Chương 51

As they flew over the bleak Nightmare Biome, Oliver reflected that this might very well be his last chance to ever see his home from these last five years. He expected to feel a bit of melancholy or sadness at the prospect of leaving it behind. And yet… instead he only felt a profound scene of relief. He'd done it. Not only had he survived this nightmare, he'd conquered it.

All of the friendly acquaintances he'd made with the locals had died or gone missing over the years, so he left no one behind that hadn't already been lost. And even then, those people never truly felt real to him in the way they acted or spoke. His only real regret was that Ventri's destruction meant he had no store to restock his equipment or pay for new enchantments. The death of the vampires in the castle had turned over very little individual loot, but it did grant him a small fortune in Mel.

He currently held 21, 433. The Vampire Lord alone had given him 15, 000. It was enough to fully equip himself with enchantment gear, should he find a decent shop to browse at. And that was without selling the Vanquisher of Shadowspawn. He said as much to Ben, who begrudgingly agreed to swing them by a shop in the next biome. Since they were flying straight over to the Haunted Estate Biome, that meant moving diagonally across the map into new territory first.

That was too bad, because Oliver quite liked both the shops he visited in Neon Nova City and the Deep Sea Biome. Oliver checked the map he'd recovered from the server room. It listed the incoming biome as Suburbia Biome.

"Suburbia," Oliver muttered to himself. Rather than question Ben about the name, Oliver peered over the horizon. It took a few minutes before it fully came into view through the fog. At the edge of the Nightmare Biome, the graves and gray fields turned into cloned houses and cul-de-sacs. As they approached, Oliver spotted identical minivans parked along the streets and a soccer field next to an elementary school.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Oliver swore as he stared down at the biome.

"I got a nightmare hell and some other chumps next door got transferred over to fucking suburbia?"

"Suburbia is a hell of its own," Kiki replied.

"Not helping," Oliver growled between clenched teeth." If it is any consolation, the experimentees in this biome appear to now all be missing and, I presume, dead," Ben said.

"You're kidding. What killed them? Diabetes and heart failure?"" Originally, there was an infestation of serial killers in this biome who would stalk the night and abduct people. While not as threatening of a location as mine or yours, it held its own threats and was hardly a safe place to live these last five years."

"So, they died from serial killers?" Oliver asked. He supposed that made him feel a bit better about his shitty placement." Unlikely. It is odd, but I received their information with the last server upload. They only disappeared mere hours before I accessed their files. I suspect a fellow experimentee hunting us for levels is responsible. This would be a prime location to hunt, as many would rightly assume the inhabitants of being weaker than average."

"I thought you knew about all of us in the experiment?" Oliver asked.

"You just learned about these people now?"" I had access to some data before my access increased. Now I have more data. Which is why I now know about the Haunted Estate Biome."

"Can we fight the serial killers?" Kiki interjected.

"Are they just normal humans? Like soccer moms and chubby office workers?"" From what I read, the serial killers are participating in a grand conspiratorial cult. If the experiment subjects in the biome investigated their area thoroughly, they would uncover some sort of demonic presence living beneath the community center and elementary school, feeding off souls. That would be the administrator."

"If it's just a demon and some normal humans, I bet we can take them," Kiki said.

"Drop us off here and we'll get this server for you."" I've considered and deemed it not viable. The Haunted Estate is a more guaranteed path forward. Plus, I believe there is a failsafe in place that shuts down the servers should all the biome's experimentees fail."

"There is a shop in this biome, though, right?" Oliver said, getting the conversation back on track." Indeed. I am taking you there now. I am uncertain what exactly their wares will consist of, though the experimenters did place a trade network in place for once the merge occurred. You should have access to basic equipment, regardless of the biome." During their flight over the rows of identical houses, Oliver never once spotted signs of a fellow living soul in the streets below.

He supposed it made sense, as it was getting late in the day. Most people were likely eating dinner around this time. But still... not a single one of the minivans moved. It was uncanny. Ben set them down outside a gas station. It looked newly refurbished, with newly painted orange pillars and white walls and a big sign over the storefront that said ' Gas and Pass"with a big smiley face beside it. Below the sign was a list of foods available." Pizza, Burritos, Spaghetti, Ramen, Churros, Malts, and Shakes."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"This is it," the [Technomancer] announced.

"If you wish to complete shopping now is the time." Oliver took a step toward the gas station, then paused.

"Ben, why are you in such a hurry? You're always pushing us to spend as little time on other activities as possible. Do you know something we don't? Are we on some sort of time crunch?" Ben's drone simply hovered there for a minute, blades whirling. Oliver was about to make a remark about him now being the one to waste time, when the [Technomancer] responded.

"Every minute we spend on frivolous activities more of us die. The faster you help me download the server data, the more lives we save. Not only people like us, but those bred and created for this sadistic experiment as well." Oliver frowned. That was a reasonable reason to request them to work quickly, but he didn't buy it. It was a pretty excuse that was difficult to argue with. Still, if it was truthful, it wasn't the entire truth. It seemed almost perfectly phrased to get Oliver to disengage.

Ben also never particularly struck him as particularly empathetic towards the biome natives. The bell of the store dinged as Kiki went inside. Oliver decided to shelve his conversation with Ben for now and chased after the [Neon Samurai]. The inside of the gas station store was a lot like he remembered from his childhood. Rows of chips. Bottles of soda in the fridge. Even rotating wieners up by the cash register that stank of a plasticky odor.

The teenager at the register looked up from his magazine, then his eyes slowly dropped back down. He yawned. Kiki was crouched next to the freezer in the back. Even from a distance, Oliver felt the wave of cold as she opened the door and rummaged through a row of ice cream sandwiches and frozen desserts. As tempting as gorging himself on nachos was, Oliver instead approached the cashier. He decided to ask first for the basics, the gear he knew worked and needed replacements for.

"Do you have any silver bullets for my pistol, silver powder, silver shrapnel grenades, or health potions?" The teenager slowly looked up from his magazine, eyes now wide.

"Sh-shrapnel grenades?" Oliver sighed.

"I guess that's a 'no' on grenades?" That was unfortunate since they'd by far been the most effective weapon in his arsenal since acquiring his Silver Potency. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised since Ben had said that all of the shops across the biomes only would supply basic items. Neo Nova had been special, as it was actually a weapons vendor. This guy looked more equipped to sell him candy bars than bombs.

"What about the rest of what I listed?"

"W-we sell handgun ammunition. Normally, I'd ask to see an ID first." The boy gulped.

"B-but I just got a notice from my manager a couple days ago that new legislation was passed. So, um. Lucky day… I guess. Still, I'd need to know what size of ammunition first." Oliver slapped his gun on the counter, which made the cashier flinch.

"That's... custom."

"A problem?" Oliver asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, no." The cashier waved both hands in front of himself as if to ward off the question.

"Just, I'll need to examine it."

"I just need more ammo like this." Oliver dumped a handful of silver bullets on the counter. They clinked and scattered in front of the teenager. Truthfully, bullets were the one resource he actually was still decently stocked in. Any of the other things he'd asked for would be far more useful. The cashier gingerly lifted one of the bullets, holding it between two fingers. Then he bolted away, the 'employee's only' door swinging behind him as he entered what Oliver assumed must be the storage area.

"You scare off the poor boy running this place?" Kiki walked up and set an armful of snacks and drinks down next to Oliver's scattered silver bullets.

"I think he's checking his stock in the back. Are you buying all this?" He eyed a bag of seaweed flavored potato chips. Kiki shrugged.

"Why not? It's a hell of a lot better than those nutrient bars back in my biome."

"You had real food there too, though. I saw your bubble gum. And I even passed by a ramen shop in the city."

"My gum is synthetically crafted through a specialized nutrient producer that [Technomancer] hacked into. And that 'ramen shop' you saw sold the nutrient bars sliced up in noodle form and floating in nutrient broth. Trust me. It's bad." They stood there in silence for a minute, the only sounds the scuffling of the cashier in the back and the churn of the cool blue raspberry smoothie machine to Oliver's left.

"Lucky bastards," Oliver muttered.

"Yeah. Fuck them," Kiki agreed.

"If I ever meet the people who placed me in my biome, they're getting a shovel to the brain." Kiki lifted the fallen magazine the cashier had been reading. She flipped through it and scowled down at a page full of video game walkthroughs and hacks.

"You know I once spent three months trapped in an apocalypse simulation pod? I died from alien dissection three times before I finally broke free."

"Before I accessed my Summon Sanctuary skill I actually lived in a grave for an entire year," Oliver said.

"While there, I caught a parasite that required a local healer to use leeches to extract."

"My left leg up to my knee is a mechanical prosthetic from when a group of body sellers found me in an alleyway. I woke up to them looming over me with a cleaver."

"What were you doing in the alleyway?" Oliver asked.

"Passed out after a fight with the peace officers. The body sellers—""Got it!" the cashier stumbled back into the store, his arm loaded up with small cartons.

"For some reason, we even have that silver powder you asked about. I don't know where it came from. It wasn't there when I took inventory last week. But when I scanned the barcode, it turned out to be in the system."

"Anything else?" Oliver asked, desperately hoping for a healing potion. He felt naked without an emergency potion on hand. While this biome appeared relatively safe, he knew his luck wouldn't hold.

"We have energy drinks?" the boy offered nervously.

"We got some of the new electric lemon flavor in the last shipment before the neighborhood went silent. Usually, the new flavors sell out in a couple hours."

"The neighborhood went silent?" Oliver frowned. That tidbit was far more interesting than some new flavor of drink.

"Explain."

"Um. Well, right after my shift started a big guy came in wearing a lot of leather. He bought all the sewing supplies we had in stock. Until you showed up, nobody's walked in the shop since him. Not even to ask for gas. I've worked here for nearly a year and never seen it this dead before." The teenager licked his lips and nervously looked over to the clock hanging over the ice cream freezer.

"Actually... my shift was supposed to end twelve hours ago. But, um, my coworker never showed up to let me go. So, I guess I'm earning overtime." He chuckled nervously. Oliver's mouth went cold at the simple description. A big guy wearing leathers who purchased all of the shop's sewing supplies. He desperately wanted it to not be the case, but deep down he knew who it was. After all, he'd seen him on the leaderboard not all that long ago and this was roughly the same direction as Neo Nova City.

James had passed through this neighborhood. And Oliver shuddered to think what the [Flesh Weaver] had accomplished with all the available bodies in this biome. He doubted many, if any, could pose a challenge to James in a fight for their lives.

"Do you, um, think you could find out what's going on?" the cashier asked.

"Can you find everyone?" A quest notification flashed across Oliver's vision.