Chapter 92: Kill-Steal
Somewhere around forty-five minutes into what had been labeled an “emergency update and press conference,” Shela Lansfel hopped up off the couch in the living room of her 35th floor apartment in downtown Giant’s Fall and called out loudly to her two boys and her husband, whose voices she could hear coming from the kitchen down the hall.
“He’s coming on!” she shouted.
Those were the only words she needed to speak. Even before she’d finished shouting, the sounds of a five-year-old boy and a nine-year-old boy tapping their bare feet excitedly over the wooden flooring echoed out, as well as the slower thud that came from her husband, as all three raced into the room. Her sons jumped onto the couch next to her, excitement on their faces, and even her husband seemed to have a bit of eagerness in his step as he plopped himself down at the end.
“Where is he, mommy? I don’t see him?” her youngest asked.
“He’s coming on now.”
“Where? I don’t see.”
“Just be patient, sheesh. The guy said he’s coming on very s—”
“There he is!” he shouted out gleefully.
On the large screen that they’d finally been able to afford to replace their aging, semi-broken one, Vim Alazar, the leader of the Royal Roses, said, “Okay, everyone. I know you’ve all been waiting to see him, and I can practically feel some of you shouting at your screen for me to hurry up and put him on. So, for the citizens of not just North Bastia, but the entire world, please let me introduce you to the newest member of the Royal Roses: Sir Grundor the Dragon Crusher.”
“Yeahhhhh!” her boys yelled, jumping up and down on the couch. She and her husband had to calm them and warn them not to be so rowdy. Yet they lost their minds as this new, incredible hero the Royal Roses had recruited made his entrance to the sound of some unexpectedly loud jingle from what appeared to be an electric guitar, a rarely used instrument in contemporary, digitized music.
A bit showy, no? Shela wondered as she took in his appearance. Somehow, she just knew the kids of North and South Bastia were about to lose their minds over this. She could already see herself having to wait on long lines for the December Celebration of the Mother Goddess to try to scoop up whatever action figures of Grundor that the Royal Roses inevitably churned out in time for the holidays, which were going to be incredibly in demand. As a market researcher herself, she could almost guarantee it. It would be almost criminal of them not to do so from a financial perspective.
Strutting over to the camera, shirtless, wearing a pair of black sunglasses and slinging what appeared to be some kind of large, bronze-and-gold-plated championship belt over his shoulder, the zombie, which the media had claimed to be an actual sentient NPC—who knew such a thing could exist!—stepped up to a podium that had been set up in the middle of a raid camp and slapped his palms down powerfully on both sides of it while puffing on a large cigar in his mouth.
“People of North Bastia,” he said, glaring at the camera. “My name is Grundor, and I’m here to call out you, Ziragoth!” Dramatically, he pointed to the camera. “Let me tell you something, evil dragon. You spawned in the wrong continent. I’m gonna grab you with this hand!” He raised his left fist. “And then I’m gonna grab you with this hand!” He raised his right. “And then I’m gonna—”
“Crush you!” both her boys yelled out together, somehow already learning his words and signature phrases. They cheered so loudly that Shela couldn’t even hear the next thing the zombie said, and then they started once again jumping up and down on the couch.
“But first…” His voice returned to a somewhat normal, almost conversational level, and now he sounded like he was reading from a script. “We have to talk about staying safe online. Your internet privacy is important. That’s why Nord VPN, the only expert-approved VPN guaranteed to…”
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It was amazing how time seemed to pass so quickly in a place that had such little need of it. Though they were only supposed to stay for an hour, almost two ended up passing before it was time to go. Donovan, proving that he was far more in control of himself than he seemingly let on, announced that everyone on the raid needed to “get their asses up” after the next round. What followed was one last, noisy finale of drinking, as well as a general feeling of uplifting among those who were going to fight and possibly die tomorrow morning.
Although none of them were even supposed to be here right now, and technically, it was Zach’s fault that they were, it ended up working out for the best, as truly, it must have been much better for the morale of the raid to spend some time in a place everyone loved than continue to roast at the raid camp while thinking about death. But now, as the end of the day approached, and sunset was just around the corner, Donovan and Zephyr began leading a parade of adventurers through the exit door and into B10 of Yorna. Given how narrow B10 happened to be, it was only natural they walked like young schoolchildren in a single-file line, one in front of the other.
“Are you guys really coming with us?” Zach asked.
Olivir and Kolona both nodded. “We’re not abandoning you.”
“But you can just go home.”
Kolona placed her palm over the back of his hand. “This is the right thing for us to do. We’ve come this far, so we might as well see it through to the end.”
Zach appreciated them. He was glad they’d be there with him. In truth, a sensation of butterflies felt like it was ripping his stomach apart as he realized that, win or lose, this nightmare with the dragon really would come to an end very soon. And so, standing up from the table with the two of them, they began to make their way towards the door, which felt more like getting in line to buy something.
Glancing over his shoulder, Zach saw that Kalana was still speaking with her mother, and the two were being very chatty with one another. Although he’d wanted to spend time with her here so badly, he knew that letting her be with her mom was unquestionably the right thing to do. And if they survived tomorrow morning, they’d just come back here with Olivir and Kolona anyway, so it wasn’t like there wouldn’t be plenty more opportunities.
Wow, Zach thought, watching as Kalana held out her arms, paused as if in hesitation, and then actually hugged her mother, whose face showed that she clearly understood the significance of the gesture. Although Fylwen did not cry, she did tremble as she placed her arms around her daughter. It was almost as though the moment was so emotionally overwhelming that she could not process it all at once.
All things considered, though he hadn’t spent his two hours with Kalana, his time with Olivir and Kolona—and for a brief stretch, Rian and Lienne, who had joined them at one point—was far from unpleasant. Of all things, they’d ended up in a lengthy, near hour-long discussion about the upstairs “room situation.” Zach had told them how it was claimed that the rooms went on forever. That the room numbers would just get bigger and bigger then never end—or so it was said.
After Zach laid out for the two of them the general “consensus” held by the adventurers, he told Olivir how he himself did not believe it—and not because he didn’t think it wasn’t possible, because clearly, if it was possible to create a tavern on the edge of the universe, an infinite hallway of inn rooms wasn’t that much of a step up. No, it was more that the temptation for someone to really see if it was infinite would be too strong, and the Great Ones who made the system must have known that. For this reason, he had this idea in his head that there had to be something that existed there if a person walked long enough. They just had to have put something there if anyone actually was willing to go far enough into the seemingly infinite. One day, he was definitely going to see for himself.
For now, though, Zach stretched his back and arm muscles while he waited with Olivir and Kolona for their chance to slip into the hallway of B10. Since they’d been sitting not far from the exit, it was only a matter of moments before he found himself slowly moving along the red-carpeted hallway as the line of adventurers presumably walked into the secret passageway that led back to B5. He couldn’t actually see that far in front of him, though.
To his right, he heard the sound of drunken laughter, and he turned to see two young adventurers not much older than himself toying around with Moldark. They had pulled the mob so far from where he spawned across the room that he was almost back in the hallway, and they were laughing giddily as they allowed him to take free hits on them with his sword. One of the guys even stuck his bare ass out and somehow got Moldark to try slicing it. Then he made fake, exaggerated pleasure noises and told Moldark to spank him harder.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“You’re such a dumbass,” the guy’s friend said.
Zach couldn’t help but laugh. Maybe he was an immature idiot, but somehow, their stupid antics actually managed to yank a chuckle or two out of him. What wasn’t funny was what happened next. “Check out my new spell,” the bare-assed guy said, pulling up his pants.
From the ceiling—which was only like a few feet above their heads—a gigantic icicle popped into existence and crashed down on top of Moldark the Unbanished, dealing 44,451 damage and nearly one-shotting him. Zach had seen this exact spell before, which was why he preemptively raised his hands as the icicle exploded upon impact and showered him with freezing-cold cubes, which quickly melted and caused water to run down the back of his robe.
Zach glared at them, and they saw it. “Whoops. Looks like I hit Zach,” the guy said, clearly knowing who he was. At this point, Zach wondered if there was anyone in the adventuring world or the regular one who didn’t. He missed the days when no one knew his name.
“It’s all right,” Zach grumbled as an ice-cold trickle of water traveled farther down his spine. Then he noticed something interesting. Something clicked in his head as he observed the condition that Moldark was currently in. An idea came to mind. It was something that came to him so fast that he didn’t even have the time to really think about it or consider whether or not he was about to perform an action that was considered “rude” in the adventuring world. In fact, even if he had considered it, he probably still wouldn’t have known any better.
HP
541/45,000
Name
(T1) Moldark the Unbanished
Level
18
Observing its low HP, and feeling some kind of personal attachment to this boss due to the memory of saving Rian and Lienne from it, Zach, for the very first time, activated Card Capture even as one of the two adventurers was swinging an axe down on top of its face to cut his head off.
Less than an instant before the axe decapitated the mob, its entire body became condensed into a white-colored wisp of light, which raced across the short distance between the double-doored entrance to the boss-fight room and where Zach was slowly inching forward with the other adventurers. All on its own, Zach’s hand extended, made a grabbing gesture, and then snatched something midair. Now, in his hand, he held something that looked a great deal like a sports card, only it was beautifully, artistically illustrated and showed a picture of Moldark as though drawn by an artist as opposed to what he looked like in reality.
His features were exaggerated; his silvery suit of armor seemed to shine just a little bit brighter, and the feather on top of his helm looked as though it had been blowing in the wind. He also appeared to be crouched down on one knee while holding out his decorative sword defensively, and he was crouched before a grave with his head down sullenly. There was a field of grass in the background, and it looked like a warm spring day. On the tombstone and written in black was: Rest in Peace, F.C.
Fucking cool, Zach thought.
“Lame, man,” one of the two adventurers said to him.
“Huh?”
The guy placed his hands on his hips. “Did you seriously just KS me?”
“KS? The hell is that?”
“Kill-steal. Don’t pretend you don’t know.”
“I’ve literally never heard that term before.”
“It’s when you take someone else’s mob without permission or being in a group.” He raised his voice and shouted. “Zachys Calador just KS’d me!”
Zach chuckled. Like any of these rowdy adventurers were going to—
“Zach did what?” Donovan growled from the head of the formation, all of which came to an entire stop as every single head turned his way, and all eyes settled on him at once.
Uh oh.
He cleared his throat. “It’s not true. He’s lying.”
“I am not!” the guy shouted. “He KS’d me. He’s just like Fluffles!”
“I’m like who?” Zach asked.
As though invoked merely by having his name spoken, Fluffles rushed into the hallway and meowed. “Zach KS?” the cat asked, looking around. He met Zach’s eyes and again meowed. “Zach KS Dirvin and Rono?”
“No,” he said. “They’re—”
“Hurray!” the cat shouted. “Fluffles love KS’ing. I KS everyone.”
“It’s true,” a woman who stood in front of him said. “That cat KS’s everyone. He’s infamous. He’s the worst KS’er in the history of adventuring. No one feels safe fighting mobs around him, because we know he’s just going to swoop in and steal the last hit, and all of our experience points and loot.”
Fluffles brushed against his leg. “Zach make his cat so proud today. From now on, Zach and Fluffles steal everyone’s mobs and loot. Right, Zach?”
“No, little buddy,” he said, bending down and petting him. Fluffles allowed it, which meant his “cooldown” was finally over. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing until just now.”
“Okay, well, I’m KS’ing you if I ever see you about to get a kill on something. It’s only fair since you did it to me.”
“Fuck that,” Zach growled. “How about I KS your life?”
“Zach!” Kalana shouted at him, pushing several adventurers aside and storming her way over to him. “No threatening people!” Before he could even reply, she whirled around and pointed her finger threateningly at the two adventurers. “And you two. He didn’t know any better, so leave him alone, or else I’m gonna throw you out of the dungeon.”
She loves kicking people out of places, Zach realized. He recalled the day she’d thrown a student right out of class.
“Wow, you need your girlfriend to fight your battles for you?” the guy who Fluffles had called Dirvin asked.
“Not at all,” Zach said. “I could take both of you on with my eyes closed.”
“Really? You think so, huh?”
Dirvin took several steps towards him. Given the short distance, Zach took it as a direct threat, and so he reacted. Activating Frostbind, the ability on his robes, a dull crackling sound came from somewhere below and in front of him, and then to both his and Dirvin’s surprise, two shackles, like those used on prisoners in darker times, burst out of the ground and bound each one of his feet. The shackles were made of pure ice, and Dirvin’s face contorted into rage as he was stopped right in his tracks.
“Did…did you just root me, asshole?” he shouted at Zach. He threw his palm out in Zach’s direction, and then out of nowhere, two hand-shaped pieces of stone emerged from the wall to both his left and right side. Each piece of stone was almost the size of an entire human body, and each grabbed hold of him: not tightly enough to cause any pain, but tightly enough that he was completely unable to move.
“Enjoy not moving for twenty-five seconds,” Dirvin said.
“Is that all? Mine lasts for thirty,” Zach retorted.
“You want to see what else I can do? Seriously?”
Zach snorted derisively at him. “Trust me, that’s not a fight you want to get into.”
“Maybe I do. You started this by KS’ing me, after all. I want justice.”
Becoming defensive, angry, confused, and agitated all at once, Zach clenched his left hand into a fist and let the venom fly off his tongue. “Okay, you know what? I don’t give a shit anymore. If you guys had just been nice about it, I would have apologized and explained I actually didn’t know any better. But guess what? Since you’re both being dicks, I’m with Fluffles now. You’re getting KS’d forever. I’m not even kidding. Me and Fluffles will follow you to the ends of Galterra, Earth, or wherever you go and make sure you never get another experience point ever again.”
“Hurray!” Fluffles cheered.
“So now you’re threatening to grief us?” the man who Zach believed had been called Rono exclaimed.
“Wait, there’s a name for that?”
“Yah, it’s called griefing. And you just threatened us with it. Doesn’t surprise me, though, since you seem like kind of an asshole.”
Okay, now he’s done it. There goes my temper.
“Oh, I’m the asshole?” Zach growled. He looked down at Fluffles. He might not have been able to walk, but he could still move his neck and head. “Fluffles," he said. “Appraise them right now! I want their names, levels, favorite hunting spots, and where we can go to—”
“Okay, this has been the funniest thing I’ve seen all week, but I’m putting a stop to this,” Donovan said. The entire parade of adventurers, still held up, now turned their heads to watch as Donovan marched over to Zach and the two adventurers who were involved in the dispute. He had to nearly ram several people against a wall just to slip through them, particularly the larger adventurers. This hallway was not meant for people to be walking side by side.
The root placed on Zach ended a few seconds before Donovan arrived. The stones binding him simply crumbled, and then even any pieces of dust they let behind vanished along with them. He grinned at the Dirvin. “Your root sucks. Look how short that was. Enjoy waiting another five seconds.”
Dirvin struggled against his icy bindings, but to Zach’s satisfaction, it took the full five seconds before they melted away, leaving only a small damp stain on the carpet behind to remember them by.
“Kiddo,” Donovan said, placing himself between the three of them. “Clearly, you didn’t know what you did wasn’t okay. So apologize to Dirvin and Rono and show a bit of class, huh?”
Zach sighed. “Fine. I’m sorry.”
“And you two, apologize to Zach for flipping out on him all unnecessarily.”
“Sorry,” they said in unison.
Donovan nodded. “Now give them whatever loot it dropped that you stole.”
“I didn’t steal any loot. I didn’t actually even kill the mob, so technically, I didn’t KS.”
“Huh?”
With a shrug, Zach lifted up the card in his hand, and then he activated Card Summon. There were gasps from all around as the card in his hand reverted to a tiny white ball of light, which lifted slightly in the air, sailed ahead of him, and then landed on the floor, transforming into an exact copy of the Moldark they’d been fighting, only this version of him was silent and, Zach presumed, completely obedient.
This is awesome, he thought. I’ve got an actual boss for a pet!
Donovan rubbed the back of his head as if unsure of what to do. “Well, that’s that, then,” he said. “All three of you cut the shit. We have a dragon to fight tomorrow. We need to be on the same side here.” With that, he marched his way back to the front of the line, once more shoving people into walls as he did so.
Zach and the two idiots exchanged one final dirty, bitter look, and then he turned away from them. He was just glad he’d never have to see them again. With that thought in mind, he continued his way down the hallway and through the secret passage. He yawned. Maybe he needed a good night of sleep after all.
Tomorrow, he thought. It’s all going to finally be over tomorrow.