Predictably, the words uttered in anger didn’t have the effect that the man wanted them to have. Most of the people watching them – mostly new players – simply took several big steps backward, getting out of the way.
With a glance, Sam could see the excitement on their faces at the expected fight. High-level fights were rather popular on the internet after all.
Not that they would get their wish fulfilled.
Most of the players and NPCs around the man yelling just stood there, warily looking at Sam’s group.
Grinning slightly, he extended his magical senses, not even bothering to hide them, and swept through the entire group arrayed against his team.
“What, reinforcement stopped for coffee or something?” he asked cheekily as he reviewed the results of his scan.
Most of the NPCs were maybe the equivalent of a Level 50 player, and the rest of the players were hovering around Level 80, with only a few of them hitting the Level 101 barrier. The man in the lead was over that level, but by not much. And based on the quality of his core, his talent was negligible. Which explained his presence supervising the noob fracture.
The man gritted his teeth and pointed at Sam. “Just wait until the guild gets here! You’ll be sorry then!”
“I’m quaking in my boots…” Sam replied drily. Then raised one of his feet, showcasing his boot that was most definitely not quaking. “See?”
Sam would have sworn he heard the guy’s teeth grind together. “Doesn’t matter! This is our territory! You can’t expect just to get away!”
“I mean, I can…” Sam said with a shrug, then turned to Katie. “Go…fetch!”
Isabella rolled her eyes, but Katie let out a demented laugh that caused several NPCs (and even some players) to take an involuntary step back, making Sam think that the girl was using some kind of skill, then, with a great push, jumped forward, sword raised, ready to strike.
“RAAAAAAGH! DIE IN THE NAME OF THE CAKE!” she roared and fell among the enemy.
Her landing instantly killed somebody, the spikes on her armor doing their job, then she began to swing the slab of metal she called a sword, and soon, blood and body parts were everywhere.
“What cake?”
“STOP HER!”
“FIRESTO–”
“Why is it so spiky?”
“My spleen!”
Sam stood next to the others, occasionally one of them raising a shield to defend against a stray projectile (or body parts), but otherwise watched with muted amusement as Katie rampaged through the enemy group.
They saw several squadrons of NPC guards rushing at her in tight, well-practiced formations, only to be annihilated by several black gaseous tentacles that grew out of her back. It was rather gruesome to see the tentacles lash out, grab hold of the guards, and throw them every which way, usually landing in a heap of dented armor, motionless.
The biggest insult was probably the fact that Katie didn’t even look at them while the tentacles decimated several guard squadrons. Her focus was in front of her, where her blade, flooded with the customary eldritch yellow light, moved through the fighting NPCs and players.
Naturally, that didn’t mean that the enemy players, all clad in some kind of reddish armor, their bodies leaking trace amounts of deep red, almost black gas, didn’t fight back.
They did.
Well, they tried…
Sam saw so many ultimate defensive skills pop off that it was quite hard to count all of them. Yet, they moved with some experience, so while one sacrificed their ultimate defense with the long cooldoown the others maneuvered in such a way to be also protected by the spell.
Sadly, all that didn’t mean much against the battle-maniac that Katie was, especially boosted with the items gathered and crafted by their guild, and with Sam himself advising on her build. The qualitative difference was just too big.
“Should we help?” Clarissa asked just as a stray lightning strike pinged off her hexagonal shield.
“Katie or the blood guys?” Isabella asked with a chuckle.
Sam was about to join when laughter cut through the general noise of the battle.
“You fool! You thought you could just cut us down?” The surprisingly still alive leader of the enemy group stood behind the carnage, their feet in a puddle of slowly flowing blood and a manic grin on their face. “You stand in the center of our power! Binding Chains of the Flowing Blood!” he exclaimed suddenly, magical energy surging from his body as he went through several hand signs, straight into the blood at his feet.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Instantly, all the dead bodies spasmed as one, then the blood – both inside the bodies and outside them – exploded into the air, looking like a reverse rainfall, before freezing in place and rushing toward Katie. Within the blink of an eye, they formed into chains leading to the bodies, body parts, and blood pools on the ground, stopping Katie in her place.
Sam saw her strain against the restraining chains, while the guy just stood there, breathing deeply but with a very satisfied look on his face. “Hah! I got you now!”
“I think the dude forgot we were here…” Sam muttered. “Dan…”
The leader of the enemy group stood there, hands on his hips, gloating at the still frozen body of Katie as the low-level players watched from the edges of the battle with wide eyes.
“You thought you could just waltz in and do whatever you want because you are from Chrysalis? Well let me tell y–”
WHIZZZ
PLAP
Before he could finish the word, a bright lance of plasma flew from Dan’s hand and vaporized most of his upper body, which stood there for a moment before the impact of the spell pushed it over, and it fell into the bloody mud.
Instantly, whispers broke out between the watching players, all of them excitedly pointing at them and the dead as the chains binding Katie vanished with the death of the caster. The girl shook herself, stepped forward, then hefted her giant greatsword onto her shoulder while eyeing the still-alive enemy.
“Well?”
Predictably, they ran.
Katie just laughed and walked back to Sam and the others, finally stopping next to Izabella.
Sam sent her a thumbs-up. “Good job! I’m sure the recording is already on the net.”
Clarissa let out a small sound of surprise. “Ohh! So that’s why only she fought… You didn’t want them to see too much…”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Sam agreed with the healer. Then he looked around, watching as the players previously excitedly watching the happenings began to break away, leaving the fortification that was built around the fracture they had just destroyed. Wisely, in his opinion. “Let’s skedaddle before the competent ones arrive!”
“Awww…I wanted to fight more!”
“Don’t worry, we have a few more fractures to destroy.”
“Yay! You are the best boss ever!”
There was a moment of silence, then Clarissa spoke up.
“Skedaddle? How old are you?”
Sam just turned around and began to walk away from the bloody battlefield.
Sam shook off the last remnants of the fog of confusion as he emerged from his gaming pod, then, with a well-practiced step, left the device, heading to the shower. He planned to do some planning and conspiring with Lucy later, and he didn’t want to smell like old ham.
A while later, after the shower, food, and some general upkeep of his home, and after Lucy arrived, they were seated around his living room table, all sorts of documents and notebooks thrown everywhere, while an honest-to-god whiteboard stood near the windows, surrounded by projected screens in the air.
“How is the new town? Everything working well?”
Lucy waved her hand around a little. “More or less. The hydroponic section is around eighty percent done, and most of the basic defenses are finished. The only thing we’re waiting on is Liz and the Artifacts guys finishing Project Zerg.”
“That sounds excellent!” Sam said with a smile. “What about personnel?”
“We have enough support staff for everything. Key positions filled with people vetted by Tim or trusted NPCs. I even had some staff from Nowhere to pose as regular workers, just in case.”
“Oh, they finally accepted you? How many demons did you have to kill?”
“Demons? I just had an interview with a kind old lady, then after a few days, I got a message, I was in.”
“That’s fucking unfair!”
“Sucks to be you…”
“Whatever. I’m totally not jealous. Supplies and security?”
“The best money can buy, and some more even money couldn’t buy. Those crazy priestesses even sent their own paladins to patrol the area,” she told him with a proud look. Sam could understand her pride. Organizing everything in their new town was probably harder work than most people could manage.
“Those paladins will definitely be useful in the fight.”
“If we can stop them preaching and accusing everybody as heretics…”
“I believe in you, my wonderful and amazing co-leader of our prosperous company!” Sam exclaimed boisterously as he smiled at his friend.
Lucy, however, didn’t return his smile. “Yeah, it’s amazing… I just don’t like we’re going to use all of that to fight a war.”
Sam grimaced and reached over to pat her on her knee. “I know, but that’s the price of our decision…”
“Your decision, Sam,” she quietly retorted, moving her knee from his touch.
He pulled his hand back awkwardly. “Yeah… well, who’s the more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?”
She eyed him for a moment with a weird look in her eyes before letting out an explosive breath and throwing herself back on the sofa, looking at the ceiling.
“I must be the queen of fools following that logic…”
“Hey! At least you’re a queen.”
“A queen of the land of fools…”
“You’re also fucking rich?” Sam offered.
She nodded, hearing that. “That helps a little…”
“Glad to hear,” he replied warmly before his voice turned more serious. “Enough of the jokes. Lay it on me. What’s bothering you?”
Lucy raised both her hands and waved them around, both at the documentation in the room and all the screens showing tactical and economical information, before flopping back on the sofa. “This!”
“He?”
“All of this… it’s just too much sometimes…” she admitted, still looking at the ceiling.
Sam frowned a little. “You can step back if you want. You don’t have to deal with the fighting if you don’t want to. Adam, Tim, and I can deal with things.”
Lucy snorted. “Yeah, and watch all my work go down in a blaze of glory…” She lifted her head a little, looking back at Sam. “I promised to help, and I’m going to do my part. Just as we agreed. But I demand a long-ass vacation after it!”
“I think we all deserve a long vacation after it…” he replied with a relieved tone.
For a moment, they both fell silent before Lucy spoke up again. “You know… back then, when you walked up to me at that cafe, I expected some bad flirting, maybe some odious behavior. And now look where we are… sitting in a high-rise apartment that I could have never afforded, planning a war in a game spanning several countries.”
Sam laughed. “I can still try to lay it on you, if you want!”
She giggled. “Please don’t!”
Sam was about to reply when his phone began to ring. “Oh, what fresh hell is this?” he grumbled as he saw the caller ID. It was Lara. He picked it up and put it on speakerphone. “Hey! I’m with Lucy. What’s up?”
“Hey, boss, Lucy! Still sane?” came from the other side.
Lucy leaned closer to the phone. “As much as one can expect when spending time with this idiot. Why did you call?”
Lara let out a laugh, and Sam could hear Dan laughing in the background with the quiet drone of a car. “We just left a family lunch.”
“Oh, anything interesting?”
“Yeah. Sam, grandpa wants to talk with you again…”
Owed bonus chapters: ---
Character Sheet
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