A group of Glathar lay before me, shivering as they recovered from their ordeal; my gland responsible for producing painkillers had run out halfway through. I’d taken some pity on them though, and only extracted two organs total, while taking a single feeler from the rest.
I handed a Troll Blood Potion to the two missing their mucus glands, and swiftly installed one of them in a spare spot. A thin, slimy film began to ooze out of my pores and coat the surface of my skin.
I’d already inquired and found that the mucus the Glathar produced possessed moderate healing properties, which was always a welcome addition.
I stowed the spare mucus gland away in my Inventory, and got to my feet. There was an important matter to be discussed with Xandros and the others.
They were gathered around a small fire, eating and drinking as they relaxed. With a solemn expression, I approached and cleared my throat, drawing their attention.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to get this out of the way before we proceeded any further. It.... may not be in your best interests to continue travelling with me.”
With a puzzled look, Khaelen responded, “What do you mean by that? We don’t really have any issues with your stupid antics, if that’s what you’re talking about.”
“No, it’s not that. I didn’t think this would be an issue when I first agreed to tag along, but things have changed recently. My Nemesis is now only a short distance from me, and could potentially show up at any time. If you’d like for us to go our separate ways, I understand.”
I had no intention of concealing my predicament from the beginning. They deserved to know what they were getting themselves into by travelling with me.
Xandros then spoke, saying, “You have helped us with our own Nemeses twice now, without asking for anything in return. Though we may not possess your strength, we are not such spineless scum as to abandon you in your time of need.”
I shook my head as I sighed.
“You don’t understand, my Nemesis is.... from a Tier 0 world. Apparently that world was one of the victors of the last Realm Wars, and they’re incredibly favored to win this one as well. They haven’t seemed to really care about eliminating me since the beginning, but with how close they are now, who knows? They might just decide to stop by and wipe us all out as an afterthought.”
A hushed silence fell over the group for a time. A few people instinctively took a few steps back, their eyes nervously darting about.
Khaelen spoke first, breaking the tense atmosphere finally.
“A Tier 0 Nemesis... are you serious? Didn’t you say you were from a Tier 6 world? I’ve never even heard of someone getting matched with a Nemesis more than two tiers above them.”
Ha! I knew this matchmaking system was rigged! Everyone else is getting fair opponents, while I’m sent in as cannon fodder.
But Khaelen’s words brought me pause; perhaps this had truly been done intentionally. There was a very high chance that this was part of the restrictions that had been placed on the higher tier races.
The System would only match them with bottom of the barrel Nemeses, so that they could only collect low-grade abilities. At their power levels, the majority of these abilities would most likely serve no benefit to them. Meanwhile, the other weaker combatants could be given time to accumulate more abilities and various rewards, possibly narrowing the gap.
The more I thought about it, the more my theory made sense. A Tier 0 race that managed to slay multiple Tier 1 or even other Tier 0 Nemeses in the beginning would quickly snowball out of control, becoming utterly unstoppable.
Melchior had explicitly stated that the deities orchestrating this event did not wish to see another one-sided slaughter similar to the previous Realm Wars. Unfortunately, I had caught the short end of the stick as part of these preventative measures.
Maybe that was why my Nemesis hadn’t bothered hunting me down? Because they knew that there’d be no point?
One of my minds argued that perhaps they were simply just as lazy as I was, and couldn’t be bothered. Another speculated that my Nemesis was being besieged by multiple high tier races in an attempt to eliminate them early on; they didn’t have the time to care about me.
A soft, yet determined voice suddenly interrupted my thoughts.
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“It...it doesn’t matter, Mister Adun! No matter what, I’ll still stick with you! If it weren’t for you, I would have died a long time ago.”
Xandros nodded as well, saying, “Indeed, it is as Misha says. We shall stand together and let what may come, come. Emerging victorious in these Realm Wars is already an undertaking equivalent to challenging the heavens, for beings as lowly as us. What does one more obstacle matter?”
A few others murmured in assent and Khaelen patted me on my shoulder.
I coughed gruffly and turned my face away. To be completely honest, I’d expected them to turn me away; we hardly knew each other after all. These otherworlders were a better bunch than I’d thought.
A shaking voice suddenly spoke out, as if hearing my thoughts.
“Are you all crazy? Going with someone who has a Tier 0 Nemesis? No matter how much we owe him, I can’t risk going with someone like that. If you won’t make him leave, then I’ll have no choice but to go on my own from here on out.”
The voice came from one of the Tier 5 otherworlders who had retreated in fear earlier. Another individual standing next to him nodded in agreement at his words.
Xandros frowned, his eight eyes narrowing in anger.
“My decision is final, Varas. If you are unable to come to terms with this, then I wish you the best of luck on your journey.”
Varas clenched his teeth, as he glared at me. Then without a word, he and the other Tier 5 otherworlder turned around and vanished into the thick of the Canopy.
I felt a bit guilty as I watched them walk away and hurriedly spoke.
“Are you really sure about this? I mean, I’m actually completely fine travelling by myself. Really, the only reason I’m sticking around is to look for the exit and maybe farm some points from all your enemies.”
Khaelen shook his head as he said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s actually better that this happened now, rather than later. In a real life and death battle, those two would have been the first to run away.”
Ah well, that’s true I suppose. Nothing worse than a teammate who abandons you to save their own skin.
With that settled, I sat down next to them by the fire and began to chat. A few of them continuously cast strange looks at my appearance, but I didn’t mind.
While doing so, I took some time to finish asking Misha about her newly acquired abilities. Her
The downside was that only one target could be marked at a time, and
I gave a couple of my old intelligence accessories to Misha as a small gift, since I no longer had need of them. As I asked around, I found that most of the Tier 5 otherworlders were shockingly poor, possessing at most one or two pieces of equipment and hardly any spare points.
Apparently, this wasn’t unusual; there was a rather scarce source of points to begin with in the Canopy, and rewards had to be split amongst groups. I, on the other hand, had the benefit of being able to monopolize everything for myself, provided I had the strength to take it.
With this in mind, I took the chance to discuss the plans of our collaboration. No progress seemed to have been made in finding the path to the next layer of Bellona, so something else needed to be done in the meantime.
I rose to my feet and waved all my arms, drawing the attention of the fifty-odd otherworlders present.
“Do any of you currently have a Nemesis above Tier 4?”
As they all shook their heads, I nodded in satisfaction. Excellent, this would make matters much easier.
“I would like to propose a way for us to quickly increase our strength. Until now, most of you have been simply trying to survive, and avoiding confrontations whenever possible. This kind of mindset, while successful in the beginning, will cause you to quickly fall behind everyone else, and eventually lead to your deaths. Risks must be taken if any of us are to have a chance of victory.”
Xandros then spoke, saying, “What is that you are suggesting we do then?”
“Instead of constantly being on the run, we should simply stay in place and allow our Nemeses to come to us. Although not all of them may be pursuing us, there are surely quite a few of them with how large our group is. I’ll aid in subduing them and allow you to take their abilities, while I harvest their parts and some of their points. We won’t actively seek out any Nemeses, but any that approach us will be considered fair game.”
I continued speaking, saying, “Whenever a Nemesis gets close, the rest of you will hide far away so they don’t get scared off. I’ll keep their target member underground with me and scout them out before having you guys come over. Since the Map doesn't display any sort of y-axis for markers, it should be hard for them to detect us without any special abilities.”
“So... what do you all think?”
Khaelen slowly nodded, saying, “I like it. To be honest, with how we are now, we might not be able to survive the next layer even if we find this layer’s keystone. It’s better for us to collect more points and abilities than just run around aimlessly.”
Misha then asked, “But won’t some of them be suspicious that we aren’t moving from our spot? They might figure out it’s a trap.”
I chuckled as I replied, “Sure, they might think its strange. But any of them chasing us will at least be curious enough to investigate. I can create signs of battle in the surrounding areas, and even spread some of my spare parts around. They’ll think that their Nemesis target is too injured to move and easy pickings.”
“You’re one messed up guy, you know that?”
“Keep talking if you want to taste a Glathar-flavored booger, Khaelen.”
The rest of the group loudly chattered as they discussed the pros and cons of my plan for nearly half an hour. I input more specifics of the plan, such as the point and loot distribution, until a vote was finally taken.
Somewhat surprisingly, there was a unanimous decision to proceed as planned. Fortunately, everyone seemed to have recognized the dire need to improve their capabilities.
I was glad as well; I sincerely hoped that they would eventually be able to flourish on their own without my aid. Otherwise, they’d merely become an anchor dragging at my heels and eventually be cast off.
“Alright, who’s up first?”