Might as Well

Boris let out a choked laugh as if finally realizing that the company wouldn’t just send one random person to protect their warehouse. Either a proper team would be sent, or somebody so powerful that they could stand against a group of attackers.

His compatriots looked equally shocked at the ineffectiveness of their barrage.

“What the hell?”

“Why didn’t that work?”

“Is he hacking?”

“He must be!”

Boris, naturally, had to respond to that. “Shut up, you idiots! He clearly used an ulti!” The people around him immediately calmed down, relief and realization spreading through their faces. “And now that it is on cooldown, we can destroy him!” the big man exclaimed while also pointing at Sam.

The rest of the imbeciles, instead of understanding his unspoken command, just began nodding.

“You're right, boss!”

“Hah! Stupid to use the ulti as the first spell!”

Sam watched with the same fascination as one would watch a documentary about lesser lifeforms as Boris’s face spasmed with pain and the man roared.

“Get him, you idiots!”

Sam chuckled a little and before the comedy troupe in front of him could start flinging magic at him, he rushed forward, thrusting his sword, coated in oscillating wind mana, into the first mage’s chest.

Then, he let go of the magic holding the wind mana there.

Thankfully, the system simply turned the man into rainbow pixels instead of a gory horror show as he exploded across the warehouse.

But Sam didn’t stop. Using the momentum from his charge, he went low, ducking under a barrage of ice spears intent on skewering him, and pivoted into a parry against the weapon that Boris finally revealed. Naturally, it was a wicked-looking axe, dripping with malice. Very edgy…

However, Sam’s sword was enhanced with his mana, thus stopping the much bigger weapon.

CLANG

He used his other hand, holding his palm toward the bigger man, to shoot off a gust of wind, pushing the angry man away.

This created enough space for him to throw himself forward as he sensed more water being shot in his direction. Luckily, the high-pressure attack splashed against some of the boxes, splintering them, and causing raw ores to fall everywhere.

Righting himself, Sam smirked and broke into several clones that all kept the smirking face as they ran in three different directions while he jumped upwards, settling on the top of one of the giant shelves almost touching the ceiling of the warehouse.

His clones, no longer statuary, as the game system had learned how he moved, ran around keeping the attention on them.

“There he is!”

“No, that’s a clone!”

“No no! That was the real one!”

“Hell no! My Mystic Eye spots illusions! That was def a clone!”

Silently chuckling as Boris roared ‘encouragements’ at his minions – that is, threats of dismemberment – Sam summoned enough wind spears near him to skewer every wannabe gangster in the warehouse twice over and slowly, using his senses, began tagging them with a minuscule amount of mana.

And just as his last shadow clone was dispersed, he called out.

“Hey, idiots!”

Instantly, all of them looked up at him, Boris’ face turning into an interesting shade of angry red and nauseous puce.

“There he is!”

“Get him!”

“How did he get there?”

Sam smiled and lazily waved his hand at them. “Goodbye, idiots!”

With incredible speed, not his top speed, but these scrubs couldn’t even keep up with it, the wind spears fell like rods from heaven, opening several new holes in their bodies and turning them into rainbow pixels that evaporated into nothingness.

Boris had a bit more health, so he was mostly disabled and close to death, furiously moving around, trying to free himself and cursing the spears made of wind mana.

“What the hell! Why aren’t they dissapearin’?"

‘Because I’m keeping them there…’ Sam answered inside his mind as he languidly jumped down from his perch and walked closer to the struggling man.

“Soooo…. Who hired you?” he asked as he used more wind mana to paralyze the man, only letting his head move about. His senses were primed, ready for anything Boris could throw at him in desperation while keeping a careful eye on the happenings outside the warehouse. The guild members were holding the line for now, but he suspected the enemy was just putting up a show…

“I’m not a rat, you fucker! Now, let me go!” Boris roared.

“And I don’t believe you…” Sam answered carelessly, hand still on his sword.

“Well then, go die, you asshole!” exclaimed Boris, then with a crazed look in his eyes continued. “They told me to use it on somebody disposable, but if I can fuck up your day, then I'll gladly take the death penalty!”

Sam raised a few more layers of wind between him and the man and watched in fascination as a ring on the man’s finger glowed with the characteristics of demonic mana before the body of the man in front of Sam dissolved into a cloud of darkness that contracted for a few seconds pulsing exactly three times before exploding almost silently.

WHUMP

Sam felt the magic go through him, but to his surprise, nothing happened. Scowling, he focused on his senses and managed to watch as the pulse of demonic mana spread out until it reached the defensive magic on the building, parts of which were used by the defenders to keep back the black-robed assailants, and slowly began to eat it for the lack of a better word.

“Well, dang… demons be demoning…” he murmured as he slowly walked toward the main doors and slowly began to throw out the plates with runes on them.

Thankfully, he already had a few relevant runic circles made up, thus by the time the attackers took out the rest of the defenders and began congregating toward the doors, he had several prepared for them.

Curious to see where this was going, he pulled over a new chair where the previous guard sat and plopped down, waiting for the enemy to enter.

The door creaked open, at first a little hesitantly but more confidently after a few seconds. And with that came the voice of the enemy.

“…I told you it would work…” came the proud statement from one of them.

Another scoffed. “Having the riff-raff doing the dirty work is easy…”

“It was just some gold that we got because of the crash. There is plenty remaining…” came the retort. Sam was glad to see they also took the opportunity to enrich themselves.

There was a brief pause as they all walked into the building, completely ignoring Sam as he sat next to the door, immobile, watching them with his cheek in his hand and elbow resting on the windowsill.

“Still, why did the lord want us to do this?”

“Who the hell knows how an elder demon thinks?” came the logical question.

Another shook their head. Their gender was very well hidden by the robe, but the voice that came from under the cowl was unmistakably female. “Nah. The company is hiding Tim, so the guild master wanted to punish him.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I heard from–” She continued to explain but was interrupted by another cloaked individual.

“Uhm, guys? Does the AFK company deal with runic plates?”

“What?”

The previous speaker just nervously pointed down, which caused all the robed individuals to look down in horror.

“Oh, fu–”

He didn’t have time to finish as Sam simply activated his circles, causing seven concentric illusionary runic spells to flash into existence. With another twist of his will, they activated at the same time, burning up the anchor plates and the people caught inside the circle.

Sam watched in silence as the ashes turned into rainbow pixels…

‘Man… there is overconfident and then there is this…’ he shook his head as he closed the warehouse door behind him and began to head back to the headquarters.

“So, the Silent Step, or whatever they became, has targeted the warehouse?”

“Pretty much. Sadly, I couldn’t give them time to say more, as they noticed my trap…” Sam admitted while scratching the back of his neck. “Anyway, did you know about Boris?”

Lucy shook her head. “Not me. Tim found that he has been selling our ‘secrets’ and now that he had enough money thanks to the crash, he decided to go out with a bang…”

“And you sent me there knowing I would be able to take care of them…”

“Or, at least, not die…” she admitted.

“Cool.”

She glanced at him from her desk and countless documents. “Are you angry?”

“More like a bit annoyed…” he replied with a small frown, then shrugged. “I could have known to keep them talking if you had told me.”

“I’ll do that next time,” she said with a small smile, visibly relieved that he wasn’t angry.

“How did the rest go?”

“We’re currently cleaning up. Death in the guild has been compensated.”

“Losses?”

“A few items here and there, but nothing much.”

“Good job!” Sam told her with a smile. “Do you know who was attacking?”

“Well Silent Step, that’s for sure, then there were…”

As Lucy began to list the people and organizations that took their chance to attack them, he settled back into his chair, listening to his friend’s voice.

It hurt a little that Lucy didn’t tell him everything about the mission, but after a brief introspection, he realized she was just simply copying his modus operandi. Thus, he didn’t really have any reason to complain…

‘Well, if that was a veiled attempt at teaching me a lesson, then it was a well-done one…’ he mused.

Finally, he had time to finish one of his quests.

The chaos with the gold crash was done. Though the price was still going up, the people were no longer despondent and instead eagerly waiting to see the highest price that would be achieved.

The attacks on the guild were dealt with by Lucy, Adam, and Tim. Lara was doing well with the fortress, so he finally had time to deal with the runic teacher.

The letter he received way back was still in his inventory, but the name was a mystery. As this was a completely unknown path to the other Sam, he had to rely on his own investigation and wits to find the person.

Thankfully, the library at the Nowhere base had a really nice directory about the people living in the capital thus, it took half an hour to find the name he was given. Naturally, only after he spent almost an hour getting to the base.

Lauren Fitzgerald

A very… interesting name.

Sadly, the basic library only had his name, latest address, and occupation listed.

“A runic enchanter…” he murmured as he looked down on the page. Those were rare and usually very crazy. A life spent studying arcane sigils and how to apply them to various objects seldom led to balanced individuals.

‘What does that say about me…’ he contemplated as he wrote down the address.

Finding the man’s home wasn’t hard, as he lived on the edge of the noble district in a small two-story house.

Sam steeled himself, holding the letter in his hand, and stepped up to the door and knocked three times.

Surprisingly, he didn’t have to wait long. The door flew open, causing him to stumble back a little as the man of the hour stood there staring at him with crazed eyes.

Lauren Fitzgerald looked like every crazy scientist who had ever tried to figure out what lies beyond the unknown. He wore black slacks and a checkered suit vest over a white shirt. The arms of the shirt were pulled up to his elbows, revealing forearms that were full of small wounds that had healed, leaving behind a multitude of scars crisscrossing the skin.

He had stubble and his hair, salt and pepper colored, stood every which way giving him a truly crazed look.

“Excellent! Just in time!”

“Um, what?”

“Don’t dawdle, young man! Come on!” he exclaimed, grabbed Sam’s arm, and dragged him into the building, the door closing automatically behind them. Inside was just as chaotic as Sam expected.

The foyer, holding mostly coats and a few boots and an umbrella stand that had a bow and spear in it, opened into a giant room full of desks covered in all manner of things. Some he recognized; some he was totally confused about regarding their use. The air shimmered from countless runes that were projected into the air as if they were drawn on a whiteboard.

“You came exactly at the right time!” the man stated proudly as they skidded to a halt near one of the ends of the room, where a contraption was present.

“For what exactly, sir?” Sam asked as he tried to make sense of the confounding mess in front of him. Whatever it was, it was brimming with magic. Far more magic than he had.

“To hold a box!” the man declared proudly, eyes locked on the monstrosity made of magic, metals, and who knows what…

Then he flinched and turned back to Sam. “You can hold a box, right?” he asked worriedly.

“Depends on the box…” Sam answered slowly.

The man grinned and pointed to a simple wooden box with no top. “That one!”

“Well, then yes. I can.”

“Great!” the man exclaimed again, then exploded into action. He grabbed the empty box, shoved it into Sam’s arms, and as Sam tried to awkwardly not drop the box, the supposed expert turned back to the contraption and eagerly snapped his finger.

Before Sam could say anything, the device came to life, runes appearing and disappearing as fast as possible, making it impossible to make them out, the magic reaching a height that caused Sam to worry that it would explode, but before he could try to think a way to shield himself the magic gathering in the device began flowing out, creating a perfectly circular portal.

Sam didn’t need a PhD to know what this was.

The madman created a fracture portal…

Said madman turned to Sam, grabbed his hand, and simply jumped forward dragging him with surprising strength.

“Come! Adventure awaits!”