alwaysunqualified

  Chapter 38 – Dead man walking

  It was almost New Year's as my squad and I made our way through Emberwood, an encve on the border of our territory and that of The Amazons. According to the military's maps, this was the edge of our territory. The Amazons would probably cim the whole forest theirs, but they never ventured beyond the deeper, innermost sections, their tribe constantly moving in search of high tier monsters.

  This octave was a forest dotted with buildings. At its center stood a massive tree that seemingly attacked anything threatening the area and was responsible for the vast barrier marking the extent of its influence. The tree wasn't technically alive, yet it possessed enough intelligence to recognize that the people here intended to protect it.

  [Tier: ??? Has developed a mind but no soul.]

  As I surveyed the area, I noticed that even here, on the outskirts, preparations for the New Year were underway. The crowds carried mementos for those who had passed. When the year turned, they would spread out to commune with their deceased loved ones, believing this to be the year they were closest to our world again.

  This was likely the saddest year. Many women, hollowed after their husbands' deaths, ended up committing suicide, finally reuniting with their spouses, while others found the strength to y their losses to rest. The church in the city was probably gathering all women who had lost loved ones in the st cycle. 'I wonder if mom... Let’s not think about it.'

  Shaking off my thoughts, I looked up at the sky, noting it was past the 30th hour, approaching the fourth part of the day.

  "The year of the goddess of death, huh?" I mused, observing the bck motifs that adorned the trees.

  Here, it's believed that your spark is breathed into life by the goddess of life, who sets you on your path to grow. At the end of that journey, the goddess of death awaits. She devours your spark, merging it with her essence. The more vibrant your spark, the more significantly your passing resonates with her and the world.

  I've also heard tales that all the deities wait at the end. Those who are truly extraordinary may become eternal servants to their chosen goddess.

  "Well, both are wrong, but that's neither here nor there," an irritating voice chimed in.

  ‘There goes my peaceful day. What are you doing here?’ I asked the smiling girl who stood out starkly against the dark backdrop.

  "Of course I'm here to wish you a happy early 17th birthday. They grow up so fast. Here's your present," she said, her cheerfulness unyielding as a box materialized in my hands. It was a white box adorned with a drawing of a blonde elf with her eyes rolled back, tongue out and white fluids all over her face.

  "Hey, what is that?" Andy inquired, eyeing the box that had appeared suddenly, drawing the attention of the others in our group.

  They weren't the only curious ones; many passersby stopped to stare at me, including an elf girl who bore a striking resembnce to the character on the box. I quickly stowed the box away and continued on, ignoring the stupid goddess and the guys who pleaded to see it again.

  "Come on, look at her ahegao, how could you pass this up," the goddess teased, projecting a full animated image of the elf girl, her face morphing from normal to the one on the box. "Just because you're worried about these shadows that can insta-kill. We've talked about this; you need to head to the elves, no staying in the city. Besides, 'insta-kill' is overrated—it never works when you need it most."

  I stopped dead at her st comment, unable to fully tune her out. "What?"

  Before she could respond, my uniform signaled an emergency. The next second, a sharp arm bred through the air, used to quickly gather adventurers.

  This pce had a sizable adventurers' guild, benefiting from high-tier pnts and reduced danger thanks to the Amazons. It also has started serving as the primary trading post for the Amazons, Consequently, many missions were avaible form those unable or unwilling to leave the city, thought the guild.

  "Come on, let's head to the base and see what's up," I said to my squad, dismissing the goddess's antics. Whatever she said tended to be annoying, vague, or misleading. It was better to check things out for ourselves.

  We navigated through a throng of confused people back the way we came. We quickly approached the exit of this octave, where the base was located. The buildings were sporadically arranged among the trees, but thankfully, my map highlighted the location of the emergency meeting with a blue pinging symbol.

  Upon entering, we saw about a hundred girls lined up in the hall, facing a rge, bnk dispy that resembled a whiteboard. At the entrance stood a girl in a standard uniform. I was thankful that military uniforms here actually covered your body.

  “You are?” the girl at the entrance asked, holding a blue orb that likely served as a record-keeping device. Given that every magical item was custom-made, even items serving identical functions could appear drastically different.

  “We're the transportation squad; we just arrived today,” I expined. Normally, we would have reported in immediately, but since it was New Year's Eve and we were early, we had pnned to wait until after the festivities.

  She maniputed the object in her hand before replying, "Yes, I see. You are four days ahead of schedule." After a brief pause, during which the device beeped, she directed us to a sectioned-off area, a wall blocking it from the rest of the room. "Your squad is to stand over there, and the meeting will begin shortly."

  The arrangement was such that we could hear everything yet remain separated from the girls.

  Looking back, I saw the guys already mesmerized by the group of girls. I suspected some of the girls were scantily cd, but I activated my screen to avoid joining my squad in their gawking. The screen had been my MVP throughout this st year of travel; without it, managing the squad would have been a nightmare. I’d like to think it also helped me develop a bit more self-control.

  "Actually, you've gotten even worse. And this is why he says you shouldn't avoid your problems, even though avoidance is his go-to strategy," the goddess chided, lecturing the system.

  Noticing the guys lost again, the system remembered my request, swiftly deploying a set of rocks from my inventory. She dropped them on the guys' heads in rapid succession, snapping them back to reality, before retrieving them back into the inventory. Meanwhile, the goddess continued her lecture, scribbling away at her board.

  “Case in point,” she said, pointing to a board dispying an image of me ignoring her. The image portrayed her as an innocent girl being bullied.

  I quickly gathered the guys and ushered them to the designated cut-off space before they could get distracted again. Without needing further prompting and only a bit of grumbling, they began shuffling through their equipment to ensure everything was in order.

  It didn’t really affect me much because of the Love point powered items I usually use and my inventory, but even brief travel through certain areas could impact your gear. For example, effects from a Blessing or a time shift could alter the effectiveness of your pills, either increasing or decreasing their potency.

  If not for Miki instilling the habit in me, I might not have been checking my equipment as often, despite the school's advice to do so regurly. Over the past year, I've learned the importance of this practice; on several occasions, pills in my pouch have lost their potency. Fortunately, none of the potions I purchased from the shop have been affected.

  "Now, make sure to face your problems, and how do you do that?" The goddess concluded her lecture just as I finished checking the st of my items.

  "By acting cute and having daddy solve them for me?" the system answered.

  "That's my girl, so smart," she praised, patting the head of the smaller shadow girl.

  'What the hell are you teaching her?' I thought. Although I did want her to come to me with problems so we could find solutions together, I wasn't fond of the way it was phrased.

  "Get some rest, guys," I ordered. We had been traveling for six days without sleep or food, and their mana reserves were likely depleted.

  "Don't go peeking at the girls without us," Robert joked as they all settled against the walls.

  "Just shut up and sleep," I retorted, waiting. I was tired too, but it felt more mental than physical. Even after a year, I hadn't quite gotten back into the habit of sleeping; I still woke from nightmares, and the rest never seemed to do me much good. Instead, I spent that time training with my spear, striving to reach the level I believed possible after being absorbed into Sk?gul’s card.

  Hours passed, and no other men arrived. It made sense; even with every man required to join the military, only a small percentage stayed, and women still outnumbered them 24 to 1.

  "That is everyone," the girl at the door announced.

  "Attention," another woman commanded. "She will expin the situation."

  "At daybreak, a group of adventurers encountered shade-type monsters possessing a death touch ability," a third woman began, her voice echoing through the room and conjuring vivid images with each word. "The group consisted of three tier-5s and four tier-4s."

  "Not having a way to combat them, they were forced to flee. These shades, though cssified as tier-3, were deceptively fast and caught all but the fastest in their group. After a significant struggle, one lone tier-4 managed to make it here, following the sacrifice of another group member who drew the shade away." She continued, projecting images of the lost girls and the devastated expression of the survivor who had made it back.

  "Even more troubling," she continued, "the monster breached the Arboreal barrier with her, before fleeing. A divination report has revealed multiple other shades roaming the area, believed to be of the same type as the one that attacked the girls." She dispyed an image that highlighted the area in various shades, showing the monsters spread sporadically for miles.

  "Orders from our queen have just come in. We must stop them tonight, or by tomorrow, this octave will be obliterated. Everyone dead," she solemnly decred, showing us a message from the queen delivered mere minutes before our briefing began.

  "We are to coordinate with the adventurers to eliminate them. Girls move out first, and the men will follow," she concluded, but my mind was already racing with other concerns.

  'Wait, did she know those people would die?' I wondered, realizing the queen seemed to have anticipated what was going to happen.

  "Yep, even altered your route from the standard to ensure there was no future where you encountered them," the goddess casually remarked.

  'Why would she do that?' I pondered, haunted by the image of the cheerful girls who were killed by the shades. If she knew, she could have warned them not to go out or sent reinforcements.

  "Obviously, to get you to do what she wants," the goddess answered pinly.

  "What?" I asked, bewildered. I suspected it was in some way due to the goddess, but why would she allow her own people to die? Despite my reservations, I wasn't opposed to sitting down and discussing matters, why go so far?

  "How many lives would you sacrifice to save a million? Or in your case, how many millions to save one family member?" the goddess asked, idly stroking the head of the system, who was asleep in her p.

  "None," I replied sharply, taken aback by her question. Rarely is there a situation where sacrificing lives is the only option, and if it comes to that, major mistakes were made along the way.

  "That's also true if you're strong enough; then you can save everyone and have everything. Unfortunately, the queen isn't that strong," she said, her tone tinged with sadness, though I doubted her sincerity.

  "Aren't you supposed to be their goddess? You just let them die. Don't they mean anything to you? Shouldn't you care about their lives?" I raised my voice, causing the guys to gnce over, but I couldn't hold back. Regardless of my feelings, everyone in the city believed wholeheartedly in the goddesses.

  "About as much as the germs you kill when you wash your hands," she replied with a casual shrug.

  "People aren't germs," I countered, appalled by her comparison of sentient beings to microbes.

  She ughed. "Germs are closer in intelligence to you than you are to us. Infinitely so. And I'm not a fan of killing; it leaves behind the people they care about."

  'At least we can seemingly agree on something,' I thought, reflecting on the devastation I would feel if someone in my family died, mirroring the anguish of the girl who struggled to report the tragic events.

  "If you're going to kill someone, make sure to kill everyone they know and care about so they go into death together. Really, the wuxia protagonists get it right; you could learn a thing or two," she continued, destroying any fleeting sympathy I might have felt. Looking at her, I saw nothing but a powerful, malevolent being who acted entirely on her whims.

  "Please, we goddesses are wful good," she said, but I found no humor in her words. Then, with a smile, she continued, "If you don't like it, all you would have to do is make all of us goddesses fall madly in love with you, and you could shape the world however you wanted."

  Looking at her smiling face, I briefly wondered if she was really a demon, and if I had suffered a seizure and died that day, now being tested in purgatory. I let that thought pass, as the answer was simple regardless of what she was or where I was. I would continue to do what I thought was right.

  Finally, a commander called us to come out and follow her to the guild. We passed through now empty streets; the rest of the inhabitants had gone home to prepare to fight or, in the worst case, flee.

  The adventurers' guild, unlike the base, was not split into smaller buildings but was one rge structure built around the second-rgest tree in the area. We entered the adventurers' guild, where a rge group of people, including the troops who had arrived earlier, had already gathered. A man paced back and forth across the desk at the back of the room, addressing the crowd.

  "Oh, our great military leader is here," he said sarcastically. Gncing at the faces of the girls, it was evident that some conflict had occurred before we arrived.

  "I have already devised a pn. We have—" our commander began before being abruptly cut off.

  He appeared right in front of her. "It does not matter what a weak little girl like you has been ordered to do. I and the other high-tier adventurers will take care of the shades, unlike you girls who hide away here while running to your noble masters. We have dealt with their type before."

  "They—" the commander started, maintaining her composure but was interrupted once more.

  "Have death touch, but can't even catch a tier 4 girl running away. They won't be able to touch us," the man dismissed her arrogantly. "Why don't you take your cute ass back to your base and distribute those potions that those stuck-up nobles like to give you for being good girls?"

  ‘He wants to march out and challenge the clearly intelligent monsters, just relying on his superior tier and abilities. Miki would beat me bck and blue, if the thought even crossed my mind.’ Before I realized it, I was hoisted up by my uniform shirt, with the man gring intensely at me.

  "You got a problem, mini-man?" he sneered, looking up at me with a challenging gre.

  'Start a date, please, system,' I thought to myself. I should have activated it back at the base, but I was still unsure of how long the date would st.

  The system sprang to her feet as time froze, her energy palpable. "Yeah!" she excimed, then struck a dramatic pose, pointing her finger in the air. The goddess cheered her on, waving pom-poms enthusiastically, before the system smmed her finger down.

  [A rolling ritual has been performed.]

  As much as I wanted to retaliate against the man, I couldn't afford to. Initiating a date would provide a point to return to and time to think. Eager to escape his confrontational gaze, I shifted my perspective away.

  [Name: [Not Important] Level: ??? [Tier 13] This man harbors a particur dislike for nobles due to conflicts that resulted in the deaths of two of his mothers and one of his wives. He has been an adventurer for 998 years.]

  Looking at the tier 13, I understood why he was so arrogant. But with that much experience in adventuring, he really should have known better. It seemed akin to an engineer who had been doing something so long that he stopped thinking about the safety steps.

  “Date Starto!”

  [A date without a brother's blessing]

  [Target: Elowen Stave]

  [Name: Elowen Stave Level: 188 Affection: -7 Adventurer group: The Brave Seekers of the Lost Hidden Treasures of the Enchanted Moonlit Forests of the…[Open (1/13)] Youngest daughter of her family. Her brother is quite obsessed with her but unable to marry her until he achieves tier 14. Has a rock collection from all the pces she has visited with her group.]

  I took a deep breath after reading through the information, trying to calm my anger.

  "Um, you can't breathe, remember?" the goddess remarked, pcing her pointer finger on her chin while looking at me.

  "Are you going to be any help, or just annoy me?" I asked, my patience wearing thin with her.

  "Annoy you, mainly," she replied, giving me a look as if I were the one being unreasonable.

  Defuse the situation.Hit on his sister.Attack him.Dismissing choice two, I weighed my real options. I could confront him and waste my most powerful cards, possibly escating the situation beyond my control, or I could defuse the situation. Despite our differences, I needed those cards to scout the shades and provide backup if the others couldn't handle them alone.

  Looking at my skills, I decided to use Social Butterfly, although I hadn't tested it yet. I reasoned that they should reset like my card if I reset the date, so it seemed like a good time to try them out. If they didn’t reset, it wouldn’t be a big loss.

  "Agh, they don’t reset; you just never used them!" The goddess excimed, smacking her forehead at my thoughts.

  Defusing the situation was indeed the correct choice, the butterflies showed, we still needed to work together. Before committing, I used the Goddess Choice to see if there was a better option.

  “Who, me? I would just kill him,” the goddess suggested nonchantly.

  "Didn't you just say you were not fond of killing?" I challenged her.

  "No, I said I was against separating people through death. You really need to start listening. Besides, he's going to die anyway, might as well get some use out of him," she crified, twisting her earlier words.

  4. Kill him [conflict]

  The new option appeared in red, and this time I had a clearer understanding of what red options implied. I took another deep breath before selecting it, trying to rex. I felt like I had just arrived at css after spending all night gaming, having done the same the night before.

  "It's nothing," I said, as time resumed. My gaze shifted from him to the girl who was my date target.

  "Keep your eye off my sister," he warned, pulling me close before throwing me down. I felt my arm bone crack as I caught myself, and my anger fred up again before I managed to suppress it.

  I took another deep breath, reminding myself that none of this was worth it with monsters looming outside. My main goal was to gather information. I also harbored a faint hope that he was as capable as he cimed and would resolve this situation, but given the actions of the queen and goddess, that hope was dwindling.

  He shouted out a series of long ass names before telling the rest of us to stay put and marched out of the guild, the other groups following him. Some of them offered the commander a quick apology as they passed, but most dispyed the same disregard or indifference toward her as the man had shown earlier.

  After spending some more time suppressing my anger, I got up and approached our commander. "Are you really going to just let him go?" I asked, louder than I intended.

  "No one here can stop him, and he has a stelr record as an adventurer. If Fia or Drivi were here, the story might be different. If the other adventurers chose me over him, not only would they be creating unnecessary trouble for themselves, they could potentially sabotage future interactions with the Amazons," she answered, seemingly unfazed by my outburst.

  "So what are we to do?" I asked. I was determined to go after them regardless, but I wanted to know what the pn was.

  “We will open up our storage as he suggested and provide supplies. Then, we will establish a retreat path back here in case they need to fall back. The rest will set up an escape route away from this octave. But that's for us to worry about. You and your squad would only be in the way, so you are to return to the base and await further orders,” she instructed before turning to the military personnel and starting to issue commands.

  "You guys wait in the base," I said, turning to my squad who, for once, were not ogling the girls running around. It really underscored how dire the situation was.

  "Shit, this feels terrible. Is there really nothing we can help with?" Elric asked.

  "We can help by staying here and not splitting his attention," Andy responded.

  "Dammit, you better help us level up when we get back," Elric said, and I understood his frustration. Things would indeed be much easier if I could have just punched the guy in the face and told everyone they were being stupid.

  “You got it. I'll even throw in some extra equipment. Just make sure to get strong enough to catch the nobles' attention so they'll leave me alone,” I said, trying to lighten the mood with a joke.

  “I used to think I could, but you're a trouble magnet. Best I can do is halve them,” he said, ughing.

  “I’ll settle for that,” I said before running back towards the entrance. By the time I reached the entrance, they were already gone. I took healing and fortification pills out of my inventory, quickly consuming them.

  "Can you take me to where they are?" I asked. I would have had her take me there immediately, but I was still struggling to calm down. Heading out there angry would only impair my judgment. I had hoped the run here would help more, but my nerves were still on edge. I was just relieved the usually talkative goddess was being quieter than usual.

  "That's because System-chan is sleeping," she whispered, shushing me.

  I sank into my shadow, feeling my body hurtle forward. The sensation was still massively disorienting, even though I knew what to expect.

  I activated Grace the Princess's card for the photographic memory, allowing me to store all the information, and Lamya the Librarian's card, hoping she might have some knowledge that could shed light on these creatures.

  Finally, we came to a stop atop a tree, where I could peek out of the shadow. The ninja proved faster than their group, as we arrived ahead of all the groups. Their main group was just encountering a shade—a mass of pitch-bck shadows hovering above the ground.

  A girl with orange hair and tiny horns charged forward, surrounded by a golden shield. She punched through the creature before colpsing. I wasn't the only one shocked by the abrupt end of the encounter.

  'What happened?' I wondered as I stared at her unmoving body on the ground.

  "She's dead. They stacked her with every buff they had and then had her engage because she has an extra life blessing, but one touch took all her lives," the goddess answered, still shushing me as if she thought my thoughts were too loud.

  "No way," a girl with a bck staff said in disbelief.

  "She tried to use a death exchange blessing on it, but it did nothing. Now they're panicking and keeping their distance," the goddess expined further. "It really is inconvenient not being able to see blessings being used. You should get your Observe stat to 25."

  The man's sword transformed into a giant pilr of light, and with a powerful swing, he cleaved the shade clean in half. They all remained on high alert until he called it clear. Just then, the shade reformed behind him.

  "Watch out!" one of the girls shouted, attempting to encase the creature in a barrier.

  He turned around, throwing his body backward, but the shadow easily passed through the barrier and matched his escape speed, pyfully wagging its finger in front of his face, a ghost of a smile on its visage.

  Suddenly, it broke off and almost teleported to the girl who had erected the barrier, where it lightly tapped her on the forehead, killing her instantly. Then, it grabbed her lifeless body, lifting it up and adopting a mockingly apologetic expression while looking at the man.

  "Ari!" The man screamed, attempting to rush in before another woman grabbed him, pulling him back as she yelled, "Retreat!"

  The shade seemed offended and hurled her body at the retreating man, causing it to explode against a tree, showering gore as he fled. The shade ughed mockingly as a flood of its fellows surged past, giving chase to the fleeing group.

  I was no closer to figuring out what these creatures were, but I could no longer just stand by. I used the skill "Charm Her Pants Off," surprised at how quickly the shades caught up despite giving the groups a clear head start.

  "Well yeah, you can't outrun the shadow of death. Really, Death-chan has such a morbid sense of humor," the goddess commented.

  Three cards snapped into position: Cire the Alchemist, Chossach the Pnt Lady, and Shadow 404 the Ninja.

  With a single motion, I unched myself from the shadows, drawing my gun from my inventory. With a flick of my wrist, I conjured a duplicate, which I grasped with my left hand. Another flick swung open the cylinders of both revolvers.

  Little spurs sprouted and transformed into bullets mid-air as I soared through the sky. As my feet hit the ground, my momentum halted, but the bullets continued their trajectory, seamlessly slotting themselves into the cylinders before I snapped them shut again.

  I fshed a smile at the girl I was on a date with and aimed. I cocked the gun and fired just as a shade materialized between her and me. The bullet pierced it, causing the creature to dissolve into a wailing wisp as its body fred with white light.

  Just before the bullet could hit the girl, it was swallowed by the shadow under her chin and reappeared, piercing through another shade that was chasing another fleeing girl. This caught the attention of the shades; they halted their pursuits and turned towards me, almost teleporting to my position.

  The guns twirled in my fingers, cocking and firing as my hands swept across my body, trailing five shots from each gun all around me. Then, lowering my hand beneath me, I used my left hand to fire the st bullet at a shade attempting to burrow underground.

  The bullets traveled from shadow to shadow, passing through the shades as they moved, causing them to disintegrate into particles of light, casting more shadows for the bullets to traverse.

  [+74 Elowen affection points.]

  After all the shades had dissipated, the skill expired and I lost control of the bullets, which buried themselves into the surrounding trees. I wobbled, overwhelmed by the torrent of information I had processed to pull off that feat.

  Before I had a chance to fall or even fully grasp what had just happened, a wire wrapped around me, dragging me away as the sky was obscured by a shadow that engulfed the entire area. When I gnced at the shade, I caught a brief fsh of eyes—so bck they stood out starkly against the pitch-bck creature. Then, the giant shade descended, and everything fell silent.

  [Your date target has died. Restart date?]

  'How is that a good outcome?' I questioned the effectiveness of the Social Butterfly skill. If I had attacked the guy, at least the commander could have executed her pn.

  "Because by saving this pce, you put a target on your back, and therefore on your friends and family," the goddess replied nonchantly from the side, fiddling with a microwave where the distinct popping of popcorn could be heard.

  I hesitated at that revetion. Just like at the tournament, the skill seemed designed to achieve an outcome, regardless of the cost.

  “She really isn’t good with people going against her,” she continued, as the popping in the microwave gradually came to a halt.

  “She?” I asked, and as I suspected, I received the unhelpful response of, “No spoilers.”

  I gnced at the yes/no button before observing the dead girls sprawled out around, with a single man still standing, alive but shell-shocked. Even the trees had rapidly withered, and the entire forest as far as I could see was dead. Looking back, only he, I, and the ninja had survived. Even the giant tree, visible from here, was slumped over, and the barrier that had surrounded the octave was gone.

  My eyes returned to the options, and they lingered there for a while; the only sound breaking the silence was the popping in the background. I didn't know why I was hesitating—of course, I was going to go back and save them. My father raised me better than that.

  “Now that’s the spirit! Elves, here we come, eventually!” The goddess cheered, matching the enthusiasm of my system who cheered next to her with a giant bowl for the popcorn. I wanted to comment on their btant disregard for the dead, but I had more important things to focus on.

  I had already used my Show Hidden Secrets skill, but I still had goddess points to spend. ‘Use goddess points to raise Observe to see through what this shadow is.’

  “You are trying to pierce a ???’s Blessing; you do not have enough Goddess points to raise Observe that high,” the system informed me, her voice sounding unlike her normal self as she spoke with her eyes closed.

  I looked at the goddess who was opening the microwave that had just finished. “Can't help, rules,” she said, but that in itself was helpful. With everything I knew about her, I didn’t believe she had brought me here just to let me die. “Oh your god! STOP THROWING DEATH FLAGS!”

  "Give me the rules and limitations for the shades to form and wipe out the area," I requested, uncertain if this was the same girl who always pyed around and dodged my lectures. It was an uncomfortable reminder, stirring up unwelcome memories, but since she returned to her usual demeanor st time, I decided to focus on the current crisis before dwelling on it further.

  [Using 8900 goddess points. The ??? will coalesce at the exact moment the year shifts over. Only those within a 55.7-mile radius will be affected. This event can only occur in this specific location and will kill everything in the vicinity, including those still developing a spark. Once enacted, nothing will be able to enter this area without succumbing to death shortly thereafter.]

  Armed with this information and observing the lone man still standing in the devastated field, I began to formute some strategies. As I pressed the reset button, the sound of loud chewing on popcorn filled the air, and the world shattered.

  “Date restarto!”