Chương 31

Item - Hero's Heart (Rank - D) - Level 10 Owner - John O'Donnell I looked at that, and I couldn't understand why Alice would have something like it. How was it possible?

"Why? Why do you have this?" I asked.

"When the battle against the undead ended, this came down like a small shooting star and fell right to my feet," Alice said.

"I— John, I just watched you be a massive…" She put her hands up.

"You just watched me be a massive piece of shit on air. And so when this fell, it felt like the least earned thing in the world, and you thought, honestly, without being that wrong, given the facts that have been given to you, that I did not deserve this, sort of?"

"Yeah," she replied.

"So I got a Hero's Heart already," I muttered. I slowly took it from her hands. It was just a rock in the shape of a heart. And the description said: A Hero's Heart is the culmination of one's heroic deeds. It only gets awarded when a true heroic act is recognized by the System. A Hero's Heart can be infused into a piece of equipment to level it up. Or it can be used by a person to gain a buff in what they lack the most.

"What does it say?" Alice asked.

"It didn't let me read the description, because it said that it's yours. And, well, you know, I think that Father Okonkwo knew about the heart, and the fact that I had been afraid, and everything, and—""Alice, give me a second. I'm, I'm thinking." I looked at this. Well, this was what I had been searching for this entire time. And I felt like lightning was going through my entire body as I held it. I could feel its pulsing power. I could feel how much it would help either me or the lance.

I finally understood that if I put this through the Lance of the Hero, it would level it up. An S-ranked weapon that would level up. General Skullthrax had seen several people leave the banquet hall. Seeing how furious he was about what was happening, they didn't wanna be caught in the crosshair of his rage. There were just a few people left, mostly the closest allies, and Xivitz.

If Xivitz didn't come from one of the most ancient lineages of undead, General Skullthrax would have already taken his sword to the lanky undead.

"Your darkness," Xivitz said, "was this part of your plan?" Count Vortugh facepalmed, but, surprising the few people left, General Skullthrax said, "Yes. I think that now Selfish John will do what he does best. See, in this kind of situation, there's only one thing that is sensible to do. Without the lion, his group is not particularly strong. I would put the group below that woman's firepower. John has a decent Skill that he got from Raziel's armor," General Skullthrax said.

"But despite his Skill, he is not equipped to deal with the boss that they're going to face in the next room. We placed in this fortress a few of the bastard bloods." That made some of the allies who didn't know about General Skullthrax's full plans raise an eyebrow, or just have a flicker in their skull sockets.

"What do you mean, dear friend?" one of the other generals frowned.

"The bastard bloods that were not fully eliminated are being kept as fodder for the dungeon. Of course, they know better than betraying us, and they have all the incentives now to do the right thing and kill these humans for us." General Skullthrax smiled widely.

"On the other side, there is a dexterous motherfucker. No one among them is strong enough to fight it. And so they're all going to die. Because in front of such a power — a hero's heart, something no one here has ever seen — am I right?" General Skullthrax laughed, and everybody laughed awkwardly after.

"We have seen many evil hearts. But a hero's heart — which not only can level up equipment, or Skills when higher rank, but without a malice — it might give you a massive boost to one of your more metaphysical qualities.

As someone who has eaten more than a few evil hearts, seeing something like that, for such a selfish man, is going to be a temptation so big that he's either going to immediately try to gain enough levels for the lance that Lotheriel mentioned, or he's just going to use it and empower himself, thinking that it's going to give him such an advantage that—""Your darkness," Xivitz said, a little shyly, by now having understood that General Skullthrax wasn't really happy with him.

"What?" General Skullthrax snapped, kicking the table. And before Xivitz could even say anything, he just turned, and he saw John stretch his hand out, with the heart in it, to a wide-eyed Alice. General Skullthrax was about to lose his skull. And then he heard Xivitz say, "He is actually pretty generous, your darkness. Why aren't we calling him Selfish John again? I don't get it."

General Skullthrax still believed, however — without saying it out loud, so that he wouldn't jinx it — that the boss was still strong enough whether or not the woman accepted the heart. Despite the fact that the bastard bloods had been on the losing faction of the civil war that had ended in favor of the zombies, this would still be a battle impossible to win for such inferior creatures as humans. And so General Skullthrax watched intently for what unfolded next. Reading on this site?

This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. I extended the Hero's Heart to Alice, who looked at me, puzzled.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"It's yours."

"I know it's mine, and I don't think I should be using this for tonight. Maybe if my lance was ready and everything. But let me ask you — how many bullets do you have in your guns, give or take?" She sighed.

"I have the exact number. It's two ninety-seven, three hundred oh two," she said, pointing at each pistol.

"Jesus Christ, that's a lot," I said.

"All right. So I have one good Skill that can make a monster explode when I throw my spear, and I bet that getting a better spear — which I kinda need this for — would make it stronger. But you're like a machine gun. Y-y-you are way too strong, Alice. So…"

"I'm, I'm not following," she said.

"What do you expect to happen?"

"If this is a Hero's Heart," Lucas said, bothered, "and this is a fucking show, live-streamed — guess. What do you think would happen?" But she just returned the puzzled look to the grumpy archer.

"If this is a live stream, this is a storyline," I said.

"Then this is sort of like your turning point, I guess."

"How can you be so sure?" Well, I was sure because my Skill had just shown me something else. When I activated the Sphere of Intuition, I saw Alice glow subtly with the same golden sheen that the heart had. Now, it wasn't straight-up telling me I should give the heart to Alice. I made that jump in logic. But it was pretty clear that either the aura of the heart had influenced Alice, or that this was meant for her.

And I could either be Selfish John, like Lotheriel had apparently put it, or I could sacrifice a little and gain an ally capable of shooting down almost any monster, if she got her bearings.

"John, isn't this extremely valuable?" Alice asked.

"And are you sure it's gonna help?"

"Alice," I said, massaging the sides of my head.

"Listen, we're covered in gore. I feel like puking again from what we saw in the other room — just the dimension of that, everybody went green. And in the next room, there's probably some monster sponsored by our fucking absolute enemies. We're sadly not that good without King Pussycat. Y-y-you might not like this, but you are, without a shadow of a doubt, the one with the most firepower here. Now, would you be useless without those guns that all those people back in the Haven charged for you? Absolutely.

And I bet that they fucking drained themselves to charge those guns that much, because I can't believe that children have, like, more than five mana each. But still — I just think about that because it makes me feel better about myself," I told her with a smile.

"Now, as things are in this room, without the wildest doubt, you are the strongest."

"Yeah, but you…"

"I, I don't think I'm actually the second strongest," I said, raising a finger. At that, my teammates looked at each other.

"Wait, who's the second strongest, then?"

"I think it's me." Lucas smiled smugly.

"My aim is almost at an Olympian's level with this bow."

"No," I told Lucas with a smile, "it's not, and it's not you." I pointed at Hailey. Everybody looked at Hailey and frowned. Then Tina got it.

"Oh. The Excellent Staff of Amon."

"Yep. Hailey can probably deal wild damage to undead. So…" Everybody nodded after I had explained. And… Alice hesitatingly took the heart.

"Are you sure?" she asked one last time.

"If you ask again, I'm taking it back and I'm, I don't know, giving it to Lucas or something."

"I don't need it," Lucas scoffed.

"I'm good."

"Yeah, you are. You're good." He smiled, and I turned to Alice.

"So, you ready to get the heart and show us what an Olympian can do?" Alice frowned and then nodded. She squeezed the heart, and it slowly dissolved into many pink motes of light, which levitated and then suddenly speared her right in the middle of her chest, where her heart was. She gasped, and for a second her own eyes became a bright pink before slowly going back to her normal brown.

"So," I asked, "what did it say? Do you feel any different?" Alice looked at her hands, frowning, and said, "I don't feel anything. Like, it kind of felt like a B12 shot, but I don't feel… I don't know. I don't feel it." We all looked worried, but I just raised my hands and said, "Come on, guys. It's…" Well, maybe it didn't work, actually, I corrected myself.

"Oh shit. Holy shit. Well, um — Hailey, keep that staff ready, and let's try to explode the boss or something." We got ready, cleaning ourselves up a little, and then we stepped through the door that brought us to the boss. We entered a dark room, where a giant chandelier lit up one candle at a time, creating a diffused glow that let us see there was a coffin in the middle of the room. However, this one was turned over and empty, unlike the ones we had found when we were hunting the boss.

Behind the coffin there was a table — a long table, like the ones you see in a medieval drama — where a man with silver hair was eating a meal of flesh and blood. He looked at us, then slowly pushed his chair back and got up. He used a handkerchief to pat his mouth from the bloody droplets of the meal. And then I heard a sound in my head. This is a boss fight. Team John versus Vainglory the Vampire.

"Fuck, that's a vampire," I said to the group.

"Yeah," Tina scoffed.

"Of course it is. Have you looked at it?" Then she pointed her staff and shot a Mana Bolt at the creature. What happened next made me rethink my whole strategy, because Vainglory just sidestepped the blow at such a speed that I didn't even see it move, and finished patting his mouth with the handkerchief.

"The bastard bloods are insufferable, but one must give them credit where credit is due. Their physical abilities are unparalleled among the Undead. Their upkeep is horrendous, but I wish we could still retain some form of control over them." That was the other general talking. Skullthrax hated vampires, but he said, "We will take some into the fold after they have finished their job in the dungeon. We have sent almost all of them there. Humans are apparently either fascinated by, or terrified of, vampires.

And I think they're very good at instilling the kind of terror that we need for our—" Xivitz interrupted.

"Your darkness, the vampire just died." General Skullthrax whirled and shouted, "Xivitz, if you're pulling my femur…" But when he turned, the boss, Vainglory, was indeed dead. There was a large hole in the middle of his face, which was now unrecognizable. And Alice Moon had her arm extended straight, with a calm she had never displayed before in the tutorial.