A New World (Gamer, Book 1) (18 page)

A sword slips through his centre and, with a
start, he realizes that he is face to face with the swordsman, who
has a wicked look of enjoyment in his eyes.

"You're quite a nasty piece of work," Harry
says.

The man gives him a wink and then chops off
Harry’s head in answer.

He comes back to life again and this time he
is ready. He spins about in a complete circle, using his Cap of
Speed to enhance the technique.

He becomes a whirlwind of sharp bladed strikes
and manages to score a nasty hit on the werewolf that sends it back
on its rear. Axel takes the opportunity to spawn right behind it
and stab straight through the back of its head with one of her
arrows. She is torn to pieces by the ghost, but it's just the delay
that is needed for Josh and the mages to throw one fast attack at
the wolf, taking it out of the game.

The giant laughs in amusement and slams its
club down on them with amazing speed for one so big. The weapon
eliminates all of them in an impressive show of power.

Harry appears next to the warlock, who is
squaring off with the ghost again. The creature is completely
impervious to Harry's attacks, but he sees a way that he can help
give the magic user some much needed time.

He grabs the warlock and activates his speed
again. He races around the area as the warlock casts his spell. A
black nightmarish liquid hits the ghost and it screams in agony
before fading away.

Harry drops the warlock and dies from
exhaustion to reappear in front of the giant. The giant swings down
at him, but Josh is just in time to stop the attack. He and the
other mages fire off several rounds of energy at the big creature
which sends it slightly backwards, if not doing any damage to
it.

Harry surges forward and slashes out at the
beast’s leg, but it barely nicks it.

The monster growls at him and takes his life
from him by stomping on his head.

As the fight continues, Harry leaves the mages
to their work and turns back to find the swordsman cutting into
Erica. He is intentionally doing little damage, but causing massive
pain, which stops her from healing anyone. The man has a wicked
smile on his face that makes Harry sick.

Harry rushes back over and slashes out at the
man. He disappears and reappears behind Harry, who manages to block
the sword strike that comes his way with the rear joint of his
grip. It's not long before it's just sword fighter against sword
fighter in a face-off that can only end with one of them dead. The
swordsman is an incredible warrior and one that will not be easily
taken down. Harry has gained his own skills, yet he knows without
help that he is not going to be able to defeat this one.

He glances over to the others and finds Axel
and the mages doing their best to slow the giant, who is killing
them one by one with obvious enjoyment. There is no one left and
Harry is alone against the toughest of the opponents.

Are you listening, sword? I need your
help.
The weapon doesn’t change in any way and Harry assumes he
is going to be on his own with this one.

“
I don’t suppose you’ll just give
up?” Harry asks.

The creature shakes its head and shadow steps
back a few paces as it dances around his strikes. It reaches into
its pocket and pulls out a very similar amulet to Harry's. He stops
and holds it out in front of him as it glows red.

Suddenly, an arrow strikes through Harry's
chest and he looks down in shock to realize it's one of
Axel’s.

He looks back and sees her firing multiple
arrows into the magic users as the giant stands back and watches in
amusement.

Harry looks back to the swordsman who smiles a
small smile at Harry that shows his long incisors.

"I won't let you get away with this," Harry
says through gritted teeth.

He surges forward at max speed and chops out
of the swordsman. The creature moves aside without really trying
and Harry strikes out again trying to stab the man or the
amulet.

They go like this for minute after minute as
arrows continuously take his comrades gold from them. The battle
becomes a bloody fight to survive the skilled shots of the archer
and gets more and more intense as the mages are easily
dominated.

He turns and looks to the monster with an
angry look on his face, knowing that there is no other choice. He
sprints towards Axel as she fires several shots at Harry, which do
serious damage, but give him just enough time to get within range
and stab his weapon straight into her arm. She stops shooting and
Josh comes back to life to incinerate both of them in a hail of
fire.

The next to be taken is the warlock, who
spreads acidic black liquid over all of them. Their health slowly
ticks down and Erica starts to go white with the strain of healing
the entire group as the swordsman watches on.

"We need to do something about this guy. He’s
going to keep taking us over until we have nothing left," Axel says
to Harry as she fires a shot at the warlock, who burns it away with
black sludge.

Surging forward together, they strike out as
one. It's enough to get the man to put his amulet back into his
pocket and redraw his sword.

Axel strikes with her short sword and does a
passable job of attacking the swordsman. Her sword skills aren't
anywhere near as practiced as Harry's are, but she can hold her own
and it’s all Harry needs.

With a single stroke to the chest, Harry
obtains his first sight of pixilated blood from the once skeletal
man. In a burst of red, the flesh disappears and only a skeleton
remains. Unfortunately, that makes the monster even faster and
Harry finds himself on the defensive as Axel slips around back. At
the same time, the giant re-enters the fray and the mages become
busy keeping themselves alive. Harry can see Erica is struggling to
keep up with the intense levels of damage they are sustaining and
the giant seems to know that. It is focusing on her and that means
her death rate will outpace the others. If she doesn’t have enough
gold to keep that up then they are all dead.

"I'm going to end this,” Harry
says.

Harry jumps forward and drops his sword to the
ground. It’s the first time that he has been without the weapon
since he got it and it is a shocking sensation to not be holding
it.

“
Got you.”

He grabs the skeleton with both arms in a bear
hug. The monster’s sword is sticking straight through Harry’s
stomach and there is a pained look on his face, but he holds on to
life for long enough.

The skeleton’s skull explodes and Harry’s
vision goes black as Axel’s sword impales both of them, making the
skull disintegrate in a hail of white.

Harry dies and reappears a few seconds later
to find Axel’s headless corpse lying on the ground. Apparently, the
skeleton had just a little bit more life left in it after
all.

He draws his weapon out of his inventory and
looks at the giant. The mages have managed to get it down to its
knees and Harry sees the perfect opportunity to finish the creature
off.

He charges forward, as Axel begins shooting
arrows into the creature, and uses his sword to climb the
creature's leg. He slams it in and pulls himself upwards, coming up
into the air just a meter in front of the creature and slashing
across its neck. His sword enters deep enough to send a thick wave
of pixilated red out from its new breathing hole and Harry falls
backwards towards the ground.

Thankfully, Erica manages to grab him as he
lands and he watches as the shocked giant cries out one last time
and disappears in a burst of gorgeous blue.

Harry slips to the dirt next to Erica, who has
nearly fainted from exhaustion, and looks up at the night sky. It's
only been an hour of combat, but it feels like a week.

A small box comes in to his view and he notes
that he gained three levels in one fight. It has to be a
record.

"Is everybody okay?" Josh asks.

They compare notes and find that most of them
were on their last few gold, meaning anyone of them could have been
knocked out of the game for good with no contract money or gold
bonus. They have barely survived, yet it is the treasure they
receive in exchange for their acts that gets them back up on their
feet.

They have received no less than ten magical
items and with them lined up in the air in front of them, there is
a sense of victory in their hearts that goes beyond just beating
the monsters. This grind could have ended in them all dying their
last deaths and being chucked out of the game,
but it
didn’t
. They managed to destroy some of the strongest monsters
any of them has faced and survived. They are stronger and now it’s
time to roll the dice.

Harry rolls a six on the first item, to the
cheers of the others, and Erica rolls a five on the next. They look
at each other’s items and laugh. Erica has no need of a leather
pair of chaps and Harry certainly doesn't need a wizard’s cap. They
trade and both feel happier for it.

The other rolls happen fairly quickly and
Harry is just about to high five Axel for gaining a special
mini-quiver that has the potential to increase her ammo
considerably when something strange happens.

Warning Connection Error
Detected
comes into his view. The world turns white and Harry
awakens to another world entirely – one where victory certainly
doesn’t wait.

"What's happening?" he asks
groggily.

The fist to his face is a good enough answer
for him. The gambling collection officers have come and they are a
day and a half early.

“
Time to pay your taxes, loser,”
the government official with his two street toughs says, pulling
Harry’s sleepy body from his Sleep Tech capsule.

"But I still have another day and a
half!"

The man’s fist collides with Harry's face once
more and his nose begins to bleed. There are two very large men and
one skinny scarred man staring down at him with the usual ‘
I’ll
kill you if you dare fight back
’ looks on their faces that
these sorts usually tend to have. Harry has met them a few times
before with previous debts and he knows that they are some of the
toughest collectors that the city government has to
offer.

"Paying your taxes early is good for your
health, so why don't you cough up the cash before we decide to
break something?"

The man starts cracking his knuckles loudly
and Harry can see the shape of a laser baton in the man's pocket.
The last time they came over Harry had to call the medical units,
who sent a clunky old robot that did a very poor job of setting his
broken ribs. He had to call all over again to obtain a better robot
to redo the job and the whole experience had been slightly more
painful than he was used to, even if the stim shot took away most
of the pain, leaving him feeling very little of anything beyond
what it was designed to do.

The man grabs him by the front of the sleeping
shirt and pulls him up from his knees.

"Are you planning on dodging your payment?” he
asks. “I remember having to have words with you that other time.
Your mother isn't going to bail you out anymore from the
conversation we had with her yesterday. This time it's all on
you."

He walks over to the wall, dragging Harry with
him and touches the surface.

"Window."

The wall morphs and a large window appears in
its place. It has a gorgeous pane of simulated glass that looks out
over a huge deep blue skyline, which is not so far from being open
space at this height.

"Now you and I both know that this glass will
sustain your body hitting it as many times as I can throw it. BUT
what you are probably not figuring on is the fact that that is what
I want,” he says, rubbing the glass and leaving a smear on
it.

He pushes Harry to the pane.

“
Take a good look at that surface.
I'm going to paint a very pretty picture with your blood on this
window. We are going to mess you up so bad that you won’t even be
able to call a medical unit," he says. "I'll even go as far as to
disable your health sensors, so that no one will ever know that you
died here today. You’ll be like one of those idiots who stays too
long in their Sleep Tech units and ends up starving to death. I'll
be reading about your death on the Internet one day and, guess
what, I’ll be smiling remembering your demise."

Harry shivers in fear. This man has been known
to do worse than this and so his suggestion is within the realm of
possibility. That makes things very dangerous.

"I'm testing a game," he says. "I’ve almost
got your money."

"A game?" the man says, sounding interested.
"I thought you would be selling some DNA or a few body parts to
some chop shop doctors down on the bad side of the city. This is
more inspired than I would have expected from you."

The man dumps Harry on the floor and steps on
his chest.

"How much and how
long?"

"The entire debt and some pocket change. It
will take another day and a bit for me to get the
money."