Too Stubborn to Die

Book 4: Chapter 30

The mood calmed as Aaron explained what was going on and why he had come looking for them. Well, not quite. He left out the part about wanting to steal their kill for the points. But he did explain what Raksha and Ernest had told him.

“Ernest? I think I remember him, maybe,” Emmy said. “He was friends with that other weirdo, wasn’t he? Or I think I saw them talking. You know, the annoying one we signed that thing with.”

“Right,” Aaron nodded as he tried to piece together what she was on about. “Do you mean the System contract you signed with Johan back in the trials?”

“Johan? Hmmm, maybe? Oh, right! No, no, no! I mean, yes, that’s the one, the annoying one! I do remember him, don’t I! He’s the guy that got me to sign that thing-a-me-bob. How’s he doing anyway?”

“System contract,” Aaron corrected. “And he’s dead. I literally just told you that! He’s an undead creature controlled by Darius now.”

“Oh, right!” Emmy said, eyes widening with realization. “Darius killed the thing-a-me-bob man!? Wait, wasn’t there like supposed to be a truce? Is he stupid?”

“What?”

Emmy sighed. “Do I need to explain everything? You can’t kill people in a truce. This Darius guy is a real dumba—wait, you don’t mean? Why that asshole! You mean he did it on purpose?”

“Yes. I don’t think he respects the truce anymore. In fact, I don’t think he ever did. Only you and Joseph ever signed the thing.”

“So, we’re at war then?” She tightened her grip on her wand.

“What? No!”

“Calm down, Emmy. Aaron clearly isn’t our enemy.”

“He said the truce isn’t a thing!”

“That isn’t what I meant,” Aaron facepalmed.

“Excuse her,” Lance said. “She’s not as, well, you know. She just has a penchant for not listening. She probably missed the details and presumed everyone was in on the truce, and that was probably why she signed the contract to begin with.”

“I see. Okay, Emmy,” Snapped his fingers and stared into her eyes.

“What? Why are you being creepy?”

“There was never a truce between all top rankers. But we’re not at war either. In fact, we have more reason to work together than ever. Now, do you remember what I said about this tournament thing?”

“Tournament? Like the token we got, right?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Yep. I gotcha, boomer.”

“Boomer? I’m twenty-three!”

“Damn, really? Look at your skin. Those evolutions are really not doing you justice.”

Aaron patted his face. “Wait, what? What’s wrong with my skin?”

“Emmy, please,” Lance said.

Emmy shrugged.

“Please, Aaron. Continue. You’re trying to put a team together for this tournament?” Lance asked. “And that’s why we need to work together?”

“Well, not really. More like I’m taking precautions with other top rankers. Trying to avoid unnecessary fights. After all, we dunno who we might need to work with in the future.”

“I see. Well, you can count us in.”

“Yes, all of us!” One of Lance’s other heads said.

“Aye, aye!”

“Sí, sí!”

Aaron blinked. The other heads had said a word or two as he had explained what was going on, but they had let Lance take the lead for the most part.

“Ah, good,” Aaron grimaced as he glanced across at all of them. Talking to somebody with four faces was more awkward than he had imagined it might be.

“Sorry, it’s a bit weird at first,” Lance said. “Perhaps we should deactivate our team's skill.”

Agreement echoed between the four heads, and within seconds, they had deactivated the team Skill. There was a whooshing sound, and the mech began to unfold itself, spitting out four people in the process, and twisting into the shape of a dog-like drone.

“Huh?” Aaron grunted as he eyed them all. “So you are four different people? And what’s that thing?” he added, pointing at the four-legged mech drone.

“Haha, a bit confusing the first time you see it, isn’t it?” Lance chuckled. “This is my crew. Before the Integration, I was a pilot. This is my copilot, and these two are stewardesses, or at least they were. It’s a long story, but short of it is that we entered the Integration and Tutorial together. We always had good teamwork, and so we kept it going throughout the Tutorial, and the System rewarded us for it.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Believe it or not, we were inseparable. Pun intended,” Lance chuckled. “We did everything together. Taking down every quest and challenge as a group. It didn’t take long for the System to offer us team-related skills. And the more we used them, the more they gave us. Eventually, we got this special Team Skill. It’s a little complicated, but basically, for it to work, all four of us have to activate it at once. It’s come a long way since we first got it, and it’s been both upgraded and mutated once now, which led us to this,” he turned, gesturing to the drone.

“That’s a Skill, too? How?”

“Scrappy? No, haha!” Lance shook his head. “Scrappy is a drone, or robot. Call it what you want. We built it with our Professions and integrated it into our little crew. And it didn’t take long for the System to take notice. Now the current version of our Team Skill lets us fuse with Scrappy here. You should have seen us before. It was a little disturbing…”

“Are you suggesting that the four of you used to combine without all the metal?”

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Lance grimaced. “I’d rather not speak about it. It was a powerful Skill, but a little disturbing to look at. Thankfully, ever since we’ve been able to integrate Scrappy here into our Team Skill, we’ve taken on our mech appearance. I quite like it. It’s nice and shiny.”

“I’ll bet. Damn, you four are a fascinating mob,” Aaron said. “So, you need all four to work together to make that suit work?”

“Yep.”

Aaron nodded thoughtfully. It certainly wasn’t a path he would have ever picked for himself. But he had respect for its power after seeing it in action.

Only Lance was D-grade amongst the group, though the others weren’t far behind. But more so than that, they all felt rather weak. No stronger than any other ordinary low D-grade. But together they formed something much more. They could combine their strength to fight at an elite level on par with top rankers, and that was rather impressive.

If I had to guess, that Team Skill is probably one of, if not the only, highly rare Skill they have.

Aaron’s assumption was based on how weak they felt. He doubted they had a bunch of powerful Skills, and only Lance held more than one Title.

Honestly, under such circumstances, a Team Skill seemed like the perfect opportunity to level the playing field against stronger foes. And his thoughts immediately went to wondering whether or not some people in Dober could do something similar. If they could, it would greatly improve the strength of the settlement.

Then again, it sounded like these four had a very close relationship, and he had a feeling normal people wouldn’t be able to do the same thing.

“Honestly, I’m impressed. Your attacks are quite strong.”

“Yep. Pretty grateful to be honest,” Lance said. “Heck, I reckon that if we had properly upgraded the Skill during the Tutorial, we could have even beaten the boss and reached the trials. Unfortunately, the version of the Skill he had back then was much weaker. And it wasn’t until we built Scrappy that our power really took off.”

“Scrappy, the drone, right?”

“Yeah. Scrappy because he’s made from scrap parts, and all.”

“Scrap parts? You managed to find a lot of that stuff in our world?” Aaron probed, glancing between Lance and Scrappy as he spoke, while Emmy blew bubbles in the background.

“Oh, right. Didn’t Emmy tell you? Yeah, we have plenty of scrap materials because of where we entered our new world. You see, we have settled down in an old city. In fact, not just any old city. We’re fairly sure that the city is certain parts from a bunch of cities. We see all kinds of signs. At the moment, we’re fairly certain it contains parts of Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Birmingham, Melbourne, Kyoto, and San Francisco. But most of it is just ruined rubble. Still, a perfect place to find scrap. There is an endless list of things to salvage.”

“It’s a real pain,” Emmy added with a drawn-out sigh. “The ruins draw so many weaklings to it. They’re always needing help all the time. It’s their fault I’m not at a higher level. If I weren’t saving people all the time, I’d totally beat you. But instead I’m always rescuing people from mutant rats and other weak beasts.”

“She’s not wrong,” Lance rubbed his temples. “We’ve managed some degree of security, and there are the foundations of a city slowly patching itself together. But all the rubble and debris make it impossible to control properly. For example, there are multiple metro systems and other underground structures beneath it. And they’re all mixed together. There could be a tunnel right beneath you, providing beasts a path right into the middle of your settlement, and you wouldn’t know until beasts start appearing. It’s been a real pain in the ass.”

“That does sound annoying. And you don’t want to move because of the scrap?”

“Well, not quite,” Lance continued. “The scrap is a good resource. But the real reason we hang onto the ruins is because of the dangers outside of it. There’s a goblin that calls herself queen of the gobbos. And her raiding parties roam around the surrounding area nonstop. It is the main reason so many people flee to the ruins in the first place. And why we’re struck protecting them.”

“Queen of the gobbos?” Aaron repeated. “That sounds like Erdek Foulbreath. I remember her saying something like that back in the trials.”

“Erdek?” Emmy tilted her head. “Oh, she’s the one! I totally forgot!”

“I told you already,” Lance said. “Our scouts spotted Erdek months back.”

“Well, you didn’t explain it well enough, obviously. I totally forgot about that little twerp! She was supposed to be in our truce as well!”

“Twerp?” Aaron raised a brow. “I’m pretty sure she’s taller than you.”

“Taller than me?” Emmy barked, and bubbles floated up around her. “As if! She wears six-inch platforms! I remember! Take them off, and I’m totally taller than her!”

“If you say so,” Aaron said.

“Ahem,” Lance coughed. “As I was saying. She is the reason we are hesitant to leave the city. Her armies roam around us. They’re huge, too. At least compared to anything else we’ve seen. And our scouts report that they’ve been taking everyone they find as captives. They turn them into slaves for her war machine. Then anyone who gets away comes to us for protection. And honestly, I’m not sure how long we’ll be able to offer that. She’s got more people than we do, and higher-level ones at that. She’s likely just picking off easier prey until she feels ready to attack us directly.”

“So, she really isn’t following the truce. What a surprise,” Aaron groaned. “Well, can’t say I really trusted her to begin with. She seems hell-bent on dominating all goblins, and it seems that now extends to humans as well.”

“Yep. We were half hoping we might score some loot in this dungeon to help tilt the scales in our favor. And maybe we will. At least we secured the temple,” Lance said.

“Yeah, that’s good, huh?” Aaron said.

Aaron grimaced, glad that he hadn’t stolen their kill. It sounded like they needed the points more than he did.

At least they had agreed to avoid fighting Raksha for now, despite their obvious distrust of other races, thanks to Erdek’s aggressiveness.

“Well, thanks for all of that. It’s useful information. It’s a pity, though. One more top ranker we probably won’t be able to work with. Hey, wait! We should trade maps while we’re here. If I can help, I’ll come help you when possible.” Aaron said.

“That would be appreciated,” Lance said, and opened the System screen to trade map details.

“Awesome. Pleasure working with you, mate. Keep your head high. Things will work out,’ Aaron said with a grin.

But in truth, he was a little more worried on the inside. If Erdek Foulbreath was enslaving humans, that put two of their world’s top rankers on the enemies list.

Aaron was confident in himself. But what if other worlds in other sectors had multiple champions as strong as Mo’han? If worlds were going to be pitted against one another, he couldn’t just assume that he could carry the flag by himself.

And there was a real possibility that other worlds would turn a blind eye to infractions like those caused by Erdek and Darius. Maybe they would be able to put aside all of their differences until after the rewards were won.

But he couldn’t and wouldn’t just condone such things. Besides, even if she wasn’t in the top ten, Emmy had a very interesting Skill set, and he had a feeling she could be useful in their future squad.

And it wasn’t just Emmy, either. There were other powerful people outside of the top ten, like Soohyun, who had obvious potential as an ally.

“We’ll figure this out,” Aaron said. “I'd better get going, though. I want to check out as much of this floor as I can before moving on. Take care, okay? I don’t want to hear any unfortunate news.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Emmy whistled. “Taking care.”

“Thanks,” Lance said, and shook Aaron’s hand before he left.

Barely a minute after Aaron rushed out of the temple, his chat pinged.

Talia Rhineheart: @Aaron Dober, the package is secure. Heading to the extraction zone. Will you be there?

Aaron grinned. There had been a few road bumps, but it sounded like everything was working out for the most part.

Aaron Dober: @Talia Rhineheart, I’ll be there. See you soon.

But as he was running, he also noticed something. The dark, foreboding sky had cleared a little, and he could see huge, sundial-like structures at the top of each temple, and he had a feeling it was related to the alignment somehow.

I wonder if we have to go up there.

If the sky was clear enough, then from the tops of the temples, they should be able to see quite far…

The sundial-things didn’t mean much strategically for clearing the floor. But if he was right about needing to go up and reach them to align the temples, then there was a good chance they would be able to see all the other top teams that claimed a temple. Then, he would have some idea about what fractions were forming on their world. And if the following floors required them to work against other worlds, and even sectors, then—

—that could be crucial information