The first thing you notice, instead, can't help but notice, is the smell. It kicks you in the face as the pungent odor rapes your nostrils, never once asking for consent, let alone permission. A nasty creature that invades, tortures, and then becomes your new normal. The worst thing that came next was the debuffs.
(Anxious Zone)
(Putrid Odor)
(Fractured hopes)
(Broken Dreams)
(Despair…Depravity...)
The list was endless.
How could anyone born to this shithole ever even dream of getting out? To be raised with these debuffs applied and amplified at birth would be a death sentence. Even though my resistance was higher than the average adventure, I began to feel ill and weak, and my morale dropped significantly. I became a weaker man the moment I stepped into this hellscape.
The next thing that catches the eye is the faces of the children, who ran around with dirt on their faces and grime stacked on each other, making this almost permanent filth birthmark. A shower couldn't be enough. These children needed a cleansing in the hottest of streams. As I wanted to go to their aid, their aura told me that they would kick, scream, and bite before accepting assistance from an outsider. Hell, even the youngest ones held glares that sized me up, thinking to themselves, pondering if they could take me.
The writing was on the wall, both figuratively and literally. Scrawled in scattered words, threats and promises loomed overhead. In the winds, a faint smell came, followed by a glow. The gingerbread trail, the golden line that had guided me before, appeared faintly at my feet.
She is guiding me.
This golden trail urges me to follow her lead. Since she hasn't failed me yet, I continue its trail.
Back then, I followed it unthinkingly, and look where that had gotten me on an island, deaf and dumb to the movements of the realm at large.
But I had to follow it. I needed information, and most importantly, I needed to test out just what the system could take from me.
I could feel their buggy little eyes on me, not just the children but the men and women who no doubt watched through slits in their fractured walls, watching the man who no doubt glowed and felt like that which they despised above all an adventurer. The adventurers are those who plunder. Those who brought in riches but only for the time that benefited them then left, leaving their land to starve.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
We were a scourge on the land. A plague that swifts in and devasts by abusing resources, sucking them drier faster than the locals could scavenge. Then we would leave; in a blink, in a dash, we were gone with everything worth dying for, leaving nothing worth living for,
Windows creeked open. Doors that remained shut, nails securing them, began to uncork themselves. Men who would only venture forward if the reward was worth dying for made their way out of their dinky dwellings, their sad holes of darkness.
The air stilled as a situational quest appeared overhead.
Opportunity strikes, you being the chance!
Defeat the Bandits!
0/15
Nice, that's my first answer. Was I outside of the system's automatic responses?
It looks like I wasn't. Even if the system itself saw me as a threat that should be snuffed out as soon as possible, it didn't or couldn't strip me of events or quests. Yes, it could send me an ominous event or even...
As my thoughts began to run away with themselves, he appeared.
This quest should have summoned run-of-the-mill bandits with dual-blade daggers tipped in poison if one was truly unlucky.
But, knowing that I am on his shit list, of course, the system would have a legendary mob spawn.
What are the fucking odds! I both laughed and screamed in odd delight.
I had felt his aura before even seeing him. From the shadows appeared a behemoth of a man. Scars riddled his body like nature's tattoos. They spiraled up his arms and made it to his face, circling the eyes in a manner that unsettled me. Smiling, he revealed a set of chrome teeth under crimson-red eyes.
With a roar, he announced himself.
[ Mayhem, The Ghettos Greatest Creation]
[LVL 110 .]
Oh, come on now. I yelled.
The current max level should have been 105, and the new expansion would no doubt have increased the mobs to mid-100s with time. This area was far from the frontline of the expansion, so why is this mob higher than some dungeon bosses?
Smiling, another man appeared from our shadows.
You are the damdest, unluckiest son of a gun. My son Mayhem, my most incredible creation, is the culmination of sweat, tears, and anger that runs like blood through these streets. Last night was a miracle! As he rested on the operation table, I made my final adjustments before unleashing him on those bastards at the pier. When suddenly, a flash of brilliant power scorched through the land. Quickly, I adjusted my siphons and challenged a portion into… Mayhem!!!
Mayhem bellowed to this, like an idiot who only knew his name, and barked at its uttering.
Debuff negated.
Moral debuff negated
Fear debuff negated.
My passive barriers still worked fine, thankfully.
Tremble in fear and diiiiiii…
His voice fell as his hands went for his neck, blood gushed out, his eyes in disbelief.
Just a dagger, I said, pickpocketed some on the way; you aren't as tough as your son there.
Unbelieving, the crazed scientist turned his eyes to his beast, who scratched away at the daggers that impaled his flesh.
How….
Throwing another dagger with the wind behind it, I said,
Shut up and die.
His body toppled in a pool of red, its river coursing into the flooded gutters, becoming more filth for the biome to digest.
I cracked my knuckles, stretched my shoulders, bent down on my knees, and locked eyes with the beast.
Now, you, buddy, you look strong enough for a warm-up.
Let's dance.
Mayhem roared in agreement.