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The Apocalypse Grinder - Chapter 61
🕑 Added 2025-06-23 11:09:36 +0000 UTC<< Chapter 60 | Index | Chapter 62 >>
There was a saying in the old world. Only two things in life are inevitable—death and taxes. Faced with the shrieking lackey telling him he owed taxes to some bloke calling himself Lord Rockmore would almost be hilarious if not for the three others behind him who had drawn a nasty looking assortment of weapons upon seeing Ronan’s grimace.
“Keith, I have to say taxes weren’t something I expected to have to deal with again after going through the tutorial,” Ronan muttered.
“You’re telling me. Also, Lord? Who is this chump?” Keith replied in a whisper.
“Who knows. He might be pretty strong,” Ronan said, tapping a finger against his chin in thought. “Follow my lead.”
Once Keith nodded, Ronan walked forward to greet the new arrivals. He raised his arms, palms facing outwards in a gesture of peace. “Hey there, mate. Yeah we only arrived a couple days back, still getting the lay of the land. Lots of changes, eh? Would you mind explaining what you mean, about this Lord of yours?” he said with a big, friendly smile plastered on his face.
Trying to understand the various expressions that crossed the man’s face was impossible. As far as Ronan could tell, the one he settled on was a mix between disdain and irritation.
“I see. New arrivals. Managed to survive that tutorial, then? You must have a little skill to finish so fast, but trust me when I say Lord Rockmore is on another level. Everyone around here works for him. It's better that way. Things are simple, orderly, and everyone earns their way. If you follow us we’ll take you to the headquarters of the organisation,” the man said, his shrill tone somehow persisting even at a regular volume.
With that, he turned around and started to walk away, clearly expecting Ronan and Keith to follow without complaint. Ronan grimaced, then cleared his throat.
“Sorry, you mentioned something about taxes? It's just… Why should we give this Rockmore fellow our hard earned credits? I didn’t see him fighting alongside us to bring those foxes down.” The man froze. The three lackeys took a step towards Ronan, raising their weapons.
“Now, now boys. I’m sure he’ll understand once he meets the lord. Everyone was like this at first,” the leader said. The lackeys shared knowing looks. One chortled to himself as they lowered their weapons.
“Look, I get it. You just finished the tutorial, managed to survive against that terrifying hobgoblin for a whole two minutes without getting splattered into mush. We’ve all been there. Try to understand, Lord Rockmore is different. He didn’t just survive, he actually killed that thing! Trying to go against him would just end up with you dead. At least this way, you get to keep your life and maybe even get a little influence, if you impress him,” the leader explained as if delivering a heavenly edict.
By now Keith had walked right beside Ronan, allowing him to overhear everything the man said. Halfway through he had been about to interrupt, When Ronan pretended to trip on a stone and took Keith down with him.
“What? But we-” was all he managed to splutter before they tumbled into the asphalt.
The four men were frozen in shock at the absurdity of the situation, before they all burst out laughing. “Well, gormless fools are always useful, too,” the leader snorted.
Keith had a lot to say about that, but Ronan elbowed him in the guts to stop the retort before it leaked out. Thankfully the action was hidden from the four men, given that he’d brought Keith down on top of him.
Once they clambered back to their feet, with the leader of Lord Rockmore’s men shaking his head at them, the group began to turn around. “Headquarters is this way. Do try to keep up. You don’t want to find out what happens if you can’t follow simple orders,” the leader said.
Ronan felt the message was painfully clear, given that two of the three lackeys started smacking their weapons against their hands to punctuate it. The third fellow didn’t join in purely on account of his weapon being a sword—despite his blank expression he was at least smart enough not to slice his own hand off.
Before following, Ronan let the four men walk about ten metres ahead. Once there was some distance between them, he pulled Keith close and whispered, “The moment I charge, attack the one on the left. The big fucker.”
“What!? Are you craz-” he shout-whispered back, before Ronan silenced him with a glare.
“No time to explain. Just… trust me.”
Keith did not look as though he trusted Ronan, but with a frustrated sigh and a nod he withdrew his dagger from his inventory. The leader glanced back, saw how far they were lagging behind, shook his head and then turned to look forwards again. Keith had deftly hidden his blade behind his back as that happened, somehow managing to look innocent.
They’d closed the distance to about six metres now. Ronan withdrew Thurg’s Razorspear from his inventory. He looked back to the men as a sudden thought crossed his mind. No name tags? I wonder if…
[Randolph Cragg - Human Fighter Lv.19]
[Jimmy Barnes - Human Rogue Lv.22]
[Jason Horner - Human Fighter Lv.21]
[??? - Human ??? Lv.29]
Ronan had focused on the four men, attempting to mentally ‘inspect’ them. He had no clue if it would work, but almost immediately a name tag appeared above each of them.
He was confused to see that the leader’s name and class were hidden. He was shocked when the leader turned around with a furious glare, which morphed into surprise as he caught sight of the barbed spear in Ronan’s hands.
“What do you think you’re-”
“Shit, looks like we blew our load early, Keith. Guy on the right!” Ronan yelled, winking at Keith to make his intentions clear.
While he was shouting to distract their foes, he had already begun to channel his stamina and mana. He felt the drain as breaking charge activated, the spear in his hands pointed right at the leader’s face.
All of them reacted at radically different speeds as Ronan exploded forwards, moving so fast he nearly disappeared from view. The leader was the first to reach for his blade. Unfortunately for him, the speed at which he drew his sword was like slow motion compared to the lightning blitz of breaking charge.
Barely an inch of metal had been pulled from the scabbard hanging loosely at his waist when the savage tip of Thurg’s Razorspear ripped his face open and then a burst of mana exploded out the back of his head in a shower of brains and blood. It was reminiscent of an overripe melon being popped between a muscular lady’s thighs, squelching noises and all.
The ghostly spear that followed only met empty air. Double strike had been complete overkill, but Ronan hadn’t wanted to take any chances.
He dismissed the kill notification, seeing as there were still three enemies left to go. No, make that two, he thought with a smirk as Keith barrelled past him and buried his dagger in the enormous brute on the left’s neck.
Even with Keith’s prodigious weight, the muscled barbarian managed to stay upright after staggering backwards a few steps. However, Keith was like a rabid dog with a bunny caught between its jaws.
He ripped the dagger out in a crimson spray, before plunging it into his victim’s neck again and again. On the fifth stab, the man finally collapsed, Keith going with him. Rest in peace, Jason Horner, Ronan thought as he plunged his spear into the other fighter’s guts.
This time he didn’t use any skills, eager to test his raw physical prowess. The guy was almost 20 levels lower than him. Ronan wasn’t a bully.
Unfortunately Randolph Cragg made a poor sparring partner. He barely managed to swing his spiked club towards Ronan when the barbed spear sheared his arm off at the shoulder. An ear piercing cry of pain rang out across the street. It was abruptly cut off by another spear thrust that went through his neck, killing him instantly.
Ronan looked up, swinging his spear wildly as his eyes darted about. It took him two seconds to find his target—the rapidly retreating rogue, Jimmy Barnes.
Shit, can’t let him get away or that Rockmore bloke will know they encountered us, he inwardly cursed. The rogue was about eighteen metres away, still in range of breaking charge. However, he was damn quick and Ronan estimated he’d be out of range in less than three seconds.
Ronan acted without hesitation. The stamina left him in a flood, but he’d long grown used to the sensation and it barely fazed him.
The ground blurred beneath his feet, the spear thrust forwards for maximum range. He saw the rogue’s eyes go wide the moment he’d moved. Halfway to his target, the guy slashed his own palm on his sword while yelling something.
Ronan thought nothing of it until the instant before his charge landed. The spear connected hard, sending a jolt up his arms. He felt the mana bursting outwards, followed by the ghostly twin of the spear doing the same.
Despite the positive haptic feedback, his face twisted into a scowl. What appeared to be the rogue suddenly burst into shadows, the man himself reappearing about thirty metres down the street.
Ronan’s spear was buried in the wall behind him. A second later it began to crumble, then collapse, until Ronan was forced to leap away so as not to be buried under the minor avalanche of brick and mortar.
God damn it! That had to be a skill. Slippery bastard, he inwardly roared. He raced after the rogue, Jimmy, in the hopes that another breaking charge along with his level advantage might let him close the gap that the shadowy evasive manoeuvre had earned the man.
Unfortunately it seemed as though Jimmy Barnes had invested every damn stat point he’d earned into agility. Ronan roared in frustration. He raised the spear in one hand, guiding his mana into a magic strike that functioned more as a catapult as he let the spear fly.
It screamed through the air, crossing the sixty metre gap in a little over a second. Despite making the distance, it was far from fast enough to strike true.
The rogue nimbly sidestepped the falling spear, throwing a last glance at Ronan before darting behind a towering skyscraper that had survived the terraforming. He made a mental note of the direction Jimmy had escaped in, before kissing his teeth in annoyance.
As Keith caught up, panting and leaning on his knees, Ronan couldn’t help but look up to the sky. “Well, shit. Let’s hope this Lord Rockmore doesn’t have a way to track us back to our base.”
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