QuiteTheSlacker

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 30: Knightly Prowess Vs a Good Ole One-Two

After the good Harper’s admirable attempt, a few more brave souls stepped up to the challenge. None, unfortunately, provided as entertaining a show - they were summarily defeated, pummeled, and thrown off to the side. Poor Ruggiero had his work cut out for him. Not a moment passed where the man wasn’t treating someone’s wounds or preventing them from passing on to the next world: the underworld to be exact.

At one point, a group of players even attempted to ambush Lady Bradamante ...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 29: Prove Your Might

Lucius had been introduced to a great many individuals ever since his arrival here, but the two holy knights that stepped forth certainly left a lasting impression. 

The lady known as Bradamante had long, flowing, and vibrant ginger hair, like the color of a warm sunrise (at least one back at his home dimension), and her facial features carried a rugged honeness hardened after many a battle. She looked similar to the other natives of Francia - save for her skin which was beset with...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 28: Purple Skies, A Realm Unlike Our Own

Lucius’s routine was ever the same. There he laid on a soft, pleasant mattress, body dapper for to be otherwise would be quite scandalous, when his eyes fluttered open, and thus he said looking most gorgeous:

“Good morning. My, what a pleasant day!”

It was six-o-clock somewhere, and the gentleman quickly arose from his bedside. Compared to the dark and cramped corners of the maze, the hospitality in Francia had been just darling! There were an abundance of undergarments and ...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 27: A Lovely Evening Stroll

Lucius leapt down onto the ground and greeted the servant with a wide flourish. “Good evening, young man. My, isn’t this such a pleasant day? It’s a great day to make acquaintances. My name is Lucius Rose, how about you?”

The boy tilted his head, confused by Lucius’s sudden enthusiasm, but at least he wasn’t as wary as before. “Oh, I’m not special enough to be acquainted with a man such as yourself, but if it pleases you then call me Karolus.”

“Perish the thoug...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 26: He Stalks Out of Sight

It was, admittedly, a difficult task to sneak about. The halls were filled with much less hustle and bustle now that it was in the evening hours, or at least that was what he assumed since there were no windows around, but the occasional servant passed by here and then. Lucius would much prefer to avoid an awkward confrontation. The solution, then?

He clung to the ceiling.

Lucius leapt into the air and held himself firmly in place between the corner overhead. With the right pressu...

[Aegis] Chapter 103 (Start of Book 2): Of Grease and Smog

“I stoke the fires, embers scorch and engrave me

A brand of ire, to be shunned of fervent plea

I pound the bolts, oily rivers running free

How can we carry on when our hearts grow oft weary?

I thump and screw, I fix and weave

I toil and shiver, I count to three

The smog is here

The smog is here

It fills our lungs

It blackens our tongues

Our life is a furnace, filled with naught but o’ sorrow

We dream of thereafter, hoping f...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 25: Roland of the Twelve Peers

The paladin called Roland bowed his head, and addressed the players with a dominant, authoritative voice. “Well met, heroes of another world. I am Sir Roland of the Twelve Peers. Among the eleven others who serve as his Holiness’s advisors, we oversee the well-being and the defense of this sacred Empire, as well as the court’s high tribunal. You need only seek the insignia of the Imperial Eagle upon our garbs to identify our members.”

Lucius felt the hair on his skin come to a h...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 24: A Gentleman, or a Passionate Gourmet?

No sooner had the party arrived than they were greeted by rows upon rows of intricately laid tables covered in white tablecloth and polished silverware. A crystal chandelier hung from above, dousing everyone in a dreamlike glow, but Lucius had not the chance to admire the glamor before he was quickly whisked away by an attendant and onto a nearby seat. Marco and Mili both were similarly thrown to his side.

“Geez, these folks sure don’t waste time,” Marco grunted, trying to make hi...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 23: World of Charlemagne

A bright, blinding light enveloped Lucius. He felt his body collapse, as if every little cell was being broken down and relocated across time and space, but the sensation didn’t last for long. In the snap of a finger, his legs landed with a thump on something hard: marble. A pastel white marble so glossy that the gentleman could see his own reflection in it, and he was not alone.

Hundreds, nay, thousands of people crowded around him in what seemed to be a grand throne room of colorful...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 22: Curtain Calls On the Tutorial

Lucius looked around, searching for his fellows, but they were nowhere to be seen. This space was similar: the endless expanse of white, the sterile monotony… yes, he remembered it well. This was where the gentleman had first stepped foot after he was sucked into the sky.

>[Welcome back to the waiting room, Player Lucius Rose. As a reward for passing the Tutorial, your body will be fully restored to its previous state}<

True to the system’s word, Lucius’s wounds disapp...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 21: Goodbye, My Beautiful Friend

Jack’s last moments were not of fear, nor pain or hate. Instead, he graced the world with a parting smile and drifted away, onward to wherever his next life took him. The man who had always been filled with shame was now at peace.

Lucius knelt down, closed Jack’s eyes, and began to tidy the body to the best of his abilities: he combed his hair, brushed his clothes, and even dabbed a bit of makeup on his cheeks - something to make him look more vibrant and less, well, dead. A gentlem...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 20: Do You Hear the Angel's Trumpet?

———

Jack

When I was little, I used to daydream a lot. I’d go to school with my head up in the clouds, imagining myself on some grand adventure with all my favorite cartoon heroes, and I’d stay that way even when I got back home. Who didn’t at the time, you know? Flying through the sky with Superman, fighting the galactic empire, all kinds of fiction and worlds that just seemed so fantastical compared to real life… I was obsessed with it.

It didn’t help that I...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 19: A Brawl Is Surely Brewing!

Jack lunged in. His form was amateurish: wide, clumsy. He was the very picture of a man who had never fought in his life, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t the one in control.

His arm, the vile growth of cartilage and gristle, twitched as if it had a mind of its own. It jerked here and there, wriggling, lurching, and swiped at Marco from angles that should not have been humanly possible. A stream of filth ran down its limb. The arm was thin and worn one moment yet tripled in size the ...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 18: Why Is It That Some Were Given the Role of Villain?

Marco and Mili gaped in horror as they stared at the jittering wreck that was Jack, at the oozing, gushing mass of flesh that appeared to have taken over his right arm, and they backed away—panicked. This was not the man they had journeyed with the day before. It was impossible, for how could such a horrid sight belong to their former companion?

The young Mister Thames looked even worse than when Lucius last saw him. His eyes darted around, scarlet red, twitching at the slightest soun...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 17: The Godfather

While Jack was planning out his hunt, Lucius decided to check up on the missing duo. He hadn’t seen them since his last performance, and though they didn’t quite have the same inner turmoil that made Mister Thames so fascinating to watch, Marco and Mili were both beautiful souls in their own right. It would be a shame to lose them now.

Fortunately, after a bit of searching, he found the two safe and sound in one of the halls. They dragged their feet and meandered along without a wor...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 16: Desperate Times Call For... Oh, Goodness Gracious!

Outrunning the Horned Exile was no hard task for Lucius. Its sight was blinded; it could not hear the gentleman’s quiet stride. In the end, the thing simply disappeared into one of the many twisting junctions, chasing after a phantom that had already escaped its grasp.

The experience wasn’t all trifle, however. The shambling flesh always gathered in mass whenever its malformed master made an appearance. Lucius hadn’t leveled up at all ever since the party was separated - he gave w...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 15: This Is the Part Where Lucius Dies(?)

After making sure Marco and Mili were out of sight, Lucius left the room and sauntered right back to Mister Thame’s hideaway. A measly stab wound did little to impede the gentleman’s lively step, but he couldn’t look too healthy. Lucius still had a role to play.

Once he arrived, a foul stench quickly invaded his nostrils. There the young Jack laid, wheezing for air, while his arm bubbled and churned like a freakish stew from all the filth nesting inside. It was a wonder how the ma...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 14: A Plausible Lie

Marco and Mili shook their heads, distraught and a bit hesitant to believe in Lucius’s sudden claim, but hidden beneath all that fluster was a suspicion that could no longer be deterred. They wished to deny it, of course: to claim that it all must be a misunderstanding of some kind. But the evidence was plain as day. Nothing could puncture Lucius so cleanly save for a weapon wielded by man.

“What do you mean?” Marco asked. “You sayin’ Jack lost his mind? That can’t be… he ...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 13: Absolutely Devious

Lucius’s routine was ever the same. There he laid on the cold hard tile, breaths silent and body full of style, when his eyes fluttered open, and thus he said with a smile:

“Good morning. My, what a pleasant day!”

It was six-o-clock somewhere, and after a good night’s rest, Lucius was ready to tackle whatever new challenge awaited him. One problem, however: there was no food! No yogurt or fruit to partake in—oh, the horror. Breakfast was the most important meal of the da...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 12: I Will Be Special

The young Jack hobbled along as the two carefully embarked on their solitary journey. Sweat dripped down his brow, and his face was permanently fixed into a scowl. It looked like the man would collapse at any moment, yet nonetheless he persevered and followed after Lucius.

Jack was hopeful, at first. He claimed that leveling up could possibly reset his physical state, similarly to what happened to Mister Bernardi during the orientation, but alas his efforts were in vain. Only his status...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 11: A Moment of Peace, and a Nefarious Ploy

The party collapsed and took a good, long moment to catch their breaths.

“Sheesh, that shaved off like ten years of my life,” Mili said, groaning and letting her head thud on the hard floor. Marco did the same.

Jack, meanwhile, was busy bleeding to death. There wasn’t a single spot on him that wasn’t already covered in red, and although Lucius tried his best to attend to the man, it was no use. His arm was practically ripped open - bone and all. It was a miracle that Jack ...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 10: Run

Marco, Mili, and Jack clutched their heads and groaned: the swine-thing’s scream rang all throughout their bodies, plaguing their ears, their brains, and every conscious moment with its final death throe.

When the scream finally stopped, the party members looked at each other. And Jack gulped.

“We’re screwed.”

Somewhere in the shadows, they heard a stomp. It was quiet, barely noticeable, but then came another, and another - each one louder than the last.

“Ooo...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 9: The Totally Fun and Safe Tutorial Where Nothing Bad Could Possibly Happen!

The party froze in place, eyes centered on the revolting sight of flesh and gristle. They knew not what to do - run? Fight? They were reminded of it: of a stalker explicitly told they could not win against.

But it was the young Jack who first broke the tension. Unlike Mili and Marco, he did not seem nervous. He broke away from the group, marched forward, and raised his spear.

Splat!

He jabbed the shambling flesh with one swift motion, and although he failed to puncture it de...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 8: The Walls Are Alive

Lucius could see it: the dread within his uneasy cohorts. He saw it in the quivering of their eyes, the dry gulps, the stiff hair on the back of their necks. Every second their sanity was being eroded away, replaced by an ever-growing bout of fear.

They were not supposed to be here. It was a new feeling, a curious one for the good Lucius. He had visited many places over the course of his life: exciting trips to those both safe and perilous, the glamorous hotspots of the wealthy and the ...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 7: What Do You Mean, Tetanus?

Marco let out a tired groan and rubbed his eyes. “The hell does it mean, tutorial? You tellin’ me after all that we’re not even at the starting line?”

“These strange windows did say this was a screening, Mister Bernardi,” Lucius said. “A preliminary culling, so to speak. They thin our numbers, filter out the dispensable, until only a select few are left to participate in their sordid game.”

He was still unaware of their intentions, those masterminds out of sight. T...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 6: To Bear the Unforgivable Sin

“What?” Jack said, swerving towards Mari’s lifeless, yet peaceful, corpse, as if she was merely slumbering away. “You—how did you? You don’t have an assassination skill.”

Marco was overcome with a great rush of emotions: disbelief, anger, sorrow and disgust. This and all he wore without reservation, and for a moment Lucius almost expected the man to rush him right then and there, but instead he merely grit his teeth and lowered his head. “Damnit, Lucius. Was there really...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 5: The Orientation From Hell

The group didn’t say a word—they couldn’t. Mili looked seconds away from throwing up, eyes shaking and face draining of color, while Marco stood still like a stone statue. There was a tremble in his fist, a deep boiling anger, but even so there was nothing he could do. No one to take his rage out on.

There was only the message window and its command: ‘Eliminate all enemies.’

“... This can’t be right,” Jack muttered, frantically examining the rest of the room for so...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 4: In Which the Party Chooses Their Class

“Now then,” Lucius began. “Have you all chosen a class yet?”

He was quite interested to see what this mysterious system picked out for the others. It seemed to take account of the persons’ traits, their background and specialty, so he had a general idea of their possible options. However, in the end it was up to the individual to decide which path they would take. Just like how Lucius forego those drab, ominous sounding titles, perhaps his new companions would surprise him. 2025-01-25 16:06:58 +0000 UTC View Post

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 3: I Do Much Enjoy a Cup of Tea

Lucius was rather perplexed. Conman? Serial killer? Oh dear, the strange panel even had the audacity to call him the embodiment of evil! How rude, he had only ever pursued his desires. Surely there wasn’t anything evil about that now, was there?

Insults aside, it would appear whatever mysterious entity was controlling this game wanted him to choose a title for himself. He didn’t quite understand what classes exactly meant, but he knew that names had power—they influenced you. They...

[The Distinguished Mr. Rose] Chapter 2: A Most Peculiar Introduction

Never in his wildest imagination did Lucius ever expect to be thrown into such a bizarre course of events, but he wasn’t startled. Life was unpredictable, after all. Who knew what future awaited them? The strange and irregular, to be brought outside one’s zone of comfort… that was what made living all the more entertaining. It was a shame he had to part with his lovely flowers back home; however, who was there to say he couldn’t return? You never know what just might happen, and towar...