Chương 28

"Your lordship, your plan is so elaborate, so smart. Humans always fall for these tactics."

"I know," General Skullthrax said, toasting with a cup of high-quality human blood from his vintage collection. He was currently hosting a banquet. This was because the tutorial was halfway through, and despite the first devastating loss of Amon — a very powerful undead that would have torn to shreds all the humans on the first floor, and then on the second — he had quickly readjusted. As all good generals, he had a series of contingency plans for when things went bad.

And now, he had also found a way to get a feed on Diver John. The God of Undeath had gifted him a mirror that could look inside the tutorial. It hung at the head of the hall, right behind the general's seat. The God had said it was to surveil the most dangerous humans. It could hone in on any human — just like the normal stream would, once a human reached the second floor. For the first floor, though, the God of Undeath had had to use other means.

A large price had been paid for this mirror, so that they could legally watch what the humans were doing. Usually, this was extremely, extremely illegal, because it would provide the Sorvos Empire an unfair advantage against planet Earth. The System AI would have never approved a permanent mirror. But this was a mirror that had cost the God of Undeath dearly, and it would only work until the end of the first floor.

So, in the grand scheme of things — considering how much the humans would grow, at least in theory, from floor one to floor nine — it was acceptable, since it would only give away so much. And even the Sorvos Empire, given the type of boons and experience found in the tutorial, had at least a little right to know what their enemies were like. That was how the case had been pleaded to the System AI, which had then quoted an outrageous price for this one simple privilege.

General Skullthrax had told his God that they did need it. The current state of the Sorvos Empire was greatly weakened, and anything that put them on track to kill the humans faster — and turn them into their future undead army — was an invaluable advantage. Then, of course, General Skullthrax had let himself be swayed by the mirror a little too much, since he had then organized a banquet, and they were now toasting at each other while laughing loudly at John finding his bait.

The Sorvos Empire was a powerhouse, extremely proficient in every type of undead, but the faction that had come out victorious from the Civil War had been the zombie faction. All the other factions had been squashed and relegated to the lower ranks of society. And so, in this large hall, at a very long table, sat the upper echelons — his direct underlings. They were currently eating a human-based feast, with a few humans still alive and gagged, kept alive by health potions while their viscera lay exposed.

And they sampled it delightfully, all extremely thankful to General Skullthrax for such an abundant display of wealth and riches. Humans of high rank, bound like this, were a delicacy that was hard to come by in the Sorvos Empire, even for nobility such as them.

"So, General." A green-looking zombie, covered from head to toe in gold, raised his cup to the general.

"Why don't you explain your plan once again?" This was Count Vortugh. General Skullthrax, of course, knew that Vortugh's act was pure sycophancy. But the count, despite not being a great warrior, still had massive resources at his disposal — resources he had used to help Skullthrax win the war. He was old nobility. Among the oldest.

"Of course, Count Vortugh, of course. Let me, then. See, these are poorly enhanced undead that we took from the monsters in the tutorial. Usually, it is very hard to reanimate such creatures, given the limits that the System AI imposes on the troops we can send into the tutorial. But our wonderful liches managed to reanimate the creatures after rediscovering several techniques that we couldn't send with them." And at that, General Skullthrax paused.

There were a few awkward seconds until the audience picked up on what they were supposed to do, and they started clapping, asynchronously. General Skullthrax raised a hand to stop the awkward clapping and continued.

"These are not functional undead, and they're pretty pricey to produce. But there are so many monsters in the tutorial that we can afford a few losses. Then, let me tell you what's going to happen next." General Skullthrax laughed out loud. Once again there was an awkward silence, and after a few beats, Count Vortugh was the one who understood it was time to laugh, and followed in the laughter of General Skullthrax.

"So. The creatures that we have modified are swollen receptacles of mana and power. They have too much of it for their feeble bodies. Instead of becoming deadly monsters, they are just fat prey that will distribute a lot of experience to the humans."

"General," a tall, lanky undead — long claws, and teeth six inches each, all coming out of his mouth in a messy horror of jaws — asked in a nerdy tone, "why are we making the, um, humans gain experience and levels? That, uh, I don't understand." Skullthrax clamped down harder on his cup until the metal started creaking.

"If you let me explain. Xivitz."

"Of course, m-my lord." Xivitz stumbled on his words.

"Uh, please continue. I'm sorry if I— if I interrupted your m-magnificent speech." Skullthrax sighed and continued.

"The humans, as you might have imagined, want to become stronger, because they know that the stronghold is staffed by our best undead. On the second floor, this stronghold would have become our capital — but the resources are not great. We cannot send much before the third floor. On the second, at least, we would have been able to send more bodies for them to grow stronger on. But nonetheless: short of level-20 fighters, and hundreds of them, it would be pretty much impossible to deal with our troops."

Skullthrax made a small, unplanned pause, in which he was simply organizing his thoughts — and applause started, startling him.

"Please, just let me continue," he said, and the people just clapped harder. Skullthrax waited for the applause to die, and then said, "The humans expect that this is going to be easy experience. They think: oh, we're just going to get a bunch of levels, and then we're going to go heroically into the fortress, storm it, and save humanity. And before you all laugh — let me explain. Humans are always like this. Some of you might not have faced them directly in battle, but they have this weird sense of heroism.

They're the one race that produces the most heroes. And it is so easy to predict what they're going to do. That's why we have devised several ways to break them.

"First of all, this hunt will take them until nighttime. Then, they will be led by the last bloated corpses into a series of traps. We have planned those traps based on some human lore, so that the traps will be extremely, extremely — not just deadly, but also terrifying. Then, this will be broadcast right before the army of humans reaches that cursed holy city of theirs — which will break the morale of the holy city, since they expected reinforcement from the very people who are being tortured to death.

And we will show them live. Because we will, first of all, delay the divers so much that the torture will happen roughly as the army is about to reach the walls." Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"That is twisted, and genius," Count Vortugh commented.

"As befitting of your lordship."

"Thank you, Count Vortugh," General Skullthrax said.

"So. They will take roughly twenty to thirty minutes between each bait. We have scattered them such that the humans might find little clues to the position of each. These corpses release fluids on the ground, and it might be possible to track them down — which we expect them to do, as we said, since they will now think: oh, this will give us a wonderful advantage against the Sorvos Empire. But what they're really doing is falling prey to our genius plan." Skullthrax laughed, and expected everybody to laugh.

But everybody was just looking behind him. Skullthrax frowned.

"What are you all looking at?"

"Your lordship," Xivitz said in his high-pitched voice.

"Why did they find the second one already?" General Skullthrax turned, and looked at the giant lion in the mirror, swiping his paw at the second bloated corpse. Holy— unholy shit. Skullthrax was stunned. It must have been less than two minutes. It must have been luck. He turned toward the others and said, "Of course, we accounted for this. We scattered a few more baits than necessary, so that even if they were faster, it would still be deep into the night by the time they were done."

Skullthrax raised his cup for a toast. But then Xivitz said, "Your lordship. They have just found another."

"What?" General Skullthrax reeled and looked back — seeing that, indeed, John O'Donnell, that bastard, had personally thrown a spear into a hyena's head, and then said, "Have you guys gained the same amount of experience? Did you all level up?"

"Yeah — level fourteen," they said. That stupid hyena was level fifteen, Skullthrax thought. That's crazy. Isn't that, like, a boss level? He felt like he was about to lose it.

"Well, we'll take turns killing them, since they're so stupidly weak," John said.

"You know, just to experiment, and see if we all gain the same amount of experience. It's easier if King Pussycat does it, but we all have the means to do it, right?" General Skullthrax turned toward his audience and said, "This is all bravado. They found a few by luck, because the first ones are closer to each other. Clearly, the zombie hyenas must have wandered too close to one another, making it easier for the humans to spot them. But it means nothing.

Despite this little snag, our plan is still perfectly on track." Now the people clapped, and gave a few awkward laughs. But Xivitz was still standing while the others took their seats and resumed eating. He was looking intently at the mirror. A couple of minutes passed, and he pointed.

"Your lordship." General Skullthrax felt a chilling sensation in his undead bones. He turned. Somehow, John O'Donnell had found yet another hyena. How in the heavens has he found so many? the general thought. But he didn't say anything out loud. And when he looked back at his guests, they were all looking uneasy, not really sure what to say. I wasn't really sure what was happening — if these were some failed experiments that had escaped some undead lab, or what.

But it was easy to say that this was the biggest boon we had found since I had opened my S-ranked chests. These hyenas were all extremely bloated with mana and power, and they could barely move. We took turns killing them, and we were already on our ninth. The entire group was level fifteen, and somehow, killing them also allowed us to gain proficiency levels easily.

"Man, I can't believe this," I said as we reached the tenth. I was easily able to spot them thanks to my Sphere of Intuition. I just told the others that there were very easy-to-see tracks, and they attributed it to one of my skills that they didn't know about. They didn't know just how easy it was for me. And with the speed of King Pussycat sprinting around, we were leveling up insanely fast.

"How close are we to the main stronghold, King Pussycat?"

"We are not that close," King Pussycat said.

"The undead must have captured more creatures than I thought." I saw some worry on his lion face as I dismounted, since it was now Alice's turn to kill the hyena.

"I'm curious to see how those guns work," I said, pointing at Alice's holstered guns.

"Do I really need to do this? This is a waste of time. I don't want to do it." Alice snapped at me, particularly nervous.

"Don't worry, dude. It's just one stupid bloated corpse," Lucas frowned.

"Don't those guns shoot? Do you have to clobber the thing to death? What's the matter?" Alice was weirdly jumpy, and she looked pale. Very pale. Definitely paler than she should have been, given that the hyena was so stupidly weak. She took one of her guns out and walked ahead.

"I'll fucking kill it, all right? Shut up," she said, to nobody in particular. Then she stopped, still a little too far from the thing — which was barely crawling toward us. Its rear legs had snapped, and it could only move forward by awkwardly dragging its hindquarters along the ground. Alice raised her gun. And through the Sphere of Intuition, I saw her hand trembling — and her eyes closing. Nobody else could see that, since they were all behind her. She shot her first bolt with her eyes closed.

And then I was distracted by the giant hole in the ground that her gun left behind. It was bigger than my thigh, and a shower of dirt came out of it. Even the zombie hyena was startled by it. Of course — since Alice had shot with her eyes closed and a trembling hand, she had missed the thing by several feet. I started feeling bad for the hyena, which whimpered, even in its undeath, at the powerful — incredibly powerful — attack. It looked like a miniature copy of what King Pussycat was able to do.

Alice shot three more times, and the last attack blew the poor zombie hyena apart.

"There you go," she said, holstering her gun and holding a hand on it.

"Fucking waste of mana. Not doing that again." We all looked at each other. And I was starting to think that this woman wasn't who she said she was. We continued like this for about an hour and a half, until we reached what looked like an underground passage, inside an empty crypt.

"Do we have to enter here?" I said, looking at the spot.

"This feels dangerous. And claustrophobic."

"This passage," King Pussycat said, "leads to the below-grounds of the stronghold, Sir John. This is exactly what we need." I opened the chat and wrote, "If this leads us below, we could just place all the C4, then find the cure for King Pussycat, save his people, bail out, and explode the entire thing. This might actually be perfect. Are we going?" Lucas replied with a thumbs up, and Marcus and Tina joined. Hailey wrote, "It's a bit creepy, but yes." There was just one problem. I looked at the giant lion.

"You're not gonna fit in here, you know?"

"I know, Sir John," King Pussycat said.

"But if this is how it has to be, I shall comply, and not complain." General Skullthrax had broken four metal cups while watching the humans speedrun through the baits that were supposed to slow them down until late into the night. But when they arrived at the crypt — which was indeed where he wanted them — the undead smiled widely. They're about to fall into a series of traps that will give them nightmares for the rest of their short lives. We slowly walked into the crypt.

And when we did, we all got a notification. You have just entered the Dungeon of Enigma. Prove your worth, your loyalty, and your heart, and you shall receive rewards that have been put up by the System — paid for by the Sorvos Empire. This is a sponsored dungeon.

"A sponsored dungeon?" I muttered. And then we found ourselves in a dark room, with a small crystal box which read: Pay your toll in flesh and blood. As soon as I saw it, I facepalmed. All the others looked pretty scared, and I just said, "Guys, I am pretty sure that this is a Saw thing." Well. Not just a Saw thing. I think they literally ripped off Saw.