System Finale (The System Apocalypse #12)

I almost prefer the torture sessions to this. At least when they’re sticking flesh-eating worms under my skin or extracting bones from my extremities, the results are focused, and the intentions of my torturers are easy to guard against.
This is just so much more insidious.
“Well, what do you think?” Merdof asks impatiently.
“A little too bitter,” I answer at last, swallowing the lump of chocolate.
“It’s chocolate. Of course it’s bitter!”
“It’s only sixty percent cocoa. You added a bunch of sugar and milk to it too, to give it creaminess, but still managed to make it too bitter. I’d expect it to be that bitter and rich at around eighty or ninety percent,” I reply, pocketing the remaining piece of chocolate.
“You’re still taking it.”
“Of course I am. It’s chocolate.” I lean back in the chair, fixing the man across from me with my stare. I’m told it’s unnerving when I just look at people. Something about the simmering anger or the way a part of me—the part that has blossomed and grown thanks to the System and a lot of Intelligence points—runs the numbers and angles if I need to take someone apart.
Maybe it says something about my life that the need is all too common.
“What?”
I shrug, letting my gaze roam over the industrial kitchen we’re in. It looks similar to what I’d expect a full-sized industrial kitchen would look like, with multiple stoves, burners, gleaming metal appliances, and kitchen sinks. Of course, the sinks are sonic disruptors, and the stoves are convection ovens that generate heat via Mana Stones, but outside of those details, a typical commercial kitchen.
“No, seriously, what?” he asks.
“Just trying to figure out your play.”
“Chocolate.”
I give him a flat stare and he shrugs.
“You’re a smart human. You know what the play is.”
“Yeah, I do. Good cop, bad cop.” I raise one stump of a hand, the fingers and wrist still growing back from the latest session. “Torture, pain, mutilation, and death.” I raise my untouched other hand. “Chocolate, friendly conversations, and betrayal.”
“Exactly.”
“But what makes you think I know anything worth all this effort?” I shake my head. “We’ve been at this for what, nearly a year now?”
I’ve kind of lost track of time. The Administrators cheat a little, twisting how much time passes in this dimensional plane they’re keeping me in. I know, via the Administrative Interface I still have a modicum of access to, that I’m still attached to Xy’largh and time compressed, but I don’t know exactly how much.
“In your Earth years, yes.” A pause, then the grin again. “Just over, in truth.”
“Can’t be cheap. I know the System doesn’t like when you waste so many resources putting up a time compressed zone. Hell, our experience gains have been hammered because of it.”
“But still good, do you not think so?”
“In a sense.”
I have to admit he’s right. One of the reasons why they let me have my System access is to let me code solutions for the System. I’m still gaining experience from it, though it’s incredibly heavily discounted. But considering when I’m not being tortured, I have nothing better to do half the time, I’ve been a good little worker bee.
It amuses me that the other Administrators thus far have yet to patch the cheat Mikito and I found. It’s not as if it’s not staring all of us in the face when we access the System Ticketing Board. Sometimes, I wonder if they’re using it to track her. I can’t think of how, but for all my skill and ability to absorb information, the System literally runs everything in our lives, and I’ve had only a few years to work out how to use it. Some of the other Administrators have had literal centuries.
“You are correct, however,” Merdof says. “Every day that you delay us, it grows harder to justify keeping you alive.”
“Then don’t.” I shrug. “I mean, I’m not exactly wanting to die, but considering my other options…”
“And what if I said that rather than death, the other hand gets you? For eternity.”
“Eternity’s a long time.”
“We have Skills.”
I grunt, closing my eyes for a second. It’s a sign of weakness, of them getting to me. A year ago, I wouldn’t have even given them that much. A year ago, I was all piss and vinegar, ready to take everything they could throw at me with the confidence that I’d come out swinging.
A year ago, I hadn’t been put through hell and back.
Truth is, pain—constant pain—and the things it does to a person is impossible to predict. You never know how you’ll react, what you’ll do when your daily existence can change on a whim. One moment, you’re working on a new ticket, the next, you’re screaming your head off.
And I do scream. I might not have broken, I won’t break—at least not yet, though the gods know what it’d be like a thousand years down the road—but I do scream. Holding it in is worthless, since by that point, they’ve stripped everything from me anyway—skin, organs, dignity….
A year ago, I would have not given them this much. But all this time has stripped me down, burnt out foolish egoistical things like not screaming. Sure, I’ll think about telling them all I know. I’ll flinch. They know it, I know it, so why bother hiding?
But…
“I guess I’ll be screaming a long time then.”
A grim nod. “He’s not your friend.”
“I never thought he was,” I reply.
“The Prime Administrator will not save you,” he continues.
“Didn’t figure him to.”
“And we will capture your friends.”
“I’m sure you will try.” I return his heated gaze with my own, taunting him.
He stands, fast and hard, and the mask falls away. I’m not surprised. They keep changing the good cop, hoping at some point they’ll find someone that works. They’ve tried it all—big and ugly but friendly to thin and cute and perky. At least five different sexes at last count, just under a dozen races. Some don’t last more than a few days, others like Merdof last months.
They all break eventually.
I guess if I had a skill, it’d be pissing people off.
He claps his hands and they come, dragging me out. I could fight, but what’s the point? The bracers on my hands short-circuit any of my Skill use. And the moment I try, they’ll drain me of Mana, shut down my link to the System, and beat me even more.
More importantly, I’ve never managed to kill the guards before I’m caught.
So I wait for the time when my friends come and rescue me.
And even if they do drag me into the room—gods, the room—and truss me up for my latest round of torture, I wait. Knowing that somewhere, sometime, they’ll come for me.
I just have to hold out.

Release Date: 1. März 2022

Pages: 476

Genre: LitRPG Sci-Fi

eBook ISBN: 9781990491269

Language: English

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