Chương 21

"Name's Phil!" A guy in a green and yellow wetsuit held out his hand to Oliver, a wide smile across his face. His perfect white teeth glinted in the moonlight. They were treading water over where the ghost ship had sunk into the sea.

"Oliver." He took the offered hand and clumsily clasped it while attempting to simultaneously stay afloat.

"Great to meet you, mate!" Phil shook his hand enthusiastically. His other hand held an unloaded harpoon gun, pointed skyward. He clearly had no difficulty swimming without use of his hands. The way he spoke was like a weird mash of four different accents, all in the tone of a hyped up surfer bro.

"Nice to finally bump into folks from back home, the only other one I've met so far wasn't much of a talker. Let's head over to shore and you can introduce me to your buddy!" Oliver nodded his agreement and started slowly swimming over in Kiki's direction. Meanwhile, Phil disappeared under the surf and reemerged a minute later holding Oliver's silver shovel. He handed it over with a wink. Kiki pointed her blade at them as Oliver clambered onto shore with Phil at his side.

The pink eyes of her electric mask narrowed into slits. Ectoplasm dripped from the sword edge, the drops meshing with the sandy ectoplasm mud that surrounded the [Neon Samurai]'s feet.

"Who's this? What did I just see? You said you'd sink the ship. Once it started going under, it looked like it got dragged away."

"I'm Phil! [Underdiver] level 54. Been living in this biome for the last half decade. I pulled your problem vessel to change up its course a bit. Hope you don't mind!"

"You live here?" Kiki glanced over her shoulder at the desert island.

"House got nuked in the merge," Phil explained.

"All the islands 'cept this one did."

"Unlucky," Oliver commiserated.

"Yeah. But it's all good. Been spending most my time down in the underwater city anyway. Better to lose my old house than that!"

"Underwater city?"

"Yeah! It's massive. Lots of undersea plots and shenanigans. Crustation revolution and coral reef burning has been a big mess keeping me busy. Good fortune for you that I had a quest to come up here when I spotted your little carfuffle."

"You mentioned you saw other people like us?" Oliver inquired.

"Other experimentees?"

"Only one. The number one guy on the leaderboard, Terry, visited the city a few hours ago. Nice guy! Helped me subdue an angry giant lobster. After, we chatted for a minute and he went on his way. Got the impression he's not much of a talker, but only got good vibes from him so he's okay in my book!"

"Any information about his class or skills?" Kiki asked. She was at ease enough to finally sheathe her sword, but Oliver noted she still kept her distance from the newcomer.

"Nope. Didn't ask and he didn't show off much in the fight. But his durability must be something massive to reach the depths the city is at. Well beyond three-hundred yards down. I didn't gain access to the full city until two years ago, and I dumped all my points into it to get there." Oliver filed all that away mentally. It was good information to know about the number one experimentee. Not only that he had such high durability, but also that he hadn't killed Phil on sight.

He wasn't so obsessed with leveling as to take advantage of the bonus levels offered by killing his fellows.

"What do you mean?" Oliver asked.

"Why do you need durability to enter the city? Is there something painful down there?" Phil laughed.

"Just water! Have you ever dived underwater before?" Oliver looked to Kiki and both shook their heads.

"Well, let's just say nothing good will happen if you take a balloon of air and plunge it deep underwater."

"The balloon being lungs?" Oliver asked.

"Yeah. Not pretty. It gets kinda complicated depending on lots of things like external air sources and speed. Especially if you want to go back up at the end. One way trips down are simplest, but not usually as popular. I don't think you should try diving hundreds of yards down unless you've got hella durability. Like, I'm talking over 100 stat points."

"I'll… keep that in mind."

"Anyway!" Phil's smile returned with a vengeance.

"What brings you to my humble biome? Just out hunting ghost pirates?" Kiki decided to answer before Oliver.

"We were passing through on our way back to the Nightmare Biome and the drone carrying us encountered interference. We suspect it has to do with ghost problems." This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Woah! Nightmare Biome? You mean the one over in that direction?" Phil pointed with a thumb.

"I explored the perimeter yesterday. It looks nasty. Saw a werewolf cannibalize his mate while I floated by. Then this gray flower went berserk and grew, wrapped around the dude, and choked him out like a boa constricter. Didn't stick around much longer after it started ripping the dude's corpse apart."

"That's where I'm from," Oliver said.

"That was a blood orchid. Don't let blood touch them." Phil took a step back and eyed Oliver up and down.

"Damn. Man, I don't envy you in the slightest. Even your buildings look spiky enough to hurt you. Don't know why you'd want to go back there. I'll take the annual kraken encounter over that place every day. If you want, you can stay here. Make you a hut on the beach. The mermaids down below are very friendly. They'll happily come to the surface to keep you company. Now that you took out the pirates, we don't have too many other high level threats above the surface. You'll be chillin' if you stay here."

"We don't want to die," Kiki replied bluntly.

"Pirates are the least of all our problems."

"You're looking for the secret biome then?" Phil asked.

"Don't think you should, to be honest."

"Why's that?" Oliver asked.

"Well, if no one finds it, then we're all safe! Everyone gets free when they reach 100 and nobody dies. It's a happy ending!"

"Assuming they don't change the rules," Kiki replied, her tone hard. Phil waved a hand dismissively.

"You can't plan your life around 'maybes.' You'll go crazy. We don't know shit about what's going on. Live for what we do know, rather than the great unknown maybe." Kiki crossed her arms.

"That mindset only works to an extent."

"I'm still alive, aren't I? Gotta be at least a bit of proof that my method works."

"That's not—""How did you move the ship earlier if you put all your points in durability?" Oliver asked in an effort to change the subject. He felt Kiki was getting a bit too invested in the argument. She obviously disagreed with Phil's nonchalant lifestyle.

"A skill," Phil said simply.

"Can pull my harpoon's ropes back with enhanced power. It's gotten me out of more pickles than a sloppy midnight drive-through burger."

"That's really cool." Honestly, Oliver thought it wasn't that impressive of a skill, but felt it was better to lay on the flattery a bit after Kiki's snappish tone. And he could see the merit in the skill, especially if it came to Phil in one of his first two classes. And it turned out that he was right. Phil reacted incredibly well to praise. The [Underdiver] laughed and threw an arm around Oliver's shoulders.

He yapped for the next ten minutes about the different times he'd had to use the skill to pull sea monsters away from others. In all of the stories, it sounded like he fought defensive battles to protect the citizens of his biome. The way he told it, he sounded almost like a comic book superhero. And his attitude was so unabashedly honest, that Oliver found himself believing the tales. For a minute, Oliver wondered if it was him getting taken in by a high Mental stat.

But, if Phil was being honest about needing 100 Resilience to get to the city, Oliver couldn't see any way his Speech was anything notable. He simply had a natural charismatic aura to him. It didn't seem to be a universal pull. Kiki seemed unimpressed by the jovial boy. While Phil chatted animatedly with Oliver, she, meanwhile, muttered about boiling crab and wandered off to find the remains of her meal from before the pirate attack.

"You really should stick around. My wife would love to meet you."

"Your... wife?" Oliver blinked, unsure if he'd heard him properly.

"Yeah! She's a mermaid. And my kid is half-human. Thankfully, she can breathe underwater. Let me tell you, that was a super stressful birth. We had like four mages on hand and two artifacts designed to carry her up to the surface if something went wrong." Oliver didn't know what to say to that. According to what Ben had told him, Phil had married a mutated clone with a personality installed by a chip in her head. And then had a child with her. What could he say to that?

Should he tell him about where all these people originated? Then again, he got the impression Phil wasn't the type to care. Thankfully, a buzzing in the air saved Oliver from having to come up with any sort of response. One of Ben's drones dropped down nearby." Well done. I worried when the electromagnetic phenomena interfered with my drones. Now that I finally have access to the full scope of the experiment's biomes, I find myself woefully under prepared for the many threats. I apologize for my ineptitude."

"This your drone buddy? Hello! I'm Phil! I haven't seen a drone in ages! The technology here is all ancient. We have magic though!"" Hello, Phillip. You may call me [Technomancer]. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance; however, I must apologize and cut this conversation short. We must depart posthaste. There have already been a concerning amount of delays to this journey."

"No worries at all! You guys still dead set about hunting down the hidden biome? Can't talk you out of it?"

"Yes." Oliver nodded. While he admired Phil's optimism and belief that they could all get out of here safely, Oliver had no intention of being turned into scraps by whatever sadist destroyed his life.

"In that case, I wish you all bad luck! I hope you all fail upwards and hit the level 100 threshold for freedom!"

"Thanks, Phil."

"And if you change your mind about a good time, you're all always welcome back here in my biome! We've got mermaids up the wazoo!" Oliver said goodbye to one of the few good people he'd met since the biomes opened. A minute later, from high in the air, he watched Phil finish waving goodbye and dive into the sea.