Respawn: Blade of the Ancients (Respawn LitRPG series Book 5) Read online

  Contents:

  Arthur Stone

  Respawn 5: Blade of the Ancients

  Chapter 1

  Life Nine. The Safest of Safes

  Chapter 2

  Life Nine. Hunger and Thirst

  Chapter 3

  Life Nine. Mathematics

  Chapter 4

  Life Nine. The Sights

  Chapter 5

  Life Nine. King of the Desert

  Chapter 6

  Life Nine. Packed with Happiness

  Chapter 7

  Life Nine. Underground Secrets

  Chapter 8

  Life Nine. Grave Robber

  Chapter 9

  Life Nine. Training

  Chapter 10

  Life Nine. The Undertakers

  Chapter 11

  Life Nine. The Treasure Mound

  Chapter 12

  Life Ninety-One. Interlude

  Chapter 13

  Life Nine. Desert Treasures

  Chapter 14

  Life Nine. The Loot

  Chapter 15

  Life Nine. A Reckless Run

  Chapter 16

  Life Nine. Food, Water, Shelter

  Chapter 17

  Life Nine. Fifth Mine.

  Chapter 18

  Life Nine. Business, Racism, and Bad Luck

  Chapter 19

  Life Nine. The Black Swamp

  Chapter 20

  Life Nine. The Opening Move

  Chapter 21

  Life Nine. No More Farming

  Chapter 22

  Life Nine. Quest Unknown

  Chapter 23

  Life Nine. Holey Cauldrons

  Chapter 24

  Life Nine. A Merry Town

  Chapter 25

  Life Nine. An Old Friend

  Chapter 26

  Life Nine. Searching for March

  Chapter 27

  Life Nine. Glass Factory

  Chapter 28

  Life Nine. Love, Peace, Beer

  Chapter 29

  Life Nine. Deja Vu

  Chapter 30

  Life Nine. Greed

  Chapter 31

  Life Nine. Number Go Down, Number Go Up

  Chapter 32

  Life Nine. Corpsulence

  Chapter 33

  Life Nine. Clash of the Giants

  Preface: Our hero’s stats at the start of Book V:

  Many thanks to my readers!

  Arthur Stone

  Respawn 5: Blade of the Ancients

  Chapter 1

  Life Nine. The Safest of Safes

  BAM. Cheater tripped on a rock. Despite flailing his arms, he went down hard, face-first into the nasty spines of a droopy cactus. The plant may have withered, but its tiny defenders were no less sharp for it; hundreds of the vile little spikes dug into his flesh. A normal person would, on a normal day, probably scream. Cheater, however, was hardly normal. To be honest, players on the whole were less-than-normal. One might also say this day wasn’t normal, either. Not to be grim, but it was about as normal as a certain summer day to the residents of downtown Hiroshima…after the day’s main event, that is.

  The cactus’ excruciating pinpricks hardly registered compared to the day’s backdrop of immeasurable pain. Well…the ones that stabbed him in the eye weren’t that great. They missed his left eye, which welled with tears; instead, they took out his right eye dead-on. His eye had been in poor shape, all things considered, but at least they could see the road. Now, he could kiss the road goodbye. As Cheater came to his senses, mind gradually reconnecting with the world, he sensed his bones and muscles were at least intact. Despite this, they were difficult to control housed in a sack of skin charred to a crisp. Even with his tortured flesh and damaged eyes, he had to make a move.

  First, Cheater determined the condition of his right eye, gritting his teeth as he felt around with his hands. His singed skin raked across the thorns, causing him to howl. In his agony, Cheater didn’t immediately realize that his torture sourced from a squat, stereotypical little desert plant. As he slowly recognized this, he crouched carefully and attempted to remove the obstructions from his vision. Tears streamed down his face, but not from the pain; after all, this paled in comparison to the day’s nightmares. Cheater knew a human body couldn’t process severe pain from two places at once, which—while cold comfort—was a strange blessing.

  After what felt like an eternity, his staunched tears allowed the world around him to vaguely fill itself in. He could no longer see the constellation that had guided him for hours of travel. During his trek, he often strayed off course, losing sight of the sky; even then, he lacked the necessary knowledge to read the sky accurately. Now, his only legible signpost was gone. Cringing from his cracked, practically charbroiled skin, Cheater clumsily swung back and forth, searching for direction from which he had come. His pitiful vision did him no favors and—combined with his equally pitiful intellectual capabilities—brought him to his knees. Collapsing in defeat, he knew he had no choice: he had to rest and recover.

  The one thing his eye could catch was some kind of ruin before him, a collapsed structure of massive stones. He’d passed several structures like it on his travel, all of which offered shoddy shelter, but this one would have to do. After all, it was either the ruin…or a nice little cushion of cactuses. As luck would have it, this ruin was practically a posh country pied-à-terre in comparison to the others, and it was a mere stone’s throw away—or a stone’s slide away, anyway. Sliding stones had blocked off the space beneath entirely on one side and partially on the other. The remaining gap was sufficient for a fit person to squeeze through with minimal trouble. Still, Cheater uttered a ragged scream as he pushed through, the rough rocks scraping against his burnt flesh.

  Once inside, Cheater fell against the rock wall, pausing for a moment to let the tears in his eyes cease burning. Feeling around for his backpack, he opened it mindlessly, his dissociation causing him to forget what he was searching for in the first place. He himself was practically brain-dead, but his hands seemed to find what they sought of their own volition: a hunk of cheese. He stuffed the cheese in his mouth packaging and all, too eager to gnaw the cheese to shreds to bother with unwrapping it. Jerking back, Cheater tried to regain control of his body, running his palm along his cheek. His scream might as well have been someone else’s, he was that far gone. While his foreign-sounding scream chilled him to the bone, it roused his brain to action.

  His hands and mouth gradually fell back under his control, his tongue reporting the wrapper. He did his best to extricate the plastic from between his teeth, wondering if he’d swallowed any. It was likely, but his brain shutdown had punched holes in his short-term memory. Come to think of it, his long-term memory was wrecked as well. Cheater might as well have been a hunk of cheese himself.

  Cheater had used a regeneration egg before. It was low-quality in comparison to some others on the market, but now he possessed a golden one. He remembered how he had pondered infected meat as it worked on his flesh. He reckoned it was not all that different from animal meat. Even those who lay slain in the streets, baking for weeks under the sun, had him drooling. He overrode his own olfactory protests, planning to plug his nose as he chewed. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and desperate measures had made Cheater a very special kind of gourmand. It was a wonder he didn’t eat his own backpack. Under the influence of the regeneration egg, anything was fair game for supper: the stew cans, their labeled containers, the trucks transporting them, the asphalt on which they drove…

  This being said, Cheater found his last s
crap of decorum and freed the cheese from its packaging before devouring it. He could barely taste it, but it quenched the pain as it filled his stomach. He sighed in ecstasy. Cheater’s regeneration had accelerated to the point where his organs were ballooning inside of him, the emergency process consuming an immense amount of his energy and matter. His body went cold as a reptile’s. Food—any kind of food—became his savior. Had he not brought his backpack, he’d literally be eating literal rocks for dinner and his own flesh for dessert. With no way to return for his backpack, auto-cannibalism would have been his only option. His character’s stats were under intense penalties and his Cartography hovered dangerously close to 0. Plunging the syringe’s contents into his leg, Cheater felt a hurricane of euphoric strength surge into him. This allowed him to drive one simple command from his head to his legs: take him away from there, and fast. His memory faltered shortly after that; all he could remember were this command and the unceasing pain. He had no idea where he had run, nor why. He thankfully possessed at least enough presence of mind to follow a constellation, so as not to run in circles.

  Cheater wiped away more tears. Tears? He was losing water. How was his supply doing? It was tough to assess his pack’s contents by touch. His fingers grazed a large bottle. Water? No—lifejuice. Still, this was the perfect find. As he struggled to pop off the lifejuice bottle’s tight cork, flakes of skin fell from his tortured hands. Once open, he gulped the spore solution without tasting, chugging until an overdose warning appeared. Sighing, Cheater re-corked the bottle. As his senses grew stronger, he audited the contents of his sack. While he had plenty of food for the week, he was nearly fresh out of water. Two unopened bottles and the dregs of a third made for a mere gallon; his lifejuice levels were also slim, a little under a liter. This was bad news, and Cheater’s thirst was oppressive. Had you shackled him to a rock before a vessel of water, he’d rip through his bonds to reach it. After all, his brain had demonstrated its power to access its own hysterical strength, hands and mouth moving against all odds. In light of this, the water would maybe last him a day. Then what?

  While dehydration was worth bearing in mind, it wasn’t a pressing reason to panic. The desert was arid and his health was poor; there was no way to reach better clusters in the immediate future. Water was out of the picture for now, so why worry about it? Making peace with this fact, Cheater set about preparing to sleep. Here and now, he’d rest for one whole day. Even if he did consume the last of his water, he wouldn’t mummify—he had food and the golden regeneration egg to rely on. While he wouldn’t be dancing through the desert at the day’s end, he’d at least be stable; after all, this was the best medicine the Continent had to offer. It couldn’t raise the dead, but it was a powerful and prompt panacea. Even if you were to lose a limb or organ, you’d be up and kicking within days. This made his scorched skin and seared muscles seem like a mere scratch.

  Now, his most important task was to survive the initial regeneration surge, a period of intensely-elevated metabolism wherein the body became capable of devouring itself. After this surge, the acceleration would slow and his burns would heal. For now, however, he would stop, eat and sleep. Reaching for his backpack, Cheater felt his stomach drop: wait, just a backpack? Where were his other things? Cheater checked the lump pressing into his spine. It was a holstered pistol, the one he’d given Titty Tat not long ago. Stupid bitch. This gun wouldn’t fire if he drew it now—Cheater made sure of that—but there were six good rounds in the magazine and a small piece of machinery in his pocket that might return the pistol to working order. Working with intricate metal parts, however, didn’t seem too fun with a pair of destroyed hands. He’d table this task for now. He also still had his rifle. Despite its weight and unwieldiness, Cheater realized he had somehow pushed it into the shelter. Thanks for not letting me down, hands! Even in his dissociative state, they did their best, seizing necessities both edible and inedible.

  Suddenly, Cheater’s skin went cold. Guts churning in panic, he felt around himself. Wait—where did I put it? Where is it? It’s not anywhere! Where the hell was his most important item of all? It was the very reason he’d roasted himself head-to-toe, alone in the midst of utter apocalyptic bedlam. Times Square in rush hour looked tidy in comparison to that arid nightmare. Before Tat had turned traitor, he vaguely remembered her pointing him to the place the loot was held, hidden in the carcass of the Nameless One. As Cheater punctured through it with his knife, a triumphant system message instantly popped up to announce his new loot. He even remembered thinking about Kitty. The girl’s colorful icon implied she was still active—still alive. But where was the loot? Cheater feverishly searched his person and backpack, fatigue and pain be damned. If he didn’t find it, that was it for him; if it were lost, there was no going back. Cheater would never be able to find his way to the battlefield; his map was total gibberish, the paths were dead-end, and he had no idea where he was. He might as well have been a drunkard, bumbling down the street in pretzel-swirl paths, with only fleeting moments of lucidity moving him forward.

  After all, his Pleasure meter had plummeted to zero instantaneously after his victory over the Unnamed One. The overwhelming amount of penalties stripped him of sensing, of feeling, of thinking, of discovering; even now, half of his menu was unavailable and the other inadvisable. The system clock—one of the most basic functions—had only just reappeared a minute ago, so he could forget about anything more complex. He would never again find the carcass of the Unnamed One, so if he’d lost the loot, there was nothing to be done. It wasn’t in his backpack. It wasn’t in his pockets. It wasn’t in his vest. It wasn’t even in his underpants! Where was it? Cheater tortured his ego to match his skin. Dammit, I’m such a fool! Enraged, he even punched himself in the chest with his own fist. However, the flash of pain he felt surprised him. Is there…something in my vest?

  It was a simple vest, swiped from a shopping mall the Unnamed One had nearly leveled. It replaced the vest he had nicked from a bot earlier, so dramatically torn by shrapnel and bullets as to be nearly useless. This new vest had been in great shape—before becoming acquainted, of course, with Tat’s fire magic—and was made of sturdy navy fabric. Cheater now felt something beneath his fingers other than cloth, however—something hard and solid. Reaching into his vest, he withdrew a pouch hanging to the remnants of his shirt, pressed against his flesh. It had clearly been there for quite some time, for it beat a bloody furrow into Cheater’s raw skin. Two large, empty magazines were inside, as well as a bundle of plastic bags packed with small items. Though his lips stung and cracked and bled and peeled…Cheater indulged in a broad smile.

  * * *

  His loot was beyond plentiful, practically impossible to count—though Cheater couldn’t count either way, given the state of his eyes. The pitch-blackness of his rocky refuge compounded his clouded vision; according to his system clock, this was the darkest part of the night. Cheater had near-blindly wandered the wilderness for hours before settling down, at which point he opened his logs to find an archived message listing his loot.

  The totals made his jaw drop: 534 items looted from the carcass! Most of the items weren’t necessarily invaluable, but you weren’t going to find a cheap drop from an Unnamed One. Every trophy was expensive, some worth a king’s ransom. A few were even priceless. Cheater was stranded in the middle of the desert with no medical care, limited food and virtually no water. Ironically, he possessed enough to pay for a full year of top-caliber, round-the-clock medical attention. His nurses would be beauty queens, to boot, and his ward would contain a personal buffet stocked with endless nourishment and lifejuice. There’d also definitely be a personal spa…

  …Stop it! Even ghouls weren’t dumb enough to entertain such daydreams. Spitting out an errant piece of plastic wedged between his teeth, Cheater mused for a moment on the treasure. He was no warrior, barely a level zero opponent in his condition. No one would break a sweat taking down a lump of scalded meat like him, with penalties on ev
ery stat at max. It didn’t help that his map was trash. The weakest infecteds, wandering by, could practically take him down by accident! To be fair, this was a distinct possibility given his proximity to the border. Before, the Unnamed One had kept them away, but without it, the place would be crowded before long. It wouldn’t be all too much of a tragedy if the infecteds found Cheater—they’d just kill him and leave the loot untouched. Other people, however, or immune digis? They’d likely seen Cheater’s victory announced. If the logs were to be believed, the whole Continent was up to date on his success.

  It was also worth noting that the Spiders knew where the monster lived. This Unnamed One wasn’t the only beast of its kind in the world, but why wouldn’t they head to check on this one after the announcement? Scouts would quickly report back that the monster had been put down. After they informed the Spiders that someone had extracted an unknown quantity of top-shelf loot, the Spiders would be none too happy. They wouldn’t cry, of course—they’d sooner self-defenestrate than throw some Unnamed One a funeral—but they’d spare no expense to retrieve every last bit of the bounty. For them, this was justice, and there was far too much at stake. After all, the bag’s contents were worth over millions of spores, a sum equivalent to that of putting down several megalopolises’ worth of ghouls. All he needed to do was fell a single Unnamed One to become awash in riches.

  Of course, “price” was a useless construct for some of the items, which were rarely on sale. A certain crystal might be transferred for 250,000 spores, and Cheater held seven. Did that mean he could sell them for 1,750,000, maybe more? The likelihood of him making the sale was nil. The likelihood of him taking a bullet to the head, however, was far greater. The fantasy of nabbing such a powerful item without paying for it could seduce the Continent’s most morally upstanding people. To own one would make you an oligarch overnight.

  Shaking in relief, Cheater thanked his fates he had managed to remember the treasure and pack it in such a reliable place. Actually, “reliable” was relative: anyone might have stripped his corpse. Losing a life was fine by him, but losing this loot? Out of the question! He pondered burying his goods for a moment—“creating a cache” as players called it—but stopped himself, for groups with trackers or specialists would no doubt sniff them out. In addition, leaving your items in any old cluster would cause you to run the risk of losing them in your next reboot. Cheater’s penalties barred him from reading information about this cluster, so he couldn’t assess its stability. This made him more than nervous, so he found himself with two remaining options.