DIE TRYING [A Roguelite Extraction LitRPG]

Scroll of Raise Dead: Restore a soul to any defeated target and reanimate their body. Target affected will be soulbound and loyal to you.

There was no other description to it. Not even instructions on how to use it.

He didn't quite like the whole 'soulbound and loyal' part, that sounded rather ominous and slightly brain-washy. Bringing Leon back with this might not be the best idea.

Wow, that's SUSPICIOUSLY lucky. Scroll of Raise Dead when you were looking around for a way to bring back your friend? Michael, think you should have had more noble goals in your heart, like loot, spells, level ups - something. Bleeding heart much? σ(￣、￣〃)

Of course Play would have been the type to have picked personal power over everything else and everyone else. This is the god that left Azdrial to die, and is currently taking glee in watching it die.

But he saw a hole in the armor here. "You didn't see the talk with the System I had, did you?"

Otherwise, the god would have known the category wasn't random and it hadn't been the System throwing him a bone - he'd chosen this himself.

You actually TALKED to the System when you touched that loot thing?? What did it say?

As much as he'd like to lord this over Play, the god was still at least occasionally helpful, and it's intentions weren't hidden. There was no reason to hold out information that Play could add onto. He filled the god in on what questions he'd attempted, and his ultimate conclusion: "Whatever it is, it's watching individually and making judgements on the fly."

Glad it's getting the stick out of it's ass, it was sooooo boring last time I talked to it
┐(￣∀￣)┌

"… what does that mean? You talked to it before?"

It made somewhat sense, how else was Play an official sponsor for THE GAME? There had to be some kind of negotiation going on.

Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. You'll never know for sure. Maybeeee if you bribe me with something good, I might just remember~

That's bait. Play likely had talked to the System, but with that wording, the god was looking to drag it out all for Wade to learn it was just a random prompt that popped up and was clicked "yes" on, just like his own initiation.

Play only cared for one thing and that was to see Wade advance forward in some way. Either loot, XP, levels, or just killing shit out in the world.

"Nope. Not falling for your bullshit." He said, standing back up, and taking a look at the scroll instead. "Besides, last time I offered something was promising to go after the loot if you'd tell me more about Leon and necromancy. I did. Your turn on the deal: What's necromancy in this world?"

what'd ya wanna know?

"What's necromancy in this world? What really happens to people when they die?"

Since there's nobody coming to ferry souls either to Heaven or Hell since the old divine war, people are mostly stuck in place twiddling thumbs for something to happen after they die. Lot of souls just right by their bodies, makes necromancy a real easy career pick compared to the old days. Hedge necromancers are dime a dozen out there, better be prepared for that.

"And the scroll, is it going to lobotomize Leon or something?"

idk, depends on the willpower of who's dying maybe?

"Play, answers."

Fiiine, the spirit realm saps away at who you are. Memories, identity, it's all washed away eventually. If you got a living body, you're mostly insulated from that. No body, no protection though. I hear it's pretty mellow and easy to resist, just never ends. Some people give up almost instantly. Others hold out for longer.

Wade considered, and then came to a simple decision: There wasn't any alternative. Either the scroll worked out, or it didn't work out. But half-working is better than just leaving Leon fucking dead.

Besides, the russian did speak about how death wasn't an evil thing. Leon might not curse his name out for bringing him back in a worse shape than his original life.

Plan set, Wade took a closer look at the item itself.

If he had to imagine what a necromancy scroll would look like, this was exactly what he'd come up with. The paper was dried out and felt more like skin than actual paper. The edges tinted red, and the entire parchment held intricate runic lines - all done in either black or red. He had no idea how to get it to work, but he'd soon find out. Maybe it would trigger when he got close to Leon's body. He got back up, and started to hike his way back to Leon's final stand.

When he put the scroll into his backpack, the moment he let go it vanished. Wade panicked. Actually fully panicked. He'd bled and nearly died for this and it was just GONE?!

The moment he started looking for it, it reappeared in his hand. Which was very weird, but he wasn't going to complain since he had the goddamn thing back in his possession. "The fuck is that about?"

idk, maybe because it's loot from a lootbox? Be shitty if someone else got your scroll and used it.

A bit of testing and he discovered one more neat perk. The moment he set it down somewhere and let go, it vanished. He could 'summon' it back into hand with a thought. Maybe it was some kind of spell laced within the scroll? He could just throw it in the air and it would vanish. Handy.

Wade continued to experiment with that as he walked through the empty alleyways, on the return path. His ultimate conclusion was that it was System fuckery, since Play informed him there were no spells that could do things like that in Azdrial. At least not with what the modern generation of magic studies had. Maybe the old civilizations figured out how to fold things into higher dimensions, but nobody on Azdrial even knew terms like that.

Taking a deeper look at it as he walked through the empty alleyways, he started spotting more details he hadn't before.

Writing dotted just about everywhere, sometimes following the circles of lines, all looking incredibly well written and yet utterly unreadable. When he focused harder on it, Market's blessing of languages didn't trigger. Everything still looked like gibberish.

Wade opened up his buffs and took a look at it.

Market's blessings (Language, Passage, Luck) - Allows you to read, write and speak fluently in any language used by general trade. Allows passage into Azdrial with all currently equipped gear or independent beings during nights, and allows return passage in the same manner. Increased overall luck and success in gambling.

"Ah. I see the flaw." Any language used by general trade. Whatever script was on the scroll, it clearly had no use for anything other than magic. It'd be like trying to negotiate using assembly code.

Market. That's how he got roped into this from the start. If there was one force out there that might be responsible for the game, it could be Market.

He had a quest, and when he looked over his quest log it sat right there in front of his face:

Market's big scheme - Search and extract followers of Market back safely to Earth. Rewards: One storefront coin per follower smuggled into earth. One gold bar per follower smuggled into earth.

The gold bar felt a bit more genuine now than when Market himself offered it. He'd met Market the night before he'd been sent here. Play might have been his sponsor into the game, but the god did say they had followed Market here.

So maybe Play was a complete red herring, and that asshole had zero control?

Why wasn't Market his sponsor if he'd found Wade before Play had? Was Market not part of the game at all? Play said Market had been unable to join when he'd been offered. Drunk and passed out maybe?
He focused and really thought about the strange shift yesterday. When he'd apparently met a god of Azdrial in the flesh.

It had been a full shift of restocking the same aisle over and over, customers destroying the yarn section faster than he could reorganize it. The constant interruptions to help find specific shades of blue that all looked goddamn identical. That one lady who insisted a discount from the next aile over should count because one of his coworker had put it up on in the wrong place and now it was everyone's problem. Typical routine of stocking the place, doing adset, dodging customers magnetically attracted to wherever he needed to be and the constant praying that a group of kids wouldn't walk through the front door.

The day had been mostly normal, becoming super slow close to the end of his shift. And that's when he showed up.

"I'm the god of fortune and trade, at yer service." The old homeless man said, with a small bow, smiling all the while. "All them nice folks out here call me Market though." There was a tooth missing. And the rest looked just about ready to pack up and leave like his hair had.

"That's nice to hear, sir." Wade said, grabbing the next item and scanning it. He wasn't paid enough for this. But he was paid exactly enough to keep smiling and following all employee regulations for maximum customer satisfaction. Especially since the boss was just around the corner in his office, and Wade knew there was an opened bottle of vodka under that desk. That meant it was going to be a bad time for Wade if anything went off script. Bob was a dick.

Market started laughing, wagging an old finger with dirt under the nails at him. "Now, don't ask me why you, but my gut's never been wrong about nuttin' before. Don't wanna boast too much, but I am the god of fortune after all! Gamblin' and winning is part of my shtick! And talkin' about that, I got a trade deal just for you sonny, me'boy!"

"I would be happy to hear about it, would you like to pay with cash or card?" Wade diplomatically asked.

"I knew you'd be good for it," One finger wagged in his face, while the homeless man winked at him, then patted his belly. "Gut's never wrong like I says. Now see here." The old man raised up a hand and started calculating fingers. "I gots about… uhh, seven and a half followers left that still know my name." His hand count showed four fingers, the nails yellow and cracked. Wade could smell the cheese already from here. "I want you to go into ol' Azdrial 'n bring 'em on back here safe and sound. This here place is so peaceful, why only trouble I ever ran into is some official types in blue suits fussin' about where I could and couldn't catch my beauty rest." The man gave a closed-eye shrug, like he had no idea what was going on. "Somethin' about 'disturbing peace' out in their park. Or maybe it was 'disturbing the peace?'" A small chuckle came through the old man's mouth, which morphed into some crazed unhinged laughing. "Ain't no sword drawn or death threat, nuthing! Didn't come trying to hunt me down for me bits. Imagine that. Little ol god like me not having to hide for me life? Bring a tear to my old eye it do."

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Wade remained smiling the entire time.

The old man's laughing slowed down to an end, "Oh, right your payment! Can't forget your com-pen-sa-tion!"

Wade was more surprised the man could sound a word out that complicated. But seemed to come out naturally from him.

"Ain't no proper business without greasing some palms, eh? Gold still what every fine upstandin' gentleman like yourself looking for these days?"

Wade kept his smile up, and calculated the fastest way out of this. Was gold valuable? "Yessir, last I checked." When insane people came by, the best he'd learned was to simply roll with whatever delusion was in their heads. They wouldn't get upset and he wouldn't need to grab the bat, and sometimes - albeit rarely - he'd get excellent customer reviews back.

"Well I'll be tossed down a wishing well and showered with a few dozen shiny coins, I just so happen to have a bar of gold on me all planned out for this!" The old man reached into his trenchcoat, and fished around for something. He pulled out a half empty bottle of vodka. The cheap plastic kind.

A second of staring at it later, he realized that wasn't his aim. "Ah, you go right back where you came from pumpkin, I'll be visiting you for dinner real soon." The man gave the bottle a wet kiss, lovingly shoved it back into the trenchcoat with the same grace as a clown fitting into a shoe-sized car.

Market started looking down the other side of his trenchcoat, digging down deep into the pockets. His hand went clean through an open rip, reaching around in the air for nothing. One grab, two grab, then an eye turned back to Wade . "Hoo boy, this is awkward." He coughed. "I seem to have had a bar of gold on me. Probably stuck in transit. My powers just ain't what they used to be. Gettin' here was a little… eh, hard."

"That is quite a shame." Wade said, nodding sagely. "Pulling a bar of gold out of your trench coat would have been very impressive sir."

"It's not them fake fae gold too, I'm talking real gold - made in pretty little bars. So shiny you can see your reflection on it, pure as it gets. Makes the loins tingle if you know what I mean."

Wade didn't want to know what that meant. Unfortunately, he was cursed with common sense, and could guess just from the sultry eye waggles the old man gave him.

"I'm afraid company policy will have me decline to answer that question, sir."

The old man waved a hand at him, as if brushing off the compliment. Even kicked the ground to the side too. "Aww shucks, don't butter me up like that. See, truth of it is that I used up most of my powers to find you, so it'll take a little bit of time before I can scrounge out a gold bar again. Gimmi like, a week. Maybe two. Three and a half, tops, if I get err, distracted by your world's delectable vintage of fine goods."

"Well, you certainly found me sir." Wade kept his bright three hundred watt smile. He wasn't going to give the boss a single reason to pass over his promotion. If this was a secret shopper sent by 'corporate' to test his abilities, he was onto Bob's tricks. "Would you like to pay with cash or card?"

"You gots pencil and paper here?" The man asked instead.

"Why yes I do, would you like to write something?"

He handed the proper tools to the old homeless man, a post-it note and a pen used to sign receipts.

On it, the old geezer wrote down three letters, I, O, U, along with a scribbled out 'bar of gold' and passed it over to Wade .

"How about I pay you with that, for right now. And when I do gets a bar, I'll even give one in advance! Lot more where that came from. You'll need some gear and weapons before setting foot on good old Azdrial. A lot of it. A lot. Buy yourself the shiniest weapons you got outs here. It's rough on the other side."

"I'm sorry sir, the store doesn't accept IOU's. Only cash or card."

"Not the store son, I meant about the deal I was offering you." The old man said, "Keep it on track, you seem easily distracted."

Wade felt his left eye twitch slight, but he kept it all under control.

"Now, reckon you can help me out with this little in-con-venience?"

The boss was reading his newspaper, feet on the table as usual, every now and then looking over at the events from a distance. The bottle of vodka was now openly out at his side.

Wade felt skewered into his seat, trapped between the whims of a crazy half-dead drunk grandpa, and his boss's watchful eye, verifying if Wade was Hobby Froggy employee of the month material. He had to get through this fast. "I would be happy to help out, after this transaction. Would you like cash or card?"

The old man smiled brightly again. "Done deal," He started laughing again. "Knew you were the right guy to come to. My gut's never wrong. Not once. Even had to wait three days before coming here to talk!" He patted his belly, which looked like a small bowling ball from the bulge. Each slap made it wiggle around. "Or was it three weeks? Three hours? Eh, details. Timing felt off any other moment, you know? Couldn't be in the morning, or at night either. Nope, had to be juuuuuust now."

"Of course sir." Wade said, keeping the smile frozen on his face. The self-proclaimed god of fortune was actually on point here. Any other day, Wade would have far more firmly tossed him out. But today? Nobody here except his boss. Prime time for Bob to be trying to wiggle some kind of way out of the fulltime employment request to corporate. "Will that be cash or card?"

The old man looked at his gathered loot on the table. "Oh, right! These nicknacks. 'Fraid I aint got no currency on me. But don't worry, gods don't need to eat. Just quality drink as offerings." The white eyebrows were doing the winking thing again, folding up forehead lines by the dozens.

Wade continued to smile down like a generous benefactor, exuding the aura of peace and understanding. Inside, he wanted nothing more than to strangle someone. "Then, I'm afraid I'll have to return all these items back to their place sir."

Good thing they didn't sell meat here, there were strict food regulation rules about how long away from a fridge they could be that Bob would undoubtedly ask him to ignore.

"You do that sonny. So, trans-ac-tion officially complete! Do offer me a cup of booze next time you see me, I don't gotta worry about finding comfy spots to sleep out here, but starving is starving! Thank you kindly Mr. Wade, lookin' forward to having followers again on the safer side!"

He hummed, nodded, and strutted away, the door bell clicking behind him. The bastard even seemed to have a little spring in his step.

Wade turned to the counter. And then to his approaching boss.

He was angry. Bob's gaze wasn't on Wade, he was staring at all the merchandise all over Wade's lane.

"You dumbfuck, how did you not get any of this sold? The hell do I even pay you for?"

"He didn't have any money at all, sir. Homeless I think." Wade said, keeping a cheery tone at all times. Any exposed weakness on his armor would be pounced on.

Bob looked up and only hatred remained in his soulless eyes. "You should have kicked him right the fuck out of here, before he stunk up the place!"

"I couldn't know if he had saved enough money to buy these items or not, sir."

"Business is business Wade, you can smell bad money on them. You're never gonna be Hobby Froggy material without instincts Wade. Instincts! I'm gonna have to send a message to corporate you're not yet ready. They had high hopes for you son."

And if he'd canned the old gentleman early, Wade would be getting yelled at for losing a potential customer. So he did what he usually did, he smiled and waited for the boss's tantrum to pass.

"Of course sir, I'll try a little harder next time."

"Fucking better be. Or else I'll put in an order from corporate we can't fill the fulltime post because NOBODY FUCKING WORKS HARD HERE."

Ah. Bob had one too much to drink. The scream went past Wade and was clearly directed at his other coworkers in the back. Bob was probably upset one of them had called sick, but she'd probably been so stressed out from yesterday, Wade was more surprised she hadn't just quit yet. She wouldn't have been the first that cracked and gave up even if this place paid better than all the other retail stores out here.

The rest of the day was a drag, but fortunately he didn't grind his teeth to oblivion. Jason sent him a few meme texts, and the shitposting between them helped pass the time.

Bob asked him to stay and work longer, unpaid as usual, asking in the usual roundabout way to avoid issues. A list of things Wade needed to complete in his shift, and being told he couldn't leave until it was all done. And then Bob would leave before anyone could ask about who'd pay for the extra hours.

Wade got home late that night around 8pm, getting a mass text from his gas station gig right as he sat down to eat some dinner. Asking if anyone could come in at one in the morning, since the graveyard shift called in sick just now.

Absolute shitshow. Who would possibly agree to that kind of last second change of plans?

Wade typed out ME, sent the text before anyone else could poach the spot, and then did mental calculations to see how he'd pull it off.

One in the morning. Five hours until the shift. No - four hours and forty-seven minutes. If he subtracted shower time from the equation completely, doubled the coffee, factored in granola bar breakfast while walking, and multiplied by wearing today's work clothes for tomorrow's shift... it equaled out to a grand total of "totally fine." The math was fuzzy, but he was pretty sure sleep deprivation rounded up to 'survivable.' And enough caffeine would fudge any number that didn't round right.

Plan in place, he crawled into his mattress, set his glasses down on the nightstand, took off his shoes, and passed out almost instantly. Out like a light before he even knew he'd tucked himself in.

And then he woke up in hell.