Rating Zero (Alpha LitRPG Book 5), page 36
I also cursed the fact that I was not alone. I wasn’t ready to summon the Shadow of Necros in the presence of a barely familiar witness, even in the face of mortal danger. Which was too bad, of course. The Necros wraith was my strongest weapon, and, possibly, the only chance I had not to become a dark smudge on the rocks of the dead city.
Kimi hugged her legs and complained,
“It’s getting colder.”
“That’s normal,” I said. “There are day and night cycles here, and I’ve heard some nights can be really cold. They’ve given us blankets for a reason.”
“I dumped all my stuff when I ran.”
“So did I.”
The girl fell silent for a while.
“I haven’t heard them in a while,” she said. Do you think we may have lost them?”
I shrugged.
“I have no idea what’s on their minds. No one really knows anything for sure about these creatures.”
“Why do you say that? I’ve heard lots of things about them, Chuck.”
“So have I. But can you tell fact from fiction in this case?”
“Well… What I know for sure is that they’re sometimes hunted.”
“Everyone knows that. But how do you think such hunts work?”
“Well, I assume they are fairly serious hunts.”
“That’s right. When members of the Imperial Family get the opportunity to visit the Labyrinth, they take a squad of warriors and battle mages with them, venture into isolated pockets of the Mist and annihilate everything there that doesn’t manage to flee. Those are solid professional hunting parties, and their prey are small fry for the most part and easy to handle.”
“That means we were out of luck?” Kimi asked.
“Why?”
“The two creatures you’ve killed. They weren’t small fry. I couldn’t do anything about them. I’ve never even seen anything moving like that before. I’ve no idea how you managed it.”
I ignored the concealed question about my individual situation, deflecting the conversation back to the issue of luck in general.
“No, Kimi. Those were small fry indeed. Levels twelve and fourteen.”
“That low? Chuck, it’s impossible. I hunted elementals before, and I took care of a level thirteen once, easily. But these here were a totally different story.”
I shut my eyes, got into my ORDER, and gave her a verbatim quote.
“‘You have dealt significant damage to the pure steel void elemental. You have dealt fatal damage to the pure steel void elemental. The pure steel void elemental is dispelled. You have defeated the pure steel void elemental! This is an Elemental creature (Pure Steel Void, Level 12).’ Kimi, this is a message I got from ORDER itself, and ORDER keeps silent unless it knows such things for a fact. So it has to be true.”
“ORDER sends you messages?” the girl asked skeptically.
“Not messages per se. I’ve just trained myself to perceive it as text rather than pictures or images. It’s easier for me this way. It’s the same stuff you see, only it looks different in my case.”
“That’s just great! So I nearly let some small fry slaughter me.”
“Don’t feel bad about it, Kimi. This is the Labyrinth, after all. Everything’s abnormal here, and the Void creatures are the weirdest of them all. They aren’t even called ‘greater’ or ‘lesser’ in their descriptions, they’re just ‘elementals’. It appears ORDER itself doesn’t know how to classify them. And I don’t quite get it about the Void. What does ‘steel’ even mean here? How many kinds are there in general?”
The girl shrugged.
“I know nothing about it. Most people don’t, since it’s impossible to develop the Void. I’ve heard that someone from the Imperial family has it, but it is weak even in their case. There must be just one attribute there, but it comes with extra talents that boost different things. Developing the steel aspect must somehow bolster all the talents associated with steel. That’s roughly how it’s supposed to work, but I might be wrong about it. Chuck, if even their level twelve creatures are as tough as these, there’s no way we’ll survive in this Mist.”
The girl spread her arms, as if trying to embrace the entire space around her, obviously pointing at the vast area covered by the Mist. Our islet of safety was like a tiny tip of an iceberg in the middle of an ocean.
“It might stop,” I said, not quite sure I believed it myself. “It can’t keep rising all the time.”
That was our main problem. Our rears weren’t in that much trouble; they were capable of withstanding the torture of rough marble for a long enough time. However, even though there was room enough on the pedestal, the little platform didn’t rise particularly high above the Mist. It was hard to immediately see the exact border between mere haze and the Mist proper, but if you looked long enough and paid attention, it came to you. The two environments were fairly distinct from each other, and it showed.
What really got us worried was that this barely perceptible boundary kept rising gradually. The progress was too slow to notice, but if you marked a place on a rock and looked at it again in about a quarter of an hour, you could see that your mark was an inch or two closer to the Mist. From there, it was easy enough to calculate that if the Mist didn’t stop rising, or at least slowed down, our feet would be engulfed in it before midnight. We were wary of discussing what would happen next, because we both knew it was not going to be anything good.
We suspected that the Mist was capable of sending signals to the monsters, advising them of all those yummy morsels in the immediate vicinity. During our prior encounter with the glittering elementals, they were too sure of themselves as they approached us from different directions at once, and then, the faster we ran, the more active the monsters became. I just didn’t see how they could possibly do all that without a central “command and control unit”.
Which prompted me to make a tentative suggestion.
“If the Mist rises above the pedestal, we can try keeping perfectly still and hope it doesn’t react to us.”
“Chuck, do you honestly believe that will work?”
“No, I don’t. But we have to think of all our options. We don’t know which one will work.”
Kimi shook her head.
“There are no options here. Nothing will work. Look around you, Chuck. This is just one of the four accessible parts of the city. And even with all this Mist around, you can see that it’s bigger than our own capital up there on the surface. A lot bigger. Can you imagine the sheer numbers of people that used to live here once?”
“I can. But why are you telling me this?”
“Because this city is not for people. Do you know what the commoners call it in their tales?”
“I didn’t even know they were aware of it in the first place.”
“They don’t know much, but some memories survive. They say there’s another city underneath the capital, and it’s long been buried. And whenever some misfortune befalls the land, they blame the nobility for having some ancient power curse the entire empire for raiding an old grave again and again. There is something in those stories, if you ask me.”
“Oh, come on, Kimi, you are making too much of those tall tales. Commoners just run their mouths for no good reason any chance they get.”
“Chuck, will you look around you? This city has indeed been abandoned, and possibly cursed as well. Have you seen any signs that it has been sacked? I’m not talking about houses or blocks, but the kind of destruction an invading army usually leaves behind. Everything burns and crumbles during a siege, which is definitely not the case here. Most of the buildings are simply falling apart because they are too damn old. Just try going into any of them and running your hand over the stones. The dust is inches thick! It’s the dust of those who lived here when the city was still alive. But the city died, and there’s nothing left of it but rocks, bones, and ghosts. And someone’s buried the place, sealing all the doors. Then the first Emperor came and managed to open a number of entrances. It was grave robbery, don’t you see? The biggest grave in the empire has been breached. The bones have been disturbed, and the ghosts began getting exterminated. And grave robbery gave him enormous riches and power. His family received access to Elements for digging this graveyard open, and today we are granted the right to enter the grave as a special privilege and trample on the bones of the dead a little. These bones had been picked by scavengers for thousands of years, and now we feed off the scavengers. And a whole army of ravenous scavengers came here today. We’ll have to stay here until they’ve had their fill or decide to move on. The Mist is their territory. We don’t even know where to run, so we’ll just have to wait it out.”
As soon as I got on the pedestal, my Cartography skill started working again. It didn’t paint a perfect picture, but I could still sort things out.
I rushed to reassure my companion.
“Don’t worry about that. I know where we are and where the exits are too.”
“And how far away from us is the closest one?”
“About two thousand paces as the crow flies.”
“Do you think there’s a direct route there?”
“I doubt it,” I admitted honestly.
“So there’s no point running.”
“Not now, Kimi. But everything changes quickly here. The Mist might stop or dispel altogether. It didn’t come here to stay forever.”
“I told you as much.”
“I know a few things myself. I’ve read a lot about the Labyrinth, and I’ve heard quite a few things over the last few days too. There are misty periods like this one. They are fairly infrequent in the Amphitheater, with only a handful of known cases in the entire recorded history. It may be the result of this experiment involving a hundred students allowed inside at once. The Labyrinth could have reacted in an unpredictable, previously unheard of manner.”
“And how long did the exits remain covered by the Mist in those few cases?” Kimi asked.
I shrugged.
“I couldn’t tell you for sure, but they said it wasn’t long. A day, maybe; perhaps, two. No more than that, or it would have warranted a special mention. I don’t think it’s just the two of us who found ourselves in this mess, but I wouldn’t count on any rescue operation. They are not likely to send anyone after us. Getting in here is a lottery, and besides, the Labyrinth has a limit on the number of visits. We’ll have to wait.”
“Chuck, we won’t last here a whole day. There, have a look. The Mist is rising faster now.”
“Are you sure?” I clenched my fists.
“I think I am. I told you, see for yourself.”
“I am already looking. There are these three marks on the marble that I’m using to check if the Mist is rising.”
We went silent again, watching the misty surface swirling down below. The longer I spent at it, the more I became convinced Kimi was right. The Mist was indeed rising faster.
What would we do if it didn’t stop?
“Are you really stalking me?” the girl suddenly asked.
“Huh? Come again?!”
“You keep turning up at all the wrong moments. Back then, on the first day, you were the only one at the gate. I didn’t see any other students.”
“So what about it? I arrived earlier. I had nowhere to stay in the capital, so there was no point taking my time about it. And I got in early in the morning after a long journey. And I was in a hurry to get to the school.”
“You sound pretty awkward about it. So defensive too.”
“Well, that’s because I have to defend myself from an unfounded accusation!”
“All right, I believe you. But later on? Underground, near the dummy hall?”
“The sawn-off dummy hall? I had no idea I’d bump into someone. I thought there’d be no one there at night.”
“But why did you go there in the first place?”
“Well… There was something I wanted to check on.”
“What could one possibly check on down there?”
“Look, Kimi. I don’t mean to sound rude, but I’m not asking what you were doing there, am I? You had your own business there, and I had mine. We just ran into each other unexpectedly.”
“This doesn’t sound all that likely,” the stubborn girl continued.
“But that’s exactly how it was.”
“All right, let’s assume you’re telling the truth, but back then, before you went into town? Why did you approach me?”
I sighed.
“Chaos take me, I wasn’t trying to approach you. I was heading for the gate. You were standing in the bushes smack in the middle of the shortcut. That’s how we ran into each other. Had I known I’d meet you there, I’d have made a detour. All right, all right, I am kidding. It’s not like I was avoiding you, either. Besides, if you’re standing in the bushes and I’m headed in that direction, it doesn’t mean I’m stalking you. It was all fairly accidental, except for that one time when I rushed to find you specifically.”
“There, you admitted it, finally!” declared triumphant Kimi.
“I’ve admitted nothing,” I said. “That wasn’t stalking, either. It happened on that night when I came to save you. Did they tell you the details? I see that they didn’t, by the way you’re looking at me now. When I was returning to school from my town leave, I got stopped by a group of Faceless Ones. They said they had sent my body double in to kill you and told me to chill and just wait it out. But I hurried to find you instead.”
Kimi winced.
“It’s so farfetched it isn’t even funny.”
“You’d better believe it.”
“Sure. Of course I believe you. And the Faceless Ones just let you go, waving their handkerchiefs at you. What’s not to believe?”
“They were too busy being dead to either stop me or wave their anything at me.”
“All of them? Dead? So, how many of them were there, Chuck?” There was definite sarcasm in the girl’s voice.
“Five. Haven’t you noticed I had blood all over me when I came in? It was their blood.”
“Chuck, I envy you your imagination. Five Faceless Ones are serious business. You wouldn’t have been able to make a step past them.”
“I had to reach you, and I did,” I insisted. “Remember those two elementals just now? They wouldn’t let you out, and they almost sliced you up, and I came for you and made short work of them.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re some kind of a great hero?”
“I’m just suggesting I have a few tricks up my sleeve. So believe me when I say I dispatched the Faceless Ones too. Although, come to think of it, why would I need to prove anything to you? You’re free to doubt me if you want, but that’s exactly what happened. And that was the only time I really tried to find you. It was my duty.”
“Where would you pick up a duty like that, Chuck?”
I surprised myself by giving her the truthful answer.
“I owed it to my family. I couldn’t just stand there and wait for you to get killed.”
As I said that, I felt an enormous relief. That conversation had the potential of causing me extra trouble, but I already had so much of it that a little bit more or less made no difference whatsoever. Speaking freely for the first time in over two years, on the other hand, turned out to be pleasant, invigorating, and conducive to clearer thinking. It must have been my intuition knowing precisely what I needed that made my tongue loose.
Kimi frowned.
“Now I am not getting you at all. Duty? Family debt? But you’re not from my family.”
“I didn’t say I was. There are different kinds of family debts.”
Kimi grimaced again.
“Then if you don’t tell me this very second who you really are, I’ll get really mad at you. Mad enough to become your enemy.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until the end of the year when I’ll have to tell everyone anyway?” I chuckled. But it was a sad chuckle.
“I am. Tell me,” the girl said, her face taut, as she slowly put her hand on the hilt of her sword.
“What, you want to fight me? Right here?” I asked.
“If you don’t tell me, yes. I do.”
“All right, have it your way. I admit I’m not really Chuck.”
“And you thought I didn’t know that? Out with it.”
“My name is Gedar Xavier. You can just call me Gedar. Or Ged.”
“And?”
“What do you mean, ‘and,’ Kimi? You’ve asked me. I answered. What else do you want?”
“You didn’t tell me who your family are.”
“If it’s so important to you, you must already know the answer. You’re just unwilling to admit it to yourself.”
“Crow,” Kimi said dispassionately.
“That’s right. I’m Gedar Xavier of House Crow. I won’t apologize for not having revealed as much earlier. The school’s rules forbid it, and we didn’t get much of an opportunity to chat. But I did what I had to do back when I ran into the Faceless Ones. I hadn’t been aware of who you were, but they mentioned your name, so I had to kill them. The Cree family swore allegiance to the Crow four hundred years ago. It is my duty to protect you.”
“Gedar, I’ll kill you!” Kimi hissed.
“That’s not really what family members do to each other,” I offered, realizing the girl was genuinely furious.
