Chương 37: 36-I Can Do Better

Bilto crawled along the ventilation duct, his sweat-covered clothes plastered to his skin as he swore in a low voice.

"Get into the ducts and look for an exit, he bloody said," he muttered.

"How about a nice map? Or some directions? This is not a ventilation duct; this is like New York's sewer system." He had never been to New York, and he did not even know it was a city, but he did know it was supposed to be very big. He was in a hurry. Not long after he left the room, he heard cries of alarm and the shuffling sound of running feet. They knew he had escaped. He could hear the sounds of their frantic search, and even the noise they made as they tried to explore the ducts.

Some of them had crawled into the ventilation system. He had to get out of here; he had to… Wait. The voice of his unknown benefactor whispered for a second in his ear. Bilto froze in place, not daring to make a sound. Suddenly, a couple of Fed soldiers, swearing and sweating, crawled along the duct twenty feet ahead, taking a different direction than the one Bilto had used. Now. Left. Bilto obeyed. It was not as if he had anything better to do.

Peter chewed his pencil, trying to think of how to improve the design of the new class. Hawking wanted something better than the floating platforms they were using as PCVs. Too exposed, he said. The problem was that there was no bloody way to increase protection without modifying the rest of the Competencies the driver was required to have. Perhaps he could try fiddling with the class perk…

"You know he does not read any of that, do you?" The voice startled him. He looked up to see GM's expressionless face, the weird guy with the hoodie and sunglasses who rarely talked, and then only when answering Colonel Hawking. He was actually grateful for his presence. Not being spoken to was the best kind of human interaction he could hope for while in this place. He was not working at his usual table. This morning, he found out someone had shat in the drawer where he kept his pencils.

Montoya and his pal almost burst out with laughter as he opened the drawer. He said nothing. He never did. He just sat at another table. The only available one was near GM's. It had been a mistake. He had three bullies in his life now. Peter shrugged his shoulders and kept working. Perhaps he would tire and leave him alone.

"I know you know. What gave him away?" Peter stopped working. This guy seemed genuinely interested in him. He guessed it was just the setup for the incoming burn, but Peter still had manners, and genuine questions deserved genuine answers.

"He praises them too much. He talks to me like he would talk to a small kid who gets a lollipop for not crying at the doctor. He feels pity for me, not respect. If he does not respect me, he will never respect my work," Peter answered. GM nodded slowly when he heard that.

"So mature," he said. It did not sound as if he were mocking Peter.

"Do you know what I am, Peter?" he asked, lowering his hoodie and taking off his glasses. Peter briefly glanced up and almost screamed. GM was not human. His eyes were solid white, pulsing with barely constrained energy. His features were Asian, probably Japanese, and very attractive. Peter realized he had never looked at his face, not even once.

"I am the Core of this dungeon. Not its remaining Boss, as Hawking wrongly believes, but its Core."

"I was a creature of pride and contempt. When I look at someone, I see their weaknesses, no matter how well they try to hide them. When I see their work, there is only one thought in my head. I can do better. And I can. It is in my nature. I am the unbeatable foe. When you look at me, you know you will never reach my level of excellence."

"I only have to look at you to be better at anything you can do."

"Did I do something wrong?" Peter asked, as his fear grew.

"That is what this conversation is about, Peter. What you did. Hawking gentled me. He marked me with runes that suppressed my powers. He left me only one. A pale shadow of one." GM snapped his fingers, and a blue screen appeared in mid-air. I Can Do That Better Than You (9): If the caster watches someone perform any action, including supernatural ones, he can mimic it using this power. He can use improved versions of any power he sees, provided the end result is no higher than rank 9.

He can only mimic one power at a time, and it will only work if the model is present to be humiliated by the user's competence. I Can Do That Better Than You (3): If the caster watches someone perform any action, including supernatural ones, he can mimic it using this power. He can use improved versions of any power he sees, provided the end result is no higher than rank 3. He can only mimic one power at a time, and it will only work if the model is present to be humiliated by the user's competence.

"He enslaved me and put me to work. He made me part of a group that designed weapons for him. My work was excellent, as it was bound to be. Much better than that of those two pieces of shit who bully you every day."

"Much better than yours, Peter. My work is the only reason the Min-Maxers exist."

"And then you came in. A distraction. Bait, for those two morons to focus on you, leaving me alone."

"You knew. You knew from the very first day. I have heard you cry in the restroom many times, Peter, but you keep coming back. Why? Why do you not give up?"

"It was my job," Peter answered, not looking up from his sheet of paper, still feeling scared of this strange young man who seemed so interested in him. GM nodded.

"I was a creature of pride and contempt before I met you, Peter. You taught me to respect you. Even admire you, sometimes. You broke the shackles in my soul and made me whole. I am no longer a slave to my nature—I can choose."

"I have a debt to you I can never repay, but I will try to."

"This dungeon is imploding in less than an hour. Go back to your family. No door will bar your way. Go to them and tell them that Colonel Hawking has ordered them to retreat to gamma-point, and that the code is Black Grassroots. Your father is in the military. He will recognize the code for an order that must be discreetly obeyed, without asking for confirmation. You and your family will survive this. This is my gift to you, Peter, not worth even the millionth part of my debt."

"Run. NOW!" Peter fled. Hawking was seething inside, but he did not let it show. He had learned long ago that a commander could not show emotion in the midst of a crisis. That did not mean that emotion did not exist. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. One job! Those bloody morons had one job! Keep Bilto contained inside his cell. Hawking breathed deeply. He knew, deep inside, that it had not been the guard team's fault.

They were expecting a rescue attempt by the Losers. No one could imagine that the bloody alchemist would find a ventilation duct so cunningly hidden that no one suspected it was present. The communication talisman that high-ranked Federation officers used as a radio buzzed again.

"Colonel, GM is not on the sixth floor anymore. The watch team on the fourth floor has detected him walking towards the entrance on the third floor." GM too? Damn his soul. How had he managed that? The guards had strict orders not to let him leave the Bureau of Class Design quarters. He had suspected for a long time that GM had some hidden aces up his sleeve. This confirmed it. Oh, my God! He may have helped Bilto escape! He was probably in collusion with the Circle.

"I am heading there. Do not lose him. I want every able trooper in the dungeon to head to the third floor, and I want it yesterday," he shouted at the talisman.

"Special ops and mechas too, sir?"

"Everything!" Jenna studied the wreckage of the armored vehicle. Their mysterious ally, who had identified himself as GM, had directed them to this point. They had been waiting for the better part of an hour when he finally appeared. He was a tall, athletic young man of Asian origin, with eyes that shone like the sun. He walked as if he had all the time in the world and with the grace of a fashion model.

"Well met," he greeted them as he reached the vehicle.

"You are GM," Jenna said curtly as he approached.

"That is what remains of my name."

"Why here?"

"Because we need that vehicle as cover. Hawking is hot on my tail, and he has summoned all the reserve troops he had in the dungeon to this location. They will arrive in ten minutes. I want you to crawl into the vehicle and do what I say."

"You don't seem to be in much of a hurry for someone who has an army on his tail."

"Anything he can do, I can do better."

"And Bilto?"

"I am guiding his escape right now. It is a close thing, but I think we will make it."

"If Bilto does not make it out of the dungeon, Billy will not be able to use Heart of Darkness. Bilto is a living seed. That will trump anything Billy can do."

"I am aware of the fact. It is simply a risk that must be taken. You must follow all my instructions. Hawking is already on his way."

"What are they doing?" Hawking asked Sergeant Alcott. Alcott was a Spotter, a class that specialized in directing magical artillery strikes. He had phenomenal magical eyesight.

"The three Losers are inside that wrecked tank. Now and then, one of them pops up and asks GM something. He answers, and they crawl back in." All the reserve troops, more than two thousand men, including mechas, mages, and special ops, had formed behind him. There was nothing on Earth that could stand that type of army.

"I am going to talk with them. I think GM will at least listen to me."

"Are you sure that is wise, sir?"

"We are at a deadlock. They have a winning hand, and they know it. We don't know for sure if Bilto is in the dungeon. If we had confirmation, we could kill GM, knowing it would transform the HQ into an alchemical dungeon."

"But if he is out and we slay GM, we will lose our dungeon and release a cloud of Essence over Milwaukee. We would be awash in wild dungeons in three days."

"We must negotiate." Hawking calmly approached the vehicle. GM went to meet him. Now and then, he could see the head of one of the Losers peering at him before retreating again inside the tank. What kind of game were they playing? It did not seem natural; it looked…rehearsed, almost as if they wanted to be seen. He sensed the answer was important, but GM was already here—he would have to focus on it later.

"What the hell have you done, GM? I thought we had an agreement," Hawking told him.

"I made a better one with them."

"You are a fool. The Headquarters is not a Hatchery. You will always be a prisoner here. What did they promise you? The Bilto treatment? Getting you out of here? It is not possible. I already checked that."

"They promised to restore my name." Suddenly, the amulet buzzed. Hawking angrily answered it, not caring that GM could hear him.

"Colonel," his second-in-command's voice came from the amulet, "we have captured Bilto just as he was trying to escape from the fifth floor. We have him." Hawking released his breath in relief. That changed everything.

"I want you to kill GM if he makes any suspicious move or tries to escape. If in doubt, shoot," he ordered through the amulet. He faced his former employee.

"You are coming with me, GM. I can kill you here, in the desert, and let your corpse rot, and the result will be the same—the HQ will collapse and be rebuilt as an alchemical dungeon. I would prefer to give you some dignity."

"No, Hawking. You do not care about my dignity. You did not care about humiliating Peter and making his life a living hell. You did not care about asking your assassins to slay children in Babylon. Those are the lies you tell yourself to keep believing you are a decent man."

"Everything I do, I do for my country."

"Ah, yes. Your country." GM's smile was empty.

"You protect its values by betraying every single one of them?"

"I am ready to die for what I believe in." When GM heard that, he smiled. A cold, mirthless smile. Then he spoke.

"I can do that better than you." He slowly raised his index finger and pointed it at the Colonel's heart.

"Bang!" he said. Dozens of magical bolts, fired by nervous troopers who had just been instructed to do that, hit GM's body, tearing it into pieces. The dungeon began to tremble.

"He bought it," Jenna said to Billy.

"You can stop fooling around, Bob." Billy turned into the Skillmaster. He had been shifting shapes every two minutes. They had created a very convincing illusion that the three Losers were inside the tank. It was not the only lie they had spun. Bilto breathed in relief as he finally climbed down from the sewage pipe. Sunlight blinded him for a moment. He was free again. Truly free, for the first time in his life. Not only free to walk away, but also to make his own choices.

"You took your sweet time," a strange woman told him. She seemed to have been waiting for him.

"Who are you?" Bilto asked, fear in his voice. He had not gone through that hell only to be captured just as he made it out.

"You may call me Dawn." Corporal Stein kicked the Alchemist in the kidneys. This piece of shit had escaped confinement under his watch, making him look like a fool. He was going to have a series of little accidents on the way back to his cell.

"I am sorry for this," the Alchemist said from the ground.

"Do you think being sorry is going to save you from the beating you deserve, you asshole?"

"You misunderstand me. I am not sorry for escaping. I never did. I am sorry for killing you," he said. Then he exploded. Billy entered the Blue Room as he felt the dungeon fall into pieces around him. It was releasing a huge amount of Essence. He activated his powers. The Heart of Darkness: You can respawn as a Dungeon Core. You may build a dungeon around yourself and populate it with mobs and bosses, using achievement points.

While in Core Form, any event that would cause a Dungeon to gain Essence will grant you equivalent Achievement points. You must choose a Motif. You may choose additional dungeon tags. Each tag will increase the cost of respawning as a Core. You can only choose tags present in the dungeon creatures you have met. GM was going to need all the power he could get his hands on if he was going to face all those troops by himself, as he insisted he wanted to do. He had to use the Only Core tag.

That guaranteed him 98 levels. For a second, Billy considered entering his entire biography in the description, just as he always did when using Heart of Darkness. It was the only way to ensure he was in command. He rejected the idea. It was not what he had promised GM. He kept his promises. He hoped GM did, too, or he would not walk out of this ordeal with his soul intact. Motif: Anime Dungeon. Tags: Only Core. Limited Duration: Only one hour.

He did not have enough AP to create a permanent seventh rank dungeon, but they would suffice for a temporary one. Only one hour. It would have to do. Hawking slowly stood up from the floor as the tremors subsided. The dungeon had been completely transformed. It had turned into an enormous battlefield, strewn with the remains of destroyed vehicles and ruined buildings. A single person stood before the full might of the Federation Army. It was GM, but he looked different.

A golden aura enveloped him, and his hair stood up as if charged with static electricity. His feet did not touch the ground, and his eyes shone like the sun.

"GM?" asked Hawking incredulously.

"Not anymore," the stranger answered, his voice cold and monotone.

"I have my name back. I am GodMode again."