Chapter 87: Big in Japan
“Much better to get a full-fledged Class for free than invest in the training or resources to make them after the fact. As long as there’s enough of them appearing naturally, anyway.”
It was a familiar mindset, one that had come to dominate the western school of capitalist discourse. Co...
2024-11-30 19:47:32 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 86: Grave Consequences
[Adjudicator - Level 25]
“Well, you were right, there’s nothing left of the guy.”
I wasn’t typically one to monologue, but I felt the need to break the mood. The alternative was to stand around dead silent, being stared at by a giant floating eyeball, whic...
2024-11-30 17:57:10 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 216: Shock and Awe
Emma backed away from the ledge immediately after dropping the payload, making sure to put some solid ground between them. Even so, the explosion was shockingly loud, making her teeth rattle and leaving a distinct ringing noise in her ears.
[It’s a good thing this body is te...
2024-11-28 23:12:37 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 85: Impure World Reincarnation
“This is John, the young master of a rather influential official who lives near the top of Heaven’s Reach. His kind wouldn’t normally be caught dead in these parts, but John here decided it would be a good time to sneak out for a night of carousing with only a few servants behin...
2024-11-28 21:19:52 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 84: Look Down
Annoyingly, neither of them said a thing to me, though judging by how Kyle stiffened shortly after, they had simply chosen to send him the details instead. An understandable precaution for sharing sensitive information, since we were still standing out in the street, so I couldn’t fault them for it ...
2024-11-28 20:38:43 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 215: Flashdance
The stun grenade, that is, not a random flashbang effect in a can; even Felix wasn’t so cruel as to include joke crates with debuffs on an already lethal map. That said, this wasn’t entirely without problems, as Emma didn’t have a belt or anything to clip the grenade to, so she had to settle f...
2024-11-27 20:20:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 83: Slumdog Millionaire
It was never a question whether a rough part of town existed. There was always one, in every decently sized human population, that particular kind of place which ranked at the bottom of every list except the local crime index. In the time before, Brixton had famously held this ...
2024-11-27 18:11:22 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 82: Call Me, Beep Me
We left the inn via the front door, which was a first for me; our caravan was parked in the empty space behind it, from which we disembarked and headed straight inside through the staff entrance. The main street was still busy despite it being late at night, a marked departure from Allensward a...
2024-11-27 15:56:16 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 214: The Strongest Card
Neither Emma nor Dione were moving now, the former thinking the situation over, while the latter was happy to conserve energy in the battle of attrition their standoff had become.
“How exactly did you find a matching set of magical items?” Emma questioned, leaning fully into a snoo...
2024-11-26 18:59:23 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 81: Aggressive Negotiations
“There’s a good reward for a proper specimen,” Kyle agreed, his poker face returning rather quickly, albeit too late for it to really matter. “But that comes with strings attached. If you turn it in, expect a lot of scrutiny from higher up for being the one to make the kill, not ...
2024-11-26 17:27:36 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 80: Changing of the Guard
I had plenty of complaints to levy against Frontier’s education system, but even I could admit that they got the job done, at least in areas where the requisite institutional will existed. All it took was me holding up the Changeling’s desiccated remains for inspection, and both advent...
2024-11-26 16:07:36 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 79: Among Us
[Harvey: Don’t trust your eyes.]
On its own, this was a generic bit of advice, broadly applicable to everything from walking at night to the dangers of mass media. Every message had its own time and place however, and given that I’d last seen Harvey before he set off to meet ...
2024-11-25 05:00:57 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 78: Ratatouille
One of the nice things about a quasi-medieval society was the relaxed attitude towards bringing your pet with you to dine. That had often been an issue back in London, whenever the team went out together and brought the office cats along for the ride. Some restaurants were accommodating, others trie...
2024-11-25 01:22:50 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 77: Flogging a Dead Horse
“The Dead Horse,” I raised an eyebrow at the graphic sign overhead, featuring the eponymous horse being disembowelled in rather gruesome fashion. “This is where we’re staying?”
The inn wasn’t bad, if anything it was larger, cleaner and better lit than the one in Allenswar...
2024-11-23 22:23:52 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 76: Internationale
[You will Receive the following. Accept/Reject?
System Permissions
Direct Messaging, Chat Groups
Covenant
Freeman: Class will be lost if you ever wi...
2024-11-23 20:23:27 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 75: Papers, Please
Gridlocked traffic was something I was all too familiar with, London having had the dubious title of the most congested city in the west. The average commuter lost close to an hour a day sitting still on the road, equating to a massive loss of man hours a month, a problem that several government ...
2024-11-23 16:41:33 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 74: Heavensward
Three weeks ago, the caravan set off from Allensward with high hopes and expectations. Six carriages, a mounted escort of a dozen archers, with Harvey and I along for the ride. Now, as we crested the final hill on the long road North, only four carriages remained, one destroyed as a gambit to turn a...
2024-11-23 15:07:03 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 213: Help! I'm a Teenage Outlaw
Emma was feeling quite relaxed after easily dispatching her first two opponents. Mindful of the eventual shrinking of the arena, she abandoned her walk around the periphery and began heading toward the centre. Not directly, but rather in a winding route that kept her close to cover t...
2024-11-23 13:11:44 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 212: Enter The Fist
Emma’s improvised attack didn’t quite land, but that wasn’t to say it was pointless. Her stalker was certainly shocked by it, backpedalling with a startled yelp that put paid to his hopes of a quick victory.
“Are you compensating for something?” Emma couldn’t help blurt o...
2024-11-22 12:31:45 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 211: Stroke of Midnight
The wait until midnight passed largely in silence, as Felix vanished soon after greeting Emma, presumably to tend to the other contestants. Edith wasn’t in the mood to talk either, leaving Emma alone with her thoughts. The sole disturbance to this routine came at five minutes to midnight, ...
2024-11-21 10:13:23 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 71: Let It Go
I could only roll my eyes at that; there had been little to do except wait, ever since I woke up in that empty void.
[Item template selected.
Commencing calibration.]
Any minute now, I thought to myself, feeling a sudden shi...
2024-11-21 08:24:35 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 70: Frozen
[Level Up!]
I opened my eyes to an empty white void, not a single discernible feature to be found. Turning my head made no difference and my sight stayed the same; were it not for the faint pressure on my neck and shoulders as I moved, I wouldn’t have been able to tell a differen...
2024-11-21 07:21:02 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 210: Fight Club
[This looks to be the one.]
Emma halted in front of a plain white tent, exactly the same as all the other tents.
“I can understand the need to avoid provoking each other with heraldry, insignia and the like, but surely an exception could be made for some form of identi...
2024-11-20 10:41:59 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 69: Ice
The front horse whinnied pitifully, the forced calm of its blinders and whatever coated its feed (because no horse could be so calm in battle without supplements) failing as Sprites broke off to torment it, an act that served no purpose in the order of battle except perhaps to showcase their cruelty. They d...
2024-11-20 08:54:16 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 68: A Frosty Reception
Blizzard conditions presented some unique challenges for combatants, even more so than the dead of the night. Even back on Earth, arctic warfare was the bane of generals and a death sentence for troops in their millions, as every aspect of battle fell under the aegis of General Winter, and I ...
2024-11-20 06:54:59 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 209: Nocturne
Emma stayed outside of the family tent for a while after returning, and even did a few more loops in the sky nearby, but there were no more fortuitous encounters to be found. It was still the first day, and most of the attendees were not quite as prompt, so it was only their servants scurrying around ...
2024-11-19 10:51:51 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 67: Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
“It’s hard to believe we’re almost there.”
Pumpkin didn’t respond, preferring to keep snoozing away in my lap, wrapped up snug in his blanket, such that only the tips of his ears remained outside, the very image of a burrito. Since his little misadventure wi...
2024-11-19 09:35:00 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 66: The Devil’s Lettuce
Have you ever tried to pick up a squirming, nearly insenstate cat? Let me tell you, it’s a lot harder than it looks, and it looks pretty hard to begin with. Somehow, Pumpkin was both too out of it to recognise me, while remaining coherent enough to do his level best to scratch up my arms...
2024-11-19 07:36:43 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 65: My Chemical Romance
The inside of carriage six looked little different to the one Pumpkin was more familiar with, the only difference being the lack of any chairs. Instead, stacked crates lined the inside from floor to ceiling, maximising the available space to pack as much merchandise as possible for the long ...
2024-11-18 08:04:59 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 64: Stray Cat Strut
Ultimately, I gave no further thought to the matter of the Rainbow Fruit, beyond making a mental note to tell Pumpkin not to eat certain valuables, if they ever entered my storage. Whether he would listen was an open question, but I wouldn’t know without trying. As for tasting it myself, whils...
2024-11-18 06:58:29 +0000 UTC View Post