Chương 146: Chapter 142

Arsonist (Common): On killing an enemy, their body will explode. On the surface, this boon was dead simple to understand. Shoot a guy, kill a guy, he explodes. Surprise. What Wade would need to figure out was how much damage that explosion would do, what it scaled off of so he could pump those numbers up, what the System considered an enemy, how big that explosion actually was, and so forth down the line until he discovered either a way to make this skill pay rent or if he was justified in leaving it in a ditch.

Given how the game's framework was all about boon combinations, the more options the better. And he knew - theoretically - there might be some future boon that really needed that corpse explosion to make it work. He'd seen area of effect builds abuse a kill-explosion mechanic before, and they were often used to mass farming. Getting a ton of enemies all herded together and then nuked out of orbit in one giant chain reaction. It could be done.

But usually it needed some good prep and support in terms of items, build, abilities - something to make those explosions worth it. So even if he did find it useless, buying it might still be worthwhile for the potential. But first, testing. He could go down to the local pet shop, buy a few goldfish, kittens, a cute puppy and possibly more things to traumatize just about anyone with sense? Yes, but he wasn't a phycopath. Nor was his name Play. What he started with instead was a spray bottle of bleach.

And then went to spray down an outdoor concrete slab part that was part of the garden. No explosions. Which meant either the bacteria there were too small to be noticed, not considered enemies, or too small to trigger the boon. He tried again, and this time put himself in the mind of someone with germaphobe tendencies. On that unsprayed slab of concrete, there were microbes that would cause him harm if he ever ingested or even touched them. They had to die. He sprayed, and no explosions happened either.

"Fine, keep your secrets." He muttered under his breath. He knew the System was listening at all times. His phone buzzed, but Wade was too hyper focused on the battle path now. More data was needed about what an enemy was, and if it really was a size issue or a threat issue. So Wade went further out into the backyard, past the minimalist concrete decoration and into the growing grove of trees. And did what any budding psychopaths would do first: Zap ants with a magnifying glass.

Or at least a flyswatter and some shoes.

"Can't say this is fair to the bugs, but Zin's made a point." Wade said, looking down at the trail of ants.

"I am fighting for my life here. It's them, or me." Somewhere, someone (likely named Anthony), would be appalled at what he'd be doing for the next hour. The road to Hell was truly paved in good intentions. Although Wade could debate that his intentions were good. More selfish.

"Am I really debating the morality of killing a bunch of ants in the name of science?" He shook his head. He'd already killed a bunch of wildlife, although this would be the first time killing wildlife that wasn't trying to eat him. No, not even that, he'd eaten plenty of good steak in his past and then later that dehydrated tiny square of mystery meat that could possibly even be beef inside his ramen packets.

That was nature, and if he was an eldritch incomprehensible being to the ants killing them for reasons they couldn't possibly understand, it was only fair given that was happening to him right this moment. For all he knew, the System didn't classify the ants as enemies just because they weren't aware he existed or cared to pick a fight with him.

"Identify." Tiny little health bars appeared all over in his vision. All of them being a level 0 Ant. So the System did notice their existence and they were part of the category. Although the level being 0 likely meant they were so far below a threat, but negative numbers weren't a thing in the leveling scale. … Negative numbers? Why was the scale of levels done in such a way that tiny insects here didn't even register on the scale. They were part of the universe just like he was.

To a giant System, ants and him were basically in the same area code in terms of size. Why wouldn't it make a leveling system that worked for ants? Wade realized in one quick moment that a leveling scale had to be based off of something. There had to be a level 1 reference point. In the same way measurement devices all came with a tare button to correctly measure the ingredients and correctly ignore everything else. And he had seen most people in this world around level 1-6. Seemed suspiciously convenient.

Wade was almost certain now. Insects clearly hadn't been considered for in the System's leveling setup at all. A praying mantis and an ant would both be the same level, despite the praying mantis being an entire league above the ant in terms of who wins. Humans must have been the base case. Or perhaps Nathir. Or perhaps both. But Wade was certain now that the levels beyond players started with the average human at level 1. He wasn't sure what to do with that information, but it felt important.

And possibly useful in the future.

"These ants are now my enemy." He thought to himself, getting back on track. Then reached a flyswatter out, and nailed one on the edge of the concrete. He heard a tiny pop. Wade felt a bit of relief from that. If insects counted, there were a lot of ways to abuse the crap out of this. And when he investigated the result, there was what looked to be charcol smears on the rock face. Very, very tiny ones. The flyswatter was equally undamaged. That… was not quite so promising.

He'd managed to trigger the explosion, and the results were highly disappointing.

"These ants are not my enemy." He thought next. And then swatted another on the edge. This time it did not pop, and remained flatted on the rock it had been smote upon. Perfectly normal reaction. So he could turn the ability off at will, and more importantly it didn't matter what the target thought of him, Wade considering them an enemy or not was the only thing that mattered to the definition of enemy.

Which meant the earlier attempt with the cleaning spray must have either microscopic explosions, or just a size minimum required for trigging the ability. It took him five more minutes until he found something slightly bigger than an ant: A pillbug. They certainly looked a lot bigger in the arcane realm. And more dangerous. More teeth too. Wade considered the poor harmless bug an enemy, and swatted down with his flyswatter. The explosion was noticeably larger than an ant's, and yet equally as harmless.

Although this time, the flyswatter looked to have a tiny bump where the explosion had been. It could mean the local centerpoint of the explosion could be powerful. Wade sighed, and continued his full range of testing. Total results: The explosion was, indeed, based on the size of the target. Larger targets would have a larger explosion, and it seemed a linear scale. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Damage was negligible thus far.

Which meant he had to go looking for the exploits: Picking things that were clearly not enemies and pretending they were in order to get a large explosion for basically free. Golems were machines, and they counted as enemies, so perhaps he could target their more humble origin point. Unfortunately, a cheap calculator didn't explode when he slammed it with a long sledgehammer and rendered it quite inoperational. Possibly it meant tools were off the list of things he could break.

So no stuffing a bunch of used phones with horrible evil billing plans that were clearly the enemy. And then catapulting it into another enemy. For now, what Enemy meant was still inconclusive, but Wade had a feeling it might be more tied to the System itself - as in anything with a health bar. Or the System would judge on a case by case basis. Unfortunately, he had no other way to test this right now. The next thing he went sniffing after was the wording: 'On killing an enemy.'

It could potentially be interpreted as any enemy dying around him from any other source of killing, although Wade suspected it was more that he was implied to be the one killing the enemy. Still, he had to test for that too. It was the latter - he had to be the one doing the killing. But he didn't need to be the one doing the killing blow per say. If he killed something by proxy, or had a deliberate hand in getting it killed, that would trigger the boon.

This was most obvious in using tools or traps to do the killing for him instead of slapping things with his own hands. There were limits: Wade had to be deliberate. If he was too vague and hadn't quite figured out how the enemy would die from his orders, there would be no explosion. But when he made traps, or clearly planned the demise of his foe, the System gave him enough credit. And more importantly - Eri counted as Wade. Or at least as an extension of Wade, in the same way a sword would.

Perhaps because he was soulbound or considered a minion. Video games often had that as a potential loophole. The player's summoned minion had to have their stats based on something that scaled with the player getting better gear and upgrading themselves, otherwise classes that used a minion would find them overpowered at the start and underpowered later. So often the minions inherited some scaling factor from the player. Which meant being linked together in the code.

Eri fell under that definition, either having a copy of that boon or just flat out counting as Wade's weapon. Anything he killed now exploded. Assuming Wade considered it an enemy. Or could have considered it an enemy. They ran that test as well, with Eri being sent off to go murk something Wade didn't know about. The skeleton returned with a happy thumbs up on that test. The final test Wade wanted to run was how strong the actual explosion itself was. Did it follow the rules of physics at all?

It was spawned by the System, ants don't normally explode. So what kind of damage was it? Elemental? Would physics in the local area of this explosion work the same way? If the explosive damage was true damage like the alchemy potion, then that could be an excellent vector to pair with his skyviper archer. Skyviper Archer (Uncommon) - Damage dealt by ranged weapons such as crossbows, slings, and bows are empowered with corrosive properties when used in a jumping attack.

The real weakness of his original boon was dealing actual damage with at least one initial hit. And the follow-up upgrade built on that single hit. (Uncommon upgrade) - Consecutive hits within the same jumping attack increase the damage and duration of corrosive debuffs. Theoretically, a heavy punching weapon in his main hand opening a hole into the enemy, followed by a birdshot for the sheer number of pellet hits would murder just about anything, if pellets were considered followup hits.

Last time he used this exploit, he had been drop bombing tons of heavy mithril parts from high up, meaning they were doing some good damage on impact, enough to seriously hurt a human. Did absolutely jack squat against Lapushka, but the System did count it as follow-up hits. All this was a killer combo - so long as that first ranged projectile did actual damage. And that wasn't guaranteed as his guns might not even penetrate some of the monsters out there using mana by instinct.

He looked down at his demon forged armor, which sounded far more cooler than what it actually was: A simple cheap leather-strapped plate with a single shielding spell to keep charged. And it was enough to block and deflect bullets. So to beat the weakness in his build, he'd need to either bring a giant ass gun, and possibly spec into strength so he could shoot it without issue. Or bring something that always did damage against anything.

If the ant explosions did guaranteed damage because the System made explosions were bullshit that affected the health bar and could only be negated by System-specific armor or buffs, then Wade would be bringing an air gun that shot ants and be real giddy about it.

"Play's Butler is back home." Leon said, walking over to where Wade continued to obsessively test different permutations on the unfortunate insect ecosystem here. The ex-retail worker had been gone forty five minutes, often sending Eri out to roam around and do odd things.

"That was pretty quick," Wade said, standing back up from his hunched position.

"He didn't drive through someone's living room to get there faster, right?" Leon gave him a grin.

"Maybe. Would make for good boast. I can see him doing that."

"And he got the extra stuff?" Leon shrugged, "We finding out soon." Zin had been less than pleased with Wade's impromptu shopping list and random texts sent with every other discovery on how he could make his boon work. But despite the complaining, Zin didn't outright reject the extra stop for more items. Especially with Wade being a critical business partner in the bring-people-home department. That didn't stop him from complaining of course. Some things must remain sacred.

Wade packed up his stuff and the pair hiked over back to the kitchen, on possibly the longest walk within a home Wade could imagine possible. What he was met with at that kitchen was chaos. In that Medy had a brand new mediaeval looking cauldron, sitting on a highly modern gas stove, tail wagging left and right while she pressed different buttons, flicked different knobs and squealed with each new discovery of what did what.

On the fold-up table, carefully placed around the prior broken one, were all the ingredients for the new alchemy recipe. Bael wasn't there, which meant he was likely walking around the grounds or had gone to find a better vantage point to stare at the sun. But Zin was. Arms folded, staring daggers at Wade and Leon.

"Gentlemen! Took you both long enough to get back here. And speaking of overly long romantic strolls outside the gardens with no care in the world, would any of you two enlighten me on why you left the single most dangerous creature in EXISTANCE free reign and unchecked access to MY KITCHEN. Anyone? No? Just me who sees the problem?" He quickly turned, and shot a hand out to one of the stoves, yanking off a wooden cooking spoon, right as Medy turned the fire on for a full blast. Exactly where the spoon had been.

She looked at the stove, and then up to the wooden cooking utensil.

"Oh, sorry, it should be fine though? It's just fire. And it's not anywhere as big as a normal fireplace, there's no wood burning at all! Look, look! You just turn these knobs and I think they use some kind of more refined coal gas! It's sooooo cooool!" She gave in to her intrusive thoughts and started a few hops up and down in place, too excited to keep her calm.

"Medy, Medy, Medea'Veeeeee." Zin cooed, waving the wooden spoon with each name drop.

"They call it just gas. Also, since I'm answering questions that should have been asked a while back by certain responsible parties, tiny unfortunate detail about Earth - Most human stuff isn't fireproof. No mana-treated wood out here. Only thing that's fireproof in this house is you, goat-boy and me." His gloved hand reached out to one of the gas knobs and silently turned it off.

"And at that, my custom tailored suit isn't, so I would appreciate it if we, you know, don't burn the house down."

"Oh, humans here don't treat their tools?" She frowned, head tilted as she tried to understand why people on Earth wouldn't do basic simple preservation techniques.

"Huh, that seems another thing that's really backwards. They don't have any kind of strengthening agents or solutions either?"

"Yes but no," Zin said, head waggling left to right as he considered the question.

"Vanish and protection from scratches maybe, insurance," He stopped and shook his head, trying to focus back on task.

"I digress, getting ahead of the topic here. You feel that in the air? The tingly lack of any kind of mana whatsoever? Exactly. Hate to break it to you and all that, but we're out of juice in this world. Or at least, you are." He almost ran the wooden spoon through his hair before he remembered and swapped hands.

"If we do get a rogue fire - wonder how that could happen with such responsible folks here - you got what? Your hooves, slapping it with your hand, maybe sitting on it, and spit? Which, excellent choices, don't let dictate how you eat a meal here, just wrong context to use them on, babe."

"They don't treat anything to resist fire, but they also don't have anything to fight a fire if it happens?" Medy frowned at that, the prior remark sailing over her head higher than an airplane would.

"Really? Humans really lack a lot of common sense. How did they make all of this and never have it break down?"

"We have fire extinguishers." Leon said, "Although, I not know where they would be in this house." He looked up.

"Smoke alarm seems there."

"I pulled the battery on that ages ago, can't cook a good steak here without it screaming bloody murder at me." Zin shrugged, eyes turning to the smaller Archdemon next to him.

"Unlike some people in this kitchen, I can manage a fire with a few quick spells in case anything gets the wrong ideas. And speaking of wrong ideas, no playing with fire for your chemistry experiments here." His eyes turned to the pair of humans standing nearby.

"At least not without supervision. Emphasis me. Are we clear about that boys? She cooks a potion, you stay here and watch every little thing that happens." The wooden spoon was leveled at Wade like a teacher's ruler." You brought her here, you're responsible for her." Medy looked between Zin and the two new arrivals, like a kid caught in a custody battle.

"Hey, I'm plenty responsible!"

"She lies as easily as she breathes, almost impressive." Zin muttered under his breath. He looked over the scattered table ingredients he'd brought back, and then over to Wade.

"Now, have you figured out what you want to do with this potion of completely responsible destruction?" Wade went up and started sorting through the checklist, "As a matter of fact, I do have a potential use case for this." He knelt down by the sink, opened it up and yanked out a few cleaner bottles.

"Normally, these kinds of items in games are one-use consumable items. Your character throws them at the enemy, or maybe it's applied to a weapon so that when you slice into something, you apply the effect on the enemy." He said, still busy with the bottles.

"Well, we're not technically in a video game, so let's improvise a better use for a vial of true damage." He scrolled up his log of events, and found the exact wording he needed. Vial of Inevitable Destruction (Rare) - Enemies exposed to this liquid will take true damage after five seconds. Damage dealt scales off percent of body mass afflicted. In moments, multiple bottles had their caps unscrewed, and merged together leaving one completely empty bottle, which he rinsed out in the sink until it was good to go.

Leon looked over to the plastic bottle. And then specifically to the spray cap set to mist.