MagiCraft Master 2: A Mass Isekai LitRPG, page 12
The crab creature ignored her; all of its black eyes were on Logan. “How about we strike a deal instead?”
“What kind of deal?”
CHAPTER 26
You will come with me,” the crab herald said. “And I will spare the rest of this rabble.”
Logan laughed heartily. “That’s so stupid on so many levels.”
The creature rumbled and took a few impatient paces back and forth.
“You just want to separate me from my people so you can kill me alone, and then come back and kill them after.”
“I do not want to kill them,” the creature retorted. “I need them.”
“For what?”
“They are cattle for Master.”
Logan didn’t fully understand what that meant, but he made a disgusted face. Freya snarled.
“You are dangerous, Logan Specter,” the herald continued. “I must take you and consider what to do with you.”
“You mean outright kill me?”
“It is most likely, unless another option arises.”
Any suggestions, Tumor?
[This profoundly sucks. I am running on full charge, but I cannot compute our way out of this, Logan. I am sorry.]
“Then we take our chances,” Logan said and defiantly thrust his chin up.
“So be it.”
All of the tendrils on the creature’s back shot at Logan and wrapped around each limb, the claws snapping on his wrists and ankles. The creature was as strong as it was fast, and Logan felt like he was being held in place by corded metal.
Freya yelped and cast a [Bloom] on the grass in front of the creature. The tuft of grass grew tall and wild. and it attacked the crab, but the monster still tromped forward, lifting Logan in the air.
Logan struggled and fought but to no avail. The tendrils extended from the creature’s back and suddenly Logan was above the treetops. And then Levemoth appeared again.
It blinked into existence so close that Logan could almost taste the thundercloud. His mind was suddenly overwhelmed. The attention of this ancient creature was on Logan, and he could feel it in every fiber of his being. His brain itched, and he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. It was a feeling of being overloaded with energy and information, a feeling that threatened to split his skull open or at least break his mind.
Logan . . . Specter . . .
A cold, inhuman voice resounded in Logan’s head, pushing the chaos to the background. Tumor was shouting something in the back of his mind, but it was hard to hear.
I found you . . . After making the herald I was weakened . . . But for your capture . . . I will spare the energy.
Try . . . it . . . asshole.
Such insolence . . .
A pain lashed through Logan’s mind like a spike of ice jammed in his brain. His consciousness was starting to dim, the edges of his vision going black as he floated limp in the air.
It is true that I cannot take your mind because of this pesky creature you have inside you . . . But I can break you.
The pain turned into a lilting undulation of voice, image, and a mounting nausea—a cacophonous nightmare attacking his mind. Bile built up in Logan’s mouth as his eyes rolled in their sockets.
[LOGAN! I am going to shut you down.]
But before Logan’s mind winked out, he was enveloped by a white bubble of static. It cut off the herald’s tentacle as well as Levemoth’s connection to Logan’s mind.
From his groggy stupor Logan lifted his head, but he could see nothing but static surrounding him as he floated idly in the air.
“What . . . ?”
Another voice spoke, as if the static bubble had a hidden loudspeaker. It was a nervous voice, strongly nasal but pleasant.
{Ah hello, human. Do not worry. I am one of the Administrators. I have temporarily removed you from the normal flow of time and space, because the big fish was breaking the rules. I will teleport you somewhere more comfortable.}
And just like that, Logan blinked out of existence and reappeared somewhere else.
CHAPTER 27
Logan found himself blinking at the bright, fluorescent lights on the ceiling. Apart from his flashbangs, he had only been exposed to natural light for months now. This room was white all over. White walls and ceiling, white sofas and a white coffee table with two white mugs on it.
Where the hell? What the hell?
“Wait wait wait wait wait, what?” a peeved voice called from the other room. “Am I seeing this right, Kvinlox? You brought the kid here?”
Kvinlox, who was standing next to Logan, rubbed his neck. He was a tall creature with four lanky arms, each sporting three fingers. He was wearing a white and black bodysuit which looked to be made of some kind of plastic. Clear liquid was pumping through various tubes around the suit and a faint blue light blinked on the right shoulder.
“The fish broke the rules, we can break them too,” Kvinlox said defensively.
“I don’t care!” the peeved one said. “It wasn’t our problem. Our main objective is to observe. Now we’re going to have to file a B-12!” He rolled out on a computer chair from behind a wall. He had an unimpressed expression on his long blue face, which faintly resembled that of a giraffe, except for the eyes, which were large and rested on top of appendages, three inches above the head.
“It is our problem, Tenflox,” Kvinlox said. “In case you haven’t noticed, we are in a proxy war with the fish and its deity.”
“I know that,” Tenflox said and shuffled the chair forward with his feet toward the mug on the table. When he picked it up, he muttered something, and some steaming hot yellow beverage appeared in the cup.
“Nice trick,” Logan said and gave the creature an amiable smile. Tenflox only gave him a sour glance.
“I know the consequences the war may carry,” Tenflox said. “But you didn’t have to make it our problem. Yours and mine.”
Kvinlox took a cup of his own and produced a third cup out of thin air, filled it with liquid, and offered it to Logan.
“So I was just supposed to watch and let him be destroyed?” Kvinlox asked and waved his hands.
“It’s just a single human,” Tenflox said impatiently. “There’s almost two million of them left on the planet.”
That’s interesting to know.
“And coincidentally the fish spends most of its time with very particular humans. It even turned his fa—”
“Shut up, idiot,” Tenflox hissed.
“Hmph. My point stands.”
“What’s your point again?”
“Do you want to know the odds of us winning if the boy dies?”
“Spare me . . .”
“Oddlax, please,” Kvinlox said, his eyestalks reaching to the ceiling.
A mechanical voice spoke out of a speaker, and a screen with graphs and strange squiggly language appeared midair. “The chances of your victory will plummet down to 0.516492 percent. There are fractal realities that we can break into wherein the chance can be raised up to 0.712293 percent. This is assuming such variables as a new local champion taking up Logan Specter’s mantle at his demise. Of course, if the creature you have insisted on my calling ‘the fish’ happened to break the rules again and either destroy or turn Logan Specter, that would increase our chances back to 41.8999 percent, because of the penalties accrued by the enemy faction and the boons given to us. Under the scenario that we are given an option to groom a new champion, it is impossible to predict accurately, but it would increase our chances of winning from the current situation to over 70 percent.”
[Ooh. It has dynamic prediction models. I want one of those.]
Come to think of it Logan said to Tumor, as he sipped the yellow drink, which tasted like wet cardboard with a tinge of cinnamon, “why can’t you do all kinds of amazing things like that?
Through their connection, Logan sensed a deeply miffed Tumor.
[How dare you imply I do not do amazing things?! Keeping you alive this long is nothing short of a miracle, mind you. Do you want to know the odds of you having survived without me? Because I happen to be amazing enough for that.]
Okayyy, sorry. I was just asking.
[The reason is simple; it’s a hardware issue. I have no access to a quantum computer. I am equipped with a microchip the size of a sliced rice grain and a very meager computing device called your brain.]
Hey!
“Would you look at this thing inside the boy’s head?” Kvinlox said. “That’s really impressive for a type-one civilization.”
Tenflox scoffed into his drink and some of the yellow beverage sprayed out. All the droplets instantly vanished in midair. “They aren’t even type-one.”
“Maybe we could jury-rig the implant?” Kvinlox said, looking at Logan contemplatively. It was rather eerie, as his head was still drinking the yellow drink, but his eye-appendages were swiveling and glancing at Logan.
“Why do you hate me so, Kvinlox?” Tenflox asked and threw two arms in the air in exasperation. “Do you have any idea of the amount of paperwork we would have to do if we changed as much as a single fingernail on his body?”
“Uh,” Logan said and put down the drink. “Excuse me, but what the hell is going on?”
CHAPTER 28
Tenflox sighed. “I guess we’re doing this.”
“Of course we are,” Kvinlox said and gave Logan a smile. His mouth stretched as wide as a banana. Logan idly wondered what they ate.
“Actually,” Tenflox said, “you are.”
“Don’t mind him,” Kvinlox said. “He’s been grumpy ever since they prohibited the use of stimsticks during office hours.”
“They helped me focus!”
“We took you here because the fish was attempting something naughty,” Kvinlox said, waving a dismissive hand at the bristling Tenflox. “He was going to commit another infraction in order to destroy you. It would have likely resulted in his body being destroyed, but if he had managed to kill or convert you in the process, he could have ruled through his herald.”
“The herald was that disgusting crab thing?”
Kvinlox and Tenflox shared a glance.
“It was created recently,” Kvinlox said. “It’s why th—”
“Hold up,” Tenflox said and bonked Kvinlox on the head with a lanky arm. “Just how much are you going to spill?”
“He should know as much as possible,” Kvinlox said.
“He shouldn’t even know we exist.”
“Yeah, about that,” Logan said. “Who the hell are you? You said you’re managing a proxy war?”
“Well, it’s kind of like that—”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Tenflox said.
“It’s for a good cause,” Kvinlox said. “Based on what you’ve seen, you probably don’t need convincing that you’re one of the good guys.”
Logan gave an attentive nod.
“There is a Numa spirit on this planet.”
“The goddess?” Logan asked.
Kvinlox chuckled. “I’m sure it would love to be called that. “It is a life-giving force. They aren’t even particularly rare, but if we don’t fight for every single one we find, they can become corrupted.”
“By Levemoth?” Logan asked.
Both Kvinlox and Tenflox’s eyestalks waved slightly. Logan got the impression it was their equivalent of a raised eyebrow.
“Better to not say its name,” Tenflox said brusquely.
“Huh?” Logan said. “Why should it matter?”
“The fish has a skill,” Kvinlox said. “It can navigate through the utterance of its name. If you say it, it will know which direction the utterance came from. It will start flying toward the direction it heard it from.”
“Damn . . . I just thought that was just some Faelf superstition.”
“It’s not as dangerous as using Numa that it has managed to tamper with, but I still would avoid it,” Kvinlox said.
“What does he want?” Logan asked.
“The fish? It’s a glorified servant. It used to be a Numa spirit itself, before the Big Bad corrupted it. That’s their game. They want to corrupt all Numa throughout the universe.”
“To what end?”
Tenflox scoffed. “Why is any war ever waged? Power and control. If the enemy controls all of Numa, they control magic itself, the advancement of species, longevity, access to energy. All of it.”
“All of this can be acquired through technology,” Logan remarked.
Tenflox hooted. “Technology? And how did that go for you humans?”
“You were impressed with my AI.”
“It’s all relative. Do you know why we chose you humans?”
“Enlighten me.”
Tenflox smirked. “Because you were going to self-destruct in the next fifteen-to-twenty years. Every prediction model came to the same conclusion. You were going to nuke each other out of existence.”
“Well, that . . .”
[. . . sounds about right.]
The two strange creatures sipped their drinks and watched Logan. He nodded to himself, and Tumor continued:
[These guys and whatever entity is behind Levemoth are fighting a proxy war for the fate of the Numa spirit on this planet. Humans were summoned to answer the threat that Levemoth poses. I infer that this has been going on for quite some time, as the vision of the First Folk showed us. The Levemoth broke some rule, which allowed these Administrators to interfere. I suggest you leverage your position.]
Logan nodded again and asked the obvious question. “You guys summoned the First Folk before too? Humans are part of the same continuum?”
Kvinlox nodded. “As are the Faelves and the Dorves. There were others too, but they were . . . not successful.”
“What do you want from us?” Logan asked. “To kill the big fish?”
Tenflox let out a nasty laugh. Logan raised a questioning eyebrow. Tenflox regarded Logan and then smirked.
“You think you can?”
Logan remembered the vast, powerful army the First Folk had assembled. Levemoth had wiped them out almost offhandedly.
“Kvinlox thinks you have a chance,” Tenflox said and his eyestalks made a circular motion. Kvinlox harrumphed in response. “As for me? I think you might be able to keep the big fish busy enough for us to find someone more capable.”
“We’re just a distraction?!” Logan said, anger rising in his voice. “You summoned our whole species here to buy time?”
“I believe you can do it,” Kvinlox said quietly. “And I don’t mean you as a species. I mean you, Logan Specter. I believe you have a chance.”
Tenflox scoffed. “After being starved for the better part of a century and creating the herald, I don’t think I have ever seen the big fish this weak. Have you, Kvinlox?”
“No, but—”
“And yet your great savior doesn’t stand a lick of chance against it in a battle. This kid isn’t even a warrior. He is a craftsman, for Numa’s sake! And not a high-level one. He has no plan, no army, no weapons. Nothing but a band of tribesmen and a bit of luck.”
“Then give me a better chance,” Logan said.
Tenflox scoffed again. “We cannot he—”
“Shut up, Tenflox,” Kvinlox said. His voice quivered, but when Tenflox turned a hostile gaze at Kvinlox, he stared his colleague down.
“Tsk,” Tenflox said and turned his head. “Do what you dare, Kvinlox.”
With that, Tenflox stomped out of the room. Kvinlox turned to Logan and smiled.
Logan returned the smile, albeit uncomfortably. “He does have a point. What can I do? Not even the First Folk stood a chance.”
“Your species has a very similar story to that of the First Folk,” Kvinlox said gently. “They were clever, the First Folk, yes. Much cleverer than you humans. And greedy. Just like the fish is. Just like the Dorves are. But the First Folk did not share their grudging humility under the threat of something greater.”
Logan relaxed and listened. He could practically feel Tumor recording every single syllable coming out of Kvinlox’s mouth.
“They thought they could outpace the Great Thief. They thought they could use its tricks against it. So they kept building, kept leveling, disregarding all else.”
“They knew they were using corrupted Numa and did it anyway?”
“Quite,” Kvinlox said. “They didn’t understand it would only strengthen Levemoth before it was much too late. And even when they did understand it, they still thought they could outrace it.”
“Icarus,” Logan muttered.
“There is great hubris in man,” Kvinlox said. “But it doesn’t hold a candle to the confidence of the First Folk. They thought they could outsmart the devil at its own game.”
Logan nodded. He wasn’t sure why Kvinlox was telling this story to him, but it seemed important to know.
“There is another reason we chose your species,” Kvinlox said. “It was actually a great risk, because of your psychology. Very similar to the First Folk, yet so different . . .”
The last part Kvinlox said with a sort of wistful reverence. Logan watched him and smiled idly.
What a strange guy.
“My job is to assess psychological states,” Kvinlox said. “Species level, group level, individual level. I have great hope for you in particular, Logan Specter, but I will not disclose more on that matter. I will just say this: We chose humans because of their ability to choose. The First Folk were corrupted by their greed and their pride. They had no hope to begin with, we can see that now in retrospect. But you humans . . . You are an uncanny species. Tenflox and I had a good laugh once at your lack of self-awareness. Forever debating whether free will exists or not, yet never has any species exhibited such a free, unhinged spirit. Such ability to change, such ability to survive, to adapt, to thrive.”
“And such ability to destroy ourselves,” Logan said and offered a quiet smile. Kvinlox returned it in kind.
“Quite,” the alien said. “But you are a species that can learn, and learn remarkably fast. Now that you have had a taste of the failures of the First Folk, perhaps you can do better.”
“Perhaps,” Logan said and then cast a heavy gaze on Kvinlox. “But I need help.”
