Contents
Chapter 1: Old Habits
Chapter 2: Lesson One
Chapter 3: Job Hunting
Chapter 4: Survival Skills
Chapter 5: Finishing the Job
Chapter 6: Gettin’ Paid
Chapter 7: Punitive Remuneration
Chapter 8: Getting Out of Dodge
Chapter 9: Local Culture, Friendly Wildlife
Chapter 10: Road Trip
Chapter 11: Buying Company
Chapter 12: Run Forrest
Chapter 13: Networking
Chapter 14: Can’t Go Back
Chapter 15: Knock Knock
Chapter 16: Throttled
Chapter 17: The Academy
Chapter 18: Plan C
Chapter 19: The Trial
Chapter 20: Location, Location, Location
Chapter 21: The O’sut Bottleneck
Chapter 22: Factory Settings
Chapter 23: Fan Mail
Chapter 24: The Calm
Chapter 25: The Storm
Chapter 26: The Storm (Pt. 2)
Chapter 27: Aftermath
Chapter 1: Old Habits
***Chris Acker, level 56 Ranger***
Chris Acker whistled as his machete popped in his hand, transferring that exact sensation of cutting through a vertebra through his wrist and into his arm.
The mob’s head rolled off into the street and wobbled in front of one of the men in a similar kneeling posture, held there by the supernaturally strong hands of Chris’s demons.
The man alternated between sobbing and babbling pitifully.
You have gained a level!
You are now level fifty-seven!
“Finally,” Chris muttered, straightening up and working the tension out of the back of his neck. He’d been hunched over, hacking off heads a good half hour, and he was starting to cramp up.
Still, much faster than hunting monsters.
For whatever reason, monsters gave jack shit for XP, at least relative to humans and those other aliens. A man could spend months risking his life fighting monsters people would have only dreamed about before The System, and he’d get maybe four levels.
Rule of thumb: If it can speak, it’s worth more XP.
Chris had figured that out during the Tutorial, when he’d bashed Tony over the head with a rock after the bastard had stolen his weapons. He’d gotten two levels. Two whole levels.
Once the Tutorial was over and Earth had been added to Pharos, everything had kind of fallen to shit for a hot minute before the locals showed up with their government, pointing to their flag and how much bigger it was. In the end, most people accepted tyranny for a hot meal.
Not Chris.
Chris had it figured out.
People were just bags of XP living in close proximity to each other. All you have to do is take advantage of that, and kill enough people, before eventually no one has the power to stop you.
Risk vs. reward.
Sure, when he first got started luring men into dark alleys, they might have been able to stop him, but now?
He glanced at the blood-bound demons that held the few remaining mobs still. They loomed over his prisoners, easily twisting their arms back like a man tormenting an eight-year-old boy.
Now, nobody was going to stop him. It was simply too late for that. Killing people was the most viable way to increase a man’s level, and levels were the quickest way to gain more power to kill. One fed the other.
It was an exponential, runaway equation. After Chris finished with this town, he would skip a few towns over, then maybe backtrack a little bit, so the powers that be didn’t find a pattern in the disappearing towns.
Once he was more confident, he could move up to a small city.
Chris’s eyes glazed over as he pictured the amount of power he could accumulate from an entire city.
“Please, please,” the next guy in line whispered, tears and snot falling like rain.
“Nope,” Chris muttered, bringing down the machete again.
Pop.
The head flew off, knocking up against the previous one. Chris glanced along the line, doing a quick mental tally.
Only a dozen or so adults left, Chris thought, tapping the blade against the corpse’s ribs to get a little of the spatter off. Then I’m outta here.
Chris didn’t know what children were worth, XP-wise, and frankly he didn’t want to know.
Anybody that would consider killing kids is a sick fuck, Chris thought, maneuvering behind the next weeping mob, a grey-haired old woman with saggy tits.
I wonder what she’s worth, Chris thought, lining up the machete with the nape of her neck.
“You know what I hate about people like you?”
A voice caught his attention. It was deep, but soft and feminine, causing him to look up, frowning.
There, sitting on the town’s well, was a melas woman reading a paperback book and smoking. She had an open pack of Camels sitting beside her, and the book had a dark cover with Stephen King’s name featured prominently on the front.
Melas had orange skin and pitch-black nails and hair. They were larger than humans on average, and tended to be muscular as well. The more aggressive ones grew horns.
This woman had horns.
She’s here to stop me, Chris thought, a spike of anxiety going through his guts.
“Kill her!” Chris shouted, pointing at the alien. His demons could give him the time he needed to retreat if she turned out to be—
The melas woman flickered between turning pages, and Chris felt as though he was being torn apart as each and every one of his bound demons slumped to the ground, bisected. Their blood splattered against the adobe buildings as Chris sank to his knees, clutching his chest as his heart registered each and every death.
“I hate people that are smart enough to realize that killing other people is the fastest way to raise your level, but stupid enough to think they were the first person to think of it.”
She held apart a thumb and forefinger, still not looking at him. “Right on that fine line between clever and intelligent. That’s where people cause problems.”
How can I get out of this? Chris thought frantically as the ache in his heart began to calm down,
