Buttopia
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Chapter 32: Weeks Not Years
🕑 Added 2024-12-02 00:00:06 +0000 UTC“He likes eggs, right?” one of the voices asked. The owner had carried me somewhere to sit me in a chair. I still had trouble making out what they were saying, and opening my eyes wasn’t happening just yet.
“Yes, we need a lot of eggs,” said a second, different voice. Something suddenly smelled quite good, and then I felt hands pull my mouth open and push some of the good smelling stuff inside. The hands then forced me to chew. I managed to choke down the food.
The second it hit my stomach, it seemed to evaporate into me. I felt almost alive again. I wasn’t anywhere near normal yet, but I managed to open my eyes. The figures I saw weren’t any real surprise, as I hadn’t interacted with many people here enough to be on a first-name basis. Cecile and Elicec had, to my luck, spotted me. “Thanks,” I whispered, barely.
The first bits of egg on my own took me nearly five minutes to get down, but by the time I had hit the second plate of eggs I was shoveling them in with no regard to what I looked like. My stomach felt bottomless, and I was determined to prove it wrong. I ate more food in the next hour than I think I had eaten in the last three months combined, but I was finally starting to feel like a real person again. The next time I risked overdoing it to that level, I was going to need to keep some food on hand.
“So, uh, Dave, you don’t look like someone tried to kill you so much anymore. What happened?” Cecile asked.
“Bad idea, well no, good idea, good results, bad after results. I tinkered around with my skill again at the suggestion of Mel to push as hard as fast I could. He seemed pretty worried when I met him earlier, so I decided to listen. Not really sure what happened afterward. It was probably a really weird dream, but hey, I did shoot up to level ninety-three this time and even gained an attribute to resist mana backlash. So win-win,” I said, not really feeling the enthusiasm I was trying to show. I didn’t want them to worry about me.
“Okay, that’s just great, and you didn’t even die! We’ve gotta be qualified for a few more dungeons now!” Cecile said. I hoped he was right.
“You’re going to hit your first level threshold soon. Do you know anything about those yet?” Elicec asked. I remembered reading the word somewhere, but what I considered at the time as high level issues were not something my reading had focused on.
“No, I assume I hit some barrier or something at a certain level? Do I stop leveling, or does it change something else?” I asked.
“Kind of both. At level one hundred, the multiplier for how much experience is needed to get to the next level starts to radically increase. Right now, the amount needed is just doubling every ten levels. The first hundred levels are generally considered the novice period, and despite the name, most people don’t actually get past them,” Elicec explained.
“Wait, really? It doesn’t seem that bad,” I asked, somewhat confused. While the dungeons had been great initially, the people starting this in their prime with a better idea of what was going on should be fine.
“Yeah, I can’t tell you why exactly, but once you start down this path, it just gets more and more dangerous, and a lot of people can only see the potential rewards,” Elicec explained. I thought I understood it now: idealistic kids facing off against things they had no real idea about, especially with how secretive the Arena apparently was; most of them were actually going in as blind as I was.
“Let’s go back to a less depressing topic. Any idea what the new formula is for leveling?” I asked, trying to change the topic. The idea of so many kids and young adults dying wasn’t helping my own anxiety.
“Nope, just know that’s the first. There are more too somewhere, but Dad didn’t really know much more, and that hasn’t been my focus here either,” Elicec answered. That would slow me down, of course, but it wasn’t the end of the world in any way. I’d just need to unlock more dungeons for my simulator. There was still plenty of time for that here, And while I was curious, I had no plans to waste any time looking it up. I’d learn it soon enough on my own.
“At my current rate, I should figure it out pretty soon anyway. I might try another dungeon or two tonight and hit it, but I’ll decide that after I figure out my attributes,” I said. At the very least, I needed to max out my new mana backlash one. It should make using the simulator safer.
“We were on our way here for a nice pre-dinner starter course. I’ve been really working on getting the hoe ready for some harder fights, so I've gotta eat a lot, which is what you need to do with your training, too,” Cecile answered. I had already decided on that truth.
“I know, I know,” I said, looking over the menu for an option for take out or delivery, something like that. I didn’t see anything, so I selected the option to call the waiter instead.
“How can I help you, sir?” He said immediately.
“Is it possible to get food to or ordered to my room, or something like that?” I said, willing to accept a ton of options as long as I wasn’t forced to come back here mostly dead after every hard simulation run.
“Yes, just say the destination you want it at before selecting it. You can also add a time for later deliveries. Is there anything else I can help you with?” The waiter asked.
“Nope, that was perfect, thank you,” I said, letting him get back to whatever else he did. I started picturing all the food I was going to have ordered to my room tonight. I didn’t used to think about food this much, it had to be an effect of how just much energy I needed now for my core.
“Excuse me, are you Dave?” A meek voice interrupted food fantasies, and I spun my head to find the new source of the voice; there was a tiny little gray creature walking into the room.
“I am. Do I know you?” I asked.
“No, I’m Glorp, Pryte sent me with a message!” Glorp said. With his large black eyes, Glorp reminded me of the common depiction of Martians.
“Dave, be nice to him. He looks like an official courier. Do you want to join us for a meal, Glorp?” Cecile said.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize that was a thing, and of course, you’re welcome to join us like Cecile said. Did you say Pryte had a message for me, though?” I asked. Pryte had never reached out before. What did he want now?
“Sorry, can’t stay. The offer is very appreciated, though. Pryte said that the paperwork moved up the chain much faster, and you have a few weeks at most to get back to your home before someone comes looking for you here.” My eyes went wide as I heard the message. Well, that put a damper on the idea of finding someone else to help us. There wasn’t enough time for that. Had Mel known something already that he couldn’t say? Is that why he gave me the warning?
“Thank you. You’re sure he said weeks, though?” I asked, hoping it was possible there was a miscommunication somewhere. I just didn’t think either I or the brothers were strong enough to take down the invading orcs yet, not that I won’t try if it comes to that, but I really wanted more time.
“Yep, he made me repeat it three times. Sorry for the bad news, gotta go,” Glorp said as he retreated back out of the room. So much for any consideration on pacing myself, I was going to have a very busy few weeks.
“What do you wanna do, Dave?” Elicec asked. Cecile had the same stunned look on his face that I’m sure I had moments ago.
“I need to get stronger, faster. So, for tonight, I will stick to my original plan. Tomorrow, we grab breakfast and talk to Mel. We need a list of all the dungeons in this world in order of which we can most likely survive. We knock as many of them as quickly as we can by day. By night, I’ll rack up the simulator hours. I wish I knew exactly how many weeks they were giving me; a few is too vague. I have a feeling Mel might know more, though, and I’ll see about that tomorrow as well,” I said, laying out my hastily built new plan. It wasn’t much of a plan, mostly just a gauntlet of trying not to die, but that was the best I could do at the moment.
“Dave, be careful, man. I know you’ve gotta push yourself now, and you’re real worried about your home and kids, but remember, if you screw up and die, then we have no chance,” Cecile said; he didn’t look happy with the turn of events, but who was? I understood his sentiments, though. He was just worried about me.
“It’s alright, Cecile. I have no intention of killing myself through training, whether the vision I had was real or a weird hallucination earlier. I saw my children back on Earth, and I’m going to do everything I possibly can to save them. I promise I’ll see you two in the morning,” I said, forcing a large smile to add to the reassurance.
I ordered a ton of food to my room and made my exit. Time was short, and I had to get everything allotted I could before forcing in a few more simulator attempts. It was going to be the first in a series of long nights.
