Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 191: Dungeon Crawl with Complications

“This place is gross. All of this is gross. Did he have to scatter them all over the place?” Someone loudly complained.

Wirt just shook his head in frustration. He took a moment to note who’d spoken to ensure he didn’t vote for them, though.

And he had to agree, the Dungeon was definitely an unpleasant place. Thoma was running in front of them, his sword cleaving apart the various bugs and spiders with casual ease, even ensuring that a clear path for people to walk through remained.

The sounds of combat came from the next room over, though it was mostly just screeching, hisses, and the occasional clatter of a falling body.

Your Party has slain 67 Cutter Ants (Lv. 63-70). 1,357 XP (2% XP share) awarded

It was a drop in the bucket for him at Level 80, but for the folks walking along behind him, some looking vaguely ill, that was over a fifth of a Level, even had they been Level 24. Which they weren’t, but they were quickly getting there.

“Incoming.” Thoma warned from the front “I can’t grab all of them!”

So that was the final stretch of the Dungeon crawl. Oh well, they’d gotten almost all the way through this place and gotten a lot of XP for it.

Then, the swarm of insects arrived. Cutter Ants, which should really have been more descriptively called Welding Ants or something like that, as they had a plasma cutter-like structure at the tip of each mandible, which turned into something akin to an arc welder when they got close to each other, welding people’s armor onto their body before closing around the now immobilized area and burning through. Nasty little fuckers.

And now there were too many for him to stop alone charging at him and his charges. Keyword being alone.

[Schrödinger’s Guardian].

One moment, the human known as Lukas Wirt was standing in front of a group of utterly useless politicians, hefting a ludicrously reinforced riot shield while defiantly glaring at a horde of insects.

The next, six ephemeral copies were automatically lined up in front of the people he’d promised to protect, moving into position to defend against the insects, being placed into the perfect formation to guard those taking cover behind him.

He could be anywhere one of his copies was, at any time, just not in two places at once.

Wirt slid his mace into his belt and pulled out a machine pistol. The one in his side, at least, three more were strapped into a bandolier across his chest like an old-school pirate’s flintlocks. It might look silly, but it was still workable.

The right-most copy grew solid, the place where both reality and probability agreed the human being with the weird [Skill] was located.

[Epic Blow: Fourfold Power Shot] activated a dozen times as he fired, and he managed to fire off half the gun’s magazine before the damn thing exploded in his hand. Damn, now he’d have to pick all those shards out of his armor before handing it into the quartermaster, else, she’d do her level best to tear his head off.

Of course, he was now down a gun, but that was what the spares were for.

Meanwhile, the wall of charging insects stumbled as a hail of bullets tore through it from the side, at the right angle to go right through multiple foes and trip up those behind them.

Another gun, another barrage of empowered shots, though this time, Wirt didn’t stay in one position. Each copy had shifted into a new pose as he withdrew the weapon and when it became the “real” him, he appeared in that pose, weapon spitting fire and tearing straight through the monster. But by the time the recoil hit, he was already gone, allowing him to fire at full auto while still picking out individual targets and actually hitting them.

Unfortunately, he didn’t pick where his copies appeared, they automatically popped into existence wherever they were needed to be to protect his charges.

And then, the charging wall of chitin and monsters was there, in melee range.

An ant’s head caved in as his mace came down on top of it.

A second ant was hurled back as he bashed his shield into it two meters over while his mace snapped the legs of a third.

Another “teleport”, another series of ants crippled by the loss of limbs.

Blink and you miss it, so quick was the flurry of blows that cleared out the ants that had tried to come up behind him.

Another position shift and the ant he’d sent earlier flying took a mace to the side before it had even hit the ground and was hurled across the room, splattering against the wall.

Mandibles scraped across his shield as he braced against the swarm, preventing the beasts from swarming the fragile little pencil pusher behind him. The instant the charge was broken in that area, he flickered across the field of battle, smashing another beast into paste.

By that point, the broken charge had stumbled into his copy and now, it was superimposed with the beasts. Couldn’t use that, then, as some scientist had probably said “matter doesn’t like to overlap, else it goes boom”. Regardless of the original quote though, he’d had it explained to him in excruciating detail how bad accidentally moving into a copy overlapping with another solid object would have been.

Not that it mattered, though. The ants in question were currently a ball of tangled limbs and mandibles, having real trouble moving, so he just teleported into the closest copy and jumped right on top of the pile, mace coming down like a meteor as the [Legendary Blow] activated, hemolymph and pulped flesh oozing from the crushed mess that remained.

Blink and smash monster, rinse, and repeat.

For thirty seconds, he had mobility that exceeded even a speed demon like Thoma, even if the movement ability was location-bound.

For twenty-five seconds, he was a god of war and death.

For five seconds, he just stood there, breathing heavily as he looked over the carnage he’d caused, leaving behind only a field of corpses.

A tremendous crash echoed from the far side of the room, emanating from the corridor there. There were another dozen or so loud popping sounds, the crackling of fire, and finally, another series of thunderous impacts. Clearly, Dr. Thoma was finishing off the boss and its minions to prevent it from charging in here.

And then, the man himself came striding out of the hole, dragging along a treasure chest. There were a few soot stains on the silvery metal of his fabric-like chainmail, but otherwise, he looked perfectly fine. No blood, no viscera, not even the look on his face indicated that he’d just been in a serious fight. Just the slight smile of someone who’d just done something they enjoyed.

“Alright, this is the end of this Dungeon dive. Who here has reached Level 25?” Thoma asked.

Sure, there was the small issue of how someone might lie about their Level to earn more XP, but everyone here had been explicitly warned against that. It would be discovered and there would be hell to pay.

But they’d calculated things that a single dive through the massive labyrinth of the Scorching Hive should be enough to bring everyone except maybe one or two to the second Evolution.

One dive through a high-Level Dungeon had been hellish, but still infinitely better than having to do this all day. If that had been the case, someone would have ended up dead. One of the politicians, probably. The only question was if it would have been a monster that did the deed, or him.

Now they just had to deal with the bloody [Class] selection. Oh, couldn’t one of those ants have just eaten him? It would have been quick, at least.

***

“So, how many official complaints do you think we’ll have to answer for?” Isaac asked.

“I think that’s the wrong question, what I want to know is if our mailboxes will be enough to hold all of them.” Wirt said “Let’s see, what are we going to get complaints over … for starters, we shouldn’t have made fun of someone because he didn’t know what an Oxymoron was. Then, anyone who got a little blood on them, even if it was just a drop … I used [Telekinetic Domain] to tackle someone to the ground and there’ll be hell to pay for that, and once again, we really shouldn’t have laughed at the oxymoron.”

Isaac raised an eyebrow “You laughed when he lost his shit because thought the [System] was calling him a moron. So did almost everyone else, now that I think about it. He’ll be too embarrassed to complain.”

“Yeah, he won’t want to draw attention to that.” Wirt agreed, downed the rest of his beer in a single gulp, ordered another, and shook his head “[Living Oxymoron], man, what a [Class].”

“[Literal Politician] was a good one too.” Isaac laughed “A [Class] description that gives a dictionary definition of what that word used to mean, how politicians used to be administrators actually serving the people and all that.”

“Especially the look of the lady who got it.” Wirt agreed “Priceless. But you can’t compare to the mess that [Living Oxymoron: Honest Politiciaon] is. I mean, the [Class] description was one whole rant against all politicians, living and dead. ‘You’re a politician trying to actually serve the people. Wait, those actually exist?’ and so on.”

“A [Class] to convince the world that you’re real, that you’re not a figment of their imagination. That says everything, doesn’t it?” Isaac sighed.

“At least [Servant of the People] sounds relatively harmless,” Wirt said.

“I don’t know, a silly name like ‘living oxymoron’ could be turned into a nice self-deprecating joke.” Isaac suggested “’ Here I am, the honest politician, here’s the world itself confirming that because I know no one else will believe that otherwise’. That makes for a nice slogan, doesn’t it? When advertising, people remembering you is the most important thing.”

“Bit wordy,” Wirt commented, downed his next beer, and this time, he ordered another ten just to have a supply on hand.

Isaac shrugged “As much fun as finally being able to shoot the shit with you without upsetting ‘their highnesses’ is, we do have a report to finish.

“So, first four candidates, the [Servants of the People]. The ability to instinctively sense the needs of the Populus, within limits. Support [Skills] with immense flexibility at the cost of power. Probably going to end up with something focused on one area of government at the third Evolution.

“Then, [Living Oxymoron: Honest Politician]. Can prove he’s real, and has another [Skill] that prevents him from lying while also making sure everyone knows he can’t lie.”

“That’ll make getting elected hell.” Wirt commented, “Who knows what he’ll spill when asked a direct question?”

“’ No comment’ or ‘National Secret’ both work as answers.” Isaac pointed out “And someone who’s guaranteed to not lie might be regarded as trustworthy enough to get elected.”

“Or it could look super dicey when he refuses to answer any questions,” Wirt said.

“Unfortunately.” Isaac sighed “But it’d still be cool to have him in charge, as long as he has all those gaps in his education filled. I mean, knowing what an oxymoron is is hardly important information, but his reaction when he got called one … not good.”

“Next, two [Literal Politicians]. Superpowered pencil pusher, desk jokey, paperwork slayer. Someone who’s meant to manage the country for the people busy with their day jobs. [Skills] that make all of it a million times easier, but only as long as they use them in service of the country.” Wirt filled out the next form “Where do you think that [Class] is going.”

“[Paperwork Bane]?” Isaac suggested and Wirt laughed “Now, we have the former lawyer who still had the [Class] when she entered politics and didn’t get any good political [Classes], so she became an [Pro-Bono Attack Librarian] instead. She’ll be trying to create a just world in the [System], instead of staying with politics. According to her, anyway.”

“Isn’t that against the rules we set?” Wirt said “What do we do now? I don’t think exposing her ‘selfishness’ will do anything.”

“Oh, that’s exactly what we’ll do.” Isaac announced “We tell everyone about who and what he is, and what he chose to do instead of going into politics properly. It wasn’t the point of this, but what can I say, I like the gal. Having someone like that out there instead of one so-called ‘good politician’ might be for the best.”

“They might be ‘good’ as far as politicians go, but I won’t vote for half those people. I mean, we were all unhappy with the mess, but loudly complaining about it all the while … nope, not happening.”

“Isn’t that a bit of a petty reason to not vote for someone?” Isaac asked.

“There are a hundred politicians on the ballot every election day, and plenty of them aren’t neo-Nazis, religious extremists, greedy pigs, or outright bastards. I’ve got enough options to whittle down my list for petty reasons.” Wirt pointed out.

“Point taken.” Isaac shrugged “So, up next, [Patron of the Arts]. Helps people figure out where to go to fulfill their vision, and the right people find it so it gets enjoyed. Interesting, but I guess someone needs to take care of the ‘circuses’ part of ‘bread and circuses’.

“And then, we have our [Believer in Science], who apparently practically worships science. She can help judge how much of a budget a given research group will need and help scientists find jobs. Eventually, she’ll probably allow universities to create research materials from thin air of something.”

“You ever wonder what the world will look like in ten years when everyone has adapted to the [System]?” Wirt asked.

Isaac shrugged “As long as the world is still intact and not looking like it’ll end, I’ll be happy with it. Anything else is just a bonus.”

“And in a perfect world, what will politics look like?”

“Never ask about a perfect, world, the answer is never going to be useful.” Isaac shook his head “In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need politics because we wouldn’t need governments because we wouldn’t need laws. Common sense wouldn’t need to be written into law, people would know not to steal without being informed by the law, and they wouldn’t kill each other even without the threat of punishment and it would work even with the worst of people, and so on.”

“I guess the fact that we need those laws is a shameful indictment of how we humans act, isn’t it?” Wirt sighed, downed two beers, and packed away the paperwork “But we’re done with the forms, so what’s good here? Is there something in this bar that’ll let me get drunk?”

Isaac chuckled “Oh yes, but as their highnesses would say ‘You represent our nation. Behave,’.”

Wirt asked at Isaac’s horrible impression, then followed him to the bar to get utterly plastered.