Grey had known the risks. He had clearly decided the risks of staying outside were greater. The Fog of Chaos, the lack of water, the lack of rules—but maybe he should have known that he couldn’t count on rules in this place.
’Wait.’
Just as Grey was about to react with anger, his temper cooled to nothing and he stood there in silence, memorizing Joaquin’s face as though he didn’t already know it, and then looking toward the knights.
The knights, however—or, rather, one of them in particular—was staring at the tool belt around Grey’s waist.
All things considered, Grey did look kind of ridiculous right now. He had stolen Fitz’s Nexis Suit, and it kind of fit him, so he was wearing that instead of running around in boxers and a floral suit like he had been earlier.
But Fitz’s was still shorter than him, so the legs didn’t quite fit right and there were a couple inches of gap between the shoes of his own Nexis Suit and the leg sleeves of Fitz’s.
Then, because he needed May’s Nexis Suit to fit over his forearms, he didn’t actually zip Fitz’s all the way up, letting its upper half dangle down his back, held up partially by the tool belt that was acting a bit more like a common belt in this situation.
So, he was basically shirtless.
As for his face, well... that was probably the worst of it. Between the Skrill Mask and his iron jaw, he hardly looked human. Half of him was surprised the guards had just let him walk through like they did, but they probably had their own methods of telling the difference between a participant and a monster.
That led Grey to this moment, one where he was surrounded by beings with stats he couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
Worst yet? There was something even worse hidden in all this commotion.
It wasn’t the not-so-subtle observers who were around a few corners and alleys in the distance ahead of him and to his back. No, it was Joaquin’s form of address for the four knights.
’Holy Knights? They wouldn’t happen to serve a Goddess, right...?’
Grey’s lip twitched.
"This belt." A deep voice spoke, a tinge of disgust in his eyes that Grey didn’t quite understand. Was it his mask? But he wasn’t even looking at the mask right now. "You’ve stolen it."
’There’s no way... this fucking snitch.’
Suddenly, Grey understood.
He wasn’t wrong to have bet a little bit on the rules. While he had had his life ruined by the rules before, when he really thought about it, there was only one rule break that he had suffered from. And that was that he hadn’t been issued the same Nexis Suit that everyone else received.
Outside of this, as scummy as everything else he had experienced was, they were probably in line with how this game usually worked.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t had the chance to read through all the rules yet. But he had a hunch based on what he had seen.
As expected, Joaquin wasn’t breaking any rules right now. If anything, Grey was the one who broke the rules. It took him a lot of effort to finally find something he could snatch from the shopkeeper, but it was clear that the game mechanics had really not wanted him to take anything.
The real question was... how had Joaquin known he could take advantage of this?
’I underestimated him.’
For Joaquin to pull out this play, he would have had to have the knowledge to realize that Grey’s tool belt was an item too rare for him to have already. However, at that point, it could have only been a guess.
For all Joaquin knew, Grey had the best time out of everyone, so he could have been given a reward that he couldn’t fathom.
What must have actually sealed it was this big chunk of metal on Grey’s face, a chunk of metal that was practically one for one identical to Globb’s own.
Grey couldn’t help but frown. ’Is he really this smart? Or did someone help him?’
"No, sir," Grey said somewhat awkwardly. He had called a police officer an asshole more than one time in his life, and he had even almost been arrested for trespassing on this old haunted house in his neighborhood once before.
But police officers back on Earth—at least most of them—wouldn’t just kill you at the drop of a hat.
This was all to say that the word "sir" tasted like battery acid on his tongue.
"This was given to me by my mentor, Globb."
"Given to you?" The Holy Knight asked coldly. Then his head sharply turned toward the shop.
’Shit. What does that mean?’
Joaquin didn’t seem sure of what was happening either, but the Holy Knight gave the other three a signal and the other three kicked at the door at once.
BOOM.
Grey’s lip twitched. The door didn’t even get kicked in; it practically disintegrated, blowing out into so many fine strands of shrapnel and splinters that it might as well have disappeared.
Soon, the trio had come out of the shop, holding a frozen Globb in place. It looked like there really was some sort of glitch here because Globb hadn’t moved from the spot Grey had left him in.
The Holy Knights frowned when they saw that Globb wasn’t moving at all.
"Gnome," he growled.
Grey felt a feeling of discomfort in his chest. Why did he say that like it was some sort of derogatory term? He might as well have been saying the n-word—the hard R version for extra measure.
Globb, obviously, didn’t and couldn’t respond.
The Holy Knight suddenly moved and kicked out. Globb’s chest caved and he was sent flying back.
Grey moved on instinct, catching the gnome as he flew toward him.
Something about Grey’s touch seemed to revive Globb, but just as he was about to speak out in confusion, he coughed up mouthfuls of blood instead.
"Speak, gnome. You have violated the Conventions of the Goddess. What have you to say for yourself?"