Doom System Survivor: A LitRPG Apocalypse, page 29
His hand tingled as the odachi completely vanished.
He was able to draw again, using the exact same notion, and pretending he was clutching his hand around the weapon’s grip. Hiro let out a rare laugh. “Holy fuck,” he said.
While the Doom System had just tried to kill him by sending the Revenant, it had given him an incredible item, one that he knew would come in handy in numerous situations.
Giveth and taketh away, he thought.
After practicing sheathing and unsheathing Masakado’s odachi a few more times, Hiro briefed through his status, which was becoming increasingly long. This would change in the next Interim, where his Roulette Skills, Bonuses, and Accessories would reset. And even though he was used to checking his status in this way, it still felt entirely surreal.
Hiro Johnson
Level Eight
Current Title: Wolf Ronin of Wall Street
STR: 1.8 [+1 Roulette Boost]
STA: 2.8 [+2 Roulette Boost]
DEX: 1.7 [+1 Roulette Boost]
REG: 1.8 [+1 Roulette Boost]
MIND: 2.4 [+2 Roulette Boost]
Soul Essence (SE): 179 [131 SE to next level.]
Stolen Valor: 4
Skills:
{Bounce}, Rank D
{Blade Whirlwind}, Rank F
{Beacon}, Rank A
{Sword Proficiency}, Rank C
{Kore Nani Neko}, Rank A
Roulette Skills:
{Lupine Shift}, Rank A
{Refund}, Rank B
{Sacra Limina}, Rank C
{Kiss or Slap}, Rank E
{Edging}, Rank B
{Inseminating Finger Gun}, Rank C
Roulette Accessories:
{Aura of Laughter} Hyottoko Mask, Rank B
{Buster Kunai}, Rank B
{Bianca’s Fuzzy Pink Shield}, Rank B
One-Hit Wonders:
{GoFundMerc}, Rank A
{Scania the Piss Disc Mimic}, Rank A
Unique Items:
{Basic Katana}, Rank C
{Chronokuma}, Rank S
{Kiri Yōso Vape Pen}, Rank B
{Rune of the Reverse Blade}, Rank F
{Duct Tape of the Tokugawa Shogunate}, Rank D
{Masakado’s Phantom Odachi}, Rank A
Followers: 5,691
City Survivors: 571,695
World Survivors: 342,661,813
Hunter Death Count: 61/89
Beast Death Count: 457/791
Marks:
Butcher’s Mark
He put his phone away as he turned back in the direction of Hell’s Kitchen, the merchant that Samuel had introduced him to who had the vape cartridges. Hiro adjusted his shield on his back, where it looped to his backpack, and prepared to bounce toward Midtown.
His phone buzzed again.
“What could you want now?”
The message he read next caused him to nearly lose his balance.
“What?” Hiro asked as the blood drained from his face. Then, another thought: you are the Doom System.
Before he could say anything, text appeared on the bottom of the screen, the letters starting from the right and moving to the left.
“What the fuck?” Hiro whispered as he read the message again.
The words faded, the creepiness of their sudden appearance made Hiro feel gutted. He wanted to ask what the Doom System meant by its cryptic statement but didn’t.
The system had lost its mind. That was for certain. All he could do was survive.
“Merchant, and then…” Hiro glanced up at the boats floating overhead. “Then Valeria and the others. The Spectators will be here soon.”
48
SKIBIDI TOILET MIMIC AND A CHALLENGE AWAITS
Hiro climbed through the shattered window in Hell’s Kitchen to find Love once again seated on a threadbare couch, the merchant fanning herself. By the smell of it, she had just finished a cigarette.
“You’re back,” she said as her overly mascaraed eyes fell on him.
“I upgraded my vape pen. I’m here for cartridges and for more energy drinks.”
“Yeah?” Love wiped something from her nose. It was only after she pulled her handkerchief away that Hiro saw it was blood.
“Are you all right?”
“Never better, hon. Come on.” She led him into the kitchen. “Followers burning a hole in your pocket, right?”
“Come again?” Hiro asked.
“You wanting to spend them all, or just some? Because I can do a packaged deal.”
“The Munster stuff was helpful,” he said, referring to the energy drink that gave him an additional point in Strength. “Poxstar, too.”
“How about Knockout Punch? I got two of those.”
“No,” Hiro said as he recalled the drink that he’d shared with Samuel, the one that allowed him a rejuvenating one-hour sleep that came coupled with an intense hangover.
“You want me to replace your duct tape armor?”
Hiro looked down at what was left of his armor. There was still some on his shoulders and over his chest. “I have more. Do you have a Healing cartridge for the vape pen?”
“I do.”
“I’d like that, a Bleed cartridge, one or two Munsters, a Smoke Zero, and…” Hiro eyed the woman.
“Yes?”
“Weird question.”
“Try me.”
“Do you have pharmaceuticals?”
“What makes you think that?”
Hiro didn’t want to tell her that she looked like hell, that the only other people he had seen who looked as bad were generally drugged out. “I just figured you would have something. I’m looking to do something like this.” He produced the pill bottles he had worked on with Samuel. Hiro could always check more homes, and maybe would, but he figured it was worth asking.
After lighting a cigarette, Love took one of the bottles from him and examined it. She dumped some of the pills out onto the counter and popped one. “Just testing it,” she said as she chewed the pill.
“Okay,” Hiro said as the woman made a face.
“They don’t taste very good. But I think I can whip up something. How’s this? Five thousand followers for one Munster, one Smoke Zero, one Healing cartridge, one Bleed cartridge, two bottles of pills, and because you are a returning customer, I’ll throw in a Smellcius and a Haterade.”
“Make it two Munsters and you have a deal.”
“If I make it two Munsters, I’ll need five hundred more followers,” she said as she lit a cigarette.
“I can manage that.”
Love blew a cloud of smoke into his face. “Good. Give me a minute.” She took the pill bottle that he had let her examine and popped it in the microwave. Before Hiro could do anything, she pressed the button, and the microwave turned on. “Relax,” she said as he placed his hand on the hilt of his katana.
“Why did you put it in the microwave?”
“Ever heard of a 3D printer? This is sort of like that. Just listen for the ding while I get the drinks. It will come out hot.” She moved to the refrigerator and produced the energy drinks and the cartridges. Love turned just as the microwave sounded off, ding!
With her cigarette hanging from her lip, she popped it open to reveal three pill bottles. “See?”
Love tossed one over to Hiro, the pill bottle hot in his hands. “Crazy,” he said as he placed it on the counter.
“It’s a good idea to let it cool for a second. Now, your followers.”
The screams started up as his followers were sacrificed. There was little Hiro could do besides wait. It got worse once they started shouting his name.
Please, Hiro! Not my daughter! Please—
As the shrieks died down, Hiro bottled his hatred for the Doom System. None of this needed to happen; all that was unnecessary, some added drama for fake spectators. It was psychological torture, and he knew it. Even worse, he was playing into it.
But what choice did he have?
Hiro collected his things and placed the pill bottles in his backpack. They would be helpful if he ran into mimics or any other creature that he could drug. “Do you mind if I put armor on in your living room and hang out here for a bit?”
He checked his phone. Less than thirty minutes before {Lupine Shift} resets…
“Hang out… here?” The merchant shrugged. “Fine by me. Would you like help? I don’t bite.”
“Sure.” Hiro removed his backpack and got the duct tape out. He handed it to her, and she examined it. “Just around your arms? Or do you want me to redo your shoulders and back? What about your mask?”
“Would it still have the same effects if I put it on the mask? It makes some enemies laugh.”
“It would.”
“Then I guess I should do that as well. Arms first.” He spread his arms wide, and Love started to wrap them with duct tape. He could smell her cheap perfume and the cigarette on her breath. He wondered as she helped him who she actually was. Is she really just some real-life version of an NPC?
“When was the last time you were with a woman?” she asked as she started on his second arm.
Hiro was so surprised at her question that his answer got caught in his throat. He remembered Monica, the woman he had spent time with directly after the gates appeared. By the time he started to answer, Love had moved on.
“I have something for you.” The woman reached into her bra and produced a business card. “What? Aren’t you going to take it?”
He took the card, which had an address near Soho. “What is it?”
“A challenge, if you want it. The guy I get my stuff from gave it to me; said to give it to my most ambitious customers.” She started wrapping his mask in armored duct tape. “I haven’t had any customers since then, so I figured you’d like it.”
Like the challenge I did with Samuel earlier, Hiro thought. The one that led me to be marked for the Third Interim. “I’ve done one before,” he told Love. “There was a time skip.”
“Then you should do this one. I heard the prize is really good.”
“How do I know you are telling me the truth?”
“Have I lied to you yet?”
“No.”
“Can you trust anyone?”
“Also, no. I don’t know who to believe any longer.” Hiro looked at the address on the card. He knew where it was.
“Then if you can’t trust me, and you can’t trust anyone, really, then what do you have to lose? You should go.”
“I’ll think about it,” he said as he sat on one of the couches, which was coated with plastic.
Love lit another cigarette, looked him over, and shrugged.
Hiro reached Hudson Yards, where he perched on a building and looked down at the sculpture there known as the Vessel. He had never climbed it; by the time he moved to New York City, they had closed the spiraled structure because people were using it to commit suicide.
Now, it looks to be the home of more of the bat creatures that wielded blades, the same that had killed Juan’s sister. As he remained crouched, Hiro counted a dozen of them.
This gave him an idea.
To lure the first one to his rooftop, he struck it with {Blade Whirlwind}. The beast turned in his direction, flapped its wings, and quickly raced toward him, which drew the attention of a few others.
Another shot from a sword killed it.
Just two hits now? Hiro thought as he aimed his finger at the next one that came for him. Firing at it threw the bat creature off its trajectory, which caused it to smash onto the rooftop, where it hit the base of a water tank. Hiro moved on it immediately and struck the beast down as more Soul Essence poured into him.
Just as he expected, it was much easier to lure them to the rooftop than to hop over to the massive spiraled structure and try to take the bat creatures there. So he did just that, spamming the bats with {Blade Whirlwind} as they inevitably moved in his direction.
It was a cheap move, but he didn’t care. He just wanted the Soul Essence so he could gain another level. Even with the dozen I’ve killed, Hiro thought later as he checked his status, I’m still had a ton of SE to get before I reach Level 9.
Perhaps another thing to tell the Doom System if he ever spoke to it again. Hiro didn’t know if he would do that, but if he did, Hiro would tell it that making every monster, Hunter, Sentry, or Revenant worth exactly one “SE Point” was stupid.
Yet he was reluctant to say anything now considering what happened the last time he brazenly decided to speak to the system.
So he moved on.
He landed again, and something caught his eye on another rooftop.
A… toilet? Hiro thought as he wondered how it had gotten there. Then it dawned on him. No, a mimic.
He reached for one of his pill bottles as information flashed before him.
Description: Very demure, very mindful, very cutesy.
After chewing on his grandmother’s breast implant, a giant named Druon Antigoon left Antwerp to satiate his increasingly dangerous silicone waffle addiction. Upon learning of his departure, Antwerp city officials hired Brabo, a Roman soldier and private sleuth, to pursue the perverted giant and bring him to justice.
Aided by a rotating roster of Capital One Venture Rewards points, Chase Sapphire Preferred points, Bilt World Elite Mastercard points, and American Express Platinum Card points, Druon remained a step ahead of Brabo and a team of comical Pinkerton detectives.
For nearly a decade, the caitiff giant kept them on the run, the man fueled by silicone waffles, ramen, Eurosceptic right wing media, and a blossoming affection for the lovely and very porcelainly Skibidi, a lady toilet mimic and former scatwoman famed for the line “ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub” that Druon met in Ohio.
In a twist that resembles Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Druon and Skibidi’s star-crossed love affair fell apart once Skibidi tragically revealed Druon’s location to Belgium’s notorious State Secret Service, who quickly located and took Druon into custody.
After allowing Brabo to sever Druon’s wrist and transport it back to Antwerp, where it later became a tourist attraction, the Belgian government killed and buried Druon in an unmarked grave near Ohio’s Serpent Mound. They later ordered a hit on Skibidi once Antwerpian authorities were humiliated by a Netflix documentary produced by 50 Cent.
That same Skibidi, the lady toilet mimic you have just spotted, has been on the run from the Belgian authorities ever since.
Kill the toilet mimic and be rewarded. But you’re going to have to catch her first, and she will fight back if cornered. En garde!
Hiro was just about to hit the toilet mimic with {Blade Whirlwind} when it vanished, leaving a twinkling bit of light in its wake.
He waited for a few minutes for it to return, and when it didn’t, he checked the address Love had given him just to be sure he was in the right location. This wasn’t necessary. Hiro could see the spectral beings lined up outside a building just beyond the Lincoln Tunnel.
He bounced down to street level and cut to the front of the line, to a door cordoned off by a dramatic set of red drapes.
The Doom System’s creepy voice came to him as it had at the last Doom Sample Sale:
[Hello, Survivor. You have discovered a Doom Sample Sale. Welcome. The cost of entering the Doom Sample Sale is your life. Win, and your life will be given back to you alongside a Legendary Item and other potential boons based on your performance. Lose, and your life will be retained by the Doom System, your corpse subject to reuse in the Second Interim. Unlike the last Doom Sample Sale you attended, this one won’t take an exorbitant amount of time.]
“Got it,” Hiro said, noting that the Doom System hadn’t mentioned anything about quantizing his health to HP or his MIND to Mana, as it had during the last sample sale either.
Hiro didn’t hesitate as he approached the red curtain.
The Doom System did whatever it wanted, yet the point remained. If he was to stop it—if Hiro was going to do put an end to the madness—he was going to have to take risks. He would need to get stronger, and to do so, he would need to push himself in ways he would have never dreamed of.
“Here goes nothing,” Hiro said as he stepped through the curtain.
49
M-F-K
By now, Hiro knew that the Doom System was capable of sheer cruelty and madness. It was able to defy laws of physics, and it had no problem changing the rules as it saw fit.
But this? This was too much.
“Monica?” Hiro said as he stepped into a dark arena, a single spotlight shining onto a beast in its center. At least the top half was the Monica that he lived with in the New York subway system at the start of this madness, the one who had taught him to pick locks, who had been his companion.
The bottom half was something else entirely.
Monica’s torso was grafted onto the back of a sinewy bear covered in pulsing neon blue veins bright enough to create a sickening aura. She wore medieval armor, which, like Masakado’s samurai gear, was arranged in layers. In her hands were a pair of steel construction beams, the ends of which had been sharpened. She was much stronger than the Monica that Hiro once knew, the woman easily able to hold the construction beams like they were a pair of short batons.
“Hiro?” Monica asked, her voice quivering. “Is that… you? Take off your mask. Let me see your face.”
The boss description came whether Hiro wanted to read it or not.
Description: The Imp of the Perverse is a story by Edgar Allen Poe about our compulsion to act against our own self-interest, which later inspired Temu’s European campaign and its slogan “I like it. It’s mine. The prices blow my mind. Shop like a billionaire with Temu.”
What Temu failed to explain is that a billionaire doesn’t shop like a simp. They don’t shop like you. A billionaire shops with power, and the more they gain, the more things turn into a Diddy freak-off for everyone sans the lube.
