"Guns Leon! GUNS. Machine guns, magic guns, any kind of gun. All I need is that it shoots fast, or shoots a lot."

Wade needed to test this Skyviper upgrade, as soon as he could. Figure out what the actual damage and duration increase really was. But even if it was a tiny little addition, he could abuse the fuck out of it.

"Okey, okey, we settling down now." Leon said, patting Wade's shoulder. "You will have heart attack soon."

The Skyviper Archer upgrade had Wade practically vibrating with energy. He'd been so close to beating that golem before. With this? So many ways he could stack the absolute shit out of his debuff to the stratosphere.

Who said he needed to individually attack with each shot? A massive shotgun would do the exact same thing. Two massive shotguns. He could probably fire those both at the same time while jumping, what's the worst that could happen? Rhetorical question - the worst that could happen to him would be far nicer than the poor shmuck on the other end of Wade's two-for-one special delivery.

Leon raised an eyebrow, looking over the American. "You thinking of fighting Lapushka with this?" He kicked the solid gold chest. It weighed far too much for him. "Lapushka have very strong plates and armor. May need to go weasel hunting first."

Wade paced the small room, mind calculating damage values and possible scaling factors while Leon tried to talk rational sense. "Might not be able to use this gold lootbox right now." Wade said, muttering like a lunatic. "But I think we could kill that golem with what we've got. Just need to get the right order of combos going."

"We have only hammer, rocks, maybe some lint." Leon looked over at Wade's backpack, unzipping it to reach inside. "Granola bars. Bottled water. Flashlight? Bandages. Oh, pens. Lots of pens." Wade forgot he'd even had those inside, but Leon found them by rummaging deep into the entire pack. Leon patted the entire thing fondly. "Maybe we use entire backpack. Great options, much damage."

But Wade wasn't quite paying attention. His head was only damage numbers and stats.

Was it balanced for a bow and arrow? Name of the boon made it look like that, Skyviper Archer. If the increases were balanced around having an arrow or two extra hitting the target, then Wade would throw a goddamn avalanche of random bullshit with each jump. Or… "Or bullets that do extra damage. Like with explosions inside." He started cackling.

And if he paired an explosive bullet with Illy's dagger debuff, for that immediate one-two sucker punch? The damage he could do would be glorious. GLORIOUS.

Only problem is that the attack needed to do damage of some kind. Even one tick of damage would be enough, but the golem's plating would make that near impossible without blackrot. He had to find that hyper-weasel, and have it bite the crap out of his arm and legs. Highly rational and normal plan.

"Wade. Earth to Wade." Leon waved his massive hand in front of Michael's face. "You having little moment there. We need to find others first."

Wade blinked, the fantasy of bullet-riddled golems fading. "What? Oh, right. Yeah. We should regroup."

"Is good upgrade, yes. But better with plan. Better with team. Let's go speak with them again?"

Wade looked over at the gold chest. "Think you can drag that with you?"

Leon looked back at it. Then back to Wade. The answer was clear.

Wade looked at the chest, as if he was about to say goodbye to his firstborn child. "If we kill Lapushka, we're coming back for this, right?"

The giant patted his shoulder. "Sure, why not?"

That was enough for him to stoically carry on, giving the gold chest one last fond look before the two of them left.

***

"How is she understanding what you're sending?" Wade asked, as Leon made a few hand gestures, to which Illy responded across the street. The other two had been waiting around for the pair to get back to their talking post. Not that there was much to do stuck as they were.

"Oh, is easy. KGB teach us hand signs as children growing up. Is normal part of elementary education, between math and how to spot Western spy. Even have coloring book back home, I let you borrow later."

Wade narrowed his eyes. Leon looked back with his usual easy-going face. Completely serious.

"Goddamnit Leon."

Leon laughed, "Had preplanned hand signs with Illy, spent some time talking on Earth what we could be doing, come up with different possible plans, and hand signs for each. I telling them sewer distraction plan is our vote."

He made three more distinct patterns with his hand, then pointed toward the sewer grate they'd used before.

Illy made a few return gestures, and then gave him the finger.

"What's she saying?" Wade asked.

"She agrees with the plan, maybe a little bit upset she and Selena need to distract Lapushka. But who else can lift the sewer manhole than us, da?"

He gave a few more hand signs, then a heart sign and blew a kiss.

Illy looked like she wanted nothing more than to cross the road and bite his head off.

After a minute of back-and-forth, the two on the other end of the street got up, packed whatever they had on hand, and withdrew back into the alleyways. Hiking away up the street, past Lapushka.

"They understand." Leon said, sitting back down against a wall, hammer in hand. "Five minutes, they start. We wait here, then move fast when golem goes to investigate. Be ready."

Wade nodded, getting his pack ready for a short sprint.

It didn't take long.

"THREAT DETECTED. INVESTIGATING."

THUD.

"Don't know what they did but it's working." Wade said, craning his neck out the window slightly to check on the progress. The giant golem had lifted itself off the ground on those giant trunk-like legs, and started to advance up the street, searching for something that distracted it over there.

They waited for another two minutes, before Leon nodded. "Okay, we going now while it's focused on walking up."

The pair dove out the window in a sudden sprint, Leon scooping Wade up under his arm so that the american didn't slow them down with his limp.

A good call.

In under two seconds they'd reached the manhole cover. For a third time, they got to work trying to pull it up, working together.

It remained shut to the ground, stupidly heavy. Wade was next to useless now, despite his strength additions, the lack of blackrot paired with his bad leg made him more of a cheerleader to Leon than an actual partner.

"Ffffffuck." Wade hissed, still trying his best. Up ahead the golem was walking away from them, attention focused to something there. Three seconds later, Leon's grip slipped, and both of them let go of the lip, their progress reset.

"Blyat, tougher than expected." He looked up at Lapushka, who would at some point turn around and probably start squashing.

"We can lift it, I got an idea." Wade said, scrambling around to yank out one of the old pickaxes left behind by one of the skeletons yesterday. "Lift it up one end just enough to stick the pick in, we'll wedge two or three and then we can lever the thing out."

Leon nodded, and quickly did a small jog around to gather some of them up.

"INVESTIGATION COMPLETE. NO THREATS DETECTED. ALL HUMANS, RETURN TO WORK IMMEDIATELY."

"Shit." They'd managed to lift the cover just enough to stick one pick slightly inside, leaving the cover lopsided. They were working on another, when the golem turned around.

New Personal quest: Challenge Gauntlet - An enemy forty levels or higher above you is hunting you down. Evade or defeat your hunter. Reward: One storefront coin if your pursuer is eliminated.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Leon let out a new string of russian swearing, which Wade oddly found himself completely understanding in both spirit and wording. Lapushka gave the same sense of anger in its own return message. "UNREGISTERED SLAVES DETECTED. ELIMINATING."

The golem started advancing on them, hands already extended out. It did not look happy at being duped.

"UNREGISTERED FUGITIVE SLAVES, REMAIN STILL FOR ELIMINATION."

The robotic tone in its voice sounded neutral. But Wade could swear he heard the passive-aggressive undercurrent deep inside: You goddamn sneaky humans. Come here you little shits.

He jumped out of the way and yanked Leon from his current attempt to stuff another pickaxe end point into the manhole. Just in time too, as one giant fist rocketed right above their heads, landing a few steps away from the manhole, slightly off to the right.

Unfortunately, it didn't actually move or shake the manhole loose at all, likely something the golem aimed for. And a moment later the fist started to crush backwards, as if being reeled with an invisible force.

The other fist on the golem was now aiming at them again.

Wade's head went into full analytics mode. He could sprint out of the way, get the thing's attention, and then trigger the dodge roll ability right as the fist hit. But he remembered the last time that fist had zipped his way. It had gone so fast, he'd hardly had time to blink. Just an 'oh' realization that the fist was being launched, and he was watching the post-round stats screen right after.

Too fast for human reaction. Like being shot by a tank. No, this wasn't a video game where bosses were balanced around giving the players a chance. Only reason they'd avoided that first fist had been Wade moving ahead of time.

But the way that fist was still aimed at them, the golem had adapted, and wasn't looking to miss a second time.

Fortunately, Wade had a team here. And they got to action. A blue streak of magic launched from Selena's side of the road. It lanced the golem's side armor in the same instant.

No damage, but the blue orb above spun around, affronted. "GREATER THREAT DETECTED. INVESTIGATING."

Wade's head clicked into action. First he gave Leon a quick kick to trigger Leon's passive, "Golf the manhole cover out of here!" He called out, limping forward to yank a spare pickaxe.

That fist still ground backwards into the ground, but the rate it was being dragged back to the golem was like a slow winch. And one thing he knew about THE GAME:

That fist was still a part of the golem. Which means it shared that thing's heath pool. Time to start dealing some damage.

He raced as fast as his limp could take him, then jumped and threw the pickaxe right into the hand, laughing maniacally.

It flew true, right against the completely defenseless golem fist. Then bounced off the metal without dealing any damage.

"WHAT? FUCK."

Behind him, Leon swung his warhammer like he would a golfclub, his prior boon empowering his swing with a knockback. The warhammer hit the lifted up side of the manhole cover, then sent the entire thing spinning upwards, launched off the hole before landing on the ground and rolling away.

On Wade's part, he'd picked another pickaxe, watching as the fist slowly pulled away. There had to be a way to do damage. Or was he that reliant on blackrot? The skeletons had been able to do a tiny bit of damage with their picks, those things were made to slam into rock-hard granite and puncture into it.

Ah. But then again the skeletons were clearly stronger than he was. Powered by mana that had years to seep into their bones or something. And also holding onto the pick the whole swing.

He recalculated, then came to a potential solution. Damage was damage. Didn't matter where that source came from.

He really should have tested this earlier but no time like the present.

Wade pulled a rock from his pack in his other hand, limping after the golem's fist. Then lifted that rock up and swung, releasing the rock at the very last possible second.

Right at his own leg.

As it turns out, timing an enemy attack was certainly difficult, possibly impossible given the enemy had zero incentive to make itself a fun target to fight.

But dodging your own perfectly controlled attack on the other hand? A lot easier.

He triggered his dodge ability almost at the same instant he threw the rock.

The System took control of his body right as the improvised attack sailed into his leg. And then went through the leg completely, as if his body wasn't quite part of this dimension anymore. He leaped in one graceful arc, rolling on the ground, limp completely gone, following after the golem hand still being reeled backwards.

Lightning started crackling around him, moving in ways it clearly shouldn't physically do, and it lasted around him far longer instead of the blinding milli-second sparks of brightness that it should have. Video game logic.

Sure he couldn't deal physical damage to it. But it was made of goddamn metal. And that meant it conducted electricity.

This time he leaped up again, and threw his main hand pickaxe down at the hand. Once more it bounced off without dealing damage.

But the lightning damage sunk into it, and Wade saw the golem's health bar flash with damage. Not even one percent of its health was knocked off.

But if it could bleed, it could die. And Wade now had evidence he could make it bleed.

Unfortunately, the dodge boon came with its own issues. He felt winded, flagging, and about to fall down. Which worked out since a moment later, Leon was right behind him, scooping him up. "Okey crazy American, time to go."

He turned and sprinted for the open cover.

Behind, Wade watched as the first second passed. And the golem's health bar flashed again, taking damage from nowhere.

His skyviper buff had triggered off the lightning damage. Wade started laughing as the giant got to the manhole, shoving him down first before following behind.

Two more ticks of damage came out of the golem, one percent health going down finally.

It can be damaged, which meant it can be killed. Even without blackrot, Wade had the means. A plan was already forming in his head.

"TARGET FLED. LOCATION REPORTED." The golem called out behind them, as the pair rapidly descended down the empty ladder.

The pair hit the empty sewer floor, winded. Looking at one another.

"What about Selena and Illy?" Wade asked.

"They give golem a run around, and then come back down the moment they have free chance. Watch. Trust smol devushka, she too angry to die."

The Russian was correct, after five minutes of hearing terrible deconstruction noises above, the top of the manhole was obscured with a shadow and Illy outright slid straight down the ladder, followed by Selena ignoring the rungs entirely to leap down herself, blue spectral wings spreading out from behind her, giving one massive flap just as she landed.

"Evenin' chaps." Illy said, standing back up from the base of the ladder, patting her pajamas clean of dust. "Fancy seeing you lot down here."

Then her eyes locked onto Leon and narrowed down with violent intentions, one summoned dagger pointing right at him. "Oh and you. If ye ever make me play tag with that metal bastard again, I'll shove that hammer so far up your arse ye'll be lookin' for nails even into the next round. We got an understanding?"

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