The Last Experience Point

Zach had seen many, many strange things since becoming an adventurer. He'd seen sentient zombies and dragons, he'd hopped around various planets, and he'd even witnessed a giant toothbrush shooting electricity at flying unicorns. Therefore, in terms of spectacle, the sight before him should not have even made the top 10 list of "most bizarre and surreal" experiences.

And yet, it sort of did just because of how unlikely it was.

Right now, he was sitting down at a table relaxing while watching Elves, adventurers, and political guild members all lined up and bowling together. The last time he'd seen this level of interactivity between those three groups had been during the dragon raid and under much more dire circumstances. Therefore, it was good to see everyone getting along even if it was only a temporary thing that wouldn't last. Before today, it would be unthinkable to imagine Mr. Oren, Fiona Darkmae, Vim Alazar, and Kolorn Besh going "bowling" with Olivir, Donovan, and Queen Fylwen Vayra.

"You look pretty shocked," said the voice of Olandrin, taking a seat next to him and giving him a gentle pat on the back. Zach was surprised to see him here. Now that the meeting with the world leaders had concluded, Zach expected the Elvish Great One to be bombarded with requests for an audience from the Elves and other important figures. Instead, he was here making chitchat.

"I am," Zach said. "I can't believe political guild members are playing games with adventurers. Then again, the ones who were on the dragon raid together formed pretty close bonds, so I know it's at least possible for them to get along. But it's always strange to see them mingling like this."

Olandrin chuckled. "I can't believe there's even a distinction. So much has changed in the past thousand years."

Zach looked at him, and now he felt even more surprised. "Wait, you don't know about the whole political guild vs. adventurer thing?"

"Nope. Just finding out now."

"I thought you said you were watching over Galterra while you were trapped in space?"

"I was—to an extent. I could only see bits and pieces of things. Heh. There's so much I don't know." Suddenly, he made an exaggerated frown. He darted his head every which way. "I can't believe how empty it is in here. My dungeon must've really fallen off in popularity over the years, huh?"

Zach, perplexed, asked, "What do you mean? This place is packed right now. As big as this bowling alley is, there's almost no place left to sit anywhere. Even the other game rooms are stuffed. You've got almost the entire adventuring community in here along with almost every Elf. Not to mention about fifty political guild members you warped over here."

Olandrin was skirting the rules so flagrantly that Zach honestly couldn't believe Adamus was allowing it. Though, he supposed that even the sum of everything Olandrin had done was a drop of water in a bucket compared to the average scheme Eilea was involved in. With Olandrin, it probably only seemed like more because the man was so showy and "flashy" in a sense, but in terms of substance, Zach supposed it really wasn't that big of a deal. Still, it was amazing how Olandrin would just yank anyone here as long as someone asked him to do so. What had begun as ten political guild members turned into more than fifty, nearly all of whom had never before set foot in a dungeon.

"There's just so many people," Zach continued. "This has to be a new record for the largest number of people in a dungeon at once or something."

Olandrin blinked at him as though mystified. "Hah? You have to be kidding me, Zach."

"I'm not!"

"But you have to be."

"Why? What makes you say that?"

Olandrin gave him a silly look. "Because you said 'almost the entire adventuring community' is here. What did you even mean by that?"

Zach scratched his head. "I uh…I meant exactly what I said. Most of the adventurers are here."

"But there's only a few-hundred adventurers here."

"Well, yeah."

"So that makes no sense then!"

And it was at this point in the conversation that Zach realized something very, very important. Olandrin, he…he didn't know.

Oh my Gods! He doesn't know!

"Um, exactly how many adventurers do you think exist in the world?" Zach asked him.

Olandrin shrugged. "Millions? Billions?"

Zach leaned closer towards him, searching his eyes for any signs of deceit. The man liked to goof around, which made him fun and awesome, but also, Zach didn't feel like having a joke played on him right now. At least not if it was at his expense. Still, as he gazed into Olandrin's youthful-looking eyes, he saw only honesty. He didn't think the man was messing with him.

"Oh, wow. You really don't know, do you?"

"Know what?" he asked.

Zach made a nervous laugh. "It's a good thing you're already sitting down. You're really not going to like what I have to say."

"Tell me!"

Zach nodded. "Okay, I warned you." Zach waved his hand at the area around him. "When I said most of the adventurers are here right now, I actually meant that. This is because almost everyone in the entire world is level 1. What you're seeing is the adventuring community."

Olandrin laughed. "Nice one."

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"No, no, I'm being serious."

"Zach, stop."

"No, for real! I'm really shocked you don't know. But I guess it's just one of those things you couldn't find out from wherever you were."

The youthful-looking man shook his head, which almost caused his round, flat, artistic hat to fall off his face. "How could that even be possible?"

"Uh, honestly? I only just recently found this out myself. Apparently, it's because Eilea taught the leaders of all the various races about a thousand years ago how to destroy the spawn points, so that's why there are almost no mobs to be found on Galterra at all. And this has made it so that almost everyone is level 1."

Olandrin's mouth fell open so wide it looked like he was in a dental chair getting a cavity filled. "She did what?" he exclaimed, causing about a hundred nearby Elves to glare at Zach as though he'd done something wrong to offend the Great One.

In fact, it was only now that Zach even realized he'd been surrounded. He'd been so deep in his conversation with the guy that he hadn't realized there were a great, great many impatient Elves standing by who likely saw Zach's hogging of his time as disrespectful. Especially since Olandrin had made perfectly clear that he'd be going away for a long time tomorrow.

He must've told the Elves he wanted to chat with me, Zach realized, finding Olandrin to be oddly considerate. When he'd brought Eilea to Galterra, she'd been completely unapproachable for days despite Zach really wanting to talk to her. Yet her brother had outright made time to come chat with him just to see how he was doing. Of course, the conversation was now clearly shifting into something else entirely.

"I don't understand, though. Wouldn't everyone just go to the dungeons?"

"No, because—and this is just what I think I heard happened, don't take this as being one-hundred percent accurate—but I think I remember Adamus saying something about Eilea causing an access issue that made every human lose the ability to enter dungeons, which is why you now need a special buff to get in."

There was a thwap as Olandrin slapped his own forehead. "Zach, if this is just a prank, please tell me right now."

"It's not. Eilea's made a few mistakes here or there."

"Aw, man. I love my sister so, so, so much but she's gotta cut it out with some of this shit. What else did she do? I don't even wanna know, but tell me."

Zach shrugged. "She accidentally started an Elvish genocide by driving a human king insane after accidentally getting him killed."

Olandrin moaned. "Okay, stop. On second thought, I don't even…it's just…okay, you know what it is? I love her so much. I really do. It's one of the reasons I fought so hard not to get crushed while trapped in the black hole's gravitational pull. Because I knew she must've been so alone and so scared without me and with everyone else gone. Adamus, he's…he's a real asshole. Like, one of the worst. I told her not to marry him. He must've driven her crazy. But…but still…"

Olandrin lowered his voice. "Is it bad that I don't one-hundred percent blame Adamus for everything you're telling me?"

"I don't either," Zach said. "So I don't really know."

"Really?" he asked, sounding astonished. "I thought you were against him."

Zach sighed. "I'm against him only because the World Eater spawns in less than five years, and he doesn't seem to care if we all die. It's not the fact that he won't help us that makes me mad. It's the fact that he won't allow Eilea to help us either that makes me want to oppose him. But at the same time, your sister sometimes makes things worse, too."

"Sounds about right," Olandrin said with a sigh that mirrored Zach's own. "Adamus is a murdering maniac, though. He's really not a good guy."

Despite knowing it really wasn't his place to inquire about something so personal, Zach nevertheless asked, "So how come you're forgiving him so easily?"

Olandrin turned over his palms. "I can't change what he did, and being mad about it forever won't change anything either. At this point, I just wanna get back to the way things were. The Galterra project was never completed and still can be. I believe this wholeheartedly. There are a lot of good things I can do to help all of you if I assume my position as system programmer and vigorously debate and fight for every concession I can with Adamus. Sometimes in life, you have to work within the system to change it. My sister doesn't get that."

Zach found himself genuinely agreeing with Olandrin. "You're probably right. And like I said, I don't always agree with everything Eilea does, but I still consider her an ally and a friend. And I won't take Adamus's side over hers."

Olandrin patted his knee. "Thank you. That actually means a lot to me. And neither will I, though she might not see it that way since I'm returning to the OMP. But anyway, my whole point is that, as much as I hate violence and war, if the two of us were actually strong enough to stand a chance against Adamus, it would be a whole different story. I might actually consider it. But the truth is we're not. Adamus is simply too powerful. So, really, the way I see it, Zach, we've only got three choices. We can work within his framework for the benefit of as many people as possible, we can do nothing at all, or we can sacrifice ourselves—and probably the entire planet of Galterra—in a hopeless, explosive battle that would cause the death of several entire solar systems."

Zach felt his heart skip a beat at the last part of what Olandrin had just said. "A battle between Great Ones would be that destructive?"

"Oh yeah. Do you know why we even made the system in the first place?"

Zach nodded. "Yeah, Angelica told me the story. Supposedly all life on all the colonized planets was wiped out or something in a war, right?"

"That's right," Olandrin confirmed. "In the end, only the Great Ones were left. The nations we led were all gone. Every subject, every family member—we killed each other until no sentient beings existed in the known universe except for ourselves. So we had to start life over from scratch using harvested eggs from the various races. And even though there's now only three of us left, the same thing would happen again if we fought. Even if me and sis somehow survived or fought Adamus to a draw, Galterra would be wiped out and so would most of the other system planets."

Zach felt a chill travel down his spine at the explanation. "So that's why you don't want to revolt?"

"Yeah. There's no point."

"To be fair, I don't think Eilea wants to go that path either."

"I'm certain she doesn't. But it's where we'll end up if Adamus loses his patience."

Zach shook his head. It was difficult to comprehend beings of such unimaginable power. No wonder they were revered as Gods. To the average person, what was the difference? Did it even matter that they were once born of mortal parents? Zach knew that the Elves believed the Gods had either always existed or existed since the dawn of time. But how much did having a mortal birth really change things?

These aren't questions I should think too much about, he realized. It'll just bug me out.

Zach, looking to change the topic, decided to ask Olandrin about how much and what he knew of the past thousand years, since it seemed he'd been very limited in what he could find out while trapped. Unfortunately, the Elves were really starting to lose their patience.

"Zach," Fylwen said, approaching him after finishing bowling. She was smiling in a way that made Zach feel she wasn't being as nice as such an expression would typically suggest. "I'm sure you've got a whole lot you need to discuss with your guild leader and the adventurers."

Olandrin guffawed, leaned to his side, and into Zach's ears, whispered, "I think she's politely telling you she wants you to fuck off."

"Yeah, I figured that," Zach said, returning the laugh.

"It's all right. I'll try to talk to you again before I leave."

Olandrin got up from the table. "I'm coming, beautiful queen," he said cheerfully. And with that, he departed to return to the work of meeting and greeting the large number of people who wanted an audience with him. And from the way a protective circle formed around him, Zach was pretty sure the Elves wouldn't let him anywhere near the guy until they were done with him.

I'd better go check on Tyson, he thought, realizing that Vim, Abram Gespon, and many of the other political guild members were currently heading towards where he was bowling with Jimmy. I hope they're not going to bug him.

Zach hurried over to see what was going on.