70: Necessary Adjustments

Necessary Adjustments

{Thomas}

The concept of regret was interesting to think about in the post-Unity Trials world. 

Survival was ultimately all that mattered these days. All players went about their lives understanding this concept. Society had been restructured, sure, but even though laws and social norms had slowly found their way back into people's minds, all it would take to push those laws and norms out of a player's mind was to threaten their survival. 

That is to say that, as long as he stayed alive, Thomas had no regrets. 

He would be lying if he said that things had worked out the way he wanted them to, however. 

"Um, Thomas?" A cute, somewhat timid voice called out to him from ahead, by the front of the tent. 

"Yes, Sally?" He asked, without taking his eyes off the notebook he was writing in. The scribbles on its pages were nothing terribly important. Just his thoughts on what he'd seen up to this point. 

It helped to keep his mind from wandering to useless things.

"The others are waiting," she stated. 

"Right. I'll be out in a moment." 

"... Alright." 

The shy mage left him alone and Thomas sighed, putting his pen down. 

Next to the notebook was an inconspicuous, little, violet rock. If anyone else saw it, they probably wouldn't think too much of it. Thomas, however, reached for it and put it in his pockets, wondering if it would be useful today. 

His bloodstained gloves felt a little too tight, so he took them off before finally walking out of the tent. 

The others were gathered around a table.

The other 10 players all looked similar to one another, making it harder to remember their names. They all wore low-tier, easily found equipment, and none of them walked with too proud a stride or too straight a back. It was one of the things Thomas liked about this group. No one stood out too much. 

Which, hopefully, meant no one would become unsatisfied. When everyone was the same, everything was fair. When one person didn't have too much influence over the group's actions, rebellion was less likely. 

Thomas couldn't trust that to remain the case, however. 

Sure enough, someone had begun to stand out recently. Someone had been standing out since the higher-level players died. 

Thomas himself. 

That was a problem, certainly. But, one he could solve. 

"Well, everyone," he said, putting on a polite smile as he walked up. "Did we make any progress with finding the keys last night?" 

The keys he referred to were the ones they needed to locate before they could access the boss of the Fifth Floor. 

Back when she had been explaining things to everyone, Tamira had told the group of players that each floor of the Main Dungeon would operate as an actual dungeon, but on a larger scale. The first two floors of the Main Dungeon, however, were rather straightforward. They were more like massive arenas than dungeons. 

The last three floors, however, were far more like dungeons. Massive, sprawling levels where the way to progress was unclear at best. 

Thomas and his group had done well enough on floors 3 and 4. His strategy had been simple. Fight as little as possible and ignore anything unnecessary. With those instructions in mind, over the last couple of weeks, the group managed to reach floor 5 but had been stuck for a few days now. 

The Fifth Floor was a cursed city of some sort, composed of a mess of stone and concrete that the group had been struggling to figure out as, upon reaching the boss marker on the map, they realized something. 

Four keys were needed to access its room. And, those four keys would be found elsewhere on the floor. 

Only one had been found so far. Meaning that, although Thomas's ideas had worked up until this point, the rate of their progress had been completely halted. 

No... Maybe they were moving slower than they would have been if they had 60 or 70 other players helping to look for those keys. 

However, Thomas had no regrets about what he did. 

Because, at the end of the day, what mattered was that he was alive. 

"Nope," a girl, a fighter wearing a full set of leather armor, told him. "We checked by that trapped elevator to the west and by the big troll miniboss. Couldn't find it" 

"Ah, unlucky," Thomas replied. "Any treasures, though?" 

"Yep. I already sold it off and deposited the tokens in the camp's container," a man replied, keeping a hand over his sword's hilt lazily. 

Thomas then went to check the Camp's Stash. It was where all of the players would place any excess tokens so that they could then buy food, water, and anything else they needed. 

Camp's Stash 

11215 WS Tokens

As Thomas had been the one to craft the container, he changed its settings so that others could deposit into it, and only he could take money out. 

The others had agreed to that idea as, if Thomas did choose to betray them and take the coins for himself, they would immediately know about it. 

It hadn't helped with the whole "standing out" issue, though. 

"Alright... Well," Thomas chuckled. "I suppose it is my turn to go out looking for them." 

"Finally, the boss gets off his ass," a girl commented and the others laughed a little. 

Although Thomas smiled at her, in truth, that kind of statement was the last thing he wanted to hear. 

"I guess I haven't been working hard enough, I apologize," he said. "Who's going to come with me?" 

The way they'd been choosing to do this was to go in groups of two. Because all they were doing was looking for keys, there was no need to have everyone tiring themselves out. 

"I guess I could go." 

That voice came from exactly the person Thomas had hoped would speak up, Kayla.

Kayla was a level 10 young, Mage-class girl with black pigtails, dimples, and the kind of voice that could thaw even the coldest of hearts. She was also the only one who hadn't killed anyone during the slaughter that took place.

Come to think of it, Thomas couldn't recall seeing this girl killing anything at all. Despite the off-hand warning Tamira had given about not slacking when they'd first arrived at the Final Challenge, this girl hadn't been punished. All of her help in fights came through the use of supportive spells.

Indeed, she'd only come here to support her older sister, who had died on the First Floor, as Thomas had heard a couple of nights ago. 

The girl had spent several hours crying after that, and after what happened on the previous floor, but, now, she was bravely pushing on.

It was respectable. A motivational story out of a novel. She was a big source of inspiration to the group. The one they all wanted to protect.

And, that meant she was dangerous. 

Too dangerous. 

"I'd like that," Thomas replied. "We won't do too much, though, okay? Let's just search the slums to the east for a bit." 

"Cool," she replied, getting out of her chair. 

"Bring us back something nice," a guy said. 

"I'll try!" Thomas replied cheerfully. Smiling, Kayla walked up to him. 

The adoration in her eyes almost felt like she was putting weights on his shoulders. It was the closest he'd come to feeling any guilt at all since what happened. 

The two of them left the Fifth floor's Safe Zone then, venturing out into the city's dark streets, traversing the ghostly green mist.  2

"Spooky," Kayla muttered. "You know, before everything happened, in middle school, we did a haunted house thing that kinda felt like this." 

Going through one's memories was a nice coping strategy. Familiarity eased the heart, after all. Thomas figured he'd help with that. 

"Really? What was it like?" 

"We had these ghosts that chased us around and some zombies trying to bite us," she told him, as the girl looked around them. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face. 

"That does sound quite frightening." 

"Yeah..." She replied, before shifting closer to Thomas. 

She began holding onto his cloak then, lightly. It was slightly annoying, but Thomas let it go. 

"You think the key's nearby?" She asked. 

Thomas, however, asked:

"Did you get to graduate before the Unity Trials started?" 

"Huh? Uh, no," she replied, looking back at him and shaking her head. "I was just a first year." 

"Ah, I see," Thomas replied. "What was your favorite food, by the way? Sorry if it's random, I'm kinda curious." 

"Um... Pizza," she replied. 

"What kind?"

"Pepperoni," she answered. "It can be too spicy sometimes, though." 

"It can!" He laughed. Then, he stopped, turning forward. "Did you hear that?" 

"Huh? What do you mean?" 

"There was a noise up ahead," he said. "Let me check it out." 

Pulling his sword out, Thomas walked up slowly.

"Stay there," he warned Kayla. 

The mage held onto her staff with trembling hands, keeping her eyes fixed on Thomas, just in case she needed to help. 

Thomas stopped. 

"You know," he said, his voice dropping all of its cheer, "history sometimes repeats itself." 

"W-What?" The girl asked with trembling lips. 

"Back on the Second Floor, you know what killed the high-level players? Overconfidence." 

"What are you-" 

As Kayla took a step toward Thomas, she was stopped by a specter. 

A ghostly figure holding a blade appeared between her and the assassin. It moaned with an otherworldly voice as Kayla stared up at it, scared and confused. 

"The high-level players never imagined that people could turn on them, you know?" 

"Thomas..." 

"They thought players would have at least some loyalty to each other. But, they were wrong." 

Two more specters appeared around Kayla. A golden liquid trickled down her legs, pooling at her feet. 

All of them were drawn to her position by the little violet rock laying at her feet, which Thomas had let drop during their talk. 

"I'm not gonna make that mistake, though," Thomas said, as they drew closer to the girl. "You're all a bunch of murderers. There's no loyalty to be found amongst you." 

"HELP!" 

That was the last word she cried out before the specters attacked her. 

Blood-curdling screams filled the air then as she was cut down. Monsters didn't have any sense of attacking vital organs or getting quick kills. So, they just cut whatever parts of her they could reach. 

"And, unfortunately, you're the one most likely to get everyone to turn against me since I'm the high-level now." 

Sighing, he turned around and began walking past the screeching, crying girl. She extended a hand in his direction as spectral blades stabbed her, and he ignored her. 

"You won't judge me. You can't. Think about it a little in the afterlife and you'll understand. I'm just trying to live. I don't want to die either." 

Sure, it felt bad hearing that girl plead and beg as she died in a horrible, painful way. Thomas was no monster, after all. 

But, it was precisely because he was no monster that he'd come to the conclusion that this was necessary. Thinking logically had led him to the simple conclusion that if she ever decided to get rid of him, she could easily gather the others and have them take him down under the pretense of dropping the monsters' levels, just like he'd done before. 

He needed to do this to ensure that he would remain alive. 

And, at the end of the day, staying alive was all that really mattered. 

[I am the high-level now,] he thought. [If I am to stay alive, then, that means one simple thing. I need to get stronger.] 

"Tamira," he called out, asking for the assistant. 

"Yes?" The snake asked. She glanced at the dying girl behind him and tilted her head, looking curious. 

"It was entertainment you wanted, right?" He asked. "You and your superiors." 

"Along with helping you, of course. We are being honest when we say this will be good for humanity, in the end." 

"Yeah, yeah, anyway," Thomas said, smiling back at her. "I have an offer. How about I make things very entertaining for you?" 

The assistant laughed. With her eyes still fixed on the girl, who finally let go and perished as Thomas asked that question, she asked:

"Very well. What is your offer, human?" 

Thomas's smile turned into a grin. The first genuine smile he'd had in a while. 

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