System Finale: An Apocalyptic Space Opera LitRPG (The System Apocalypse Book 12) Read online

  Once I’m clean and the nubs of my toes are regrowing—yay for the Body’s Resolve Class Skill—I grab some dinner and pop open my only form of entertainment in this area.

  I know, I know, in prison, you’re supposed to be pumping metal and getting buff. But genetic cleansing has made me buff already, along with the System, and pumping weights is entirely unimportant when your Strength is mostly derived from the System. It’s more of a mental and willpower driven thing, to alter where and how my Strength plays out, than anything actually physical. If anything, training how to shift more and more of my Strength to something as simple as physical strength would be more useful.

  Except, you know, there are weird-ass equations that deal with damage and rely on you using certain System-enabled Strength modifier scores, and they work against an individual’s Constitution and Agility scores to calculate actual damage which then translates to what Health is.

  So actually altering your Strength score too much can work against you if you’re trying to do damage, especially by swinging a sword. It’s one of the reasons why melee weapons are still favored—those Strength scores offer additional damage against an individual that a flat beam weapon doesn’t.

  Of course, the Erethrans have a simple solution to that.

  Bigger guns and more people carrying bigger guns.

  I chew through the grassy, seaweed-looking purple and yellow “food” they supply me with, making a face at the texture and taste but resolutely eating. Starving to death is a weird, weird thing under the System and not something I necessarily want to experience again. All that healing requires resources, and while the System offers a large chunk of it in Mana, a large portion does come from us.

  Not having food can leave one gaunt, hollow, and perpetually starving—even as the System keeps you alive. Supposedly, it’s possible to starve people to death even at the higher Levels, but it’s a very long, very slow process as Mana Regeneration gets impacted more and more, as we cannibalize what we give to the System. At some point, it just stops being a net benefit for the System to have us alive.

  Then we die.

  All in all, as I said, not something I want to experience—even partially—again. So I eat my seaweed that tastes like bleu cheese with one bite and rotten meat the next, as my brain attempts to process and assign a taste to the truly alien molecules going through my mouth—and get to work.

  Not just to keep the nightmares and dreams away, but also because it’s my only line to Mikito.

  Chapter 2

  Mind you, it’s not as though we’ve got a text chat open, communicating with one another. It’s more like me reading her footprints in the sand on a beach, after the tide has run over them a couple of times. Not a lot of information, always old and easily confused with others.

  Yet for all those caveats, it’s what I have and what I grasp hold of with an intensity that’s more than a little crazed.

  Welcome to System Administrator Ticket Board 3.2.8PoL Middle System Administrator John Lee

  The 189th request to revoke access to Ticketing Board and Middle System Administrator role has been denied by Root Administrator. Would you like to read the ticket notes (Y/N)

  I snort, tabbing no immediately. I’ve read the notes before, multiple times. I still do every tenth request, just to make sure nothing useful or informative has been sneaked in. There hasn’t been, at least not yet. I still hold out hopes, that he/she/it will communicate with me. Then again, considering the other System Administrators are just waiting for that to happen, I can see why the Root Administrator hasn’t.

  After a moment, I shake my head and move on. After all, I’ve noticed the next notification and it does make me smile a little.

  Level Up! You are now a Level 27 Middle System Administrator

  Well, it looks like one of the tickets I fixed has finished propagating and pushed me over the edge. Of course, I don’t get a Class Skill point, what with my hidden Class having overtaken my other Class and its automatic assignment of the point to System Edit.

  Very annoying.

  So’s the brain freeze as data is dumped into my mind when the Class Skill goes up a level. Distantly, I feel my head bounce off the table, but I’ve got other things to worry about than bouncing my skull off metal. Instead, I swim through System Edit options, the vast database of code that has been provided to me.

  The code database is immense, probably half the size of the Library in my noggin. The database holds the best solutions, the most elegant methods of solving problems that thousands of System Administrators before me have created.

  The more I see of the System, the more I’m surprised at how it manages to hold itself together. Think of the most complicated pre-System program you’ve ever encountered. Now, keep adding hardware, accessories, new programs that hook into the main operating system over the course of tens of thousands of years. Complication after complication, layered on top of one another, conflicting with each other. New systems, new Classes, new Skills, all added to give sapient creatures a chance to survive and produce more Mana.

  The information flowing through me tells a story, one I’ve heard before, of the history of the Galactic Council and the System. How there wasn’t even a Council before, no settlement system, no Shops, not even Classes or differentiated Level gains. Time and need sees the System change.

  Too much choice sees individuals, often caught in dangerous situations, freeze. Too many combinations end up being the wrong ones, or cities and societies over-specialize on the “good” combinations, never exploring additional ones, only to find themselves side-swiped by something new that upends their system. Not that Classes don’t do that too, but because the Classes are so restrictive in their own way, people might game the optimal methods within a Class, but they’re also likely to explore other Classes for an advantage.

  The Shop system, the settlement system, even entire Classes built around Artisans and crafting; all of that are just add-on services. As technology is lost and reproduced, new Classes come into play, new Skills that twist and warp reality and create their own strained principles on the System.

  I draw in the data, read the Code and the resolutions to a million and one errors, and realize why so many of the damn Administrators suck at their job. Why bother learning when it’s easier to put a Class Skill point into your System Edit Skill and get even more information, even more codes? Why bother re-working things when everyone before you has done something just as good—or close enough?

  Sure, there are those brilliant and driven individuals, but many are driven in the wrong way too. After all, you can’t get a System Administrator Class before you hit Master Class at the least. And even then, it’s hard. The kind of people who reach that far, they’re mostly geared and focused on something else.

  Being an Administrator is an add-on.

  At least for most of them.

  The exceptions though, those are the guys who climb the ranks, I bet. Not that I’ve met many yet. And the few I have met, I’ve killed.

  Eventually the flow of data stops, the code base levels out, and my brain stops feeling as if someone took a spanner to it. Unsurprisingly, once I get a glass of water—no alcohol here, and certainly nothing System-augmented—I pull up the ticketing board. The glass of water I hold trembles a little, but I ignore the shaking in my hand. It’ll go away in time.

  You have 29832 Tickets Assigned to you.

  Would you like to view the tickets?

  Looks as if they’ve been busy foisting their dirt upon me. I acknowledge the prompt, not even bothering to read the details before I pull up the first three tickets.

  Conflict: No Sunshine Skill vs Cloud Cover spell

  Mana spillage during conflicting Skill and spell currently at 4.128% over acceptable parameters…

  Dungeon Overflow Guidelines for Morisson Grubs in Conflict with Alterations in Grimsey Overrides and Vermin Grower (Grubs) Dungeon Keeper Class

  Overflow Guidelines are currently underestimating
number of denizens by a factor of 3819%, creating multiple Dungeon spillage events and throttling Mana flow to Dungeon by…

  Conflict: Erethran Standard Issue Marine Blaster Rifle v3881.91v9 issuing a 0.00173% damage increase when combined with Skill: Call to Arms (Unique Empire Skill)

  Urgent rectification required, as on-going conflict has created an estimated 281984 estimated overflow and use of System Mana while conflict is in play. Rectification and reduction with code…

  My mind splits a little as I get to work. That’s the fun part about Intelligence and, I realize, the System Edit Skill. With the new point in the Skill, I can split my mind more easily than ever, grabbing a review of the code and conflicting details, even having the ability to hold the code in its own test section in my brain to run for conflicts.

  Not exactly my brain of course, though a part of me is always there. The System aids me in all this, running data and analysis faster than I could normally, an attachment that is so smooth that if I didn’t know there was no way I could have done this before my score upgrades, it never would have occurred to me it wasn’t just me.

  I get to work clearing out tickets, the Overrides the easiest since I have a bunch of new code to refer to while fixing it. The moment a ticket is done, I pull up another ticket and keep going.

  While I’m doing that, looking through the notification windows and ticketing board that glow in my vision, I take in my cell. Not really a cell, though it’s not exactly luxurious either. It’s like a bachelor’s suite, with a cordoned off shower / bath and a single door leading out. Not much to go on. I know we’re down deep enough that trying to dig my way out will just hit earth.

  Yeah, I tried that early on. They left me buried in the collapsed earth for the better part of two days before they dug me out. I’d nearly asphyxiated before they dragged me out and interrogated me. I admit, that was probably the first time I talked. Not that a long diatribe about movies—mostly B-movies—I’d watched that involved people being buried alive was that helpful to anyone.

  Hey, I never said I was a film critic.

  The doorway leads to a hallway. Two doors in that hallway, the first being a full-on security door that I would have to break through. No idea what’s behind that since the door is enchanted and made to handle Heroics. I could cut through given enough time, but that I do not have.

  The second door?

  It’s a room I know all too well. One that knows me too well, since large portions of me have ended up scattered all across the room in one way or the other. That it’s normally entirely bare until my Heroic Class Galactic Spy Breaker enters and makes use of the nannites to form whatever tools he needs makes it even less useful for escape purposes.

  I’m hemmed in, trapped with no way to enter or exit. No idea of where I am, no information on the layout of the prison itself nor the other half-dozen—at least—security measures they must have in place to stop me from escaping.

  And most importantly, without my most trusted, most worthy of all allies.

  Ali’s gone and has been, ever since they banished him.

  ***

  It’s surprising how much I miss that floating ball of sarcasm. In more ways than one, he’s kept me grounded. Without him, I feel a little more unhinged, a little more angry, a little more sad. Without him to discuss bad ‘70s and ‘80s TV shows—who watches all the versions of Ultraman?—and torture me with his lustful thoughts about Baywatch, I find myself spiraling.

  The only thing that keeps me halfway sane is the ticketing board and the work within. In the hours I’ve been sitting, limping, and lying down on the table, I’ve crossed off a couple hundred tickets. Mostly, the work is easy, routine things that any Administrator worth his salt could do.

  Drudge work.

  The experience flows in anyway, 50 XP here, 100 XP there, a few thousand sometimes if I’m lucky. Nothing like going out and stomping on a couple of monsters, but stuck as I am, it’s my only method of leveling.

  I do wonder if they realize I’m using the ticketing board as a lifesaver. Or if they do realize it, and realize without it, I might just break. Except not the useful, give them the information I don’t have way, but the kind of breakdown that would make the Root Administrator walk away.

  Because that’s what they want. They want Root to come out, to talk to me, to do something to them. Which means to me that the Root Administrator is not their friend, potentially someone they might have direct conflict with. I sometimes wonder why they don’t lock out everyone else if they are the Root Administrator.

  Then I get another blip from the ticketing board, another cascade of information and the resulting rush of tickets. And I know why.

  Because the System is too big, too unwieldly for any single individual to handle. The System itself, in its own inorganic way, can handle and fix problems. Pave them over with excess Mana and processing power or whatever it uses. Unfortunately, the more it does that, the less it has to control the functions of the rest of the System, to hold back and process unaspected Mana.

  Which means that unaspected Mana grows faster, putting more pressure on the System and the System Galaxy. The Forbidden Zone grows, and more people die. Which leads to less Mana being processed which means the Zone grows faster.

  Starting a cascade of failure and bringing down the entire house of cards. The entire system, and System, are all tottering from one failure point to another, the System Administrators patching things together where they can.

  Not to say they aren’t skimming off the top, benefiting themselves wherever they can. Feasting on the slowly rotting corpse while the world burns. That’s kind of the way with sapients, no matter if they’re billionaire humans or Legendary Class mages. Fools, all of them, happy to keep running a system that works for them, no matter how many are crushed beneath their feet.

  And in truth, I don’t blame them. I probably wouldn’t be any better if I was in their place. I don’t even really care about them.

  Torture has a cleansing effect on an individual. Cleans out all kinds of things—lungs, nerves, foolish morals. In the end, you end up with just the things you truly value. Heart, brain, and a driving need to know.

  What is the System?

  And can I punch it in the face?

  ***

  Digging through the tickets and clearing them is just one of the things my mind does. Pondering about the System, trying to pry its secrets clear from the myriad pieces of information I’ve been given, and tying it all together with the knowledge downloaded into my head by Feh’ral—and damn, but I miss that creepy librarian—is another. The other part is looking for the breadcrumbs left behind by Mikito as she goes through the world.

  The obvious one is the fact that the ticket feeding her my XP is still active. That’s a good indication that she’s alive. Considering how rare a combination we are—unique, in fact—the moment she—or I—dies, this ticket would close. No point worrying about it ever happening again.

  That’s just the first indicator of course. There are others. Like over here—a spike in Mana use, Heroic Level Skills being used to take down a couple of monsters. Level 98 Ng’itter Scavengers—monsters that are a real pest on Xy’largh. They sneak into dragon nests, eat their eggs, thus enraging the dragons while they run away, camouflage in full bore. Then everyone else has to deal with the grieving Level 140+ monster. And that’s a young, still fertile dragon.

  Oh yeah, did you know that there are multiple strains of dragons? Some are egg layers, some pop out children like mammals. It’s one of those weird evolutionary facts of being hundreds of thousands years old, being able to polymorph, and also living in the middle of a Forbidden Zone. Mutations everywhere!

  I’m not even going to talk about the dragons’ weird-ass social structure, the way different breeds and purity levels create differing castes and structures and how the Dragon Knights—and Dragon Lords—fit into all of that.

  Yeah, old societies with giant living calamities living alongside them—and
part of them—create some truly screwed up worlds. Especially when you realize that most dragons don’t even consider others of their kind actual members of their society until they pass a few hundred years and Level 150. Everything beneath that is just another monster.

  As I said, really screwed up.

  Anyway, the point is, I can see when Mikito uses her Skills in large bursts. It shifts the Mana output flows and triggers more than a few subroutines since she’s using Skills that have no place on this planet. She has basically a unique Class—not really, but for this solar system’s purpose, yes—and it triggers even more reports.

  Of course, that’s not even counting all the different kinds of trouble and reports that flow in when she encounters the hunters going after her. The only good news is, because Xy’largh is so screwed up, the Galactic Council can’t send everyone they want against her.

  Not that they can afford to either—there is a minor Galactic War going on, and a major one brewing. Pulling enough people to handle a pair of skilled Heroic Classes on a planet that eats Master Classes for breakfast and asks for more is tough.

  The fact that any major incursion would also annoy the dragons and other high-standing members of Xy’largh is something else the Council has to be careful about. The Shadow Council might not have a Legendary Dragon whatever on hand, but there are more than a few Dragons sitting about in the Level 200+ range. They just can’t be bothered to deal with anything outside of their planet.

  And everyone wants to keep it that way, trust me.

  Which leaves, as always, the Galactic Council having to be somewhat discreet, employing whoever they can to hunt down Mikito and Bolo while the pair runs around the planet doing…