Welcome to Escape From Darkzone, Ass-ei
I'd already tossed the first gas-mask canister I'd worn. The replacement I'd swapped in had already dropped to thirty-four percent.
Four spare canisters left. At this rate, we could last maybe three or four hours.
More than enough time to get the job done and then some.
I trudged on with the Spore corpse slung against my shoulder like we were partners in a three-legged race. I was basically just hauling a dead body, but if I didn't keep this up, all the code I'd twisted out of shape would snap right back to normal. This little trick — call it a cheat, read it as a bug, a glitch — only worked if you never let the chain break.
And if I were the type to quit just because something was a little inconvenient, I wouldn't be out here starring in my own production of The Wise Inmate's Guide to Death Row.
"Are you all right, Leader? Maybe I should take over after all..."
"No. We keep our positions. You're too small for point in a jungle this thick."
"Ugh... maybe I should get a height-boosting implant after all?"
"I'd skip it. Your brain's already used to that body of yours."
It was true this world had incredible artificial neural-network tech — good enough to make an implant, a foreign object in every practical sense, feel like a part of your own body after decades of use. The brain is surprisingly simple. Give it a little time to adapt and you'll forget you're even wearing one.
But like I'd said, implants weren't a miracle cure. They were replacements, nothing more.
In the game it was just a stat change. Reality's a different story.
That was why I'd changed my original plan and put off visiting Ted Chan — the risk of side effects I couldn't predict.
Even with a corpse slung over one shoulder, I carved through the undergrowth in front of me without breaking stride. Lucy kept glancing over like she was worried I'd collapse under the blazing sun, but I wasn't particularly concerned.
Because I was running a double stack of strength enhancement.
I was barely swinging the machete, and yet every obstacle split clean in two, as if I'd spent decades doing nothing but sword work. Compared to when I'd first been dropped into the Darkzone, this was a quantum leap. The double strength boost from the Modular Exo-Suit and the Beta Fluid injection had turned me into a man who could laugh at a 1,100-pound powerlifting total.
A wet crunch sounded off to the flank. I didn't so much as glance at it. I just kept cutting a path. The truth was, I'd put Lucy in the rear not only because of her size, but so she could handle any surprise attacks that came our way.
Worm-type Proto-species, huh.
I glanced at the dark-green ichor sliding down a tree trunk off to the side and had no trouble figuring out what we were dealing with. At a glance it looked like the tree was bleeding, but it was actually a Worm-type Proto-species camouflaged the same color as the bark. Most of them were slow. All they could really do was ambush prisoners who walked by without noticing. But if you let one land a hit, you'd be plastered with annoying debuffs — everything from scrapes and light bleeding on the low end, all the way up to massive hemorrhage, temporary shock paralysis, and sometimes even poisoning.
Which made Lucy's sharp eyes and lightning reflexes pretty damn useful.
"A path."
I slashed through another wall of thick brush, and at last a trail came into view. A path, in this extreme backcountry choked with trees? It sounded absurd, but according to the lore of this theme, a preliminary survey team had cut one. When you thought about it, it made sense. Building a base camp of that scale required heavy machinery at the very least, and without a road you couldn't move equipment or cargo. Even if you threw transport helicopters at the problem until they dropped, the cost and time sink would be enormous.
"Another path carved out with napalm and chemicals. But it seemed like this kind of trail cut out somewhere in the middle. Why would that be?"
"It would've been connected originally. The Darkzone probably wiped part of it on purpose when it reconstructed this environment."
That was right. Everything we were seeing, hearing, and feeling was nothing more than a fragment of an environment the Darkzone had reconstructed. To put it more poetically, it was a hallucination with substance. Which was why, unlike the real world, it overflowed with a malice no ordinary human could ever hope to predict.
They're nearby. Two? Three? No — five at the very least.
We immediately stepped off the edge of the path and melted into the shadows. In a jungle where you could barely find the key farming spots or the extraction point, let alone keep your bearings — how was a human supposed to get their sense of direction back? The answer was simple. You looked for a landmark that stood out.
A few minutes after we'd hidden ourselves in the shade, the brush not far off shook violently, and a group of inmates emerged. Familiar gear. Bright orange prison uniforms. Original death-row inmates.
"I told you so, you dumbass! I said we'd find a path if we came this way!"
"Yeah, yeah, just shut up. You trying to announce to the whole neighborhood that we're here?"
"That's 'cause that asshole keeps picking fights. I'm this team's Pathfinder."
"Fine, fine. Once we extract, we'll skim a little off that guy's share. Now shut the hell up for real."
"Goddammit."
The death-row inmates who'd shown themselves were a three-man squad. The one loudly insisting he was the team's Pathfinder was holding a machete like mine. The men behind him were all carrying ranged weapons. Even for a three-man squad instead of four, the positioning was pretty warped.
I see. The Pathfinder draws aggro, and the other two set up somewhere convenient and pick off enemies from range.
A lone ranged DPS was an easy target. Two or more, though — that changed things. Harder to pick a mark, and even if you forced a close-range approach, the covering fire would pin you down. And if the Pathfinder drawing aggro dropped dead in an instant? The answer was simple.
The two ranged DPS dump the guy who was tanking aggro and immediately leave the field.
A cheap, slimy, underhanded composition. Typical original death-row inmates, I supposed. The cheapness radiating off them was beyond what a law-abiding citizen like myself could comprehend.
Lucy, who'd been watching the situation, carefully tapped my shoulder.
"Should I circle around first and take out one of the ranged DPS?"
She signed the question in the hand signals we'd practiced ahead of time. I shook my head without a word.
"The fact that they found this path the same way we did means they already passed through another farming spot that used to connect to it."
Would people freshly dropped into this place just happen to start looking for a path a survey team had made, with no context at all? Not a chance. They'd have found the base camp or a trail leading to it first, same as us. Then they'd have figured, smartly enough, that following this road was the way to the next destination — a farming spot or an extraction point. They weren't doing their own mapping like I was, and there was even less chance that people with no prior knowledge were carrying a detailed map. Meaning anyone still alive at this point would absolutely be looking for a path like this. They'd have at least that much sense.
The question is whether they just wandered onto this stretch looking for the next destination...
If they'd found a connected path, they should've been moving fast. Instead, they were lingering, looking around.
"Hey, how's it look over there? Any tracks?"
"Nothing on this side."
"Wait. There's something over here."
They were getting closer to the traces. They'd found the kind of signs a person couldn't help but leave behind.
"This is..."
"Hey. You hiding over there. Come out."
Lucy and I held our breath and watched.
Not yet.
"You two. Your tracks are sitting right out in the open."
"We've got three over here. You wanna try us?"
"How about we just rush them?"
Just a little longer.
"Wait! Wait!"
"Don't shoot! We're on the same side!"
Unable to take the pressure from the three, two inmates emerged from the brush on the opposite side from us. They were death-row inmates in ordinary navy prison uniforms with orange name tags — a melee duo, one with a short spear, the other with a machete.
"Tsk. It was you?"
"We almost shot you, you assholes!"
"When we tell you to come out, you come out. Why the hell were you dragging your feet?"
"We were just ambushing here, just in case. The target's that guy anyway, right?"
"Yeah! We figured if there was a path like this in the middle of the jungle, that bastard would definitely come looking for it. So why the hell are you stirring things up?"
Jackpot. Absolute jackpot.
The duo who'd been ambushing this stretch of path before we even got here poured their complaints onto the three-man squad. If Lucy and I had just walked straight down the middle of the trail, we'd have been ambushed by those two and then pinned down by the ones who showed up a step later. Should I call it a blessing we didn't get wrapped up and swallowed whole?
No. I should be grateful we get to wrap them up and swallow them instead.
I nodded at Lucy, whose expression had completely shifted. Right after that, I casually shoved my Spore buddy — best friends for a whole thirty minutes now — out to the side, making sure to shake the brush hard.
"H-hey! Wait! Over there!!"
"Shut your mouth, you dumbass! I told you not to yell!"
"The fuck does that matter right now? That monster bastard showed up again!"
Just the reaction I wanted. If they'd looked even a little closer, they would've spotted the obvious differences from a live Spore — but the panicked ones never had that kind of time. This is why I love newbies. Every time they jump at the first thing they see, it's just adorable.
"J-just shoot it! Looks like there's only one, so let's drop it fast and get out of here!"
"Yeah!"
The melee duo and the Pathfinder naturally stepped forward to cut off the Spore corpse's approach, while the two ranged DPS spread wide to the left and right, aiming our way. Their ranged weapons were a compound bow and a modified pipe pistol, respectively. But I was certain the one with the pipe pistol would never pull the trigger first. Anyone still alive this far in couldn't possibly be ignorant of the Darkzone's absolute rules. Which meant the guy with the pipe pistol was currently the most exposed and the most helpless of the bunch.
The instant the other side drew their compound bow, ours drew too. They were aiming at each other, but the two arrows flew at different targets — and both punched clean through.
"Ghk— ghhhk...?!"
The neck of the guy who'd only been holding the pipe pistol as a just-in-case measure was punched clean through. My precious friend took one through the chest too, but a little spit would fix that, so I didn't mind.
"The fuck?! Why the hell did that bastard just drop—!"
"Hey! Watch—!"
While they were still reeling, Lucy loosed another arrow. This one buried itself between the eyes of the guy standing there dumbfounded with the compound bow. The three footsloggers, suddenly down two ranged DPS, plunged into panic.
"Wh-what the fuck? Who the hell...?"
"You— you sons of bitches! You sold us out?! There weren't just two of you hiding, were there!"
"It wasn't us, you psycho! There were only two of us from the start! Once we extract, our clan can confirm it!"
"Bullshit! Why the hell would I extract with you people— no. Get the fuck away from me! Anyone who comes near me from now on dies. Even if I go down, I'm taking one of you with me, you hear me?!"
We were the ones who'd attacked. The Spore hadn't even been dealt with yet. And they were already tearing each other apart.
Ahh. I'll be the shit-stirrer.
I quietly swapped places with my Spore friend. Already too busy with each other, they never noticed the arrow-stuck Spore and I trading positions in the shadows. This is why people who treat complacency like a daily habit don't make it.
"Clean shot."
Being at that age where I still starved for attention, I snatched a throwing dagger from my belt and let it fly.
"Huh?"
The dagger whirled through the air, sailed right past the Pathfinder's shoulder, and buried itself in the right eye of the guy standing on the far side. And the arrow that came from the opposite direction punched into the Pathfinder's left eye.
All that remained was one useless melee fighter screaming his lungs out and rolling on the ground, and one guy so panicked he'd pissed himself.
"Noise someone else makes for you. Love that."
They'd be the bait in our place.
"Loot someone else farmed for you is nice too."
We'd get to enjoy the pleasure without any of the responsibility.
We drew the knives from our coats to collect the harvest that had been prepared for us.