all too soon fell into a rhythm. Cut, stab, step forward, repeat. Every body he cut down was rapidly removed by Goblins and Humans following in their wake and deposited outside in the early morning sunlight to burn into ashes.

Occasionally a specialized undead would appear, prompting Gale or Grok to step forward and deal with it. Josephine never left his side. She refused to leave him, as she termed it, defenseless. At least until he got his other arm back, which Gale assured him was possible. The System wouldn’t be as amazing as it was if it didn’t let someone regenerate something as mundane as a missing limb.

All too soon the group arrived in the central building, nestled in between the warehouse they had entered and an administrative building. All of which were connected. When they entered through the front door, however, Grok immediately signaled them to stop.

And Ray quickly saw why.

Stretched across the entirety of the room, with a massive covered hive-looking construct in the middle, was thick white webbing. Not reminiscent of a spider's silk. Only there was a lot more. And it was thicker. And Ray hoped to everything that-

“Spiders,” grunted Grok.

Ray cursed internally. Then he turned to his big green companion. “What the fuck do you mean spiders? Giant spiders? I just … what?” he asked incredulously.

Gale responded for the green comrade, “Grok is correct. This highly resembles a nest of spiders. However, thou are incorrect in thinking these are made of flesh and sinew,” she said cautiously, eyeing the walls and ceiling. “Mine suspicious are that, based on no contrary evidence, this wouldst be a Bone Spiders nest. A variety of undead not unlike these variants thy have encountered so far.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Giant … Bone Spiders? Grand,” he replied sarcastically. “I am going to assume that, based off stories and tropes, there is some massive queen creating these things?”

Grok laughed and Gale cracked a small grin. “Thou art very incorrect. The nest itself assembles the little demons. Thy must destroy the nest, this will in turn eliminate all the-“

She was interrupted as a creature walked ... slithered out from the shadows. It was easily six feet tall. With two long curved scythes where its hands would be, held with corded arms of muscle not dissimilar to corded steel. The body was that of a worm. There were no legs. Just … bulbous disgusting fat, rolling in on itself in pale flakey waves. The thing's head was reminiscent of a grasshoppers. That is, up until it opened it, releasing a chittering howl that made everyone in the room take a step back.

“That is no bone spider,” muttered Gale, as Grok howled back at it in rage.

That had apparently been the wrong thing to do. From under every crevice, out of every crack, and pouring from the central egg sack-like nest, hundreds of the things emerged. From the size of a house cat, the more common one, to giant six-foot death slug wonders. They were as numerous as they were varied in size. But they all looked the same.

“Fucking flaming shit on a stick,” Ray whispered, taking a small step back. Even Josephine looked reluctant to get involved with these things. “Those are like … fucking Death Slugs.”

“Indeed, I have never encountered-“, Gale was interrupted again as she looked into the distance, reading something the System had put before her. A moment later she was back in reality and staring at Ray.

“What? Something on my face?” he asked curiously.

Gale returned her attention to the horde that was slowly creeping towards them, shaking her head in exasperation. With a flick of her taloned finger, a window popped up in front of him.

EVENT – DEATH SLUG RODEO

YOU HAVE ENCOUNTERED A HIVE OF THE NEWLY NAMED DEATH SLUGS. GREAT NAME BY THE WAY. NOW YOU GET TO FIGHT FOR YOUR LIVES. CLEAR THE HIVE AND TRY NOT TO DIE. WATCH YOUR BACKS.*

“What the shit?” Ray whispered. “Newly named? Did I name them? But how?” he wondered.

No one had an answer for him, as at that moment in time the wave of Death Slugs chose to rush their line of combatants. With dozens, then hundreds, of shrill cries the scythe-handed wonders slammed into the spears that the Goblins had lowered into a barricade of sorts.

The small green guys were immediately pushed back as their pole arms sank into the nasty bodies of their enemies, spewing green ichor across the ground. Dozens of wounds appeared across the bigger of slugs, with some smaller ones immediately curling up onto the ground and dying.

Ray’s notifications were going crazy, informing him of NEX and events that were rolling in. Mentally he set the entire thing to silent and waded in full force. “Fuck all you nasty jag-offs!” he screamed, plunging his sword into the bulbous pulsating rear mound of a Death Slug.

It didn’t like that at all. But as upset as the now screeching slug was, Ray was more upset having been deluged with foul-smelling green and black pus-like blood.

“This shit is-“ he gagged as some got into his mouth. It tasted like burnt gym socks, rotten eggs, and death. He proceeded to vomit on the slug that had been the source of the pustulant, nasty liquid. The poor Death Slug seemed mortified, and in turn, vomited right back onto Ray. That cycle seemed to be fated to repeat itself, as both allies and enemies avoided the puke fest. That was up until Josephine intervened.

She yanked Ray back off his feet, tossing him into the center of a determined group of Human engineers who were only too happy to hose him off with their water bottles. She then took his place in the line and began hacking away with a long straight-edged blade she had gotten from the shop. Not shaped unlike that of a bastard sword from feudal Earth.

She was an absolute monster in battle. Ray couldn’t imagine giving her a gun, she was far more lethal in close quarters with a blade. And the fact that the Class gave her an absolutely stagging boost to her physical abilities when she was within range of him … well he was as safe as he could be as long as she wasn’t too far away.

The battle raged on as the engineering team finished hosing him down. The gunk that he was covered in was rapidly hardening, causing his movements to become more and more restricted. Now that he could see, he rapidly realized that the Goblins were being constricted through the blood substance that had gotten on them.

Pointing at the front line, he was about to tell the engineers to start dumping what water they had all over them. But he never got the chance.

A truly deep rumble of a growl echoed within the building, causing the fighting to immediately halt. All the Death Slugs looked up at the top of the egg sack hive before quickly turning and vacating the area. Then the fucking hive moved. Not the walls. Not the top. Not the sides. The entire hive.

It stood up, revealing that the egg sack was really on the back of a massive member of the species. The thing opened its maw, which could easily swallow a Goblin whole, and unleased a long low growl. The teeth in its face moved back and forth as if beckoning prey into it.

“Woah, that’s nasty,” muttered Derrick from where he had walked up next to Ray.

Ray wasn’t sure if he was talking about the slime that covered him or the giant monstrosity that had just risen out of the ground. Either way, it was a moot point, because the huge thing started a slow charge toward them.

“Fukk yeah!” screamed Grok while Ray could only shake his head.

***

RAYMOND ‘RAY’ FINNEGAN

RACE

HUMAN

CLASS

NONE

NEX

CALCULATING

LEVEL

PHYSICAL STATE

GOOD

MENTAL STATE

ANNOYED

ATTRIBUTE

BASE

CURRENT

NEX TO INCREASE

STRENGTH

AGILITY

POWER

100

WISDOM

LUCK

400

JOSEPHINE SANCHEZ