Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion - Chapter 62 - This System Doesn’t Like To Play Fair

Xavier made his way back to his rooms while the other members of his party headed to the Staging Room.

There was something he needed to do.

When utilising his Meditation skill, he’d found that it didn’t much matter if he were holding a conversation with others or not, the rate at which his Spirit Energy and health recovered was the same.

But his insights came less frequently.

Now that he’d used all of his Spirit Energy creating another batch of Lesser Spirit Coins, he wanted to see if he could gain another insight while recovering his Spirit Energy.

He was hoping to learn something about his Soul Reaper class. Something that had nothing to do with his spells, though he was eager to learn more about those. Unfortunately, even though he already had all of the spells for the class, he was only able to use one of them. Every spell but Spirit Infusion required souls to cast, and he wasn’t in a position to harvest any.

There were souls in the tavern. Other Champions. Weak ones.

Xavier shoved that thought down.

He had been disappointed to find so many of their cohort drinking in the tavern, drowning their sorrows in alcohol instead of working their way through the first floor of the tower, but at least it had given them the opportunity to spread some knowledge.

Siobhan and Howard had been the ones to do that. When they’d first walked into the tavern, the two of them had gone to every table and talked to each of the Champions on them, explaining all the things that they knew.

Of course, other Champions wouldn’t be able to benefit from the same titles that Xavier and his party could benefit from. Xavier received the normal title for clearing a floor, a solo title, the first-clear title, and so far, he’d received two top 100 titles.

Howard, Siobhan and Justin, though they didn’t receive the solo title or any top 100 titles, received the normal title and the first-clear title—without ever having to strike an enemy.

The other Champions? It seemed foolish to recommend that they aim for solo titles, as it would only benefit one of their number, and they would likely not be strong enough to achieve such a feat.

And there was no way they’d ever get into the top 100. None that Xavier could see, anyhow.

Still, Howard and Siobhan told them everything they knew. Including the fact that they could respawn a floor seemingly as many times as they wished to farm that floor for levels. Though Xavier wished for as many Champions to return to Earth as soon as possible, he didn’t think rushing through the levels would be a wise choice for most parties.

In fact, he was sure it would only get them killed.

Unfortunately, that meant their advice skewed toward the other parties in their cohort taking as much time as they possibly could to go through each of their floors.

Howard and Siobhan also spoke about the different skills that were available, and what those skills were capable of once they’d been levelled up.

To Xavier’s surprise, not everyone wanted to listen to them. He’d watched from a corner booth in the tavern, listening in from afar to the conversations. It made him wonder if he should do something. But what was he going to do? He didn’t know how to inspire others. All he really knew how to do was kill a bunch of enemies.

And the people in that tavern weren’t enemies. They weren’t even idiots. They were just afraid. Paralysed by fear. Maybe even guilt. He supposed, to a degree, he could understand that, but he would have thought the first test of Champions—having to kill another potential Champion—would have weeded out those who would freeze up in these situations.

Many parties did listen, however, making their way out of the tavern when their conversation concluded with Howard and Siobhan, newfound resolve forming in their eyes.

Those, Xavier hoped, had a chance.

One man hang on every word. He was sitting alone, drinking a pint of beer, a serious yet sad expression on his face. He wore the thin armour Warriors received when first integrated into the system. His hands were rough and calloused. Fingers thick. He had the broad shoulders of a linebacker, but had a bedraggled look about him. Long hair, tied in a ponytail. A large, bushy beard that went down to his chest.

When Siobhan had asked the man where his party was, he’d told them they were dead. That they’d died on the first floor, faster than he could save them.

That’s when Xavier had taken a good look at the others in the place. Not a single one of the groups he saw had more than three members, yet each party would have started with four.

Each party here lost at least one Champion…

Some of those parties linked up, after Howard and Siobhan talked to them about strategy, and headed back up to conquer the first floor, but there were a few stray Champions that looked like they didn’t have any fight left in them.

“Happens sometimes,” Sam had said when Xavier had gone up to the bar for another drink.

“What’s that?” Xavier had been stuck in his own head, thinking on… well, everything.

The bartender nodded toward some of those stray Champions. “Those from newly integrated worlds. Some catch on fast.” He peered at Xavier. “Like you.” His gaze flicked away. “Others… they can’t handle the new reality. Even if they make it here, and you know what it means to make it here. They shut down the moment the System gives them the opportunity to.”

Xavier frowned. “Is there any way to bring them out of it?”

“Let’s just say the System won’t let them stay away from the tower for too long. Unless someone reaches a Milestone”—the man’s gaze trailed back to Xavier for a moment, then peeled away again—“the System won’t allow a Champion to stay off a floor for more than twenty-four hours.”

“That wasn’t in the Tower of Champions manual.”

“There’s a lot of things not in that manual.”

“What does the System do?” Xavier was reminded of what happened to the Navy Seal. The lightning that had struck the man when he’d refused to fight Xavier. “They don’t die, do they?”

“The System gives them one warning. Clear their next floor, all the way through—no stepping back to the Staging Room—or…”

“Or die,” Xavier whispered. And they’d probably die on the floor, too, inexperienced as they are. “Why don’t you tell them that?”

“I can’t.” Sam shook his head, gave a weary sigh. “I’m restricted. Told you, when we first met, people from non-integrated worlds… you get a bad lot here. There are so many things you learn growing up a part of the Greater Universe that the System withholds from you.”

“Restricted?” Xavier said. He leant forward on the bar, confused. “You… just told me?”

Sam looked him in the eye. “I told you because you’ve already reached the first Milestone.” He poured Xavier another glass, taking the Lesser Spirit Coins he left on the table. “System knows you won’t step back now. You’ve got a taste for it.” He raised a finger. “But don’t be thinking you’ve found a loophole. That you can tell the others what I’ve just told you. Because it won’t work. You’ll get all tongue-tied and the words will die in your throat.” He looked about the tavern. “And anyone listening in? They would soon find they forgot what I said the second I said it.”

“This System doesn’t like to play fair.”

“No. But you know that already, Xavier.” Sam pushed the glass of whiskey forward then stepped away, serving a man at the other end of the bar.

Xavier stood there a moment, taking in the man’s words. The implications. When he looked back at the Champions in his cohort that had chosen not to keep moving forward, that were still down here, hiding from the first floor of the tower, he wondered what he could do about it.

Part of him didn’t want to do a damned thing.

These people made it this far. Survived two trials to get here. Got advice from Howard and Siobhan, telling them everything they knew about the first three floors and what to expect, how to train for it, how to survive. And now they just want to check out? Throw away the opportunity the System has given them to get stronger? To progress? To return to Earth with all the power the tower might grant them and help their world?

He didn’t feel pity. Didn’t feel understanding. He felt a heaping of disgust, like bile rising up from his throat.

A thought had risen to the forefront of his mind, one that felt dark and alien, but at the same time true and right. A voice that even now, sitting in his room, falling into meditation, made him shudder recalling it.

These wretched souls aren’t worth the bodies they inhabit.

Standing by the bar, staring out at the Champions from his cohort who weren’t fighting—thirty-eight of them, he quickly counted—his fingers twitched.

Ached.

With wanting.

A sudden desire to summon Soultaker from his Storage Ring and live up to the name of his class took hold of him, like the skeletal hands of the grim reaper itself grasping his heart.

For what better use did these poor excuses for Champions have than to be fuel for his spells?

When Xavier had felt that desire. When that thought had popped into his head. He’d taken the glass of whiskey still on the bar and downed it in one go. He’d shoved the thought down. Pushed it away.

And he didn’t tell the others in his party what he’d learned.

By the time a full day had passed—a whole twenty-four hours since the Tower of Champions had opened its first floor to their instance—all the Champions in the tavern except for Xavier and those in his party were gone.

The man Howard and Siobhan had spoken to, with the long hair and beard and the linebacker shoulders, had walked out of the tavern after his conversation with the other two had ended, resolve alight in his eyes.

The man, Alfonso, said he’d tackle the tower floors alone and go after the solo titles, because he didn’t want to be responsible for another person’s death but his own.

Xavier thought he might have a chance.

The others, he didn’t care about at all.

And that’s why he sat up here, alone in his room, hoping for some insight about his class, hoping to learn if choosing it had changed him in some way.

Because he should have cared about those people, shouldn’t he? Should have cared about what they’d gone through? About the fact that they were struggling to push forward?

At the least, he shouldn’t have wanted to harvest their souls.

Yet sitting there, what he felt wasn’t worry for those people—those people who had no doubt only left the tavern after they’d received a notification saying they would die if they didn’t go back and clear their floor—he felt a hunger. A pit somewhere deep inside him. Something dark and unending. Something waiting to be filled. Needing to be filled.

No, he didn’t feel worry for them.

He felt regret at not having harvested their souls while he’d had the chance.

As he meditated, no insights came, and all Xavier could do was wonder about what he was, and what he might be becoming.