Chương 155: Chapter 151

Testing the compass vertically showed Wade the lootbox had to be inside the nursing house somewhere. Since the parking lot outside was flat. The rest had been physical testing by shambling around until they stumbled on the right door. Specifically in the fourth floor, east wing. The compass needle locked dead ahead. At what looked to be an unoccupied room, or possibly midway through being cleaned up given some of the bedsheets looked recently used.

"Well, real inconspicuous of the System." Zin gave the copper lootbox a highly judging glare. It did not look like it belonged here. Not the right time period, not the right location either, and not even in the right dimension. Shiny bright colored copper, looking like a polished up pirate's treasure chest that belonged in a video game, while this was room was about as mundane as reality could possibly be.

"That definitely wasn't here this morning," Wade said.

"The staff would have noticed."

"You want me to ring up security and ask them? Didn't think so." Zin closed the door behind them and locked it. Wade didn't move toward it. He stared at the chest from across the room, arms crossed.

"All right kiddo, before you go all manic and reach for the first shin-""Mimic check. Already ahead of you." Wade patted the spray bottle on his beltside, still hooked where he'd left it.

"How highly reasonable of you."

"Mind kicking it first? Quick sanity check." Zin gave the most exasperated sigh possible.

"Spoke too soon, that's on me. Really should have, you know, known by now you and 'reasonable' are a few zipcodes apart from each other."

"What? Kicking is a perfectly good test! The chest might be indestructible, but whatever's inside wouldn't. Assuming it's evil and has teeth."

"Did I mention these shoes are two thousand dollars? And very much not indestructible?"

"…I do remember you mentioning something like that in the past, yes. Maybe take them off before you do the kicking?"

"And be barefoot?" He sounded as if that idea was even more ridiculous. This time Wade was the one sighing.

"You want my boots instead? We can trade. Hell, I won't even wear your shoes, I'll just put them on the bed there, nice and safe. I don't mind being barefoot, I ran around for like nine hours with waterlogged shoes." If he hadn't been reset on the transport back, Wade was pretty sure his feet would have had some kind of chronic issue for leaving them submerged and rubbed raw that long. The Archdemon looked down at Wade's current pair of normal civilian shoes.

"I admit, I'm mildly surprised there aren't any holes in those."

"My gas station pair had those." Wade confirmed.

"Hobby Froggy had a pretty strict dress code that involved shoes, so these ones are my good set for more professional moments."

"Shocked. Completely shocked I tell you." He deadpanned, then walked forward.

"Nevermind, I'll go handle it myself. Stay there, and don't start ripping the copper out of walls or anything. Perfectly good chest right here you'll probably do something unmentionable to after all this." Taking a few regal strides, he ended right before the giant copper lootbox, walking around it like a mafia might around a client that owed money for the third time in a row. The type of client tied up to a chair with a gag.

Carefully, he pulled off a glove as he paced, gave a quick check that the door behind them remained locked, and sniffed the air looking for nearby emotions. Confirming nobody was nearby, he came to a stop before the chest, and punched into it all at once, as if he was going for the gut against someone. It was quick, and brutal. The chest lifted off, flew a few feet, hit the ground and barrel rolled a few times until it teetered back down right-side up.

"So other people can move the chest." Wade hummed.

"Probably more to to with intention than anything else kiddo." Zin shrugged.

"If it's alive in there, it'll be rattled." Zin approached once more, grabbed the handles and then started shaking it up and down like a kid on christmas trying to get a feel for what was inside. It was exactly as violent as it appeared and Wade was starting to be worried his loot inside there would get damaged. The butler gave it a few more punches, slapping it around the same way a bored cat played with a mouse. Nothing else happened otherwise.

No teeth, tongue, bad breath or creepy little spider legs tapping the floor anywhere.

"Well, that was a fun bit of nothing." Zin said, straightening his cuffs and putting his white glove back on.

"All right champ, either it's a real chest or it's a mimic with a truly heroic poker face." The Archdemon kneeled down and tried to open the chest itself, but found it was completely latched shut. He gave a grunt and actually tried for a moment before he stopped.

"That's definitely not made of copper. Don't know what the System's doing calling it copper. I could bend that much copper easy." He let the poor chest back down on the ground, where it remained looking pristine despite the rough treatment. That made more sense to Wade. Other people couldn't open his lootboxes. Some part of Wade finally relaxed a tiny bit after the Archdemon had given it just about every bit of checkup he could. The mimic encounter had really given him a case of belated PTSD or something. …

But it never hurt to double check, right? Wade walked up to it, drew out his spray bottle, and gave it one direct pump. The liquid landed in a fine red mist over a good section of the surface, like it was waiting for a polish shine next. Nothing happened. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Wade felt himself relax the rest of the way.

"Huh. Guess the System really didn't troll me this time."

"Right, because your luck stat has been SO reliable lately." Wade laughed. The Archdemon laughed. The mimic made it clear it didn't find anything funny. Exactly five seconds post-spray, the droplets of potion glowed bright red and instantly zapped away in a small flash of light. A health bar went down from 100% to 83% The chest opened up lightning fast, leaping straight for Wade, maw looking for a treat.

A white gloved hand grabbed his collar and yanked him down and out of the way while Zin's other hand snapped out to grab a tooth from the mid-air chest and flung it up into the ceiling where it slammed with a chunk. It remained stuck up there, small spider like legs flailing around for a moment, pushing itself off the ceiling.

"You'll want to stand back a little bit Mr. Wade. It seems we have an unwelcome guest here, and I just so happen to be under contract to handle precisely this." A gloved hand slowly pushed Wade backwards. The mimic fell down, and rolled back up, mouth full of styrofoam-like roofing. Shockingly, it remained hungry and tried once more to leap for Wade. Thinking it could get past an Archdemon.

What Wade ended up watching was the one-sided beatdown of a Level 86 Greater Infernal Essence, against a level 16 Mimic with the element of surprise gone. And now Wade really understood just how dangerous Zin truly was. Zin simply grabbed it out of the air like a misbehaving ferret, and proceeded to pull off each leg one at a time while the monster tried to bite and squirm in his unyielding grasp.

The only reason it survived any amount of time was solely due to the unbreakable nature of its shell and the Archdemon himself trying to keep his suit clean from any droplets of blood with each ripped off leg. In under a minute, he tossed it on the floor, where it made the attempt to crawl away with a single spiderlimb remaining. Zin took a moment to take his expensive suit off, and fold it up on the bedside, muttering all the while how tragic it was he wore a white collared shirt today.

Then rolled up his sleeves, and went to fetch a nice steel chair. Happy with his weapon of choice, he turned and strolled after the desperate mimic scratching with the single claw it had at the locked doorway. A quick kick rotated the chest so it faced him. It hissed and clamped shut, where the butler reached a foot to the edge of the lid, and snuck a single hand into the other end. Then pried the entire thing open like an oyster shell. In that position, the steel chair rose up in his other hand.

The mimic gave a few terrified sounds. One full minute of vindictive cudgeling later, Wade announced the health bar had officially hit 0%. Zin let go of the completely dented chair, and then took a bit of time to make sure his tie and cuffs were back neat and tidy.

"Well. That was riveting! Almost as fun as punching goat-boy a few times over earlier. You do owe me a new dress shirt, I'll send an invoice for the dry cleaning bill later." His current white shirt was now very much stained in mimic blood, and a few bits of gore and teeth that had been knocked loose during the whooping. The flesh of brutalized mimic started fading away into motes, even the few drops of blood that did end up on Zin's suit at the very start of the leg ripping part.

He gave a look over his shirt as it magically cleaned itself up.

"Huh. Your luck really is reliable. Very well, I'll take my dress shirt off your tab." Wade was quite happy that Play's personal butler was on his side, and that he'd been paranoid enough to bring with him on the off chance that the System had a kinder surprise ready in the chamber, exactly as it had indeed done.

"Not that I'm complaining about you killing that thing with the first thing you could grab that was heavy enough, highly entertaining, 10 out of 10." Wade said, "But why not use some magic to burn it from the inside out or something? That would have been a lot cleaner."

"I don't nuke ants, Mr. Wade." He looked down at his shoes, checking that they remained unscuffed. Satisfied he hadn't been too rough on them, he shoved the unmoving chest with a small slap to the side, and then a slight kick forward to slide it on the ground up to Wade.

"Anyhow, job's done. Open that baby up." The copper lootbox remained undamaged and ready. Last time a mimic had spawned, there had been an improved reward in there that made it a player choice. Which his current quest required. This might have been the System throwing him the mimic it needed to, in an environment it knew Wade would survive through, given he had Zin here. He reached down and opened the lid. Light spilled out. Hidden Lootbox Challenge Complete! Hidden System notification unhidden. Yep.

Exactly like last time. And when he scrolled up, he found the hidden notification was the exact same. Luck triggered! Hidden Lootbox Challenge added to spawned Lootbox. Still, despite everything having worked out well, this was Earth. Wade wasn't certain what would have happened if that mimic had managed to bite his chest. They had venom, and he didn't have blackrot. He'd brushed real close to actual death just now. Even fully prepared and testing for a mimic, it would have gotten him if Zin hadn't been there.

He scrolled back down and read through his gains. Loot narrowed to Boon related subpool.

"Shit." Wade hissed. That wasn't a player-selection choice. His luck hadn't been enough. Well, maybe it would be a good longterm impro- One-round boon upgrade obtained!

"Goddamnit." All right, single round temp upgrade, not great. Well maybe it would upgrade Skyvip- Boon upgraded (One-round). Arsonist (Common -> Uncommon)"Are you for real?!" What the hell was his luck doing?? He opened up his stats sheet and scrolled down to stare at the offender.

"You had one job. I only have two boons. How did you screw this up this bad? I put every goddamn point I had in you!" The luck stat remained fixed in his stat sheet, silently staring back at him without a shred of guilt.

"Rough day at the office champ?" Zin asked, eyebrow raised.

"Got shit loot despite it being a mimic challenge mode spawn and everything. See for yourself." Zin gave him a flat stare.

"Unlike a certain soon-be- excised troglodyte, she-knows-who-she-is, I can't see whatever's going over in front of you unless it's streamed on her TV through whatever divine NEET magic she's rigged up. So mind running the info by me again, in words?"

"I got an upgrade that'll last just this round and it's not even for my good boon but the spare one that I'm hardcarrying with Skyviper." He scrolled down to check what the actual upgrade was. Arsonist (Uncommon) - On killing an enemy, their body will explode. (Uncommon upgrade - One Round Remaining) - The last applied debuff suffered by the eliminated enemy will apply to any target within the explosive range. Wade instantly shut up, and then opened up the stat sheet again, scrolling straight to luck.

"I take back everything I ever said, I'm so sorry I ever doubted you in the first place, I was a weak weak man that strayed from the path, please forgive me." The luck stat silently stared back, benevolent to the faithless as it had always been. And Wade fully indulged in his favorite hobby of putting numbers together. The phone started vibrating to hell and back, as his fellow gamer had equally understood the exact potential he was staring at.

There wasn't a single gaming style more terrifying than the debuff build. Magic the gathering players feared the words 'control deck player' for a reason. From the moment they saw the first blue land card, they knew it was going to be an uphill battle, where nothing they did would work, and their opponent's definition of victory was slow and insidious torture. Wade currently had in his hands a godlike wombo combo. Video games only had a certain amount of debuffs, real life had an entire spectrum to choose from.

Blind, deaf, mute, dying, about to die, on fire, in a freezer, constipated - the list went on and on with what he could potentially spread as a knockoff Black Death tribute act. And what did he know, he just so happened to have a quite excellent debuff build going already with his Skyviper archer. Which could be stacked up into obscene damage. And the only weakness was that he'd need to reapply everything all over target by target.

This basically turned his single-target build into an AOE funhouse so long as he could herd the enemy nearby each other, and pop the center target. Fill something up with enough stacks of corrosion to kill God, and then watch as they pop into a giant plague blast that spread the debuff right around. And it would repeat again and again like fireworks. On a round where he was already dead-set on killing everything that moved, so long as it had teeth or looked at him funny.

Wade was going to be a one-man ecoterrorist in the Arcane realm, with his loyal skeletal greatsword champion tagging along behind to scalp new hats to wear from the destruction that he left behind. Wade would be more than a bomb going off. He would be atomic. It. Would. Be. Glorious.

"Kiddo, you are one creepy little man when you laugh like that." Zin said, feeling goosebumps up his spine.

"I'm goddamn set for the next round." Wade puffed his chest out. Now he needed to plan on how he'd lock that upgrade in somehow. A debuff boon ready to go like that for any future boon would open up his options significantly. He needed this boon to be permanent. It was time for the Arcane Realm, and it wasn't even the afternoon yet.

"Time to go visit Play." Wade nodded, standing back up from the bed he'd been sitting on. The buzzing in his pant pocket stopped. And then resumed with far more panicked intensity.