"Sweet bountiful Eden, what in Heaven's name was that?"
I laughed breathlessly at the woman's hysterical voice as I collapsed to my hands and knees. Laughing hurt, but pain was temporary. If I hadn't been used to pain, then I would have never made it this far.
The floor beneath me was made of gold so polished that I could see my reflection clearly. I almost wished I couldn't. My body was plastered in purple viscera from the demons I had slaughtered to get here. It covered my coat and pants and most of my face, giving me a messed up Braveheart vibe.
But I could see life in my brown eyes. Felt the excitement, the rush, these endorphins flowing freely through my brain. I winked at myself for no other reason than it felt right.
As I shifted to sit, I snapped my fingers and reached into the air in front of me. A floating square labeled Inventory appeared at the end of my fingertips. I scrolled through with the swipe of my fingers, passing by countless items before finally reaching what I needed. A small lime-like object appeared in my hand, and I set it on the ground.
"How did you make it through the last scenario so fast? No one's ever made it through that fast."
My gaze shifted to the woman, but my laughter renewed when I saw her. At the end of the golden hall, past a series of golden statues and hovering over a pedestal was a horrifying creature.
Large, flowing dove wings emerged out of a small center mass like windmill blades, but in every direction. Numerous eye sockets lined the wings and its feathers, each widened and staring at me with the free-floating flames held within. Above it, elevated just a few feet higher, was a shining halo. It was hard to look at the first time I arrived here, but it had certainly lost its luster since then.
"Hello, Sara," I said, wheezing. I coughed and spat out blood into the ground. "Ugh, that's really gross. I'll have to stop being so close to demons when I start eviscerating like that."
The being had frozen at my words. Its wings stopped moving, but it didn't fall to the ground. "What did you say?"
"Sorry, Esaraphelscion," I corrected. Then I shook my head. "Sara's just much easier to say, isn't it? I'm going to keep calling you Sara."
The eye sockets all blinked once. Sara still didn't move, just floated there and processed. That was fine by me. I needed to catch my breath. Demon slaying was tough work.
"... W-what?" She finally stuttered.
"Sara, Angel of the End, keeper of The Prize," I said, waggling my fingers in the air when I said the prize. "New to her job, but we've met before. Actually, aren't you supposed to be in that hot girl form instead of this biblical 'be not afraid' nonsense you've got going on?"
The angel dipped in surprise at my words, and her wings folded in on one another. It only took a moment, but Sara went through a whole process of origami before taking on a shape that was recognizable as a person.
Where a biblical angel once floated, a humanoid one now descended on six white wings. Sara landed gently on the pedestal and plucked at her short, literally flaming hair to make sure it was in order. Her bronze skin contrasted nicely with her shining white and gold armor. Now that she had eyes, round and orange ones, I could see the fluster in them.
"Ah yeah, that's better," I said, giving her two thumbs up.
That earned me a glare, her hair flaring up at the moment of indignant anger. She composed herself and cleared her throat. "Welcome to the Hall of the End, valiant warrior," Sara greeted stiffly. "You have suffered many trials and tribulations to arrive here, Player Anthony Franklin, and yet you arrived victorious! Here, you may- w-wait, stop! What are you doing?"
I proceeded to pull off my jacket in the middle of her speech, letting it fall to the ground with a disgusting splat.
[[Unequipped]]
Stinging Yellow Jacket
(-100 hit points, -15 strength, -10 dexterity, -10 constitution, -3 to the Piercing Weapons ability(18 -> 15), Wasp Knight's Venom skill removed)
The shirt I had on underneath wasn't in good condition, either, and I was in the process of unbuttoning it when Sara suddenly objected. "What?" I asked, acting innocent. Teasing her was just too damn fun. "I'm soaked in gore and it's really, really gross." I pulled my shirt off.
[[Unequipped]]
Calico's Button-Up
(-150 hit points, -20 dexterity, -5 constitution, -5 wisdom, Nine Lives (7/9 used) passive removed)
I stood up and began unbuckling my belt next.
"For the love of all things decent, will you stop undressing! There's stuff we have to go through!" Sara screeched. She turned away from me, which I found very amusing.
"Oh, come off it, Sara," I teased. "You're an unknowable being with a lifespan counted in the thousands of years. Don't be a prude."
[[Unequipped]]
Belt of the Brazen Badger
(-400 hit points, -15 constitution, Ferocious Rage skill removed)
"It's not every day that a human comes in here and starts disrobing, Anthony Franklin!" Sara responded indignantly. "And my name is Esaraphelscion, which you already know somehow, so use it."
"All will be revealed shortly," I snickered.
"That's the last thing I want!" Sara yelled back. She was turned completely away from me now. I just laughed and kicked off my shoes.
[[Unequipped]]
Sneakers of the Charging Chaska
(-10 tenacity, -5 constitution, Blocked Escape skill removed, Doubled Movement buff removed)
Followed by my pants.
[[Unequipped]]
Leather Jeans of the Dolphin
(-200 hit points, -10 dexterity, -5 consitution, Aquatic Displacement spell removed)
And my underwear.
[[Unequipped]]
Leopard Print Undies
(-1 dexterity, Comfort Plus passive removed)
Ah, that was disappointing. Comfort Plus really was one of the best passives in the whole system. I would have to look for that in the next run; it was like being swaddled in a cloud.
I caught my reflection in the wall. There was no way I could sugarcoat it, I was ripped. My body had been sculpted by the system as my stats moved to demi-godlike numbers. Muscular, but not in a professional weight lifter kind of way. Chiseled, I'd say.
"Alright, Sara," I said. "I'm going to need you to turn around. You'll understand."
"I'm not looking at your junk, dude!" She called back, dropping any pretense of otherworldly dignity she had tried to assume. "This harassment is most foul. Who do you think you are?"
"I'll cover my junk," I insisted. "But you need to see this."
Sara stood there silently, wrestling with her thoughts. Finally, she slowly turned. True to my word, I was covering myself; I took off my underwear but didn't drop it. She looked me up and down before throwing her arms into the air. "This answers nothing!"
Smirking, I reached for my neck. I scratched at an imperceptible line with my nails. Once I got underneath it, I pulled. My skin peeled off, causing me to shiver from the sensation. It was like picking at sunburned skin, but all over. Sara watched in horror as I did so.
[[Unequipped]]
Ouroboros Cover-up
(Ouroboros tattoos from repeated plays are hidden from all players and administrators regardless of status)
Sara couldn't look away. In fact, she stepped off her pedestal and approached with hesitant steps. The cover-up disappeared as I dropped it to the ground. My body was covered in Ouroboros tattoos, a snake in the shape of a circle eating its own tail. My arms, chest, back, and legs were covered by them.
A look of horrified bewilderment was plastered on Sara's face, and I gave her some time. This wasn't something that could be processed quickly, supernatural entity or not. While she stared, I put my underwear back on.
[[Equipped]]
Leopard Print Undies
(+1 dexterity, Comfort Plus passive acquired)
Ah, that's the ticket. Then, I waited. Maybe I should have given her the memory orb before showing her the tattoos. The look on her face was just priceless, though. I looked down at my body. The gore had, thankfully, come off with the cover-up.
Three years ago, Earth became hell. They had come with no warning, no fanfare. Monsters appeared from nowhere, killing people left and right. It came with a system, like some sort of twisted video game. Everyone had a chance through the system, they claimed.
They were full of crap. The powers that be looked down on our world and thought, "wouldn't it be fun if it were on fire?" The world burned under the attention of the universe. Under the guise of a game that would entertain everyone.
The numbers of dead in the first day alone were catastrophic. The administrators were the worst part. Even though the system was the one doling them out, they had administrative control of the various scenarios and quests we received. To make them more lively, they said.
Killing monsters and completing quests gave you points that you could use to level the playing field. They could be used to raise stats, buy equipment from the shop interface in safe zones, and upgrade abilities. I had become very proficient at getting the most out of these systems. When the game had started, I was very frugal in anticipation of what would come later.
That had been three years ago this time. Each Ouroboros adorning my body was one that I earned by playing their games, by losing my friends and families, and by putting my life on the line for their entertainment. It was one I earned, and then bought to return to just before the beginning.
"How many?" Sara asked quietly. "How many do you have?" I didn't answer. Instead, I picked up the lime I had set down and offered it to her.
[[Item]]
Esaraphelscion's Memory Orb
(Contains the memory of previous iterations of the Angel of the End, Esaraphelscion.)
Sara looked at it for a moment before taking it. She crushed it in her hand after some deliberation, and her eyes clouded over.
For as long as I could remember, Sara was the one waiting for me in these golden halls. At first, I had purchased these memory orbs out of anger. If I would be going back, then I would make sure she knew what I went through. That she was being brought into this time loop by my hand. It was something I had a measure of control over and I had grasped at it like it was a life raft. At first.
The more we spoke, the less my anger was directed towards Sara. Her job was literally only to congratulate the one who completed the last scenario and to ask what the player wanted as a prize. She watched the game, but I couldn't blame her for that; she was left in this room and forgotten from the beginning.
It had been unbelievable to me at first. Who locked an angel away to do one thing that might not even happen? It was wasteful and stupid, but there was an answer; someone higher than her on the ladder probably found it amusing. That was all that mattered to them, and they gave power to their most amusing pawns.
That was the guiding force of the administrators, more power. Here, Sara had no such aspirations with the higher powers. She was stuck until someone else had the misfortune of making it to the Hall of the End.
Luckily, that didn't mean Sara had no aspirations at all. She had been instrumental in helping me refine my runs, pointing out various abilities and items that I should keep an eye out for. She generally watched the same feeds from timeline to timeline, but every so often I'd change things around enough that she'd find some new folks to watch.
Sara's eyes fluttered as the memory orb finished its work. Her eyes focused on mine, and her armor melted away. She was a lot more relaxed when she knew she didn't have to play the part. The armor transformed into a loose hanging toga, still a contrasting white against her bronze skin. It was much better than the armor.
Then she smacked me on the arm. "You asshole!" She half laughed, half yelled. "I told you to stop stripping in front of me before giving me the orb!"
I smiled down at her. Almost all tension had drained from her body. "This was my last chance," I told her. "I wanted to see that reaction one last time. I wasn't expecting to see your true form, either. That was trippy."
"Don't make fun of me," Sara whined, sticking her tongue out at me. She had picked up on a lot of human mannerisms during my resets. "I was just surprised. No one blows through the final scenario in an hour. I couldn't comprehend it. Forget that you saw me that way, or else."
"Or else what, Sara?" I asked, waggling my eyebrows. She smacked my arm again, shoving me away some. I let it go. "The Needle Lancer class with the paralyzing Wasp Knight's Venom worked like a charm against the demons, so I got through them faster than usual."
Sara nodded. "Tell me what you were doing this time," she said. "I only watched you during the end, so I have no idea what kind of shenanigans were pulled."
"Honestly, I took a vacation," I said with a chuckle. "Invested all of my points into Rexxel's Bank, did a few quests early on to help him out, and waited on a beach for like a year and a half. By the time I came to collect, I had enough points to jump up to endgame levels and to get some decent equipment."
"I was watching Coe when you blew through his force's gate holding the demons back from Earth," Sara said, smiling.
"Oh, he was pissed," I chuckled. Coe was one of the top players in nearly every iteration of the game. I liked to needle him, but he was honestly a godsend in my runs; he took care of a lot of big problems that I wasn't built for or around to solve. "Had plans for the demons and everything, then I just came in and went through the whole gauntlet."
A silence descended on the hall, and we stared into each other's eyes. I broke it first after just a few seconds. "Are you sure?" I murmured. "About the next tattoo?"
Sara sighed and reached up to my head. Ignoring the demon blood that had dried in my hair, she pulled me down so that our foreheads were touching. I closed my eyes. The fire that made up her hair was radiating a gentle heat. She smelled like a campfire. Odd, but pleasant.
"I'm very certain, Ant," she said soberly. "After your 100th tattoo, it's going to be prohibitively more expensive. This will be your last run."
My 100th run was next. I had been through 99 instances of this hell. It was self-inflicted, I could admit that, and I had no right to complain about what I had done to myself. They may have started it, but I'm the one who went back time and time again.
"You can't save everyone, Ant," Sara said, wrapping her arms around me. I reciprocated, relishing in the comforting embrace of another. "But you're going to save a lot of people. A lot more than anyone could ever expect."
I nodded slowly. That was why I was doing this. I had to save as many people as I could, and the only way to do that was to beat this twisted game as fast as I possibly could.
"You've been building up to this moment," Sara continued. "You've been testing different builds, gathering information on people, and figuring out the optimal strategies for the scenarios. You know how the administrators are going to react to you. Ant, you can do this."
Sara had gone through various pep talks throughout our meetings, but this time she surprised me. She tilted her head up, our noses brushing, and gently placed her lips on mine. While surprised, I didn't fight it. I returned the kiss.
When we pulled away from each other, we both exhaled. I couldn't help it, I had to tease her. "Did you just sigh?" I asked cheekily. "I didn't think you needed to breathe."
"Don't make me regret that, you jerk," Sara said, trying to pull away.
I didn't let her. My strength was near 200 even though I removed my gear, and she didn't put up a real fight. I pulled her in close to my chest, which she allowed. Her feathers, which brushed against my arms, were soft and warm. When I stroked one of her wings, she shivered. Didn't pull away, though, so I continued.
"I won't," I whispered. "True form or not, I consider you just as human as the ones I'm trying to save. You won't regret helping me."
She rested in my arms for a few minutes. It was something I sorely needed, and I wasn't afraid to admit it. Sara was the only being in all of existence who knew of my plight aside from the system itself, which was calculating and uncaring. That understanding was exactly what I needed right now. The sense of closeness with another recharged me, something I couldn't get on the "vacation" I had claimed to have taken.
"You should pick out your prizes," Sara said as she finally started extricating herself from my arms. I let her go with no small tinge of longing. "There's something new this time, and you should take it."
"Something new?" I asked. It had been a long, long time since anything new had shown up in the after game shop. Instead of answering, Sara took a step back. A box appeared in front of me.
[[Notice]]
Congratulations on your victory, Player Anthony Franklin. Please pick your prize(s) below.
[[Store]]
The Prize (All remaining points)
This was the big one. According to Sara, it was any one wish you had. The problem was that the system had not been designed to be your friend. It took all of the points you accumulated at the end of the run regardless of the wish, but it didn't tell you how much your wish actually cost.
So if someone had the same thought I did and wanted to wish back everyone who died, they could certainly try. The amount of points to do this was simply astronomical, and anything less than the required payment would cause the wish to be corrupted.
The opposite wasn't so much as true as it was infuriating. If you wished for something easy like, I don't know, an ice cream cone, then you'd get it. You'd have also wasted the other hundreds of thousands of points on a ten point wish. Sara and I had discussed this at length, and it was crappy all around.
I kept reading, picking out the ones I knew I would need.
Memory Orb [Angel] (300,000)
Ouroboros Tattoo (500,000)
Ouroboros Cover-up (100,000)
Administrator Black-out [intermediate] (200,000)
Time Capsule [x3] (150,000)
Wondrous Beginner's Stat Kit (20,000)
Wondrous Beginner's Survival Kit (15,000)
Total: 1,285,000
You have 1,297,456 points available. Spend?
Yes
No
I reached for the button to confirm when Sara stopped me. "Scroll to the bottom, there's the new thing," she urged.
And I did so. Most of the things down here were bottom of the barrel items that were somewhat useful for the first scenario and then practically worthless after that. I couldn't dismiss it if Sara was telling me about it, though. The item at the very bottom made me blink.
Esaraphelscion's Kiss [boon] (discounted price: 12,456)
"And here I thought you finally caught feelings for me," I said sarcastically. "But then you go and charge me for it. And take the rest of my points! " My response was in good nature, and I trusted her. Boons often came with good skills or abilities, and I wasn't going to pass it up. I added it to my purchases.
"Hey, I said don't make me regret it," she retorted. "It'll help you, I promise. It's normally much, much more."
Memory Orb [Angel] (300,000)
Ouroboros Tattoo (500,000)
Ouroboros Cover-up (100,000)
Administrator Black-out [intermediate] (200,000)
Time Capsule [x3] (150,000)
Wondrous Beginner's Stat Kit (20,000)
Wondrous Beginner's Survival Kit (15,000)
Esaraphelscion's Kiss [boon] (discounted price: 12,456)
Total: 1,297,456
You have 1,297,456 points available. Spend?
Yes
No
"I believe you," I chuckled. I hit yes and the window disappeared, replaced with another one.
[[Shop]]
Thank you for your purchase. Your items will materialize in the order purchased, so please be patient as they are fulfilled. You currently have 0 points left.
"So what does it do?" I asked, waving this latest window away.
"Two things, one I'm going to tell you, and another that I'm going to surprise you with," Sara said. I couldn't help but notice her eyes twinkling with excitement.
"That's going to make things hard to plan out, Sara," I chided.
"We'll get there when we get there," she claimed. Taking me by the arm, Sara led me to the pedestal she had been hovering over and sat down. I sat down beside her. "The first boon is that you're not going to start at the beginning of the system, but roughly a half an hour before. I'm not sure exactly how much time because of how heavily discounted it was."
My jaw dropped. That was a huge boon no matter how you looked at things. With a head start like that, I could position myself wherever I needed to be. Within reason, of course. I nearly jumped to my feet. "How come you've never offered this before?" I asked, almost yelling.
"Because it's breaking the rules," Sara said. She seemed to anticipate my response, and didn't hold it against me. "The second thing does, anyway. You've had a good track record, phenomenal really, but I wasn't ready to put that level of trust on you. Especially since I wasn't sure what the alternate version of me would think. It's dangerous and it's going to bring a lot of attention down on you."
"Are you going to be upset?" I asked. Her warnings gave me some concern, but I still trusted her. Plus, this was going to be my last chance anyway, so it was now or never.
"We'll… get into that later," she claimed. Sara rested her head on my shoulder and placed her hand on my leg. "So you have a spare half hour at the beginning, run me through what you plan on doing. I want this conversation for the memory orb."
I mulled it over, but decided not to worry about it. Once she revealed it to me, I'd decide then whether or not I'll use it. Even if I never used it, the half hour was well worth it.
"Okay," I said, looking off at the pile of gross stuff that was my former gear. "So the first three things I have to do, is: 1, evacuate a building; 2, warn a barista and get them thinking in the right direction; and 3, pick up a book from the local library."
"The book, huh?" Sara chuckled. "Makes sense. That path always was your favorite."
I nodded. "Yeah, so I'm thinking the first thing I do is call in a bomb threat…"