Caldrin trembled from head to toe. He didn’t even notice when Blob came back.
The slime ball was heaving for breath. It took it a lot of effort to move from one place to the next. Even more when it knew its boss wanted it all very quickly.
But still, he made it in time, stretching out two bundles of slime into arms that held the report up for Caldrin to see.
Snapping out of it, a tentacle reached over like a whip and snatched the report out of Gri’s hands. In the same motion, it slapped the blob into a paste of nothingness.
Gri died before he even understood what happened. Even in the hustle and bustle of everything, no one seemed to notice.
Or, more accurately, they didn’t care. They probably had three slime assistant deaths a day. No one ever blinked an eye.
For Caldrin, though, this meant something completely different. He couldn’t allow anyone to have even an inkling of what he had just learned.
Slowing his breathing, Caldrin forced himself to look normal and be calm. In this place, he was second in command behind Associate Producer Gard. Though there were many levers he couldn’t pull, right now the best policy was patience.
Grey was an idiot who had already almost died several times, and the Quest that Joaquin had been given still needed time to play out.
While Grey was a powerhouse, Joaquin was originally Caldrin’s focus for a reason. He knew how to play the politician, but he had a sinister heart. He was the perfect character to center an arc on.
But more important than that, Joaquin was by far the most talented in Zone 234. His stats started at almost 20, and since then, from Caldrin’s estimates, he had awakened two Body Enhancements, a Body Combat Method, and a Mind Combat Method just from the tutorial alone.
Grey’s improvement was worrying, as was expected of something with Dual Types. But he didn’t have a Nexis Suit while Joaquin did.
’There’s still a chance.’
Caldrin shifted his attention. He had to control what he could on the margins to make sure all of this blew over.
However, much like Caldrin was paying attention to Grey, there was someone else paying attention to him. It seemed Caldrin had forgotten that while he was aiming for greater heights, so too were many others.
...
Practically locked away in a cubicle, a woman of shocking beauty stood. The oddity, though, was that her lower body was that of a spider, her forehead lined with not just one extra pair of sleek red eyes, but two.
Shiikha was just a pencil pusher. She documented and filed, living in spreadsheets and self-optimized algorithms.
It was there she noticed something odd.
’Gri accessed the database twice in quick succession using Assistant Producer Caldrin’s credentials. This speed...’
Shiikha knew how slow slimes were, and Caldrin’s office was the furthest from the data center aside from Associate Producer Gard himself. Yet, Gri had done it in half the time he would have normally.
’Oh—!’
Shiikha flinched as Gri’s name went grey and she was tasked with logging a death certificate and taking him off the payroll. She also had to send a small stipend to his family.
Under almost any other circumstances, the coincidental speed would have been something she ignored. But the immediate death afterward?
’Grey Temolt... waiting room information? Why would he be interested in that?’
Shiikha’s gears started to churn.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
’It should be here.’
Grey came to a stop, taking deep breaths. His stamina was starting to recover more and more slowly, but he wasn’t sure what to do about it.
He did his best to go into every battle instance with at least 8/10 stamina, but that seemed to matter less and less the further he went.
There was once, back before the last ruin he cleared, that he tried to wait until he got to 9/10, but it never ticked over from 8. It seemed that unless he got real rest for an extended period of time, there wasn’t going to be a chance for him to reach any higher.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have time for that.
Any moment now, the registration round would begin. It had been long enough.
Grey wasn’t even sure if he could make it back to the city in time at this rate. He had to press forward.
Taking a breath, he pushed to the edge of the ruin. Immediately, he could tell it was different from the others.
The trees were darker. There was no foliage, as though all greenery had been burnt from the branches and settled into the thick, ashy soot that covered the ground.
Grey was sure there wasn’t even a bit of natural soil in sight. The air just felt like a mix of thin sulfur and burning.
In the middle of it all was a small cabin. Its door was probably five and a half feet tall at most—if that broken black mess of thin wood panels could be called a door.
’Alright. Let’s go.’
Grey confidently stepped forward, piercing his spear into the dirt and pulling the bow and an arrow from his Weapon Space.
Did he know how to use one? Not even remotely.
But the quest had called this thing a witch, and he’d be damned if he came out here to fight against a fire-spitting hag without a single long-range weapon to his name.
He had fired the bow a couple of times on the way here, just enough to understand how to do it. If the target was big enough, maybe he’d be lucky enough to hit it.
The doors creaked and Grey focused so much on it that he almost didn’t notice the entire house shifting.
Then it happened.
BOOM. BOOM.
A pair of arms broke the two windows on opposite sides of the cabin, slamming into the ground and sending soot and ash flying everywhere. What visibility there was before practically dimmed to nothing for just a moment before the two front windows of the cabin blazed with flames that lit up everything.
—
[BOSS Battle Triggered — Wicked Forest Witch!]
—
[It seems you’ve jumped the gun and went ahead and angered a Region BOSS. Well, the early bird gets the worm. I mean, it can also get snagged by a fox on the way down too, but don’t think about that too much. Good luck, young buck!]
Grey looked straight up as the house balanced on a pair of old, wrinkled hands.
Then it roared at him.