I couldn't stand the silence that Kat left. I hated the fact that we had to separate and that I couldn't be there to keep her safe, but we had our parts to do in the task.
What I could tell from the incremental updates that Kat was giving me whenever she could, it seemed that I wasn't the only one that made my way towards the POI slowly, the POI was also slowly making its way to me. Because of the slow speed that the POI was exhibiting, I knew that it wasn't the enemy team's "Watchtower", so it had to be a "Soldier" since spawners didn't move.
I looked around to see if I could recognise the area I was in, but all I could see in the low light of the darkness was a lot of rubble and semi-destroyed buildings. Since I've never ventured outside of Town Ohda, I wouldn't be able to pinpoint where the architecture came from, but I reasoned there might have been some sort of signage or something to give me a hint.
I had no luck though, in the lowlight the bricks and stone looked like they were slightly coloured — possibly in a blue-ish hue — but I couldn't tell if that was just because of the lack of a proper light source, or if they were actually blue.
None of the streets had any signage, and anything that was made of wood seemed to have the sole purpose of supporting the stone structures. It was a building style that was not done in Ohda, and even though I hadn't had the chance to explore Shinobu City completely, the locations I had seen had also adhered to our standard completely-wood structures.
As I glanced at the map, I found myself quite a long way away southwest from where Mobito sat as our "Anchor". The POI was still a little bit away from me, so I brought up the Paradigm Help Entries and searched for "Anchors and Watchtowers".
At first, the Help Entries responded with the predictable Error message that came up, like when I looked up information on the Solo Dungeon. Suddenly, the Window glitched and a similar message as the Task description came up in front of me as I walked.
[A̸N̴C̷H̴O̶R̶S̶ ̵A̴N̴D̶ ̶W̴A̸T̸C̸H̴T̸O̷W̸E̸R̴S̵
ANCIENT GAME
A BELOVED GAME PLAYED BY CHILDREN IN THE █̵̤́█̵̤̤̈́█̷̭̒͝█̴̛̺͊█̶̢̈́̑█̸̛̣█̷̞͖̆͠ ERA.
-PLAYERS ARE BROKEN UP INTO THREE ROLES: ANCHOR, WATCHTOWER AND SOLDIERS…]
Except for a few specific words, the Help Entry for the game relayed the same information as the Task description Window, only with what I assumed was the original game, instead of the modified version that ended up becoming the second task.
However, once again, a redacted word appeared within the already glitched Window. I had never heard of the System censoring anything when it came to user input. Not only did it happen in the Task description, I remembered that my left arm item had been censored as well. I looked up my Status Window and the bold black blocks stared back right at me.
My mind raced as I struggled to work out why the System had degraded to the point it was redacting things, and I remembered that it all started when I turned eighteen years old, and got that first glitchy message from Paradigm.
A shuffle as feet struggled to lift themselves up properly snapped me out of my focus and I swiped all of my open Windows away except for the map. The symbol that represented me had now started to merge together with the symbol on the map that represented the POI I had been making my way towards, however, in the darkness, I struggled to see what was around me even if they were ten metres away.
I tensed as the adrenaline started to course through my body. I grabbed hold of the handle of my hunting dagger and kept moving forward, toward the ever-growing shuffling noises.
As I got closer, the muscles in my body started to tighten. If what Kat had said was accurate, and Head Pastor Maru had been revived to be part of the enemy team for this task, who else would have been revived? Her two closest advisors? Was the monster from the first task going to be reappropriated for this task?
I paused as my mind suddenly went black as I finally got close enough to the POI to see what it was. Who it was.
He stood precariously before me, just over five metres away. All withered, skinny and dried out, with the blade of his great sword still lodged into his chest from when he attempted to block the blow from the monster in task one, only this time, his muscles and skin had tightened and clamped down on the sword, each curvature and imperfection of the blade closed up by the desiccated flesh.
Nato continued to move forwards, his leg slowly dragging along the ground as he carefully manoeuvred around his modified centre of gravity from the added weight of his favourite weapon, now like an added useless appendage.
I don't know if it was the sight of his monstrous state, or I was simply just panicked, but I quickly asked the System to scan him. I was in the middle of belittling myself for treating the man like he was a monster of the System when I realised that the scan worked.
Normally, you wouldn't be able to see the stats of another User unless that User wanted to show them to you, but this time, I was given the tasks freely:
[LEVEL: 25
HP: 30%
STR: 40 (-10) WIS: 5
AGI: 15 (-10) INT: 5
VIT: 25 (-10)
DESSICATED ZOMBIE (DEBUFF): -10 ON ALL PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES.]
His level was the first thing that surprised me. He was a higher level than even Saizo, but it then clicked that he would have had more EXP from doing extra jobs with Mobito and…Aoi without Saizo knowing.
The way he had distributed his attribute points made a lot of sense to me since the great sword looked like it was quite heavy, and from the small glimpses I had seen during our escape to the Tower and the stories that Saizo had told me of their Quests, it seemed that Nato filled the role of a "tank", someone who was able to take a lot of damage in order to protect his Party. That explained his incredibly high Vitality.
But as I watched this poor ruined shell of a man who barely resembled the muscled, bald figure that I knew. The one who almost slashed my whole arm off. One of the people who murdered my parents, I still felt a sense of sadness.
I felt compelled to speak as I was finally able to see more details of the figure's mangled face. I looked into the darkness of the two sockets where his eyes would have been and apologised.
"I'm so sorry Nato," I started.
The zombie "Soldier" snapped its face towards my direction like it hadn't been heading anywhere in particular, corrected its trajectory and limped forward with an increased pace.
Almost straight away after he fully understood what I said out loud, Saizo's voice came into my head.
"What? Nato?"
I didn't answer. I continued to focus strictly on the figure that was heading towards me.
"I'm sorry. Even you didn't deserve to be resurrected by the System like this," I continued.
"What's happening Ryuu? Is Nato there with you?" Saizo called out again.
I finally answered, "He's here with me, yes, but he's a zombie now. He seems to have lost his ability to talk."
Saizo cursed over the System. The language sounded weird coming from someone like him.
As he continued to get closer and closer to me, Nato's hands grabbed hold of the blade that was impaled on him and I could see what was left of his arms — now mostly skin, bone and dried muscles — shudder as he attempted to pull the blade out. The dried flesh had a good grip on the blade.
The Soldier paused as he focussed on pulling the great sword out of his body. With a terrifyingly sickening tearing sound, the desiccated flesh started to give way from the force that the zombified arms were able to produce. Even with only a quarter of his strength attribute, Nato was still quite strong.
I stepped back when the sword dropped and bounced heavily on the ground with an ear-piercing clanging sound.
Zombie Nato bent over stiffly and struggled to pick up his blade, even with two hands. Long gone are the days when the massive brute could hold up his prized weapon with a single hand.
A slow and clumsy swing came from the monster in front of me that I easily dodged, minimising my movements as much as I could to save stamina. The debuff was incredibly hard on his agility and strength as it was incredibly visible how much it impacted the two attributes.
I recalled the smooth movements of the Pjanic Self Defence Techniques that I mastered and used Form 1-2. A feint to the left before sliding closer into the personal space of Zombie Nato to lock my foot behind one of his legs before shoving his chest heavily on his left side to cause him to fall on his right side.
He fell heavily and the sword clanged loudly on the ground again a few metres away. I put all of my strength and as the familiar warmth started to rise up my arm, I swung down and stabbed his chest with my hunting dagger and was shocked to see that only 2% of his health was taken away from my strike.
I looked at my Status Window as I straightened up and backed away from the zombie who was now slowly gathering himself to get up on his feet again.
My Strength Attribute was at 15, with the effect of my left arm item, so I was slightly stronger than a normal person. Nowhere near how powerful Nato was when he was still alive, but still able to do significantly more damage than 2% of health if I were to fight someone in my level range.
Nato's health pool must have been humongous. I decided to put some of my leftover Ability Points into Strength, and brought it up to 25, while I improved my Agility up to 20. This meant that I only had 10 more Points left to place. The sadness that I had felt for Nato disappeared, and the effects of the improved attributes happened almost straight away I swear, I could feel the fibres of my muscles tighten and expand like I was flexing and relaxing the muscles. When it was over, as I performed a few practice swings, I could physically tell that I was stronger and lighter on my feet.
The warmth that originated from my left arm started to spread through my body as a sense of anger that seemed like it came from inside of me but not really me started to wash over my whole being.
Zombie Nato had finally gone to grab his sword when I attacked again. This time I used the slide in from Form 1-2 before mixing it with three slashes. Two were aimed at his side, but one managed to slice his right wrist instead, and one to the side of his neck. I finished my assault with a swift stomp on the back of his knee that caused him to collapse to the ground again while his sword fell on the ground. The great sword was nowhere near us now. I positioned myself behind him when Zombie Nato swung around to try and swipe at me whilst he was on his knees. I clicked my tongue as pulled away from him before catching the base of his neck with my right hand to hold him in place.
The anger felt fully realised now as a thought that sounded like me sprung into my head.
You should have stayed dead.
I leant closer to its ears as the zombie snapped its jaws and struggled to get away from my grip.
"I know that you, Aoi and Mobito conspired to kill my parents," I whispered loud enough so that everybody else that could hear through the System could also hear me.
The zombie paused for a slight moment and it seemed like it was processing what I had just revealed, maybe a sliver of who the man used to be was still there before it went back to struggling.
My arm felt incredibly hot and instead of using my hunting knife, I brought back my left arm in preparation for my attack and tensed my muscle. A sensation of something crawling up my arm sent shivers down my spine as I brought my hand forward and impaled my fist through the back of Zombie Nato straight through the desiccated body and exited the other side right next to where the torn flesh left by the extraction of the blade was.
Over his shoulder, I could see that my hand had turned black, shiny scales that covered the now-taloned fingers seemed to have made their way all the way up my arm to where my scar used to be.
Instead of being shocked and horrified by the transformation, I had a sense of pride and longing. Another thought popped into my head that sounded not quite like me.
Not yet. It's almost there.
I noticed that I held a dark, withered, still, heart in my left hand and I crushed it and caused Nato's health bar showed that a whopping 22% of his health had now disappeared.
Without really thinking about it, I grabbed his shoulder with my right hand as I pulled my left arm out of the hole I created, wrapped my long, bony fingers around the thin, leathery neck, and pulled.
Another tearing sound rang through the air, though this time it wasn't sickening to me. It was triumphant and a sensation of achievement swelled through my body that originated from my arm as I pried the zombie's head away from its body. The sight of the health bar reduced to zero continued to make the swelling sensation echo around my body.
The feeling I was experiencing seemed a lot like the time that Farmer Zohei managed to uproot the infestation of Shallow Weed that was destroying his crops for nearly a whole season. How did he describe it?
Getting rid of a pest.
He was so proud of himself.
Yes. That was exactly what I was feeling.
"Ryuu!" Saizo's voice echoed loudly in my ears and brought me back into the moment.
"Sorry, I'm here," I said as the sensation and warmth died down slowly inside me.
"What happened to you? You went silent and then you started laughing uncontrollably?" Saizo asked, "what happened to Nato?"
"It's okay, I took care of it," I said.
I could hear the shock in Saizo's voice, "you took care—?"
"When you can, send me another POI location Kat," I interrupted him, "he's part of the enemy team now Saizo, the same team as Maru, there was nothing else I could do."
Saizo didn't respond. I looked back at Nato's destroyed body as the last traces of heat and pride disappeared and my head cleared a little bit.
Did Nato, even in his zombified version, pause because he felt guilty for his past actions? Or was that just a figment of my imagination?