Spearbound Ch. 75

Kade stared at the ceiling of the room and thought of the city-wide party that had started yesterday and still continued today.

The initial crowd, which witnessed Kade’s overkill killing of the kobold, spread into the city, causing the entirety of Chicago to fall into a festive mood.

It was in the revelry that Kade found out alcohol had no effect on him. He stopped after emptying twenty bottles of vodka like they were water, regretfully accepting that he would now need some sort of supercharged poison to achieve similar effects.

That didn’t mean he didn’t make some questionable decisions.

Kade glanced at the brown hair scattered messily beside him on the pillow. Eliza shifted against him with a soft sigh and fell deeper into her sleep.

He remembered everything that lead to them falling into bed together, and he had to admit it was far more casual than he had ever experienced. As Eliza said before they left the revelry, ‘let’s see how fun it is and go from there.’

Kade couldn’t deny that it had been very fun.

Still, he couldn’t believe that Eliza could fall asleep. He felt an intense jealousy that she had the ability to do so.

Kade had spent the past few hours in bed trying to mimic her state and failing miserably.

Celine: Kade, Tugan isn’t in his room.

He tensed and carefully extracted himself from the bed without waking Eliza and rushed to Tugan’s room.

Celine was inside, speaking in a frustrated tone with several others. She smiled in relief when she saw him enter. “Kade! We only felt him alone for a few minutes. Nobody saw him leave the hotel, so he should be wandering around somewhere.”

He pulled up the leaderboard without a word.

North American Rankings:

1. Anita Shah (Archivist) – 377,845 points

2. Kade Beckett (Arcane Lancer) – 259,748 points (+1,925)

…

…

Kade felt relief from the missing name. He might have trusted Tugan and owed him a massive favor, but the man was simply a monster in terms of power. A calm tiger was still a fucking tiger.

“There’s no need to search for him. Tugan left the continent,” Kade said to everyone’s confusion.

Celine clapped her hands and addressed her peers. “Well, that works for us. We can help our own people now. We’ve dealt with the Beckett Organization, so choose another organization to assist.”

The [Healers] murmured in agreement as they filed out of the room, with Celine the last one to follow.

Kade looked around the room and was a little disappointed that Tugan left without leaving behind a message. He wanted to get some information about his [Soulrend], hoping to find a solution to his problem, but it wasn’t to be.

He was about to return to Eliza when the interface appeared.

This is a planet-wide alert!

Earth has experienced its first outbreak and the Safe Zones have been battle tested.

Out of the 800 population centers that were designated Safe Zones, 182 have been destroyed. Reinforce your home to prevent the next outbreak from destroying more!

Earth will now have monsters up to Arcana Level 30 roaming outside the Rift Zones. We recommend using them to help raise the average strength of humanity.

To promote a healthy rivalry between Safe Zones, we will soon introduce combat games with exciting rewards for the winning Safe Zone. We will alert you with more details when the time comes!

Kade’s mind was stuck on the destroyed safe zones. “System, how many humans died because of the failed safe zones?”

Approximately 300 million.

He had heard of the quote, ‘a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.’ It sure as hell didn’t feel like it when he saw that stupidly large number.

Kade felt physically ill at the number of deaths. He couldn’t have done anything to prevent it, but he sure as hell could try for a future outbreak. As a leader, he had the responsibility, and mandate, to do so.

Finn: Mr. Beckett, I think it’s time to expand our territory. We need to reclaim more land to take in survivors.

He felt a surge of appreciation for Finn being on the same page. “I agree. Call whoever you think is necessary for a meeting. Let’s work out a plan and get started as soon as possible.”

Kade left the unofficial VIP healing ward to get Eliza. It looked like he would be more involved in Chicago’s leadership than he intended. Exploring higher-class rift zones would need to be delayed.

Just for a bit.