Benjamin – Alpha Zone #193 Level 1 – 20
You have entered Alpha Zone #193 Level 1 – 20
You have been relocated from Outpost #846 for violating its nonaggression Law.
You are temporarily restricted from entering Outpost #846 for 72 hours.
Staggering to a stop as the light receded, I take in what appears to be the clearing from the jungles edge. Spotting the Outpost on the opposite side of it, I finish imitating a meerkat and get my heart rate back under control. Subsequently, it takes a scant few seconds to come to the conclusion that I’m getting pretty sick of being moved without my bloody consent and add it to my growing list of complaints.
Next, I making sure I still have my [Major Bag of Holding] slung on my shoulder, while replaying the events that led to my abrupt teleportation. Groaning when I realize I had effectively tried to attack the two bikers in my bid to escape and gotten kicked out for my troubles instead.
Reassessing my situation, I get called a loser and begin to perk up a little, as I realize I have just received a free teleport out of the place and have essentially avoided running more gauntlets of people. However I deflate a little at the belated understanding that I didn’t even get to check out the rest of the terminals options before that suited wanker started trying to short change me out of my loot.
‘Still no point in standing around at the edge of the jungle all day, time to ge-‘
“Turn around slowly and drop what you’re carrying”
Demands a steely, Asian sounding female, voice from my six o’clock.
Turing near instantly to face the speaker, I seem to surprise not only her, but myself with my high dexterity and she looses her nocked arrow while she jumps back defensively.
Frozen in shock I watch as the arrow whizzes straight toward the left of my sternum and hits with a *CRACK* as the tip and half the shaft become splinters of metal and wood.
Smiling in delight, I give my pectoral muscle and skin a quick glace to confirm, yes they are in fact intact. Then I look in query to the 5ft 1inch Japanese woman, who I’m mostly certain just tried to rob and accidently kill me. When our eyes meet she flinches and with a small flash of yellow light an arrow appears in her non bow hand and before she promptly nock’s it.
Sufficiently re-armed the woman in question furthers in a much less authoritative tone than before.
“I-I wont miss a second time! Drop your bag and back away!...slowly…”
I get told I need to snap her scrawny legs, as I raise my hands in the universal gesture of non-resistance, while replying, as evenly as I can muster.
“Easy now mate, I don’t want any trouble…We can just put this down to a big misunderstanding, alright?”
Shaking her head in a way that makes her black and bob cut hair, bounce about in an inappropriately cute fashion, as she responds more certainly.
“The bag, drop it!”
Trying to find a way to some semblance of reason I beg.
“Please can we not do this?”
Not having a bar of it, her eyes shift to the side of me for a fraction of a second, before she shouts.
“NOW!”
Just after she shouts, I hear a crack of a twig behind me and swiveling to face the other way I’m met with a man who has his sword raised over his head as it swings down in slow motion toward my own. Feeling a impact and a *CRACK*ing sound from the crown of my head. Ignoring the issue of my craniums integrity as a momentary irrelevance, I reflexively send out my right arm in a jab.
To both mine and my assailants budding incredulity my arm snaps out with a speed that would make a professional boxer swoon, before making contact with my blondly and pony tailed accost-er.
While his head explodes scatologically into viscera, the world seems to stop after I get the next notification:
You have slain an Apprentice Sword Adept level 5, no experience awarded due to level disparity.
25 Manamotes acquired from Apprentice Sword Adept.
Parasitic Mutator trait activated, do you wish to absorb Nimble trait y/n? 4 minutes 59 seconds remaining.
There’s a ringing in my ears as I’m trapped by the recurring thought that I just killed another human being.
I know I should move, do something about the Japanese woman, but that is so far away from my current problem of becoming a fucking murderer that I fail to give it relevance in the here and now.
*CRACK*
Another, thudding impact joins a scream from far away that barely registers.
“KENNY!!!”
*CRACK*
The world begins to come back into focus as yet another thud hits my recently reinstated hair.
Another scream from closer by, finally gets my attention as I realize it’s the girl with the bow from before.
“YOU KILLED HIM! YOU BASTARD!”
Rotating, I face the understandably irate and bow wielding Japanese woman, and it appears she closed to within just a few feet of me.
Still filled with the disgust and horror for what I’ve just done I go with the restraint option as she jumps at me slow enough to be in a big budget action flick. Which would be super cool if not for the fact that she has a dagger clutched in both hands to bring down at my head.
Plucking the small 20 something lady with ease from the air like a wayward kitten, I end up with her held by the throat and the hands, as momentum rocks her lower body violently whilst she lets out a startled yelp.
I take a moment to center myself with some circular breathing, whilst she splutters and kicks at me ineffectually.
After a good twenty seconds of futile struggling later, she seems to relent, only to go with her backup plan of glaring angrily at my while she struggles for air.
Attempting to attenuate the internal suffering I feel from just killing another of my species, a part of me apparently feels like some self harm is in order.
I watch from as if I’m looking down on the scene as my left hand mechanically reaches out to take the impressive looking sharp and pointy thing that is her dagger and grip its blade. I snap back to myself when the only sensation generated is a slight pressure on my palm.
Annoyance flares for some reason and I tighten my grip until I hear a *Crack*ing sound as the pummel falls away to the ground, and while the tinkling of the now broken blades metallic shards, fall to join it. Accompanying the what the fuckery, I get some gooseflesh due to the absurdity of what just took place.
A mouse like squeak of a voice, breaks my ill-timed marveling, as it’s released from my robber come captive.
“m-m-monster!”
Unable to argue with her on a purely factual basis, I attempt to re-initiate negotiations, as I try and fail to keep my voice from breaking at my inner turmoil.
“I r-really sorry about your friend, but he..he was…he was going to stab me a fucking sword!”
This only seems to enrage the captive pipsqueak, as she starts to struggle again, this time using her now free hands to batter uselessly at my face. Finding her most recent attack is ineffective, she goes for the biological option, splattering my visage with her spittle.
Wiping away her spit and what appears to be some remnants of ‘Kenny’s’ noggin, I gag involuntarily and have to go into my cyclical breathing again to keep my shit together.
Seeing I’m distracted, the tenacious Japanese woman doesn’t let the opportunity go to waste as I barely catch a glimpse of a streak of silver coming from the side of my now turned head. What follows is an excruciatingly familiar sensation of my eyeball being punctured by something sharp and decidedly unfriendly.
“THE FUCK LADY!?”
I screamed while reflexively closing my fists at the excruciating sensation of something metal trying to tickle my cranial cavity.
Unfortunately in my selfish moment of agony, I seem to have forgotten about the irascible woman dangling from one of them, as I feel something akin to the grasping of a rotten piece of fruit. I can only assume the break in the squishiness I feel, is probably her bones piercing her now tenderized dermis.
And while I hear the *crack*ing of vertebrae a screen chimes in to tell me of the new horror I have wrought:
You have slain an Apprentice Woodswoman level 4, no experience gained due to level disparity.
42 Manamotes acquired from Apprentice Woodswoman.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Parasitic Mutator trait already employed, unable to process trait.
Dropping the tenderized neck of the woman I just accidentally tenderized, I waste no time in yanking out the fucking dagger from my eye. I attempt to staunch the fluids that sluice down my face with renewed vigor at its absence, using my hand to minimal effect.
Sufficiently grounded by the pain from my lack of eye, I focus my attention on the timer in the blue box that reads 4 minutes and 5 seconds I get told I’m a subhuman fuckwit, while I hear other voices yelling angrily from across the clearing, near the outpost.
Having no desire to stick around to find out what the potentially real and nearing shouters are so mad about, I high tail it into the green and obscuring embrace of the massive jungle. My one good eye makes depth perception mighty tricky, yet my improved durability, muscles and dexterity more than compensate for anything that fails to move out of my way.
So with me tailing ripped vines like cans behind a bogan couples car, who just tied the knot, I keep an inhuman pace, despite bouncing off the odd massive tree trunk that just so happens to have grown in the wrong place.
By the time I realize I can no longer hear the enraged yells of people pursuing me, I notice the timer has now minimized in a smaller box in the corner of my vision, while it reads 2 minutes 13 seconds.
Coming to a stop I desperately cling to the distraction to not focus on why my hands happen to be red. In a line of harried thought I decide it’s worth the risk of losing the [Lesser Heart of a Dragon] trait, if there is even just a smidgen of a chance to remove my [Schizophrenia Type C] one.
I try and fail to feel guilt free at the cost of my current chance at mental liberation as I will the box to expand and think ‘yes’ in relation to it before earning a different box for my cerebral exertions:
Please wait for trait essence retrieval.
Not feeling anything different I look around myself furtively, to make sure I don’t get jumped by something nasty while standing still in the jungle like a drongo.
Something misty and golden, catches my eye as it whizzes straight at me. Jumping to the side, the thing homes in at me like an aggrieved swarm of miniature magical bees and hits me in the smack back in the middle of my chest.
Feeling a warm sensation sitting behind my solar plexus, I give my chest a once over to see if I’m injured before yet another blue screen accosts my recently halved field of vision:
Trait retrieved, please select the trait you wish to override:
>Schizophrenia Type C
>Heart of a Lesser Dragon
>Lesser Insectile Musculature
Releasing a breath I forgot I was holding, I instantly select ‘Schizophrenia’ and the warmth in my chest spreads to my extremities, whilst I also feel this weird sense of a pressure receding from my cranium:
Schizophrenia Type C trait removed.
Nimble trait inherited.
Ripping off the tangle of vines that’s mostly around my waist, I slip off my [Major Bag of Holding] and slump into the crook of a giant trees exposed root.
Sitting there numbly for a moment, the jungle sounds of buzzing insects and far off, what I assume are bird calls, help to ease my racing heart. Nature bathing complete I furtively check my surrounds again, just in case.
Finding no immediate danger, I focus on the Nimble trait:
Nimble: 5% Increase to dexterity.
I’m about to start laughing when I remember how I got the trait.
How could I forget?
I’m a fucking murderer now.
Starting to feel a tightness in my chest and a shortness of breath, I reflexively start my cyclical breathing.
‘In 234, Hold 234, Out 234, hold 234’
Opting to just be one with the rise and fall of my chest and the ever more sedate beating of my heart for a time.
Coming back to the now, I hear a snippet of a whisper close by in a American accent.
-n’t have gone far…”
Cursing my pasta-less luck, a light South American tone, a female voice responds.
“I’m telling you Greg he’s long gone now, you saw his speed…”
Trying to stay as still as the tree root I’m leaned into, I hold my breath.
Listening intently as the pair move around close by while my heartbeat thuds oppressively in my ears, I get dragged back unbidden, to when I was 7.
Jack.
One of my foster siblings and tormenter in chief, had finished branding my legs with a heated up cigarette lighter, and decided it would be for the best if I spent some time thinking about what I had or hadn’t done to earn his ire by shoving me under the house.
It was damp and moldy and also stunk of the almost as poorly treated foster family’s dog that cowered a few feet from the barricaded piece of corrugated iron that served as door.
The crawlspace under the ramshackle weatherboard dwelling that doubled for a dog kennel was no higher than the 5 or 6 bricks it was stilted on.
I cried and begged to be let out and as the mongrel dog Scraps whined in concert, Jack laughed about wanting to see how long it would take me to get bitten by a funnel web.
Eventually, he got bored of his active torment and decided a passive approach was what was required, so he left me in there to ruminate on my failings over night.
My foster parents were apparently out on another pokies binge with their fortnightly earnings from keeping foster children, thus I had little choice but to accept my imprisonment.
Huddling in the damp and dark, time was counted in how many heartbeats my canine companion had since he had huddled up to me for warmth.
I was jumpier than a locust on bitumen while I continued to be taunted by my incorporeal tormentors, as I also waited for my life to be taken by a fifty cent sized predator that Jack had laughingly reminded me of.
Naturally, I stayed up all night and morning waiting for a death that never came.
The next day when he let me out, I was shortly corrected of my delusions of potential justice, after the rapturous daylight had evidenced my weeping burns and growing bruises to my foster parents.
My hung over foster mother was the one to take Jack’s word that my injuries were from a bully at school and when I tried to convince her differently, she told me with a breath that stunk of bourbon and cigarettes, that Jack was a good boy and that I was a filthy little liar.
Needless to say as she beat me with a belt, she told me to stop making up stories and that there was no place in her home for fucking little bastards that told lies.
Given that I had tried and failed to convince them I hear people swearing and threatening me before when they apparently could not, the additional welts from the belt should’ve hardly come as a surprise.
When I came back to the present, still filled with resentment for people and no dogo to hug and ground myself with, I realized in horror that the female pursuer is almost on top of me.
Chiding myself for thinking that getting rid of my mental scars would be as easy as switching a magical trait, I remind myself that I’m not that powerless little kid anymore.
Resisting the urge to take my emotions out on the two searchers, I try to make Bruce proud and opt for an attempt at communication from a position of power, as I give up hiding and cast [Minor Field of Gravity Increase] at 300% increase and hear startled cries of alarm.
Exiting my rooty nook, I am glad to see that although they are both prone of the ground and in obvious discomfort, they are still conscious and mostly unharmed. Getting to the second stage of my plan I walk up to them and offer.
“Hello there.”
Receiving matching glares of hatred in response, the American man is apparently a mage of some sort, shoots a bolt of purple from the tip. Jumping back in surprise I start sniggering as I notice the bolt of whatever spell he cast thudded to the earth almost immediately after launch.
Fuck yeah.
Gravity!
Shaking my head as I wear as look of disappointment I add.
“Look I don’t want trouble ok? So could you quit it with the attempted magic murder…please?”
To which mage guy angrily retorts.
“You’re the one who’s covered in blood!”
Letting out a weary sigh as I look down at my clothing and hands and internally concede that he’s right, I follow up.
“Can you guys just go back and leave me alone please?...The other two ambushed me and it was self-defense, the girl even stabbed me in the eye for Pete’s sake!”
Letting out a wheezing chuckle of derision, the guy retorts incredulously.
“What the hell are you smoking pal? You got both eyes, clear as day!”
Blinking both eyes, I groan as I bifocally realize that he’s right again.
Huffing in annoyance, I try a different tact before the spell runs out and offer.
“Can you just fucking leave me be and not follow me?”
The spell ends before he has a chance to respond and as they immediately notice the absence of the oppressive force, leaving He and his spear wielding associate hastily get to their feet, before taking up defensive stances.
Next it’s the woman’s turn to speak.
“Look pendejo, even if what you say is true…which I doubt. You still need to come with us and answer questions!”
Confused I ask.
“Come with you to where and why?”
Seemingly just as confused as I am for a moment, she recovers in time to stammer.
“W-well to the Outpost of course! And what do you mean ‘why’ cabron? You just killed two fucking people! You need to face justice!”
Perplexed by the fact she believes in justice, especially now, I counter.
“Yeah uh, there’s no way I’m handing myself over to mob justice.”
Seemingly comfortable on far more familiar mental ground, she rejoins.
“I wasn’t asking pend-“
Having had enough of talking with vigilantes, I cross the distance to spear lady and snap her spear before backhanding her as gently as I can so as not to kill her. At this point mage guy thinks it’s a good idea to shoot a bolt of purple magic into my shoulder.
The projectile obliterates my borrowed shirt sleeve and does sweet fuck all to my skin as I begin to grin whilst turning to face the caster and swiftly break his staff, before striking out with my sneakered foot.
I hear a *CRACK*ing sound as his foot and bottom half of his shin rapidly rotate around the top half of his shin. The unfortunate man buckles with a startled yelp, whilst clutching his now defunct leg, as blood begins to stain the equally twisted pant leg covering it a deep red.
He stares at his leg for a moment before his eyes flick to me. He seems to think talking is on the table by way of surprising me with a lucidity stammered.
“P-p-please d-don’t kill m-me!”
Shaking my head in exasperation I reply.
“Mate I had no intention of killing either of you, you guys just had to leave me alone and I wouldn’t even have spared you a second glance.”
He starts to groan as his face pales, likely due to the pain from his shattered leg beginning to register. Thinking I’ve made my point I turn to go as he half shrieks in desperation.
“W-wait you’re just going to leave us here? Please m-man, don’t leave us out here!”
Turning incredulously to face my ex-pursuer, I counter.
“The hell? You expect me to take you back there, just so you guys can have some kinda half assed kangaroo court and steal all my shit? Nope! Fuck that noise!”
Leaving the man to his pained blubbering, I check to confirm that I haven’t killed spear lady and that she’s still breathing. Finding her sufficiently self ventilated, I go to my rooty nook and retrieve my [Major Bag of Holding].
Experimentally, I stick my hand in to the bag and think of the [Elevant Initiate’s Steel-tipped Hardwood Spear] I’m trying to find, and just like that, I’m gripping the shaft of it.
Thoroughly surprised at the intuitive yet quirky nature of the bag, I pull the object in question out gingerly, as I’m afraid its going to rip the bag with its tip. However to my renewed surprise the opening of the bag warps strangely, like I’m looking at a magic eye picture, whilst the spear exits. Shrugging my shoulders in acceptance, I walk over to the openly weeping man, who’s rocking from side to side as he clutches his contorted leg and place the spear beside him.
Trying to leave on good terms I add.
“Sorry about the leg mate, I hope his noodle appendage protects you and you make out ok.”
This only causes his anguish to rise, leading to his blubbering to increase into a wail.
Cringing, I walk away as quietly as I can to respectfully leave the man to his painful predicament.
My heart does not grow fonder as I use my newly recovered eye to better traverse the jungle while it blurs by.
Inwardly I’m conflicted at leaving the pair, but given the treatment I have received from people thus far into the apocalypse, I attempt to reassure myself that it was the right choice.
If I had initially outrun them, I wouldn’t have been able to explain myself. If I had of killed them when they showed hostility I would be as bad as those thieves who tried to murder me from before.
Internally I lament that this isn’t like a Manwha, where I’m just an emotionless murder machine who only has to rank up whilst not even losing their eye in the process.
Wishing I was in a different, more unrealistic apocalypse, I lament the necessity for moral self-justification and feelings. Still, I reaffirm that I will not go full murderhobo, if only for the fact that you should never go full murderhobo.
Ethical quandary sufficiently handled, I pick up my pace to put as much distance as possible between me and my fellow man.