Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 240: Cleaning the Mess

The conference room had once been pristine. Well, it was a conference room in a highrise in Seoul, one of dozens in the building, but it had been a nice one. Up until a few hours ago. Now, it was filled with random clutter, including a pair of file boxes, more tablets, and laptops than even a hundred people could ever need, empty plates, coffee cups, and crumbs strewn everywhere.

Yoo-jin was off dealing with the political end of things, which mostly meant ensuring that the fallout from the Dungeon’s destruction didn’t cause literal riots.

Professor Kim had grabbed her assistant and Patrick to try and break down the dragon-obliteration spell they’d cast earlier so they could use it without Amy’s [Skills] tying itself together.

Isaac, Amy, several scientists researching Dungeons, the Guild’s analysts and half a dozen randos Yoo-jin had assigned as gophers before running off, well, they got the decidedly short end of the stick. Figuring out what the actual hell had happened.

Going back through historical data on the Dungeon, they didn’t find any major screwups with oversight, no weird gaps in surveillance where someone could have snuck in and started sacrificing people to power the place up. And even if someone had snuck in, there weren’t nearly enough missing persons to account for a significant increase in the Dungeon’s power gain.

The real issue was that there were serious limits in their understanding of Dungeon advancement, as it was obviously very difficult to research how many dead people equated to a certain amount of advancement. People mostly focussed on observing how strong the Dungeon was via its creatures and traps.

Usually, that worked just fine, as they didn’t hold stuff back like that. Not normally, anyway. This situation was the first problem like this Dungeon Isaac knew about, in either timeline.

Hell, no one even knew how Dungeons could invest their gains, how expensive it was to unlock new creature types vs strengthening existing ones, and so on. They’d have to ask one … which would probably require a fourth or fifth Evolution [Mind Mage].

The Draconic Abyss Dungeon had gotten quite a few kills in its life, but only advanced very, very slowly, and the general assumption had been that draconic Dungeons grew stronger at a lower rate due to the power of their creature type. The growth curve could certainly vary wildly between Dungeon types.

Two hours. Two bloody hours of going through random files and trying to spot something. Isaac and Amy had both dipped out briefly to find a place where they were unobserved, texted Arthur, and finally talked to him in the [Round Table] so he could switch out whose [Skills] they could borrow.

Amy got Jason’s bag of tricks, allowing her great insight into the criminal mind once she decided to draw on the [Round Table], while Isaac would use Habicht’s [Skills] once he needed to.

“Found something!” Park, Yoo-jin’s assistant, yelled suddenly.

Immediately, everyone stared at him, but to his credit, he didn’t shrink back or falter. Instead, he placed his tablet on the table and spun it around so they could all see it right side up.

“I found a pattern with the deaths in the Dungeon,” he announced.

What he’d found was obvious, clearly illustrated in a graph. There had been several full-party wipes in that place, those happened in every Dungeon that wasn’t pathetically weak, with more happening at the lower end of the power spectrum, the weaker a party was the greater the risk of none of them returning.

In this one, however, a curious pattern emerged. The weakest and strongest parties were dying in normal numbers, but when it came to the parties that were a cut above the “bottom of the barrel”, as it were, they died in unusual numbers. Of course, this was an A-ranked Dungeon, even the weakest people who went in were powerhouses, but they were still weaker than most who went in.

The Dungeon hadn’t been picking off the weakest, that was something people had been on the lookout for, instead focussing on the stronger groups that it could still take down. Probably with the same ice-wall trick it had used on Isaac and Amy.

“This has been going on for a long time,” Isaac noted.

“Why didn’t anyone notice this?” Park wondered.

“Shouldn’t you guys have noticed that?” one of the scientists asked.

“Not my department, I only get the high-level summaries,” Park replied, tossing a pointed look at one of the “gophers”.

“We assumed that the less-qualified people were just being sufficiently cautious and retreating instead of risking death,” the woman mumbled, clearly wishing the building didn’t have any safeguards against just phasing through walls.

“So you thought that the people who were willing to risk going into a Dungeon they were barely qualified for in the name of monetary gain were more cautious than the ones who went into one appropriate for their power level?” Park asked dryly.

“Considering how high our requirements for entering high-Level Dungeons are, anyone allowed inside is almost certainly not incompetent.”

“You’d be surprised what Level incompetents can reach,” Isaac pointed out “And even if the weakest people allowed into a Dungeon are pretty strong, they’re still weaker than everyone else who goes in. Statistically speaking, they should be the ones dying in the greatest numbers.”

“So, how do we make sure this doesn’t happen again?” Park asked “The statistics look alarming now that we know the Dungeon likes to set traps. But until now, they just looked a little weird. Do we break all statical outliers?”

“What we really need is a way to see what’s happening inside, so we know if the Dungeon is trapping a group inside. The only communication methods that work are either party coms and emergency beacons. Phones and radios won’t work, and black boxes or bodycams will get eaten by the Dungeon before they can be retrieved.”

“So we teach as many sentries a party [Skill] as possible, and then make sure that one of them is there whenever none of the Dungeon delvers has one. Then, either the party adds the guards to a party or vice versa.” Isaac suggested.

“And by ‘we teach’, you mean that you’re going to be doing the teaching?” Amy asked.

“Yeah, I’ll work out the particulars with Guildmaster Seon, later,” Isaac said “Now, we need to keep working on this.”

“Do we know why you were targeted by the Dungeon?” someone asked.

“Honestly?” Isaac shrugged “We looked weak. According to the records, groups of S-Rankers almost never show up, and they’re usually accompanied by A-Rankers. The Dungeon won’t have had any experience with how powerful groups of two can be, so it might have thought we were a good target.”

“Wouldn’t it be able to somehow sense how strong you were?” Park asked.

Isaac paused before answering “We don’t know how Dungeons can sense a delver’s strength, or if they can even sense anything except what Evolution someone’s at. The Dungeon adapted its tactics to the abilities I and Amy demonstrated, not our full [Skill]set.

“However historical data tells us that many Dungeons know better than to attack extremely powerful individuals. There’s clearly some kind of sensory effect in play, but we don’t know how good it is beyond that it doesn’t give it complete access to our status sheets.

“But even if it can see what kind of [Class] someone has, all it saw was a magic user and a scientist walk into a Dungeon, that hardly looks threatening.”

The entire room just gaped at him for a moment, until Park finally asked the question on everyone’s mind, sounding as though he expected Isaac to incinerate him on the spot.

“You’re a … you have a scientist [Class]? But you’re … you fight Demon Lords, eat [Raid Bosses] for breakf- … just … how?”

Isaac let out a long breath before answering “By always preparing, never taking a fair fight, and bending the rules until they scream and beg for mercy.”

In reality, [Incarnation of the Promethean Spirit] was primarily a capstone [Class] that worked with the bearer’s previous [Classes], granting [Skills] that were only strong if they synergized with existing [Skills], but there were enough possible options that anyone with a decent [Skill]set could create a downright nasty build for themselves.

But in the end, if forced to sum it up in a single word, yes, it was a scientist [Class].

“Besides, he had previous combat [Classes].” Amy reminded everyone.

“So we know why you were targeted, now how did the Dungeon know how to strategize like that in the first place?”

“Maybe someone fed it a copy of ‘The Art of War’?” Isaac suggested, earning a few laughs.

“No, I’m serious. Remember when someone decided to feed a collection of Dungeon Core books to that little cavern just outside the city?” Isaac asked.

This time, he got a collective wince. That mess had been a shitshow for the ages. One of the stories involved had been about a fantasy wizard who’d stolen a magical amulet from the dark lord, escaped through a botched portal, and accidentally zapped himself into a video game, which had transformed into a real world due to the influence of the magical amulet. And the icing on the shit cake was that he could only return home by reaching a high enough Level to use a portal ability.

In order to do that, he’d taken over a dungeon and used proper guerilla tactics. The “players” of said game had thought he was an annoying troll. The problem was that, in the real world, brutally murdering people via diseases, curses, acid baths, excruciating toxins, and more … it was kinda awful.

In the end, the only thing worse that someone could have fed that Dungeon would have been a tablet containing the entirety of the Saw franchise.

The Dungeon ended up destroyed and the “no feeding Dungeons books” policy had been more strongly empathized.

“So maybe someone decided to be funny and accidentally taught a Dungeon how to strategize?”

“Or they had the book on them when they died in the Dungeon.”

“Or it was sabotage.”

Sabotage. Yeah, that was looking to be the most likely option. But were they dealing with a purely earthly culprit?

Sabotage that occurred a long time ago, inflicted upon a Dungeon that might grow to be a place where everyone and their dog went to level and gather resources, a place that Isaac might go into, and then have a layout that might counter him, as long as his build didn’t change massively … that sounded right up the dark gods’ alley. A cheap trick in more than one way.

Then again, the same logic could be applied to human saboteurs. Sabotage a Dungeon with a decent chance at growing popular, rather than trying to fuck with an already well-visited cavern of murder, which would be under heavy guard.

If it was the gods, then humanity would also get a tiny boon somewhere down the line. And if it was a human, then they’d get caught by someone who was actually good at tracking down criminals, someone other than Isaac.

Until then … paperwork, grinding, and powering up humanity.

***

Twelve hours later, the conference room looked even worse. Comparing it to a battlefield would have been an insult to the battlefield. Dirty plates, cutlery, takeout containers, street food wrappers, empty glasses, spilled coffee and other beverages … it was a mess. One that would soon be cleaned up, once Isaac and Amy vacated the place.

“Are you alright?” she asked after a moment “It got pretty rough in there.”

“You’re asking me if I’m alright after a fight? Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Isaac replied, pausing for a moment to make sure that the anti-eavesdropping protocols were still in play “I’ve been in a lot worse situations than that. You haven’t.”

Amy shrugged “I could actually fight back, you were stuck on the ledge. I could probably have blasted my way out if I’d just bunkered down near the entrance, melting the ice while I kept the dragons off me with a few nasty spells. That might be the most vulnerable you’ve ever been in this timeline.”

“Look, that sucked, but honestly, bad fights always do, and I always bounce back.” Isaac shrugged.

“That’s why you’re sitting in an almost empty conference room, preventing the cleaning crew from coming in?” Amy asked.

Isaac shrugged again. He just needed a little time to think, really.

“It’s that easy for you? Almost died, oh well, I didn’t, so now let’s go pick the next fight?” she was still calm, but Isaac could tell she was rattled.

He once again checked the anti-eavesdropping precautions before responding.

“Did I ever tell you what I did before I woke up back in my bed, on the day the [System] arrived?” he asked.

“You fought a [Raid Boss]?” She responded, sounding very unsure.

“Yeah, that’s what I told you, isn’t it?” Isaac sighed.

“Yes, that’s what you said.” Amy shot him a concerned look “What happened?”

“I fought a [Raid Boss], that part’s true, but I didn’t tell you the whole story. I was with a couple of others. One was a really good friend, we were stuck together for weeks thinking we were the only survivors in the world, and then Mark showed up. We were friends too, but I wasn’t quite as close with him. He told us about a Demon Lord nearby, a Tier 10 version. At that point, [Raid Bosses] don’t just have minions, they also have portals that close a few hours after their deaths, and those portals constantly spew out more monsters, eventually growing big enough to summon weaker [Raid Bosses].

“Honestly, we could have probably survived for a bit longer, in that fortress, but we were done. Mark told us about the monster, and we decided that we could at least kill one Big Bad Evil Guy before we died. So out we went, not expecting to ever come back. And we tore through them like they were nothing. Less than nothing.

“And we killed the damn boss, we tore it to pieces, but in the end, I was the only left one on that field, just me, that thing’s corpse, and the portal. I’d already decided I wasn’t coming back from that fight, so why stop now that the enemy was dead? Why not jump through that portal and kill as many of them as I can find, because maybe, just maybe, that damage might stick? Because that place might be where the monsters came from, or maybe it was the realm of some dark god whose face I could spit in before I died. And then, moments before jumping through that portal, I was told I could try again, so I did.

“All of this, everything that’s happened since then, it’s bonus time. I love that I have it, and I want to make sure I’m never back in that situation, but …” Isaac sighed deeply “I made my peace with dying a long time ago. I don’t want to die, I don’t want anyone else to die, but … I’m not scared of it anymore. Just upset that I might have screwed up and lost everything.”

There was silence in the room for a long while before Amy spoke up.

“Did you see them again in this timeline?” she asked gently.

“I randomly ran into Kade one time. It was awkward as hell, and I stared at him for so long that I’m pretty sure he thought I had a problem with him. And Mark … I know he’s fine, they both are, but I don’t think I can ever meet them again.”

“If you ever need to talk, you know I’m here, right?” Amy offered.

Isaac nodded slowly “Thanks.”

“… But I’m going to keep talking with Bailey or Elena?” Amy finished his sentence for him.

“Well, Bailey is my actually age, so … wait, how do you know about me and Elena?” Isaac asked. He thought he’d kept that on the down low fairly well, but maybe he’d been careless, more focused on keeping his secrets or his relationship?

“Arthur.” Amy point-blank told him “You go to Camelot a lot, or meet her somewhere else, but you never let anyone else come and Arthur didn’t know about it because it isn’t official business when I asked. Also, you just confirmed it.”

Then she stuck her tongue out “Master of a million secrets, lets slip that he has a girlfriend the first time someone asks, I gotta tell the others!”

And with that, she opened the window and flew out, cell phone already in hand, Isaac right on her heels, earlier funk forgotten.