DIE TRYING [A Roguelite Extraction LitRPG]

Chapter 59



WHO'S MY LITTLE POG CHAMP! AAAYYYOOOO
☆:.。.o(≧▽≦)o.。.:☆

The lights on Lapushka went out all at once, every part of it froze. It seemed perfectly healthy on the outside, a bit tinted and dirty but fully functional.

And the next second, the floating blue orb above it turned off and fell straight down into the chassis with a heavy metallic thud that rung out. The palm followed soon after, slamming down into the ground by gravity. Whatever Lapushka was made of, at least the rest of the non-floating bits were resilient enough to stay standing even in death. The foot loomed over Wade, just one second away from crushing him like an ant.

Challenge Gauntlet (1) Complete! One storefront coin added to inventory.

Level up!

Level up!

Level up!

Powerleveling complete! Two storefront coins added to inventory.

New personal quest: Powerleveling II - Defeat your prior record of three level ups within one fight. Rewards: Three storefront coins.

THE GAME recognizes your accomplishment. You are the first player to defeat an enemy over level 100.

Gold Lootbox spawned nearby.

Wade coughed, still pinned down by his own body refusing to move. Staring up at where his doom had just been.

The System was ridiculous. If Wade stepped on a lego brick few hundred times until his health bar went down to 0% would he also just die? He can't believe it worked. That said, he absolutely did not mind it when it worked in his favor. Plus, the System had rained down rewards of all kinds.

His hands fumbled around for the phone, catching up on the notifications Play sent.

Predictably, Play was being Play.

Stats! Power! Loot! And coins! WOOT WOOT o(≧▽≦)o

She did have a point.

Three level ups. Three. On one hand, that's a lot of stat points to work with given how much each changed everything. On the other hand, just three levels for killing something that was clearly way above their league? If that was the rate of leveling, it meant everyone else out there was probably still level 1 to at most 3. And probably would remain around there for a good week or more. This game could have a lower level max level system, or an logarithmic curve system. But more importantly, with a slow rate like this it meant all the other Players in this battle royal game were gated behind the level requirements for the storefront. He'd be able to use a lot of things earlier than anyone else.

And speaking of earlier accomplishments, that was a gold lootbox he'd gotten in addition to the levels. And coins.

Storefront coins: 6

He could get all the mana potions and crystals he needed to power the healing treatments needed for Ann and Jason. He could buy this beautiful lighting dodge boon in addition to all those. If he died now, he'd be just fine.

His stat screen showed his new shiny level, along with that beautiful +3 stat points waiting to be distributed out. He knew what he needed to spend them on. He'd been thinking about this for some time now, where he'd put his next few stat points. And he'd decided:

Intelligence - Attribute governing mental control of mana.

The other stats were all useful of course, but with gear he wouldn't need strength as much to make his boons work. Vitality could also be covered up once he healed his leg, limp and got some food back inside himself.

But casting magic? That was something no gear or levels could cover for. And it was clear to Wade that intelligence was exactly what Identify explained: Mental control over mana. It explained why that stat was zero, Wade could never have practiced how to move mana around on Earth. It didn't exist there. At least not yet.

And going from zero intellect to three had to be a drastic change given how stats worked. He mentally decided he was going all-in on intelligence - but he didn't physically make the selection yet. Because there was testing to do with this. First thing he'd do once he was home, would be to experiment how intellect worked by using magic in a control setting, and then slowly incrementing the level up. Testing each time to see the difference it made in casting magic. Doing it this way would shed a lot of extra light over what intelligence actually increased against what it didn't. And he'd maybe also find out if he could raise stats naturally by himself or not. What better place to start from than zero?

It would be the single best way to test multiple things out. Whatever these stat points did, they were hard to come by, so he wasn't going to squander the chance to get more info out of the System.

Plus if something else happened between now and him coming back home that absolutely needed the stat points spent, he had them in the bank for something.

Play, of course, was obsessed with something else.

LOOT ٩(◕‿◕。)۶

LOOT ☆⌒(ゝ。◕)

LOOT (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧

She was probably jumping up and down on her couch.

"All right, quit spamming me damn you." Wade shook the buzzing phone, "We're getting the chest. First thing I do when I can get up."

For all her sociopathic tendencies, she seemed genuinely excited about his progress.

Illy slid down from her perch on a nearby roof, landing on the rubble and running downhill practiced grace. "Not bad for team Scotland!" She whooped. "Didn't doubt any of ye for a moment. You doing okay bampot? Identify's showing you healthy at least, dunno about that head of yours."

He lifted a thumbs up into the air, "Just low stamina, I'll be back on my feet in a bit…and who let you name the team?" He was already feeling his breath starting to catch up.

"Well, what would ya have called it then? Team Capitalism?" Illy gave him a little kick in the shoulder, then held a hand out to help him on his feet.

"If we're going to start naming our team here, we should do it democratically at least."

She rolled her eyes, and then pulled him up with surprising strength. "Of course that's what the yank asks for."

Leon ambled over to them, with his usual grin. "I vote Team Solianka. Is good traditional Russian soup, very nutritious."

Wade laughed, a nervous thing from all the prior adrenaline crashing. "Oh shut up, who's going to think team soup is dangerous?"

"Agreed with Mr. Crabs, soup's a terrible name." Illy looked around. "Place could use a clean. Lot of rogue golems running around terrorizing the locals here. I say we call ourselves the Azdrial Maintenance Crew."

Leon pointed at the dead golem, "Team Lapushka."

"If you want an inside joke, I'm more terrified of the hyper-weasel than some giant murder machines down here." Wade said, "Team Hyper-Weasels. But how about we circle back to this after I get my breath again? Did you all get levels from that?"

Illy nodded, "Two for me, plus a silver lootbox chest for assisting with killin' the first level 100 of the entire game so far."

"Same as smol devushka, copper lootbox though." Leon added. He shrugged. "Eh, I helped."

Wade got a three levels and a gold box out of it, so the System probably gave him the lion's share for the damage dealt. But if it was an active judge instead of some giant unthinking computer, did it actively decide how to distribute the XP based on what people really did in the fight?

Wade knew without a shadow of a doubt he'd have died a few times over alone against this thing. He had already died once, and that was before the golem containment net and guards.

"Shite, Wade, is that a gold compass?" Illy asked, pointing down behind Wade.

He turned his look. "System did say that popped up." He went over his side of the wins, then wobbled over, got down and picked it up. Arrow pointed off to his right. His phone screen vibrated almost immediately.

Not to rain on anyone's victory laps here, but you all probably got maybe 10 minutes, 15 tops to get the loot, key and gtfo.

Chop chop, that's three lootboxes all scattered around, no pressure or anything (b ᵔ▽ᵔ)b

The golem containment net. Closing in on them. Small details. "Right, and we still need to figure out how to get the key from," He looked up at the dead golem frozen above them. "All that."

How would they get that out of it? Wade thought for a moment, but one name came to mind: Eri.

The skeleton might know best where to get it. Wade looked around for his enigmatic mute friend and found him standing off to the side. Just staring at the dead golem in almost awe. Wade could understand, this was what he and his team had desperately tried to put down for weeks. Died trying too.

The skull slowly turned to stare down at Wade, then gave him a quick jaw click and a flick of a wrist mixed with an odd, clearly threatening hand sign. The Nathir insult to a highly misbehaving slave and a threat of imminent punishment, usually meaning death.

But his blessing whispered him further context. It had been co-opted by slave rebels as the greatest sign of respect among each other. If one could bring the ire of the Nathir to that level, one had done more than most rebels could have done in one lifetime.

Wade returned a shaking thumbs up. The plan had been insane, a lot had gone wrong, but in the end they'd pulled through.

"Do you know how to get the wardkey?" Wade asked, the Nathir language sounding so... rough. Almost made him feel a little sick speaking it, like his throat would grow raspy real fast if he tried to do a full speech with it.

The skeleton twitched his head to the right. Then gave the hand sign for maybe. The skull turned back to gaze at the destroyed golem, a hand reaching down to his belt, taking out one of Illy's daggers. It flashed with empowered mana, glowing like his other weapons had. Eri bit down on the hilt, then turned to the golem and began to scale it up the leg.

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

"He'll get the wardkey." Wade said, "We should go for the chests in the meantime. You all already have your compasses?"

They did. And as the group compared where they were pointed, it seemed like the System had thrown them a bone: All needles pointed the same direction.

Illy turned over to the skeleton, "Tell yer skeleton if he sees Selena strut around here, get her to wait. We'll be back here soon enough. I know she's out here, but if we don't find her by the time we're back, I'll use the summon skill. We probably don't have time to do a full hide and seek game here. Let's get rolling."

Wade nodded, relaying the info. Then the group turned out to look in the direction of the needles.

Time to see what they'd get out of nearly dying.

The set of three compasses led them through the debris field created by their battle with Lapushka. Shattered stone and twisted metal made for terrible footing. Wade could walk around by now, but Leon insisted carrying him would be faster. And he was right, Illy and the Russian could still jog around without issue. Wade felt his legs were still made of jelly.

After five minutes of careful navigation through the broken landscape, they came to the shadow of a collapsed slave housing unit. There, nestled between two fallen support beams, sat three chests lined up in a row. From gold to copper. Looking completely free of dust and everything else. The System not making itself subtle here.

The group formed a semicircle around the chests, maintaining a safe distance.

"All lined up like we're just waitin' on Goldilocks to strut into the picture here?" Illy scoffed. "Five quid one of these is a monster."

"That's a no from me." Wade said. He wasn't dumb enough to bet against that. "Can you toss one of your daggers at it? Just to see if it reacts?"

Illy pulled a dagger from her belt and flung it with precision. The blade struck the gold chest with a metallic clang and clattered to the ground. The chest remained motionless. "No damage debuff, and Identify's not showing a health bar. Look at that, we might actually be clear."

The other two chests had the same deal going for them. No damage dealt, no health bars.

The big Russian extended his warhammer and nudged his own copper chest. Nothing happened. Then slowly moved the hilt around until the clasps were opened up, and with the rest of the shaft pushed the lid up.

Copper brown light leaked out, and Leon slowly looked it over. It was a blue potion within it. "Says potion of empowering. Doubles one of my stats for twelve hours." He nodded at the find.

"That'll get more and more valuable as you level." Wade said. "Ten vitality right now would double to twenty, but imagine if you were higher level and had forty vitality already? Doubles it to eighty."

For all they knew, leveling might get capped at a certain point forward. That would be where this potion would have the maximum use case.

Leon lifted it up, looking closer. "Wondering if it counts as food?"

"Oh, that's a great point." Wade thought. "Does it?"

"System says it need nutritional value." He scratched his little patch for a moment. "Maybe we mix it in soup?"

"What if it makes the potion stop working?" Wade pointed out. "Could be stuff in the soup or mixing it with anything else breaks the chemistry that it's supposed to work with."

"Maybe ask dial-a-goddess info on potions and how they working? Information is power."

I'll ask Zinny for the info about potions, but probably something unique to the System this time around imo

"Why do you think that?" Wade asked the phone.

Cause it doubles a stat. Last I checked, nobody but you guys have stats (¬‿¬ )

Leon nodded, and it vanished in his hands. "Oh. Very... handy."

There was a little more discussion on the nature of potions, but the results were inconclusive. Until they actually tested the potion out, they wouldn't know how it functions besides the description. If these potions ended up not being rare, they could experiment. For now, using that potion might be the difference between beating a round or dying early, so it was important to keep in reserve.

The group discovered soon after that even with Leon's strength he couldn't move anything on the silver chest next to the copper one. It was Illy's chest and only she could mess with it.

So, she took his warhammer, and used it to poke at the chest.

No mimic inside there either, which made Wade nervous for his own chest.

"Fountain of power." Illy said, holding some kind of glowing shimmering yellow crystal. "Huh. Lets me deploy a 'permanent fount of power' that can be used once per day. Using it, ye get to re-pick a new boon from your roaster. Single use, stays wherever I put it forever after, can't be seen by anyone except players. Probably best to use it on earth? Don't know anywhere in Azdrial that we'd be constantly coming back to yet. Earth's a lot more secure. But we travel to earth right after the storefront, so feels like a waste."

Wade shook his head. "Two things we could make use of here already. For one," He pointed at Leon. "We know there's some boons that can only be used once per day. So he uses his boon on earth, then swaps to a better one before getting sent over here."

"Oh, clever." Leon said, patting Wade on the back. "I like. And second idea?"

"Player finder." Illy said from the side, spinning her knife in one hand. "Isn't that right yank?"

Wade nodded. "Yep, it can only be seen by players right? So if we put it somewhere public and anyone pays attention to it? We know they're a player. It's a PvP game, information is power at this stage."

"Could backfire on us though." Illy said. "If a larger group of players learns about it, they might camp it out and now they'd spot us if we tried using it."

"Not saying that's what we use it for, just throwing out the options." Wade said, with a shrug. "The reverse would also be true, we could walk by it acting as if we see nothing and have ourselves cleared of suspicion by those players. Would give us an edge since we already know it's visible and not to gawk."

Illy nodded, and the glowing crystal vanished completely from her hand. Pulled back into whatever the System inventory was. "Aye, yer turn now. Knock on wood it ain't an old friend again."

Wade nervously grabbed the warhammer and prodded the gold lootbox. High chances this one had a mimic, since it was his lootbox and luck liked to troll him.

And it did troll him as it turned out. Inside he found… nothing again. "God fucking dam-"

Then he read the small flurry of system messages, froze in place as his head went through a mental reboot of all the new options. That's when he started laughing. A manic, insane, unhinged laugh of someone who'd escaped the rat race of capitalism.

"What happened yank?" Illy asked. "You get something good?"

"Better than good." Wade said.

Luck Triggered: Lootbox Rewards upgraded to Blessing Upgrade

Market's blessings (Language+, Passage, Luck) - Allows you to read, write and speak fluently in any language used by general trade. Allows you to copy this blessing on sentient targets capable of trade until canceled either by you or your target.

The rest of the blessing remained the same, only the upgraded language part had gotten a plus sign next to it, which meant only the language aspect could be copied out. He didn't know if he would have wanted something different, but he had been complaining earlier about being a translator. Suppose the System had heard him.

Where he'd started really appreciating what he'd gotten was only a half second later when he realized the most important part: He could sell this as a service.

The free market had once more moved the invisible hand, but this time in Wade's favor. How many people would pay the big bucks to speak, read and write any language ever?! He continued laughing to himself, gleefully.

That was just the regular laugh. When his laugh turned more unhinged and manic, that's because he realized another profound discovery: The bestowed copy of the blessing could be canceled anytime on his end. Which means what he was selling wasn't the actual blessing itself.

It was his permission to keep using it. Which meant one thing: Subscription model. Monthly payments. Blackmail. FREE MARKET CAPITALISM BABY.

Finally the god of money threw Wade his very own golden parachute, ladder and bone all at once. He just needed to get a suit and shades and he'd be good to go.

"Think he's gone off the deep end?" Illy asked, feeling worried for their poor yank. The way he was cackling to himself, hopping on the balls of his feet like a maniacal villain was starting to worry her. Did the System screw him over somehow, or break his head?

Wade didn't hear any of that over the sounds of gold coins raining down on him in his daydream. Hands rubbing each other as his body vibrated in place.

"My friends," Wade said, turning around and spreading his hands like a benevolent tyrant, "Today, I'm feeling rather generous." He pointed fingers at Illy, "You get a blessing!" And then pointed to Leon. "And you get a blessing!"

Both of them stared at him. Then stared at their system logs, clearly reading the new message there.

"Holy feck, that's lucky... ah. Your luck stat." Illy sighed as Wade flashed a happy thumbs up, confirming her thoughts. "Really believed I'd have to learn moonwing over the next few months just to speak to knife-ears."

"She will be happy to hear." Leon said, "Oh, I am very curious if this works on every language? Like Latin?"

He still spoke with his thicker accent. Maybe languages he already knew weren't affected? Illy's Scottish was hardly understandable to Wade, and he knew it was technically english.

"Where's that knife-ears gotten to come to think of it? Last I spied her, she was a few buildings down, hurlin' one of her magic spear-strikes at Lapushka. Maybe we should go have a look for her next." Then her eyes narrowed as if remembering something. And she shot a look at Wade. "Wait a tick. You doing this for free?"

"This one time, yes." Wade said, puffing his chest out. "As it so happens, I can do this an unlimited amount of times. So there will be plenty of buissness to do in the future. Just write out a yelp review for me if you could, thanks. Five star, like and favorite please. A good business needs a successful launch strategy, and that begins with happy clients."

Illy paled, then grabbed him by the collar and turned him around. "Keep this fecking under wraps 'til we see how things fall into place, Wade. Don't go telling this service to anyone just yet. Anyone!"

Wade instantly rebooted his head. "What?"

She shook him, then tapped his forehead frantically with one finger. "Think with your real head for once. And usually I say that to men about their second head - but I can see your skull's got a bloody cash register inside there instead." She shook him twice. "Think, Wade, think. The moment anyone with real power finds out you're a walking Rosetta Stone, they'll have your tongue cut out and preserved in a jar before ye can say 'competitive pricing structure.' And then they'll start sniffing out for where you got your powers from."

He stared at her as if she were an alien. "Cutting my tongue out wouldn't work though."

"I meant that metaphorically you fecking turnip."

"Hell no you paranoid tea-licker." Wade hissed back. "I'm starting the instant I set foot back on earth, WordPress first, then getting yelp setup and pitching a table out on the street to start with."

"Tea-licker? Tea-licker?"

But Wade hadn't heard a word of that, he was still deep in his delusions. "I'll get rich faster than anyone else can corner that market. I've got literal magic. Magic!" They couldn't understand his lofty goals.

Illy mentally recalculated, trying to figure out how to stall this idiot into thinking straight. It was going to be difficult enough to navigate politics, and that was from the softest possible angle of her family stepping in first with military connections as first contact. That was the best case situation, and the one she'd planned on going down once she was ready enough to reveal Selena. Probably earlier than later.

But there's no telling how the USA would react to Players, especially those without any personal or political power to back them. Problem was that the mania debuff was punching through Wade's skull with an iron fist and squeezing the common sense out through his ears. How would she convince Wade to stay quiet about this? Bribe him? She could wire him a good amount, get that to tide him over for a few days.

No, wiring him money might not be the best idea. It could placate the monster for a few days at best. More likely, he'd use her own funds to catapult his terrible idea out into the world even faster than a bloody street stall would.

He was starting to laugh again, even while she had her hands on his shirt shaking him. Eyes glazed over, seeing dollar signs in the air.

Definitely not a good idea to wire him money.

"IRS." Leon said to the side.

Wade stopped laughing straight away.

It was like a magical word of power that slapped Wade back into reality.

Illy noticed the reaction instantly. "Leon, you bloody genius." Then she turned to Wade with an evil grin. "Yeh, you don't like that do ya? IRS."

Wade hissed and flinched backwards in her grip like a vampire shown a holy cross.

"Just think how much coin the taxman's nabbing from your purse, eh?" Illy laughed, giving him another shake. "Imagine every little gold coin plucked away. Poor little piggy bank."

Wade had tried to set up his own business in the past of course. Generate extra revenue, snowball up into something that would let him pay off all debts and escape his retail hell. Unaware of self-employment taxes and their rates.

Someone making under poverty levels of income even as their only source of income wouldn't see any hesitation from the IRS, and they certainly wouldn't think twice about driving the poor sucker even further under.

He'd been blindsided by a massive tax bill slapped on top of an immediate penalty for not filing taxes quarterly. Right when his checking account held just twenty-three dollars, as he'd expected to be getting money back from Uncle Sam.

This forced him to liquidate assets and sell his gaming PC, effectively ending his dreams of being his own boss, while solidifying a deep hatred for anything that had the symbol of an eagle obsessively looking down at its balance scales.

Unless self-employment could generate at least twenty to thirty percent more per hour than his retail jobs in order to cover his own healthcare and tax additions, he'd only break even at best. Unfortunately, his various attempts had consistently paid far less than retail work by default of starting from nothing. With his current debt load, Wade simply couldn't afford to spend hours working on his own business when those same hours could be spent at retail.

That internal trauma knocked him out of his delusions.

Leon and Illy were right. His translation services were dangerous and would lead the enemy back to his gates. He nodded back at the other two, lucid and clearheaded once more. "Okay, I understand. You're right."

He'd need to prepare a good LLC with tax loopholes for avoidance, prepare ahead of time with a lawyer and proper online research. There were entire youtube channels to binge through and properly prepare with.

Only then could he take on the IRS.

Illy sighed in relief, letting him go. Unaware that he had understood nothing at all about the actual dangers of the world at large, but it didn't matter so long as the yank wouldn't shoot himself in the foot this early. She just needed to get her family connections into the ring, and that might take a week to really get the right people involved.

The group got back on their feet. Time to find Selena, grab the wardkey from Lapushka - and get the hell out of this city.


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