DIE TRYING [A Roguelite Extraction LitRPG]

It felt like he was stuck in a horror movie with the giant monster just one jump scare away from showing up on scene. He'd always been terrible with thriller movies, even when he'd been a kid. Zombieland had terrified him and that was a comedy.

THUMP

.

Wade could feel himself hyperventilate.

Leon's massive hand grabbed his shoulder, then held firm. "Is bone, muscle or nerve issue?"

"What?"

"For the limp."

Wade stared back at the giant. Was he serious right now? There's a giant murderbot walking right in the area, could they not read the room? But Leon remained fixed on Wade, as if expecting a serious answer.

"Uhh, it shows up as a debuff." Wade said.

"Really?" Illy asked, looking past Selena from the wall. "What's the descriptions say exactly?"

He opened up his status windows. "Debuffs say I have chronic cervi…cal-gia? And chronic sciatica. Not sure if I said that right, not exactly household names."

Selena, on the other hand, was glaring at him the entire time. When he met her gaze, she gave him a stern warning. "Human Wade. Keep everyone away from making contact with your skin, even with cloth in between. Such as Leon's hand on your

shoulder

." She had that tone of voice that told him she wanted nothing more than to squash his head. "And should you lay a single finger on my ward even on unaffected skin, I'll locate a suitable window to defenestrate you through."

"She's threatening you, isn't she?" Illy asked. "Don't need to speak elf to know the glare of 'ya stupid eejit' - that's universal, that is."

"She says not to touch my arm or get near it. Infection can spread. But seems like it's not that dangerous? Otherwise she'd have attacked me for it."

"Ah." Leon nodded, letting go of his shoulder.

"How does it spread exactly?" Wade asked in elvish. "If you want me to make sure nobody's getting infected, I need to know what I can and can't do here."

"Contact between injuries will cause immediate infection. As will being bitten. Generally, if it pierces flesh or draws blood, it will infect. However, it will eventually spread into healthy skin if you remain in contact to it long enough. Perhaps one minute, perhaps ten, blackrot takes paths of least resistance and generally remains lethargic. But still, even if it takes as long as a minute to spread, do not hug or hold anyone near you."

Wade nodded, and relayed the information Selena had given him.

"So… is like magic zombie bite?" Leon asked.

"You're… actually closer to the mark than I'd think. Shit." He was now the stupid NPC redshirt that got bit just to prove to the audience the zombies were serious business. Happens in any good zombie flick, guaranteed. He started laughing to himself, then shut up the moment the next thump of the golem could be heard.

They all stayed quiet as seconds passed into a half a minute. The thumping remained a constant. Fear was slowly gnawing at his spine, licking the back of his neck, wrapping a hand over his heart with an ice cold grip. His breathing grew more erratic.

"Is said

cervicalgia

, probably." Leon shrugged in the silence between footfalls.

Wade felt his mind refocus at the sheer tangent that'd taken. He looked over to Leon. "What?"

"From debuff you mention earlier." The russian smiled back as if Wade had stepped right into some kind of preplanned out trap. "I recognizing 'cervical', first seven stacked vertebrae in spine." One hand went to his neck and tapped his spine a few times, "You have pain somewhere here, da?"

Wade nodded slowly. "Yeah. Can't turn my neck left or right, have to keep looking straight on."

"Oof my friend, is not good at all. Sciatica also terrible problem. How you moving about so much?"

"Been dealing with it for years now. You sort of... learn to work around it."

THUMP

.

Wade shut his eyes. Breathing. "Fuck, he's getting right up to us, isn't he?" The only thing that kept him sane right now was knowing that if the golem suspected anything, it would be moving a lot faster than the steady trot and Selena would be grabbing Illy and running somewhere. Not seeing the threat was what made this far worse than before. And now he knew just how powerful that golem was, he'd seen it destroy a small army.

"You find tricks to living with it? Tell me about them." Leon whispered, somehow sounding perfectly calm and normal, while the literal magic terminator 5000 was only a few hundred feet away. "Don't listen to golem. It either find us or not. We too far for voice to carry. Nothing we do here change that. Listen to my voice and question, da? What do you do to manage pain? Besides premium ibuprofen."

"Uhh, I sleep on two pillows for one." Wade said, rattling out the first things in his head. "Got to stack them up so my neck's perfectly horizontal. I'm a side sleeper. When I'm driving and I gotta check my blind spot, need to turn my shoulders and everything around to see, so I stick to the right lane that way I don't need to merge often. Did that for a while before I realized I could just buy these tiny little stick-on blind spot mirrors." The more he spoke the more he felt his heart rate settle. Just having to think about details outside of this hellhole seemed to reset his brain. "Later on had to sell my car to make a downpayment on renting an apartment, so not an issue anymore. Got a place walking distance from a few different jobs, car wasn't needed anymore you see? Plus LA, it's a hellhole for a car, a bicycle was better."

"Christ Wade, and I thought my life was shite." Illy said, sounding oddly horrified. "Why ye so fixed on your job if it's pure hell?"

He opened his mouth to crack out some sarcastic joke, and found nothing there. A memory bubbled up instead, flashing through his mind lighting quick. He'd stayed the night at Jason's house as it had been closer to his next job's scheduled graveyard shift. Before leaving, he'd found his old friend still awake. Watching the outdoor rain.

The tremor in his left hand was barely visible in the dim light, but Wade knew it was there. "Can't sleep either?" Wade asked, settling into the chair beside Jason.

He didn't look back, instead keeping his gaze fixed on the window to the city outside. "You ever think about that night? Like, really think about it?"

"More than I should."

"I keep running it through my head. What I could have done differently." Jason's voice was quiet, distant. "Maybe if I'd just stayed in my lane. Let him hit us head-on instead of swerving."

"You could have died if you did that. Don't be stupid."

"Yeah, but we'd have had

proof

. His car would've been there, damaged. No way daddy's lawyers could've gotten him out of that one." Jason finally turned to look at Wade, and there was something hollow in his eyes. "There wasn't anyone on that road, the only way to get any proof that he was there would be for a collision. His Lamborghini didn't have a front plate, even if I had a dashcam his lawyer would argue it could be any other lambo that happened to be in the city. The only actual way to have proof of the incident would have been if the collision happened. If I had just slammed the brakes and stayed in my lane we wouldn't be in this mess."

"Jason, you saved our lives that night. If you hadn't reacted-"

Jason let out a bitter laugh. "Look at us, Wade. Look at

Ann

. You call this saved? What if a collision would have only broken a few bones instead of..." He stopped, not wanting to even say it. "She'd still be here with us Wade. I fucked up. I fucked it all up. I'm fine being in this wheelchair, I deserve this."

"You did what anyone would do Jason, it's not your fault. And it's only been a month, the doctors said Ann could easily recover, she just needs some time to heal up. This is on me. I should have just walked away when he started getting aggressive. Everyone knew what kind of guy he was, what his family could do. I knew better. People outright told me ahead of time not to get involved."

"No Wade. That girl was just your lab partner, man. You were talking about chemistry homework for a goddamn project, you didn't even know her name before that class right? Normal people don't try to run someone off the road over that. Jealous controlling asshole."

"Normal people don't publicly humiliate rich psychopaths either when they're throwing a tantrum." Wade rubbed his face with both hands. "I just... I should have just said I was wrong and walked away. Told him I had no idea she was his girlfriend or lied that I was gay or something. Just shut it all down and walked away. Everything would have been fine if I'd just done that. Everything."

Days turned to months, and months turned into two years.

Wade blinked, the memory passing by him. Illy watched him closely, as did Leon. Both worried. What came out instead was just tired honesty. "I need the money. I need a lot of it. Got into a car accident and insurance denied everything. Debt collectors are after the hospital bills for both me and my sister. Running's not an option, else she's probably going to get her kidney sold off or something. She can't fight for herself right now. She really can't. And there's... good people I dragged down into my shit, I can't let them down."

Leon nodded, "I knowing how difficult it is out there." He tapped his eyebrow. "Had surgery here. Expensive too, still paying for it. But I am thirty three, have plenty saved up and was prepared. You looking young, how old are you Wade?"

"Twenty five." Wade said. "Turning twenty six in November."

"Don't right know much about American insurance, but sounding like there's some foul play here going on." Illy said. "I know a few folks up top if ye need some heads knocked about. Might be across the pond here, but that won't stop any of them from getting involved. Trust me on that. If we get out of all this, call me up."

Leon shrugged when Wade looked at him. "She smoll angry scottish devushka for reason."

"Are you lookin' for a fecking fight mate? I don't punch, I bite."

The two started getting into a row, and Wade felt oddly more calm. But the golem's thumping was now impossible to drown out. Selena shrugged when he looked over at her, "No shift in its trajectory. It will be passing us by soon."

He nodded back and tried to keep his mind busy thinking about other things. Maybe he should ask her some questions about this world?

His arm wasn't going anywhere either. And the debuff had called it an anti-mana entity, not just blackrot. Which seemed odd to him, but somewhat made sense. Mana was supposed to be toxic to organic life according to Play, and the backrot seemed to be the opposite of that. Too much of the opposite. He should be asking Play or Selena about that, there might be more information.

"Selena, what do you know of mana?"

Her ears twitched. "My training is highly comprehensive as a paladin-in-training. I am perfectly capable of combat with both my spear and my flights special techniques."

"Would you be able to teach me something, maybe later?"

She shook her head at that. "My flights secrets remain secrets to outsiders."

"I don't mean high level stuff, more low level things? For a beginner?"

"... I assumed you had training, given your strange magic thus far."

"No, it's, uh, complicated. But any begginer spells you could teach that are general knowledge?"

She shook her head violently at that, "If you have no experience with mana, I could not teach you in any good sense without ending your life. I do not have any mana potions on myself to learn on, only a mana crystal and such a thing would be deadly to learn on. In addition, you are blackrotten, you cannot use magic. The rot will consume mana the moment it touches it. Teaching you anything would be pointless as the rot will eventually claim the rest of your body."

That... might track with the wording of it on his debuff list. But why call it Blackrot at all? "Do you know what anti-mana is?"

He realized right away the answer would be no. Because when he'd said anti-mana, it came out as english, not elvish. There wasn't a word in elvish for that. Selena's ears twitched with confusion. "No, I have not heard that term before." She confirmed.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He looked over his phone, Play had been oddly silent. Maybe that god would know something about this. When the screen lit up on a button press, he realized why: The god had already sent a message and was waiting for him to notice.

You know, if you got just a silver lootbox from killing 15 enemies in one go, ever stop to think about what your friend here did to get a GOLD lootbox? idk, something smells fishy… ┐(￣ヮ￣)┌

That's… somewhat a good point. She never mentioned what she did to get that kind of prize out of the system.

"What's the god sayin' to you now? You looking right worried." She asked him, the two having noticed him start looking over the phone.

"Illy. What did you do to get the gold lootbox?"

She froze in place. Like a deer in the headlights. Then sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Fought a lot, did some stuff, and the System liked it enough."

Leon looked her over, "He needs to know. Is really not that bad, guilt is all made up. You did okay devushka."

"Ain't got a lick of guilt about it, ya great numpty. I'd do it all over again if I had to, wouldn't even think twice. I was trained my whole life for that kind of shite."

"Then, why not telling him?"

She gave him a return look, and then waved a hand at Wade as if something about him was the obvious reason she couldn't say anything.

Wade didn't know what kind of message was being sent here, but he wasn't a fan of it. "Are you going to tell me or not?"

THUMP

"ALL HUMANS, RETURN TO WORK IMMEDIATELY. STREET CLEANUP AUTHORIZED."

The four stayed silent for a moment, hearing noises out on the street. A minute passed and no thumping was heard.

"It has stopped in the middle of the street, above the manhole lid." Selena said. "It's holding position there."

Wade dutifully relayed that to the two, and it was silent again in the small room. "We're gonna have to start making a plan to get past it onto the other side of the road. Shite." Illy said, the back of her head knocking against the wall. "Well. Been through worse, let's give it five minutes, see if the big bastard decides to move or not."

"Illy." Leon said. "Trust is starting somewhere. He can handle it."

"Fine, feck!" She leaned past Selena to look at Wade. "There were a lot of people, and some quickly proved themselves not only useless, but a threat. This asshat suggested we throw people as bait. Golems scattered us all later, I got stuck with him alone by accident, so I knew he'd make the attempt again the moment the next shite happened. Dick thought I was some defenseless little girl. Huge mistake."

"Illy…" Leon said. "It not accident. You ran after him, I saw."

"I had no choice! What if some other poor soul got trapped in there with him? Someone had to be around to keep that psychopath in check. I didn't jump right at his throat neither, I gave him a fair chance and he still tried to throw me to the wolves first chance he got, exactly like I thought the dick would."

It clicked into Wade's head. Just fighting another player wasn't something the system would reward with an entire gold lootbox. Illy had to have done something worst than just that. Something worse than killing fifteen enemies in a row like he had.

Ninety nine players out of a hundred. Someone had already been eliminated.

"You killed him, didn't you? And the system rewarded you with a gold lootbox, because you killed a player."

She stared him down for a moment, then slowly gave a nod. "If things were different, I'd have given him a proper thrashing and knocked him out. But out here, that'd be the same as killing him at best, or leaving an enemy behind my back at worst. So yeah, I made it quick. And the bastard deserved far worse than what he got."

"How did you kill him?"

She rolled her eyes. "He was a street thug and I'm a Blackwood-Sinclair. Even if I couldn't summon daggers out of the air, he didn't have much chance in the first place."

A… what? Some kind of scottish thing? Wade turned to Leon. "Do you have any idea what a Blackwood-Sinclair means?"

He shrugged. "I not hearing it before."

"It's my family name, numpty." Illy said. Wade still didn't know why her family name did anything, but Illy clarified it in the next beat. "The Blackwood-Sinclairs have been training officers for the British military for generations now. Learned how to use a knife before I learned how to write, and I don't mean using it to start a fire. That explain it fer you?"

"Wait, you're some kind of special forces?"

"No, but we all grew up with private training from retired specialists like SAS or Gurkha, by tradition. Mind you, I never once beat any of my trainers, I'm nowhere near their level. I would have been lined up for the Royal Navy, something 'dignified' for a Blackwood-Sinclair daughter. My little brother's the one they're prepping for Eton then Sandhurst." She waved him off. "It's complicated. Old family, old lineage and stuffy traditions, y'ken?"

Wade digested the information and came to one conclusion: Of course the other gods picked out actual soldiers or military brass with deep pockets and connections. No wonder they'd started asking him if he was a civilian or not, they're all fucking military people.

He looked over to Leon. "And what are you? Some kind of russian elite KGB agent?"

The big man let out a rumbling low laugh. "Oh blyat, he got me. Yes, very strong spy, no one guess in America." He got up, walked forward in the gloom, turned around and flexed dramatically. "I train like smol devushka here, can kill man in middle of winter with only three potatoes, vodka, string, and one fully loaded gun."

"He's havin' a right laugh at your expense, the big oaf." Illy said, rolling her eyes. "Leon's not Spetsnaz. He's a boxer from Las Vegas."

"Eh, chyort voz'mi, got again." He laughed again, one hand reaching out to rustle the girl's head.

She slapped him away like an annoying fly zipping over her head, but Wade realized just how much Illy likely allowed him to do that. If she really had been trained by commandos since she was a kid, she could probably break his fingers in a few dozen different ways. She'd done that to Selena earlier, when she folded the fucking

magically powered fantasy knight

into a pretzel.

Leon was basically petting the belly of a cat, right in range of the jaw and claws.

"I am ex-boxer." Leon said standing back up, tone going more serious now. "Love the sport, came to America to continue. But, well. It not work out in the end."

"Your boxing career flopped? You?" Wade boggled at that. The man was a giant, and stronger than anyone he'd met.

He laughed, waving a hand as if it were silly. "When I came to States, thought I would be hero. Big Russian boxer, making name, sending money home. But no one cheered for me. People bet against me instead, imagine that! If I win, they hate. If I lose, they forget. Was always villain in story, bad at marketing you know? Have to start throwing fights after money getting tight. Let crowd favorites win so crowd happy. Happy crowd, happy promoters."

"Shite Leon. That's fecked." Illy said.

"Sometimes winning is knowing when to take the fall." He winked, "But is okay. I took bad hit later on, and it not healing right. Seemed good time to quit."

"The eye thing?" Wade asked, tapping his forehead, the same brow Leon had tapped earlier on his own face.

The russian nodded. "Bone fracture, dangerous if it get hit again. Never went back to boxing after."

"Don't let his story pull the wool over yer eyes." Illy said. "Leon's got himself natural instincts when it comes to moving and spatial awareness. See how his hammer's always right where he can grab it and swing right into the door with momentum? It ain't coincidence. Might be retired, but he's far from harmless, that one."

"You hearing that Wade? She only like me because I swing and carry heavy hammer for her." He sighed as if genuinely sad, a foot tapping the discarded weapon held up by the wall. That got a short sardonic bark from her.

"So you all know how to fight like professionals." Wade said, then looked down at his battered up collared shirt and Hobby Froggy's approved pants. "Hah. Jokes on me, huh."

"Yer not alone out here. Not everyone came with combat training." Illy looked almost guilty, talking fast as if trying to explain away an insult. "Seven others looked like they had some kind of experience. Rest were just regular folk like yourself, far as I could see. Part of the reason I had to deal with the asshole before he started getting defenceless people killed."

"Hey, I'm not defenseless." Wade said. "I'm the number one employee at an arts and crafts store - on track to a full time position. I once survived a twelve-hour shift with no AC, middle of August in LA. Pretty sure that counts as seal team six level combat training. Golems are fucked the moment I learn how to get them to sign up for a credit card."

She gave a genuine sounding laugh, then got up on her feet and stretched her arms. A few steps past Leon, she turned to him, eye to eye. Her expression settled into something more resolute. "Listen, Wade. By all rights, Leon and I should be getting you somewhere safe. Yer out here all alone with cripping debuffs, no formal training or equipment. I'm all but disowned from my family, but

this

is what I was trained for - protecting people like you. It's the one thing my British boot-licker of a family got right. I failed it with the group, Leon and I barely made it out ourselves. Couldn't save a single other soul out here." Her eyes fixed on his, deadly serious now. "Much as I'd like to keep you safe behind us and do

something

right, we can't afford that. Not with that skill of yours. You might've started this day as a retail worker. But right now? Leon's the shield wall, I'm the combat support, Selena's the vanguard - and you're our force multiplier, the

damage

." She held a hand out to him, "We're all getting out of here together yank, or not at all."

He stared at the hand, then nodded, and let her help him back up on his feet. They shook hands, and for once, Wade didn't feel worthless.

Of course, Selena was also on her feet in the next second with her spear immediately at his throat, demanding he let go of Illy's hand. That followed with a string of insults for both him, Illy, dumb humans infected with Blackrot, and the world at large.

But mostly him.