Server Lost 4 『Night Crawlers』

Glancing over the small a.s.s bed of straw, hardly even battered an eye as he walked over towards it with the girl still in his arms. She was safe, he didn't need to carry her anymore. So as he loomed over the bed, he stared down at it.

It was pretty thing now that he looked it over. Each step he had made on the wooden floor panels, they squeaked. "Hm..." Jack turned his head to look at her face.

Her eyes hesitantly drifted up towards him before she looked away, shallowly swallowing saliva building up in her mouth.

With a single swift motion, without any thought, Jack removed his arm from underneath of her.

THUD. Hay was in the air, twirling about like tiny little ballerinas dancing upon the top of a music box.

"Ow! What the f.u.c.k was that for!?" The small elf lay there sprawled out on her back, hay landing on her armored self. Her eyes narrowing on him from the ground, with this strange but adorable mystic glow. Slowly she sat up and began to pick the hay out of her hair and her clothes, beginning to remove the light armor plating from her robes. "f.u.c.king bully!"

"No reason in particular," Jack made a brief expression of amus.e.m.e.nt before returning to his stoic nature. Looking towards the door as the wind began to creak it open, he raised a brow. Though the moment his gaze was locked onto it, the door slammed shut, as if a ghost had chanced its mind about wondering in.

For some reason Jack could hardly take the gaze she had given him as a serious threat and proceeded to do the same as her, removing the plate armor from his holy robes.

Both of them placed their armor attachments into their respective inventories.

"Are you seriously tired?" The Elf watched as he walked over to the door and sat down against it, as if blocking anyone from entering. It was probably the best thing he could do, since there was no lock… And the door had a habit of opening on its own.

Jack looked up at her with an empty glance, "Yes."

Runa clucked her tongue, "How did someone so lazy as you reach such a high level in such little time… Let alone get all those opportunities?!"

Jack rolled his eyes and b.u.mped the back of his head against the door a few times. The wood was weak, someone could definitely bash through it, even at a normal human's strength.

"Have you ever had to do whatever means necessary in order to continue living?" Jack asked curiously as his eyes rested on Runa, nipping his upper lip with his lower jaw's set of teeth. "Without Legs?"

Runa frowned at her own arrogance after hearing him, since he revealed his name, she already knew his life. He had been on international news in an interview since the accident was an international incident, one of the few survivors. He was not only famous online, but now he was a famous face too.

"Why do you act like a brat?" Jack tilted his head to the side slightly, looking her pet.i.te form to pa.s.s the time, though there wasn't a sign of l.u.s.t in his thoughts, just curiosity.

Runa shrugged and flopped right back onto the hay, causing the blasted stuff to get in her hood and hair again. "Most gamers are just like me… Is it something new to you?" Her eyes looked at him, not bothering to lift her head.

"No, it's not new." Jack yawned again, turning his head slightly as he listened to the footsteps in the corridor. There was hardly any movement.

"What is it?" Runa squirmed on the bed slightly, before laying on her side, grasping at the skirting of her robes, danger was the last thing she needed after she learned she could feel pain here.

Jack's eyes rested back onto her, disinterest in his eyes. "You seem afraid..."

"DUH!" She sat up from her side, twisting her back to face him, holding herself up with one hand. "We can suddenly feel pain now! WE might actually be able to die!"

Blinking a few times, Jack's head lulled to the side to the point that his ear touched his shoulder. "Ah.. I see..." He didn't at all seem to be visibly interested in this at all.

The moon elf just stared at him now, she didn't know whether to just start ignoring him or to get frustrated with his lack of empathy toward the situation. "… Stop it with the whole 'I see' c.r.a.p..."

"Why? You going to stop me?" Jack's lips curved into a lopsided grin, a sleepy grin.

Although she had frowned at her own arrogance before, it didn't stop her from jumping to her feet. She rushed towards him, he hardly reacted, even as she knelt into his lap and balled her fists around the collar of his robes.

"Are you mocking me!? Just because you're stronger!?"

Jack corrected his posture as he remained seated, resting the spear against the wall beside the door. His cold blue eyes didn't leave her face. Like a snake, his arm crept around her, and before she knew it… She'd find herself helplessly pressed against his torso, her arms trapped beneath her.

"What're..."

"Honey captures flies, but what does vinegar trap?" Jack riddled as he would squeeze his arm around her waist, taking her off her knees; practically forcing her to lay against his seated form.

"The Prideful..." Curling in her lower lip against her teeth, she murmured, as she craned her neck back in order to keep her head off his chest. Yet he didn't seem like he was into doing anything to her.

"Correct," Jack uttered mutedly, "And with too much pride, one becomes arrogant who suffers from ignorant of the people around them."

She was starting to feel a bit more mentally uncomfortable despite how soft his robes were. He was like a giant soft yet muscular pillow. It was as if his muscles couldn't decide to be a ma.s.s of steel or a ma.s.s of feathers. It was the same with his hand which was moving to her face and tracing over her jawline, before pinching her ear.

"What the f.u.c.k, seriously!?" Runa's face was turning a bright red, the corner of her lip wincing.

Jack shrugged at her reaction, his fingers began to caress her ear.

"What… Are you doing?" Her eyes drifted over to the wrist of his gloved hand.

"Would you believe me if I told you, I just wanted to see if they were real?"

"h.e.l.l no," Runa hissed as she planted her face into his chest, in an attempt to headb.u.t.t him. Clearly it didn't work, but she didn't lift her head back up. "… Was that supposed to be a joke?"

"Improbably," an indifferent voice met her question only for her to scowl at him for it.

Runa's eyes narrowed on his face, feeling as his fingers wrapped around her ear and began to slowly squeeze, pulling the side of her face closer to his. She bite her lower lip, silencing herself briefly until he stopped. "Are… Are you trying to rip off my ear? That f.u.c.king hurt..."

"No, just wanted to test the elasticity and your threshold. Kind of surprised you didn't scream," Jack would release her ear before draping that arm over her shoulder.

Blinking a few times when she had his arm around her shoulder, she looked over him for a moment. Despite how indifferent he seemed, how he showed very little empathy, she could see little actions that said spoke legions. Especially as that arm came up and pressed the side of her head against his chest.

The bed had been far too thin, far too cold, and probably infested with bugs or disease.

Clearing her throat, she pressed one of her arms up enough to grab a handful of his layered hair between her fingers. "Why're you holding me?"

"Do you prefer an organic meat bag that'll keep you warm, or a rotten sack of hay?"

Resting the side of her head against his collarbone as she glanced over her shoulder towards the sack, she frowned. He had a point, a warm body versus a thin torn up sack of rotten hay… A warm body was far more worth it, but definitely embarra.s.sing as all h.e.l.l.

"Why do you have to be so mean…?" Runa seemed to whine, m.u.f.fling her voice against him.

"Am I though?"

"...Yesh..."

"You're sure?"

"...Hu-huh..."

"Did you check?"

"… You're doing that on purpose."

"Yes, yes I am."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're emotionally irresponsible?"

"Yes. All the time."

Runa stared at him as he answered without hesitation, as if all this was just a word game. Though he did mean every word of it. He neglected the emotions of others, as well as his own.

"If we're here, what do you think happened to our bodies?" Jack asked curiously, his eyes darting to his legs, as he wiggled his toes within his boots. He didn't want to lose this feeling again.

"...I don't know… This isn't even the game we were playing..."

"How boring..." Jack was expecting some sort of hypothesis, but instead got nothing. His head would slowly dip forward, his breathing shallow and his eyes slowly closing, he was falling asleep.

Shifting slightly against him, the Elf stared up at his sleeping face, and just as when he was awake… There was no true expression, only a stoic wall which hid pain, insulated by apathy.

A couple hours after she had fallen asleep, she felt someone shove at the door. Both she and Jack jolted awake, but they didn't move. His hands kept her in place, and he hardly even turned his head or shifted against the door.

"I think they barricaded themselves inside," Sully chuckled outside the door, unsheathing a bladed weapon from a scabbard.

"Ooooh?" A new gargled unidentifiable voice became apparent. "Save them for last."

"Understood..."

The sound of a skeleton could be heard in the room next door, shaking, trembling, their jaw chattering.

"Hm? What the h.e.l.l is that sound?" Briggs walked over to the next door down the hall and kicked it open. The moment that he laid his eyes on the skeletal figure standing in the center of the room, his jaw dropped. "Holy--"

The sound of boney feet sc.r.a.ping at the wooden floors followed by a man shrieking loudly, as two fleshless fingers dove into his eyes. Eerily the screaming came to an end, followed by a subtle thud.

"Sh-should we help?" Runa squirmed against the man who had been holding her, trying to escape his grasp to no avail.

Jack just looked down at her for a few moments, she had been afraid once before. She had lost the ability to walk on her own. Yet now, she was asking if they should help? "Make up your mind already," he uttered under his breath as he let go of her. Grasping at the shaft of his spear as he stood up, he kicked the door out into the corridor. Sending splintering wood in all directions.

Stepping out into the hall, he turned his head to look in the direction of the skeleton mage who was trying to pull his fingers out of some other corpse's eye sockets as it was sat up against a wall.

"Huh..." Jack then turned to look down the opposite end of the hall where there were about a dozen people ranging between level twelve and twenty. They were all wearing half-a.s.sed masks made out of sacks or old cloth. The one who stood out though, was a man dressed in black, wearing a crow-esque mask and a pointy hat.

He looked like a Plague Doctor.

"Who-who are you!?" The gargled voice shrilled, pointing at him with a finger that appeared to have blades connected to the end of it..

"Cookie."

"Kokei, it's Kokei." The naked skeleton responded manically.

"Kokei, get your fingers out of the dead man's skull and check on Nakajima." Jack ordered as he twirled the shaft of his spear between his fingers.

"WHO ARE YOU!? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!?" The Plague Doctor wannabe angrily stomped their feet as if throwing a tantrum. "Kill this nameless b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"
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"Why does this feel like Deja Vu?" Jack sighed obnoxiously, watching as the low leveled goons came running towards him.

As soon as they were within a few feet of him, he used the shaft of the spear to shove them back. Kicking one of their knees out before impaling another in the head.

One of them went to stab him in the face, only for Jack to catch the blade between two fingers. His eyes glared through the idiot who was aiming to maim him. "Denied," Jack immediately broke the weapon, shattering it into pieces before punching the goon's neck off his shoulders.

The last nine just stood there staring, as well as their boss who had just watched a man single handedly kill three people in a few seconds.

No being overpowered by numbers, no drawn out fight. Jack just ripped through them like paper.

"This… Can't be real..." The Plague Doctor looking fella would take a step back, drawing two enchanted daggers from behind their back. "You're not human!"

"You sure?"

"What…?"

Jack simply closed one eye looking him over, "Fire and Ice damage enchantments? Hm…" Pointing the spear towards the man ahead of him. Listening as Kokei finally got his fingers out of the deadman's skull and fled back into his room, his jaw chattering incessantly. "How Cheap..."

The little elf peered out of the room, glaring at the Plague Doctor.

"What!? I'd like to let you know that these daggers costs just as much as the King's castle!"

"Hm… Cheap Castle..." Jack muttered in a hushed tone, sucking his teeth in disappointment.

"『By favor of the Dark G.o.ds of Greed, this servant askth of thee to appraise thyne enemy's blade!』" The figure seemed to chant an entire set of words in order to appraise his weapon. His eyes flashing green in the process, much like how when Jack used Character Appraisal all those times earlier.

The Plague Doctor just froze in place for a moment, "Ben...Bene...Benevolent...In...Inst...Instant Death!?" The mask bearer was finally taking in the fact that they had messed with the wrong people.

"YEEEEE!" The entire group of people took at least twenty really quick steps back, at least one person tumbling down the steps face first after being pushed into.

"So… You guys bandits? Pay off one of the Village Guards? Eh? Or was he always part of your little merry band?" Jack was being oddly playfully monotonous with his voice, stepping towards the clearly frightened crowd before him.