Poll World [LitRPG][Reader Polls]

(Paid vote chapter! Gen is up to 33 viewers!)

After exiting the event and confirming Jasper hadn't been eliminated, Gen headed for the conference room. Belatedly, she realized that with Hon dead in the event, there wouldn't be anyone else coming.

The door slammed open, proving her wrong as Morna strode into the room.

"What's up bitches! Guess who killed Katana Girl!"

Jasper and Gen just stared at Morna for a second before Gen said, "Her name is Sarah, you know."

Morna rolled her eyes, "I know what her name is! It just pissed her off when I kept calling her Katana Girl, especially after breaking all her katanas! I could've kept going for a while, but I figure with the final day of the event being tomorrow, I should finish her off and check in on you guys!"

Morna looked around, "Where's Hon?"

Gen's expression sank, "He died… A lot of people died. I don't want to take it out on you, Morna, and I'm happy you won your fight, but I messed up, and now things are looking rough. I do wish you could've finished your fight sooner, as we could've used some help against the lich…"

Morna's eyes widened, "There's a lich!? Gen, why do you bury the lead? Wait, didn't LEO say that it was a dragon lich! I thought he was being figurative or something… That's a kickass combination!"

Gen rolled her eyes, "It's not as cool when it mind-controlled Jasper's friends and started killing everyone."

Jasper nodded in agreement.

Morna shrugged as she took a seat, "It's still objectively cool even if it sucks for us. Like I've done four scenarios, and none of them had a dragon or a lich. Having both at once is like one in a million."

Gen rubbed her forehead, feeling like the strategy session was getting off course, "Regardless, I don't think it's important that it's a dragon lich vs just a normal lich. The necromancy powers are the problem because they can control zombies, and that's kind of supposed to be our whole strategy. Terry's group has been collecting a giant swarm, from what I understand, and they'll be sitting ducks. Not only that, but I finally have enough contribution points to repair the hatchery, and it's pointless if they'll just be turned against us."

Morna shook her head, "Gen, it's totally important that it's a dragon lich!" She pointed up at the sky and continued, "LEO thrives on viewer engagement, and so the strength of something is always going to be related to its narrative value! Now, think from a viewer's perspective, who do you think would win between a lich and a dragon lich?"

Gen hesitated and shrugged, "I guess the dragon lich?"

Morna nodded excitedly, "Exactly!"

Gen looked at her helplessly, "Exactly what? I don't need to think from a viewer's perspective to know it's strong! We had hundreds of people there, and it carved through us."

Morna let out an exasperated sigh, "Gen, really, do I have to spell it out? LEO loves to play into tropes, so of course a dragon lich is crazy strong, but what other characteristics might it have?"

Gen shared a look with Jasper and said, "Umm, breath attacks and necromancy? Flight?"

Morna groaned, "Not its abilities! Its personality!"

Gen sat down as well, feeling exhausted, "Does it even have a personality? It was just killing things… the other NPCs in the event don't act like humans and just run around, so I assumed it would be the same."

Morna waved her hand dismissively, "Yeah, the basic NPCs are just there for filler, but like it's a dragon lich, how could LEO not give it a personality!?"

Gen decided to stop debating exactly how careless LEO was and instead got to the point, "Just tell me what you're leading up to, Morna…"

"Fiiine, you're so impatient, Gen!" Taking a dramatic breath, Morna said, "So liches are evil, we can't rule out that LEO is intentionally trying to subvert tropes, but it's weird for the event story that a lich is helping avert a zombie apocalypse instead of helping it. If it were an actor, we could argue that it's fighting against the evil energy fueling it, but it's an NPC, so unless the dragon had some sort of really involved backstory on why it wants to save the city, it's probably being controlled somehow."

Morna had a smug expression, and Gen had to remind herself that Morna wasn't as thoughtless as she acted normally.

Thinking it through, Gen spoke, "So if we can find out how the lich is being controlled, then maybe we can turn it against the protagonists instead of trying to find a way to eliminate it?"

Morna nodded excitedly, "If we do figure it out, I call dibs on riding the dragon!"

Gen focused on Jasper. She didn't know much about the lich's situation after luring it away, and it would help if she could have some eyes on the inside.

"Jasper, how do you feel about a little iguana get-together?"

Jasper seemed surprised, but after a second seemed to understand what she was saying as he nodded his assent.

Summon iguana. Summon iguana. Summon iguana. Summon iguana. Summon iguana. Summon iguana.

Several seconds later, six new micro-iguanas had been summoned into the meeting room. She couldn't control which ones were summoned, but the iguanas apparently could elect which ones came out, so it appeared the six summoned ones were the same six as from the event.

Jasper darted between them, rubbing against their sides and checking their conditions like some sort of mother hen. Seeing them all in good condition, he quickly calmed, and all eyes turned to Gen.

Gen looked at the collection of lizards and Morna and tried to figure out how to actually facilitate the conversation. Unlike in the event Jasper couldn't talk, and even if they stayed up all night playing charades, she probably still wouldn't know what was happening.

With a flash of inspiration, she looked at Morna and said, "Bring old Gen here!"

Several minutes later, a gleeful Morna arrived, dragging old Gen, who was coccooned in a sleeping bag with just her face showing.

Dropping her hard on the ground, Morna proclaimed, "Tadah!"

Gen rolled her eyes, and Morna just shrugged with a smile. Focusing Gen squatted down and looked at the bleary-eyed supposed leader of the club, and said, "Hello. Sorry to wake you… Or whatever you were doing, but could you body swap with Jasper so that we can talk?"

Old Gen looked at Jasper and yawned before abruptly becoming more alert and struggling out of the sleeping bag. On the table, Jasper's body jumped down and crawled its way into the depths of the sleeping bag, disappearing from view.

With the body-swap complete, Jasper was now wearing flannel pajamas with chibi sea turtles as he quickly oriented himself to the new form. "Gen, I thought it was just how human bodies were, but are you perhaps abnormally weak?"

Morna laughed, and Gen felt a hot blush, "Don't compare me to her! She's like super fit! Most people are normal!" Gen shot a look at Morna, who was also sporting a body that would make most crossfitters jealous, and sighed, "After the event, I'll start exercising, but that's not the point! We need to strategize for tomorrow!"

Jasper nodded, "I will interpret for the others, but our experiences are much the same. We are near the lich, but unable to do much more than observe."

Gen narrowed her eyes, "I get them because they're zombies, but how are you by the lich without it killing you?"

Jasper averted his eyes.

Morna laughed from the side, "It did kill you, didn't it! Are you a skeleton!?"

Jasper cleared his throat, his aggravated expression looking very out of character in old Gen's body as he said, "I perhaps acted with too much haste to rescue my brethren. After I was noticed, I fought the lich in single combat. My hammer, if you recall, can detonate flesh and was at a significant disadvantage against a skeletal opponent. I persisted, however, and managed to crack its skull before it bypassed my armor with its cursed runes. Afterward, I was raised from the dead and maintained my consciousness in the same manner as when I was converted into a special zombie. However, I am unable to resist its commands. Perhaps recognizing my talent beyond the common undead, it reinforced my fleshless body and has begun assigning me missions alongside my brethren."

Morna pointed excitedly, "Jasper! You're a deathknight!"

Gen gave Jasper a deadpan look. How could he look almost proud despite getting himself killed and turned into another minion for the lich?

Trying to stay positive, she asked, "Do you think you could break its control and snap out of it? You were keeping the fusioncrack zombies under control before… Before I messed it up, if I summoned more iguanas, would that allow you and the other fusioncracks to resist?"

Jasper looked serious as he shook his head, "Do not summon more. As I've told you, my priority is preventing my brethren from experiencing suffering. I had thought that the special zombie forms would be indomitable, and I made the mistake of having you summon these six, but I won't drag more of us into this. We are lucky that the lich appreciates their combat ability."

Gen sighed, but didn't argue. She knew Jasper wouldn't compromise on this point.

"Anything you can tell us about what it's up to?"

Jasper shook his head, "I am not an expert in magic, but the creature has been creating some sort of runic spell array."

Looking at the iguanas, he continued, "I'll ask my brethren if they observed anything else while I was deceased."

The iguanas silently communicated through some unknown means for a few seconds before Jasper spoke again.

"Apparently, the lich has been repeating a phrase periodically. I would have thought it was feebleminded, but if Morna's supposition proves correct, it may well be purposefully trying to leak information."

Morna and Gen sat up straight at that detail, and Gen saw the sleeping bag shift slightly as old Gen evidently was still awake and eavesdropping.

Pausing for just a moment, Jasper recited. "Kill everything outside of the center 30 zones."

Gen felt uncertain and said, "Is that what it was commanded to do?" She turned to Morna for clarification.

Morna shrugged, "Maybe? Probably? It's saying it for a reason. If I were being controlled by a geas, then I would tell everybody exactly what the phrasing was so they could find loopholes."

Not enjoying having to learn new words with how tired she was already, Gen asked, "What is a geas exactly?"

Morna looked excited, "It's a type of binding curse, but you can just think of it as mind control. You can resist it, but depending on like how mentally strong you are and how strong the effect is, or just how bad you don't want to do what it commands you might be able to overcome it. In our first scenario, Billy's ability that made people more vicious was a geas too, but my mind was too strong, so it couldn't beat me!"

Gen nodded, "So what can we do with that command? It seems pretty straightforward. It tells the lich to kill things outside the center zones, but doesn't say it can't kill things inside the zone, so why doesn't it just do it?"

Morna shrugged, "I'm not an expert, but it's usually like a compulsion that can't be ignored. In this case, the command is really simple, so the compulsion is really strong and hard to resist. So, probably the lich is so consumed by trying to kill things outside the middle zones that it's compelled to prioritize that over anything else. I don't know if the protagonists thought this far ahead or just got lucky, but it kind of works out that by the time the lich finishes killing everything not in the middle of the event map, the event will be over before it gets a chance to attack the center."

Jasper spoke up, "The solution is simple. My brethren will slaughter all the antagonists, and then we will be free to attack the rest."

Gen balked. Jasper was her summon, so she got credit for his kills. If he started slaughtering everyone, she would lose a ton of contribution points. She had been too preoccupied during the fight, but she'd lost over 10,000 contribution points when the fusioncrack zombies had started killing everyone.

Morna was looking excited, "That's a great idea! I can help kill people, too! Maybe if we message everyone we know and tell them to kill themselves, we can make it go even faster!"

Before they could go down this path any further, Gen held her hand up in objection.

"I might have a slightly different plan. I know LEO might not believe me, but I don't want us to kill our teammates if we don't have to."

Switching perspective!~

***

Terry scowled as he looked at the report. While the other antagonists had been having a BBQ and getting slaughtered, he had been hard at work managing all the lazy wretches under him. They had corralled almost a hundred thousand zombies and fifty-eight special zombies.

The normal zombies could be moved around with command rods and other event items, but the special zombies were uncontrollable. They had to paintstakenly capture them, and load them into reinforced transport containers one by one. It had gotten hundreds of his workers killed, but he was running a temp agency after all. The whole point was that they were replaceable.

The logistics had been a nightmare, and he swore he was developing an ulcer trying to bring some level of organization to the zombie apocalypse, but it was all going to be worth it! The zombies and special zombies were powerful, but they were mindless and criminally stupid in the way they attacked fortified defenses with no sense of self-preservation. With his plan, he would've unleashed the whole horde simultaneously, pointing them at a single point of the protagonist's defenses and carving a path of blood straight to the mech factory.

Cursing, he threw the report on the table. A fucking lich, not only that, but a dragon lich. His analysts estimated that a normal lich would only have enough magical ability to control ten thousand or so zombies, but with a dragon's innate magical biology, it magnified the bad news into a nightmare scenario where all his work was going to be stolen right out from under him!

"I finished my end of the bargain, now give me what you promised."

Terry looked up, giving the man a deadpan stare. Above his head wasn't a normal name, but a title.

Meat Sack Guy - Level 3.

"I generated you enough biomass to successfully incubate 100 special zombies. So you need to give me the procreation ticket."

Terry didn't make eye contact. Had he promised something like that? Under normal circumstances, making 100 special zombies was impossible, very least it would take decades of zombie events to slowly stack them up. Someone getting the ability to mass-produce mutagens was completely outside his expectations.

He'd ignored the issue that he didn't actually have the aforementioned procreation ticket, as it would've been easy enough to buy once his plan panned out.

But the fucking lich!

Taking a deep breath, he put on his signature smile, "Now, Meat, let's not be hasty. I said successful incubations, and with the lich in play now, we can't really call these incubations successful, can we? Unless you have some way to take care of the lich problem, then I'm afraid that bargain isn't valid anymore."

Meat took a step forward, and the scent of blood filled the room.

Terry wasn't intimidated as he said, "On Call!"

A group of six bodyguards appeared in the room surrounding Meat, but Terry wasn't done as he cast buffs.

"Overtime!"

"Safety Violation!"

He then pulled out a whip and cracked it, further buffing his bodyguards. The whip was an event item, but he was determined to make it real if he could just get enough contribution points. The Taskmaster Flail suited him perfectly, much like his overtime ability, it temporarily buffed a worker at the cost of their long-term health. It'd burn through his workers even faster, but again, there was a reason he ran a temp agency.

Meat froze and eyed the bodyguards. They were all level 1, but after the buffs, Terry knew they were more than a match for Meat. If anything, the six of them were overkill… Still beating Meat to death would be good stress relief as he tried to find some way to salvage his plans.

The wall to his office exploded, and purple lightning arced around the area. One bolt hit Terry dead center, but did no damage as his Safety Violation ability activated and redirected the damage to one of his bodyguards. The guard immediately started transforming into a fusioncrack zombie, and Terry scrambled for cover under his desk.

"On call! On call! On call!"

Three more sets of bodyguards materialized one after another. Terry could hear shouting from outside and more explosions. The damn lich was already here!

Crawling along the floor, he saw the guards quickly subdue the errant fusioncrack zombie as well as Meat. The calm didn't last as an armored figure holding a hammer leapt into the room. With a single swing, the new attacker made one of the guards detonate into an explosion of gore.

Terry eyed the hammer warily. That thing was clearly an event item. Who was this bastard!? No name appeared, so they weren't an actor, but they didn't move like a zombie either. Another guard exploded, and Terry got a glimpse into the helmet and shuddered as he saw a skull wearing sunglasses.

Deathknight!

Terry was an accomplished scenario delver, so he recognized the enemy easily enough. That knowledge gave him no comfort, however, as his guards were dismantled one by one. Whatever armor the thing was wearing was even higher quality than its hammer! Abilities, gun shots, and stabs all completely failed to harm it, and very quickly, the guards started to try and retreat.

"No, you don't! Overtime!"

The buff also came with a geas that made his workers more obedient. The effect was immediate as the guards returned to their positions and used their lives to buy him precious seconds as he started activating his escape pod event item.

The plan was ruined, but for an enterprising man like himself, there would always be another opportunity as long as he survived.

As the pod materialized, Terry started to climb inside when he felt a hand grab his ankle and roughly pull him back out.

Cursing, he saw Meat now had a grip on him and fiercely tried kicking his hand loose. Meat didn't seem to even feel the pain as Terry felt his ability Tenderize activate.

Terry screamed in pain as his muscles were ripped to pieces one by one, and Meat started crawling to the escape pod.

Suddenly, the death knight was there. Terry glanced back at his guards and saw just puddles of gore remaining. The deathknight stood by the escape pod, eyeing Meat and Terry with an unreadable expression.

Terry laughed, "I'm going to blacklist you, Meat! You won't get any more work from ol' Terry! And for what? You're getting eliminated all the same! You should've just taken your licks like a good boy and laid low!"

The death knight oddly hesitated as it looked between the two of them, and Terry felt his heart drop as it walked past Meat and swung its hammer directly at his head.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

You have been eliminated!~

Switching perspective!~

***

Rosalina stretched as she kept an eye on the phone collection in front of her. Things were going well, almost too well…

The mech factory had been upgraded again, and she'd just finished ordering the new construction priorities. There were layered defenses within the remaining thirty zones, and she had each remaining headquarters outfitted with 100 P-4 models, which were three generations more advanced than the P-1 hunk of junk she'd been forced to pilot.

To spice things up, she had added S and A models to the lineup as well, which provided sniping and artillery capabilities. If anything slipped past her lich, they wouldn't last long. The upgrades were all possible because she was drowning in contribution points as the lich killed one thing after another.

Her good mood evaporated as the four phones in front of her disappeared. Startled, she froze for only a second before scrambling out of the room to where she'd left Loquat and the others. Phones weren't event items, so they couldn't be looted. If they disappeared, that meant only one thing…

Rushing to the meeting room where she had locked the top brass in, she saw a hooded figure casually walking away. They had no name or level above their head, and when they turned to face her, she saw only darkness within their cowl.

Not hesitating, she pulled out the Admiral's Cannon she had confiscated from Loquat out of her inventory and activated it. Shooting a devastating blast right at the figure. The building shook, and a hole exploded in the wall at the end of the hall, but she got no notification that she'd slain an antagonist. The hooded figure appeared to have simply disappeared.

Cursing, she flung open the meeting room door and saw all four of the former leaders dead at the table where she'd left them. There was a strange scent in the air, and she coughed as she felt a burning in her lungs. Swinging the door shut, she cursed again, looking around for a threat, calming only when friendly guards arrived.

The meeting room was filled with poison gas. Normally, that wouldn't have been enough to kill four level 5 actors, but she'd ordered them to stay in there and do nothing, so they'd likely been helpless to defend themselves.

Cursing again, the guards all eyed her warily, and she forced herself to calm down as she stood up straight. She no longer had the phones and figureheads to hide behind, but she wasn't going to lose this event when she was so close!

LEO's voice playfully chuckled in her ear, "Tough break, Rosalina! But I love the can-do attitude! Normally, I think people with no viewers like you should just die, but I like your moxie, so here's a reward to celebrate the impending crisis!"

Switching perspective~

***

Nissa looked at the complex patterns of her spell. Necromancy had a beauty to it when you looked past all the death. The current spell-construct formed a shimmering prismatic array of glowing lights representing the locations of lifeforce remaining in the event map, but she had no room to appreciate it as the geas forced bloodlust into her mind.

"Kill everything outside of the center 30 zones."

Belatedly, she realized no one was around to hear her say it, as she'd sent the massive lizard things and her new death knight out to wipe out a large section of life registering on her map. But it was good to maintain character for the viewer's sake even when no one else was around.

Her deathknight and the lizards he was so attached to were odd. They didn't register as actors, but they were more willful than they ought to be. Her mind was clear enough that she could see this as an opportunity to work around the geas, and she deliberately leaked information to them before sending them out on missions with only vague commands.

As long as she was ordering them to do things that aligned with her orders, the geas was happy, and it gave room for so many potentially delightful plot twists…

Remembering herself, she spoke aloud.

"Disgusting humans! Before my rebirth, I was enslaved by that wretched man, and even now, with all this power, I am still bent to the will of another! This slight will be repaid! They will not live to understand the height of their folly, but their bones will witness it for eternity!"

Hopefully, that was enough for the viewers to get an idea of her backstory and motivations. They were certainly a dull lot in her experience, and she had to reiterate obvious details like that periodically in case they forgot. It had taken more than a dozen roles before she really started getting the hang of it, and she couldn't blow the opportunity now that she had such a high-profile character!

The plot of the event was lacking, so there wasn't a lot to build off, but that wasn't surprising for a LEO scenario. It just meant she had to make sure she focused on the characters… Rosalina was the obvious one on the protagonist side as her summoner, but on the antagonist side, she didn't have nearly enough information… The annoying flamingo creature was notable, but it also didn't register as an actor, so she'd rather not be too entangled with it.

She would have to interrogate her new death knight when he returned from his mission. Maybe she would ask him about that older gentleman with the laser eyes… Her viewers would certainly love that gruff daddy energy…

Switching perspective~

***

Gen reentered the event and immediately made eye contact with Solomon. He looked like he hadn't slept at all as he asked, "How's Hon doing?"

Caught off guard, Gen asked, "Umm, Hon? I don't know… I didn't see him."

Solomon glared at her, "Did you even send him a message? He died, you know? It's just an event, but it's still traumatic to die! You need to check on your friends more! After Trank and Daryl were offed by you idiots, I took them out for a few rounds to make sure they were okay. Alcohol isn't therapy, but it's better than nothing!"

Gen stared at him wide-eyed, "Are you actually a good friend?"

Solomon glared at her, "What did you think I was some type of asshole?"

Gen averted her gaze and coughed awkwardly.

His glare intensified, and he continued, "Of course, I look after my friends! You think we all got to level 5 without supporting each other?"

He sighed, "So what were you doing that you were so busy you couldn't send a text?"

Trying to justify herself, she said, "Jasper, Morna, and I were strategizing!"

He didn't look convinced as he motioned for her to explain.

"Well, it was mainly Jasper and I… Morna was surprisingly helpful in giving us information, but most of her plans amounted to shooting the lich with the giant laser…"

He rolled his eyes, "It's worth a shot, don't think it's stupid enough to hold still, but we've got to shoot something…"

Gen shook her head, "No, we've got a better plan. First, we've got to pick up Morna, though."

Pulling out her phone, she pointed to the location Morna had given her the night before. Luckily, the distance was short, so she didn't have to withstand the awkward silence for long before Solomon brought the UFO to a halt.

Hurrying to the tractor beam room, Gen dodged around various injured antagonists who were lounging around. Morale was low, but with Healing Hour in effect, at least the injuries themselves were slowly recovering.

Reaching the room, she saw Morna's smiling face and immediately frowned.

"...How are you alive?"

Morna was missing both her legs in addition to both her arms now, and was just a torso floating in the center of the room. Several antagonists were looking at her and whispering, but Morna just laughed.

"It's just a flesh wound! I killed Katana Girl at the start of yesterday, but I couldn't unlock my phone with just my tongue, so I was using my head to push off the ground every time I reversed gravity to try and reach you guys! It was a bit slow, but I managed a whole mile in just fourteen hours!"

Gen shook her head, "How did you even manage to kill Sarah without legs or arms?"

Morna laughed, "I tricked her into chopping my legs and bit her throat out when she let her guard down!"

Gen shivered and lost a few more feathers as she imagined the grisly scene. Glancing around at the crowd viewing them, she shook her head and said, "Tell me the rest once we get some privacy…" She looked down at her wings and said, "Can someone help me move to her the bridge?"

It didn't take long to get some volunteers after Morna promised not to bite them, and they carried her to the bridge before depositing her in front of Solomon and leaving the room.

Solomon stared down at Morna with an expression mixed between pity and disgust.

"Hon told me you were crazy, but this is still one of the stranger things I've seen."

Morna laughed and looked at Gen, "Hah! After sleeping beauty, here went to bed, I took Hon out for drinks and he told me that you were only half as much of an asshole as you looked!"

Solomon laughed and shot Gen a look, but she didn't give him the satisfaction of responding as she changed the topic, "Morna, seriously, how are you alive? When you lost your arms, it kind of made sense because you had allies around, but how'd you not bleed out?"

"Pff, easy, I have an ability that gives me extra blood."

Gen shook her head, "I thought you had the cat movement ability still? You haven't used your meow thing, so I figured you swapped that for the gravity thing."

"First of all, Gen, get my ability names right! It's Meow Meow, Kitty Karate, and See you next fall! I swapped both the cat ones out, so my other ability right now is The Black Knight. Honestly, I just use Kitty Karate in scenarios to bait LEO into giving me more cat polls, I'm more than skilled enough that I can move like a cat even without an augment!"

From the side, Solomon commented, "If the ability doesn't help you, you should just recycle it."

Morna looked at him wide-eyed, "Are you stupid? It's called Kitty Karate! Recycling abilities with alliterations is a sin!"

Gen held up a hand, "Morna, explain to me what recycling is later, but right now we really need to focus."

Gen didn't hesitate as she pulled the Lazarus berry from her inventory and dropped it on Morna's head. Likewise, Morna didn't hesitate as she exclaimed, "Ohhh, mysterious magic food! Gimmee!"

Gobbling the berry down in one bite, they weren't disappointed as the super healing ability lived up to its name and Morna's limbs instantly started regrowing. The process took only a few seconds, but it was packed full of the sound of squelching flesh, cracking bones, and Morna's maniacal laughter.

Morna bounced to her new feet and immediately pulled her boots out of her inventory, equipping them.

"These are so much easier to put on now that I have arms!"

Before she could comment, Gen's poll resolved.

Ding~!

Seeing the tie, she wasn't surprised to hear LEO's voice a second later.

"This late into the event, and you're still getting ties! I really am quite busy, Gen! Let me see here… Salt the earth and Remember the fallen… well, you're already a pretty salty person, so let's go with Remember the fallen!"

A roll of receipt paper appeared floating in front of her. Mentally, she could make it unfurl and saw names written one after another. She had a psychic connection to the item and could mentally trigger any of the names to burn. Not trusting what might happen if she did, she quickly looked at the item description.

Remember the fallen: Everyone loves a guest appearance! Burn a name and return someone to the event whose death you caused! Make it count! Guest appearances only last five minutes!

Gen gulped as she unfurled the paper further and saw thousands of names in alphabetical order. She didn't know who most of them were, and random names like Charlie, Paul, and Gary were all over the place, but she did recognize some like Gen, Aubrey, Pali, Hon, Francine, Susan, Daryl, and Trank. LEO's definition of deaths she'd caused was a bit liberal and she assumed it included the people who'd been trapped in her swimming pool at the start of the event, people who died as a result of following her plans, as well as everyone who died to zombie iguanas, and apparently anyone like Hon who died after her screwup in the lich fight.

Notably, not everyone who had died near her was included, and some missing names were Todd and G2n. Susan had killed both of them in front of her, but she supposed even LEO couldn't spin that as being her fault.

The huge list gave her a lot of options to call in backup in critical moments, but it also included a lot of protagonists who would probably be hostile. Frustratingly, she had no idea which side most of the people were on, so it was risky to summon anyone randomly...

Her introspection was interrupted as Morna hissed and took a combat stance.

In front of her, a robotic replica of Sarah had materialized, holding a katana. Swinging the sword in a twitchy unnatural manner, it sang out, "HI, I AM KATANA GIRL! WHAT SHOULD I CUT?"

Gen turned to Morna and questioned, "Is this your poll?"

Morna relaxed and stepped forward as she smacked the robot on the shoulder and laughed, "My viewers are the best! This minion is perfect!"

Gen eyed her own event item. They'd planned for a lot of contingencies, but this would make at least one part a lot easier.

"Morna, I got an item that lets me bring people back temporarily. I'm going to bring back Francine as they have a lot more people's contact information than me."

Morna's face lit up, "Oh, bring back Twen! He's been obsessively researching what he could've done better, but can't tell me about it because he's been eliminated! He'll be so excited, and then I'll kill him before he can say anything, and it'll be so funny!"

Gen froze as she tried to figure out if Morna was serious before shaking her head, "Umm, I can only bring back from a set list, and he's not on it." She glanced at Solomon, "I can bring back Hon and your friends though, but only five minutes each, so we need to save them for important moments."

Solomon had a flicker of excitement in his expression, but she quickly moved on. She was actively losing contribution points, so evidently Jasper and the fusioncrack zombies were busy hunting antagonists.

Unfurling the receipt paper until she reached Francine's name, she burned it immediately.

The sound of a cash register chiming was heard, and Francine was standing in front of them, looking bewildered.

Francine spun around and their eyes focused on Gen, "I'm back in the event?"

Gen nodded and grabbed Francine's shoulders. "It's a temporary effect! You're only here for five minutes. We need every surviving antagonist to find the nearest portal to the UFO and evacuate ASAP! Message everyone on your contact network."

Francine looked like they were going to ask questions, but shook their head instead and pulled out their phone as they madly started texting surviving member of the Fortune Wardens as well as their contacts in the other antagonist groups.

Gen looked at Morna and transferred her 1.5 million contribution points.

"To repair the iguana hatchery and then fill in Frank with the plan. We'll need him and his boat ready to move out ASAP."

Solomon waved his hands from the side, "Wowowow! Fill in Frank? How about we fill your ol' buddy Solomon, who owns the UFO you are apparently evacuating everyone to! Didn't we already establish how bad an idea repairing the hatchery is?"

Gen twisted her beak into her signature sincere smile and said, "You ever heard that If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem?"

He scowled, "No, what the fuck does that have to do with zombie iguanas?"

Gen sighed, and Morna patted her on the back.

Morna helpfully supplied, "She's saying that zombie iguanas are bad for us, but if we make enough of them, then it'll be bad for everyone!"

Solomon shook his head, "So the plan is to burn everything down and pray the fire reaches us last?"

Morna gave him a thumbs up, and robo-Sarah mirrored the movement.

Solomon held his hands up in defeat, "My ability says this is a horrible idea, but fuck it, let's do it."

Morna cackled as she scurried away, and Gen clapped her hands together and looked at Solomon.

"While she does that, it's time for some renovations around here!"

He gave her a questioning look, and she clarified, "We're going to swap out the UFO abilities. Healing hour is nice, but the event is almost over, it'll keep working for an hour even after we remove it, which will be enough time to heal anyone onboard, and afterwards things will be too fast-paced to wait for people to heal."

He grudgingly nodded, and she continued, "Five-finger discount was cool, but the lich kind of ruined everything, and I don't think we have enough time to hack more mechs, so we should swap that too. My dad has a gun has a long cool down, so as soon as we use it, we'll swap it too. Wormhole, we need to gather everyone, but once the first phase of the plan is done, we can swap it out too."

He didn't disagree with her points, so he only asked, "What are you going to swap them to? We've got hundreds of abilities as options and no idea what most of them do."

She smiled again and said, "That's phase 2 of the plan. Out of all of them, the giant space laser was the strongest, but it has a big cool down to counteract that. My plan is to cycle through all of them to find more like that. Once we use the ability, we just swap it out as it won't recharge in time anyway. If it goes right, then we can deluge the remaining zones with a series of massive random abilities!"

His eyes widened at the implication, and she saw his lips curl into a smile. "My ability has upgraded our horoscope to a snowball's chance in hell."

Setting to work, they immediately discarded Healing Hour and Five Finger Discount. Respecting her original poll, she tried out the previous options in order of votes.

Dressed to impress: The UFO has a workshop which can upgrade one wearable or ridable piece of equipment per hour by one rarity level. Any single item can only be upgraded once.

Bloodlust: Those inside the UFO are empowered over time becoming physically more fit and mentally more wrathful.

She gulped. The equipment upgrade could've been interesting if they had more time. It would've been able to upgrade their captured mechs and even Jasper's already overpowered armor.

She was tempted to hang onto it to get a couple of items upgraded, but shook her head, deciding to stick with the plan. She shot Morna a quick text telling her to go get her boots upgraded when she was back from the hatchery. Gen was tempted to upgrade her rocket boots, but Morna's boots were objectively more impactful.

She looked at bloodlust and immediately discarded it. It was similar to Billy's ability in her first scenario, but even ignoring the downsides, she didn't have time to wait for it to slowly empower people.

It didn't take long for Morna to text her that her boots were even more "kickass" than before, and Gen discarded Dressed to impress as well.

She selected the next two abilities.

Chomp: The UFO now opens like a clam and can NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM your enemies.

Teeter Totter: Up and down, up and down! The tractor beam now instantly brings its targets to and from the ground! Optionally, it can prevent targets from being damaged by this acceleration.

Gen frowned. Both of those abilities would need testing to determine exactly how useful and powerful they were, and it was time she didn't have.

Discarding them both, she added the final ability from her original poll.

Twister: Charge up a tornado and shoot it! The longer the charge, the faster the winds! Maximum charge time of one hour, must be fired immediately after reaching the maximum charge time.

Francine's time was almost up, and Gen locked eyes with them. "Portals will be closing in exactly one hour when we begin phase 2. Anyone still outside is lich bait."

Francine nodded and started frantically relaying the warning to all of their chat groups. Shortly after, they gave a salute and disappeared, leaving no trace.

Gen and Solomon were busy for the next hour as they scrolled through hundreds of abilities and tested different options. Most were useful in their own way. Especially the one that had been looted off of Barney, which made the UFO's interior smell pine fresh. Even after discarding it, the scent lingered, eliminating the smell of blood and sweat that had permeated the UFO.

Still, despite their uses, most of the abilities didn't have the raw oomph that she was looking for and were quickly discarded. When they finally found one, they breathed a sigh of relief.

Summon Giant Spider: Conjure a building-size spider. It can be psychically controlled through the new beast room. 24-hour cool down.

Solomon glanced back at the list of abilities. "There are a few more summon ones in here. When we use the giant laser and ditch wormhole, we should try them out next."

Gen nodded in agreement. Unlike her summon iguana ability, most summon abilities had cooldowns and gave controllable combat-ready minions. At the very least, she was done reading through LEO's creative descriptions. On a good day, the descriptions were amusing at best, but when she was in a hurry, they were ridiculously confusing to read through quickly.

Mentally preparing herself, she looked at Solomon. "We ready?"

He gave a crooked smile, "Do I have a choice?"

Switching perspective~

***

Harry was busy on his phone instead of keeping watch through the windshield of his mech. No zombies or antagonists had been spotted in hours, and he was sure one of the other mechs would start shooting if anything actually happened.

The gossip was just too spicy to ignore!

After LEO's announcement and hearing about a dragon lich of all things, pretty much everyone thought the event was going to wrap up without any more surprises but instead the morning had started with all four of the top brass getting assassinated.

From there, things just kept getting wilder!

He wasn't clear who she was, but some level 1 woman named Rosalina had announced she was assuming command. Instead of being laughed out of the room or being killed, five level 4s had vouched for her.

Details were fuzzy at this point, but a conspiracy theory started that she had a powerful event item that allowed her to brainwash people into being her followers. If the rumors were true, she was even the one who had been controlling the top brass before they died!

The theories went wild from there, and people were posting all sorts of evidence, such as how the top brass had been sequestered away all of the previous day and the sudden reversal of mech production prioritization.

It painted a clear image of a level 1 who had lucked out and reversed the status quo to prioritize lower ranks. Harry himself wasn't political, but he wasn't complaining about his fancy AC'd mech either. The high level actors, though, were going nuts, and the majority of headquarters had broken off from the chain of command as the local level 4's assumed control and started planning a rebellion to retake the mech factory!

Gunfire forced him to stop reading the drama in real time, and he looked up to see a ridiculously huge spider rushing the base.

Panicking, he started to scream, but his voice was drowned out as a massive tornado materialized and picked his mech straight up, throwing it into the sky.

Whirling and disoriented, he kept screaming until he crashed into something and lost consciousness for a few seconds.

Coming around, he felt blood on his head and thanked the airbags that had likely saved his life. Forcing his way out of the destroyed mech, he saw a giant laser in the distance bear down from the heavens and annihilate something in the distance.

Reaching for his phone to find out what the hell was going on, he froze as he saw a fishing trawler bearing down on him.

Screaming again, he dove for cover just in time to dodge a cannonball that went right over his back.

Pushing himself up, his vision was blocked by a garden gnome crashing right into his face. An explosion of sparkles, and he felt his body turning to plastic.

Unable to move, he cursed repeatedly internally. He'd heard about this! Some fucking flamingo on the antagonist team kept turning people into mannequins! He'd thought it funny reading about it happening to other people, but the way he couldn't move his at all and his plastic eyes were stuck open halfway buried in the dirt was giving him intense claustrophobia.

Following the advice online, he immediately quit the event.

You have exited the event!