“I’m hungry!” Carlos complained loudly from the passenger’s seat.
He held an opened map of North Carolina in his lap, and Liz was sitting next to him in the driver’s seat. I was sitting on the ground, fiddling with my empty laser rifle and a car battery.
The laser rifle was essentially a high-tech laser pointer, so I wanted to see if conventional power sources could be used to power it. I had connected two wires from the car battery to my rifle, and the quiet humming from the upper portion of the gun informed me that it was ready to fire.
“We’ll be able to eat after we run into some enemies on the road,” I said.
We had been driving for nearly an hour at that point without running into any hostile creatures, and we were all anxiously waiting for the first batch of Diluvians and Uruks to attack us.
Sitting on the couch in the center of the RV, Claire pet Luigi’s golden fur and watched me work on the rifle curiously. The work I was doing on the rifle was shoddy, since the only tool at my disposal was a utility knife, yet I was able to form a rudimentary circuit.
After a moment, Claire said, “When we run into them, I can dice and sear the meat like steak. Add some garlic butter, and I’m sure it will taste delicious.”
Claire was obviously hungry, and I didn’t blame her. Functionally, none of us had eaten since yesterday, and it was starting to weigh on all of our minds. Though my mind resisted the thought of eating something so human-looking, I had to admit that seared steak sounded good to me.
“I would kill for that right now,” Carlos said. Since he had taken the Knight class, Carlos had gone the longest without eating.
“I’m sure you’ll have the chance to kill for that soon,” Liz said.
“To get our minds off of food for a second,” Carlos said, “let’s talk about something else. Vincent, I gotta ask, how much do you trust this Melkior guy? He’s supposed to be the Devil, right? He’s often called the ‘Father of Lies.’ Maybe everything he said is a lie.”
“Maybe,” I said, shrugging. “I don’t trust him in the slightest, but I need to put up with him for now. If I were to resist him too strenuously, he would kill me.”
“What about the Coalition of Light?” Claire asked.
“Our stance on the Coalition of Light should be determined by their actions thus far,” I said, anger starting to enter my voice. “All I’ve seen them do so far is flood most of our cities while giving us the most half-assed warning possible. Remember, Hellman was only there to hunt me down. The Coalition of Light didn’t send him to warn us about anything, that was just a side effect of his presence in Chapel Hill. They don’t care about us in the slightest. Ultimately, I’m on humanity’s side. If the Coalition of Light becomes too much of an obstacle, they will become our enemy.”
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Claire began to speak, her tone thoughtful. “You said this was the thirty-third iteration. Right, Vincent? That means they must have trampled over thirty other civilizations in a similar way to ours.”
Like the Nephilim or the tribe with white hair and red eyes before them, humanity was being trampled upon by their supposed allies, and we would be expected to join them without thinking. I was silently grateful for my status as a [Dungeon Lord], since it meant that I might be able to offer an alternative to the Coalition of Light’s monopoly on functional alternatives to the Conquering Horde.
Liz hit the brakes, and I lurched forward from my unsecured seat on the floor. She unclipped her seatbelt and shouted, “Enemies!”
“Food!” Carlos responded as he bolted out of his seat and unsheathed his sword.
I followed closely behind him, lugging my makeshift laser weapon with me. After taking a few steps away from the RV, I put the car battery down on the ground and leveled my rifle at the approaching enemies.
Six Diluvians charged toward us from the right side of the highway. Methodically, I swept my rifle from left to right, putting two shots in the center of the charging creatures. As the fourth Diluvian fell to the ground dead, I heard a loud pop from the car battery, and the humming in my rifle stopped. I pulled the trigger again, aiming for the fifth Diluvian, but nothing happened.
I had drawn too much power from the car battery all at once, causing a fuse to pop. Realizing that my rifle had become inoperable, I swore loudly and dropped it to the ground. By the time I had drawn my sidearm and aimed it at the remaining Diluvians, they had already been killed by the other members of my party.
There was silence for a moment, and Carlos rhythmically tapped his sword on the concrete beneath us. We didn’t have to wait long, however, and a group of a dozen Uruks emerged from the treeline off the side of the road and charged us, screaming in the language of the Archons.
“Drive them off! Protect the portal!” One of the Uruks shouted a strange war cry in that guttural, ancient language.
We responded with a flurry of laser fire, and more than half of them were killed messily before they could reach us. As they got close, Carlos’s smile grew wider, and Claire gripped her sword nervously.
I stepped in front of Liz, brandishing my knife in an attempt to draw more attention toward myself. I was successful, and two Uruks engaged me in melee.
Remembering my last fight with Uruks, I was astounded by how slow they were. The first one swung a large two-handed great axe at me, and I had time to admire its surprisingly good craftsmanship before I stepped to the side, causing it to crash harmlessly into the road. I stepped into the great-axe-wielding Uruk’s range, and my knife found its target.
As the first Uruk grasped its bleeding throat, I moved toward the second Uruk like a striking viper. A mithril mace flew at my head, and I ducked the attack easily. I found a gap in the Uruk’s shoddy armor, and my knife pierced its shoulder. Just as I was about to withdraw my knife and strike again, the Uruk jerked in pain as if struck before falling to the ground dead.
The second Uruk fell away, and Claire entered my vision. She withdrew her piercing blade as the monster fell, and I could see the satisfaction Claire felt when she witnessed her own skill.
In my peripheral vision, I saw Carlos swiftly finish off the last of three Uruks. He flourished his blade like a striking whip, and the final monster’s head was severed cleanly from its body.
[DILUVIANS (6) KILLED! +90 EXP, +90 CREDITS]
[URUKS (12) KILLED! +360, +360 CREDITS]
[LEVEL UP!]
[EXP TO NEXT LEVEL: 4,765]
[TOTAL CREDITS: 6,305₪]