Free Web NovelThe first William Oh Joke happened before the first William Oh happened.
Welcome to the Class Advancement Trial.
Using a portion of power of the Sacrifices User has provided thus far, a synthetic body has been created for the Trial. User’s consciousness has been projected into it.
Loth blinked as her surroundings became pure white, with nothing but her body. She could still see, though.
A synthetic body with consciousness projected into it? That explains why nobody remembers their Trial.
Surely Will was being chased around by The Devourer of Worlds by now with Loth’s unconscious body thrown over his shoulder. Loth had known him long enough to know Will was ‘lucky’ like that.
User will now be given an objective. Complete the objective and the trial will end. Fail the objective or die and the trial will end.
You are free to accomplish the objective in whatever way you see fit. Class Advancement is determined after the trial has ended. Failure does not prevent Class Advancement, but may negatively affect the outcome.
In order to minimize turbulence, you will be prevented from providing any details regarding your identity or background.
Your objective is to ensure James Lazarus enters The Device in the basement. Failing that, clear---ssZzzsss-
“Looks like another failure. Dispose of it, James.”
Loth blinked, eyes adjusting to harsh white light glaring down from above. She was suspended in some kind of thick fluid. The sounds outside were muffled, and it was only thanks to her Acuity that she could make out their words. The accents were definitely strange, as if they had been reading from one of Loth’s ancient dictionaries.
Loth was suspended in a tube of fluid, clear but viscous, if the resistance against her fingers was any indication.
Wait. Dispose of?
RRRRR
Loth’s arm reached out only to impact against glass.
Beneath her, a set of blades popped out of the bottom of the tube like some kind of horrifying magic trick, spinning as some kind of vacuum sucked the fluid down to the bottom, and Loth along with it.
Impregnation Curse: Armored Bullet Wasp
194 Charge remaining.
Loth yanked her feet up while the blades choked on her summon erupting out of them. She pointed her fingers into a spear and drove them through the glass, creating a handhold.
An instant later, Loth kicked her toes through the glass and held herself up while the liquid drained from the tube.
A moment later, her feet touched down on cold steel grating.
There was a loud alarm, and a spinning red light on the ceiling.
High above was an, observation deck, sealed behind a wall of manmade stone and thick glass.
Several men in white coats gawked down at her while others silently shouted into brick-shaped devices.
Draconic Domain
Loth felt her influence spread through the building as she scanned the room. When she located the source of the noise – some kind of electromagnet making vibrations – she disabled it with ease.
Loth brushed off broken glass and flapped the gunk off her wings before folding them over her shoulders to cover herself. Into the sudden blessed silence, Loth spoke.
“Can you hear me?” She asked, motioning to where a human’s ear would’ve been. There was still a light blinking in the opposite room, and Loth could faintly hear alarms ringing from further in the building.
She disabled those too.
“Can you hear me?” Loth asked again.
One of the men in white coats leaned forward and spoke.
“Ahem. We can hear you. How is it that you umm…speak English?” the voice came from another one of the odd electromagnetic rings placed just underneath the glass panel that seperated, to give the illusion of the sound coming from the people behind the glass, even though they were effectively sealed away.
Ah. A mental gap had appeared. They had judged her to be inhuman based on her appearance. It might be beneficial to be seen as stupid and/or ignorant, despite how much it irritated her.
Normally it was nonexistent, but for certain occasions, she laid her kobold accent on thick. This was one of those occasions.
“Me don’t understand humans that well but…Don’t all humans speak English?” Loth asked, cocking her head curiously with a vacant stare.
“I mean…sure, most of - but you’re…you’re, umm…not from around…here?”
“I don’t think so?” Loth replied, doing a scan of the room.
There were several other tubes, showing signs of having been used. She could feel miasmatic structures contained above them, likely some kind of summoning effect. A box full of glowing panels right next to them. The door seemed to be made of out metal, with no hinges, just an archway filled with solid steel.
Hmm. Does it raise up and down? Is it locked because I escaped?
Without Relics, Loth’s Build effectiveness dropped drastically, especially her defensive stats, which mostly leaned on offloading damage to her minions, who were also gone, so she could only rely on her impregnation curses to create them on the spot at the cost of Charge.
Two hundred insects went faster than one might think.
I Suppose I’ll have to summon some starters and then breed them in a substrate, but where will I get the protein? Loth briefly considered using one of the men in coats as her new barrel, but humans got the ick about their corpses being repurposed.
Still on the table if they were belligerent enough.
“Where did you come from? Did you come from a breach?”
Loth considered responding, but found her ability to respond limited.
“Can’t say,” Loth said.
“Can’t say? That’s one of the canned phrases of those supersoldiers we’ve been getting reports about. The ones holding the breaches.” Loth heard one of the men say to the older man at the front of the observation deck.
“Shut up! Did you get sent here with a mission from your creators?” The older man asked, turning his attention back to Loth.
“Doctor, by all accounts, they’ve been helping-“
“By all accounts!?” The older man shouted at the younger one. “We’re just supposed to assume that these monsters wearing human skin are working for our best interest?”
He jabbed a finger at Loth.
“That one’s not even wearing human skin! Nobody’s taking credit for them! I have the highest level of clearance. I know shit the president wasn’t allowed to know! Nobody has the tech to make…THAT! Not us, not the Chinese, nobody! The human race is going extinct and you’re going to settle for ‘trust me, bro’!?”
Loth couldn’t see very well from this angle, so she decided to level the perspective a bit. With a single leap she arrived at the same height as the ones looking down on her, fingers driven into the artificial stone framing the window.
The men flinched backwards as she clung to the wall like one of her spiders.
“Which one of you is James Lazarus?” Loth asked, peering into the room full of those ‘computers’ that Ghoul liked to mess with.
Everyone’s gaze flickered to a younger man in the back, who froze and paled. Something about him looked familiar.
Judging by their attitude, they’re not going to help me with anything…They don’t seem to think I’m very smart, either. Maybe I can pull a little trick here.
“Me here to kill him.” Loth said, pointing a single jet-black talon. “James Lazarus has ‘potent-yal’ maybe to save you hooman’s world. Give to me and me let the rest of you go.” The ‘glass’ began to fracture as Loth applied more force. She wasn’t a Strength monster by any means, but she was level sixty-five, and it added up.
“James, you should probably start running.” The older man said.
“But sir-“
“NOW!”
This ‘James’ fellow broke into a sprint, exiting the room through a sliding metal door. The older man in the white coat slammed his hand down on a big red button and the door shut. freewebnovel.cσ๓
Loth suspected it wouldn’t open again.
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No problem.
It was a risky gamble. Humans were baseline altruistic, so Loth had added the ‘save you hooman’s world’ bit there to lower the chance of one of the men inside trying to kill her target in order to save his own ass. When their species was on the line, humans tended to be self-sacrificing.
It was a bit of a stretch, in Loth’s mind, since a real enemy would never reveal that information. But…it looked like they were not thinking clearly. Panicked enough to buy her lie, which meant this next part would go that much easier.
Loth broke through the glass as a flash of light and acrid smoke flared up from the door as it welded itself shut.
“We’re sealed in, monster.” The man with white hair and blue eyes said, looking rather self-sacrificial and pleased with his defiance.
Loth backhanded him, sending the old man toppling to the ground and the other men backed themselves into the corners.
“Where the device?” Loth asked, squatting down in front of the bleeding man. “must kill James Lazarus before he enters it.”
Gods that sounds stupid. But it wasn’t like Loth had anyone to exposit for her, so she had to do it all herself, which made her acting completely unbelievable in her own eyes.
But…since this old guy had already made up his mind about Loth’s affiliation and intentions, he was buying into a narrative he wanted to be true, which allowed his mind to gloss over the inconsistencies.
Despite what she’d said, Loth understood humans rather well.
“Too late, Nothing’s getting through that-“ The man gawked as Loth summoned a massive wasp who began biting through the steel like a soft cheese.
“No follow, hoomans.” Loth said as she left the observation deck.
She pretended to keep going, but instead tucked herself tight to the door and listened.
“James, come in. It got past the blast door. You’ve gotta make it to the Long Winter device before this thing gets to you.” Loth heard the older man speaking into some kind of communication device.
Easy peasy.
“The door code is – there was a cough and a scraping noise as the older man dug through a desk. “eleven seventy eight.”
“The security confirmation code is written on the bottom of the rubber mat outside the door because it’s too freaking long to remember. Just take it with you. Nobody cares at this point.
It’s all up to you now, James. This is for the survival of the human race. We’ll do what we can from here to slow it dow-“
“And that’s enough,” Loth said, disabling the communicator with a Draconic Domain cantrip.
The men in white coats looked utterly betrayed.
“I know this is an emergency and you’re all panicking, but this was still a poor showing on your part. The human race is going extinct and you’re going to fall for something as childish as reverse psychology?” Loth said, clicking her tongue and shaking her head. “On the other hand, I appreciate you giving James the motivation to go to the device on his own. Would’ve been tough to convince him to go there on my own.”
“But don’t worry,” Loth said as she peered down at the pale human. “Judging from what I’ve seen, I’m probably on your side.”
“Trust me, bro.” Loth flicked the man’s nose.
Loth saw the moment the old human’s brain started up again, his eyes coming alive as he put together facts that he had previously allowed to slip past him.
Loth loved that look in a man’s eyes. Will had that cunning look all the time.
“You…were raised among humans.”
“Indeed.” Loth said, offering her hand. The man grasped it and allowed Loth to pull him up. He was slightly shorter than she was, which was still a weird sensation. But not an unwelcome one.
Looking down on people came naturally.
“Now you will have to do a very good job of convincing me that you aren’t going to impede my mission, or I’ll have to kill all of you here. Start with your name and what the Long Winter device is. If you don’t act quickly, I will simply…wait. And James will make it to the device on his own.”
The old man sighed, rubbing his neck.
“Alright, you got me good.” he said. “My name’s Doctor Greg Adams.”
“I…can’t say.” Loth said. “Interesting. What were you doing here Doctor Adams, and how does it relate to the Long Winter device?”
“A few years ago, we started getting help from unidentified supersoldiers with seemingly no affiliation. They’ve been closing breaches, protecting VIPs and basically slowing the encroachment of Miasma on the planet. Only problem is, they don’t answer to anyone. They show up out of nowhere, and disappear just as quickly. There have been signals associated with their coming and going. It’s presumed these signals are some kind of teleportation marker. My job was to hijack them and get some answers out of one of these super soldiers. Failing that, track down the source and unlock teleportation technology for our own use.”
“So that’s why I appeared in a tube.” Loth mused.
“…Yes. Sorry about that.”
“And the Long Winter device?” Loth asked.
“It’s a massive bunker. It’s got some kind of dimensional insulation to keep miasma out, and state of the art tech to pump miasma out even if it did get in. It could keep the interior clean enough to live for a thousand years, easily. Plenty of time for humanity to stage a counterattack.” freeωebnovēl.c૦m
“Does it have a central heating element and gigantic mirrors on the ceiling made of a special alloy?” Loth asked.
“How did…” Greg’s eyes widened. “That’s not possible. It hasn’t even been populated yet.”
“And when was construction completed on Long Winter?” Loth asked.
“Only a few months ago, but the supersoldiers have been coming for years, so-“
“No, I think you had it right the first time.” Loth said, her mind whirring along.
In order to minimize turbulence, you will be prevented from providing any details regarding your identity or background.
It’s talking about turbulence in time, Loth thought, frowning. People knowing details they shouldn’t about the future would certainly cause a lot of turbulence. The people here assumed the signal couldn’t possibly come from inside the bunker because it hadn’t even been finished by the time the signals started. And it hadn’t even been populated, so where would the super soldiers come from?
But it would be populated. In the future.
I’m in the past.
“I know you’re proud of your security clearance, but I don’t think you’ve been told everything there is to know about Long Winter.”
“I’m starting to believe that.” Dr. Adams mused.
“I also apologize.” Loth said. “Because The System doesn’t seem to be bothered that I’m sharing secrets with you, I believe you will become incapable of creating turbulence in the near future. In short…you’re probably going to die in the next few minutes.”
Doctor Adams paled.
“Doctor there’s a breach in the west wing, miasma is flooding in! It’s a Host!”
“Are we in the west wing?” Loth asked.
Head buried in his hands, the doctor nodded.
“Show me where project Long Winter is and I’ll protect James until he makes it there.” Loth said.
The doctor took a long breath and blew it out, facing her with the eyes of a dead man. Almost as attractive as those of a cunning one.
“It’s here.” He said, pulling up a map on his ‘computer’, pointing out where they were and where she needed to go.
Loth memorized the route.
“There’s a bunker underneath the west wing. A traditional one, where they were supposed to stock it with the best of the best who were going to populate Long Winter. The smartest, strongest, healthiest young men and women that humanity could muster, to give us a head start in that first couple hundred years. Well, some asshole bureaucrat got greedy and now it’s entirely populated by rich old men and their trophy wives.”
“And?” Loth asked.
“Well, rich old men can’t take care of themselves, so there’s a large amount of service staff, mostly nurses, handymen and maids, and they live in a newly built extension right here.” Adams said, pointing to a smaller offshoot below the west wing. “They’re not the best of the best. They’re…average. And young enough to reproduce and take care of themselves.”
“Would you mind…”
“Culling the old men and getting everyone else inside Long Winter?” Loth posited.
“Can you handle it?” Adams asked with steady eyes.
“Oh, easily.” Loth said with a smile.
“Good. Because those men spat in the face of humanity, and nothing would please me more than them dying in a biblically appropriate way. Snakes. All of them.” Dr. Adams muttered, a strange venom seeping into his words.
The doctor stood from the computer and stretched his back.
“Alright, I’m gonna go manually close the blast doors and try to delay that Host as long as I can. I’m one of the old men who needs ‘culling’, anyway.” Dr. Adams said with the nonchalance of a man walking down to the corner store.
“Anybody who thinks they’re young enough better follow in James’ footsteps.” Dr. Adams called over his shoulder as he trotted out into the hallway beyond the observation deck. “Anybody who wants to die a hero can follow me.”
Nobody followed him.
“Go ahead,” Loth said, waving them off. “I’ve got other things to do.”
If it’s coming in from the west wing and the people that need to get evacuated are also in the west wing, I don’t have much time, and I’ll need to make miasma scrubbers.
Which means I’ll need to make a new barrel and stuff it with some flesh.
Thankfully Loth already had targets that were ‘approved’.
Approved by who? Who cared. Loth had grasped the situation to her satisfaction and was willing to improve the odds as best she could.
Loth sprinted along beside the men in white coats until they took a turn away from the west wing and Loth split away from them, jumping down a spiral staircase to reach the bunker in a matter of seconds.
The bunker had a thick door, but Loth made short work of it.
Lead pellets sprayed across Loth’s skin, splattering off her scales the instant she arrived.
The men shooting lead pellets were young.
Loth knocked them out and sprinted over to the massive bay door that separated the temporary bunker from Long Winter.
With a few summoned insects she was able to open the door, which had been designed to appear to be part of the wall.
There was a strange sensation of vertigo as miasma began to leak down from above.
Without hesitating, Loth summoned miasma scrubbers, which burst from the flesh of a shrieking old man. The corpse would serve as the new barrel.
The scrubbers buzzed up to the ceiling and began pulsing with blue light as they concentrated miasma inside themselves, buying precious extra seconds.
Loth summoned several dozen wasps the size of horses and had them snip off the heads of the white-haired ones and herd the others to the newly opened bay door.
At the end of a long hall with comically ineffective ‘calming scenery’ was a glowing orange Door.
I knew it. Loth thought.
Loth herded the panicking servants and trophy wives through the hall and into the glowing door, tossing the unconscious guards in along with them. They didn’t exactly move calmly and quietly, so there were a few injuries, but Loth didn’t have the time, or the face to explain things to them calmly.
Project Long Winter is now full. Please select an admin.
The bright orange Door vanished, leaving behind a smooth white pillar in the center of the room with coils of metallic tubes woven around it, stretching to the ceiling.
The whole room could only fit twenty or so people. The Long Winter ‘bunker’ such as it was, must be contained inside or created by that pillar in the middle of the room.
Interesting. I would’ve liked to have studied it.
CRACK!
A metal side door beeped and slammed open and James Lazarus rushed into the room, panting and drenched in sweat from running…what, half a mile?
Without bothering to look up, James turned on a computer jutting from the side of the pillar. There was something about the crazed desperation in the man’s eyes as he worked that reminded Loth of someone. If James lost maybe…a hundred pounds, he’d look like…
Oh, that’s Reese! Loth thought, snapping her fingers.
The sudden sound drew Reese’s attention from the computer, and he jumped when he saw Loth flanked by several horse-sized insects staring emotionlessly.
“You can’t stop me!” Reese shouted. “I…I’ll save the world!”
The orange door opened up again halfway between them and Reese broke into a sprint.
“NO!” Loth shouted dramatically, lunging forward as Reese dove for the door.
Despite it being closer to him than her, she could’ve easily stopped him. But he didn’t need to know that.
Reese disappeared through the glowing Door, which disappeared an instant after he left.
“Well, that was easy,” Loth mused, crossing her arms.
Another wave of vertigo hit, something Loth could only describe as turbulence, as the world seemed to blur and split. She saw echoes of others shoving Reese into the glowing door against his will. Other echoes showed an orderly line of rich old men and their young lovers chatting as they sauntered through the Door.
For a moment, she could see five figures sitting around the pillar in the center of the room.
One of them was William Oh.
He sat beside a woman with eyes all across her body, across from a skeletal man who was in turn being cuddled by a pink woman. Separate from them was a man who was counting gold coins that seemed to drop into his lap from nowhere. Loth was fairly sure she had killed a human with his face previously in the bunker
As one, they looked at Loth.
Past her.
Loth turned and followed their gaze, peering down the hall she’d come from.
An amorphous blob of miasma so thick that Loth could feel it straining against her Class was wearing Dr. Adams body across its front, the skin stretched out like a mask.
Dr. Adam’s face was in the center, limbs dangling as the floating blob moved.
As it approached, the blob shrank, emptying itself into the body, which filled up and began to walk on its own, stumbling at first, then with increasing confidence, passing through Loth to sit down across from the other five.
The six silently turned their gaze to the pillar in the center of the room, fading from her view. But she knew they still existed. Just maybe not here and now.
Objective complete. Loth The Luminary’s Class Advancement trial has garnered the highest score for this scenario. Scenario Outcome set as default.
Class Advancement successful.
Extra rewards available for the top score.
