UnwillingEldritchHorrorofFortune
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Chapter 188: A Lucky Escape
🕑 Added 2024-09-11 13:54:33 +0000 UTCWith such limited resources to work with, I didn’t expect Noe’s Emotional Redux ability to do any heavy lifting, especially since these were seasoned Aspirants, but the effects were more underwhelming than I thought. Aside from the potion makers and whatnot, the combatants hardly flinched from my little psychic assault, but at least it made the next part of my plan work a little better. I released my borrowed tentacles at the same time as my body changed into its Secondary form, and thankfully, the disturbing nature of that transformation made the four targets that I chose hesitate for just a moment.
That lapse in concentration meant that they couldn’t deploy those annoying powers of theirs in time to deflect the lethal tentacles that erupted from the ground. Two of my attacks landed with deadly efficiency, impaling the poor Aspirants from groin to head in a quite disturbing scene, but the other two tentacles missed completely. One of the humans I had aimed for, a woman in her mid-thirties by the look of things, had somehow sensed the tremors underfoot and launched herself a dozen or so feet into the air. My poor feeler was slashed apart by an invisible blade of wind a moment later, sending a jolt of pain down my feet. At least I knew they regenerated.
The other feeler simply failed to penetrate the Aspirant, which was something that I had never seen before. I knew for a fact that those feelers, enhanced with my absurd stats in my Secondary Form, could slice through solid steel, but they couldn’t do more than damage the man’s clothing. I frowned as I took a mental note of this individual for later, he’ll be hard for me to deal with alone if even my strongest attacks failed to hurt him.
“Fuck!” someone screamed, “Kill it!”
That was my cue to get the hell out of there. I started to notice the ground beneath me start to freeze, and an ominous feeling told me that I had to get out quick. I took out one of my remaining explosives from my inventory and detonated it right away. The blast was weak, but it sure made a mess of things. I used the dust and rubble to quickly dig myself under the earth and scurry away to safety. From the 30 additional Luck Charges that I consumed in my exit, I must have dodged several more abilities thrown my way.
Damn it, I had thought that given everything that I’ve gone through so far, fighting with a few dozen Aspirants wouldn’t pose too big of an issue, but I was evidently very wrong. Now I could kill, even in a straight-up fight without Noe’s assistance, most of them individually, but this particular group’s teamwork was annoyingly effective. I had gotten lucky with the first few kills, using the element of surprise and the assistance of the kids to help me, but that advantage is all but gone now.
I could perhaps call on Alice and Toby again soon, but they’d used up a lot of energy already, and near the end of things, their forms were starting to appear even more translucent than before. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I wasn’t going to risk the safety of two children for my own benefit. I’ll have to rely on myself and as many Luck Charges as I can scrounge up from now on.
I scurried away as quickly as I could, feelers between my legs, and cursed at how tenacious my opponents were. That last sneak attack had been executed perfectly, with every ounce of energy I had going into the blow, yet it only managed to take out half my targets. Damn, I’ll need to be a lot stronger in the future if even the normal Aspirants grew so quickly, but once again, those things could be dealt with in the future. I had damaged the other humans, eliminating close to half their combat numbers, but I hadn’t crippled them. A quick mental check told me that there were down to 28 Aspirants, with close to 10 of those being useless in a fight.
But the 18 left were people who were damned tricky to fight. Any head-on confrontation would be suicide on my end, but then again, why would I ever fight head-on? Those weren’t my strengths. I’ll leave that kind of work to Vadeem or Jae-Hyun, my way of warfare was never about direct engagements, so instead, I remained borrowed under the earth, just far away enough so that they wouldn’t be able to spot me with the fog in the way, but close enough so that I could still spy on them with my Xollon senses. Plus, with my Shroud passive - something I hardly remember having come to think of it - that Alexis girl and the others wouldn't be able to spot me even if I had practically no Luck Charges left.
As an added bonus, however, all of that busy work had earned me a few extra levels for my efforts. Quite a lot of them, in fact, since the discrepancy between myself and the others had been massive. It had been a truly long time since I leveled up at all, or even bothered to look at my stats directly now that I thought about it. My avenue of growth was so different than anyone else’s that I simply didn’t bother with the system that the Trash Matrix designed, although I shouldn’t neglect this part of my growth either, it was always wise to use every resource available to me.
Host: Walter
Class: Level 55 Gamma’s Grace
Attributes:
Free points: 24
HP: 744/744
MP: 0/0
Strength: 61 (+10)
Dexterity: 66 (+10)
Endurance: 54 (+10)
Intelligence: 62 (+10)
Charisma: 102 (+10)
I didn’t give the points much thought and just dumped them all into Charisma as usual, raising it to 126 without bonuses. Dr. Walter converted those points into Strength, so I wasn’t lacking in power either. Still, now that I saw my own stats, I realized that I was woefully under-leveled compared to everyone else, not just the freaks in Pandora. Even the weakest Aspirant here was in their 80’s. I sighed. There’s going to be a lot of catching up to do, even if levels weren’t the primary way of growth for me.
I watched in silence as the Aspirants set up a tight perimeter and argued incessantly about what to do next. I smiled; the damage had already been done, there was clear distrust of Eric’s leadership, what with getting a third of their numbers culled this fast, and coupled with the anxiety that filled the air, this group should be a paranoid mess within hours. Still, stressed and unhappy as they were, they were still disciplined enough to show restraint. Now how do I exploit this…?
Well, I might not have many charges to work with, but that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t manipulate the already tense atmosphere to my advantage. Of course, my main priority right now is to rest. Even a couple hours of that would mean a few hundred extra charges, and that I’d have some wiggle room to work with, and given how unpredictable the Aspirants were, I didn’t feel safe without Noe’s assistance. But I’ll take advantage of my being untraceable and the nature of my Xollon body to sow some discord first, while tensions are still sky-high. There was no better time to do so.
It was a risk that was worth it.
Noe, search your databases for the most unnerving voice and switch to that. I want to leave a final message for these people.
“Searching…” Noe chimed, “Voice found, please speak when ready.”
You’re the best!
“Outsiders…, or should I say, Eric, Alexis, Benjamin…” I rasped as I listed off every single name thanks to my Arbiter title. The people grew more and more freaked out as each of their names was called. With my voice resonating out of my Boor membrane, no one would be able to locate my position based on sound, and the distortion created was otherworldly. I saw the Aspirants tense immediately, their hands bone white from how hard they squeezed their weapons.
“You are not welcome, little humans,” I continued in that slow, monotonous tone, “I will be back, I will always watch you, everything that you do. I have seen you at your strongest, and I find it wanting. I will be back, and you will never know it.”
“Ignore it!” Eric shouted, “Marv, erect a sound barrier, everyone else, take out the purification talismans, now!”
“Your efforts are useless…” I continued, before leaving them with a sinister chuckle.
Good, let them waste their efforts and resources, it was just a pity that I didn’t have the courage to do anything more for now. I frowned. Should I really just give up the initiative now and go back to lick my wounds? The Aspirants were bound to recover faster than I ever will, considering their near-unlimited supply of potions, and I was willing to bet that they’d make other consumables that would be annoying to deal with if left alone. No, now was the best time I had to press my advantage; they still had to get those remaining pearls, and while I might not have the capabilities to completely screw over one of the Squads, I should still be able to hinder them.
With my mind made up, I scooted away from the crowd and made my way to the location of one of the remaining pearls. I didn’t choose the location I was at before, since I was willing to bet that they’d send their strongest Aspirants there to ensure nothing untoward happened again, and stopped when I saw the object in question. There were a few things I could do with the tiny pearl, maybe I could steal it and ensure that the Aspirants could never finish this particular task, but my gut feeling told me that there was no way that the Trash Matrix would overlook such an obvious oversight. Most likely there were things in place to either punish the individual trying to cheat the system, that being myself, or worse yet, punish the people involved in setting up this task in the first place.
After all, Laurence had informed me that his role as the Gatekeeper here couldn’t be avoided nor neglected, and I was worried that anything I do here to mess with the fundamental nature of the Trial could come back to bite the villagers in the butt even if I didn’t face the consequences. If he could automatically fail the Aspirants by eliminating one of the clear conditions of the mission, I was willing to bet he and the rest of the village would have tried that decades ago.
I shook my head, I could potentially steal the thing, but the worst that would happen is that they’d fail this task and get reassigned to something else, while the worst-case scenario was too much to bear. No, it was best not to tempt fate with so little Luck Charages to work with; I’ll win this thing, in the end, either way, and I can afford to wait a little. Right, slow and steady wins here, let’s not overdo things. I was still weak, not to mention vulnerable, but I should still be able to take out one last enemy before I retreated for the time being.
I excited my hole and quickly changed back to my Dr. Walter form when I noticed several startled villagers fast approaching my position. They only stopped when they saw who I was.
“Sorry for startling everyone,” I said with my arms raised.
One of the ghastly-looking men floated over to me. “You’re the doctor, Walter, was it?”
I smiled. “That I am, it’s good to meet you, although I wish the circumstances were better. I wish I could help out more, but right now I’m limited on what I can accomplish, I’ll make sure that everyone here stays safe at least.”
The old man shook his head. “You don’t have to worry, I’ve heard what you’ve done for us already, asking for anymore is already overstretching things. I take it the outsiders will be here soon?”
“Unfortunately,” I replied, “But I am here to help with that regard, at least a little.”
He nodded. “Just tell us what you need, but understand that we must attack the outsiders when they come. The curse leaves us no other choice.”
I frowned, that complicated things a little, but I could still work around it. “I see,” I said as new plans and ideas started to swim in my head. “Can you wait a bit before attacking, even a little? What about fighting isolated targets?”
“It’s possible,” he said after a momentary pause, “No more than a few minutes before the curse overwhelms us, but we can. And it does not care if we confront one target or all of them at once, as long as we do so. Why?”
Okay, that was good news then. I smiled. “Like I said, my priority here is to ensure your safety, I can slowly whittle down their numbers later, but I don’t want any more harm to come to the lovely people living here now.” I waited for the rest of the residents to group up before me to continue. “Here’s what I need you all to do…”
