Deadworld Isekai

“I still don't understand why you won't make them into soup, that's kind of what they were made for.”

With every question, Matt was learning that the guardian wasn't above being mildly obsessed with minutiae. The food cubes, she explained, were supposed to be dissolved into roughly a whole gallon of water. Matt had tried to defend himself by saying that he couldn't drink that much soup at once. Further, he didn't have any particular desire to shift his diet from mostly-bland food cubes to what he assumed would be completely-bland liquid. She hadn't listened.

“Please, guardian, we've been over this. Repeatedly,” Matt replied.

“Matt, I'm a guide. I'm trying to guide you. You look like a dumbass eating them wrong,” the guardian said.

“Nobody cares! There's nobody here to care!”

“But I care. Matt, I care a great deal.”

Between an almost endless supply of food cubes and a water stone in good repair, traveling to dungeons was no longer an issue. Even though from the perspective of a person on foot, these dungeons were spaced sadistically far apart, they stayed in high hopes.

Earlier, when potential starvation in play, Matt and the guardian had opted to focus on looting ruins. They neglected all other concerns, including moving in the direction of their next dungeon. By the time they found the food storage bunker, they were days away from the nearest dungeon entrance.

After a long trek to the dungeon, they found it incredibly over-leveled. It was designed for a party at level 15 and Matt checked and double-checked with the system that going inside would mean instant death. Eventually, they gave up trying to probe the dungeon. That meant leaving in another direction until they got far enough away that the compass would switch to the next-nearest dungeon. It would potentially take days.

But they had nothing better to do. Well, one thing - without anyone else to talk to, they were starting to get on each other's nerves.

“Got it, Mentally renaming you to 'The Guardian of Edible Property.'”

“STOP!” Apparently, Matt had screwed up. The guardian's face now showed a spectrum of emotions, including fear, horror, and anger. Chill was not included in the collection. Matt watched as the guardian's eyes focused in on one of her system screens that he couldn't see. He wasn't even sure if they existed in a proper sense, or if she was just programmed to look as if she was reading them. “Oh god, you were joking. Thank goodness. Never do that again.”

“I won't.” Matt tried and failed to choose his next words carefully. “But… never do what now?”

“I'm going to say this very slowly, and I want you to answer just as slow. Do you think you were always supposed to call me 'system guardian?' Like, that was my name, forever, just that?”

“It's how you introduced yourself! Is that not your name?”

“Right now it is. And once, just once for free, you are actually allowed to rename me. And if you were the least bit serious about that joke before, I have no doubt that the system would have used that to screw with us.”

“So no renaming?”

“Don't even think about it. The whole system runs off intent. Just… don't.”

Matt took a shot at not thinking of new names for the guardian. It was harder than it looked.

“Um…”

“You renamed me, didn’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, dammit, Matt.” The guardian called back up her screen, and looked at it for a moment. After a few seconds, she showed a whisper of a smile, closed the screen, and abruptly started walking again. “Come on now, we don't have all day.”

“So… you don't hate it?” Matt asked.

The guardian was desperately trying to avoid eye contact and kept her voice steady. “I swear to you Matt. If you don't stop talking, I'm going to figure out how to achieve corporeality and beat you to death.”

Even a guardian deserved dignity. Matt was trying to keep a straight face and was so, so close to making it.

“Got it, Lucy.”

—

The next dungeon was, like most important things in Matt's life now, buried under a layer of thick red soil. When the compass started spinning around wildly, indicating that they had arrived, Matt was standing on a barren, featureless flatland that stretched miles in every direction. He groaned, unstrapped his shovel, and got to work. After just a few shovelfuls of dirt, he punched through to a cavity beneath the surface. Widening the hole and lowering himself down, he found himself in a hole very much like the first dungeon he had found.

“Lucy, guardian, why isn't this buried completely? I can't believe that I've gotten this lucky twice.”

“I don't know. I'm not all-knowing. My guess would be that the dungeons expend some small amount of energy in keeping the area directly in front of their entrances clean.”

That actually fit the evidence. The hole was about big enough for a party of three or four adventurers to gather in, and the walls were oddly smooth. More importantly, this dungeon was only level three. It was appropriately leveled, at least in comparison to what Matt had handled before.

“Ugh, I almost wish this was working out worse.”

“What? Why? Craving more digging?”

“No, it's just…” Matt paused before he voiced a nagging thought, “Things have been going wrong for me since I got here. Lately, things have been going better. I have a shovel, I found food, and I didn't have to dig here. They're great. But I feel like I've used up my luck now. I'm almost afraid to go in.”

Lucy looked solemnly at Matt. She pursed her lips, probably realizing that this wasn't the time for another sarcastic quip. “I think I understand. But the dungeons have no concept of luck. It's programmed to be fair, even if it's a little random.”

Despite the reassurance, Matt's heart was in his throat as he activated the entrance pylon. There was no way this would work out well.

 

—

A woody thwing sounded through the woods as Matt's latest trap was sprung, flooded by a meaty squishing noise and a yelp as the spikes landed home. The trap had worked perfectly and impaled the heart of something that the system called a Windwolf. Against all odds, this was the last Windwolf in the entire forest, and Matt didn't have even a scratch on him.

The Windwolves were about the size of Earth wolves. So halfway between something that Matt didn't want to tangle with and a cute animal that evoked nostalgia. Like Earth wolves, they came equipped with sharp fangs for biting. They also had tons of ropey muscle, implying a kind of animal strength that Matt had no interest in testing.

Unlike Earth wolves, however, the Windwolves didn't appear to have a very refined sense of smell or sight. When Matt first saw one, he had assumed that it would howl for its friends and hunt Matt down. He'd get chased down by a group of them and have his throat torn out. But not only did the wolf's pack fail to materialize, the wolf itself didn't even notice him.

That pattern continued as he set up his traps. He was dealing with the least alert canines he could imagine.

The traps themselves were much improved as well. Between the trap spikes he got from the last dungeon and some of the more jagged pieces of metal that he had salvaged from various ruins, the hide-piercing capabilities of his arsenal had skyrocketed.

Even without considering the advantages of the metal components, the quality of the traps were also higher. He could spend an enormous amount of time crafting a single perfect trip of elastic wood to set the spikes into. Then, his system skill would help mass produce the same component with nothing more than additional wood, his multitool, and time. He was like a trap making factory. Now, every trap he made was the best he had ever built, and it showed.

Unfortunately, the prizes from the dungeon weren't anything to write home about. Matt finally broke down and took one of the improved survivor's garb set pieces, receiving an improved pair of boots with steel plating worked into the leather. With those in hand and no new achievements to be seen, he was ready to go.

“Well, that went well!” Lucy was unusually chipper, considering the relatively boring way everything had gone. “Next dungeon?”

“Yup. Let’s get going.”

—

Matt's next dungeon was at the bottom of a large hill. It was the first one that he had come across that wasn't obscured in any way. They saw it from far away, saving them from having to dig or climb through gaps in the terrain to get to it. As long as you ignored the fact that the dungeon was balanced for a party rather than an individual, this was the first plinth Matt activated that he was over-leveled for. It was just a level 2 dungeon.

Matt's more paranoid instincts were going crazy. There was no way luck could last this long. And sure enough, he was dropped directly next to a group of ten cat-like creatures. They were close enough that he didn't even have time to check the dungeon objective notification before they were on him. He had no other option but pulling out his knife and fighting.

Dexterity stat increases by themselves had never been that big of an advantage for Matt, and the same went for the survivor's combat skill. He had become so used to fighting with traps that hand-to-hand combat felt foreign to him. But now, with both the stat increases and survivor's combat leveling up, something clicked. His footwork and positioning were on point, the cats had to swerve at awkward angles and only a few could attack him at any given time. His reflexes were insane compared to anything he ever had on Earth, and he could dodge the attacks with plenty of room to spare. His knife work also fell together in a way it never had before, each swing found its target and put them down with ease.

Within two minutes, he was the last survivor of the battle, only slightly injured and standing over the corpses of ten very dead cats.

For the first time, the improved survivor’s garb set didn’t come up as an option. It didn’t matter. As soon as he saw the prize list, he knew what he had to get.

—

Lucy tried to present herself as a very tough and self-sufficient guide, one who brooked no nonsense and approached life with a serious outlook. However, the effect of all that effort was a bit lost when she stood over Matt’s cooking-fuel driven fire, trying and failing not to grin like a loon at a pot of survival-cube soup.

“I can’t believe you got a stupid pot instead of something useful.”

“Oh, you should see the look on your face. Believe me, it’s worth it.”

—

With two easy victories under his belt, Matt was hopeful. Most video games have a difficulty curve. They got harder as the game progressed, but as long as you kept your character's development ahead of the curve, the game would become easier as time went on. At the moment, Matt was seeing every indication that he had beaten the curve. As long as he kept to the correct dungeon levels, he was safe.

When the third dungeon in a row was leveled appropriately for what he could handle, he took it as confirmation that fate was finally on his side.

“Now remember,” Lucy was talking in full guide mode, “With the prizes pop up, you have to consult me before you pick. It’s only ‘haha, let’s make funny soup’ until you pass up on a terraforming relic or something.”

“I don’t think that’s likely to be an option on the garden planet, really.”

“No, but tell me anyway. What I’m really looking for is something that we can use for...", Lucy hesitated in a way Matt recognized as having to do with talking about his Gaia authority. "...bigger things. I have no idea what that would be, but two heads are better than one. Just loop me in.”

“Got it.”

Ding!

The system had been pretty calm lately, and Matt had gotten used to the quiet. He almost jumped out of his skin at this one, and it only got worse as he read it.

Warning. Some paths are not meant for a reincarnator. Certain courses of action and forms of knowledge are a deviation from the correct path. Your current actions and discussion indicate an intention to pursue prohibited paths. Desist.

This was the only order he had ever received from the system, and it was a huge departure from the normal mock-helpful tone he was used to. He relayed the message to Lucy.

“Oh, screw that. If the system wanted you not to pursue this, there were dozens of ways it could have prevented it. Easy ways. It was lazy, and it just wants us to sit on our asses? No, Matt. Absolutely not.”

“For once, I agree. System, if you are listening, no. Get us off the planet, and we can talk. Since you don’t seem to want to do that, screw off.”

“Ooh, look at big brave Matt, standing up for himself.” Lucy took a position off to Matt’s side as he approached the stone pillar to enter the dungeon.

“Not that brave. It’s not like it can do much.”

Matt’s hand fell down on the plinth, then all hell broke loose.