[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 30: Death of a Salesman

I’ve never been so fucking hungry, Matt thought as he staggered into a tree and rested against it for a moment to catch his breath.

One thing after another in this blasted forest wanted him dead. If it wasn’t the spiders, it was centipedes on steroids, and if not them, then some strange little gremlin creatures that used crude stone weapons and poisoned darts.

He tried not to rub the tiny pinprick of a wound with its black spidery veins at the thought of those horrid creatures.

That’s bad, right?

The poison still coursed through his veins nearly a day later. He was weak, dehydrated, and clearly dying. It only took a point of his health every hour or so, but he couldn’t sleep, eat, or rest and so he had no way of recovering even a single point.

Eventually, it would kill him.

Matt pushed the dark thoughts out of his head. He was exceptional at compartmentalizing, so he stuffed the worried thoughts into a drawer and moved on.

It wasn’t like he could do anything about the poison.

Being a Mage, much less a Water mana specialist, was so stupid in hindsight. His spells were weak without somebody to soak up the damage, and now that he was on his own, he realized how much he needed other people.

A dark voice snickered in the back of his mind, as if that’s any difference to how things used to be. You always felt like you could climb on top of everybody else. Now you’re all on your own and you would give anything for another person to rely on.

Hell, he’d give up all his company shares and any wealth he had any claim to just to have somebody to talk to.

Being in danger and dying was one thing, but suffering it all alone was where things turned truly frightening.

Every stray snap of a twig became a predator sneaking up on him, each leaf brushing against him could be a venomous insect ready to strike.

I could really go for some Dairy Queen, he thought feverishly. Some ice cream would cool me down.

And then he remembered where he was, and why he was here instead of surrounded by… not friends exactly, but allies at least.

People he could see himself relying on.

When all the world changes, you grasp at any certainty. And you could bet the farm on even the meanest Hawaiian navigating the deadly undercurrents of this new, dangerous world.

Not for the first time, Matt cursed Darren in three different languages—none of them much use now. A lot of his training and schooling were useless now.

Spreadsheets and tables and meetings with regional managers were where he excelled, not… this. Survival was the furthest thing from his mind, unless it meant outperforming the other store managers.

Wiping the sweat and dirt from his brow, Matt gathered up the strength to take another step forward. The forest was absolute. There was no telling what time it was, or even how long he’d been there.

More often than not, he ran from one threat, only to bump headfirst into another. It was a stroke of luck that he hadn’t died yet, but neither had he been able to kill much of anything before they called in reinforcements.

Hungry, tired, his body nearly broken from the poison, Matt staggered through a thick screen of underbrush into a clearing that took his breath away.

At least I’m not thirsty, he said, using a trick he learned earlier with his Water mana attunement to drink and cleanse his face a bit.

Matt might not be able to give other people water, but he could conjure it for himself. On account of his body not moving far from itself. If it did that, then he’d have no need for water in any case.

He couldn’t use too much mana. So, he limited himself to just a light sip and a splash, so he didn’t look like some mad jungle person.

A clearing meant people, and if he hadn’t been sure before getting separated from his group, he knew for certain that he would die if he didn’t get some help.

It was a testament to how bone-weary he was that Matt didn’t notice the bluish-skinned creature rising from the center of the massive clearing. Perhaps it had been tucked into a fold in the land, but right then, Matt realized why the clearing was so empty.

There were people, of a sort. Unfortunately, he didn’t find them in the best of circumstances.

From the ogre’s tree-thick fingers, a crushed and mangled body fell to the ground. The skyscraper-sized creature lifted its head and crumpled its street-wide brow in apparent thought.

Matt cowered back into the brush, but kept the creature in sight. His mind was blank with terror.

Of course, he had heard the strange bellowing, but the earthquakes were definitely not unfamiliar considering he lived in Hawaii. But for some reason, he had never connected them with the ogre and the quest to leave the island.

A quest he was sure to fail, now that he realized he had been walking into the middle of the island instead of its edge, where any hope of escape would ultimately be found.

He wondered if this was how he died. After dealing with so many threats, he walked right into the deadliest monster of the starting island.

Maybe… just maybe, it would be better to get it over quickly rather than letting the poison slowly ravage his body.

A group of people emerged from the forest, oblivious as Matt once was. They looked far better than he did. Many of them sported shiny armor and colorful weapons that wouldn’t have looked out of place in many games.

The ogre locked onto them as if it could sense their presence. One of their members pointed up and rather than run, they arranged themselves into a formation.

This is my chance, Matt thought. If I could help them out, maybe they’d let me join up. Mages are always useful, right? I mean, I can do magic. That’s got to be worth something.

Though probably not much, since he had only attained a single level since leaving his group. Matt began to move, to call out, but some long-buried survival instinct froze him in place.

The ogre was not fast. Then again, when your legs are longer than most city blocks, you don’t need to be. A single plodding step took the monster more distance than Matt’s corvette could accomplish flat out.

You couldn’t run from it, as the other adventuring party soon found out. Its members, with their shiny plate mail and exotic-looking weapons, were hilariously ineffective. None of them even managed to break the giant’s skin as, one by one, the group was wiped out.

Staring, knees shaking from more than the poison, Matt could only watch as more groups filtered out of the forest to meet their end. There must be some sort of magic at the edge, he thought.

There was no other reason for the constant slaughter that he bore witness to. How many people did he watch die? A hundred? A thousand? He lost count.

He tried to call out a warning to the groups that passed near him, but his voice came out as a bare whisper. Eventually, the slaughter ended.

For the next few hours, fewer and fewer people came out of the forest, and the ogre seemed to have something else on its mind. Maybe it wants to clean the blood and viscera from its hands, Matt gibbered with dark humor. I could help it with that.

If he wasn’t so weak from the poison, he might have gotten himself killed by rushing out to offer his services in his feverish delirium.

Quaking ground announced its departure, but not before it grasped a handful of bodies and jammed them into its broken-toothed maw like some sort of grisly trail mix.

Matt sat there, too weak and scared to move. Large shadows of floating islands somewhere above blocked out the sunlight, creating strange shapes in the clearing.

Eventually, with no other sound but that of his own breathing, he ventured out into the clearing. At first, he slithered on his belly, then crawled, awkwardly crouch-walked, and finally stood up when he realized the ogre was well and truly gone.

It was then that Matt realized why so many people had come to their deaths. Perhaps if he had seen this place from a tree or other suitable rise, he might have been tempted too.

Surrounding where the ogre had once been sleeping were altars in varying states of destruction. But all of them spilled forth a bounty of loot, from gems to strange metallic disks, and even some weapons and armor.

Naturally, the grisliest scenes of death surrounded the treasure. Those that hadn’t made off with their loot in time lost their life and there was no way that their shattered weapons and crumpled armors were useful anymore.

A small part of Matt pitied the waste of resources, while the greater whole mourned the loss of so many lives.

He couldn’t wrap his head around where all this loot came from, and how it got here. Did the ogre pillage the island and stash this all here like some sort of dragon’s horde, or was it all intentionally placed here as some sort of sick prize for surviving that nightmarish monster?

What Matt could only dare to hope were valuable gems glittered on some of those pedestals, interspersed amongst all those other treasures.

After looting just two such altars, Matt had a handful of various jewels and coins. He stuffed them into his Inventory, wishing he had a pouch that expanded it like Sam.

Hell, Matt wished Sam was there with him. The man would be supremely useful if what he knew of him from work translated to survival. Darren always complained that he never did any work, but all of his assignments were always finished whenever he checked.

Matt would pick a lazy worker who got their tasks completed over a mundane hard worker any day. The lazy ones got shit done, usually with way more efficiency.

He wished the jewels were Ascension Gems for blacksmiths, cooks, weavers, alchemists, even merchants or even guides. But after checking the third or fourth set, he abandoned the jewels for more practical equipment.

His Inventory was severely limited, about the size of a backpack in some strange pocket dimension that he could fit his hand into.

If he could just find one Ascension Gem, maybe he would have the ability to save his life.

Tapping into any of those would-be Gems could unlock new skills, abilities, and maybe even more ways to earn Experience to gain more stats. It didn’t seem plausible that a cook would need to fight monsters to level up.

Matt realized with a hollow feeling that somewhere out among all the altars and blood-soaked dirt, there might be the building blocks of a new settlement.

And the irony, of course, was that he was all alone. He didn’t have the strength or time to search everything. And even if he did, what would be the point?

It would be like inheriting a kingdom with no people. He was probably the single richest person on this island, but with absolutely no way to spend it.

With less than a day to live if his HP kept ticking down.

Even worse was the cold sensation that almost anybody could probably kill him and take all this treasure. He was only level 2, after all.

But surely people would keep their civility a little longer, right? They wouldn’t immediately resort to banditry… would they? Then he remembered the various Black Friday sales he oversaw and immediately lost all hope in humanity.

Maybe he could give all the treasure away for an antidote. Even a chance at an antidote would be worth it.

He looted the rest of the altars until his Inventory was bursting and then turned to go when something caught his eye.

A small dark bronze disc at the center of the ogre’s hollow. It seemed to call to Matt. There was something inherently magical about it.

And while mana was all very new to him, as a Mage, he could sometimes get a sense of powerful magic when he was near enough.

With deep trepidation, Matt made it to the dip in the clearing where the ogre had made a clear indentation. Touching the toes of his shoe to the disc made it flare with mana and immediately begin to descend into the earth.

Seeing no other way out of this nightmare, Matt hurriedly hopped on, hoping against hope that it would bring him somewhere better.

He didn’t think he could survive wandering in the woods another hour.