Broken Anomaly

Building C

Rank F

Experience 33/2000

Dungeon points 1

“Not much to see,” Eric muttered as he stood still looking through the system windows.

He selected Dungeon points, opening a new window. The new window had the option to expand the dungeon either by adding more floors or making it wider. He could also move the rooms that made up the dungeon. It even gave him the option to change the monsters within, along with the rewards. All of this could be done in exchange for dungeon points, that could be bought with credits. He only saw one option that he could afford:

Replace monster: spider to goblin. Cost: 1 DP (same tier).

Buy DP: 20000 credits.

Seeing the only thing he could purchase, Eric put his windows away and continued walking. As he did so, he tasked Mental focus on giving him a concrete number for his title boosts. He didn’t want to have to do the mental calculations each time just to understand where he got the extra rewards from. He already had a rough idea but didn’t know the exact value. It was less than 1000%, wasn’t it? He reached the end of the cafeteria and turned the corner, seeing more people. It sounds incredibly broken, but I guess it depends on the dungeon rewards. And something tells me that the System allowed it because it isn’t as broken as it seems or maybe because there’s drawbacks later on. Eric once again reached the end of the building and turned the next corner, still seeing people working.

“Eric! You’re up, you, ok?” Alex said, popping up out of nowhere, with a wheelbarrow full of corpses.

“Mostly, what are those for?”

“Martin and Luis.”

“Who?”

“You’ve met them like five times already,” Alex said with disbelief present in his voice. “They’re bio majors, I think they want to become alchemists or something.”

“How much do they pay per corpse?” Eric asked, Mental focus having given him a relevant answer just a moment before.

“50 each, why?”

“Let me sell them or just make it so they pay me and not you.”

“Th—”

“I get a boost to rewards and I’m going to take all of your credits anyway, come on,” Eric said casually, as he turned back and walked to the two shacks he had seen earlier.

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Credits 1020

“See, you would’ve gotten 250,” Eric said to everyone in the workshop, but mostly to Alex. “I got 1050, total. 1000 for me and 50 for the hub.”

“That’s about four times more,” Alex said, dumbfounded. “How did you get such an insane multiplier?”

“I did something really stupid,” Eric said, as he briefly explained how he could no longer get experience, skills or titles that affected his stats. He also took the chance to tell them about his broken core.

Anna began speaking, her voice full of anger, shifting the tone of the conversation. “Are you dumb? Huh?” she snapped as she drove the hilt of her sword into Eric’s side. “You’ve gotta be, right? How else would you do something so stupid? I mean, I knew you were impulsive, so how did I never consider you were also incredibly stupid?” Eric backed away as the hilt dug deeper.

“Come on—” Stella tried to stop her but failed as Anna raised her voice. “What, is, your problem, that makes it so you never think things through,” Eric hit the wall. “What if you can’t come back from this? Have you thought about that?”

Eric’s impassive face had not changed ever since Anna started admonishing him, but as she finished speaking, he let out a small chuckle.

“Did you just laugh?” Anna’s eyes widened; frustration written all over her face. “Do you think this is funny? Do you have any idea what you did?” She took a step closer, tightening her grip. “You’d better start taking this seriously, or you’re not—”

Eric flicked her on the forehead. “Cool it. It’s already done and I’m not taking it lightly. I literally just woke up, what do you want me to do?” Eric said as he wrapped his left hand around Anna’s right, which was holding the hilt, and pushed her away. “Plus, this is my plan,” he said as he opened his arms wide. “This area. I want to improve it so that what I do have, I can take to the limit. Also, I’m pretty sure I can still learn skills, just not through the System.”

“You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?” Stella asked.

“Ever since I got the title.”

“So, for this to work, basically all transactions have to go through you at some point, preferably the end, right?”

“Ideally, yes.”

“You also have a discount.”

“Yes. Why?”

“How much is the discount?” Alex interrupted.

Eric concentrated on Mental focus and asked it how much the discount was once all titles interacted. It had already done the calculations, now he only needed to “remember” it. “60%, I think,” he said after a moment.

“We can offer 20% and the rest is profit,” Alex said. “I’m sure that if we gather all our credits, we can get the 10000 credits for the store, right?”

Everyone nodded at Alex’s question, even Anna, who had cooled down a bit, but kept glaring at Eric—glares that he ignored.

The tone shifted back and the five of them started to plan out how they would proceed with their plan to maximize credits. The plan was simple to explain but would require some effort on their behalf. The effort made would mostly be about convincing people to ask for help when purchasing something. It would be a little scummy, they would basically be robbing people of their money, but they would still be saving them some money. This was only to get a running start. Something like this would not work for long, since others might get a similar benefit, or the amount of people might grow to the point where something like this is unrealistic to maintain.

While the five of them were putting the finishing touches to their plan, some still trying to convince themselves to back away from it, a commotion was starting outside.

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The first to notice their approach were three people who were currently taking a break from chopping down trees. They had decided to take a break as the sun was finally high enough to reach them. While they were talking, they started to hear noises from within the newly grown forest. At first, they ignored them, thinking it was either the wind or a lone monster that was passing by. It wasn’t until they heard what sounded like a falling tree, that they considered that it might be something else. They quickly turned to face the forest, but what greeted them was a brown furred chest.

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“It’ll probably only be this one time. I don’t think I have it in me to do this continuously,” Eric said, his voice already sounding tired just from thinking about it.

“That’s something at least,” Anna said. “Is that everyt—”

A loud crash was heard from outside, followed closely by screaming. The five rushed out, Anna fixing her grip on her sword, Alex covering his arms with stone, Stella conjuring a fireball, Marcus priming a bomb and Eric frantically looking around for a weapon. The scene before them was chaotic but not as chaotic as they feared.

Before the five of them stood a goat-like humanoid, which was at least two meters tall, an entire head taller than Eric and Anna, who were the same height. The figure stood there, in a passive manner. It was slim and stood with a certain amount of grace, its eyes calmly observing them. Then it spoke.

“A pleasure to meet you. I apologize for your friend over there,” it pointed at Eric’s cabin that now had a broken wall. “He wouldn’t stop attacking me, regardless of my words.” Its voice was raspy but polite, there was no malice in it.

“What do you want?” Anna asked, taking a step forward.

“It appears I have been rude without wishing to. I apologize,” it said while moving its hand to its chest and bowing its head slightly. “My name is Ratsvalch and I am a follower of the great Monarchs. I serve directly under the banner of the Monarch of mountains. Once again, a pleasure to meet you,” Ratsvalch said, this time giving a proper bow.

“Monarchs…” Stella muttered, narrowing her eyes as she tried to remember where she had heard that before. It didn’t take her long to do so. “The urstigar that attacked us worked for the monarchs. Are they the same ones?” she asked, ready to move depending on his answer.

“Urstigar? Are they still making those?” Ratsvalch asked, shaking their head. “I can see that you have the sight that informs, I encourage you to use it on me. It will answer your question.”

Ratsvalch

Thranox: Natives of the third Beast Cradle. Though few in number, they now serve as the first—and often final—wave of the Beast Monarch incursions.

Seeing Stella’s reaction, Ratsvalch continued speaking. “We do not wish to fight, nor is there ill will for your killing of the urstigar, that was their fate. Though I do question why two were in the same area. Was there an error in the coordinates, perhaps—”

“Get to the point,” Eric said, cutting him off as he walked forward, passing Anna and looking directly at Ratsvalch.

“Sorry, you must excuse my ramblings, it’s a bad habit.” As it started its ramblings, it had hunched a bit, so it fixed its posture and continued. “As I was saying, we do not wish to fight. I will not lie, what I am saying is subject to change, but as I stand before you, it is the truth. Our interests lie elsewhere on a different continent,” Ratsvalch said, pointing south. “I have even prepared a gift,” they added, pointing at the pillar of light to the east. “If you go now, they will be considerably weaker.”

“Why?” Eric asked. “Why not fight us? I can tell that you’re stronger than all of us, so why?”

“I could tell you that it is because I wish to avoid bloodshed or because we are too occupied to fight on two fronts. But none of that is true," Ratsvalch said, as they finished their sentence, the air around them changed, dispelling all thoughts of fighting from everyone—everyone except Eric and his friends. “In truth, I only want to accomplish what I was tasked with. Though I have no qualms with fighting you, broken one,” they said, pointing at Eric. “My gift might expire, I wish that you would go and claim it,” they added as they turned to leave.

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“How is he?” Marcus asked as Stella and Alex entered the workshop.

“A few broken bones and probably won’t be able to walk for a while, but he’ll live. Small injuries considering he broke a cabin wall,” Alex said as he sat on a chair. “Anyway, what are we going to do? Are we going to the incursion?”

“The faster we clear it the better, we’re still within the first 24 hours, so it should give us good rewards,” Stella said as she moved behind Marcus. putting her hands on his shoulders.

Eric hadn’t heard about any rewards. He assumed there were rewards, but he thought it would be more like a dungeon where you simply get rewards for clearing it. However, the way his friends spoke about the rewards, it sounded more like it was a quest. Without making a fuss, he brought up his quest log and sure enough, there it was.

New quest!

Quest: First incursion. Objective: Clear the nearby incursion by destroying the gateway. Rewards: +5000 - ? Exp. +8000 - ? Credits. Dependent on clear time. Additional rewards for number of enemies defeated.

“…really do. So, we can all go?” Anna asked, Eric not catching the entirety of what she said.

“We should be able to. Everyone is a bit shaken up, but it shouldn’t be a problem,” Stella said, squeezing Marcus’s shoulders. “Let’s go.”

Eric felt like he missed a good chunk of the conversation, but instead of asking what he missed, he just followed behind. It wasn’t long before they stopped to look at him, Stella being the only one who seemed to know what was happening.

“Your weapons are behind the couch,” she said simply and continued walking.

“I forgot about those,” Eric said, walking toward his cabin.

Upon reaching the cabin, he removed some of the log pieces that were scattered inside, quickly revealing the couch. Thanks to the fallen wall, he had an easier time pushing the couch away from the back wall and revealing the weapons he had purchased. A sword, an axe, a spear and a bow with 10 arrows. He started to evaluate each weapon, choosing which to bring with him.

“Haven’t tried the bow yet,” he said, grabbing it. “Also need a close-range weapon,” he added, grabbing the spear. “That should do it.”

A short time later, Eric caught up to Anna and Marcus who were waiting near the edge of the forest. All three of them waited for a few minutes before Alex and Stella joined them, having left other people in charge in their absence. With little to no words, they started their journey toward the incursion.