"Hmm..? What the hell’s he doing, kissing his own puke?" I muttered, looking at Vorrak, standing up after I kindly cauterized this fat bastard.
Flames were still flickering beside me, crackling like a bad campfire.
["Looks like he fainted."]
"Tsk... now I gotta wait for him to wake up. Great." I rubbed my forehead.
Babysitting duty wasn’t supposed to be in my contract.
My eyes wandered and landed on the retainer guard.
Huh? He’s not twitching...
"Oh shit," I hissed, reaching for the fire with my sword.
["Don’t bother. He’s already dead from blood loss."]
"Damn it! I forgot about him for a second and this happens?!"
["Well, he wasn’t the target,"] Nexar added like he was commenting on the weather.
I groaned. "Yeah, not the target. Still annoying, though."
I turned and walked toward Sera’s unconscious body.
["Oh shit."]
"Hmm?"
["Her HP. It was twenty-eight when we came in. Now it’s ten. No, nine!"]
"No no no no" I bolted, sliding next to her, checking for blood.
The only wound was at the back of her head.
"Nexar! Shop! I need a recovery potion. Basic will do!"
["Basic won’t cut it,"] he snapped through his writing. ["And we don’t have time to stack multiple."]
A glowing blue shop window burst open in front of me. I squinted.
"What the hell? It’s just a torn scalp."
["It’s not just the head. Her tongue’s nearly torn off too, genius! She’ll choke on her own blood before your cheap-ass four stat points worth potion even kicks in!"]
I flinched. "Shit! Okay, okay. Intermediate then!"
["Costs eighteen stat points."]
"Fine, take it! Whatever, just.."
["You have zero remaining stat points. Which stat should I pick from?"] he asked, way too calm for the crisis.
I clenched my teeth. "Cut anything! Just do it fast!"
Suddenly my whole body felt like wet clay. Sluggish, heavy, drained.
The stat window flickered, and my remaining points showed 18.
"Ugh... thanks for leaving me feeling like a sack of rotten potatoes," I muttered.
I chose intermediate recovery potion from the system mart.
The remaining stat points dropped to zero again.
The potion materialized, bright, viscous drops hovering in my fist. I angled it over her lips, letting it drizzle down.
Her HP, frozen at nine, held steady... then ticked upward. Twelve. Twenty-four. Thirty-three. Forty-seven.
"Phew..." I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, shoulders sagging.
["See? Worth the points,"]
"What are you, a PR for your creator?" I snapped at Nexar’s glowing text, then sighed and rubbed my face.
"Whatever. When’s she waking up?"
["It’s hard to say..."] his letters trailed in a jagged line. ["Her bloodstream contains an overdose of Ero’s Essence."]
I froze. "...Ero’s Essence?"
["Probably the work of Vorrak."]
My jaw clenched. "Isn’t that... a high-grade aphrodite? The kind they use on sex slaves before selling them off?"
["Mm. Even my system store doesn’t stock Ero’s Essence,"] Nexar admitted. ["It only shows up in the black market."]
"How the hell would these trash get their hands on that?" I muttered, punching through the concrete wall blocking the exit to brushing room.
Dust and stone rained down as I shoved through.
"I heard Vorrak’s father, the mayor of this village, is real cozy with officers from SBV," I growled as I headed back to Sera, scooping her limp body into my arms.
["If they’re accomplices of SBV, then the black market becomes even harder to access,"] Nexar replied, almost impressed.
I carried her into the brushing room, laying her gently onto a pile of abandoned dry grass.
The flickering firelight painted her pale face in broken shadows.
"You’re saying Vorrak himself knew enough to arrange this? To buy Ero’s Essence?" I muttered, rising and walking back into the hall.
I bent down and wrenched free the rods pinning Vorrak’s legs.
His body slumped forward with a meaty thud, blood trailing like paint across the floor.
["Hard to believe it’s this wimp."].
I grabbed Vorrak by the collar, hoisting his dead weight with one arm.
"So what, you’re suggesting his retainer here was working behind his master’s back?" I jabbed my chin toward the corpse rotting in its own blood.
["That’s even more unlikely. His loyalty toward his master was over seventy percent."]
"Seventy percent and still a pawn, huh? Some loyalty." I slammed Vorrak’s body into the wall, his head smacking back with a dull crack.
Taking one of the rods, I pinned his palms, stacked neatly one over the other, straight into the wall.
His body jerked against the impact.
"We’ll need to ask this bastard once he wakes up," I said, voice low as I hammered another rod through his feet.
The makeshift crucifix rattled into place.
I stepped back, cocking my head at the scene. "Hnh. I’ve seen this somewhere before..."
["Maybe you’d recall it if there were a cross behind him,"]
I chuckled under my breath. "Heh. Except this one here isn’t dying for anyone’s sins."
My grin stretched dark. "He’s dying for his own."
I walked back to Sera and crouched beside her, brushing a strand of hair off her sweat-soaked face.
"So... will she be okay from just one intermediate potion? You know, considering the whole overdose thing?"
["Fortunately..."] Nexar’s letters spilled across the air, calm as ever. ["Ero’s Essence doesn’t bind with blood cells the way most poisons do. It spreads freely through the bloodstream and concentrates in the brain. The intermediate potion not only accelerates regeneration near physical wounds, but also enhances the eliminatory functions of the liver and kidney."]
I blinked. "So... yes?"
["...Right. Yes."]
I exhaled and leaned back on my heels. "Still, I spent eighteen stat points in return for ten? Hell, I’ll make a great businessman at this rate."
["No worries,"] Nexar scribbled. ["Ten stat points are just the quest rewards. That isn’t all you’ll be receiving."]
My head tilted. "Oh? What do you mean?"
["It’s hard to explain... you’ll understand once you see it."]
I narrowed my eyes. "You’ve got a real habit of dropping ominous half-explanations, you know that?" I stood, stretching my arms until the tension in my shoulders popped.
Then something hit me. "By the way... when you opened the system store earlier, I noticed something."
["Yes?"]
"Your name. Isn’t it Nexar — the Warlord’s System?"
["That’s right."]
I frowned. "Then why did I see it listed as Nexar — the Warlord’s Carnal System?"
A pause. The glowing letters flickered like hesitation.
["...Hmm. That must be one of the many changes made to me in the void."]
"One of the many changes?" I arched an eyebrow.
["Yes! Do you remember how I introduced myself when we first met?"] Nexar wrote, the letters glowing smugly. ["When you were on your second walkthrough... after you killed yourself... and I had to convince you that you wouldn’t have to go through all that torture again if you listened to me?"]
I squinted at the floating words. "Hey, that last part was unnecessary. And yeah... I think you said you were here to help me become a warlord and exact my revenge."
["Correct."]
My eyebrow twitched. "Warlord... crew?"
["Yes. According to the features I now possess, I can help you build your own crew, form alliances, gain stat points from the accomplishments of crew members..."] The text glowed brighter, almost like it was enjoying this.
"[...And finally, the intimacy points. Which can be earned and converted into stat points, depending on the loyalty or affection of crew mates."]
My head actually spun for a moment. "Wait. Intimacy points?"
["How’s it? An awesome upgrade, right?"]
I pinched the bridge of my nose, groaning.
I swear, if Nexar had a body right now, I could practically see him puffing his chest out like some pompous merchant showing off his newest scam.
"I certainly don’t call it an upgrade," I muttered, rubbing my temple.
"Is there a way for you to revert back...? Just scrap this whole crew gimmick and go back to the old you?"
The words on the screen flickered, then paused. If glowing text could sigh, that’s exactly what Nexar did.
["Trust me,"] he finally wrote, ["as the one who knows the future.. you will be repeating this same shit again for the fourth time if you don’t form a crew to face off against your enemies."]
I frowned, suspicion rising. "Really? Why are you so obsessed with ’strength in numbers,’ huh? Who’s this enemy you’re so damn scared of?"
A pause. Then the words appeared slower than usual, like Nexar was dragging his fingers through mud.
["I can’t tell you the details. Limitations. But... if you can trigger a quest tied to it, then I can feed you pieces as quest information. What I can tell you is this.. your enemies... they possess the System too."]
My body froze like someone had dumped ice water down my back.
"They... possess the system?" I whispered.
"You mean... there are multiple Nexars out there?"
The words snapped onto the screen so fast I could almost feel his offense.
["How is that even possible? I am the one and only Warlord’s System. Nexar."]
I raised an eyebrow. "Then what system do they have?"
The reply took longer this time, the letters appearing like Nexar was debating whether to cross a line.
["You’ll find out as you progress through the quests. And frankly... you don’t need to care about most of them... But.."]
The words hung for a beat, before new ones scrawled out in stark blue light.
["But there is still one system that rivals me..."]
My throat felt tight as I waited. Nexar hesitated, then finally gave the name.
["The Emperor’s System."]