IradeApril 5, 12:00 am, Beijing, China
The sun blazed overhead.
"Over there! In that alleyway!"
Three policemen rushed over to the alleyway, the people moving out of their way. By the time they reached the cool alleyway, they were panting and huffing. They all rushed into the alleyway, only to find it was a dead end.
"The bins! Check the bins!"
"And the trash cans!"
Quickly the policemen all started sifting through the trash, looking for something. Ten minutes of fruitless searching later, they all gave up.
"d.a.m.nit!" one of them swore. "I could"ve sworn she was right here..."
All the others agreed. They had all seen the fugitive slip into the alleyway. They had been chasing her for the better part of an hour now, and it seemed that she had finally given them the slip. A small part of them were glad; they didn"t need to restrain and haul away a fugitive in this muggy heat. Mostly, they were frustrated, and the unusually hot sun was not helping their tempers.
"What the h.e.l.l is that girl doing?" one of the policemen cussed. "She should just turn herself in."
"Save us a whole lot of trouble," said another. "d.a.m.n thieving Uyghur b.i.t.c.h."
He spat on the floor to show his displeasure.
If Irade had been there to see it, she might"ve been offended. If she had the energy. But as of right now, she didn"t have the energy to be offended by much. She was on the roof of one of the buildings, laying back, melting with sweat in the heat. She couldn"t move any more.
Water. Drink.
Irade was parched. She had barely been able to eat or drink properly in the past few days. To be frank, she didn"t even know how long she had been running for. The days had melted into hours, into feelings, into hunger, sleep, thrist, sleep hunger, thirst...
It was hot. Too hot.
Irade needed shelter. She knew that she couldn"t survive without a place to rest and recuperate. Her body was screaming at her to for water, food, rest.
The HUD agreed.
[Status: Weakened]
Annoying. Even more annoying was the fact that all her stats had been cut in half. Irade knew rationally that this wasn"t the HUD"s doing, it was just displaying her stats in accordance with her physical state, but still. She was already mad at it for irrational reasons, she could add another one to the list.
But that didn"t solve her immediate problem. She needed water, shelter, and food. She had been surviving so far by stealing sc.r.a.ps left over in restaurants and fast food places, but that wouldn"t last. She was starting to eye garbage cans with longing, and debating on whether it would be better to eat trash, or to steal food.
That is, if her other idea didn"t work out.
Irade had no idea if this would work, but if it didn"t, then it meant eating literal garbage. Or stealing.
She would probably eat garbage. If it came to one or the other.
Hopefully it wouldn"t come to that.
Irade got up, feeling slightly better now that she had rested a little. She wasn"t far from her goal now. Just a little further...
She grit her teeth, and began walking towards her destination. Every now and then, she closed her eyes to check her map.
Ten minutes later, she saw a rather large, 15 storey building in front of her. "Hotel Chariot" it read in Chinese and English.. She checked the [Monster Map] to be sure.
Yep. The hotel was definitely a Monster Nest.
Irade had a theory. The theory was that humans could not see or enter a Monster Nest. She came to this conclusion because there had been no humans at all at the previous Monster Nest, and because she was desperate for a place to stay and eat.
She had nowhere to go otherwise.
Well, that wasn"t strictly true. A small voice in her mind reminded her that she could always go back home. Or turn herself in. It would be easier that way.
After all, why was she running? What did she hope to achieve, exactly? Was it really worth going hungry, thirsty, and broke, just to spite the HUD? Something that had actively been helping her? Something that, despite calling her a coward, she was still relying on?
Irade pushed those irritating thoughts aside, and checked the [Monster Map] once more, counting the monsters she could see. 15 floors, and it looked like there was an average of ten monsters per floor. Simple maths meant there were 150 monsters in the building.
None of that really mattered to Irade. She knew what she had to do. She sat down on the roof, watching the building intently with her eyes closed.
To anyone else, it would look like she was meditating, albeit in tattered pajamas on the roof of an apartment complex. Meanwhile, she payed attention to the movements of the monsters, noting how they moved through the building and where they congregated.
It was a pity she didn"t have her weapons with her. They had been left behind in her bedroom when she ran. Still, if all went well, Irade figured she wouldn"t need them.
"Just like you don"t need the HUD," whispered the little voice in her mind sarcastically. "You"re doing sooooo well on your own."
"Do you even know what you"re doing?"
"Do you even know why you"re doing it?"
"Are you really that stupid to mistrust the one thing that is helping you?"
"Are you really dumb enough to go against the police?"
Irade stayed seated like that for half an hour. She needed to replenish her MP, after all. She had been using it constantly over the past few days, and was therefore left with [19/171]
Half an hour later, her stomach growled, but she didn"t feel it. She was too thirsty, sweat getting in her eyes despite being closed. Her MP had reached [49/171]. It would have to do.
She activated [Flight] then flew over to the front entrance. There was a small area for a valet, but no cars and no valet boy. Irade walked over towards the large gla.s.s revolving door entrance, and pushed her way inside.
"Aaah..." Irade couldn"t help but moan.
Immediately, Irade was. .h.i.t by a wave of cool air. The lobby was s.p.a.cious and grand, and also completely empty. Despite that, it seemed like the place was cleaned a few minutes ago, the floors and walls sparkling and smooth. The entire hall was bathed in yellow sunlight, filtered through the gla.s.s windows. That stretched all the way up to the ceiling.
On the far side of the lobby was the check-in desk, and in a corridor a little beyond looked like the room for elevators. This was not what Irade was looking for.
Instead, Irade eyed the stairs on the other side of the check-in, the one leading up to some sort of second floor. The second floor was visible from the first, but only because it had some sort of hole in the floor that too up about half the floors.p.a.ce. The hole in turn was fenced off by a gla.s.s fence, making it more of a balcony.
Irade couldn"t see much of what was up there, but she did see that there was some chairs and tables arranged to look down at the lobby.
Instinctively, Irade looked down and realized that the floor had some sort of pattern on it. She had only noticed that it was clean; too busy looking up to notice what was below her.
No. None of that mattered. What mattered was if Irade was right about what was up there on the second floor. She made her way up quickly, stomach growling the entire way.
Bingo.
Sure enough, when she got to the second floor, she saw what she was looking for.
A small restaurant area.
Actually, Irade had been hoping for a kitchen of some sort when she came in, figuring that fancy hotels like this needed a place to prepare room service. Once she saw the tables and chairs on the second floor though, she figured that it might be a restaurant, and went up.
She immediately headed over to the counter area, where there was a large jug of water just waiting to be drunk. She didn"t even pour it into a gla.s.s; she simply grabbed it and started chugging.
The first sip hurt; it was too cold, too wet, too rough against her parched throat. But the more she drank, the better it felt, the more full she-
"ROOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNN!!"
It was close!
Without thinking, Irade turned to and swung the jug of water at full strength. It immediately shattered against the Thiljar"s temple, causing it to scream and drop to the floor.
[Critical Hit!]
"AAAAAAHHHH!" Irade stomped her foot down repeatedly on the Thiljar"s head, not giving it time to recover. She felt something crack under her heel.
[Level Up!]
"How! Dare! You! Interrupt! My! Drink!" Irade yelled, still stomping on the monster"s head, which was now nothing more than a paste.
"SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Irade looked up to see a boar chimera, with large grey wings and the lower half of a lion, squealing as loud as it could.
Insolent, impertinent, stupid…
Irade grabbed an apple off the counter and took a bite, watching as monsters gathered around the boar-chimera. She relished the sweet and slightly bitter taste of the apple as the monsters gathered, then swallowed as they all started to run and fly up towards her. She took a few steps forward, towards the monsters, and closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the taste, getting lost in the pleasure of filling her stomach just a little.
"SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Her eyes snapped open just as the boar monster came flying straight at her. She ducked quickly, and the monster smashed into the counter behind her, sending shards of gla.s.s flying. She s.n.a.t.c.hed a shard out of the air and jumped.
WHAM!
A Baphomet slammed an arm where she had just been a moment ago, confused. Before it could look up to where Irade was, she let her leg fall like an axe, crus.h.i.+ng the monster"s skull.
[Level Up!]
She launched herself into the air again executing a backflip in the air as two monsters swiped at where she had been, missing. She landed on top of the boar-chimera that was struggling to get out of the counter, and stabbed the shard of gla.s.s straight through its skull.
[Level Up!]
"AAAAAUUUUUUURRRR!" A monster yelled.
"LET! ME! EAT!" Irade roared back, throwing her half-eaten apple at it.
The next five minutes were a blur of rage and slas.h.i.+ng. Irade did not care about her wounds; all she wanted was for the monsters to leave her alone. She had none of the grace and poise and intelligence of her previous fights. She slashed and hacked until her hands were bleeding, and when she lost her weapons she kicked and bit and punched.
She was fighting on pure adrenaline, on pure emotion. All her frustration, her anger, her powerlessness and indecisiveness came out in a mad, furious ma.s.sacre. She crushed monster"s skulls under her palms, stomped on their carca.s.ses under her heels, and rend their flesh apart with her fingers. She could feel herself lost in the rage, getting lost in the whirpool of blood and sweat.
At one point, she stopped hearing the notification that told her that she was leveling up.
She didn"t care. She just wanted to lose herself.
"AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Irade yelled, furiously ripping apart the carca.s.ses of the already dead monsters.
"AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!" she screamed, tearing an arm into bits. She was slumped on the floor, still mad with energy. It was just that her legs weren"t working anymore. This stupid flesh was so slippery with blue blood, it was difficult to rip.
How frustrating. How annoying.
She couldn"t even be angry right.
She slammed the arm down on the floor. She was absolutely covered in blue blood and guts. Even still, she could feel the warm hot wetness on her face.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
Irade wailed, unable to hold it back or disguise it anymore. Tears flowed from her eyes, hot and mortifying.
No matter what she did, it was useless.
Nothing she did mattered.
None of her choices were ever correct.
What was she even doing?
Why was she even here?
What, exactly, did she plan on doing now?
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
There, Irade sat, crying; lost in a painting of blood and guts.
[*Arabic Writing*: Level 32]
[Status: Weakened]
[HP: 55/357]