“Congratulations, my Host, for completing the Fourth Trial flawlessly,” Noe said. I sighed as I waved goodbye to Greta one final time and focused my attention back on my System. “Would you like to see the rewards for your competition?”
I thought I never got rewards anymore.
“I have remedied some of that,” she explained, “Although I cannot give you physical equipment as those come directly from the Trash Matrix’s stock, I can convert the items you should have gotten directly into experience points. I realize that you have been severely under-leveled for a while now, and I cannot have my Host lag behind the others.”
Man, did I mention how you’re the best System ever?
“You have, but it is still nice to hear it again. I strive to do my best.”
Show me the summary of my clear.
Congratulations, Aspirant Walter, for your flawless performance! Your ability to triumph against overwhelming odds will not be forgotten, nor will it be without reward. The results of your time here are as follows:
Aspirants Defeated: 50
Villagers Defeated: 0
Bonus Achievements: 4/5
Missions Complete: 6/10
Allies Lost: 0
Total time spent: 2d 18h 33m
Final Rating: S-
Woah, now that’s a nostalgic breakdown. I haven’t seen that kind of message since… well, since the very first Trial that I finished I believe. I had almost forgotten what it was like to have normal Trials again; ones without horrible corruption or the Overseer’s manipulations, that is. And with Noe’s tampering, I wasn’t seeing the Trash Matrix’s biases either. It felt good going from an F+ all the way to S!
Based on your overall achievements, you are ranked 2nd in Pandora, congratulations! As a hidden bonus, you have received 500 contribution points for your city-state as a reward for your peerless performance against impossible odds!
Displaying the top 5 ranked individuals in the world:
1: Kim Jae-Hyun
2: Walter Thafoe
3: Marcus Sullivan
4: Vadeem Petrov
5: Noel Kowalski
Ah, thank all the gods in the Multiverse that the Trash Matrix didn’t use “Thefuck” as my last name, that would have been awkward to explain to my friends. And as I thought, thanks to Noe’s tampering earlier, every member of the Abyss Guild that went in alone placed in the top 5 of the world. I can’t wait to see the Regressor’s face when he sees this!
Still, I was a little disheartened to see that I didn’t manage to place first, but I can’t complain about 2nd I suppose. I know for a fact that each group’s Trials would have been different, so I wasn’t exactly sure how these rankings were calculated. Maybe it was a mix of personal score and the number of contribution points we earned, but either way, I didn’t doubt the Regressor’s ability to excel in all situations either way. I’ll bet that Noel’ll make a fuss about being behind the rest of us when I see her again.
Now all that’s left is to see the juicy rewards!
Distributing Rewards:
Unlocked the Advanced Inventory Space (Able to hold 50 objects)
Kill reward: 50,000 gold
Top 10 reward: +15 levels
Hidden Rewards: +6 levels
Penalties: None
Damn, that’s 21 levels in one go, but that was a little less than I thought, what with me placing second in the whole world. I bet the equipment that I would have got would have been worth a tad more.
“It is because I do not have total control over the Trash Matix, my Host,” Noe explained, “I apologize for my failings.”
No way you need to apologize for that, if it wasn’t for you, I’d still be getting nothing.
Anyway, with the rewards and the few levels I managed to scrounge up while picking off the Aspirants one at a time back then, my stats now looked like this:
Host: Walter
Class: Level 72 Gamma’s Grace
Attributes:
Free points: 75
HP: 1134/1134
MP: 0/0
Strength: 61 (+10)
Dexterity: 66 (+10)
Endurance: 54 (+10)
Intelligence: 62 (+10)
Charisma: 72 (+10)
Now for the tricky part. I had all those extra stat points at my disposal, and as much as I would love to just dump them all into Charisma as usual, especially since those get converted into Strength when I’m the good doctor, I couldn’t exactly do that. For one, I can’t transform into Dr. Walter all the time, especially when I’m in the company of other Aspirants, and two, my basic stats when I was a human were woefully horrible. I’ll need to buy some less horrid equipment when I get back, but for now, let’s just pad out my physical stats a little.
A few points spent, my stats now looked like this:
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Strength: 81 (+10)
Dexterity: 86 (+10)
Endurance: 74 (+10)
Intelligence: 62 (+10)
Charisma: 87 (+10)
I smiled at the nice boost and stashed my status screen away again. With Strength and Dex in the 80s, I shouldn't be too far behind the average Aspirant even when I'm at my weakest. Once I was happy with all the results, and that nothing else was missed with the end-of-trial blurb, I waved goodbye one final time to the villagers and allowed Noe to take me back to Pandora.
* * *
Thanks to the Trash Matrix’s ability to manipulate time, all of the Aspirants arrived back at base at the same time. I knew that most of the Abyss Guild made it out fine since they were displayed in the top five, but seeing Yoona and the twins unscathed put my heart at ease. Those three were the only ones who I worried about. The others, however, were slightly worse for wear.
Vadeem and Jae-Hyun looked like they were in an extended war, with most of their equipment either missing or damaged. The big man was covered head to toe with wounds and bruises, but he nonetheless still had a huge smile on his face. Jae-Hyun just looked worn out, but he carried the same authoritative air of confidence regardless. The same couldn’t be said for Noel, who immediately slumped onto the couch and looked like she was about to pass out, her mood sour. As for the Priest? Well, Marcus looked… hell, he looked like he had gone for a casual stroll, and the only sign that anything had happened was his slightly disheveled hair.
Yoona rushed to Jae-Hyun immediately upon seeing him and all but forced him to sit down while she procured a mountain of healing items from her inventory. The twins made just as big a fuss with Vadeem, albeit a lot quieter. I just nodded at the others and chose not to disturb them for now and instead sat down next to Noel.
I looked at the miserable girl and asked. “You okay, Noel? You seem worse off than when I saw you back in the second Trial.”
She pouted. “I’m not okay.”
That got my attention quickly. I was about to go over and steal some of Yoona’s medical supplies when the woman spoke again, dispelling all the concern I had for her.
“I got fifth place, little bro!” she muttered, “That’s last place! Vadeem beat me! I lost to Vadumb! I’ll have to commit honorary Sudoku now.”
“Ha,” Vadeem said with a hearty laugh, which made the twins none too pleased, “Fourth place, Noel! And it’s seppuku, Sudoku is a puzzle game.”
“And he’s even correcting me!” Noel added, grabbing onto my sleeve with puppy eyes, “I don’t know if I can live any more… quick, go grab my blade!”
I rolled my eyes. “But what would we do without your awesome presence? As you've said before, it would be too great a loss for the world. The Abyss Guild will never recover.”
Noel paused and nodded. “You’re right. It would be too much, and I can’t have Vadeem have the last laugh.” She gave me a thumbs up before flipping off Vadeem. “You’ve just saved the universe from losing out on Noel, little bro. You should get a medal for that.”
“Stop encouraging her, Walter,” Yoona sighed, “It’s enough with the two of them as is.”
“Aw, common, bestie, you should loosen up a little!”
Yoona just shook her head and proceeded to slather more ointments and healing salves onto her brother.
“Yoona, I’m fine now,” the Regressor said, raising a hand to stop the girl, “I’m not injured, just a little tired. Go and treat Walter as well, he looks like he went on a jog in a forest fire.”
I frowned and saw that was right. Although the Doctor form took the brunt of the damage, I still had some charred and reddened bits about my body, and my clothes looked like they were bathed in ash and soot. The High Schooler saw the state I was in and immediately rushed to my side, apologizing as she went.
"Walter! Sorry, I didn't get a proper look at you, you sounded fine so I thought you weren't so..." She peeled back some of the worst of my shirt and her eyes went wide. "Oh my god, lie down!"
I backed off a little on instinct and shook my head. "Eh, it's worse than it looks. I'm fine, just get me something for the burns and go help the others. A little fire's not going to stop me."
"Are you..."
"I'm sure," I chuckled and grabbed a few bottles of ointment. "Go help the twins."
She nodded relunctantly but chose to respect my opinions. I was thankful for that, becasue my wounds were much better than they appeared, I just needed a long, long shower.
“Thank you,” Jae-Hyun nodded before turning his attention to the rest of us, “And… I don’t know what to say, but first of all, I would like to thank you all for getting out unharmed.”
“Mostly unharmed,” Noel interrupted, “Vadeem looks like he rolled off a mountain while my little bro just escaped from being the main course for a cannibal barbequing session!”
“It’s ‘cause I fought off a damned army!” My big friend grunted. "Do you know there's bloody classes that can raise the dead? Well, I do now!"
"And it's honestly not as bad as it looks, I swear," I added. "My clothes took the brunt of the damage."
Our leader ignored gave the both of us a pensive look but nodded once he saw that we were fine, for the most part. “And just to confirm, but how many Aspirants did each of you face off? The ranking list didn’t give us specifics. I had fifty.”
“Fifty here as well,” Vadeem said with a nod, “Which means that Walter and the Father must have faced that many as well if they got in 2nd and 3rd. What about you, Noel?”
“Same,” she pouted again, “And here I thought I hit the jackpot… Bestie, what about you and the girls?”
“Oh, um, only a group of 10,” she replied meekly, “It’s why we finished so easily.” She turned to her brother again. “But didn’t you say that it was unlikely that we’d face off against against the max numbers?”
Jae-Hyun frowned. “Not just unlikely, it should have been next to impossible… something’s not adding up.”
Noel shrugged. “Maybe it’s your timelord powers screwing with things? I mean, if you got like, MC powers and you’re supposed to make it to the end, then there’s no way that you’d get offed that easily! Which means that we’re safe as well! We’ve practically won already!”
Vadeem rolled his eyes. “Normally only the protagonist has plot armor, Noel. We’re add-ons at best. Maybe you’re just a minion though.”
“Hey, minions are cute!”
Marcus smiled and wisely chose to disregard those two’s bickering. “The Lord works in mysterious ways, Jae-Hyun. It is best for us mortals to accept our fates and not dwell too hard on them. It is easier to give thanks and accept the blessings that we get.”
“Or,” I joined in for good measure, “This Central Collective thing knew that we’re their best prospects for the Trials and chose to cheat? I mean, they’ve got to realize that our group’s not normal, and if they really do want to keep the best Aspirants around, then maybe they can bend a few rules.”
The Regressor thought about it for a moment longer but didn’t choose to pursue the topic any longer. I could tell that he wasn’t buying any of our explanations, but it wasn’t like he could confirm any of them. The facts spoke for themselves; we survived, regardless of the odds, and Jae-Hyun wasn’t the type to deny reality.
“Regardless of the reasons,” he continued, “It would appear that our worst fears have been avoided. In fact, with all of us winning our respective Trials, it is quite likely that we might have placed first. Marcus, Yoona, do you mind if you joined me to check on the others? I need to see what our numbers are like.”
“Of course,” the Father answered, “I am always willing to serve my part.”
“I’ll be there as well,” his sister replied before turning to Vadeem and the twins, “And feel free to use the healing items here.”
“What about the rest of us?” I asked, “Need us to do anything?”
Jae-Hyun thought for a moment before shaking his head. “Just get some rest for now. The hosts should be making their announcements about the results in a few hours, so we have some time. We’ll be busy for a while if we’ve placed as highly as I think we did; I’ll need your help with then.”
I shrugged and gave the man a nod. I can’t complain about waving all of the administrative stuff to those three.
“We’ll reconvene at the office upstairs when the hosts are ready,” our boss added, “We’ll talk about our next steps after I get a clear idea of the situation.”
“And don’t forget the beach party!” Noel yelled, “Don’t think I forgot about that!”
Jae-Hyun chuckled. “And we’ll plan for the beach trip then; I haven’t forgotten, Noel, and I think we do need a few days away from it all. We can’t leave immediately, just give me a few days while I set things up so that Pandora isn’t a wasteland while we’re away.”
“Perfect!” Vadeem added, “That’s enough time for me to do a bit of shopping. My food suitcase needs some refilling!”
“Anyway,” the Regressor said, “Just be there for the meeting in a few hours and don’t go overboard. There’s still work to be done before we can relax.”
“Aye aye, boss!”
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