JESSIE : LEVEL 12

DAY 173 : D-DAY, SECONDWEEK, FULGORA, YEAR 1

CENTRAL 14 : VILLA 4 : CLOSURE

Jessica the Racist Human Stonekicker leveled up.

She had three options.

She picked the correct one.

Everybody, everywhere, was impressed.

Picking the right leveling choice gave her enough experience to level up three more times immediately.

But before she could allocate her free cultivation stages, she tripped over a pipe.

Groaning upright, I flop out of my sandy fish tank of a bed. From there, I equip my most comfortable layered heavy armor, press the button to compensate for the false hope of my dream by getting some real XP, and head out to start the day. Walking through the living room, I exaggerate a yawn as I wave genuinely at Blue, amiably at Darreck, sarcastically at Green, and flip off Yellow as I head downstairs.

But I don’t get that far before Darreck stops me. “Hold it, Red.”

Bristling, I remember the most important thing before turning around and skipping over to him with button outstretched. “Recharge, please!”

He touches the button.

It doesn’t reactivate.

I look up at him.

He sighs. “We need to talk.”

Yellow breaks into a beatific grin behind him.

But then he breaks her heart, even while lifting mine. “We all do.”

I want to back away. But instead, I just breathe. “What about?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it? What should we talk about?”

“Each, um, other?”

Yellow raises her hand. “I’ll go first!” She can’t seem to contain her excitement as she composes herself as much as she can manage. “I don’t see why Ruby is keeping this stupid breathing thing. It makes her so creepy.”

Darreck sighs, seeming to brace himself even as he looks over at me. “Have you ever thought about changing your breathing-”

“NO.” I don’t think about it. Rather, I didn’t think about it. I hadn’t thought about what I was saying until after the word was already out of my mouth.

Nodding a bit more slowly, Darreck turns back to Yellow. “And there you are. That’s why.”

Corn groans in exasperation. “What’s why?”

“Even if you disagree, you can see she truly doesn’t want that part of her changed?”

“What does that have to do with-?”

“EVERYTHING.”

Cheese flinches.

But Darreck doesn’t back down. “It has everything to do with it. No matter what you or I or anyone else thinks, It’s her who decides who she is. No one else. It’s pointless to even try. I should know…” Grumbling out the last, he takes an emotionally hairpin turn as he chuckles amiably and meets Yellow’s eyes. “And why would you even want to? You don’t have to live by anyone else’s standards. Not anymore. But that also means no one else has to live by yours. You understand the fairness of that, right?”

Yellow blinks at him. “I… I guess-” She bursts into tears.

No one knows quite what to do with that.

Green is the first to comfort her.

Then Darreck.

And even Blue.

I don’t. So what if she’s crying? She was still literally just a bitch to me.

Eventually, she takes issue with my lack of rewarding her meltdown over me not changing myself to suit her preferences. “Seriously Ruby, what’s your problem?”

I don’t even hesitate subjectively. “You.”

“Thanks for clarifying.”

“The way you shame people into doing what you want. It’s gross. Actually, just fuck you overall. I bet you’re thinking you’re winning this little battle here, don’t you?”

“Don’t YOU see how you come out looking from every exchange? If that’s not me winning the battle, I don’t know what is.”

I shake my head. “Why would I care about the battle when I'm judging you for treating it like a war? No. Fuck that. And fuck you for even playing. You can keep setting up the board and making the first move, but I'm just gonna keep flipping it over. You can assemble your army to fight mine, but I'm not going to assemble one. I’m just going to go intangible while flipping you off. Fuck your battle, fuck your war, and fuck you.”

“Go back to school.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. I’m too busy leveling up. I’m not going to stop getting stronger to go to social studies.”

“But you’ll just sit there watching every bit of media with Conan O’Brien The Archive has? You can press a button just as easily in-between actually learning things?”

I glare at her. “One of those things, I enjoy. The other, I don’t. Besides, you know I hit Level 12 yesterday? I haven’t even been here a year and I’m already nearly caught up with you after… How long have you been here again?”

“I’m Level 17.”

My eyes bulge. I never thought of the possibility… Has this bitch really been stronger than me all along?

Celery smirks. “That’s over a fourth of MAX.”

I flash her my most condescending grin. “Thank you, I can do math.”

She seems genuinely surprised. “Most people think it’s 100. Or 50. I just assumed…”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Blue looks shocked. “Oh, it’s not? I always thought that was it. What’s the Max Level, then?”

Urine snorts. “Nice math, dumbass.”

I barely hold myself back from flicking her in the forehead. “Stop bullying Yuki.”

“Who?”

Oh, right. “Stop bullying Blue.”

The steaming puddle of piss in human form seems to lose some of her heat. “Whatever. Max level is 64. Hence I, at 17, am one more than a fourth of the way there. But more importantly, I have a Legendary Skill.”

Shit. That means she’s gotten… Between 32 and 64 times the XP I ever have. I shrug, deciding to just fuck with her a bit. “So do I.”

Green scoffs. “No you don’t.”

“Prove it.”

Yellow rolls her eyes. “You’ve been here for how long again?”

I shrug. “Like five months”

“Exactly.”

Green looks like her point is proven. “Yeah!” As though me admitting that was ever a possibility…

Yellow nods at her sycophant. “That’s not enough time to get to Level 16, which almost everybody hits before Achievement Milestone 5. And there’s no way you have that. Wait, what level did you say you were?”

I puff myself up as fake-defiantly as I can manage. “Twelve.”

Yellow scoffs. “Wow… Okay, you’re also a REALLY bad liar. A Legendary? At Level Twelve? After five months?”

Green snickers to her. “Yeah, that’s pretty stupid.”

I decide to just let them spiral and watch this toilet flush while I wait for her to ‘discover’ that I’m only Achievement Milestone Two. “Why is it stupid?”

But then Blue pipes in “Um-”

The three of our heads swivel towards her, as though each having forgotten she was even there.

Yellow is the first to break the ensuing silence. “Like you ever have anything to contribute, anyway.” Before I can jump down her throat for bullying Yuki again, she turns back to me. “How many people have you killed?”

What the fuck is this now? After thinking about it for a few subjective minutes, I ask the question I’ve arrived at after all that consideration. “What the fuck is this now?”

“How many people have you ended the lives of? Here. In Heaven.”

“I don’t know, more than ten? Less than a hundred? What’s your point?”

“My point is that you shouldn’t be allowed to roam around freely. Not like my brother…”

“It’s cool. I’m better than your brother.”

“NO YOU’RE NOT!!!”

No one moves.

“He deserves to be here. Not you.” Yellow turns to Blue. “Or you.” Then to Green and Darreck. “You’re fine.” Then back to Blue and me. “But I can’t stand you being here when he’s not.”

Green tries to comfort her. “What happened? He didn’t make it? Was he who you died to save?”

Yellow slowly shakes her head. “We arrived here together. Everything was fine at first. But then he got a little too frisky and…”

Darreck flinches.

Yellow seems to misunderstand that reaction. “It’s bullshit, right? My brother was banned for trying to rape someone. Not that he did. Or even got that far. He was clearly fighting his urges and he brushed up against this girl and… Poof. He was gone. Forever. I’ll never see him again.”

Darreck pales. “But… Wait, isn’t there some kind of warning system? They don’t ban on a first offense I thought.”

“He was warned…” Yellow shakes her head. “Look, I’m not saying rape is right. It’s just so hypocritical. Because then along comes THIS bitch-” She gestures to me. “Runs around killing whoever she wants. And that’s fine?”

“Look… On Earth, you’d have a point… But, pacifism or no, I’m fully aware that death in and of itself means almost nothing here. Yeah, you lose XP. But that’s it. You don’t leave forever. That’s what makes murder worse on Earth.”

I nod emphatically at someone taking my side in this weird-ass turn the conversation just took. “Absolutely. Rape is different. In that it’s the same here as on Earth. The type of damage that does isn’t something The System can mitigate. So instead, they punish it. Severely.” My face falls into a satisfied smirk at the thought.

Darreck just looks back at me. Seemingly terrified of a threat that I wasn’t trying to imply at all. And one I didn’t even catch myself inadvertently making.

But… Now what? Do I take it back? Wouldn’t that imply I was interested? Which… I’m not, right? I’m 16, and he’s… What? In his hundreds? Thousands?

But Blue interrupts my thoughts while staring into her knees. “What do you all think murder is? Who do you think you’re hurting? The one you murdered? Yes. You, yourself? Of course. But you’re also hurting everyone who loves your victim. And you’re turning that love to hatred. Hatred for you. And wouldn’t you disagree that the spider-webbing effects of the pain of someone dying is a universal commonality between most evil acts ever committed? Murder is a truly horrendous act. And the worst thing it does is that it keeps the cycle going.”

Everyone just stares at her. What do you say to that? But more to the point, who even knew she was capable of such complex thought?

So I figure why the hell not and just pose the question that’s been bothering me since I got here. “So what do you do when you’re in a guild with your murderer? From Earth, I mean. I killed him once we both got here and I learned who he was, but I don’t think that affected him as much as it hurts every time I see his name show up in Guild Chat. Is that the cycle of pain you mean?”

Before Yuki can even start to answer, she stiffens in response to Darreck doing the same.

Otherwise totally still, his neck cranes over to look at me like he never has before. “Come again?”

So I tell him. And them.

And next thing I know, we’re walking into The Adventurer’s Guild HQ.

Walking up to the receptionist, I hold my breath until I can’t anymore. In that intervening time, I realize, I don’t know what to call him. Oh yeah… Targeting.

[ HERO TARGETED: JEFF ]

In what likely looks to everyone like slow motion, I get on with it. “I want to quit the guild.”

Jeff pales. “Why… Would you do that?”

I’m more ashamed than anything that it’s taken me this long. If not for fetching my sword, I never even would’ve… “The man who killed me is in this guild.”

“O-okay, I can do that for you. Just so you know… Once you quit The Adventurer’s Guild, you cannot rejoin unless you do so before joining any other guilds.”

“Noted.”

“This includes your own guild.”

“Noted.”

Jeff seems to fully register the implication of my company. “Or that of your friends.”

“NOTED.”

“No matter how small.”

Darreck steps forward. “Alright, this is getting ridiculous. Can’t you see how much it hurts her just to be here? She has a request. Please fulfill it.”

“I understand you, sir… Wait, Darreck? Why are you-”

“Oh, do you now? You know, she didn’t have to come here. She could’ve just quit through The System.”

The receptionist seems to at least partially recover from his fugue state. “While technically possible, behaving as you describe is strictly against guild policy. Such an act of bad faith would instantly blacklist you from all Big-Four-affiliated guilds… Not just us.”

Darreck glares at him. “And so we’re here. Frankly, in light of what I just learned, I don’t care. And I would support her decision to burn the whole set of bridges if that’s what she wished. But instead, here she is, in person, as an act of this ‘good faith’ we so commonly demand, but so rarely reciprocate. That, despite the pain inexorably linked for her, to this entire organization. Can’t you see how uncomfortable she is?”

“I don’t think any of you understand the repercussions of-”

“JEFF. Please just grant her request. Process her out so she can leave in some semblance of peace. Or don’t you think she deserves that?”

“I… Darreck, you…” Jeff sighs. “This conversation is falling apart.”

Yellow sneers at him. “Oh, just now?”

On our much less hurried, much less tense walk back, Darreck confesses something. “It’s too bad you can’t have children here. Perhaps my life would be different, but… No. It can’t be done. There’s no way around it. I understand that. Of course I do. It’s just… I wanted to thank you all. For making the alternative tolerable.”

What remnants of tension remain seem to melt away at his words. It feels like that’s how it always works.

“I don’t love you. I can’t… At least I don’t think so. But I appreciate what each and every one of you brings to my life.”

Noticing the ever-present stain on the moment, I glare at Piss.

She glares right back. This time accompanied by the slightest smirk of what could be a seed of friendship. I’m not willing to live in that world yet though. She’s still a bitch, after all. But maybe less of one than I thought.

Darreck chuckles at our silent, yet visible exchange. “Even that. All the silly little moments and drama and whatever of real people…” He sighs, gesturing downward as though to encapsulate us all. Even Green over in her little corner of the walking path. And Blue in hers. “Like I said… I just like having you all around.”