03

Charles stepped out of the shadows, with one hand resting on his gun while the other was raised upwards. He had been discovered by means unknown, which put him at a disadvantage, but he didn’t let that fact discourage him. If these people were hostile, he was prepared to meet their hostilities with his full power. In fact, he was confident that with the LAI’s help he could shoot all four of them in less than two seconds.

As soon as he was close enough to speak, he was stopped by the drawn sword and spear of the two men. The shield guy was not moving, as he probably did not perceive Charles as a threat to the party. It was foolish of him to do so, but it all played to Charles’ advantage in this situation.

The woman made her way between the two armed men, and faced Charles directly. She pulled on the string, and a light blue arrow appeared out of thin air. Magic, of course, as he had predicted. Going by the video game interpretation, it could be a use and forget skill. Maybe even aided by the very same system that deemed Charles a deviant and unworthy of its services. Or it could be a complex magic that had been trained over and over for countless hours, until it had become instinctual. Or, maybe, it was the bow that was magical.

“Who are you?” The woman asked.

“I’m Charles.” He replied, carefully watching both the woman and the three men.

They were eyeing him warily, but he didn’t let himself be bothered by their behavior. He had the upper hand here, he was sure of it. They were probably thinking that he was unarmed, and even if they had some sort of magic on their side, it would be of no use to them as long as they didn’t recognize the railgun as a dangerous weapon. As long as they stayed far enough from him, he could dispose of them as he liked in no time. And he was not going to get close to them, not until he was sure of their intentions.

“Why were you following us?” She asked. The men were still silent, he noticed. Perhaps she was the one in charge.

“I got kinda lost in here.” He said, pointing at his surroundings.

It was not true at all, as he knew this floor like the back of his hand. But he had to make up some kind of story in order to convince the party that he was not hostile. In fact, he was trying to play the part of the lost idiot boy as well as he could.

“My party got killed by the vampires and… I…” He said, simulating a state of mild panic. “I didn’t know what to do, I’m sorry.”

He was already sick of this acting, but he needed to be convincing. These people could be dangerous to him, and most importantly they had information that he needed in order to get out of here. He wondered if he should also fake a cry, but decided not to. Overdoing it would be just as bad. The woman looked at him up and down, her gaze lingering on his body for a moment. He realized that the combat military suit from the Empire, that he was wearing right now, must have looked completely alien to them and mentally cursed himself. Fortunately, the suit looked like some sort of cheap leather armor in this low light, and the woman didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Not that she’d know what she was looking at, being the uncivilized barbarian that she was. If people were using swords and arrows, it meant that technology here wasn’t really a thing.

“Why don’t you come with us, we were just leaving.” Said the spearman, smirking. The other men chuckled for a moment before the woman shut them all up with a stare.

She seemed to ponder the proposition for a moment, then her face lit up.

“Yeah, come with us. I’m Lea.” She said, holding out her hand.

Charles took her hand and shook it, gingerly at first, and for a moment was taken aback by the immense strength of her grip. He didn’t let his face show the pain he was feeling, however, but internally he was already wishing that he could kill this woman and her whole party.

In fact, he was wishing that they all turned out to be hostile so that he could wipe those smirks off their faces. They didn’t seem the type of people he should trust at all, but at the same time he really didn’t have any other choice. Walking away now was the same thing as attacking them. He kept his temper in check for now.

“Thank you for your kind offer.” He finally said, fighting against his own mind in order not to sound annoyed or patronizing.

He was in an advantageous position right now only because he had a gun, but as soon as his bullets ran out, he’d be the weakest of the bunch for sure. He had to be careful and not expose his hidden card at any cost. And if this meant being disrespected by a bunch of medieval idiots, then so be it. As long as they didn’t try to harm him.

“You’re unarmed?”

“Uh, yeah. I lost my weapon when I escaped…” He looked down in hope to better sell the lie.

“Stay in the middle, then. We won’t actively protect you, but you should be able to survive the weak vampires if you are careful.” The woman said, then the group began walking.

Charles followed her instructions and put himself at the center of the four people party, and avoided any fight whenever he saw an enemy approach. He had expected them to at least hand him a cheap sword, but they did not. 

The party worked quite well together. They had their tank, the big guy with the shield, who soaked up all the incoming damage. Then, the two melee fighters engaged the enemy frontline as the woman with the bow kept the enemy backline in check. The vampires were quite weak indeed, only taking a few hits from the melee fighters or one good aimed arrow to die. They engaged only small groups of three to five enemies at once, which were no match for this party.

Charles had been lucky with his first encounter, he realized, because it was quite rare for the vampires to roam the caves alone and isolated. He had first noticed this fact when he explored the floor for the first time, but now it was evident just how dangerous those things were in large groups.

The party was also made of people of quite a high level, as they killed dozens of enemies without even breaking a sweat. He had no idea how levels worked or how much the required experience grew as the level increased, so he had no way to estimate just how high their levels were. Higher than his by a large margin for sure, but he had no idea how much.

There was a way to determine their strength. Assuming that they had no special skills or magic, of which he saw none apart from Lea’s bow, their strength was approximately 15.6 times that of an average unmodded human. Which was him, by the way, as he had never come around to altering his genetic code or getting specific cybernetic implants to improve his body. He thanked the LAI for the quick analysis, for a moment treating the simple AI as a fully self-aware one.

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Another few hours passed, then they all stopped at the same time. They scouted the small cave they were in with practiced efficiency and then turned to Lea.

“We stop to make camp.” Lea said, and the party quickly materialized firewood and four tents seemingly out of nowhere.

Charles was a bit surprised at this, mostly because he wanted to have such a useful trick for himself, but schooled his face before any surprise could be seen by the others. They all treated this as very routine, so being surprised would immediately put him in an unfavorable position.

In a matter of a few minutes, they already had a small fire going. The three men were sitting around the fire and chatting among themselves, the occasional burst of laughter echoing in the cave. They were not too worried about the noise they were making, probably because they were quite confident in their strength.

Lea approached Charles while he was watching from the edge of the camp. Her arrival shook him out of his contemplation just as he was about to ponder what to do next. Those people didn’t seem trustworthy at first, but in truth they had been treating him quite well. It was true that they said they would not protect him, but it was to be expected. He was, after all, a stranger to them. Not only that, but according to his story he was the only survivor of a monster attack, which painted him in not the best of lights.

“Don’t stand there! Come, join us.” She said smiling, and held out a hand to him.

He took it despite his mind’s protests, and she pulled him towards the fire while giggling. She motioned for a seat next to hers, quite some distance away from the other three, and handed him a jug of water.

“Thanks.” He said, and opened it. He stared at the inside for a moment, wondering just out of what animal and what part of it this jug was made. He wasn’t one to complain, just curious.

“Come on, it’s not poisoned!” The woman said jokingly.

The thought had crossed his mind, he had to admit, and he was quite irritated that the woman seemed to guess his thinking so easily. It was pretty normal to assume that he was being suspicious, but he couldn’t bring himself to not being wary of those people.

He took a small sip. He had no idea if the LAI could identify poisons before they could harm him, or if it could do anything about them if he ingested them. Nothing happened, however, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“See? All good.” She said and took the jug back. She too drank from it, taking a large chug and enjoying it.

“I’m sorry. Rough couple of days.” Charles said.

It had been a rough couple of days, it was true, although for completely different reasons. He never liked human company too much, but he had never experienced true isolation either. There was a difference between choosing to stay alone and being forced to. He had been forced to in this last four days, and he hated this powerlessness.

And now, here he was among people, and he had to be on guard because he could not trust them. He hated when his mind acted up like this. Couldn’t he just take it easy and try to escape this dungeon without worrying about everything?

After a few minutes, the guy with the sword came and handed both Lea and him a small plate of meat. They had been roasting the meat over the fire for a while now, and the smell had made Charles quite hungry. It had been a while since he last ate as well, and he was already salivating.

He took a large bite, for once deciding to enjoy the meal.

His vision was flooded with the red signs of danger, before his mind became sharp and crystal clear.

LAI hyperfocus active. Poison element detected; effects mitigated by LAI. Current effects: decrease in brain functionality. Damage: 56%; total brain activity with LAI enhancement: 19.44x. Parameters acceptable, formulating plan. Fake poison symptoms, covertly unholster gun.

Two men approaching, designation shield and sword guy. Dialogue detected, attempting to make out words.

“…a shame this guy… anything of value.” 

“What do we… his body?”

“Strip him… leave it here.”

Malicious intent confirmed, enacting plan. Estimated execution time: 3 seconds. Acting. Roll to the right, one meter. Assume upright position on left knee, take gun in right hand, aim at body of shield guy. Pull the trigger. Bullet path is correct, armor resistance is negligible. Damage to body is total, threat incapacitated. Sonic boom created distraction, switch to sword guy. Pull trigger. Target dead. Switching to spear guy. Target reacted faster than a normal human, but slower than expected given his improved body, noted. Aim at head, pull. Target dead. Examine bow woman, analyze facial features. Shock evident, anger, adrenaline reaction. Hostile action, intercept. Punch in the gut, disarm, level weapon, shoot. Target dead. Threat neutralized. Reaction was faster than spear guy, noted.

[Level up! New level: 30]

He came back to himself in the middle of a large pool of blood and dismembered bodies. The effects of his railgun from this close were devastating. The shield guy had taken a hit in the chest, and yet his body had exploded outwards and pieces of it had landed as far as thirty meters. The armor was torn open like it was made of tinfoil, the edges where the bullet had impacted still red hot and smoking. The others were all headless corpses, immobile. Their bodies dimly lit by the light of the fire, frozen in their last action before they died.

He could not see their faces, as they had no faces anymore, but clearly remembered the face of the woman, Lea, as she witnessed the massacre. She had been the last to die, the LAI deeming her a low priority target but he knew that there was something else. Revenge, that’s what it was. He had wanted for her to see what her actions had caused, to look at her friends as they died because of a bad choice of hers. He wanted to let her see it all, and then he killed her.

And now he was quite angry. The killing had not been cathartic at all. In fact, it was repulsive to even think about it. He had killed many creatures, directly or indirectly through the use of the weapons he himself built for the empire, but never humans. There were no internal conflicts in the Empire after all. This, this was different. This was a shithole, a place where humans were no more than scum. He had been too soft with them, he realized, too trusting. Things were going to change now.

He was going to treat the whole thing much differently. This was not a video game for sure, and it was his life that was at stake. The throbbing pain in his head was a clear sign of that, as it still hurt like hell despite all the repair work that the LAI was doing.

He checked his gun. Only one bullet was left.

“Fuck!” He yelled, and then kicked the headless body of the woman.

“You fucking bitch!” He kicked and kicked until he felt that his foot had cracked something.

He was sure he didn’t use enough force to break bones, but he would think about it later. For now, this bitch was the reason he was stranded here with only one bullet, a magic bow he was sure he could not use and a sword. A sword! A barbarian’s weapon, and he had to shut the fuck up and use it if he wanted to get out of here alive.

Someone would pay for this. He would find out who the sick son of a bitch who sent him in the dungeon in the first place was and give him a nice little gift. He crouched down and took the sword and a dagger from one of the corpses. He left the armor where it was, as he knew that his suit was much better than that. He also noticed an odd ring on the woman’s hand, and took it as well. It looked valuable, and would at least be some sort of payment for the inconvenience they caused him.

Angry, hungry and quite disoriented from the poison, he set off. Anger and adrenaline would keep him going for another good while, he figured. Or, if not, he would just have the LAI take over. He didn’t care either way. Meanwhile, to take his mind off of those things, he asked the LAI about the fight. There had been something odd that he noticed, which was the speed and ease in which he disposed of all the threats. He knew his body quite well, and could have sworn that there was something odd going on.

The LAI gave him a report. 134.8% peak efficiency as compared to his peak before coming here in this world. Something had changed, or rather was changing inside of him but he had no idea why or how. Levels were his first suspect, but there was no way to prove anything as of yet. He would find out for sure as soon as he leveled up again. But if that was to be the case, then he would figure out how they affected him, replicate it, grind it and abuse the goddamn system in any way possible.

If there was something that him, Charles Barlow, military engineer for the Empire could do was figuring out shit. And then use it for his goals.

This was just a momentary setback in his plans. He was going to get out of here, and he was going to do so in his own terms.