Might as Well - Chapter 400 (Patreon)

Sam crawled up the wall, jumping from one rudimentary handhold to another, using wind magic to boost his speed and to make sure he wouldn’t fall. It took barely a few seconds to scale the over-sixty-foot-tall factory, his hands finding a purchase on the edge of the masonry on the roof, where he pulled himself up and landed on his feet, crouched there.

Looking around, he saw that there were no chimneys and the entire roof was made of stone, wood, and a bit of metal here and there, reinforcing the joints.

Sitting down, his back to the edge of the roof, Sam took exactly one second to take a slow breath, then let it out.

He had, with a generous overestimation, maybe a minute or two before the woman he had just defeated gathered herself, decided what to do, and then either started the journey back or went and gathered more people to capture him.

Maybe five minutes before the entire report filtered through the convoluted Blood Army hierarchy and reached someone with enough paranoia or more than three brain cells to rub together to send a team to check it out. If he had the worst luck, then they would immobilize everyone just to lock down the area.

Reaching into his inventory, he pulled out a stack of metal plates adorned with carved runes and scattered them around himself, but didn’t activate them yet. Instead, his hand went back for another stack and grabbed more of the plates, though these had a different set of runes on them.

Instead of scattering them around himself, Sam took them one by one and threw them all around the roof, using his ability to control wind to gently place them in the correct position. When done, he turned his attention to the first set of runic plates and activated them.

Instantly, a subtle bubble of magic rose around him, giving him at least a moment of warning if anyone launched something at him or managed to sneak up on him. Conveniently, it also kept him invisible.

More protected, and feeling the time crunch, Sam turned his attention to the curses clinging to his skin. His vision, enhanced by his Mana Sense, showed him three different colored, barbed-wire-like blood tentacles emerging from the ether, clinging to his skin, metaphorically hooking themselves to his body.

The first, belonging to the Curse of Displacement, was pure black, reminding him of actual space. The Curse of the Crumbling Trail looked like it was made out of pure, liquid blood, constantly flowing, never settling down, and the Curse of Endless Hunger was also black, but instead was the color of the night sky unblemished by light pollution; it was the empty darkness of the void.

Sam didn’t really have much time to observe and examine them. Otherwise, he would have sat down and probably devised a way to slowly and peacefully remove the hooks from his body.

However, he was racing against time, so he needed some ad hoc solution without alerting those watching that he could do this and, more importantly, without blowing his own head off with a careless mistake.

Once again, giving thanks to his blind luck and what most people considered a brilliant tactical decision to make contact with Liz and hire her, he took out a mana-chip that was soaked in blood magic.

He put it down on the rooftop in front of him and got into the lotus position. He always found it a bit awkward and uncomfortable, but thematically it worked for meditation, so he would have to use it.

In ordinary situations, he would just have a high-level healer cast a curse removal spell, and depending on the strength of the curse, the spell would fully remove it or weaken it. And by high level, he meant Clarissa or someone higher than her. Most lower-level players could at best suppress the effects of the curse for a few seconds or maybe a minute. Not enough to escape this deadly place…

There were naturally artifacts that did all sorts of things to curses, like absorbing them, consuming them, or even allowing people to transfer them to all sorts of targets. Sadly, once again, they were rare as a hen with teeth.

Instead, he would have to grit his teeth and do it on his own. Thankfully, he had a rather robust mana core and enough mana to brute-force almost anything.

He started with the Curse of the Crumbling Trail, as it was the most important. The other two were survivable, but with this marking his body, there was no way he would be able to escape.

Sam gently probed the liquid barbs currently adhered to his body, watching as they vibrated as if he had plucked a guitar string. Gently enveloping one of the barbs with his mana both from the outside and the inside, he began to gently move it.

At first, it resisted, but he just applied more pressure, funneling his torrent of mana toward the task. The Curse was powerful, but he wasn’t fighting against the whole curse. Just this tiny, tiny part of it. And this tiny part slowly began to move backward, slowly letting go of his body.

When the last millimeter left, he felt it trying to dissolve now that its job was done, but he didn’t let it. Instead, sweating as he maintained his focus, he moved the small connection toward the mana-chip in front of him.

It took a bit of pushing, but the barb soon was hooked into the mana matrix of the mana-chip. Happy at his success, Sam didn’t have time to celebrate. Instead, he returned his attention to his own body, and now that he had proved that this entire thing was possible, used his multitasking skill to envelop all the barbs belonging to the Curse, and pushed.

The curse, much stronger, resisted the force he was exerting on it, but in the end, in this battlefield, he was much stronger. The curse was basically an automated system, without a brain and without an ability to change its approach. He simply transferred the Curse to the mana-chip, and felt a little tension escape his body.

The system immediately noted his success despite having his notifications set on delay.

[Congratulations! You have successfully removed and transferred the Curse of Crumbling Trail!]

[You are no longer under the effect of the curse!]

[You gained the skill Curse Resistance!]

[Curse Resistance: Level 0/100 (0%) (Passive) Thanks to your ability with mana control, curses have a harder time finding purchase on you. Each level increases the resistance by 1%.]

[Illusion, Corruption, Fear, Poison, and Curse Resistance have merged into Abnormal Resistance!]

[Abnormal Resistance: Level 33/100 (7%) (Passive) Your very being has become resistant against abnormal statuses, debuffs, and curses. Each level increases the resistance by 1%.]

Waving the screens away, Sam refocused on the other two curses, already feeling his skill working, as their hold on him weakened ever so slightly. Next was the Curse of Displacement. This was more about space-time abilities, but if he ignored that aspect and fully focused on the construct that was attached to his body, then he could simply…

There!

The barbs slid out of his body, his mana pushing them out cleanly, leaving him breathing hard, sweating but grinning. Focusing his mind, straining a little, he moved the mass of black mana constructs and added it to the mana-chip.

CRACK

The chip cracked a little, but even then, it was still held together. As fast as possible, Sam lashed out with his own mana, enveloping the chip and keeping it together.

‘Maybe I should have used multiple chips…’ he mused. ‘Oh well, doesn’t matter anymore…’

Keeping an eye on the slowly cracking mana-chip, he reached for the last and most dangerous curse. The Curse of Endless Hunger had been absorbing blood mana from the mana chips he had on him, and no doubt from the environment itself.

One wrong move and he was toast.

The void-like mana constructs were trying to dig deeper into his body, endlessly seeking more blood, but his own resistances and Void Soul made sure they couldn’t dig deeper. And now that he even had Curse Resistance, it was already slowly being pushed out. Not fast enough for it to clear out within a few seconds, but it was enough that, carefully twisting his own mana, suffusing it into the process that was doing the pushing, he could accelerate the process.

While part of his attention was on this, the other part was doing its best to keep the mana-chip from cracking under the weight of two curses. He had a feeling that after attaching the third, he would have to move fast.

The barbs belonging to the curse left his body with a silent plop, and he let out a final breath.

Just as new sounds caught his attention.

Flashes of light from the area he had just vacated, people yelling and shouting, armored feet hitting the ground, and spell names being shouted. Keeping a tenuous hold on the curse, his head whipped around, only to see another team being teleported in.

There was an enormous crowd, at least a hundred people slowly approaching the factory, all dressed in their very best Blood Army getup. At their head was the team he had seen back underground.

‘Time to go…’

He practically jammed the loose ends of the last curse into the mana-chip, the small magi-tech device cracking even further. Sam could even see the blood magic suffusing the curses slowly beginning to corrupt and transform the material it was made from.

While no doubt an interesting thing to watch, he didn’t have time for that. His enemies were close.

“Spread out!”

“Make sure he can’t escape!”

“Team three to six are on clone watch!”

“Team seven, make sure to be ready to counter the shadow magic!”

Peeking once again over the edge of the roof, Sam grimaced.

‘It’s going to be tight…’

Making sure to keep a tight hold on the mana-chip to prevent further complications, he reached down and placed his palm on the wooden board making up the roof. A brief flash of magic, and a circular hole was carved with wind magic. He caught the circular piece of wood and pulled it up, allowing him a brief glimpse into the factory.

Sadly, what he saw was nothing more than a boring janitor’s closet.

Cursing silently, he shook his head. ‘Forget this. I need to escape.’

Taking a deep breath, he slowly gathered the first set of runic plates, pocketed them, then picked up the crackling mana-chip that was starting to emit blood-red light, and, after a deep breath, he stood up.

Stepping with one leg up on the ledge, he grinned and yelled out.

“Oy!”

Instantly, every person around the building froze, looking up at him. Probably either wondering how he could be so stupid as to reveal his presence, or wondering what made him so brave as to do so. He could already feel two dozen mana probes heading toward him, but he just brushed them aside with his own, trying to suggest that there was some kind of skill in play.

“I’m glad to see that so many people came to see little ol’ me!” he continued, a laugh in his voice, watching as several people instantly bristled. “But I’m afraid to disappoint, as I have a dentist appointment soon, so I will have to bid you, good people, goodbye! Full five stars for the ambiance, but you lose one for the abysmal service!”

The man in the lead, covered head to toe in armor, pointed at Sam. “Do you think you can escape us?”

Sam’s grin widened. “Gentlemen, Maximilian Lupin the Seventh is not going to be caught by mere nobodies!”

Before the other guy could reply, Sam continued.

“So consider today the day when you almost caught the famous thief, Maximilian Lupin… the Seventh of his name!” He reached out with his magic as he was looking down at the dumbfounded crowd at his audacity, and activated the other runic circle he had placed down at the beginning. He knew he had five seconds.

He raised his arm that wasn’t holding the currently bubbling mana-chip, and executed a cheeky salute toward the Blood Army players.

Four…

“Maybe next time, chaps!” he declared and summoned his own mana just under his skin, not wanting to give anything away.

Three…

The man standing down in front of the building seemingly shook off the surprise and growled. “You’re not going anywhere…”

Two…

Sam made eye contact with him. “You think so?”

One…

He nodded at the man, then stepped backward, just as the runic circles activated. Mana beyond any imagination erupted from them, creating a pillar of energy that drilled downward, destroying the factory under it, and toward the heavens, illuminating the entire valley in blinding white light.

The moment the first sparks were alive, Sam was already moving, his hand holding the mana-chip that seemed to be growing small eyes and teeth. He threw the disgusting piece of corrupted magi-tech toward the blinding explosion, not even staying still to watch it evaporate, and he was already running, his hand blindly reaching into his inventory and pulling out his strongest speed potion.

The environment became a blur as behind him, the pillar of mana froze for a moment, then shrank into a flat disk for a moment.

Then, after a pause not long enough to finish a breath, it erupted with the same energy in a pulse, destroying whatever remained of the factory, including the walls and most of the players there.

By the time the echoes of the destruction vanished, Sam was nowhere to be seen.

He was on Lucky’s back, the wolf made of shadows, staring forward with singular focus as he ran as fast as possible, with Sam on his back, lying as flat as possible.

His face was covered in a giant smile, and his jittery body was radiating satisfaction.

‘I wonder what they will make of this…’