Chương 28: Kaboom

A boom resounds through the forest, sending birds shrieking from the canopy and almost certainly alerting every living thing within a mile. … Again. In my defense, I had to test how much stamina a normally charged starfire grenade costs. My tail sways smugly as I frantically stomp out the remaining fires, boots thudding against scorched grass while thin threads of smoke curl upward in protest. I very deliberately ignore the amused reactions from above. Naturally. The result: five hundred stamina. So.

Still not worth using in almost any scenario. Did I expect that? Yes. Did I just need an excuse to explode something again? Also yes. I accept zero responsibility for my lack of caution. Once the last of the embers are properly extinguished, I sniff the air. Ah. The smell of toasted regret. My traitorous ears perk with unmistakable amusement. Surely that killed enough time. I glance at the Tutorial clock. One minute and forty seconds until midnight. I choose the most efficient, dignified use of the remaining time.

Staring at it with the solemn gravitas normally reserved for heavily inebriated retail workers watching the microwave timer tick down at three in the morning. Once again invoking the ancient Foxkin art of impatient patience, I wait. And wait. And wait some more. Approximately eighty-four and a half years later—relative time—it finally hits midnight. My ears snap toward the sudden shuffling to my right. I tilt my head.

"That's… a lot." Like. A lot. Based on the trustworthiness of my ears—and they have yet to lie to me—I'm counting at least thirty sets of footsteps. The reason clicks immediately. According to the system messages at the beginning of the Tutorial, horde size and strength scale with the highest point total present. And my point total has tripled in the last day. Assuming I'm the top now. … Hm. This raises a mildly concerning question. Can the other users even survive being in the same Tutorial as me?

I consider it for exactly two seconds before shrugging. Unlucky. I'm not about to go around killing people, but I'm also not nerfing myself on the off chance it improves someone else's odds. And judging by the person who beat me last night, I'm clearly not the only one who thinks that way. Therefore— Moving on. Specifically, to greet my guests with the grace and humility appropriate for the next additions to my point total. … Eventually.

Undead are not known for their sense of urgency, and I have absolutely no intention of fighting knee-deep in shrubbery that is desperately overdue for a haircut. Naturally, I relocate to the farthest edge of the clearing, well away from the approaching problem. I require time for a proper, drama-filled critique before the violence begins. I can already tell something about this is going to annoy me. My sixth sense for comedic timing is acting up again. My most powerful weapon. Probably.

The undead finally lurch out of the treeline, bushes snapping and grass flattening beneath their collective disrespect for landscaping. Yes. This is worse than I thought. Roughly twenty of them are the usual Lesser Zombies. Nine more are the recently introduced Lesser Skeletons. And one— One is the same skeleton knight I fought in the dungeon. Because of course it is. A former boss showing up as a standard horde unit a mere thirty minutes after I beat the original. Perfectly balanced. My tail lashes once.

Rest in peace, other users. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. You will not be remembered. I Inspect the horde anyway, just in case there's something interesting hiding in there. There isn't. The skeleton knight isn't even flagged as a mini-boss. It's truly a normal mob now. Fantastic. I unsheathe my sword with proper dramatic flair, fully prepared to dance with a horde of profoundly uninteresting partners—"Wait, Lyn. There is a better way."

The voice belongs to the little brother star, and he is doing a very poor job of suppressing a giggle. I pause. Tilt my head.

"What is it?"

"Field testing." My ears perk immediately. My tail follows a split second later. That— That is the best idea I have ever heard. I slam my blade back into its sheath and make a conscious, deliberate decision to pretend I cannot hear the sharp, disapproving intake of breath from Older Sister. Starfire condenses in my right palm as I break into a sprint toward the horde. I reach the front line in two seconds flat. Zombies lunge for me immediately.

I slip between them, fluid and effortless, still feeding stamina into the increasingly concerning sphere of energy forming above my palm. They aren't my target. I weave through the horde, dancing between grasping hands and snapping jaws, only needing to Astral Step once when the pack gets too dense to pass through cleanly. Then I feel it again. That ceiling. The point where efficiency ends and bad ideas begin. This time— I don't stop. The sphere swells to the size of a golf ball. Then bigger.

Then a little bigger still. By the time I reach my target—the skeleton knight—the condensed starfire is roughly thirty percent larger than my first attempt. Yes. This is definitely safe. The skeleton knight reaches for its sword. Too slow. The surrounding undead surge toward me, closing distance with alarming enthusiasm. Words cannot adequately express what a catastrophically bad idea that is right now. I press my right palm against the skeleton knight's chest.

Its fingers finally close around the hilt of its blade. It starts to draw. Dexterity really is crazy, isn't it? I outspeed them so thoroughly that I can stroll into point-blank range without effort. I even have time to think—calmly, thoughtfully—about how I want to send this particular skeleton to the afterlife. Naturally, I decide to give it something memorable. I smile. Soft. Delicate. Polite. With my free hand, I wave enthusiastically.

"Hi!" Then the world explodes. There's no warning. Just a compressed WHUMP, detonating outward from my palm like the atmosphere abruptly forgets how to behave. Pressure slams through the clearing, flattening knee-high grass in a rippling circle and throwing the front ranks of the horde backward as if the ground itself has been yanked out from under them. The skeleton knight in front of me doesn't get a death scene.

One frame it exists—spine, skull, armor— —and the next it's a burst of bone fragments and incandescent dust expanding away from my hand. The shockwave reaches the nearest zombies and skeletons a fraction of a second later, crumpling torsos and snapping joints with a sound like wet branches breaking. I feel none of it—no force on my lungs, no heat on my skin, no push against my stance. The blast passes through my space like I'm the only fixed point in a crowd of very angry physics experiments.

The horde isn't so lucky. Around the blast center, skeletons are shattered outright—limbs and skulls flung in messy arcs before disintegrating into white powder and glowing flecks caught in the rising heat. Zombies fare differently—not vaporized, but folded, pulped, or launched by the sudden pressure. One is lifted clean off the ground and sent tumbling, arms pinwheeling, until it hits the dirt and simply collapses inward, ribs and sternum crushed like rotten fruit.

Blood, flesh, dislodged limbs, and other assorted zombie components spray through the clearing, splattering trees and painting their still-moving comrades. A half-beat later, heat roars up out of the blast center—an invisible pillar of furnace-hot air that drags debris skyward. Ash, burnt hair, bits of cloth, and powdered bone spiral up past my shoulders, shivering in the thermal currents. The grass right under my boots is gone—just char and bare soil.

Out to a meter, it's reduced to brittle black stalks that crumble in the air current. Past that, two meters out, the grass is yellowed, curled, and on fire in places, little blue flames chewing through their stems. Zombies that were mid-charge at two to three meters get hammered sideways by the shockwave, skidding through the burning grass and leaving smears.

Some try to stand—necks bent at wrong angles, jaws hanging loose—but the blast-facing halves of their bodies are flash-burned, skin blistered or black, one side of their faces half-melted into their teeth. Skeletons in that same band don't vaporize. They just… come apart. The shockwave knocks them into one another—ribcages fracturing, femurs snapping, pelvises splitting. One collapses into a loose heap of bones.

Another staggers forward with only one leg attached, its spine attempting—valiantly and unsuccessfully—to hold itself upright without a pelvis to anchor it. Farther out—three, maybe four meters—the survivors are left stunned, singed, or flattened. They scramble through crushed grass with no coordination. A skeleton missing its jaw tries to stand using knees and elbows. A zombie drags itself forward with one functional leg.

Another sits upright, head tilted, staring at nothing while smoke leaks steadily from its eye sockets. The entire blast lasts maybe two seconds. Then the noise fades. The hot updraft softens. And the clearing settles into a smoking crater, ringed by broken bodies and grass that can't quite decide whether it's ash or fuel. Fortunately, there are no dry leaves or dead grass—just living, damp ground—so the remaining fires sputter and die on their own with a series of disappointed hisses. I nod.

Very scientifically, of course. If I'd done that in the Thicket, I would have started another forest fire. Or in literally any forest that doesn't appear to be aggressively cutting content to protect some vague "asset count" that the Tutorial is clearly enforcing. I lower my hand and flex my fingers, watching a burned zombie attempt to crawl around a skeleton that's missing roughly half its ribs. The skeleton twitches once.

Then collapses as the last surviving segment of its spine finally gives up on the concept of effort. I take in the scene. A scorched circle where grass no longer exists. Broken bodies scattered at odd angles. Roughly half the horde erased by physics and profoundly poor life decisions.

"Unfortunate," I say calmly. Nearby, a zombie groans and tries to stand on a leg that is very clearly no longer attached to anything structurally relevant. It immediately falls over into the withered stalks with a wet hiss.

"… Very unfortunate," I amend. The stars, unfortunately, do not share my solemn assessment. Cheers and laughter echo through my skull like a swarm of pigeons witnessing someone drop an entire bagel on the sidewalk. Even Older Sister sounds… mildly impressed. As she should be. My tail curls smugly behind me. … Who cares if it cost twelve hundred stamina to pull off? Worth it. Probably. … Definitely. I unsheathe my sword and make my rounds.

Anything still moving stops doing so shortly thereafter—including the handful of lucky stragglers that were completely outside the blast radius of Thermal Grenade Mk. 2. Another level. Another pile of points. My pool of free stat points has officially crossed one hundred. Excellent. I look forward to impulse-spending every single one of them into a single stat at a later date and pretending it was a carefully reasoned decision.

With the horde fully dispatched, there's nothing left to do but move on—while waiting for the gold window to display me in my rightful position at number one. Before I go, I take one last look at the aftermath of my deeply questionable field test. Blood has painted the clearing in a broad, sweeping arc—thick in places, thin in others—the kind of distribution pattern that would cause a forensic analyst to develop several brand-new personal issues.

Shattered bone fragments glint dully in the light like pale ceramic shrapnel. Unidentifiable zombie organs and limbs are scattered across the ground with all the deliberation of a toddler throwing toys. Something wet hangs from a low branch near the treeline. It drips. A heartbeat later, a severed arm—still wearing half of a rotted sleeve—finally loses its tenuous grip on reality and plops onto the grass nearly eight meters from the blast center. … Hm. I really hope a random party stumbles across this scene.

My tail sways in quiet amusement as I imagine their faces. Then I start carving my way through the shrubbery again, blade clearing a path as I continue deeper into the forest. Thankfully, I don't have to wait long. A couple of minutes later, the gold window interrupts me mid-step. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Night Four Survived! Remaining Users: 4619 Average Point Total: 912 Highest Point Total: 28643 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I stop. Completely. My tail goes still.

My ears lock in place, frozen upright, every muscle in my body suspending itself around that number. Twenty-eight thousand. Higher than mine. Something inside me cracks. Not metaphorically. The seed. A fine fracture runs through it—quiet, precise—like the first break in glass under pressure. I don't panic. I don't feel threatened. I just know, instinctively, that whatever it is… it isn't wrong.