Chapter 3 – The System wants me Dead (3)

“Speechless? I know…”

The system restarted its spamming of emojis. It was as if the little blue display was fuming with anger, trying to use its emojis to kill Zane’s sanity.

[Hiveling Lvl. 1] [HP: 0/100]

The hiveling that hosted Zane and his plunger on its bottom, exploded into countless blue shards – presumably defeated. The display now presented a surprised emoji.

“And you’re next.”

Zane jumped on the back of another hiveling and climbed towards its bottom, avoiding its sharp claws. The Hiveling’s were rather dumb; they always tried the same strategy. At first, they’d run towards him without hesitation and after approaching closer, one of them would jump towards him and perform a claw attack. The hiveling’s claws were long and looked way too sharp for an insect.

Without hesitation, the other hiveling started furiously attacking the beast, trying to reach Zane.

[Hiveling Lvl. 0] [HP: 0/50]

Countless blue shards ejected themselves from what seemed like the beast’s core. The shards quickly disappeared into the ground, leaving no trace behind of the battle.

“One left? That’s all? Seems like I won’t be able to complete your quest, system. I will survive this time!”

Zane manoeuvred towards the remaining hiveling, removing the rubber from the plunger and breaking the tip of the wooden handle, creating a sharp end. He leapt towards the insect’s head and pierced the now sharp handle into one of its eyes.

*Screeeeee* *Screeeee* *Screeee*

The insect tried to grasp Zane, moving its sharp claws towards its own head, piercing more of its exoskeleton in to process, its HP level draining quickly.

“Wail as much as you want, you’ll die like the others, eventually…”

The floating label above the insect now changed its colour to yellow, showing that it didn’t have a lot of HP left.

[Hiveling Lvl. 2] [HP: 50/150]

Zane moved the sharp handle towards the other eye and pierced it, causing the beast to cry louder. Agonized screams filled the void. The display was still showing that same surprised emoji, not moving any closer.

The HP slowly drained from the hiveling, and as it fell down on the ground, it exploded into thousands of shards.

“That was… Easier than I expected… I don’t think I can dream something as vivid as this though…”

The display didn’t move or act for a few moments. Zane moved closer towards the display and waited patiently for its response. It was as if the system was tinkering on something, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Maybe it was finally going to kill Zane with a simple console command.

[ALERT: QUEST ‘DIE NOW PLEASE’ has not been completed successfully, please await further instructions…]

“Await further instructions huh? I don’t think there are any instructions left.”

[ERROR: NULL REFERENCE EXCEPTION, no quests beside ‘DIE NOW PLEASE’ have been added by the administrator, please wait for further instructions…]

“No quests besides this one?”

Zane looked at his now blood-covered hands. The liquid was sticky, emitting an awful smell. It seemed like everything got transformed into shards except for the objects directly in contact with him. So in theory, everything touching him whilst a monster or entity was dying could be forced to materialize back into existence if he was still touching that object before it explodes into countless shards and disappears.

What even is this place? And why am I just waiting for the system’s response?

The System had disappeared out his sight, leaving no trace of it ever inspecting the battle. Maybe it got embarrassed by failing to kill its victim or maybe it wasn’t interested in Zane anymore and moved somewhere else.

[ALERT: NEW QUEST] [Details: ‘Get the f*** out of my house, human!’]

“How am I supposed to leave if the only way to leave this place is to die?”

The system materialized itself back into existence and quickly moved towards Zane.

[Well… Actually, completing the quest, or should I say failing to die, does the same thing… Hehe…]

“Oh really…”

[Well… Since you’re the only human that managed to kill my little insect squad… I mean, yeah I was too lazy to level those hivelings, but I didn’t expect you to use my PLUNGER AS A WEAPON! How am I supposed to unclog my toilet now???]

Zane dropped the broken handle, pausing for a minute before looking at the display.

“Umm… Sorry about that, but you really didn’t give me any choice, right?”

[I don’t care, and since I can’t seem to kill you, at least for now, I will have to come up with even more dangerous quests… I won’t let this be my defeat human… BEWARE OF MY RETURN!]

A background melody could be heard playing from behind the display. It sounded like one of those “Victory” sound effects most games played when you completed a mission or quest. It seemed like most of this place’s resources were taken from generic game titles. Even the models of the Hivelings looked like free game models you can find anywhere on the web.

[ALERT: CLOSING CHATROOM “My lovely house”]

A chatroom? So that’s what this place was supposed to be. Maybe that explains why it’s so f****** empty in here…

[KICKING PLAYERS]

Alright, this must mean that it’s time to leave this place behind… And the system seems to have disappeared again…

[KICKED 1 PLAYER] [NEW QUEST CREATED BY ADMINISTRATOR, ‘WHY THE F*** ARE YOU STILL ALIVE, DIE DIE DIE!!!’]

“You’ve got to be kidding me, you’re still not done with me!? So you’re not really going to kick me after all!?”

[ALERT: Quest starting in exactly 24 hours from now.]

Nothing… there was absolutely nothing at the place that Zane found himself in after that last alert message.

“Oh really? So I’m supposed to stay in here before I can return home? Or do you want to keep me in here forever? I won, got it?”

[Sending players back to point of existence]

“Point of existence? What’s that supposed to mean? If you’re sending me back to that bathroom chat world than I’d rather stay here!”

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