[Sub-quest]

Predator of Predators

You have detected incredible malevolence from Carn, Predator of Predators. Defeat Carn to re-establish stability within System Articles.

Difficulty:

S

Time Limit:

???

Victory Condition:

Carn is defeated

Defeat Condition:

Andre Benard is killed AND/OR Roswell Kirk is killed

The Vault Keys are stolen

Rewards:

2,500,000 standards

Item - Keys of the Hunt

No… Alexander realized his mouth was open and closed it. Leona and Damien received the same quest notifications, both of their faces contorting in horror. It was not the fact that the System was telling them to defeat Carn; rather, it was the fact that Carn had such malevolence that the System had to intervene. Ideas rushed through Alexander’s head. Stupid ideas, ideas so dumb that it might just work, ideas so dumb that he had a better chance offing himself and live.

Hearing Carn’s threat, the guards’ hands tensed, their muscles visibly bulging from their tight suits.

“Wh-what?!” bumbled Benard, frightened like a piglet. “No! That’s absurd, no! Why would you suggest that, Carnival or Carnage or Carny?! I don’t care—no, I do care, but absolutely not, no! That is the heart of System Articles—!”

“Okay!” cheerfully said Carn, playing the game from earlier: looking at the left wall, then the right, left, right. “System Articles’s heart or your friends’? I’m itching to pull out hearts—thanks for the carnal idea!”

“Wait wait, what? No! Neither! I pick neither! If this is a joke, then say it already! I-If anything, saving us is the reward! You saved an integral part of our economy! Without the economy, we’re literally worthless!”

Carn blinked. “Eh? I wasn’t listening. That’s a lot of words when you could’ve used one: Former or latter. First or second. Left or right.”

“You do not have the right to—!”

A single hand fell to the ground, cleanly cut at the wrist. The right man collapsed to his knees, folded over, clutching the trunk of his arm, howling, howling, howling. Alexander yelped, his back striking the wall behind him. Leona brandished her [Protector’s Shortsword], Damien turned away, and Kirk stared, biting his lip.

The left bodyguard was paralyzed, mortared up; he saw the hand, saw his slumped over partner, saw the bloody grin and bloodier dagger, and he moved. An act of defiance, and defiance meant punishment.

And he too fell. Alexander heard the amputated hands clap.

“Whoops!” exclaimed Carn, holding the blade that did them both in. “I mean you did say ‘right’, but something left your left. Not my fault!” He raised his hands as the left guard screamed. “His fault. Wanna try again, Mister CEO? System Articles, or—” He hopped past the guards; no one stopped him, no one wanted, “—you.”

Benard blubbered, stumbling back and fell on his ass. Others nearby scattered back like rats, their eyes making the message clear: this man was as good as dead. Benard found no one to help him. Not Alexander, who knew it was suicide; not Leona despite her righteousness. Not Damien or Kirk either, for they too knew the consequences.

“N-No!” Benard shouted, exclaiming for help afterwards like a wounded hound. “No! No no no no no no, no! Listen to me, listen! You don’t—no! You useless—!” He looked at the others, employees and strangers alike. “You’re all useless! Help me if you know what’s good, God help me, you useless—!”

“Hey!” called Carn, waving his dagger. It made everyone flinch. “Lemme ask you all something: this is a horrible, horrible tragedy. You wanna live, right? Survive, kick ass, maybe get laid, I dunno. Then you’d need something. Something big, bright, badass, and other words that start with B. But this guy, Mister CEO, says, ‘Nah! Nah nah nah, I’ll keep everything locked up, sealed away, and no one can have anything and it’ll be all fine and dandy!’ That isn’t right. He wants you dead. Actively calls for it too. So why should a guy like this be let off scot-free? He completely deserves this, being a sniveling shit for snot on his knees.”

Carn stomped Benard’s left knee in, and it snapped horribly. Bone pierced through his dress pants, white and bloody. Benard had a miserable scream, a few notes higher than his bodyguards, all of them clutching something.

Carn spun around, seeing the blue screens, seeing the Pseudos switch between their notifications and him. They stopped, afraid. He laughed, punching at the air as if God was watching him. “I figured the System would yap at me. Not the first time.” He snapped his fingers. “If my words aren’t enough to convince ya, then here’s my offer.”

He exclaimed to no one in particular: “Oi Slayer System, post a [Slayer Request] for me! The parameters are as follows!”

A [Slayer Request], a feature within the quest system that allowed Slayers to offer their own quests. It was intended to nurture the internal economy and such. Alexander almost wanted to compliment him for his cleverness.

Ding.

[Slayer Request]

Poster: Carn, Predator of Predators

Recipients: Slayers within System Articles

Join Me Instead, Fuckers

Don’t listen to the System, listen to me. Fuck the System. You wanna survive, don’t you? Then you need some strong weapons, and this guy has them. Join me, and we’ll carve out a nice little place for ourselves.

Time Limit:

180 seconds

Victory Conditions:

Like I said, join me

No seriously, join me

Do it, join me

Defeat Conditions:

Being a dumbass

Rewards:

Anything inside the vault, first come first serve

250,000 standards to each genius who shakes my hand

Completion Limit:

Unlimited

Now it’s worse. Alexander stared at the [Slayer Request]. It was an attractive offer; two-hundred-fifty grand upon signing up plus whatever items offered inside the vault. Out of the hundreds, maybe over a thousand people here, he estimated that fifty to one hundred Pseudos were present. That made for a small but frightening army.

The unapologetic violence silenced them however; most went unexposed to such acts of brutality until now. Ordo will be in ruins for God-knows-how-long. Kosmos was in space while they were here, stuck. Struggling. Their livelihoods were insecure, their lives uncertain. These thoughts certainly struck them like a hammer, nailing this singular truth: From this moment on, their lives were changed forever, and they’d be fools to not change with it. Realizing this, many of them had a shining gleam in their ink eyes. Benard crumbled, and they had not. Rather, they rose. Alexander recognized it: the appeal of hatred, of revenge.

Carn hardly cared for ideology. He wasn’t a communist or an anarchist or anything of the sort, for he held an ideology older to them all: strength. Every scream was a tenet recited—be strong or be weak. They heard the mantra. It echoed chillingly from the walls, shouting—be strong or be weak.

Terrifying that was, power, because skyscrapers told the average person that they were mostly incompetent—not completely incompetent because who else would fill the floorspace, monkeys? Yet power was the act of not listening to skyscrapers. How else could skyscrapers they stand? And those foolish enough to listen was subsequently knelt, forever subservient to the imposing urban thrones. Why not break them?

If strength was right and righteous in all matters one may dress, why not?

After all, Carn was standing and Benard was not. That was proof of his validity.

And deep into the crowd of onlookers, there was a normal man, a Pseudo, with dark brown hair and dark eyes. He had pissed himself after fleeing an orcish brigade, personally saw a few people cut down in bloody pulps. Through some miracle he ended up here, and something stirred in him. If his heart was a cauldron, this was the potion. What were the ingredients? Self-discovery, realization, the bitter truth. Ordo was going to hell, and Benard was here with one foot in the grave. He didn’t know who this guy was, just some screaming fat fuck. His screams were, most surprisingly, music. It was music. The man licked his teeth, overwhelmed by these newfound emotions, and he too screamed, of joy.

It was a frightening thing, giving into primal urges. And he weren’t the other man there, far from the only Pseudo. As he laughed, so it multiplied. The facets of his appearance, his smile, skin and hair and eyes, disappeared, all of it, erased as his laughter became the better part of the whole. Man, no longer. He was they. And they walked and Carn laughed so they laughed, and Benard laughed in horror, sobbing, twisting in fate and legs. The civilians, the pissing managers and executives, like Manager Takanaka, could do nothing as they pushed through, pushed as they tasted the first thrills of power.

“Haha!” Carn clapped his hands; soon enough, practically every Pseudo present joined him. Through ideology, through sin, through pressure and fear, it didn’t matter. They all joined him just the same. “Y’see that, Mister CEO? Sorry to say, but you’re shit outta luck!”

Alexander watched. A familiar helplessness took him. This is how it starts. Everyone’s lives is now based on a couple of whims. Jesus. I don’t want to imagine what’ll happen to them. How can we do anything about it? The chances of redirecting its course is slim-to-none.

He sighed. He gave his Ordo Teleport Scroll to Damien.

“Huh?” Damien asked, taking a second or two to register the paper in his hands. “Alex?”

Kirk was next to him, clutching his chest pocket. That must be where one of the keys were. “Kid, what are you thinking—?”

“Hold Leona back for me and prepare the scroll: Black Paladin Station,” said Alexander, giving them a small smile and a wink, and came to the center of the pathway.

Carn was shaking hands with every new member of his; that was, until he heard Alexander, who clicked his shoes. Leona exclaimed something from the side, but as Damien and Kirk was told, they held her back from intervening with Alexander’s plan. Whatever the hell that was.

Honestly, Alexander didn’t have a plan, but he had to help. If not him, then who?

Carn squinted, one eye on Alexander , the other on his newfound guild, shaking hands and patting shoulders. “White Eyes, whatcha doing standing over there?”

“Nothing,” Alexander replied, sighing. “I’m doing nothing but standing here.”

“Standing pretty tall, aren’t ya?” One of the Pseudos tried to whisper something in his ear but got slapped away, hard enough to welt. “Y’know, you’re different from the other no-names.”

“That right?” asked Alexander, putting his hands in his pockets.

Carn gave a look-over. “Yeah.” He leaned forward a little bit, then nodded. “Yeah yeah, you are. Sharp black hair, silver eyes, and you're one tall bastard. Tall for an Asian. How much do you work out?”

“Everyday.”

“Yeah, I figured. Y’got muscles behind those lame-ass clothes, and by how you’re lookin’ at me, this definitely isn’t your first rodeo. Get that from Hangzhou, Hangzhou? Are you a badass?”

Alexander shrugged. “Not really. I’m just an ordinary guy who doesn’t like what he’s seeing.”

“‘Doesn’t like what he’s seeing’...” Carn murmured to himself. He stopped shaking hands, instead curling his fingers. A few daggers spun and sighted in on Alexander’s vitals. “Being a badass doesn’t mean you’re not stupid. Are you stupid, Hangzhou? ‘Cause you’re standing in a stupid place.”

“Eh. I am pretty stupid. My sister tells me that all the time. I—”

One of the guards suddenly raised his voice, screaming so loud that their conversation was interrupted. Carn held up a finger, said “Hold on a second.” and sent a dagger through the guard’s back. He groaned, alive still, until the dagger slowly sunk deeper, and deeper, until he stopped moving.

Alexander winced. He forced himself to watch, to realize exactly what he had walked himself into.

“Sorry, what were you saying?” Carn asked, getting his dagger back in the air. “Dumbasses, y’know? They cut in when they’re not needed, so fucking annoying.”

“My sister,” Alexander restated. “She calls me a ‘dumbass’. My friends over there”—he pointed at them—”are looking at me just the same.” Except for Leona. Leona was always the exception; she treated him like he was a genius.

“Friends…” Carn looked at them, gauging them, thinking about them probably. “How old are ya?”

“Twenty-three. Turning twenty-four in the fall.”

“Really?” Carn pointed at himself. “Twenty-four. Go to college?”

“OU. Economics.”

“Full-ride?”

“Partial.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Also in Economics. Doesn’t need to worry about money.”

“Huh.” There was a pause between them. It lasted for a second or two. “You popular?”

Alexander shrugged. “Last year, I got into a fight with a D-rank junior. Does that count?” It was a long story, but he had an altercation with Victor from B2 (at the time) in Combative. Victor had a lot of training but little practical experience. Also plenty arrogant. Like the kids in High Home.

How were the juniors doing anyway? Chunhua? Deon?

“You win?”

“Eh. We both lost.”

Carn suddenly cackled, clicking his tongue, pointing at Alexander as though impressed. “Bold, eh? No wonder you got such a pretty girl. She’s gorgeous. And with an ass like that? Wow. I bet your nights are fun.” Stop talking about her. “How’s your nights? Are they fun?”

“Something like that,” Alexander said through gritted teeth.

“Aw c’mon. You can say it,” Carn nudged, getting a few smiles from his henchmen, encouraging them to indecently stare at Leona. “Look, I get it. Modesty is a good trait. Humility? Being humble? Keeps you in check unlike some people.”

Bernard whimpered, knowing the words were intended for him.

Carn continued, “But I bet it’s exhausting to pretend you’re no better than this tub of lard. I mean, c’mon, look at him.” Alexander didn’t look at him. “Look at him.”

Alexander did. The CEO of System Articles was laying on the ground, crying, having one of his bodyguards dead and the next one wasn’t far off. It was painful to look at them, but he did his best to maintain a semblance of stoicism.

“What do you think about him?” Carn asked. “What’s going on inside your head, Hangzhou?” Nothing good. “C’mon, admit it. You wanna break more of his bones, don’tcha? Maybe castrate him? That sounds fun.”

Benard whimpered louder hearing the options.

Alexander answered, “I don’t have much of an opinion about the CEO; I don’t like him, maybe I hate him, but I also hate seeing him like this. That goes for anyone, you know. This is a cruel thing to see.”

“Uh huh.” Carn spun his daggers around to entertain himself, or to intimidate. Alexander tried not to react. “Have you killed a guy before, Hangzhou?”

Alexander didn’t say anything.

“Oh damn.” Carn grinned. “Damn damn damn. Alright, I see you.” His daggers spun faster, matching his elation. “What was it like? How was your first kill, Hangzhou? C’mon, don’t be shy, share it with the rest of the class. I’m sure your friends, even your girlfriend, won’t look at you any different.”

The memory made his throat dry. He had to describe it. Alexander gulped, took some time to think about the details, figuring out what to say and what to omit. “I found a pistol sitting in the backseat of a cop car, and the windows were broken. Had one or two magazines too. With how the light shone through the clouds, you’d think God told me to take it. I did. At some point, me and my sister were coming down a back alley to find someplace safe for the night. Instead, there was this frazzled, dead-out-of-his-mind bastard, all grease and no sanity. He walked towards us with a knife. Told him to stop, he didn’t, told him again, and again, and again. He didn’t stop. Then he ran. I shot him. Used a skill to do it so I wouldn’t miss. Went right through his heart and he went down, and I waited ten seconds to see if he was actually dead dead, and when I saw blood coming out and heard that death rattle, I knew.

“Wasn’t the last time I used that thing. Wasn’t the last time I killed someone on purpose.”

“Not bad, Hangzhou. How many?”

“How many what?” Alexander spat.

“Guys. Women. How many did you kill?”

“One is too much.” Alexander looked at the others. Kirk and Damien were tense, stressed, more focused on Carn than him, but Leona, she was dejected. He told her a few stories about Hangzhou, always leaving out the hard details but she understood that less was more. She never treated him differently after his stories. Never pitying him, or acting like he was a broken man. She understood and saw him who he was today, always.

He hoped it stayed like that.

But Carn wasn’t satisfied with his answer. A vein popped in his head. “Not really.” Carn sent a dagger into the other moaning guard, killing him just the same as the other. A casual, callous death, summed up all within a second. “One is too little, two barely scratches it. So don’t be so modest. You’re better than these chucklefucks. I’ll give you five hundred—no, one million standards if ya join me. How does that sound?”

Alexander chuckled, his answer already set in stone. “I have to pass. I’m a killer, but I’m not a murderer.”

“What’s the difference?” Carn raised his hand. The daggers were aiming at Alexander’s vitals again. “What’s so bad about giving fuckers what they deserve?”

“Like I said, I’m just an ordinary guy trying to take care of his little sister as best as I can.” Alexander no longer gave his thoughts to Carn, but the rest of the Pseudos. “Sorry, but I can’t join you guys this time. I have people to care about, and they’ll really miss me if I’m gone. You aren’t the same as me though if I had to guess, but that’s alright. The rest of us have moms, dads, children, grandparents, stuff like that. If I died, or I don’t know, turn out horrible, I couldn’t live with myself.”

A few Pseudos glanced one another. Alexander couldn’t tell what was going through their minds, but it was something alright. Something substantial.

It was then when Carn’s eyes widened, realizing what Alexander had done. “Oh, you motherfucker. You never wanted to talk to me in the first place. Well, how ‘bout this—?!”

“Are you all heartless bastards?!” Leona suddenly shouted towards the wavering crowd of Pseudos. She broke from Damien and Kirk, eyes glittering like the edge of her short steel. “I’ve seen some of you here! I’ve heard some of you talk about your loved ones—!”

“Leo—!” Alexander panicked, stepping towards her. “Stop—!”

“Your mothers, your fathers, your daughters and sons, everyone you hold dear! How would they look at you now?! Would they be proud of you?! At every turn, you defined yourself, so will this detour betray everything you are today?! Tell me—!”

“Leona—!” He reached out to her, but Carn appeared in front of him, dagger to his throat.

Leona raised her Protector’s, red to the skin seeing the threat to Alexander’s life. “If you want someone to kill, then kill me first.”

The words paralyzed Alexander. “What the fuck are you saying, Leo?! I—!”

Carn pressed the tip against his throat. “Ah-ah-ah, I’m talking to your girlfriend.” He smiled kindly at her. “You really wanna die first? ‘Cause if you want that, then I’mma kill you so fantastically that God will shit Himself.”

Alexander shivered where he stood, unable to say anything but jumbled words, unable to do anything but desperately shaking his head. Yet despite the tension, Leona smiled as if to say Trust me, and he did; sometimes, he trusted her more than he did himself. Not now.

Maybe this was revenge. Alexander wanted to laugh if he wasn’t so afraid.

And Carn gave an indifferent shrug. “Okay.”

And he disappeared. There was a howl, there was a scream, two screams, and two bodies dropped.

Leona laid on the ground with a dagger in her stomach, deep, hilt twisted in. She stubbornly gripped her sword as though the duel continued. Her mouth was wide, echoing moans of terrible pain, and when Alexander came to her screaming as well, all she could do was muster the smallest of proud, bloody grins.

Alexander yelled something at her.

But there was one more person.

Carn stumbled to his feet, a clenched hand covering his eyes, fingers tensed like dead, and a dark liquid dripped between the gaps. “FUCK—! You fucking motherfuckers, fuck! What the fuck did you do to me, you fucking bitch?! I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill all of you!”

An array of daggers was brought from his coat. “Die—die—die—DIE—!”

But before the daggers converged, all turned white, and they were in another place.