Chương 369: Chapter 355

"Liz, wait a moment," Sam called out as the rest of the group gradually filtered out of his living room, their conversation fading into the distance as the door shut behind the last of them. They were heading for lunch as the planning session had tired everybody out. The young woman paused and glanced back at him, her currently red hair tied into a low ponytail, while the shirt she wore featured her drone drawn in an adorable cartoon style across the front.

A design that, over the last few months, had become one of the most famous streamer merch designs. Whenever he went out shopping, he would inevitably see at least one person wearing it. Especially because everybody knew that Liz called their city her home. Real hometown pride.

"Yeah, Sam? What's up?" she asked. Sam hesitated for a moment as he tried to organize his thoughts, because despite how simple the question sounded in his head, actually asking it felt far more awkward than he had expected.

"Everything good?" She blinked at him in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean... are you doing okay? Are you happy? Is everything going well for you right now? Is there anything bothering you that I could help with, or any problem I could make disappear before it turns into something worse?" he asked, feeling slightly ridiculous as the words left his mouth.

The future he remembered had taught him that ignoring quiet problems until they became disasters was rarely a winning strategy, and while he had never spent an enormous amount of time with Liz on a personal level, she was still his friend, which meant he would rather risk sounding strange now than regret staying silent later. And the same future that taught him that also told him that she would have some mental struggles in that timeline. To his surprise, she burst into laughter.

"I'm more than okay, boss," she said with a bright smile that looked completely genuine.

"Streaming is going great, my mother hasn't tried to contact me in a month, which has done wonders for my stress levels, and I'm currently sitting on information that's eventually going to completely revolutionize the game."

"Money is good too?" he asked. Liz stared at him as if he had just asked the most absurd question imaginable before rolling her eyes dramatically.

"Money? Really, Sam?" she said.

"The income from my merch alone could pay for a degree several times over, and when you add what you guys already pay me on top of that, I would have to be unbelievably stupid to complain about my financial situation." Sam let out a relieved breath and smiled at her, feeling a genuine sense of relief settle over him.

"That's good. I'm happy that you're happy." She snorted.

"Do you know how funny it is when some person approaches me to poach me away?"

"Does that happen a lot?" She tilted her hand from side to side in a vague gesture.

"Not nearly as much anymore, but it happened a lot at the beginning, especially once people realized how valuable my work actually was."

"Tim keeps them away, right?" A soft smile spread across her face, and her cheeks immediately picked up a rosy tint that made the answer obvious before she even spoke.

"Oh, yes," she said.

"He's been very helpful."

"Good. Good," Sam replied as he nodded before stepping closer and lowering his voice, his casual tone disappearing as the conversation shifted toward the real reason he had asked her to stay behind. Liz noticed the change immediately, and the dreamy expression on her face vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by focused curiosity as she leaned slightly closer.

"The systems," Sam said after a brief pause.

"Are they ready?" Liz's entire face lit up as she nodded so enthusiastically that her ponytail bounced behind her.

"Oh, they're very ready," she said with a barely restrained laugh.

"You genuinely cannot imagine how badly I've been waiting for you to finally let us use them."

"Excellent," Sam replied, clearly pleased with the answer.

"And make sure every supplementary action tied to them is fully prepared to be executed the moment the call comes in, because I don't want even a second of delay."

"Supplementary..." she repeated before pausing as she worked through what he meant, only for understanding to suddenly flash across her face.

"Ah, I see. Yes, I'll make sure everything is ready for deployment." Her expression then sharpened as a serious look appeared on her face while straightening her posture.

"This is my baby, Sam, and I'm going to make sure it's done right."

"Glad to hear it," he said with a smile.

"Anything else I should know?" Liz glanced around the room to make sure no one was nearby, hesitated for only a moment, and then leaned in close enough that she had to lower her voice to a whisper.

"Are you... are you going to use a SUNBURST?" Sam raised an eyebrow at the question.

"One? Liz, I'm going to use all of them." Her eyes widened so dramatically that it looked as though they might pop out of her head, and she instinctively stumbled backward as both of her hands flew over her mouth in complete disbelief.

"A-all of them? But Sam, that could destroy an entire –" The sentence died halfway through as realization struck her with enough force to completely derail her train of thought.

"…oh." The shock on her face rapidly transformed into pure excitement, and a slow grin spread across her lips.

"That's... awesome," she whispered reverently.

"Please tell me you're recording it, because that is the kind of once-in-a-lifetime event that I absolutely need to see with my own eyes." This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Sam laughed and gave her a thumbs-up.

"You got it." Sam reached into the box sitting on the table in front of him, pulled out one more completely ordinary-looking explosive, and casually tossed it into his inventory alongside the rest without giving it so much as a second glance. After the fight with the kraken, he knew exactly how useful they were. And he trusted Liz's craftsmanship.

Most players in the guild, if they got their hands on these kinds of toys, would get ones built by drones or maybe other crafters – but the ones he was handling were built by Liz's own hand, proven by the small smiling drone logo on each of them.

After the meeting in his apartment had ended and everyone had thoroughly gorged themselves on high-quality fast food, he had returned to the game, where another attendant had already been waiting for him inside one of the headquarters' private meeting rooms, standing beside a sizeable pile of equipment, potions, and various consumables that had clearly been assembled specifically for him.

"What kind of potions did you get?" Sam asked as he pushed the now-empty crate aside and reached for the segmented potion holder resting nearby. The attendant immediately straightened and began explaining while pointing at each row in order.

"A wide variety of potions were prepared for you, my lord." For reasons Sam still did not fully understand, the NPCs had collectively decided that 'my lord' was the only acceptable way to address him. At first, he had found it deeply uncomfortable and had made several attempts to stop it. Still, eventually, he had accepted defeat after realizing none of them intended to change their behavior. He strongly suspected Lucy was somehow responsible, though he lacked actual proof.

"As you can see," the attendant continued, "we have the usual supplies: health potions, mana potions, and a smaller number of stamina potions."

"Still no success in creating a unified elixir?" Sam asked as he began pouring the health potions into his 'bottomless' flask. The attendant shook his head apologetically.

"No, sir."

"Pity." This was one of the few areas where Sam could contribute very little. Alchemy had never interested his other self because entering the profession required an absurd upfront investment, but he knew the universal elixir was very real.

A potion capable of restoring health, mana, and stamina at the same time did exist, but the group that had eventually created it had spent years and an obscene amount of money developing it before guarding the recipe with such paranoia that even major guilds had failed to steal it. Within the alchemy profession, the universal elixir was considered one of its lesser holy grails, which was exactly why Lucy had assigned both guild and corporate alchemists to work on it almost from the very beginning.

Sam strongly suspected every major organization in the game was doing exactly the same thing.

"The ones here," the attendant said, motioning toward a row of bottles filled with swirling silver liquid, "are speed-enhancing potions. Please consume them one at a time, my lord."

"Exhaustion backlash?" Sam asked while storing those away as well.

"Yes," the attendant confirmed with a nod before pointing toward another row.

"And these are high-level antidotes. They may not be especially useful against the kind of opponents you usually face, my lord, but they are extremely potent."

"Better to have them and not need them than the other way around," Sam replied.

"As you say, my lord."

"Anything else?"

"Oh yes, my lord," the attendant said, suddenly sounding much more enthusiastic as he pulled a smaller box closer.

"These are our newest innovations – elemental resistance potions." He carefully lifted a small bottle filled with a muddy brown liquid and held it out with visible disappointment.

"We had hoped it would resemble liquid rainbow colors, but unfortunately everything simply mixed together." Sam laughed as he accepted it.

"Still awesome. Thanks."

"You're welcome, my lord." After finishing the packing process, Sam performed one final check of his equipment before looking back at the attendant with a satisfied smile.

"Is Lucy still in the building?" The attendant nodded immediately.

"Yes, my lord. She is currently in her office."

"Then I think I should visit her before leaving," Sam declared with exaggerated dignity. The attendant nodded and motioned for him to follow. Sam already knew the route perfectly well, but he allowed it anyway. The more employees and NPCs who saw him casually walking through headquarters before what was about to happen, the better. The attendant stopped in front of the large double doors, bowed deeply, and quietly departed. Sam gave a brief nod to Lucy's secretary before pushing the doors open and stepping inside.

Lucy sat behind an enormous desk in all her usual glory, completely absorbed in a document she was reading, while her familiar raven rested nearby on an ornate stand and casually picked through a pile of nuts with clear satisfaction. She did not even bother looking up.

"Use the left window." Sam grinned immediately.

"Cheers!" Without another word, he walked to the indicated window, opened it, and casually threw himself out. After a surprisingly stylish fall, he landed smoothly on the ground below in a section Tim had deliberately arranged to remain free of observers. Sam glanced around, smiled to himself, and immediately set off. Roserun waited for nobody.

After escaping the city while using every trick he knew to remain hidden, supplemented by his still-limited stealth abilities, Sam finally reached the point where further caution would only waste time, at which point he summoned Lucky, vaulted onto the wolf's back, and immediately set off toward Roserun at full speed.

Even if the enemy believed their desire to attack Roserun was merely a distraction, they would still tighten security around Roserun as a precaution, and Sam wanted to arrive before those defensive preparations were fully completed.

Roserun had once been a pirate city long before the Blood Army seized control of it, and while traces of that old identity still remained, the city was now largely populated by Blood Army personnel and players who had willingly abandoned anything resembling lawful behavior, which made Sam feel remarkably little concern about whatever collateral damage might occur once he began.

'Hell, if I publicly claim responsibility for the attack, I might even collect a few bounties…' he thought as wolf and rider tore across the countryside at tremendous speed. He had studied the regional maps extensively beforehand and, with help from the others, had planned a route that carefully avoided major population centers, important fractures, popular hunting grounds, and even several supposedly secret bases that his guild had quietly identified over time.

The journey itself, however, proved painfully uneventful.

He occasionally stopped to allow Lucky to rest or to deal with unavoidable biological necessities outside the game, but beyond that, the only things that kept him entertained were outrunning hungry monsters that had made the poor decision of noticing him, reading periodic updates from the guild, and observing the gradual transformation of the landscape as lush forest gave way to wide prairie fields, which eventually transitioned into harsh rocky terrain covered in orange-red sand.

After a very long stretch of travel, he finally arrived at a narrow mountain path and dismounted from Lucky's back, while the wolf immediately sank into the shadows with visible relief at no longer being used as high-speed transportation. Sam rolled his shoulders, stretched his stiff muscles, and spent a quiet minute meditating while mentally reviewing every step of the plan one final time.

Once he felt centered again, he sent one final warning message to his friends informing them that he was about to enter the city, then stepped onto the narrow path. Tim had acquired the path's location from one of his informants, and while the route offered excellent concealment, it was far less generous when it came to comfort.

It took nearly an hour of careful climbing along the jagged mountainside before Sam finally reached a wider section of the path where he could safely stop and take in the vista spread out before him. Roserun. The city looked like something built through equal parts desperation, greed, and stubborn creativity.

Much of it had been carved directly into the orange-red rock formations that dominated the surrounding landscape, while many of its oldest structures had clearly begun life as repurposed ships and caravans before later expansions added stone, steel, and increasingly modern construction materials. Despite those upgrades, the entire place still radiated the same chaotic energy of its original pirate founders, as though city planning had always been treated as an optional suggestion rather than an actual necessity.

And the entire area was swarming with activity. Sam could see at least three major military camps positioned around the city's primary entrances, each heavily fortified and visibly prepared for conflict, while several large ships hovered nearby with massive cannons aimed directly at Roserun, clearly ready to fire the moment someone tried something stupid. Around them, smaller ships moved in an almost constant stream as they entered and departed the city while transporting countless crates of supplies.

Sam slowly inhaled through his nose before letting the breath leave him just as slowly.

"It smells like devastation…"