447: Something is Rotten in Denmark

Something is Rotten in Denmark

Dave had 'dinner' with the Silvanas that night. It was a great replacement for the pizza that Bone Breaker had wasted. The meal consisted of some fancy French food that Dave couldn't even spell. However, his hunger didn't care for what the food was called because it tasted heavenly and his growling stomach demanded more.

Happily, Dante laughed as he watched how ravenous Dave was, "I've never seen someone with such appetite after having gone through a similar experience. Usually, people can't stomach any solid food for a day or two."

Dave munched on his food and took a big chug from his glass of wine and replied, "Never Hunger might be for the Undead, but I'm starving, and to be honest, I've had experienced much scarier and more frightening scenes than to lose my appetite over a gun."

"Davey is so brave," Zoe cooed, to which Dante coughed, reminding her of where she was or more accurately who was also here with them.

Zoe laughed it off and excused herself, it was time for her to go to sleep.

"I guess I'll head out too," Dave tried again after wiping his face.

"Nonsense!" Dante objected. "I 'insist' that you stay with us. You'll sleep in the guest room. There is a shower there, and I've prepared some spare clothes for you in the morning. There is also a nightgown and pajamas since I was unsure what you preferred. Once your place is fixed you can go there, but now you're staying and I'm not taking no for an answer," Dante adamantly stated.

"Yes, sir," Dave replied awkwardly.

Dave left for the room Dante pointed out. It was as large as his own bedroom, with a bigger bed and a closet that held various clothes, most of them were night pajamas. Dave took one and went to take a quick shower in the room's own bathroom.

After finishing up he went to sleep, only to be interrupted by his phone ringing.

Zoe was calling.

"Davey," she spoke, her voice had a small hint of anxiousness.

"Yeah?"

"Wanna come over?" she suggested.

"Course, I do, but if your dad catches me, I doubt he'll be using the lighter gun this time. I don't think my luck is big enough to survive two encounters with people pointing guns at me."

Zoe giggled and offered: "Then, how about I'll come over~?"

Dave snickered. He felt like they were like two kids being mischievous.

However, the moment Zoe's door opened, a loud cough sounded from the hallway.

Almost immediately, she closed her door and called Dave again.

"Damn, he is standing right outside my room…" she reported back, her voice being a mix of half scared half disappointed.

Dave laughed it off. "Yeah, honestly I'm not that surprised. Your dad is great like that.��

"How exactly is he great? Not even letting me visit my boyfriend in his room," Zoe pouted.

"Hey, if I had a daughter and I had invited her boyfriend over, I'd also never let him stay within a meter of her. Gotta respect your dad for protecting his precious daughter from her handsomely charming evil prince of the undead," Dave answered jokingly.

Zoe giggled, "You're weird."

The two kept chatting for a while until they both felt their eyes getting heavy and agreed that it was time to sleep. Soon the sun would start to rise.

Dave woke up to the ringing of his phone, Zoe was calling him over for breakfast.

The three gathered up and ate together, and Dave had to excuse himself and leave soon.

"Why are you leaving this early?" Dante asked.

"I need to be back home before 10 o'clock. My duel in the Clash of Gods event is gonna start soon and then I still got my big mission." He apologized.

"Right, then, I'll have the driver take you back home. James and Nicolai should have already fixed your door for you and probably also cleaned up the mess inside. I had them rent out the apartment right under yours to avoid anything like this happening again."

"Isn't that kinda expensive? I mean I'm thankful for the protection, but it's pretty expensive to rent those places."

"Don't worry about that, your safety is more important than a few Benjamins."

Dave smiled genuinely, Dante's sincerity was heartwarming. He wondered if this was what it was like to have a father who genuinely cared for his son… 

Before Dave could get worked up, he thanked them for all their hospitality, bid Zoe and Dante goodbye, sneaking in a quick peck on Zoe's cheek, and quickly went downstairs.

Once he got downstairs, the driver opened the limo's door for him to enter.

It didn't take them much time to arrive back at Dave's home. The first one to meet him inside was the Russian guy, Nicolai. Dante had told him that he was an ex Spetznaz with fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes and looked like a wall of muscles.

"Ze Door iz Fixzed, Ve'll Ve Downstairz. Coll eef you need Help."

Apparently, the Russian military man had the strongest Russian accent Dave had ever heard before, it didn't matter it was still clear.

"Gotcha, thanks, guys."

Nikolai nodded and went downstairs.

Dave got inside, and scurried to his gaming room, he had missed his gaming pod. And it was time to go back and do some more serious things.

He logged in after scrolling down and accepting the now revised terms and conditions. Once inside, he waved away the greeting notification from the game. He had five more minutes before the Clash of Gods event would start, and right after it, he'll need to go and clear the Ash King's Temple.

Ralph called Dave a few seconds after he logged in.

"Yo, sup bruh," Dave greeted his buddy.

"I need your help, man. I'm currently stuck at the final stage of my Legacy Quest, can you help a brother out?" Ralph asked.

"Sure man, but I'm in the middle of something right now. I need to wrap up my duel in about a minute and afterward I have a little quest to do that can't be delayed. Once I'm done I'll call you and we can go for your Quest."

"Right bro. Say, do you mind if I borrow some of your Undead while you are busy?"

"No problem. Just be polite to them, and don't use them as meat shields," Dave cautioned his buddy teasingly.

"I wouldn't dare. If there is any danger, I'll face it with them!" Ralph declared heroically.

"Great, that's the way to get them to recognize you as a friend. Alright gotta go, man, my duel is about to start."

"Good luck, brosky!"

"Thanks, man. Good grinding to you too."

Dave removed the leather armor that he got from Hammering-It-Gud and began donning his Doom Knight Armor. His stats were back to their usual form once he had finished putting his armor on. He also changed from his human appearance back to his Undead one.

A notification covered Dave's vision; it was the prompt for the Clash of Gods event.

Dave went through the teleportation vortex and appeared on the dueling platform, his contender had yet to appear.

After waiting for a few minutes, Albert showed up,

"If your contender doesn't show up in the next twenty seconds, you will win the round by default and proceed to the next one. You'll get the normal points for winning nonetheless."

A timer showed up in front of Dave and began decreasing.

Dave didn't care much for the timer, or the round, it was all the same to him. He just wanted to get this fight over with to proceed with more urgent matters. The Ash King's forces needed to be snuffed out before he could get the chance to recruit more. The final assault on the Ash King was nigh, and he needed as many advantages as he could get.

Once the timer hit 00:01, light from the other side of the platform glowed brightly.

"Ah, it's you again," Albert spoke.0

Dave didn't understand what was going on, but the player in question was shaking.

"I surrender," he said almost immediately upon seeing the Death Knight's form.

Before Dave could even inspect him, the player was teleported out of the platform and Dave returned to the inn he had entered before he began the Clash of Gods event.

"The heck was that?" Dave questioned and asked Albert to come.

Albert showed up, holding his famous pina-colada juice and in his Hawaiian getup. The world turned black and white, a separate time zone so that no NPC could ever discover the existence of the AI ruling the world.

"Wassup," Albert asked as he took a sip.

Dave ignored the long since dusted greeting and questioned, "Would you mind explaining what just happened? What did you mean by, it's you again then?"

"Oh, it's that player's modus operandi." Albert answered, "He always shows up really late for fights, to make his opponents think that he was not going to make it. They usually drop their guard and relax. When he finally shows up he doesn't let them catch their rhythms and finishes them off. It's worked for him thus far, but once he saw he was facing you…well, you saw the outcome. Can't really blame the guy, for not wanting to fight the #1 player on the level board and after you defeated all those Guildmasters." Albert went for a sip of his drink.

"Ah, I thought that…" Dave's words were cut short as he noticed something that shouldn't be happening.

The coconut Albert was drinking from pixelated for a fraction of a second, enough for the content to spill out and the small paper parasol in the coconut to fall to the ground.

Albert, however, seemed none the wiser.

"Unless you need me for something else, I'll be going now," Albert informed him.

"Wait, you dropped this," Dave pointed at the paper parasol.

"Oh, my bad, Albert waved his hand and removed the parasol from the ground. "Trash should go to the trash bin. Now I wish you luck in your future endeavors. I quite enjoy your adventures," Albert then disappeared.

Dave however was worried. How come the AI was glitching? He only ever faced that when the now infamous Alfred had been hunting him, yet Alfred was supposed to be dead! Self-terminated as Emile Kada had told him. Could the system be under pressure with Albert's new responsibilities?

Dave's questions went unanswered as he recalled that he still needed to deal with the Ash King's Temple. He made a mental memo to maybe contact the Lead Developer and inform him about these strange occurrences that he just experienced.

"Right, it's gonna be in-game mid-night soon, gotta get this done." Dave proceeded to switch out his gear once more, to prepare for his infiltration.

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