Ruthless: Path of Conquest

Alan and Mitzi recounted the journey from their home to the Fisher Kingdom as James’s creations flew all three of them forward. It was a clever trick, Alan thought, to keep them talking.

That way, they couldn’t take as much time to be bothered by the fact that James had them flying what seemed to be a couple of thousand feet in the air. It wasn’t high enough to make breathing difficult, and the turbulence was less than in many plane fights. The creatures, being living things, were able to move gently and surf the wind rather than resisting changing air currents violently. Even the grip of James’s monsters felt more secure than a seat belt. Still, Alan studiously avoided looking down.

Once the story of their journey to the Fisher Kingdom was done, Alan and Mitzi took turns finding other things to talk about. She informed James in more detail about what they’d observed of the condition of the Earth. Alan discussed the state of the area around the law firm building, where they were going. Mitzi asked about James’s new family situation, which got him talking about Yulia’s idea to find any and all lost children in the area.

And they both assisted James with navigation as needed, since every landmark had moved around as the Earth shifted. The Rogets found many ways to distract themselves from the flight. James himself didn’t seem to mind either the sensations of flying or the conversation.

Eventually, he asked them if they minded the idea of a pit stop.

“Not at all,” Mitzi said.

Alan shook his head in agreement. He was fairly certain that Mitzi wanted a restroom break but had been hoping someone else would bring it up first. It was her body language that gave it away to him. And now they happened to be flying over a shopping center that had a few intact buildings.

Most of what they’d passed in the hours they had been flying were the ruins of buildings destroyed in the System’s transformation of Earth. Some of the other buildings had been ruined by what Alan suspected must have been human causes. Fire, vandalism, and so forth. Only perhaps one in four buildings from the pre-System era remained standing.

So seeing a largely intact shopping center felt like a piece of incredible luck.

As they descended, he muttered, “I bet there are even functioning toilets.”

Mitzi gave him a raised eyebrow look that confirmed his theory.

“So, why did you pick this area to stop?” Alan asked, deliberately turning away from her to look at James. “I can’t imagine you’re just tired.”

“Two reasons,” he replied. “First, Mina asked me to stop at the store. I have a list of items to get.” James chuckled a bit, apparently at the thought of making a shopping trip in the midst of the apocalypse. He shook his head and lapsed into silence.

“And the other reason?” Mitzi finally asked as their feet touched down on the cracked and broken asphalt of the nearly empty parking lot. Only a few scattered, abandoned cars remained in the big, empty space.

“Ever since I became a Ruler, I can sort of sense the territory of other Rulers,” James said after a short silence. “I don’t want to worry you guys, but if we enter another Ruler’s territory, there’s a good chance we’ll get challenged to a fight. Or, more likely, we’ll just be attacked. The monster that rules that territory will assume we want a fight.”

“Monster?” Alan asked. “Aren’t some of the Rulers human?” Like you?

“Almost all of the Rulers are monsters,” James said. “The proctor told me very few humans won their Orientations outright like I did. And we also have no way of distinguishing a human’s territory from a monster’s. A lot of them are also expanding their territory, just like me.”

Alan’s expression turned to one of horror.

“So the monsters are taking over the world,” he said.

Mitzi placed a hand on his arm, and Alan reminded himself to take deep breaths. Surely things weren’t all that bad.

But James was nodding. “We’re in a race against time with the monsters at this point, yes. If we lose, then it’s a monster’s world.”

“Are you sure it was wise to set us down here at all?” Alan asked. His head whipped around nervously, looking to see whether monsters would creep out from under any nearby cover.

“Yes,” James replied confidently. “This territory is sort of sandwiched between two monsters’ territories. Neither one of them has reached it with their auras yet. In a few days, both of them might get here at the same time, and then it could become a zone of conflict—”

“Why would they fight each other?” Mitzi interjected. “Do the monsters have their own internal rivalries?”

James explained that there had been a rivalry between the Wolf King and the final boss monster back in their Orientation. “There’s no reason that different species should get along,” he finished. “They’re all competing for the same scarce resources. Food and territory are limited.”

“Well, I hope they all kill each other off,” Alan said bitterly. “Why the hell did the System bring them here?! The System claims to be benevolent. Why did it introduce monsters into the world?”

James looked away for a moment, as if listening to a sound from somewhere else. Finally, he turned back to Alan and Mitzi.

“The System doesn’t create most of them,” James said. “The stronger ones already exist. It just decides where they go. Apparently, there is a higher purpose to this that we just can’t see yet. I know it’s hard to accept that answer, but it’s the best I’ve been given.”

Alan felt like arguing, but Mitzi put a hand on his shoulder, and he forced himself to calm down. It was just quite a heavy thing to know that the world where he had grown up, formed his family, learned his profession, and ultimately grown old was now no more. Perhaps would never reappear.

“I’m going to clear that building,” James said, pointing at the store. “I sense there is some life inside, although I can’t tell if it’s humans or just lower level monsters. Either way, it shouldn’t take me long to render the building safe.”

“Do you want backup?” Mitzi asked.

“No, but thanks,” James said. “I want to go in and look around first. If I need help, I’ll yell as loudly as I can. But if it’s something that’s below the level of a Ruler, I should be able to take it out on my own.”

“Are there any monsters in that building over there?” Alan asked. He pointed at a hamburger joint that stood thirty feet away from the store.

“Nope,” James said. “Nothing with Mana inside. No signs of life that I can discern.”

“We’ll forage for supplies if we don’t hear from you, then. I don’t imagine any of their meat is still good, but sometimes these places use fresh potatoes. Depending on how long we were actually gone, those might be decent to eat. Or possibly to plant.”

Most importantly, it’s an intact building that’s bound to have a restroom.

James nodded absently; he was staring at the store as if it was a puzzle to be solved.

Alan and Mitzi walked off toward the restaurant, leaving him to his thoughts.

—

What is with that place? James wondered. I sense Mana. A sort of life force. But I can’t tell where in the building it might be coming from. Is the whole building a monster? It didn’t seem possible. And if the building was a monster, it must be incredibly weak for its life signs to be so hard to read even while he stood right in front of it.

“Sorry I couldn’t give you a better answer about the monsters, sir,” Hester said. She sounded guilty. “I could tell your friends weren’t satisfied with it.”

“Well, we would all like to understand what’s going on better, Hester,” James said, “but no one thinks it’s your fault that we can’t. Now that Alan and Mitzi aren’t in immediate danger, they just really want answers. Anansi really can’t share more, huh?”

“Lord Anansi says you could have used one of your questions to get the big picture information back when you were with him in person. He thinks you were wiser to spend them on more immediately useful intelligence, though. The purposes of the System and the monsters will become clear with time anyway.”

“I suppose,” James said. “I hope you enjoyed finally getting some public recognition back at the assembly, by the way.”

“It was very satisfying, sir. Thank you again. I was especially glad that there were some children in the audience who could clearly see me. Children always make up the most imaginative stories and embellish them with crazy details that adults would never come up with. People are going to think of me as some kind of a wise, magical spider who gives amazing advice and helps you perform your miracles!” There was an obvious tone of pride in her voice. She added, almost as an afterthought, “Lord Anansi also appreciated that you consecrated the building as a temple to him. I know he wouldn’t have asked, but I could tell that the fact that you came up with it meant something to him.”

“I know he’s had my back so far,” James said mildly. “I try to always honor my debts. And I expected that a lot of stories were going to be told there. It seemed fitting.”

He began walking toward the sliding glass doors of the grocery store. He wasn’t going to figure out the mystery of this place by just standing outside staring at it.

To his surprise, the doors opened automatically to let him in. James stood outside with a raised eyebrow. There’s still power to these things during the apocalypse? How? Now that he looked for them, he saw the building also still had some lights on, although not all of them. Maybe it was on some form of emergency power. A generator somewhere?! Maybe we can use it…

It still wasn’t entirely clear to him how much time had passed on Earth while he and the others were in Orientation. Even the smartphones didn’t know the correct dates and times. The phones disagreed with each other, as he, Mina, and Yulia had found. They reflected how long each person had spent in Orientation. James’s Orientation had lasted until a later date in that separate space, so his phone thought it was weeks ahead of theirs, as well as in a different time of day. Mina’s phone was some minutes ahead of Yulia’s, apparently thanks to a period when a monster had stopped time so that Mina could commune with her patron goddess.

Okay. Maybe a generator could be working. I guess I’ll investigate. He walked into the building and immediately paused.

[Dungeon entered! You have arrived in Dungeon: Carol’s Retail!]

The doors suddenly shut behind him, moving with uncharacteristic speed.

Shit, he thought. I don’t have time for this!

“Oh dear,” Hester said quietly. “So that’s what the life energy you sensed was.”

“Dungeons give off their own life energy, too, huh?” he asked, looking around and waiting for a threat to emerge. But nothing seemed to move.

“Sometimes dungeons are just the plaything of a god or a creation of the System,” Hester said. “But a dungeon can also arise as a living thing. A form of monster.”

“Good to know,” James said. “And there was no way of recognizing it from the outside?”

“I’m afraid not. I don’t even have your senses. I couldn’t tell that there was life inside the building.”

“Do you know how to kill it?”

“If you beat the dungeon, you should have the option of destroying the core,” Hester said without hesitation.

“Just perfect.” He shook his head. “I guess I’d better speed run this thing.”

He finally darted forward and moved beyond the area with the shopping carts near the front of the store. And he saw a blinking light as he passed.

He turned his head and got a better look at it. A blinking red light set into an electronic sensor. Motion detectors? The dungeon is using human technology?

But he didn’t have much time to consider that strange fact for very long.

Motion appeared in his peripheral vision. James turned his head and realized he’d spotted movement in one of the large, spherical mirror domes scattered around on the ceiling. From one of the back doors, a line of humanoid figures were approaching. As they moved, a bank of fog pushed forward alongside them.

Still, James’s superhuman senses could clearly make out the movements of the monsters even through the thick clouds of water vapor.

They were slow and clumsy, their bodies moving with painful-looking shambling movements. Zombies, he thought. Looks like a dozen. I thought I’d seen enough of them in the Dead Marsh.

James walked over to the aisle where the Zombies were emerging, and he slashed forward with his arm. Air Strike!

A blade of wind surged forward and bisected the entire line of Zombies, as well as dissipating the fog in an instant. So James clearly saw the arms, legs, and partially rotted internal organs as they went flying. Thankfully, the congealed blood in the bodies meant the liquid part of the mess wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Eerily, the wriggling corpses dragged themselves forward, continuing to try to find their intended prey. Whole halves of human bodies with strange, sunken faces and white eyes stared in James’s general direction.

Well, that’s pretty gross, he thought. And creepy as hell. They even seem more resilient than Roscuro’s Zombies were. If this place had enough of their kind, that could be a problem.

He moved to the next aisle over so he could go around the assortment of moving body parts.

As he reached the end of that aisle, another half dozen Zombies emerged from the doorway. A sign above the door frame blinked on and off. “Exit,” it said.

“I’ll take that as a sign that this is the right way to go,” James said quietly.

“Seems reasonable,” Hester said. “Unless there’s another exit you can see.”

“I mean, I could make an exit,” James said. “Unless this place is indestructible or something. But there’s no reason to destroy the building if I don’t have to. I’m not in a desperate situation, and there are supplies here. If I was trying to run away, I would have just smashed the automatic doors so I could come back later with reinforcements.”

Roscuro, would you please assume a more useful form? James thought at his Ego Weapon. Any weapon would be nice right now. I don’t want to just chop these things up into pieces and have them go flying into the hallway ahead. They’d be crawling around on the floor, trying to bite my ankles. But I also don’t want to touch them bare-handed and get Zombie juice on me.

So I do the dirty work, came Roscuro’s deep voice in response. Very well, master. The black bracelet form that the Soul Eater Orb had assumed changed. It shapeshifted first into shadows, then into a dagger that placed itself in James’s hand.

You couldn’t be a longer weapon? James asked as he planted the tip in the closest monster’s eye.

Roscuro dematerialized again so that James didn’t have to pull the blade out of the defeated Zombie. He repeated the killing blow over and over on the remaining creatures before casting Mass Pillage to harvest them for Stat points.

I need souls to develop my power, master, Roscuro pleaded. Otherwise my flexibility as a weapon is limited. Human souls, spider souls, wolf souls, it doesn’t really matter. I’m happy to feed on the souls of your enemies. But using me against soulless enemies like these creatures is a waste of my particular gifts. They’re not even real dead people!

Um, I’ll take that under advisement, James sent back. He would have said yes if Roscuro didn’t specifically begin by mentioning how happy he would be to consume human, spider, or wolf souls. That was far from the way to win his heart.

Wait, did you say they’re not even real dead people?

Correct, Roscuro replied. These do not behave like Zombies. It is as if someone made up a monster based on some old legends.

Well, they’re very real-looking! James thought back.

He walked through the doorway with the “Exit” sign hanging above it and found himself facing a long hallway. Another line of Zombies began emerging from a darkened doorway at the end of the hall.

Is that all this dungeon can do? he wondered. Anyone could overcome this place with the basic level of training that Orientation provided.

He quickly killed his way to the end of the hallway, and he found himself in front of the darkened doorway.

The wooden sign above the door said “Employee Lounge.”

James looked into the room and immediately saw the only light source. A glowing purple orb. What appeared to be a gem as large as a watermelon, sitting on what looked like an ordinary break room table.

He walked toward it.

As he entered the room, alerts popped up.

[Congratulations! You have cleared Dungeon: Carol’s Retail!]

[First human to clear Dungeon: Carol’s Retail!]

[You gained 500 exp!]

He dismissed them with his mind.

“Stay back, human!” said a loud female voice that seemed to be coming from the orb. It sounded like a human voice, but with a rough vocal quality. “Don’t get any closer! You have successfully cleared the dungeon, and you won a free shopping trip—so, um, please, don’t destroy me!” With those last few words, the facade broke down.

James looked down into the glowing purple orb.

“Why shouldn’t I?” he asked. “Didn’t you just try to kill me?”

“Please don’t!” the voice said. “I didn’t—I wasn’t—I’m sorry! I just figured that’s what dungeons are supposed to do.”

“You don’t sound like you really know what you’re doing,” James observed.

“That’s because—well, I don’t.” The voice sounded softer now. A little sad. Pathetic, if James was being honest.

“How does that possibly happen?” he asked. “An intelligent dungeon that doesn’t know what it’s doing.”

“I achieved Race Evolution,” the voice admitted. “A total fluke. I was a Rogue, and I had survived by making traps for things to fall into. I found it really scary getting through Orientation. So I decided to accept the option to become a Dungeon Core!”

“I see,” James said, not really understanding. “So how does this work for you?”

“Well, I accept challenges and then I provide access to prizes if people win. If they lose, I get their stuff. And either way, I get experience.”

“Huh. That sounds like a convenient situation, actually. How did you get the supplies you have out in the dungeon? Were they things that were left after the System showed up?”

“Mostly no,” she said. “The food here was all rotten, but the System gave me credits, and I have access to a lot of special items as a Dungeon Core. So I spent about half on monsters and half on prizes! Mostly food. Which is funny, since I don’t need to eat now.” There was a distinct enthusiasm to her voice now, despite the fact that her life was still in James’s hands.

“Do you have baby products in this place?” James asked.

“Some,” she said.

“And you can restock the items you have here?” he said.

“Absolutely.”

She’s an invaluable resource, then.

“Would you be willing to promise not to kill any humans I send inside here?” he asked.

“If that’s what you want, I’m happy to do that in exchange for you letting me live. Just have them tell me that you sent them. If that’s alright?”

She’s not lying… James thought for a few seconds.

“I think I’m going to let you live, then,” he said finally, “and use your space as a training location for some of my people. What do you think of that idea?”

“Hey man, I get to live, and I even get more Experience? Sounds like a big win!”

“Good then. I’ll send someone in to let you know what to expect in a week or two. My name is James, by the way. Also called the Fisher King. I’ll have them say that King James sent them.”

I’ll have to conquer the surrounding territories to get this place, but having a slowly growing benevolent dungeon inside my territory seems like it might be really useful for training the lower level people. And possibly some of the really young wolves.

“A week or two? So, you’re just going to leave, then?” she asked. She sounded slightly disappointed.

“Not yet,” James said. “First, I’m going shopping.”

“You can do that,” Carol said. “I mean, of course you can do that. It’s your prize! But I’m thinking, um, what if you took me with you?”

James was already turning to walk away when she said those last words. He turned back and stared at the Dungeon Core.

“What?” she asked. “Do I have something on my face?”

He shook his head and groaned slightly. “Your sense of humor is almost as bad as mine. What do you mean, take you with me?”

“I mean, I’m not stuck here. I can rebuild the dungeon wherever my body is. And that’s this orb. I just—well, it sounded like you might be going pretty far away, and uh, I couldn’t help wondering if you were ever actually going to get around to coming back. It is a little lonely here. You’re the first human I’ve had the chance to talk to in days…”

It was an easy decision for James.

“Alright. Go ahead and hop inside my bag. You’re coming with me.”

Without legs, Carol did not have the ability to hop, as it turned out, but James managed to pick her up and store her in his magic satchel with no trouble.