Unwilling Eldritch Horror of Fortune

We joined the others once it was clear that the minotaur was fully and completely dead. Noel had melted its head off, so I really couldn’t see how it would be getting up after that particular wound. The other five all slumped down in exhaustion once it was clear that the threat was over, and sighed in relief that the fight was over.

“Good job everyone,” the Regressor said, “That went better than I thought.”

“Then you really don’t have much faith in us if that was better than what you thought,” Vadeem mumbled, “We almost lost to a crippled old cow.”

“You got careless, especially you, Noel,” Jae-Hyun said, “I did warn you never to underestimate anything from Tartarus, and you saw the reason firsthand. But you recovered well enough. Good job, Yoona, for taking control of the situation once your initial plans failed.”

“I still panicked at the start though,” she said looking down, “Noel could have been in serious trouble if this wasn’t a practice run. She could have died.”

“But it was a practice run,” I added quickly before Yoona’s self-confidence could be destroyed, “And it was your first time leading a squad, you’ll get better with more time and practice. Plus, I’m pretty sure it was Noel’s own fault for half-assing things at the start there.”

“That was dumb of me,” the redhead answered with a pout, “I’ll admit it, lesson learned.”

“I hope so,” the Regressor said sternly, “Your life's on the line, along with everyone else’s, never forget that, Noel.”

She nodded grimly; she looked properly chastised, but only time will tell if Noel would learn from this particular lesson.

Muscle A: Sorry we were not more helpful.

Muscle E: We are not used to fighting, that must change.

I grimaced, I didn’t expect everyone to take this scuffle that poorly. Even the kids felt responsible. Looking at how depressed everyone seemed at their performance, I don’t think it was a good idea to point out all of their faults, at least not at the moment. I gave a questioning glance over at the Regressor and I think he understood what I meant. Let’s hold off on critiques until later.

“Look,” I said again, “You made it through the fight mostly unscathed, and you know what to do in the future, so I’d chalk that up as a win. Think of it as motivation to improve!”

Vadeem sighed again, “Yeah, I think we all know that. Failure's the best way to learn, it doesn't make it any less awful though.”

“Agreed,” Noel added in, “Especially if you mess up the most. Sorry gang, I goofed.”

“It’s fine Noel,” Yoona replied, “I was the one in charge, I should have given everyone clearer instructions.”

“No it was-”

I needed to stop them before they could continue their game of who’s more to blame. That was never a good route to go down.

I coughed to get everyone’s attention and said, “Look, we can all review what went wrong later, for now, let’s just collect the minotaur core and go from there.”

“Alright, that’s fair,” Vadeem said after taking a deep breath, “So how do we find the core thing?”

“It’s in the area with the densest mana,” the Regressor explained, “Hard to spot when a creature’s alive, but it should be the only thing emitting mana now that it’s deceased.”

Ah, of course, it’s got to do with mana again. I honestly hadn’t thought much about it when Q first told me my strange disconnect with mana, but it’s becoming more and more clear that everything seems to use it in one way or another. This damn condition’s more debilitating than I thought; I’ll have to find a way to compensate for it later if I want to somehow keep up with the Regressor and his growing cohort of freaks.

The others didn’t have any trouble locating the core while I just sat around unable to help at all. This time I wasn’t really complaining though, because getting the thing out of the dead minotaur was a… messy affair, to say the least. I’ll save everyone the grisly details, but suffice it to say that you would need a strong stomach to extract cores in the future. Perhaps not having mana’s not that bad of a thing if I never have to deal with that.

“Sorry brother,” Yoona said as she tried her best to not gag, “Is… is this really the only way to get cores?”

Jae-Hyun was waist-deep in dead minotaur as he spoke, “Yes, unfortunately, unless one of us can use telekinesis.”

His sister sighed, “I don’t think I can ever get used to this.”

Noel shrugged as she shifted around the carcass, “It’s not so bad once you get used to it. Just think of it as raw pork intestines. I heard some cultures eat it raw!”

And that’s when Yoona lost her cool and quickly ran to a corner to empty the contents of her stomach. Which was fair, I wasn’t anywhere near the thing and I was already nauseous, the core was located near the stomach of the minotaur, so the smell was just too much.

I thought Yoona would be gone for a little while longer but she ran back from a corner screaming.

“There’s another one!” she yelled as she rushed back towards the group, “I think the smell attracted it!”

I heard the unmistakable sound of rushing hooves shortly after.

The Regressor spoke calmly, “That’s fine, the minotaurs here are hardly a big deal if we kill them quickly.”

“Wait,” I said, “Do you mind if I take this one on myself? I hadn’t had a good chance to test out my skills ever since we came here.”

Which was true. So far, I’ve been scheming, resting, or poking flying harpies with my feelers, and I was just itching to try out my new class. I still had no idea how much more damage I could inflict with the Gamma passives, and I wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass up. The big cow was practically harmless before it went berserk, which made for a perfect training dummy. But there was just one thing I wanted to double-check first.

Hey Noe, I know you’re still upgrading and can’t use the Absolute Luck Skill, but what about the Lucky Blind Strike? That’s not categorized under a system skill, right?

“Affirmative, my Host,” she answered, “You can use the class actives, as that is governed under a different subroutine that is not currently undergoing the upgrade.”

Perfect! Thank you Noe!

“You are most welcome, my Host.”

“Are you sure you want to face it alone?” Yoona asked hesitantly, “It gets really strong if you don’t finish it off quick.”

“I want to at least try,” I answered with a shrug, “And if things get bad, you guys can all bail me out.”

“Alright…”

Without hearing any other replies, I rushed towards the sound of the oncoming monster. I was giddy with anticipation, it’s been so long since I got a chance to properly relieve some of the pent-up stress, those harpies made for slim pickings!

Once the minotaur rounded the corner I slashed out with both tentacles as hard as I could, hoping to use its momentum to my own advantage. I had noticed how stupid these things were when it was fighting the others, and this new cow wasn’t any smarter. It didn’t even try to dodge.

That was a mistake.

My strike caught it on the right shoulder and it all but lopped off its arm. Holy shit… between the blood and the screams of rage, I could see that my feelers had reached the bone and fractured the humerus. I wanted to attack it again but I was worried that I would do too much damage. I honestly wasn’t expecting one of my attacks to wound it that badly, not that I could complain.

Well, I guess I’ll have to use my new skill a little early. Still, I had to ensure I killed it before it goes into its second form, and I was a little worried that one activation of my Blind Strike skill wasn’t enough to finish the job.

Hey, Noe, is it possible to use more charges when activating that skill?

“It is, my Host, as I am the one in charge of your class,” she replied in that smooth, calming voice, “But I would not recommend it.”

Why? Would it cause me harm or something?

“No, but it will be most unpleasant.”

I thought about it for a second. I think I can deal with just unpleasant if it means making doubly sure that the minotaur doesn’t grow exponentially stronger. The alternative was to risk leaving it with minimal HP and fighting it when it’s super strong.

It’s fine, uh, set it so I use 50% charges, please.

“If that is what my Host wishes,” she answered, “But do not say that Unit Noe did not warn you, dear Walter.”

Just use it! I thought before I could regret anything.

“Acknowledged.”

Then the strangest thing happened. And by strange I mean absolutely, god fucking awful. Noe was not joking around when she said it would be unpleasant, but I was reminded, once again, of just how different Noe’s idea of “unpleasant” was from mine.

Now when the skill said that I would be giving full control over to Noe, it meant it. What I thought that meant was that I’d pass out for a bit while Noe did her thing, or maybe I got to passively watch what went on inside my head. That wasn’t the case. What I hadn’t expected was that I couldn’t even move my eyeballs.

Noe caused my body to flail around uncontrollably, and I could swear that she was using every muscle in my body all at once in ways that the human anatomy just wasn’t built for. I felt like I did an entire Olympic gymnastic routine in the span of a few seconds with how much movement she was making me do, and all the while I had my eyes wide open and unable to focus my sight on anything for longer than a few milliseconds.

By the time the skill was over, I felt like I had the worst case of nausea, seasickness, and vertigo all at the same time. My body was in so much shock that I couldn’t even move the necessary muscles to throw up. My brain was struggling to understand what had just happened to the rest of me, and I was pretty sure that even my internal chemicals were all out of whack.

“I told you it would be unpleasant,” Noe chimed in at the end, that darn smug tone back, “I hope you take my warnings to heart next time, my Host.”

Ugh… was all the response I could muster back to her.

“Holy shit Walter,” Vadeem exclaimed, “What the hell did you do?”

“Wha?” I forced myself to say.

“You ok?” Noel added, “You look kind of pale, did you overdo it with that crazy technique of yours? I’ve never seen someone move like that before, didn’t even know that was possible!”

I didn’t even know what I did!

“That was impressive,” Jae-Hyun added, impressed for once, “Although if it leaves you that worn out after, you should limit how often you fight like that.”

I wasn’t sure what they were talking about until I turned around to see what happened to the minotaur. Well, I turned around to see what was left of it in any case. The nice minotaur looked like it had been plunged into a woodchipper and all that was left was chucks of mystery meat. I could see Yoona scoot off to another corner to throw up again.

Muscle A: Very impressive, please teach us how to move like that.

Muscle E: Yes, please.

“Well,” Vadeem continued as he picked up a meat chunk and took something out of it, “At least we don’t have to dig the core out like the last one. Good thing these things are so hard, otherwise Walter would have blended it as well.”

“I never want to do that again…” I managed to say, “Next time-”

Noe interrupted me, “Warning Host, the Trash Matrix has issued a Site-wide message. Playing it now.”

I saw the others stop what they were doing as well. What was Origin doing messaging us all at a time like this?

Notice: Due to a change in scheduling, the Third Trial will begin in exactly 1 hour. All Aspirants, please gather within Pandora’s walls with your party members. Failure to do so before the time limit will result in abnormal conditions within the next Trial.

Once again, the Third Trial will begin in exactly 1 hour. All Aspirants, please gather…

Didn’t the Regressor say that the Third Trial wouldn’t start until the last batch of Aspirants arrived? Even Q said that it should take a little over a month for that to happen. That's when the realization hit me and I swore; it was that piece of shit Overseer again!

I had thought that he would wait until Q was out of office before acting, he practically said as much when he talked about replacing Q with one of his goons, but did I trust him to do that? He had every incentive to lie, and here I was gullible enough to believe otherwise.

Damn it! I was about to pay for my complacency!

 

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