Slime Evolution

Chapter 470 - The Math of Greed

There is something strange about watching people choose the worst option with their eyes wide open.

Lohan noticed this as the shield line advanced, the twenty two Players wounded, frightened, surrounded by pools of acid and pieces of their own friends, marching in formation toward two monsters that had killed almost thirty people in less than a minute.

They had a way out. That exit was right there, open, a few meters away from them. All they had to do was drop their weapons, bow, apologize, and go back down the corridor... actually, not even that, they could just turn their backs and run outside and maybe they’d be fine.

Those who had already died once would lose only what they had already lost, and the others would keep their levels intact, suffering no direct consequence from that night.

’Maybe we’d even let them run away...’ Lisa commented over the link, as if she had read his mind. ’Maybe.’

’Maybe,’ Lohan agreed. ’But it surprises me that not a single one of them even tried.’

That was the part he couldn’t quite understand. The Players weren’t advancing out of courage, because nobody advances out of courage with their legs shaking like that. They were advancing because, in the math they were doing in their heads, it still seemed worth it.

One of them, a low level young man who held his shield with both hands to hide the trembling, even glanced over his shoulder at the corridor, and Lohan saw the exact moment he thought about leaving. It was only a second. Then his gaze passed over the black banners, over the horns on the ground, over the price each one of those horns was worth, and the shield went back up.

And, from their point of view, it even made sense.

That spot was the best leveling machine any of them had ever seen.

A level lost to death was a bill that could be paid off in two or three days of farming in there, while losing the place was a bill with no way back.

The whole guild had been built on top of that, using very little money from real world companies, but with weeks of work, with the secret the leaders had protected from the start.

Everyone there was an ordinary person trying to improve their life in Elysium, even if they had to kill and torture a few monsters that weren’t even anymore, it was all fine.

Just from the Gold they earned each day from that place, even paying most of it to the guild, it was already enough to improve everyone’s income in an unbelievable way.

Leaving there meant losing that money, losing the opportunity, losing the advantage over all the other Players who still leveled up the hard way.

For the seven who had already died, the next death would cost two levels instead of one. But even that, in their logic, was still less than losing everything.

Rage and greed have a math of their own, and in it the numbers always add up for whoever is inside the calculation, even if in reality that calculation doesn’t make any sense at all.

The problem was that the math only worked if they won, and they weren’t going to win.

Two levels less, three, ten, none of that mattered if the alternative was admitting that everything they had built could be taken apart by two strangers on some random night, and the mind of someone who is angry rarely accepts that kind of admission.

’It’s stupid,’ Lisa said, her voice dry. ’They’re betting several days of effort to level up just to try to beat us, even though we’ve already made it clear that’s impossible.’

’Yeah...’ Lohan replied. ’Well, looks like we’re going to have to make it even clearer then.’

Then the shield line arrived and Lohan didn’t spend a single word on them.

The Players shouted insults, orders, promises of revenge, someone bellowed that they wouldn’t leave there alive, another promised that this was only the beginning, and a hoarse voice in the middle of the formation even offered half the spot in exchange for mercy, too late and too low to be taken seriously.

Lohan heard it all without answering anything. He had already said what he wanted to say, and the rest didn’t deserve an answer.

Then suddenly, the ground under the shield line burst into ice spikes.

Those in front didn’t even have time to raise their shields again since the spikes pierced through boots, legs, bellies, and the "perfect" formation they had assembled collapsed amid screams and blood. Those behind tripped over the bodies of their companions, trying to keep advancing.

Lisa advanced over them, with a white and gold flash cutting through the air in extremely agile curves, and each time her paws touched the ground, someone fell.

Her claws opened throats, tore armor, split shields in half with ease, and the golden flames surrounding her spat out short blades of fire that cut through those trying to flee along the sides.

On the other side, several of Lohan’s clones rolled through the middle of the crowd like wrecking balls, crushing whoever was in the way and digesting everything that came into contact, while the main body, still covering Lisa, released gusts of wind that cut off hands and arms, making weapons fall to the ground.

A thin web spread across the legs of half a dozen archers, and when they tried to run, they fell face first, with no strength at all to get up.

In forty seconds, the ordinary Players were practically finished. Those still moving tried to drag their bodies away from the battlefield, leaving trails of blood across the dark floor, but none of them got the chance to reach the door.

It was then that Lohan realized the two leaders were still standing.

"DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO LEAVE HERE?!" Kaldur roared, advancing over his own fallen men. "We’ve already killed monsters way bigger than you! This spot is OURS!"

Lohan didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at him beyond what was necessary.

Kaldur had survived the acid, the suction, and the massacre of his own men, and was now coming straight at Lisa, surprisingly without any fear at all, with his hammer raised and the armor decorated with black horns glowing a dark red, as if absorbing the heat of her flames.

He struck the air once, and a wave of force scattered three thin blades of fire at the same time, leaving Lisa’s flames dispersed like smoke.

Those blades of fire were still under development by the fox, a new application of her Spirit Flames that wasn’t finished yet, but even so possessed a power that couldn’t be ignored.

’He’s stronger than I expected,’ she commented, and this time there was a hint of surprise in her voice.

’Me too.’

The vice leader appeared from the left, too fast for an Uncommon base at Level 15, with two curved blades in her hands and a speed that nearly matched Lisa’s.

She cut through the web strands as if they were sewing thread, and before anyone could react, one of the blades grazed past the fox’s flank, opening a thin blue cut in Lohan’s living armor over Lisa.

That was the first wound they had received in the entire battle.

’That hurt,’ Lohan commented, surprised, but instead of flinching in pain, a small mouth with sharp teeth opened and smiled above Lisa’s head, looking at that with more interest.

’I think someone here has a base above Uncommon...’ he hummed, excited to realize that someone there would be worth it for his digestion.

But then Lohan realized, while analyzing those two’s equipment, that he had made an error in judgment.

The woman’s boot was giving off a glow that faded more and more with each passing moment, while her high speed dropped by the same degree.

Just like those daggers were giving off a different glow when they came into contact with his biomass.

’Sure, with so much money earned here, it’s obvious they’d at least buy enchanted items.’ Lohan sighed, disappointed.

An Uncommon Base didn’t mean the player was weak.

Those two had been playing for a long time, had the best equipment the spot’s money could buy, and had classes that made up for the lack of rarity with experience. The Base was only a starting point, and they had used every inch of it.

But the difference between a surprise and a threat was enormous.

Kaldur slammed the hammer into the ground, opening a crack that ran to the feet of Lohan’s clone and tore off a piece of its gelatinous mass, and the vice leader took that instant to leap toward Lohan, her blades aimed at his core.

It was a good move, well coordinated, one that would probably have worked against any enemy in their range.

’They trained this really well...’ Lohan realized, and for a moment he felt something like respect. ’Probably at least hundreds of times.’

But respect didn’t change the outcome.

The clone slammed the ground hard, twice, and the air around Kaldur vanished.

The suction came fast, and the two leaders were pulled to the same point, his hammer slipping from his hand, her blades cutting only empty air.

Three seconds later, the detonation left both of them on the ground, with Kaldur’s armor cracked in half and hers in pieces.

They still tried to get up. Kaldur even raised the hammer again, eyes bloodshot and face stained with blood, and Lohan’s clone, its mass multiplied by its own density, ran over him like a steamroller.

The vice leader saw that, and in her eyes, for the first time, something like understanding appeared, that of someone finally doing the math right, too late for anything to matter.

Lisa didn’t give her time to speak. With a single movement, a golden flash, and the vice leader’s body fell beside Kaldur’s, the curved blades still gripped in her fingers, with no chance of using them again.

[You killed...]

[You killed...]

[...]

Silence returned to the chamber, broken only by the distant hum of the offspring.