Chương 25

"There's a boat down below," Oliver commented.

"Another enemy?" They'd been flying over the sea for half an hour now. The island they'd met Phil at was now a small lump on the horizon. Oliver was impressed by the size of the biomes he'd visited so far. With the exception of Neo Nova which was only a bit more than a city's neighborhood, they were expansive. According to Ben, before the merge they'd all been stacked on top of one another, with Phil's being on the lowest layer."

A vendor,"Ben said, dipping his drone lower and allowing them a better angle to see the lone boat bobbing in the sea." Are you in need of anything?"

"Actually, if possible I want to sell some of the junk I've picked up." They descended down to the sea. Oliver thought he spotted a breaching dolphin in the distance but wasn't quite certain. It was a reminder that, despite how quiet things appeared on the surface, he had no idea what happened below the sea. They landed on a small wooden ship, not more than 10 yards from bow to stern. The only notable exterior decoration on the boat was the insect figurehead carved into the bow.

The ship's name looked like it had been carved into the side of the boat by a child. The Beetle. A bell tinkled as their feet hit the deck, announcing their presence.

"Comin, comin!" someone said behind a curtained doorway.

"Did he say, 'come in' or 'coming?'" Oliver asked his companions. Ben's drone beeped. Kiki shrugged and pushed her way past the curtains. Oliver followed after her. Knick-knacks lined the wooden shelves on either side of them. A plain faced man with a small afro of brown hair, freckles, and a sunburned nose.

"Woah!" The man jumped back in his seat, arms raised defensively in front of his face.

"Could it be… yes, I think it is! Customers!" He raised his arms in victory.

"Huzzah! True customers!"

"We were hoping—" Oliver started.

"My wares!" The man cut him off with his excited warbling voice.

"You want to see my wares? I have potions! Lots and lots. And ingredients. And I have a bow. Arrows too. New jewelry just came in. You need a special bag for your magical fruit? Oh, I know! You want bombs!"

"That's…a really random selection of merchandise," Oliver commented. Back in the Nightmare Biome, most merchants and shops stuck to one specialty.

"Years of collection! An accumulation of the best objects you'll ever lay your eyes on. And not only that! No other shop offers kindness like mine! Free of charge! What a bargain!"

"Any chance you have silver bullets for a blunderbuss?" Oliver asked. He wasn't in the market for kindness at the moment.

"Or silver shrapnel grenades?"

"I have worms for fishing!" the shopkeeper said. He proudly stuck out a jar of writhing worms. Even with Oliver's high dexterity, Kiki still had her blade halfway drawn before he caught her arm.

"I don't like bugs," she said, a bit sullenly. But she resheathed the blade and the shopkeeper continued blathering as if not noticing. Oliver scanned the wooden shelves, looking for anything useful. As he did, a thought slipped into his mind. He could kill this shopkeeper and take everything in the boat. Back in his biome, that would be suicide. No one rested easy after the death of a shopkeeper and he'd be tracked down by whatever paranormal faction backed that specific vendor.

Whether werewolves or vampires or hunters, he'd be found and killed. Here though, even if there were consequences, he'd be gone out of the biome in less than an hour. There were no real repercussions. Rationally, that was an extremely intelligent course of action. And yet, Oliver felt not even the slightest temptation to do anything of the sort. In fact, just the idea of slaying the rambling man disgusted him. He'd killed before. Far more than once or twice.

And that had been before he understood these people were actually mutated clones. That should alleviate his consciousness. But even still, he'd always killed in defense. Never for greed. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"So you don't have any bullets?" Oliver asked, cutting off the shopkeeper's rambling.

"I didn't say that," he said defensively. He looked a bit put out about Oliver skipping over his dialogue.

"I do have silver bullets. My bombs though are round like cannonballs. No bombs like you described earlier, but I recently acquired ammunition similar to what you ask for." The man set down a small sack of bullets. Then, beside it, a lacquered box full of silver powder. 1, 000 Mel for all of it. Expensive. If he waited until they reached the Nightmare Biome, Oliver could probably purchase this for half that price. He still purchased it without hesitation.

With the only known town after the merge burned to charcoal, Oliver had no hopes of finding a vendor back in his home biome. This was a guaranteed purchase. And he'd need these materials if he was to stand a chance at infiltrating the Vampire Lord's castle. After that, he bought salt. Thankfully that, at least, was actually significantly cheaper in this biome than his home. He supposed that made sense. They were currently surrounded by a sea filled with the mineral.

"Next, I want to sell some of this loot." Oliver set down his pack and began unloading some of the materials inside. The shopkeeper lowballed him significantly on the cybernetic officer equipment.

"Ectoplasm." Kiki dropped a sack of undulating liquid in front of the shopkeeper, who reflexively put his hands up as if to ward off whatever Kiki was thrusting on him. It took a few seconds before her explanation processed in his brain. Then he gave a fake smile and bartered with her for it, though he very clearly did not want the goop. In the end, she traded him a health potion for it. Then she tossed it to Oliver, who caught it.

"Heal your face," she said simply. Oliver touched his cheek and realized what she meant. His body was wounded and scarred from the fights. He'd been ignoring the constant pain. Half of his ear was still missing from his fight back in Neo Nova City. He'd taken a lot of damage. But never enough for him to deem it worthy of his final health potion. He knew better than to squander it. He nodded his thanks to her and drained the vial in a single, large gulp.

Immediately his body soothed, like settling into a warm bath after a long day of tireless labor. His ear didn't heal back to the way it once had been, but the cartilage still knitted together. It was at least in the rough shape of an ear now. Good enough for him. His hair normally draped over his ear regardless, not to mention his hat. As for him, most of the other equipment Oliver intended to sell was currently stored in his coffin.

He wanted to summon it, the action would reset the timer on the skill and cost them several minutes of time, but he believed that would be worth the trade for the opportunity to unload all the junk he kept stored inside. But Kiki disagreed with that assessment. Not only were they getting bad prices selling here, but she also didn't like that they were stranded on a boat in a sea full of unknown dangers. Kiki won that argument. Oliver took a mask out.

Face of Carter, the quest reward he'd earned at the start of this mess. One of the few objects he wanted to sell that was on his person.

"How much for this?" he asked, before they left. The shopkeeper raised his arms and let out another cry of surprise.

"Absolutely not! No masks. Very bad experience with a mask salesman in the past. Take that somewhere else if you wish to sell it!"

"Fine," Oliver muttered.

"Just a mask. Hardly warrants a reaction like that."

"You finished?" Kiki asked.

"We need to get moving."

"Yeah. Let's go." They bid farewell to the shopkeeper and returned to the deck where Ben's drone waited.

"Congratulations on surviving it another day!" a chipper voice announced. It sounded out from all around them. Kiki crouched, hand on her sword's hilt as her masked neon eyes scanned the horizon. Ben's drones buzzed nearby, but the announcer's voice cut past all outside noise. A glance over Oliver's shoulder revealed the shopkeeper, frozen mid-wave as he said farewell. Oliver grit his teeth and prepared himself for bad news. This announcer had yet to inform them about anything good.

"With a new day brings new rankings! The leaderboard certainly experienced a bit of a shake up! I'm afraid some of our top rankers didn't seem quite as cut out for their spot as some of the rest of you!" With that statement, another list of names appeared obscuring Oliver's vision.

Terry Dechirer - Level 81 - Sky Island Biome Benjamin Lee - Level 74 - Neo Nova City Biome August McKell - Level 70 - Seasonal Biome Emilia Bea - Level 68 - Cliffside Biome Drew Nowel - 67- Steam Biome Alina Anderson - 66 - Cliffside Biome Courtney Monty - 65 - Tundra Biome Josiah Joseph - 65 - Paradice Biome Harrison Hall - 62 - Cliffside Biome Steffan Freire - 62 - Labyrinth Biome Sasha, Chiara, Brady, and Trenton were all missing from the initial list.

Though it definitely also was possible Trenton had been low enough to simply fall behind the rest. Sasha was dead by Oliver's hands and there was no way for Chiara to have escaped a similar experience. She was definitely dead. There likely was some sort of story there, with several other 'Cliffside Biome' members on the list as well. He wondered if one of those new levels on them could be attributed to her death. Whoever Emilia was, she'd shot up in the rankings out of nowhere.

Also, Oliver couldn't help a spike of envious anger at the sight of Josiah Joseph in a 'Paradise Biome.' He'd been placed in the 'Nightmare Biome' while someone else got 'Paradise'? Truly unfair. He blinked the notification away.

"Interesting," Kiki said, clearly looking over the list.

"[Technomancer], you gained another level?"" Indeed,"the drone said." Earlier today. Simply from fighting the usual cyber peace officers. Nothing notable."

"It's not important," Oliver agreed.

"Let's fly out and get to this castle. So long as we find our objective, the leaderboard is meaningless."