The Paypocalypse 8: A Statistic

A statistic is confirmed.

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“It is better to be feared than loved, because armed thugs are cheaper than needy friends.”

• Zorglonian proverb.

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“This is insane!” Martin protested upon summoning a set of credit cards in his hands to defend himself with. “We’re fellow employees! We should be working together to complete the tutorial!”

“Why?” the elf raised an eyebrow. “This is a zero sum game. There’s only so many bugs to report, so all the money you guys earn and spend before we can? It’s gone. Poof. Which in turn reduces our chances of completing the tutorial. I would say we’re being extraordinarily generous asking for a monetary contribution in exchange for sparing your lives rather than killing you on the spot.”

“As if you could!” Eddie proudly boasted from behind his pet’s back. “Tamamo and Martin will kick your ass!” 

“Goshujin-sama is right!” Tamamo replied, one hand was placed on her temple, and the other was pointing her rifle at the archer behind them. “Tamamo will disable any explosives you set up!”

“Explosives?” the elf laughed and removed a glove from his hand. “I prefer a more hands-on approach.”

He pressed his palm against the ground a few centimeters away from the bridge. Stone and dirt alike magically turned into fine salt at his contact. 

“This is the cheat power I received from that insufferable goddess. Anything I touch turns to salt.” The elf grinned at Martin’s group and pressed his hand against one of the bridge’s support beams. “Take another step, and the whole thing goes crashing down!”

“W-wait!” Martin said. He could try to hit the elf’s hand with a credit card before he could activate his power, but he still clung to the hope that they could resolve this peacefully.

“What, you think this isn’t hard on us, too?! They told us we would be treated like heroes if we tried out this tutorial, and when that goddess appeared to grant me a cheat skill, I bought into it…” The elf grit his teeth in righteous anger. “But she was a racist bitch! She called me a useless pauper and that an elf like me should stick to gardening jobs or finding an elf-hunter to pay me to satisfy their fetish! And when I complained about the stereotype, she threw salt in my eyes and called me a diversity hire!”

Martin was afraid to ask, but he did anyway. “Was her name… Saltina, perchance?”

“So you understand my pain,” the elf gave Martin a brief look of sympathy, though it didn’t last. “I’m going to earn enough money to reach level 100, then I’ll kill that bitch with her own power! We’ll see who is the salt of the earth after that!”

“I’ve been on the receiving end of that goddess, too,” Martin said in an attempt to calm things down, his head turning to the archer at the back. “Was that the case for you, too?”

“Oh, him?” the elf waved a hand at his teammate. “No, he just likes killing things.”

“This tutorial… it was made for me,” the archer said with the deep voice of someone trying to sound menacing, and failing miserably. “My old teammates intended to leave me behind because my auto-crit bloodline Perk was too weak for them, so I murdered them all in their sleep and tossed their corpses into the bottom of this canyon.”

“That’s…” Even Eddie, of all people, looked appalled. “That’s messed up! That is so messed up!”

“It was retroactive revenge,” the faceless hunter replied with a shrug. “Now pay up.”

Martin clenched his teeth. There was no way they could trust these two after they openly admitted to murdering fellow employees. For all he knew, the elf would send them plummeting into the abyss the moment they surrendered their money. He said it himself, the more playtesters around, the less money for them.

If he needs physical contact, then would cutting off his hand with a credit card prevent him from activating his ability? The fact that he was seriously considering mutilating a fellow employee disturbed Martin to his core, but what other choice did he have? Here goes nothing–

A bloodcurdling scream echoed across the mine, startling everyone. 

Martin had fought enough emus recently to recognize their cries, alongside the sound of gunshots. All four playtesters turned at the mine’s entrance in time to see flashes of light briefly light up the tunnel. Screams and screeches of pain and fear punctuated the sound of bullets flying in the dark. 

“What the hell?” The archer turned his bow away from the group and back at the tunnel. “Is it the emus–”

The screams and the gunshots ended all at once. 

It was so abrupt as to send a shiver running down Martin’s spine. Whatever the birds had been fighting, it won handily. 

Time appeared to freeze for a moment as everyone present forgot about their previous hostility and focused entirely on the tunnel in shared anxiety. Martin readied his credit cards, the archer raised his bow, and Eddie bravely hid behind Tamamo. They all held their breaths as the noise of tiny steps echoed across the mine and a creature came into view. 

It was a koala. 

“So cute…” Tamamo immediately squealed in relief at the sight, which wasn’t so far from how Martin felt. He had only seen koalas on TV before, and this one was such a delightful critter, with its grey fur, its small size, beautiful innocent eyes, and the fresh blood on its paws–

Martin suddenly returned to reality as he spotted the bloody footprints the koala left on the ground as it slowly crawled towards the group. An emu feather was stuck between its teeth.

“We need to go,” Martin immediately said. His natural animal instinct was screaming at him that something terrible was about to happen. “We need to go right now.”

“What, are you scared?” The archer scoffed. “These things can’t recognize their food unless it’s on a branch!”

“It has blood on its claws, you imbecile!” The elf shouted. “Just shoot–”

The koala leaped at the archer’s chest in a blinding flash of speed, closing the gap and sinking its teeth into his throat in an instant. A geyser of greenish blood surged from the playtester’s flesh as the impact sent him tumbling onto the ground. Tamamo and Eddie both screamed in horror at this sudden display of brutality, but Martin quickly grabbed them by the shoulders. 

“Hurry up!” he shouted as he dragged them across the bridge. Thankfully, the elf playtester was too shocked by the sight of his teammate being mauled to death by a koala of all things to stop them. 

The marsupial swiftly finished off the archer—who had been some kind of greenskinned orc under their hood, as it turned out—by tearing out his throat, and then turned his black gaze upon the survivors. 

“What are you waiting for?! Destroy the bridge!” Martin shouted at the elf playtester as they rushed to his side. “Cut it off!”

“Y-yes!” The elf regained his composure and pressed his hand against the bridge. His cheat skill immediately triggered and began to transmute it into salt, collapsing its support beams until a ravine now separated them from the beast. 

Nevertheless, neither Martin nor Tamamo left things to chance. Both opened fire at the creature, firing a volley of credit cards and bullets at the marsupial. The creature disappeared in a blink before any projectile could hit it.

“Where did it go?!” Eddie panicked.

Martin briefly saw a glimpse of a shadow falling onto the elf playtester’s back with a small ‘thump’ sound. The elf immediately froze in place, his expression wracked with terror as a weight pressed down on his back. A pawed hand with claws swiftly found its way to his shoulder.

“It’s not a koala,” Martin realized to his horror. “It’s a drop bear.”

Which meant it could likely drop on anything, or anyone. 

The elf shuddered as the drop bear climbed up his back and peeked over his shoulder. Its soulless black eyes stared at Martin as it leaned closer to his unwilling carrier’s ear, blood dripping from its mouth. 

And then it spoke.

“I can smell your fear, grass-eater,” the drop bear whispered with a soft, creepy voice. “It tastes of eucalyptus leaves.”

The elf screamed like a little girl and attempted to grab the koala with his hand. The marsupial didn’t give him time. Its tiny paws grabbed the elf’s skull and twisted it Exorcist-style, snapping his neck and killing him instantly. The playtester’s corpse fell onto the ground near the ravine’s edge. Martin, Eddie, and Tamamo stepped back from the drop bear as it stood atop his latest victim’s corpse with an unbelievably creepy smile on its lips. 

Martin’s mind furiously worked to find a solution. Attacking the creature was a doomed effort, since it could teleport out of danger at a moment’s notice, and it was strong enough to kill them in one hit. If only they could immobilize it…

An idea suddenly crossed Martin’s mind. “Use your speed trick!” he ordered Tamamo. “Do it no–”

The drop bear disappeared in a teleportation flash at the exact moment Tamamo’s hands reached out for her temples. Her ears glowed with magic and unleashed a bounded field of warped time that swallowed the entire area whole. Martin’s movements grew more sluggish, but no monster fell upon his back to attack him. Seconds stretched on, the trio exchanging glances when the drop bear’s attack failed to materialize. 

“W-where did it go?” Eddie wondered as he looked over his shoulder, and immediately cried out in fear. “Ah!”

The drop bear was floating in midair right behind him, its claws within an inch of slicing into Eddie’s throat. The creature remained frozen in midair, unable to move or fall. 

“It’s…” Eddie reluctantly poked the creature’s nose. It didn’t react. “Paralyzed?”

“I knew it!” Martin smirked in triumph. “Tamamo’s ability inverts speed, so the faster you are, the more it slows you down… And since that drop ability is an instantaneous teleportation, it’s now trapped in place!”

Well, at least until Tamamo’s ability ran out. Martin wisely decided to slay the monster before it broke free.

If I can create any credit card, can I decide its size too? Martin immediately decided to put his theory to the test by summoning the biggest weapon he could manage… and swiftly ended up with a credit card half his size in his hand. While it was surprisingly light, the sheer length of it made it impractical to carry around. Oh well, this will do.

Martin couldn’t resist hamming up a bit.

“Credit Card Style!” he shouted as he brought down his weapon upon the twisted parody of a koala. “Wealth Guillotine!”

His credit card vertically sliced the drop bear in two, both halves falling off onto the ground the moment Tamamo’s magic ran out. The creature dropped no loot upon death, but its demise brought a smile of relief to Martin’s lips. 

“Awesome work, Martin-sama!” Tamamo congratulated Martin. 

“Good job, everyone,” Eddie said. “It was a splendid display of teamwork. Each of us played their part.”

“You didn’t do anything,” Martin pointed out, his credit card guillotine disappearing into nothingness. 

“Hey, I drew aggro!”

“Yes, that’s all Goshujin-sama is good for!” Tamamo said with a hypocritical smile. 

“Exactly,” Eddie replied with a nod, the barely veiled insult completely flying over his head. “Anyway, let’s check if the elf had any money on him. Maybe we can nab his credits now that he’s dead.”

That was actually a pretty good suggestion. They soon began to examine the elf’s corpse, which gave Martin a sick feeling in the stomach. He had no pity for the elf since he threatened to murder them all, but he could have easily ended up the same way. 

As it turned out, Eddie was right: the elf had dropped four bronze gift cards promising 500 credits to their owner each for a total of two thousand. 

“I think it’s fair we split the money in three,” Eddie suggested. “One third each.”

“Wait, Tamamo can’t gain money by herself!” Martin protested. “You’ll get two-thirds of the reward!”

“Don’t you want her to break through the glass ceiling? You know female employees usually earn less than their male counterparts, right?” Eddie asked, having apparently found his inner feminist when it profited him. Martin simply glared at him until he relented. “Okay, okay, we each take 1000. Gee, so much for gender equality.”

Martin silently claimed two of his gift cards without further comment. They disappeared the moment he touched them, with his net worth balance being credited by the indicated amount. The mere fact that employees could loot each other’s accounts like this after murdering each other sent chills down his spine. Was that feature unique to the tutorial, or available all the time?

He wasn’t sure he wanted to find the answer to that…

“Alright, I lent you another level,” Eddie told Tamamo before hungrily leaning towards her, his tongue licking his lips. “Now, my reward!”

“Uh…. yes, Goshujin-sama…” Tamamo shuddered, closed her eyes to better psych herself up, and then lightly forced herself to kiss her owner on the lips. Her entire body shivered with disgust the moment they made contact, and she quickly backed down after lightly brushing against him. “Uh… Goshujin-sama is too much…”

“Wait, that’s it?” Eddie protested, his face turning red all of a sudden. “Hey, I wansh to gesh more…”

Martin squinted as Eddie’s words devolved into stuttering and saliva spitting. His lips had doubled in size like the aftermath of a Botox injection. 

“Washappening to me?” Eddie protested, his hands reaching out for his swelling mouth… the same way his cheek swelled when Tamamo kissed it a few hours back. 

“Eddie…” Martin gulped as a worrying possibility crossed his mind. “Are you allergic to cats?”

“I dunnow!” he managed to blurt out as his lips grew thick, they began to obstruct his nose. He coughed his next words. “I wever kared…”

Then he collapsed. 

Martin and Tamamo immediately rushed to his side in panic, their eyes widening in horror when Eddie’s skin began to turn blue. His cat allergy was so violent, so intense, that his lips had grown too big to let air pass through his mouth and obstructed his nose. 

“He’s asphyxiating!” Martin panicked. 

“You little–” Tamamo violently grabbed Eddie by the shoulders and shook him like a bag of potatoes. “You don’t get to die on me, you virgin pedoneet! Don’t you dare!”  

“Don’t touch him, you’re making it worse!” Martin scolded her. Tamamo pulled back, but the damage was done. The spots she had touched on his neck began to swell up, too. “Oh God…”

What was Martin supposed to do, force his mouth open or puncture a hole in his neck to let air flow into his lungs like in the movies? Martin was a developer, not a medic, so he had no idea how to react! He grabbed Eddie’s jaw and attempted to force it open to let air through, but struggled to find bones to grasp through all the fat and flesh. 

“Succ…” Eddie groaned through the mass of blue flash his mouth had turned into, his finger pointing at Tamamo with the last of his strength. “Suc… cubus…

His arm fell down, his head falling motionless onto the side. Tamamo let out a screech of rage and horror while Martin could only gasp at the situation. 

Eddie was dead. 

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