Side Story 3: [Extras]

"Your name is Quarta, you said?"

"Yeah," John grunted, kicking some rocks around. "Just call me that."

"Sure. I'm Hestia. That there is Gorm. This here is Gale, and the broody one is Grey."

"...I'm going to kill you," Grey muttered.

"Ok. Thanks."

"Cold one, huh?" Hestia grinned as she wrapped her arm around John's shoulder. "I get that this is a dangerous mission, but you should learn how to lighten up a little."

John flinched, and his usual grin reappeared on his face.

"Sorry about that. Just a little distracted. We should be fine, though. Unless you guys don't trust your own abilities?"

That got a laugh out of both Hestia and Gale, as well as a glare from Grey. Gorm just nodded, seemingly unaffected by John's taunt.

"Alright. Should we go in, then?"

"Let's do it."

The five were grouped in front of a cave. Inside was supposedly a small group of cultists, their strength and abilities unknown. The mission was to identify if this was true, and then to eliminate the enemies if possible. The guards would come in later to clean up and check that everything was done.

"Still think this should be a job for the guards," John said, letting the others lead the way. "Don't get why they're sending us in."

"Does it matter?" Hestia grinned. "We're getting paid, right?"

With that, the group got silent. Now was not the time for banter. Now was the time for action.

With a roar, Hestia chanted up a giant fireball that blew down the front door. The group burst in, armed and ready.

Immediately, giant spikes fell from the ceiling and killed Hestia, her blood splattering everywhere. John remained unfazed, pushing in further. The others did the same, lighting up the room and revealing two cultists.

No communication was necessary. Gorm went to handle one, and Gale went to handle the other. Grey vanished.

And John watched.

Hestia was dead. They'd likely need her for later rooms, if these people had the ability to eliminate one of their number so quickly. If that were the case, John could just bring her back. The point was that she'd killed her opponent, and that was all that mattered.

But right now, he needed as much intel as possible.

So instead of fighting, he watched. Gale died. He'd been burned to death, based on the burn marks. It'd happened so quickly that John hadn't noticed.

Gorm was injured, but Grey had finished off the enemy before them.

"Hey," Grey said, stepping up to John. "Are you gonna be helpful? How'd you even get on this team?"

John didn't bother to answer. He stepped over Hestia's dead body and pushed on into the next room.

There were four more cultists, and John immediately backed out.

"It's clear," he announced to the others. "Let's go."

"...fine. You'd better do something, though," Grey muttered.

He was dead thirty seconds later. Gorm was visibly upset, but he was too injured to do anything about it. He succumbed to his injuries soon after.

"...it's pretty basic magic," John muttered, looking around. "Hm… alright. I've got a good idea of what these rooms are like. I'd like a map, but… well, I suppose the last check is the damage check. Let's see how well I can do."

From his pocket dimension came out a simple revolver, painted crimson red and black. He aligned the sights to one of the cultist's heads, his right eye lighting up and he pulled the trigger.

The bullet passed through whatever defences the enemy had and blew the man's head right off.

"Good," John muttered.

His eyes flicked over to the left, where he raised his hand just in time to block a spear of earth headed his way. The spell simply vanished as soon as it made contact with his hand. It wasn't as if it'd been stopped or teleported or negated. It simply… stopped existing.

"That works, too. Good to know."

With that, John sprinted forward. The other cultists were somewhat caught off guard, but then realized that John was moving at the speed of a normal human.

"Get him!" one yelled.

A barrage of spells surrounded John at once, leaving him no options. Unless he could teleport, he'd have no way out.

But then his right eye flashed once more, and he did move. In fact, one of the spells had been removed as well, almost as if John had removed space itself, instead of moving himself forward.

"What the- what kind of magic is that?"

"Bullshit."

John fired off another three bullets, but eventually, he was overwhelmed. He didn't have the means to react faster or move faster, so in the end, he was simply overwhelmed.

He closed his eyes. Death was an old friend he hadn't met in a long time.

Or, perhaps it was more accurate to say that Death was a friend he had yet to meet.

~~~

One [Reset] later, and John was standing in front of the cultist base entrance, his eyes closed.

"There's a spike trap just in front of the door," John said, trying to remember what had happened. "Two cultists in the first room. One knows fire magic… don't know about the other. Next room has four cultists. Can't say what they have yet."

Gorm turned to John. "...how do you know this?"

"I don't. Ignore me if you want. I'll be going in first."

To be honest, John felt as though he could take on this entire base by himself. These teammates weren't necessary. They'd only get in the way, to be honest. He had no logical way of explaining his abilities. He didn't necessarily care to keep them a secret, but it was simply that explaining would take too long.

Well, if they were coming along for the ride, he might as well make the best possible use of them.

The best use, of course, being sacrificial fodder to clear out future rooms.

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"Wait, hold on!" Hestia yelled, but John just ignored her.

He pushed the door open, immediately raising his hand. It turned black, and the spikes that fell vanished as soon as they made contact, disappearing just like the spells John had blocked before.

Raising his gun, he took aim and fired at the first cultist. The man didn't stand a chance, and he fell over, dead.

John was about to turn to kill the other one when the other four adventurers charged forward and took him out on their own. Surprised, John lowered his weapon.

"Hey. You were right," Grey said, turning back. "...you one of them?"

"Yeah. If you want to believe that. Like I said, four cultists in the next. Follow if you want."

"Jerk," Hestia muttered, but they didn't do anything to John.

He pushed through once more, his eye glowing slightly darker. These cultists, however, weren't nearly as lax as the first ones were. They'd been alerted by the sound of gunfire, even though they didn't know what it was.

John immediately hit the ground, rolling to dodge an arrow and a spell, the came up, pistol sights lined up perfectly between a cultist's eyes. Staring the man in the face, John pulled the trigger.

"One down," he muttered, scurrying to cover.

Like clockwork, the other adventurers burst in, taking one more fight. The other cultists were quickly dispatched, having been thrown off guard by the sudden death of one of their allies.

"You're not bad," Gale commented as he cleaned off his blade. "Little suspicious, though, where you got that intel…"

"It's just [Story] shit. Don't worry about it," John muttered, reloading his gun.

"What's that, by the way? Never seen a weapon like that," Grey commented, taking a look. "It makes a sound like cannonfire. What in the world are you using?"

"It's called a gun. Uh… invention of mine," John said quietly. "Don't worry about it."

"Well, whatever it is, you did a damn good job of making it," Hestia grinned. "You seem like a good fella, Quarta."

"...sure."

John didn't particularly care for the compliment. Being a good guy or bad guy in the eyes of [Characters] didn't really make a difference to him. Morals no longer really applied to John in this world. Of course, he didn't care for violence or sadism. Stuff like that simply didn't hold any appeal.

But sparing a life when he didn't need to held no appeal, either.

"I don't know what's coming from here on out." John sat down on a box, spinning the chamber of his gun. "So… I'll be sitting here for a bit."

"...coward, huh?" Gale said quietly. "Fine. I'll go on ahead."

"Gale, wait-" Gorm started, but it was too late.

The swordsman had already pushed through, revealing a row of—

"Ballistas?!" Grey yelled.

It was too late. A giant arrow pierced through his chest, sending him flying into the previous room, sticking him to the wall.

"Ha… can any of you block that?" John said, standing up.

He was met with silence.

"Great. More work for me."

He stepped forward, raising his hand once more. The ballistas had already been reloaded, but John once again reduced the arrow headed his way to nothing, raising his gun once more.

"Sh-shit!" one of the cultists yelled. "Do something!"

It was too late. John blew the head off the man who'd spoken, pulling the hammer before firing yet another shot.

Once again, a body fell to the floor.

Unfortunately, that was all John would be doing. He felt something rise up in his chest, a wave of nausea washing over his body. He momentarily paused, resisting the urge to gag, his vision going blurry as his body, for a moment, lost all strength.

That was more than enough time for the enemies to reload and fire once more.

~~~

The pattern was the same every time. Push. [Reset]. Sacrifice an adventurer or two. Push. [Reset].

At this point, John couldn't be bothered to count. He'd definitely [Reset] less than twenty times, but the number of deaths wasn't important to him right now.

"You're approaching your limit using that power," Zero warned in the [Reset Room]. "I think you'll manage… two more times, maybe."

"Two more times. Great. If those idiots weren't here, I could've just gone all out once and been done with it."

"Then why didn't you?"

"...I'm not looking to fuck them over, Zero. Besides, if they report that I'm some sort of freak, I'm going to get hunted down. You're the one who made me do all the research, remember? I'm not stupid."

"Yeah, yeah. Just wanted to make sure that you remembered what you're doing."

"Great. Thanks."

"Hey. By the way, you do care-"

"No, I don't. Stop getting me to find a partner. I already told you, it's not happening." John sighed, standing up. "Didn't I say this already? In this world, I'm not finding any partners. I'm just here, I'm getting my memories, and I'm leaving."

"Fine."

Zero vanished, but not before getting one last word in.

"Do what you want, John."

[Reset]

~~~

John was in the third final room, checking the state of his party. In his eyes, this was just an escort mission with nobodies that had some capability of keeping themselves alive, as well as decent firepower. This was getting somewhat annoying.

He also made a mental note not to keep these people in mind as benchmarks for this [Story's] strength. He wasn't stupid enough to think that these were fodder level [Characters]. They might be [Extras], but they weren't weak by any means.

After all, John wasn't the [Protagonist]. His adventure wouldn't be linear in progression, probably.

Interestingly enough, his relationship with the adventurers had warmed up somewhat this run. Although he was still incredibly efficient in both his words and actions, they seemed to respect his efforts and skill. Eventually, he, too, made an effort to stop being an emotionless robot, engaging in some banter with the others. He'd even saved them a few times, although he had no reason to do so.

Still, they were still tools. Still [Characters]. Ultimately, they were a burden.

Ultimately, he was better off without them.

Without warning, he burst through this room, his body turning a shade darker than it was meant to. Another wave of nausea washed through his head, but he ignored it, pushing further and unloading his revolver, tossing it aside as a new one fell into his hands.

Spells hit his body, but they barely did any damage as they were reduced to smoke as soon as they made contact. In mere seconds, the room was clear, and John didn't waste any time in moving onto the next one.

"Shit," he gasped as another wave of nausea hit him.

Still, he couldn't slow down. He teleported through space, blocking attack after attack, each of his bullets piercing through enemy defences like butter. John didn't know if there was some kind of magic to reinforce one's body, but it didn't matter.

Durability was nothing before his ability.

Another dozen dead bodies later, and John pushed into the final room. There was only the boss after this, but a boss was fine. A single individual was less of a burden than a group of enemies was.

"There! Get him!" a cultist yelled, charging forward.

John raised his hand, rendering the enemy's blade to nothing, then shoved his pistol into the man's mouth and blew his head off. He spun around, blocking a set of spells, dropping to the floor and rolling to generate some distance, then shot again, killing yet another enemy.

"Two," he panted.

The location of each enemy was known to him. Their attack patterns, their spells, their strategies, he'd been through them all before. It was like playing a video game. With each try, you could only get better.

He had complete mastery over his skills. His mind didn't necessarily know how he was doing it, but he knew what he wanted to do, and his body was doing it for him.

Thank god Zero had told him to study properly before entering this world. To the [Readers], this definitely looked like a cheap way out. But to John… well, he couldn't really call it hard work. He'd read a few books.

But still, it didn't feel like a cheap win to him.

Then again, it wasn't like his opinion mattered anyway. Bad writing was bad writing. Even if there was a reason for it, his abilities weren't any less powerful.

"Five. Six."

Enemy after enemy dropped to the floor. Gunshot after gunshot rang out, and John's senses were in a blur. Dodge, block, shoot, dodge, reposition, teleport, dodge, shoot, over and over, an unending pattern of seemingly random moves that orchestrated into a symphony of death.

In the end, not a single soul but John was left.

"Haah… This stupid ability," John muttered as his body stopped glowing.

Another wave of nausea washed over him, this one the strongest wave of all, and he really threw up this time. His stomach was empty, as it always was when he was going to fight, but the bile and stomach acid still burst out of his mouth onto the floor.

He wasn't sick or anything. It was simply that the whiplash of his ability was that strong.

"John," he heard Zero say. "You're going to lose yourself if you keep this up."

Indeed, his body was already beginning to fade. If closely observed, it was possible to see a little bit through his arms and legs.

"Yeah," he muttered. "Just one more room."

Suddenly, he heard the sound of a crossbow being drawn. Shit. An enemy. He hadn't encountered this one, mainly because he had yet to clear the final room perfectly, but still, to be so careless…

There was no time to react. He heard the arrow being fired, and he was already turning around, but his ability didn't make him any faster. That was why [Resets] were needed. If he [Reset] one more time, though—

"John!"

Hestia threw herself in front of him, catching the arrow with her body. Gale quickly dispatched the enemy, and Gale and Gorm burst into the room.

"...thanks," John muttered, wiping his mouth.

Hestia grunted as she pulled the arrow out of her arm. "Hey. You saved our hides once. It's only right we do the same. You're some kinda monster, though. How'd you do all that?"

John just looked away. "Gun. It's a good tool, you know."

"...you're no fun," Hestia muttered.

"Hey. You guys. This is the last room," John said quietly. "You sure you don't wanna just head home? I can deal with this."

"No, you idiot!" Gale exclaimed. "Seriously, you keep thinking-"

Before he could finish his sentence, a dozen more cultists burst into the room, armed and ready.

"John, go!" Gorm yelled, brandishing his hammer. "We'll hold them off!"

"But-"

"You seem to know what to do. Just go already!" Grey exclaimed.

John closed his eyes. Well, maybe keeping them alive had been useful, after all. In any case, he wouldn't be [Resetting], even if they died.

"Thanks," he nodded, then pushed onto the last room.

Inside was a young looking lady, sitting on a simple wooden chair as she'd been waiting.

"Ah. Hello, there."

"Mm… you'll have to die," John said simply.

"I am aware. But before I do… would you mind having a talk with me?"

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