Chapter 24 – New Threats (Patreon)

Luke had hoped he’d be in the top 100 at least.

It was clear that there were some serious contenders out there who did nothing but farm monsters all day long. Which made him doubt the efficacy of what he was doing.

Unless there was some other trick to earning incredible amounts of LP rapidly.

As Luke thought about it further, he grew confident that there had to be a way. He was held back by his coworkers for some time, but it must go further than that.

He supposed it was true that a well-balanced group could possibly farm LP faster than he could by himself.

However, to achieve that, they would have to be a well-oiled machine indeed. At least one of them would need a bloodline, or some other unique power that gave them an advantage over their fellow G-Grade humans. Likely some titles too.

Having a Healer would be a massive boon. Right now, Luke had to be cautious and careful. Too much damage and he’d be out for a lot longer than it took his health to naturally regenerate.

He had learned the hard way that taking an injury crippled his regeneration to the point that he was forced to use a health potion to heal the affliction.

With a proper balanced party, you could probably push the limits much further and have everybody specialize as well.

Luke had to do every role himself, as well as watching his own back. The very thought of sleeping was fraught with danger. He was running on fumes and had been ever since that night he was nearly killed.

Maybe that’s it,he thought. I’m wiped. So tired that I don’t even realize it anymore. It’s almost like being drunk.

It was freeing being alone, but the dark side of solitude was tough and wearying.

Not having anybody to talk to sucked, but he was used to that. It was the lack of support or backup. If he fell into a hole and broke his leg, he’d better find a way to get out without that leg because nobody was coming to help him.

It forced him to think of his situation in new and, quite frankly, frightening ways. Every single thing he did mattered. Every minute somebody else was gaining more LP than he was, with a balanced party that wasn’t beset by problems, and people who knew what they were doing.

The odds were stacked against him.

There had to be somebody who was jumping for joy when the universe got uplifted. The laws of probability practically demanded that there was someone out there that was at the intersection of physically skilled and hardcore gamer who would understand all the nuances of this new universe.

Judging by the rankings, it clearly wasn’t Luke.

Luke rubbed his chin, half-aware that inky shadows were slowly swirling around him. They responded to his mood, flowing smoothly over the rubble and debris in a great big whorl.

He could put a stop to it, but he didn’t mind at all. In fact, the shifting shadows helped him to think.

Perhaps, much like Henry’s fortress, there were certain locations that were key to an overwhelming advantage. Of course, that fortress had its downsides, but it would increase the odds of those people surviving.

Not that Luke was content to just survive.

The question was, what would that be? An area with stronger than usual monsters, or something else entirely?

He still hadn’t seen enough of this new universe to even guess what secrets it had in store. Were there dungeons? Lairs and the like where vicious monsters spawned and killing them netted more than the standard amount of experience and LP?

He wanted to find out. He didn’t dare to hope, but maybe there was another outcast like him that he could rely on from time to time. His [Soloer, First Class] title made his stats stronger when he fought enemies alone, but he might be able to pick up another title that suited cooperation.

Or maybe that’s just sleep-deprived, wishful thinking, Luke thought with another shake of his head. I can’t have the best of both worlds, can I?

Either way, he wouldn’t have minded having someone else around to trust. A friendly face that wasn’t moments away from backstabbing him, or consistently regarded him with suspicion and disgust.

Unlikelier things had happened, such as Luke going to work and spontaneously attaining the ability to level up and acquire magical powers.

Still better than doing karaoke after work, Luke thought.

Luke raised his new [Ratking’s Ire] throwing dagger, and with a surge of speed, tossed it into a heap of debris in front of him.

Whether it was his stats or his skills improving, Luke’s throwing was getting to superhuman levels. The dagger didn’t so much as fly from his hand as leap into the air.

The force behind the weapon made it blur like a buzzsaw as it zipped through the air and landed point-first into the sodden wood planks at the far side of the large room.

He had tried to use [Barrage] on it, checking to see if he could increase the damage from the lone weapon, but it didn’t work. Luckily, he didn’t lose any stamina for the attempt. He could simply feel like it wasn’t working, and that was that.

Perhaps because it wasn’t technically ammunition? Otherwise, he could throw just about anything and magically quadruple the damage he could do, which would be absolutely broken.

Throwing weapons were certainly turning out to be ideal for him. They synergized well with his swords, being bladed implements as well, and utilized stamina just like his regular attacks. That left what little precious mana he had devoted largely to his bloodline’s shadow powers.

He didn’t have to worry about maintaining a delicate spellcasting tool to attack from afar, nor loading a crossbow and cranking its mechanism or properly caring for a bow’s string. He wasn’t held back by a high mana cost spell or ability, either.

Luke counted about 6 or 7 seconds before he felt a tingling in his hand. He held the palm open, expecting the blade to come streaking through the air back to him, but that didn’t happen.

Instead, the blade lodged deeply into the sewer driftwood, shimmered and vanished, reappearing in his hand as if it had always been there.

Because he was Luke and deterministic systems were his bread-and-butter, he tried it again and again, testing it to the best of his abilities each time.

There was no limit that he could tell for the teleportation, but the timing was slightly different each time. He even began using the assessment timer as a sort of stopwatch and even that came up with errors between a full second and a half second.

It wasn’t until he managed to get the timing down to within half a second after repeated tests that he figured out the truth behind it.

He must have gone into one of his “zones” where the world fell away, and the only thing that mattered was what he was doing in that instant.

Tossing the dagger and holding his hand out as he carefully timed it had become rote. When he heard a squeal of old rusted metal from the way he had come and his heart rate spiked in alarm, Luke finally understood.

Heart hammering in his chest, the ratking’s dagger came back a full two seconds sooner than it had for the last 30 throws.

While the ratking weapon’s teleportation recall wasn’t instant, it was still fairly fast. More importantly, it was reliable and didn’t consume any vital resources that Luke could discern.

Since it teleported, rather than flew back to his hand, he didn’t have to worry about obstacles getting in the way of being able to use the throwing weapon.

All in all, it was an incredible weapon. One that he wanted to stick with for a long time. Its only real downside was the fact that he didn’t have more than one.

Well, that and the fact that its rarity is stuck at what it is. Just like my cloak, Luke thought, curious if there was a way to increase the rarity of certain items. Uncommon-rarity was excellent, but it wouldn’t last forever.

Most importantly, the throwing weapon wasn’t tied to time as he had thought. It was tied to his heartbeat.

Luke wanted to test it out, but he wasn’t about to make more noise. He sheathed the dagger on his now-crowded belt, near the small of his back where he could reach for it without arousing too much suspicion.

Slipping through the darkness of the shadows, Luke retreated to a shelf of stone that was out of the trickle of water running down the middle of the large room.

Luke frowned at that detail. When he first came down here hours ago, he didn’t remember that much water.

The room looked designed to flood, now that he had nothing better to do than examine it. Large and oversized, it had a series of V-shaped indentations toward the center where a thin trickle of foul water was running toward the distant depths of wherever this room led.

He inched closer to the way he had come. Luke could make out a grating and a strange series of slabs attached to rusted chains that ran up into the ceiling and beyond the range of his shadow vision.

Sluice gates? he wondered to himself as he took out two throwing knives from his belt. He held two in each hand between his knuckles for quick access.

Luke started to get a bad feeling about all this, but silence reigned for the next several minutes. Long enough that he wondered if he had imagined the sound.

I really need to get out of here. I’m starting to get stir crazy.

A few minutes more and he heard the sound again, muffled this time, as if somebody was trying to be careful. Whispered voices came next, and then he saw the booted feet and the glow of a lantern.

Impressive, he found himself thinking. They had not only picked up his trail but managed to catch up to him despite his huge lead. He hoped John didn’t rat him out. He couldn’t exactly blame him if he did.

Apparently, Henry and Marcy’s reach went farther than he thought.

Then again, he had taken copious breaks to pace himself. He had thought he put enough distance between himself and his would-be pursuers.

While he hadn’t been focused on resting, and therefore increasing his regeneration rates, he had recovered well enough that he thought he could handle the one or two people they would send after him.

It wasn’t until Luke saw the full 6-man team that he started to worry. He tried to focus on them, to examine them, but it didn’t seem to work like it did on monsters.

He got nothing.

Maybe I need a specific skill to look at humans like that?

Not that they could see him. Even with their lantern, he could wrap himself up in the shadowy corners and recesses of the large room and slip in behind them.

Then he could determine whether they were really here for him. Though he couldn’t imagine any other reason, that wasn’t good enough for him to start killing indiscriminately.

Besides, if they were threats, he could take them out from the shadows as he trailed after them.

Or so he thought until the lantern swung in his direction and the group of 6 began carefully moving toward him. He moved as silently and quickly as he could, keeping shadows wrapped tight against him like a cloak against the cold, but they kept trailing after him.

He was lucky the room was so large, but it wasn’t large enough.

Every minute or two, the group would pause, confer, and then begin moving toward his new hiding spot. He couldn’t figure out how, but they were tracking him.

He wasn’t going to get away this time.