Chapter Ten-Intermission

Eric Delrosa was not a good man. Eric didn’t consider himself bad, either. In fact, Eric didn’t have feelings about morality either way. He had always done what he wished to do. Hurting things had always brought him pleasure, even when he was a child, so that’s what he did. At first, he was open about it, but the look of horror on his mother’s face and the subsequent visits to the local shrink had taught him that he needed to be more careful.

He had developed his mask. It was a carefully constructed façade of a mild-mannered, meek man who rubbed his hands a lot. He had thrown himself into school, apparently pursuing an academic path. Eric had learned a valuable law in school, the law of the jungle. The fittest survived, and the weak were culled.

That didn’t necessarily mean death but often took the form of relentless bullying. Due to Eric’s façade, others initially considered him weak, but Eric knew that strength manifested in myriad ways. A small rumor, for example, often worked to his advantage. Was that ugly Katie with Brad behind the bleachers? Eric stood back and watched his peers tear each other apart; all Eric needed to do was use words.

Making money had never been difficult for Eric. He started in high school. He grew the reefer in his garage and used the Internet to sell it to his peers. Eric had always used proxies, of course. He would use a voice changer, cover his face, and wear all black when he dropped it off with another student. He paid to distribute it.

Before long, he had his own little drug empire. His Mom had never cared what he did; in fact, she smoked it herself. As long as he didn’t torture things in front of her, she allowed her son relative free reign. Eric began to expand operations, making enough to purchase a plot of land outside the city limits and enlisting a company, through a paid proxy, to build him an underground bunker.

It was surprisingly easy to do all of this. The bunker was made to look like a simple storage unit, and it quickly became Eric’s new base of operations. He moved his growing operations there and expanded to the rest of the city.

Eric had enlisted the local homeless population as proxies. He sent them to pick up the product and take it to the dealers he had brought up with him from his school days and others he had enlisted. The local gangs were not thrilled with his muscling in on what they considered their territory and moved to find him.

Except Eric was a ghost. Everything he did, he did through proxy. For what little he did himself, he had used a mask and voice changer. No one knew his face, and no one knew his voice. He had even used modified stilts and padding to sometimes give himself a different physique and height. Eric had offered growing and harvesting jobs to locals who stood outside hardware stores, forcing them to wear blindfolds and earphones blasting music so they had no idea where they were going until they were in the bunker.

Eventually, Eric did get into other drugs. He also found that there were limited places to put up underground bunkers, so Eric invested in storage units, buying up a local storage unit business. Of course, he also needed a way to launder all this money, so he enlisted the assistance of some tech-savvy individuals and launched a gambling website. He also invested in real estate, buying his mother's home and putting her up somewhere better.

Very soon, Eric didn’t have to hide so much. He had a small circle of trusted employees, one of whom was Ambrose Severen. He had also bought several strip clubs. Ambrose had been one of his most effective tools, removing the local gangs and thugs like Tuesday night’s garbage, clearing a path for Eric to claim the city.

Eventually, Ambrose decided to marry one of Eric’s dancers, Alice. Eric had given his blessing since Ambrose paid for his way out of the organization. Then the System had come. It offered him early initialization as a Forerunner, giving Eric powerful stats. Every time he killed something, he gained experience. Eric had gone hunting.

Eventually, he chose the Siren class. Now, Eric was level 60 and had reached the D-Grade; he had evolved his class to Dominion Sorcerer. It had been a few days since the System had fully initiated the world, and Eric was standing before large green creatures with bulging muscles and a bald head, wearing dark green plate armor and a giant sword.

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“Bow before the Dharza clan, human!”

Eric calmly reached up, removed his glasses, and cleaned them with the end of his vest.

“I think not, sir. In fact, I would appreciate it if you would kneel.” Eric activated [Suggestion], which was currently at the epic level.

The green-skinned giant knelt, crashing into the cracked and broken street. Eric nodded, twitching his lips into a smile.

“Good. Now, then, analysis tells me you’re an ogre. I find that fascinating. Why don’t you tell me about these Incursions? What is the point of them? Go on, tell me.”

The ogre had no choice but to comply, yellow eyes widening in fear as it dawned on him that he was at the complete mercy of the human before him. Eric tapped his chin in thought at the ogre’s explanation.

“Interesting. You’re offered rewards and possible control of the planet. You’re saying that newly integrated planets have rare and untapped resources, hmm? You’ve been most helpful, sir. Thank you. Please do me a favor and impale yourself.”

The ogre tried to resist, but its willpower was not nearly powerful enough to resist Eric’s Forerunner and Dominator traits. It raised a twitching, shaking arm and positioned the giant sword to point at its chest.

“No, not this way, please!” The creature begged.

Eric felt that familiar zing rush through him. That sweet rush of feeling always accompanied his actions to harm others. The ogre lifted himself up, his whole body twitching as if lightning were going through it. He tried to resist as hard as possible, but it was futile. The ogre fell on its sword, ruby liquid bursting from it like a pierced melon, spraying the ground in abstract sanguine art.

The body twitched a little more, then fell still.

[You have defeated an Ogre-Level 45. You have gained experience.]

Eric rubbed his hands together, smiling. Rudy stepped up to him moments later, looking every inch the bulldog.

“Our forces are mopping up the rest of this area. Should we return to New Atlanta?”

Eric gazed at the wrecked streets, destroyed cars, and collapsing buildings.

“Yes. Make sure we collect anything of use. We need everything we can get if our people are to thrive.”

Rudy nodded firmly,

“Of course, Lord. It will be done.”

Rudy left. Eric returned to his truck, a black F150, and got in. A shotgun lay on the passenger side floor, against the door. Guns still worked with the System's arrival; they were simply less useful. The weapons didn’t have any kind of rarity, nor did they appear to be dropped as rewards. Plus, with the introduction of attributes, most gunshot wounds were the equivalent of bee stings, if that.

Even so, guns were loud; people still recognized them as a threat, and Eric found that useful. He turned the truck on and returned to the compound that served as the start of the new city he would build in this new world. A city he would rule.

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The compound was a construction zone surrounded by a makeshift wall. Eric had put many of the contractors under his employ on it. They even developed professions, making the job much easier. The compound itself was located well outside the city, in a wilderness area that had sprouted up with the arrival of the System. Many things, in fact, had changed with the System's arrival. Buildings were going up every day, expanding outward as streets were being developed.

Eric had his house set up some ways away from the rest of the compound, and he entered it now. He had many antiques. Even now, he maintained the façade of a mild-mannered professor. He poured himself a drink from his bar. Going to his desk, he opened a secret compartment within it and removed a collection of slides. Pressed between one was a single black hair. Eric ran his fingers over the slide, bringing it to his nose, where he closed his eyes and inhaled its scent.

It didn’t smell like anything, not really. But Eric could imagine the scent of strawberries and cream. The scent of a mother-to-be.

“Ah, Alicia. See? You aren’t gone entirely. I have a part of you here with me.”

Eric Delrosa leaned back, studying the hair as that little zing of pleasure zapped through him, and he smiled, just smiled, as he remembered the night he had shot her.