Logan blinked at Matt.

Then he breathed.

Just breathed.

Ever since he’d arrived at the cabin, his emotions had been fluctuating wildly from hope to trepidation. Logan knew Matt would do anything he could to stall and save his own skin, but this was a bit much, even for a stupid, young kid with sociopathic tendencies.

So.

Jack and Tasha were dead. After all that shit, all of Matt’s stalling, he’d killed them. His limbs suddenly feeling heavy, Logan swallowed, a muscle ticking in his jaw. Jack had been a complicated man, a man who’d been dealing with grief and his own quirky personality ticks, but he didn’t deserve this. If it hadn’t been for Jack, Logan might not have made it out of the resort. After suffering through the death of his family, then of Eleanor, he didn’t deserve this ending.

As for Tasha, Logan hadn’t known her well, but he suspected that Lara and Tasha would have gotten along. Tasha had been dealt a shitty hand, and at the end, she’d only cared about making sure that Logan was okay.

They were good people just trying to survive.

And this little fucker had killed them.

The tightness in his chest turned into rage. This was rage sourced by Logan’s own emotions; the Cursed Rope wasn’t doing shit. Clenching his hands into fists, Logan ground his teeth, his pulse pounding in his ears.

In a way, killing Matt would feel anticlimactic, since Logan was the only one here to witness his comeuppance. But there was no judge and jury, not in the apocalypse. That had to be Logan.

Tasha and Jack deserved better. A hell of a lot better. If Logan’s eyes could shoot lasers, Matt would be on fire by now. Logan wanted him to pay, to feel regret, to get what he deserved, but he’d already spent too much time on him as it is.

Removing his sword from his spatial collar, Logan took a step towards Matt, his sword held up and the metal gleaming.

Matt’s eyes widened. “Where did that come from?” he asked in excitement.

What. The. Fuck.

He was treating this like he was having the time of his life, as if Logan coming at him with a sword was something to be excited about rather than the ending he deserved. There was something to be said for stupidity. Fuck, he reminded Logan of that kid at the resort, the one who thought he’d respawn if he died. And yet, Matt had killed enough people that he had to know that wasn’t possible.

For the first time, something rather than anger sloshed through his stomach. It was the uncomfortable realization that the person in front of him might not be all there. Before the Integration, there would have been jail, hospitals, medication. Logan didn’t have the luxury of that choice.

But this time, he didn’t give Matt a chance to stall. Flaring his nostrils, Logan made the only choice possible.

He swung his sword.

The metal twanged in the air as Matt tried to jump away. He succeeded in launching himself towards the treeline, his body surging, but not quite fast enough.

Instead, Logan got him in the leg.

Fuck.

He’d severed his right leg at the knee. With a sick plop, the limb went flying, blood spraying in a torrent. Matt shrieked and scrambled onto an overhanging pine tree limb, his hands grasping at the pine needles and bark, his fingers white-knuckled. With his remaining leg, he tried to brace himself, but then ended up jarring his severed leg. With another shriek of agony, he released his grip and crashed on top of the green vines with a plume of dirt and dust.

Rolling onto his back, he panted, his chest rising up and down and his face pale, his lips bloodless. “Why did you do that?” he wailed. “What’s wrong with you?”

Logan furrowed his brow in disbelief as he stomped over to him, feeling his face go hot with rage. “What’s wrong with me?” he roared. “You just admitted to killing Tasha and Jack! What did you think I’d do, kid? Thank you?!”

“Oh, fuck, oh fuck, it hurts,” he panted, looking down at his missing leg before wailing again. Then shooting Logan a glare, he bared his teeth. “I didn’t say I killed them, you jerk! I said they were underneath our feet! H-how does that equate to me killing them?” Looking down at his wound, he swayed until he lurched to his side and retched, then tried to crawl away from the mess by clawing the green beans and dislodging a pod.

With a lurch, Matt and Logan went up another foot as the plant multiplied once again. Matt’s blood dripped down the vines, going deep into the knotting plant. If Logan didn’t know better, he’d say that it was feeding. The green beans reminded him of the rat vine he’d created back in Hope’s End.

Logan had been getting ready to swing again, but at Matt’s words, he hesitated. Was this just more bullshit? A way for him to stall? Or was he actually telling the truth?

Logan pressed his boot against Matt’s severed leg, putting pressure on the wound.

Matt’s mouth dropped wide open, and he let out an ear-piercing shriek.

“You better start making sense, kid. From where I stand, what you’re saying doesn’t make it any better. So you didn’t kill them? But they’re dead? That still makes you into a liar, and as far as I’m concerned, you’re just as guilty whether you pulled the trigger or not.”

“Oh please! Oh please, stop! They’re not fucking dead, asshole! They’re alive! Like I said!”

Logan took a step back and lowered his sword, his nose scrunched in confusion. How could they be underneath the ground and yet alive? It didn’t make any sense. Either Matt was completely nonsensical, or there was something here that Logan wasn’t grasping.

Taking another step back, Logan surveyed the treeline and the property. His family had owned this property for over fifty years; if there was a tunnel underground or a bunker, they would have known. Still… the last time he was here, he’d just received [Life Cycle Master]. It hadn’t yet merged into his upgraded skill, [Life Fabricator], and he hadn’t mastered sensing everything around him. Back then, he’d struggled to grow a frigging tomato plant.

If there was an answer underneath the ground, Logan could find it.

Scrubbing his hand through his hair, Logan cracked his neck and then moved away from Matt. The kid wasn’t going anywhere, not with that missing leg, but to truly scan the area, he needed to concentrate, which meant closing his eyes. Like hell was he closing his eyes with an enemy right in front of him.

Logan moved back to the shoreline, putting about thirty feet between Logan and Matt, who kept non-stop wailing. “Where are you going?” he screamed. “You can’t leave me here!”

He thought Logan was leaving him there to bleed to death. If Matt had a high enough constitution attribute, it might let him survive long enough to limp his way to the cabin, but Logan wasn’t betting on it. After all, Asthea had lost an arm in the trial dungeon, and it had just about killed her.

No, Logan wasn’t leaving him there. He would get what was coming to him. But he needed to keep him alive for now in case he needed more information.

Blowing out a breath, Logan rolled his shoulders, closed his eyes, and then deployed [Life Fabricator] as he opened his senses. He’d completed a peripheral scan of the area when he’d examined Jack’s cabin, but Logan hadn’t gone any deeper than that. This time, he would examine the whole property, from Jack’s cabin to the property line and the field between his own cabin.

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He'd gotten good at scanning everything around him, but he wasn’t an expert at looking underneath his feet. More than anything, even more than Matt, the green bean plant radiated life, life so immense that it was difficult to gauge where it ended. Or began. Unlike a normal plant, this one pulsed with life that was tinged with something… else. It wasn’t everywhere, but at intervals, spots pulsed a coldness, something foreign. It wasn’t dark, but just… off. The spots weren’t stationary, but spreading, inch after inch, from one vine to another, transforming green and bright bursts of sugar into—

Fungi?

It had to be the queen serpent at work. Logan was sensing the infected areas of the plant.

Disregarding it, Logan went deeper, but the plant was already five feet high, and the roots went even deeper. He kept pausing as he came across insects—from earthworms who had managed to level, to ants who reminded him of his bark ants. Even the bacteria and decomposing material pinged on his radar; all of it distracting and taxing his senses.

Logan went deeper.

He wasn’t expecting anything. By this point, he assumed Matt’s story was yet more bullshit until…

Wait.

Logan gasped.

Two pings of life. Bright, bright pings. Human. But something was off. It was as if he were sensing the green bean plant again. The auras pinged as people, then fluctuated and pinged as a frigging plant. What the hell?

But either way, for them to ping at all, that meant they were alive.

Alive underneath his feet and buried in the ground? Since he could sense insects and worms, that meant that he could judge the depth of the ground. He detected life, but he wasn’t picking up on any hollow spaces. Had the squirrely kid managed to burry Jack and Tasha alive right before Logan had arrived? Had they somehow managed to survive with the help of a skill? It was the only thing that made sense.

That fucker.

Logan opened his eyes and then stomped his way back over to Matt, his grip creaking on the handle of his sword. He was stomping so hard he made cracks in the vines.

Although Matt had managed to unfasten his belt and use it as a makeshift tourniquet, he was in bad shape. His chest moved shallowly as if he were breathing through cotton. His limbs were boneless and pale, and he stared unseeingly at the sky while his fingers twitched. There was so much blood that the green vines around him were decorated in red as if they’d been splattered with a paint can.

But what gave Logan a second of pause was his grin. Amidst the grimaces of pain, he was smirking, as if he found his current state amusing. A joke that only he got.

This time, Logan wasn’t giving him another chance to stall. If he’d buried Tasha and Jack alive, he deserved what he got.

With a grunt, Logan swung his sword, decapitating his head from his shoulders.

Ding!

[You have defeated Matt Almaton! Triple experience granted for defeating a member of your own species!]

Logan didn’t give himself a second to feel relief, urgency eating away at his insides. Pacing back to where he’d sensed the two bright spots of life, he concentrated on an area about the size of his tool shed. With a blink, he willed the green bean plant inside of his spatial collar. Whether it resulted in a doubling of the green beans didn’t matter, he needed to clear enough to dig into the ground and reach Tasha and Jack.

Ding!

[Error! You cannot store living beings inside a spatial device!]

Goddamnit! Fuck’s sake, that didn’t make any sense! He’d stored green beans and logs inside of his spatial collar before; how was it possible that the System considered the plant—

Alive.

If the fungi had infected the plant and if it was transforming it, it might not technically be a plant, but the beginnings of a monster. Either way, he didn’t have time to puzzle it out, and his concerns about doubling the green beans was moot while Jack and Tasha’s lives were on the line.

Urgency eating away at his stomach, Logan willed out a handful of diamond dust and sand and then reformed his talons, making them blunt and wide rather than sharp at the tips. He was going for utility rather than a weapon.

As soon as they formed, he dug his hand deep into the vines, grabbing a handful and pulling with a grunt. The plant made a creaking, screaming noise—a noise he’d never expect out of a plant. It seemed to resist, its roots and the immense interweaved structure giving it stability. After all, he wasn’t dealing with a weed he’d find in a garden, he was dealing with a plant that was the size of what had to be ten baseball fields.

As soon as he scooped out a chunk, he hurtled it to the side, then scooped another and another, clearing the way. To the sides, the intact plant tripled, then tripled again, having the unintended consequence of spreading to the area he’d just cleared. Still, he’d cleared a wide enough area that it gave him access to the ground below. Concentrating on a patch of ground, Logan willed an excavator’s scoop of earth inside of his spatial collar, tunneling his way through. Luckily enough, the System didn’t consider the roots of the vine ‘alive,’ and he could clear it.

Jack and Tasha were still alive. They had to be, but he didn’t know whether they were alive because they were in the ground with a small air pocket, or if it were due to a skill. Either way, time was ticking, and a minute could be the difference between life or death. To come all this way and to discover that Tasha and Jack were feet away, and Logan could have saved them only to be too late would devastate him. He’d had enough death to last a lifetime.

Logan had aimed for the side of where he’d sensed Tasha and Jack, not wanting to unintendedly hurt them as he was scooping out material. Once he got a pattern down, he cleared the dirt like a dirt devil. Deploying [Life Fabricator], Logan searched for their auras once again, his heart in his throat.

There.

He’d tunneled directly next to them. They had to be to the left, buried underneath all that dirt.

Shit. There was no air pocket here. They were literally buried alive. What the hell had Matt been thinking? For someone who’d done his best to lure people to the cabin so he could harvest their XP, burying Tasha and Jack alive made no sense.

His nerves on fire with tension, Logan dug through the layer of dirt on the left with his talons and tried to be as careful as possible. He’d purposely crafted his talons to be wide and less sharp, but still, he didn’t want to inadvertently injure them.

And then, with one more scoop, the side of the pit caved in, the loose soil pooling to the side. At first, he could see only dirt, but then, he saw the beginnings of clothing—a runner, and the base of a leather sole. Then legs, then someone’s lower torso. It was as if Logan had just tunneled into a crypt.

Or a grave.

“Tasha?” Logan croaked. “Jack?”

[Life Fabricator] had pinged with life, but this didn’t look good. Fuck!

But then… was that…?

Tasha’s foot had moved.

With a surge of excitement, Logan grasped her by the foot and then tugged, pulling on her while trying to be as gentle as possible. As if he’d pulled on a dummy, she clattered out of the caved in dirt, landing at Logan’s feet inside of the pit.

“Tasha?”

She’d landed face down, her back covered in wet dirt, a rip on one of her sleeves. Her purple hair looked filthy and off, the back of her neck streaked with gold-dusted dirt. Twitching her leg, then her arm, she shifted and then rolled over.

“Shit!” Logan screamed. Deploying his Pink Sock, he jumped out of the pit and back onto solid ground, his breath gasping in shock. Holy crap! Oh shit, oh shit.

That wasn’t Tasha anymore.

Gold thread had interwoven into her skin, like the weave on a basket. Her hair had appeared off for a reason. It had transformed from a short purple hair cut to tiny fungus heads. In place of her eyes, two golden flowers covered in dust bloomed, the pollen white pupils.

As she looked up at Logan with her flower eyes, she let out a croak like a bullfrog, her flower tentacle tongue wiggling and snapping up towards him.

Next to her, the dirt continued to collapse, and Jack crawled out of the hole and landed next to Tasha. Just like Tasha, he had a flower tentacle tongue. Unlike her, his hair looked as if it had been torn away, his head covered in bald patches. Of the hair that remained, it had turned into tiny flowering mushrooms which swayed from side-to-side. As if being uncovered had invigorated him, he started franticly clawing his way up the pit and towards Logan.

Logan examined them with [Idiot’s Inspect]:

[Level 29 Undead Minion.]

[Level 24 Undead Minion.]

Oh fuck, no wonder Matt had said they were under the ground, and that he hadn’t killed them! He must have lured them into a trap just like he’d created with his wire traps, then buried them. For the green beans to have spread over the grave, it must have happened a while ago. Still, why hadn’t he killed them before he’d buried them? Why leave them alive?

Logan gulped.

Or undead.

Slumping to the ground and sitting as if his legs had been cut, with a feeling of unreality, Logan could only stare. After everything Jack had been through, for him to end up an undead zombie was the height of unfairness. And even worse, Logan had gotten his hopes up, convinced that he could save them. Instead, he was going to have to kill two of his friends.

He couldn’t help making the correlation between Asthea and this. Never in his life would he think that if he found Tasha and Jack, that he would have to be the one to put them down.

And yet there was no way he could leave them like this. If he buried them again, eventually, they’d claw their way back out and put Lara, the kids, and everyone in jeopardy.

If only there was a way he could help them.

Back when he’d received confirmation that Ernie had turned into the undead, he’d had the same thought. In the shows and movies, once you became a zombie, that was it. It wasn’t like killing a head vampire. Logan doubted that killing the serpent queen would do shit for this infection. And yet, with Ernie, Logan had told himself that he would do whatever he had to find a solution. Tasha and Jack deserved the same.

There had to be something he could do.

Biting his lip, Logan got to his feet and peered into the hole.

Something he could do.

Hadn’t he said that if he put his mind to it, he could do it? After all, he’d picked his [Fabled Creation] class for a reason.

You only have to will it, and you shall have it.