Played into a Corner (Book 1): A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure Series, page 9
You might ask: “Okay then, Mr. Arthur — so what are you going to do?”
Oh, my dear, naive pupils!
First of all, it was time to stop crying.
Second, I was going to start digging up information like Satan digging a path back home.
Third, and most importantly — I was going to avoid all the clichés!
No butting heads with admin; no running after glory or popularity; no trying to be smarter than everybody else, looking for ancient artifacts, setting up my own harem, or (Gods forbid) starting wars with any powerful guilds.
My goal would be to make as little noise as possible, while walking through the metaphorical equivalent of a dry thicket full of grand pianos. I knew this might be hard, because... Well, let’s just say I had always been quite a musician! For some reason, though, I felt totally certain that the problems typical of such stories would end up making their way to me all the same.
Okay, I thought — let’s take stock for a moment. I can’t start fights on my own initiative. I don’t know jack shit about the game. I don’t have a deadly army at my disposal. I’ll die the first time some hot-headed noob decides to slap me across the face. I can’t even say my nickname, and my face is trapped inside some epic mask. If it seems like I’m the unluckiest person in the world, then let me tell you, there’s a good reason for that.
Gods, I thought… Why does it have to be this way? All my sins, right? Well, screw you. Let’s play this piece-of-shit game!
“Aa-aa-aagh!” I jumped up, full of determination. Well, that, and an animalistic fury directed at everything and everyone in my life.
And it was animalistic in another sense, as well: I was completely naked, if you don’t count my mask. It turned out that the room was actually pretty chilly without any clothes on. My whole body recoiled, shrank, and started begging the icy air for mercy.
“Brr...” I rubbed my hands together as I looked around for some sort of clothing, before eventually noticing that there was a small roll of fabric lying on the dead man’s chest. “Well, I guess YOU don’t need it anymore, right?”
My puny little hands reached down and boldly tore the roll from the corpse’s hands, then unrolled it in the dim light of the torches.
It turned out to be a bluish-black cloak.
I threw it on, then checked out my avatar once again in the appropriate window. I decided it would be worth trying to find some pants, because the sight of a gangly-looking naked man, wrapped in a dark cloak, with a stone mask on his face, seemed likely to cause something of a stir in civilized society. Don’t get me wrong — I’m no prude, and I might not have minded in other circumstances, but I knew I wouldn’t survive for long without a less-conspicuous outfit. Besides, I was freezing!
The cloak’s clasp was right below my neck, and it extended down to just below my knees. In other words, even a light breeze would be enough to bare my family jewels to the world, and provoke an insatiable lust among members of the fairer sex. And maybe not just the fairer one.
I looked around the room for other artifacts (although I knew they’d be no more useful than the mask), but as soon as my foot touched down in an unilluminated part of the room, a message popped up in front of my eyes.
|Congratulations on successfully completing the event “Noob’s Warm-up!”|
|Attention: you have completed your first event. Your achievement window is now accessible|
Hot on the heels of that second message, a little translucent square began to glimmer in the corner of my eye. All it took was me turning my eyes toward it, and the little box swung into action immediately.
|Achievements|
Can’t get any worse than this: arriving in the game with the lowest possible attribute stats
Servants: unlocking your controllable unit window
Unique in the army: giving a unique name to one of your servants
First battle: entering your first battle and surviving it
Breath on your neck: being close to death
Lucky bastard: finding a cursed artifact
Great, I thought... Something to tell the grandkids someday.
But whatever. Standard-level achievements don’t affect anything anyway, so I can just forget those for now. Now let’s move on and check out my attribute window!
|Attributes|
Strength: 3
Dexterity: 4
Physique: 3
Node Power: 0
Experience: 5
Experience of unknown artifact (1): 0
AI: present
This was big news.
First of all, my own Experience — bitter as it may have been — had jumped up a full three points! Next, I had a whole new attribute to investigate. As soon as I picked the mask up, I could tell it was pretty strange, but even with that knowledge in mind, the little bastard still managed to surprise me. I would have to level the mask up, in addition to leveling myself up. How, you might ask? If only I could have asked somebody that question myself…
At the time, however, I knew that the curse wasn’t my top priority. Rather more important was the task of saving my buttcheeks (and future ability to have children, even if they were only virtual ones) from frostbite. As far as I knew, it was perfectly possible to sire a child in the game. It was very strange to think about a child that called you “daddy” being controlled by some soulless AI, but I have to admit that it was also a very interesting idea.
Not that I was ever going to go through with it, of course. I say that as if anybody in the world would have cared.
I tried to warm myself up by standing near one of the torches, but I quickly realized that they didn’t provide any heat, so I quickly darted off into the nearest tunnel. Instinctively, I threw up my cloak to cover myself from the Slime as I did so. “Pants in place. Awaiting further orders,” whispered my buttocks.
I glanced at my avatar again and nodded with satisfaction. Good, I thought: at least now, I won’t get thrown in jail if I happen to walk by some little kids. In fact, I actually looked pretty presentable, all things considered. The angular mask and dark cloak gave me a sort of mysterious air, like some traveler running from his past. All that remained was to hope that some psychotic hero wouldn’t show up, mistake me for some dangerous villain, and demand that I duel him. Bandits might also be a threat, considering that I didn’t exactly look poor anymore (although this was mainly because of the mask).
All that aside, however, I could finally go out into the world again. But first...
|Character condition window|
Physical: everything seems okay now.
Energetic: something’s wrong.
Psychological: these curses might be affecting you.
Hm... Thanks, little window. Informative as always. With a feeling of dissatisfaction (perhaps like that of someone who was trying to get into a shop, only to find the door blocked by a metal grate), I opened my character window and glanced at my A.L.. There was a little “1” staring back at me.
“Hah! Suck on that, Demiurge!” I thrust a fist up into the air.
No sooner did I do this, however, than my smile faded from my face and turned into a grumpy, dissatisfied, toad-like frown. Sure, I now bore at least a faint resemblance to a normal player (albeit one with some of the worst starting conditions in history), but at what cost? I couldn’t use skills or spells. I couldn’t wear armor, or even get into a fight on my own initiative.
I walked past Snot (who seemed to be sleeping, as far as I could tell) and collected the beakers that were lying all over the ground in one of the other tunnels. First and foremost, I would need to get the hell out of this freezing dungeon. Once that was done, I could think about what to do next.
“Vampires! Heel!” I held up my hand.
Apparently, it was enough simply to think of a command, then say something approximately similar to what you wanted, and your controlled units would obey you. It must have been; otherwise, I have no idea why that particular command would have worked on my bats.
“Hm...” A crazy idea took shape in my mind. “Take a bite and drink a drop of my blood!”
You might be wondering how I suddenly felt confident enough to be barking orders like the emperor of the world, when not half an hour previously I had been lying on the ground, covered in tears and snot, with my bare ass hanging out?
I guess I just DID.
Unable to resist my command, the Flyers bit my arm in three separate places, then each lapped up a little drop of blood with their cute little tongues.
“Agh!” I growled. And not because of the cuteness.
It didn’t hurt very bad, of course, but it was still quite an unpleasant feeling.
But it ended up being worth the effort, because it helped me understand another of the game’s mechanics. Technically, if I ever ended up needing to cut off one of my own arms during a battle (you never know), I could always make use of Snot’s flesh-devouring property to get the job done with relative quickness and accuracy.
For just a moment, I toyed with the idea of using this same property to have the Slime eat the artifact off my face, but then I remembered the little green gourmet’s eccentric tastes and decided that would probably be a bad idea. Maybe it was possible, but at least for the time being, I still had no idea how (or if) the mask could possibly be removed.
“Bats — hang upside down on the inside of my cloak!”
I threw up my arms, baring my half-naked body and revealing the inner lining of my robe. My obedient servants fluttered up into the air, spun around above my head a few times, and then dove down and sank their little claws into the thick fabric.
At least this way, I’d always have somebody by my side. And really, it was probably the best solution for them, as well. Think about it from Dracula’s perspective for a moment. Listen to the little bat thoughts that were flying around in his mind:
“We have such a good master. It’s warm next to his body, and this cloak keeps us safe from the sun. We could sleep for days on end before he actually asks us to do anything.”
That was definitely exactly what he was thinking. Believe me. I would know.
“Plus, he can’t fight anyway, so the cloak won’t be getting disturbed very often. Thank the Gods we found a master who’s such a los—“
That’s enough, Dracula. You’re a guest in this robe. Be polite.
Shivering slightly every time the Flyers’ chilly little paws brushed against my skin, I struggled to get the Slime into its huge jar, and then dragged my whole little army back to the surface, grunting and groaning all the way. With every step I took, I felt my little heart beating more and more furiously inside my chest, until finally my vision filled with the same blood-red film as before. Ah, yeah, I thought. Overexertion...
Thankfully, I had already reached the exit by that point, so I had a good view of a beautiful game-generated sunset as I sat there recovering, sitting on top of my jar (and yes, I know that sounds weird).
Time in EndGame moved about four times faster than it did in the real world, which meant that four game days elapsed for every real-world day. Apparently, I had appeared in the game sometime around evening, and had then been so busy with my various problems that I hadn’t noticed the sun collecting its marbles and heading home.
While I waited for the burning ball to recede from view (and kick me out of the game when it did), I thought about my long-term plans.
I didn’t think I’d have any luck simply taking up residence in a city, sculpting things in the central square and selling them for meager amounts of cash, or anything like that. Demiurge obviously wanted some fun, so any such attempt to live a normal life would probably be interrupted by... Oh, I don’t know... Maybe some Hellfire Dragons, coming to look for a man in a legendary stone mask. I would have to go looking for adventure.
And since I couldn’t sit tight in one spot and keep a low profile, I would need to think of other ways to stay safe. One bite from a rat had almost been enough to kill me; and that, lest we forget, was a creature that most players could stomp out of existence with ease, even at the very start of the game. Sure, I had a ton of experience in PVP, but what use would that be if I couldn’t even attack anybody? Especially if any opponent could incinerate me with a single slap to the face?
I would have to find allies, and also some way to remove this mask. Well, either remove it, or find some build that would obviate its negative consequences. Just so you understand what a deep, dark shithole I had ended up in, let’s run through the basics one more time. First, I couldn’t use magic or skills of any kind. I was never going to be some sort of wizard-boy, especially since I was clearly meant to be some sort of Summoner who relied on his servants to fight. And since magical energy was out of the question as a means of self-defense, you might think I would need to work on a melee-fighter build. But I had a whole range of other curses which basically kicked that idea in the groin and told it to shut the hell up. Losing my own HP as punishment for hitting an opponent; a strict limit on how long I could fight; a ban on wearing any kind of armor at all. That didn’t exactly scream “born to be a melee fighter!” The build would have to be that of a long-range fighter.
Basically, I had only two options — throwing together an army like my life depended on it, or creating a character with the following unusual combination of features: [melee-fighter archetype]-[without the ability to wear armor]-[using only light weapons]-[possessing Vampiric powers]-[and killing every enemy on the field within three minutes]-[using only the power of my attributes]-[and my passive skills]. Something like that.
I don’t know about you, but personally, I preferred the former option (that of relying on my little army) to the latter.
I would need some sort of Golden Horde, assembled from the fantasy world around me. Where could I get it? Well, first of all, I would have to reveal my nickname to the world sooner or later, which meant that joining the forces of truth and righteousness wasn’t going to be an option. That left the infernal spawn of the abyss, and any characters who happened to be neutral in relation to me. Ah... And then there was the Walir fan club, of course. But that was 30% of the player population; I couldn’t exactly go out and recruit them all.
Anyway, I thought... Time to get out of the game and stand up from this jar. We’ll get a plan hammered out soon enough.
As for the game itself, I knew the first step would be to find the nearest settlement and figure out where I was. From there, I would need to start up some sort of commercial enterprise, earn enough to hire a unit of first-class mercenaries, and then head back to see my wife in the Kingdom of the Dead. The game had already given me a pretty big hint in that regard, of course, by saying that “No one believes that you are the reincarnation of Nergal and the hero who destroyed him.” But surely my life partner, who had seen my face so many times according to EndGame’s lore, would be able to recognize me?
“Ugghh...” I slapped a palm against my stupid, thick forehead.
How would she even SEE my beautiful face, when it was covered by the Mysterious Mask of the Loser? I guess I would have to make room for a task called “Get this mask off my face,” somewhere between “Return home” and “Hire a first-class unit of mercenaries.”
No matter how much I thought about the whole mercenary thing, though, I found myself feeling more and more convinced that this was a bad idea. Even in a group of neutral players, I would eventually hire someone — a particularly aggressive Gnome, for example — who would find a reason to stick a knife between his employer’s shoulder blades.
“Tss.” I clicked my tongue at my own thoughts and leaned forward onto my knees.
Whatever the case, there was another part of my survival plan that required some solutions even more urgently — namely, my real-world situation. I would have to find a new source of money. Besides, there was bound to be a ton of information about the game on the internet, and I knew I could probably find the location of my tomb on a public-access map.
Okay, I thought... It’s decided!
After nodding with satisfaction at the outcome of my conversation with myself, I tried to feel out the exit button — and failed. But it had always been...
Dammit, where WAS it?
Panic poked its head out of the dark corners of my mind for a moment, but my sense of resolve was still strong enough to chase it away again. I spent about a minute running my eyes across the space in front of me, looking for the button I needed. But I couldn’t find it.
Could it really be? Had I actually been saddled with the worst scenario imaginable? Was I really trapped inside a game, while my real body was lying dead in its capsule?
No, I thought! Anything but that! I don’t want to be locked in here forever!
Already singed by fear, my nerves sent an impulse into my hands, which immediately brought them up to my mouth. The little stones along the edges of the mask’s mouth slid obligingly to the sides, allowing my teeth to get a firm grip on my nails, which I immediately started chewing to bits. My heart was heavy with despair; it felt like it might crack under the strain of the emotions that were coursing through it, and bury me forever inside this goddamn game!
Gods above, what was I supposed to do?! I couldn’t just stay there! I still hadn’t apologized to little Emilia, or visited my adopted mother’s grave. And the anniversary of her death was in two days!
No, no, no — anything but this! Shit, shit, shi—
Demiurge: check the lower right corner of your field of vision, next to your achievement icon.
My eyes shot down to the bottom of the space in front of me.
Sure enough, there it was.
Demiurge: Ugh. Jesus...
Sorry. Must have missed that part.
Hint to the noob: your body won’t disappear when you exit the game. It will continue to exist within the world of EndGame. It will lie unconscious until you return to the game. Even in such a state, however, other characters will be able to interact with it just as they would with any other player, which means that you could potentially be attacked at any moment. As such, you should avoid leaving your body in open spaces; also, being soaked by rain will increase the chances of falling ill. In the future, given a sufficiently-high Experience stat, your AI will be able to take control of your body for defense and/or other purposes, as determined by the user in advance. Remember, though: even in such situations, it will only be able to operate at 50% of its normal capacity.
