The apocalypse is a side.., p.41
The Apocalypse is a Side Quest: Book Three, page 41
Is this what the rest of the top ten think as well? Holy shit, this guy is completely insane!
On the one hand, Nathan could somewhat relate to what the man was saying. Back in his old life, he had been a deadbeat. He’d been a disappointment to everyone—to his parents, his teachers, to his sister, even to himself. He’d always known that he was good for something, that there was some kind of hidden potential inside of him. But the circumstances he was in wouldn’t allow that potential to be drawn out.
But even so, Nathan would pick going back home over this hellhole one hundred times over.
Part of Nathan wondered what it would have been like if he hadn’t gone through the apocalypse. He would have never met Mara or Chad. Emi. Heck, even Bjorn (though Nathan could admit he was starting to forget what the orc from the First Circle looked like). What about Fuge? They were… they were almost like family. And he would have never met them had it not been for the apocalypse.
But on the other hand, there was a chance that all these amazing people he’d met would be swallowed up and consumed by—well, he didn’t need to elaborate on it in his mind.
So Nathan could somewhat relate to what Leviathan was saying. Perhaps even agree to a certain extent. But still, you had to be insane to just more or less say that you’d want to stay in the apocalypse.
“So I suppose you don’t want to go to the Ninth Circle?” Nathan said.
“The Ninth?” Leviathan shrugged. “I’m not going to chase after it. Not unless there’s something in it for me. I was one of the people who managed to get hold of the Pandora, so technically I contributed to the First Circle. But for the most part, I tried to stay out of the boss battles. I don’t want to rush things. I want to take my time.”
“That’s… No offense, but that strikes me as a little bit selfish, no?”
“What’s selfish about it?”
“You’re the second strongest. You can make a huge difference, but instead you choose to spend your time... what, grinding? Looting dungeons? Gaining skills?”
“I mean, they’re bound to come in handy, right?” Leviathan said. “When the time comes, I’ll be able to help out.”
Nathan, suffice to say, didn’t quite agree. Something about his mindset rubbed him the wrong way, though it was hard to put his finger on why.
Instead, Nathan focused on gathering more information.
“You said you’ve always been like this?” he said.
“Ever since I was a kid. There was just this overwhelming sense of emptiness. You know how some people talk about being born in the wrong time?” Leviathan scoffed. “Of course, a lot of those people are being stupid. But in my case, it really feels true.”
“Is that why you’re so powerful?”
“That’s part of it.”
“Part?”
Leviathan seemed hesitant to answer. Something about the question clearly rubbed him the wrong way.
“Is there something else to which you’d attribute your success?” Nathan asked.
Leviathan finally shook his head. “No, I guess not. It’s more of a funny thought, then, than anything else.”
“I won’t make fun of you, if that’s the concern. I’m just genuinely curious.”
“Honestly?” Leviathan said. “I think it has something to do with my parents. Or, uh, lack of them.”
“You’re an orphan?”
“Pretty much. But the matron always told me that they were great people, so maybe it’s in the genes?”
Nathan found this very unlikely, but he figured that saying such a thing would be incredibly rude.
Out of the corner of his eye, Nathan noted the timer ticking down. Five more minutes till the next boss fight.
“We should get ready, eh?” Nathan said.
“Yeah, that sounds like a good move.”
Nathan stood up and brushed himself off, while Leviathan didn’t. Instead, he was staring off at something in the distance. Nathan frowned. What was he looking at?
“Leviathan? What are you looking for?”
Leviathan froze.
“Sorry, not sure what I was staring at,” he said.
The timer continued to tick down as they stood in silence. When the teleportation finally occurred, Nathan was almost glad for it.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
When Nathan fell in, he decided to switch things up.
Normally he’d do some generic cool guy pose or something, or fall to the ground in a heap.
Instead, he summoned a burst of air and slammed it into his foot to give him the force to do not one, not two, but three flips in the air before he landed in the sand.
Leviathan fell to the ground with a soft thump. “Was… was there a point to that?”
“No.”
His gaze shifted toward where he anticipated the boss would come from. As he expected, a creature burst from the ground, melting the sand around it into shards of thin glass.
It was some kind of fire creature?
He inspected it.
[Fire Elemental] - Lv. 70
A creature composed of raw flames. Born from the heart of a dying star, the Fire Elemental is—nah, just kidding. It’s actually the result of a forbidden union between someone’s campfire and a shrub. Somehow, for no particular reason at all, the essence of life was infused into the flames, creating this creature. He has very serious parental issues as a result of the fact that his father burned his mother alive in order to create him. Never mind the fact that neither of his parents was sapient. Or sentient. Or possessed anything that could reasonably be called consciousness. Don’t prod him about it; he’ll burn you for it.
Nathan resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the usual System shenanigans. These backstories got more ridiculous by the encounter.
The fire elemental shot its flames to the left and right, targeting Leviathan and Dr. Ada, respectively. Leviathan summoned a wall of water, seemingly out of nowhere, and blocked the attack. Dr. Ada, meanwhile, tossed an item on the ground, and a thick block composed entirely of ice appeared in front of her.
The fire slammed into both walls and ripped through them with only the slightest slowdown from the barriers erected in its way.
Leviathan cursed and threw himself to the side, the flames licking at his cheeks. Dr. Ada paled and tried to do the same, but she’d been an inch too slow. The flames ripped into her arm, and she let out a pained grunt.
Nathan winced. The wound looked like it wouldn’t heal very easily. The upper layer of her skin had been melted away, almost seeming to drip onto the ground, exposing the pink underside.
Arika glared at the creature. Magic flashed from her hands, and it froze in place. It tried to swat something out of the air, then stumbled backward. If it had a facial expression, Nathan imagined that it would have been of panic.
Nathan started to reach for his fishing rod before he realized that, without a material form to grapple with, it would most likely not be very effective. Instead, he focused his will on summoning a kraken tentacle.
A shimmering blue portal appeared behind him, and a tentacle launched out at full force toward the fire elemental. As soon as it came in contact with the elemental, smoke rose, and the tentacle reared back as if struck. Nathan grimaced and threw the kraken tentacle back into the fire elemental. Once again, the same result.
It’s a hard counter to my abilities. The water in general. Is this supposed to be my enemy?
Nathan frowned. It hadn’t targeted him—no, it’d targeted Leviathan and Dr. Ada. Of the two, Leviathan only used water as an extra. It was Dr. Ada who was using water… albeit usually in the form of ice.
So then the creature was targeting Dr. Ada.
As if to prove him right, the fire elemental thrust its hand out, and a blast of flame burst forward, heat spreading through the air like an oven turned to max.
Dr. Ada threw herself away and tossed down a cube behind her. The cube detonated, this time into a different type of ice. Whereas before the ice that she’d been using was the standard white, this one was a strange, shimmering blue. The ice actually succeeded in blocking the flames for a few seconds. The flames melted away at the ice until it evaporated, but it bought the precious time needed for Dr. Ada to get out of range.
This was certainly a little bit frustrating for Nathan. All his techniques were water-based, and this thing had a hard counter to water. What would it be like when he faced down one that was actually meant to take him out? Not only that, but physical attacks were out of the question.
Nathan needed to work together with the others. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to be directly offensive, but he would be able to help.
“Chad, Mara, I don’t suppose either of you has some kind of anti-spirit weapons?” Nathan shouted.
Chad looked at his longsword with a disapproving glare, as if asking why it was being so useless.
“Sorry, no dice on my end,” Chad said.
“This thing is cheating! It doesn’t bleed; that’s not fair!”
Nathan cast a side eye at Mara. “I think fairness went out the window the moment we were summoned to another dimension to compete in a gigantic interdimensional dungeon.”
Before Mara could complain much longer, the fire elemental started to change color. Its vibrant red gave way to a cool, sharp blue.
“Oh, shoot, the temperature just went up, right?” Chad said.
Dr. Ada coughed into her hand. “Actually, that’s not necessarily true. Often, the color shows the type of fuel being used—”
She was interrupted in her speech by the sound of crackling. A moment later, four bright blue bolts of flames spewed from the creature’s chest like shotgun shells aimed directly at Dr. Ada.
Her eyes burst open, and she threw herself to the side once more. Unfortunately, she was too slow—
Grigor came out of nowhere and blocked the attack with his shield. His chest heaved from the strain, and sweat started dripping down his forehead.
“This seems pretty hot.”
Dr. Ada took a few heavy breaths. “It is rather hot, isn’t it?”
Leviathan shook his head and frowned sharply. “Normally, I would just dump a bunch of water on this guy and be done with it, but it seems like its temperature is just too high.”
Tamsin pulled open her system menu and typed a few commands. She frowned at what she saw. “We need some way to affect the immaterial. Some way to strike at the spirit, not the physical.” She drove her fingers into her hair and shouted at the sky. “Why does magic have to be real?!”
“The entire top ten of humanity, along with an elf, and nobody here has any idea how to do spiritual attacks?” Leviathan shouted.
Nathan thought back to when he’d been attacked by the System. He’d been able—not even him, but Lily—to muster up a defense against those sorts of attacks. But he’d never learned how to strike back.
A random thought came to mind.
“Chad, try… taunting it?!” Nathan yelled.
Chad gripped both of his hands on his longsword.
“Come and get some, you oversized campfire!”
The fire elemental roared at the top of its lungs—erm, nonexistent lungs.
“What’s that? That your dad I’m talking about?” Chad let out a mocking laugh. “You must be real ashamed, considering how he set your mom on fire!”
Nathan gasped. Chad had just gone there! Going after its parents like that?!
The fire elemental stumbled backward as if it had been injured. Its blue flames flickered brightly, and it cast both its hands out in Chad’s direction. One, two, four, eight balls of fire, each of them like shotgun shells, erupted forward toward Chad.
Chad ducked underneath them and rolled forward. His shoes dug into the sand, and he propelled himself into the air. The fire elemental responded with a stream of flames. Chad deflected them with his blade and thrust his sword out toward the fire elemental’s chest like some sort of unholy half-man, half-harpoon.
Nathan idly wondered if it would be possible to throw one of his friends like a harpoon. That warranted further experimentation.
Chad’s sword cut into the flames, and despite not visibly hurting anything, the creature flashed and flinched.
“Huh,” Nathan said. “I really wasn’t expecting that to work.”
Unfortunately, Chad had not thought out the plan beyond “stab it in the chest” and continued flying forward, briefly bathing his entire body in flame before he emerged out the other end. He landed on the sand with a loud thump, his hair singed and burning at the ends.
“Are you okay?!” Nathan ran toward him. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Chad lifted his head off the ground and looked over in Nathan’s direction. “You’re not holding up any hands. You’re just running at me like an idiot.”
The fire elemental, noticing Nathan’s running and shouting, turned its gaze toward him. Or at least, as much of a gaze as it could have, considering that it was an immaterial being. Its blue color flashed once more, and blue flames erupted out like a volcano. Nathan yelped and jumped forward. One of the flames nipped at his backside, sending waves of radiating heat up and down his spine.
Nathan threw out his hand, and three balls of water formed behind him and smashed into the creature with all the speed and force of wrecking balls. Unfortunately, they simply melted on contact, as if stopped by an invisible, extremely hot barrier.
Nathan could already tell that this boss fight was going to suck.
Chad pushed himself back to his feet right as Nathan got to his side.
“I have an idea,” Nathan said.
Chad looked at him wearily. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not gonna like this idea?”
“It’ll make for good content.”
“I take back all of my reservations.”
Nathan looked at Chad intently. “Basically, I’m going to throw you like a harpoon. I think that my skills should synergize with you and—”
“Actually, now I have reservations again.”
Nathan set his hands on Chad’s shoulders seriously and looked into his eyes, putting every ounce of steel and authority he had into his voice.
“Chad, have I ever let you down?”
“Yes! Like, multiple times! I’ve nearly died because of you at least two times!”
“But have I let you down recently?” Nathan said.
Chad glanced over at the fire elemental, which was readying its next attack. “You know what? Screw it. Let’s do it.”
Nathan let out a cheery grin. “Now that’s the attitude I like to hear.”
As the fire elemental readied its attack, Nathan picked up Chad with one hand, his exceptionally high strength doing the heavy lifting.
Chad stretched his arms out, sword pointed directly at the fire elemental’s chest. Nathan narrowed his eyes and zoomed his gaze in on the center of the fire elemental’s chest. Something in his gut told him that aiming for the head wouldn’t do any good—it didn’t actually have a brain, after all. It was a creature of spirit. Of soul. And the soul wasn’t in the head; it was in the heart. At least, that’s what all the fanfiction and video games that he’d played told him.
“On three!” Nathan reared back his arm. “Three!”
Chad let out a rather high-pitched scream as he accelerated from zero to one hundred miles per hour, seemingly in an instant. At the speed he was going, Chad looked less like a human being and more like a living bolt of lightning. Water exploded behind Chad, propelling him even faster. In a flash, he ripped through the fire elemental’s chest, and it lit up with a bright white flash.
Chad continued flying forward and crashed into the arena wall. The sword embedded itself into a brick, and he continued forward, creating an indent in the stones.
Nathan winced. Maybe he should hold back?
The fire elemental, meanwhile, swayed from side to side like some sort of drunk. It reached up and gripped its chest in an odd facsimile of human behavior. Finally, it collapsed to its knees, and the blue flames started to dim. After a few seconds, they were down to mere embers and then evaporated without anything further.
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
Nathan rubbed the sweat off his forehead. The arena doors trembled as they opened, and he let out a breath. Off to the side, Leviathan wore a visible look of frustration.
There was something strange about the expression. What was he so frustrated about?
Nathan decided not to pay it too much heed. There was only so much he could control.
Even so…
As everyone walked away, Nathan tapped on the shoulders of two individuals.
“Hey, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Before Dr. Ada and Grigor could walk away, Nathan caught them both and asked them to stay behind. At this point, he thought he had built up enough of a rapport that, with his name and reputation, he might have a shot at convincing them.
“So what’s all this about, then?” Dr. Ada said. “Are you expecting a thank you? I can’t imagine why.”
“Uh, no.” Nathan scratched the back of his head. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something else.”
“Me too?” Grigor said.
“Yeah. Thought I’d hit two birds with one stone.”
Looks of wary confusion and interest crossed both of their faces. Nathan took a deep breath and prepared himself for the coming conversation.
“I would like both of you to enter into a formal alliance with me—and with each other.”
Neither of the two said a word. Dr. Ada crossed her arms. “What exactly would that entail?”
Well, they hadn’t outright rejected him. That was a good start.
“First of all, we wouldn’t attack each other.”
“And this would last for the duration of the apocalypse?” Grigor said.
“Exactly. Not only that, but I’m hoping for us to share knowledge on town development. Maybe even open up trade routes.”
There was a look of interest in Dr. Ada’s eyes that was growing more and more apparent. Grigor, meanwhile, seemed completely stone-faced. Nathan suppressed the urge to frown—it’d be no good looking unconfident or even a little bit hostile.
