Aggro Litrpg || Progression Fantasy

There's nothing quite like having the fate of the world dropped on your shoulders in a pub car park. Especially when the person doing the dropping looks about a hundred. And especially when your morning has included an attempted assassination, and getting half-mauled by something that slithered out of your shadow.

My life as a Warden was coming at me fast.

Roderick watched all of that flicker of my face with a look that suggested amusement, sympathy. I must've gone a bit green around the gills, because he gave me a hearty slap on the back.

"Cheer up, Elijah," he said. "Think of it this way. At least you're specced for this sort of work."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean, lad? You reckon there's a secret army of superpowered pensioners up and down Britain, storming through graveyards and putting down Shadow demons between episodes of the Antique Roadshow?"

I opened my mouth to retort, then shut it again. Because frankly, after my most recent experiences, the idea of a System-powered knitting circle in Hexham taking out monsters with enchanted Zimmer frames sounded entirely plausible.

"My tankiness is actually still a bit new to me," I said, "but what you're saying is that no one in the Hunt actually has proper access to the System?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying, lad."

I thought about the creature I'd just splattered across the car park. That thing had come at me hard, and even with my stats, my Abilities, and a full armour set I'd barely managed to put it down without some serious damage. And that was having a Trait that gave me an 18% Resistance to whatever poison that Shadow spider had tried to pump into me. And Roderick was saying his lot were rawdogging this?

"Nah," I said. "That can't be right. You're telling me you've got people out there, normal people, and they're hunting shadow beasts with no backup from the System at all?"

"Well, it's not quite as unlikely as you're making it sound," Roderick said. "The Earth's not completely disconnected from the System, after all. At least, not entirely. We might not quite have all the bells and whistles like somewhere like Bayteran, but the environment here is 'stable.' That's the word Margaret used. It's ike a locked-off server or one of those old bunkers full of Cold War maps and instant noodles."

"I don't understand. What do you mean 'stable'."

"My word, lad! I thought Margaret said you were quick on the uptake! I hope you've got more going on under that shaggy head of yours than you're showing me right now. What I'm saying, lad, is that those of us who are stuck here have got no direct line to the System at all – none of the Hunt have a Class, we can't level up and we have no Abilities to call on. However, things of the System can still function here," he said, and held up his hand.

I hadn't been paying attention to his liver-spotted hand before, probably because I'd been bleeding internally and trying not to die. But now I looked at it properly, I saw that Roderick was rocking a bit of a pirate vibe. He had three thick gold rings on his left hand, each one set with a stone the size of a gobstopper. One was bright red, another was shot through with silver, and the third shimmered like oil on water.

"I didn't see those before."

"No, you didn't," he said.

"Right. So either I've completely lost all power of perception, or I've had a stroke or…"

"Or you're not the only one in this car park with an inventory that works," he said, smiling wide enough to show a row of slightly yellow but still very solid teeth.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I looked at him properly then. The worn boots. The thick jacket. The sturdy leather belt with too many buckles to be purely decorative. And the glow around his neck, like the air itself wasn't quite sure where his collar ended.

"You're geared," I said.

"Damn straight. The Hunt are all geared," he said. "Every last one of us. Margaret saw to that."

Aunt M. Guardian of the Threshold. Physics professor. Secret magical arms dealer. How little I knew her.

"She made sure," Roderick went on, "that anyone willing to stand against those things that slipped through the Veil had the tools to do it. We might not have Classes, but we've got what we need to do our work."

I thought of the way the Shadow spider had leapt for me. The way its attacks had hurt. The burn I still felt along my ribs where it had bitten through my armour like it was sugar paper. And this grouchy old man was saying there were people out there fighting things like that without so much as a Health bar?

"I'm going to be honest," I said. "That sounds completely mental. What sort of gear are we talking about here?"

"Depends on the role," he said. "We've got Keepers who're stocked up on vellum and enchanted dust who keep the various wards and sigils operational. We've got Bleed-Stoppers, who are honest-to-goodness alchemists, mostly, who have odds and ends to supply healing. There's one bloke who works out of a disused NHS clinic in Hull who brews healing tinctures in a giant cauldron. We've got Runners, like me, who maintain the Hunt's lines of communication and make sure new blood gets where it needs to go. Most of us have some sort of portal-based artefact to keep us moving. And then we've got Closers."

He said it like it was a curse and a prayer at once.

"They're the ones who have to go in when the Shadows get too bold. Like when a nest forms or something starts breeding. They carry most of the heavier gear we've got. Full disclosure," he said, and now Roderick wasn't looking at me, "I used to be a Closer. Back when my knees worked properly. Now I mostly scare newbies and buy breakfast."

Something in his voice made me pause.

"How long's this been going on?" I asked.

He laughed at that. "Since before the Druids forgot what they were doing and let the Romans invade, lad," he said. "Since before stories got written down. None of this is new, Elijah. But I tell you this, it's getting worse. Margaret was the cork in the bottle for as long as I've been in this game. She kept the nastiest of these things away from Earth and patched up what needed patching. And when she died—"

"More and more things started leaking through?"

"The Shadows are always looking for a way through, lad. All it takes is one anchor to fail, one tether point to slip, and they come sniffing. You've seen it. Hell, you've felt it."

I looked down at the faint scorch where the creature's blood had touched my boot. "You're saying you need me to be the new cork. Because that's a hell of a job description."

"Need? Lad, a cork in the bottle is exactly what you already are," he said. "You might just be a Warden right now, but I've been sent here to make sure you properly understand the stakes. You've got to get the System to recognise you as Guardian."

We stood in silence a moment longer, the pub behind us, the air loud with the distant traffic from the motorway and the not-quite-faded scent of fried bread. A greasy kind of stillness settled between us, like the moment after a fire's gone out but before the smoke realises it's dead.

Then Roderick turned one of the stones in his thick gold rings clockwise with his thumb. There was a click like a lock being disengaged inside a crypt, and the world in front of us peeled sideways.

There was no wind, or flash, or massive thunderclap. Instead, it was like space just folded in on itself, like it had been trying very hard to ignore our conversation and had finally given up. A blinding light tore open between the car park and the hedge, three paces wide and half again as tall, full of nothing.

It was like the colour behind your eyes when you press down too hard.

I stared at it as my minimap went staticky again.

"There we go," Roderick said, almost cheerfully, as if he'd just opened a shed full of patio furniture.

"What," I said, "am I looking at?"

"Temporary anchor," he said. "Tuned to a stabilised pocket where the Hunt operates out of. Should be safe enough to walk through, assuming you don't lick anything or touch the floor with your bare skin. Oh, and you have to unequip all your gear when you enter or the defensive array will vapourise you"

"Wait, what?"

"Kidding. Probably"

"And you just opened this tear in space and time from a ring."

"I told you. Your wonderful aunt kitted us guys out properly. These were hers, once. Said they were overkill. I told her overkill was my favourite kind."

The portal flexed and writhed. I couldn't look directly at it without my eyes trying to blink two directions at once. Somewhere inside, something chirped and whirled like distant clockwork.

"Well then," he said. "Shall we go meet the others?"