A halberd sped forward, it’s spear point catching a person by the shoulder. There was a pain exclamation of surprise as the player dropped his sword and Noam pinned them to the wall. The person began screaming, to which Noam shook his head, “Buck up, shoulder hits aren’t lethal.”

“You motherfucker!” The pinned person yelled.

‘Dustin would’ve told him to be more original,’ Noam idly thought as he began twisting the halberd, inciting more pained cries.

“Trust me, this sort of pain is nothing,” Noam assured, “plus you respawn later so it’s honestly no skin off your back.”

“It still HURTS YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” The person yelled.

It annoyed him that he was to do this. This was usually Declan’s thing. Experimenting. Testing all the possible variations and then figuring something out. But Noam couldn’t contact him since he was outside the range of spawn. It wasn’t his style to continuously beat the shit out of weak people -it just wasn’t fun, ya know?- but right now his curiosity was stronger than his annoyance.

The person swore again, his free hand reaching for the pole of the weapon pinning him.

Noam lifted his foot, kicking it into the person’s stomach before stomping on it as leverage to pull his halberd out.

The person fell to the ground without moving. Noam glanced at the wound he had left and saw the same thing he’d been seeing for ages.

White particles.

The same that appeared when a player died. A shoulder attack was hardly lethal but still, it appeared. It could just be a visual thing but every single person who had displayed this died in a few moments.

But why?

Noam had already fought a bunch of people, most of them took actually lethal hits before dying. Even characters that weren’t supposed to have a high constitution like mages.

He stood up as the white particles began to spread around the wound. Another player died in the exact same, odd way. Namely, in the fact that Noam didn’t kill him.

Back at the battle arena in spawn, some players- no, most of the players took several good hits to go down. That didn’t even mean they died, just knocked unconscious. But out here… people were fragile. He tried knocking someone unconscious and almost immediately they began disappearing.

It could’ve just been that he happened to run into people with very low HP values constantly but that explanation was wrong. Dustin might’ve taken the HP explanation and ran with it but Noam knew in his heart that that explanation was wrong.

Noam clenched his hand, feeling his nails press against his palm, the strain of the muscles beneath his knuckles. He felt the sting of his fresh knee scrapes from careless running. The dull aches as his body began to tire. His eyes took in the vivid details of the overgrown mall, filled with green, actual green. Not neon advertisements or strangely coloured energy drinks, but green from plants. Something he thought he would never see save for obscenely pricey trips to protected gardens.

With every single breath of the cool, damp air, Noam understood a simple truth.

At the moment he was alive, even more so than the sick body he had in real life. Even if the body wasn’t as strong, fast or durable as the dozens of game characters he’s inhabited over the years. It felt real to Matt, so that meant it was real.

So why the hell were people dying so easily?

His stuck-up tutorial guide had told him, under no uncertain circumstances that player characters had similar durability to what you would expect them to have. A player wasn’t going to survive getting skewered multiple times or beheaded. However, some players were dying far too easily.

His ponderings were interrupted by footsteps, and a smash as a figure cleared out some debris in front of the store he was staying.

He caught glimpse of a metal bat as the figure kicked her way into the store.

She was a tiefling just like him, but red-skinned, with short messy hair, smaller horns and with pure yellow eyes instead of purple. Only the barest amounts of hard leather armour that only covered vitals, leaving joints, waist, and neck exposed for free movement.

She hefted her bat up, resting it on her shoulder, “You’re the psycho who’s been killing everyone right?”

“Of course,” Noam replied, a smile creeping up unto his face, “who’s asking.”

The girl spat on the ground, then raised the bat at him, “You’re strong right?”

Noam shrugged, casually readying his own weapon, “Probably,”

“Great. Then I call dibs,” and with that, she kicked off the ground towards him. Her mouth a wide smile that mirrored Noam’s own.

Bob heard the door behind him crack open as Hendrix stepped in, a large sack slumped over his back.

“Who are you, Santa?” Bob asked as he turned around, “what's in the bag?”

Hendrix glanced around the room, nodding at Pop who was next to Bob, then answered, “Debon’s stuff.”

Bob shook his head, “I presume your attempt at a dinner date didn’t go well?”

“He is a bard, it’s not like he has a shortage of dates,” Hendrix said, before dumping the sack by the door and closing the door, “Pop can you tell me when Debon is close?”

Pop nodded at Hendrix’s request, before resuming her work. Hundreds of numbers and letters passing through her eyes.

Bob signed, resigning himself to being another unwilling accomplice to what Hendrix defines as ‘fun’.

“How’s moderating going?” Hendrix asked, peering at the crystal in front of Hendrix.

“Wonderful,” Bob sarcastically replied, “There are far too many insane players, nothing is simple and I’ve prevented the end of the world four times already.”

Hendrix chuckled, before noticing Bob’s utterly serious face, “Wait, you’re not joking?”

Bob shook his head, “This is why I was against assigning free classes and races based on personality. Even if they all have the same power budget, some characters start out absurdly specialised.”

Though Bob personally suspected that Eve only implemented this system to give everyone something to do. Most of the Heirs were in characters that reflected their personality after all. So it also gave them a chance to meet like minded people when they were brought to lead the tutorial. It wasn’t a coincidence that every Heir had led at least one tutorial.

“Any notable examples?” Hendrix casually asked, his body becoming completely still in that odd, myconid way.

Bob pulled out the file of ‘troublemakers’ and looked at the most recent ones;

“Zettour, he’s been terrorizing the Melbourne server after bonding with the False Aboleth Boss there...”

“Noam, lots of ganking, has already started a mob to hunt him down...”

“xXScorchedReaperXx started a bushfire which forced the drop bear and kangaroo gangbanger population to move into Sydney and start attacking players, as well as inciting a land war between the local fey tribes...”

“Herman, selling his soul to three different lesser devils before I got to him, creating a custody crisis which if I don’t go to court to resolve will likely spark another Infernal War...”

“Icypole, doing unsavoury things with corpses…”

Bob felt a headache incoming and he put down the near ten-centimetre thick file, “Look, you get the idea right?”

Hendrix mutely nodded, something like pity in his eyes.

Bob sighed again, it had already been two days and he felt more overworked than the thousands of years he had looking after the Heirs and Indiri. At least only a few of the Heirs were troublesome.

“Why are looking at me with those accusatory eyes?” Hendrix asked.

Hendrix picked up the folder, flipping to a certain page, “Knew it, I know this Noam guy. I bribed Debon to screw with- test him.”

He flipped around the folder a bit more, “There’s a lot of stuff happening in Melbourne it seems.”

Bob nodded, “After I finish dealing with the fires I’m heading there. The main problem here seems to be…” Bob flipped the pages of the folder, landing on the last page, “Zettour, the guy who bonded with the Aboleth.”

“How did he even do that?” Hendrix asked, “It’s a boss mob so it should have Legendary Resistances.”

Bob sighed, “The tutorial guide to this Zettour was Tzu.”

Hendrix’s eyes widened, genuine terror flickered across his face, “That means his class is…”

“That’s right,” Bob replied.

A product of absurd specialisation, a class that had zero combat capabilities and was about as durable as wet tissue paper in swamp water. That class was good at one thing and one thing only, manipulation in its most subtle and unnoticed form.

The class, Mastermind.