Logan did a quick inventory of his spatial storage contents and then took a deep breath. Was he really going to stand in front of this thing, this blob the size of a house, and let it swallow him? You betcha, motherfucker.

Besides, he had something else up his sleeve.

Bombs.

Back in the tactician trial, Asthea had planted bombs inside of the rock monster's chest, letting them run into the middle of the frozen lake so they could blow themselves up and drown her opponents in ice. But she hadn't used all of them, and Logan had gotten hold of them when he threw her belongings inside his spatial storage collar. Hypothetically, the blob could be vulnerable to heat and fire, and what better way to generate heat than a bomb?

Logan was going to blow this thing to smithereens.

"Hey!" said a voice behind him. "What happened to Jax?"

Logan looked to the side. In an alley between two buildings, Charlie, Mia and Lachlan were peering out, Charlie sticking out his head and watching the blob roll down the street and away from them. Lachlan was slumped against the side of the building, his face flushed an unhealthy red. He'd rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt, his belly bulging, his shirt soaked with sweat. Beads of moisture were trailing down his forehead and dripping off his nose. Christ, he looked like he was going to have a heart attack.

And strangest of all, Mia was leaning against the wall of the alley, but her nose was in her book, her stance relaxed and her mouth in a grin as her eyes traced over the page. She was unruffled, her shirt and shorts clear of sweat, her face healthy as if she were hanging out at the park.

Logan stared.

Charlie surged forward, his nostrils flaring. "I'm talking to you, mate! Where is he?"

Mia peered up from her book with a look of amusement. "He's inside of the blob. Turned into sludge."

Lachlan's hands trembled and he backed further into the alley, his face blanching. "In… in the blob?"

"That's another one down for the count, Charlie," said Mia. "You have shitty luck with your recruits."

"He was—"

"Save it." Mia glanced up at Logan and pinned him with a look. "Well, have you given up, then? The blob's no match for you?"

Logan narrowed his eyes and set his jaw, a knot in his belly. He'd suspected something was up with this book freak, but now, he was convinced. There was no way someone who was level 59 could command Charlie, who was level 76. She had to have a class that hid her level. She was…

She was…

Was….

Mia thumbed at the dog-eared pages of her book as she stared at him, leaning in, giving him direct eye contact.

She…

…What?

Logan blinked, feeling dazed. What had he just been thinking? It was like trying to grasp something just at the tip of your tongue while grimacing from brain freeze.

Charlie didn't notice his distraction. He pushed out his chest, tilting up his chin. "That's right, mate! You're supposed to be taking this thing down. Don't be a layabout, mind? We want that… wait. Mia, will we still receive XP? He hasn't killed the monster, and it's felt like forever since we took a go at it."

Mia looked back down at her book and shrugged her shoulders in disinterest. "You're going to lose one of them if you aren't careful."

"Eh?"

She gestured down the alley with a nod of her chin.

Charlie stared at Lachlan's retreating back. The man had been backing away ever since he'd learned about Jax, his steps silent, trying to stay under their radar. "Oi!" Charlie shouted. "Where do you think you're going, then! That's not how this works, mate!"

For some reason, Logan felt dazed—discombobulated. He had the distinct feeling that he'd forgotten something, but he had no idea what.

Either way, this was taking too long. Logan scowled at Charlie. He needed to kill this thing, but he also needed to do something about Charlie.

If anything, that was causing him more uncertainty than anything else. Strictly speaking, other than being a rude asshole, Charlie hadn't done anything to Logan. Based on what Voss and Lachlan had said, they might be practicing some despicable practices, but was he really contemplating taking them out just on their say-so?

He had no evidence that anything hinky was occurring other than their word.

Since he'd killed his first people back at the cabin, to his horrible experience with Asthea, to the massive killer quest where he'd killed fifty people, Logan had always said that he would never kill innocents. But the problem was that in the apocalypse, there was no trial and judge, no jury of his peers.

He didn't know Voss and Lachlan, not really. He liked them, but he'd barely known them for an hour. For all he knew, they could be good actors and presenting an innocent front to use Logan to do their dirty work.

After all, how often were you in the presence of someone his level who could take out the leaders of a group with a swipe of his talons? Logan didn't like to toot his own horn, but facts were facts. Charlie would be no match for him.

If it ended up that Charlie was just an asshole and someone who tended to be reckless with people's lives, that wasn't enough to justify killing him.

So he was in a tight spot. Damned if he did, damned if he didn't. If he decided to let this stand, made nice with Charlie, killed this blob and crafted his lodestone, he could be making the wrong choice. Charlie could be just as despicable as Voss had said, and leaving without taking him out could result in Lachlan's death.

But at the same time, if he killed Charlie, how would he know that he'd made the right choice? Logan could see himself taking him out, brushing off the kill, completing his Build an Empire quest, only to return here one day and find out that Charlie should have been the least of his worries and Voss had been manipulating him all along.

Either way, mulling it over while this thing tumbled down the street wouldn't get him anywhere.

Logan gave the group one last glance. Mia had gone back to her book, her mouth in a wide grin, whereas Charlie had grabbed Lachlan by the front of the shirt and had dragged him back to the mouth of the alley.

Charlie's question about XP was a good one. Defeating this thing was taking way too long, but that also meant that it had been a while since Lachlan hit the blob with a frying pan and Voss hit it with his meat tenderizer. Logan had left Voss back in the other alley. He'd been relying on the XP surge as a way for him to recuperate from his injury.

Making a snap decision, Logan pulled up his quest status:

[Quest Progress: 7% complete. 23.5 hours remaining.]

Fuck. This was taking way too long. And he'd yet to defeat the blob. There was no way it was possible for Voss to receive participation XP. Logan held back a growl and paced in front of the alley, Charlie's beratement of Lachlan background noise as he made his way back into the street.

Peering down at his armour, Logan made a snap decision. It wasn't enough. Although he had [Idiot's Paradox] to block pain, there was no reason to welcome it in the first place if there was something he could do to protect himself. That oozing red goo had eaten into Jax and Voss like acid, which meant that it was possible that it would eat away at his armour.

Although thickening the sandstone plates wouldn't normally be the best decision since it would make his armour clunky and less flexible, this time, he could make allowances.

Willing out a bucket full of sand, Logan used [Mimicry Armour] to slam the sand to his armour plates and merge them with the existing exoskeleton to make them two inches thicker. Looking down at his talons, Logan debated, and then decided to leave them as is, but willed his sword into his spatial storage, and crafted talons on his other hand.

If this went as planned, his sword would be way too bulky while surrounded by ooze.

Logan grinned as he examined his new suit. Instead of flexible exoskeleton, his armour resembled a metal suit, something full of solid, metal plates.

Oh well, it wasn't like he was going for a fashion competition. But the one thing… man. Australia had already been humid and hot, but after he'd added two inches of material over his body, he felt it in spades. Logan shifted, feeling sweat trickle down his back. He was cooking in this thing.

That meant he needed to do this quickly.

All right, all right, let's get this done. You can't say that he never did anything to earn his System name. Gritting his teeth, Logan braced for pain as he used [Threshold Shift] to transport him in front of the rolling ball.

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The blob had travelled half a block. It had gone back to picking up plastic and reforming its plastic shell. As Logan watched, more of the plastic containers sunk into the blob, dissolving into white goo, before it merged with the monster. Each plastic container was a potential meal. A way for this thing to double in size.

It had been rolling at a steady pace, but when Logan arrived, he got that same sense of being watched, of being seen that he'd picked up before. With a violent gust of wind, the thing increased its pace. It was as if someone had kicked a soccer ball, only the soccer ball was the size of two houses stacked on top of each other.

Logan stood his ground in the middle of the street, staring, and half wondering when he'd lost his mind. If Lara could see him now, she'd pull him aside for a 'time out,' and he knew that he'd receive a firm talking to. But go big or go home, and as far as he was concerned, this was the most expedient way to take this thing down.

Fifty feet.

Thirty feet.

The ground underneath his boots vibrated, pebbles jumping as if he were in an earthquake. That strong reek of melting plastic overwhelmed his nose, making him grimace in distaste. It had to be rank to stink that bad even through his facemask.

Twenty feet.

The blob cast a shadow over him and blocked the sun. It had grown so large that instead of bashing into the buildings on either side, it carved out whole chunks and pieces. Plaster and concrete fell to the street with tremendous bangs.

Ten feet.

Logan closed his eyes.

With a rushing sound as if he'd been sucked into an underwater vortex, Logan was lifted out of the air. Engulfed in red goo. First his head, then his shoulders, then his chest.

Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

He was inside a rollercoaster!

The violent rolling of the blob didn't stop, which meant that he went up as the blob rolled, his body climbing in the air, before gravity dropped him down and sunk him into the middle of the ooze. It was claustrophobic inside the thing, as if he'd been eaten alive. Logan felt his breath wheezing and growing tight. The thing was so massive that being in the middle meant he might as well be a room's length away from the surface of the blob. Moving through the ooze was like travelling through an ocean filled with Jello. He could move his arms and feet, but slowly, like swimming through honey.

The ooze began to eat away at his sandstone. The sand dissolved into slime, but because he'd made the armour thicker than normal, it had given him a cushion. The problem was that although his armour protected him against the ooze, now he couldn't breathe.

But there was one thing up his sleeve that he hadn't used in a while.

[Deepwater Explorer].

Logan had no idea if the skill would work in anything than the ocean or a lake, but the blob was oozing slime. It had to be the same principle.

Deploying [Deepwater Explorer], Logan held his breath and then with a gasp, took a great gulp of air.

Now he just needed to blow up the blob.

***

Logan tore his way out of the blob with his talons and slashed through blubber, the sound of a timer thrashing in his ears. He'd planted the bombs and set a timer for one minute. He had seconds to escape, literally seconds, and his talons had lost their effectiveness as the ooze ate away at the sharp ends, turning them into slurpy sludge.

With a growl, Logan deployed his pink sock to push him forward, hissing in pain as the goo made its way past the last armour layer and started to eat away at his skin. It wasn't as bad as the perception trial, but either way, Logan would rather avoid another instance of his skin sloughing off.

With a gasp, his head broke through the surface of the blob like a baby covered in goo, and he deactivated [Deepwater Explorer]. His facemask was smeared and speckled with holes from the ooze. Worst of all, he was doing this while the blob continued to tumble down the road, bashing Logan's head each time it rolled. It was like he was on a rollercoaster from hell.

With a gasp of regular air, Logan wiggled out the rest of the way, first his chest, then his torso, and then finally his feet. Bursting free let him deploy [Threshold Shift] so he could move down the road and get clear of the blast radius.

And just in time.

With a blast so intense it would have blown away his eardrums before the Integration, the blob exploded. Hundreds of slime pieces hit the buildings on either side, huge chunks the size of boulders crashing to the asphalt.

Damn.

That was one way to kill a blob.

Wait.

Where was the System notification?

Aww, fuck. Not again.

With a scowl, Logan watched the larger slime pieces roll, turning into mini balls, before tumbling in a drunken path towards each other.

They were re-forming.

Fuck's sake!

Like hell. Gnashing his teeth, Logan pulled out his lighter until a flame bloomed, and then used [Mimicry Armour] to force the flame into a fireball. [Life Fabricator] allowed him to envision it superheating, growing so hot that it burned from red to orange, then yellow to blue. He'd make it so hot that this fucker wouldn't have any chance to escape; he'd vaporize it to death and roast it like a marshmallow.

Clenching his fist, Logan used [Mimicry Armour] to force the fireball over to the gloopy mess, hovering over it, then pushed the fireball down with a gesture of his hand. The small red blob rippled and let out a shrieking pain, its goo hissing and evaporating into steam.

Once again deploying [Life Fabricator], Logan envisioned that fireball flaring bright, becoming ever hotter. A stab of pain radiated behind his eyes from the mental strain, but it worked—the last remains of the blob evaporated like water in a hot pan.

And yet, still no kill notification.

There was a scattering of mini-blobs still remaining.

All right, never let it be said that he couldn't treat a problem as an opportunity. In the blink of an eye, Logan deployed [Threshold Shift] and brought himself to the alley where he'd left Voss. Pushing off the sensation of coldness, he took a second to take in the man. He'd collapsed to the dirty ground of the alley, his eyes closed, his chest moving shallowly. He cradled his hand in a protective grip, and blood soaked his shirt. What Logan could see of the remains of his hand didn't look good. It was nothing but a slick, bloody mass of flesh, bones sticking out.

"Hey," said Logan.

As Voss opened his eyes, Logan grabbed him by the back of his shirt and lifted him up like a sack of potatoes, and then deployed [Threshold Shift] to take them back to the blob.

All in all, he'd done it in less than three seconds.

Voss whimpered in pain and confusion as they materialized within the pile of the remaining mini-blobs. His eyes looked glassy and unfocused.

"Can you stand?" asked Logan.

"W-what's going on…?"

Well, at least he could still talk. "I need to get you that XP, and I'm afraid your last attempt on the blob was too long ago."

Voss swayed, his eyes alarmed as he darted his gaze around the street. "Where is it?"

"Down at our feet."

Logan had stocked up his private market with all manner of weapons, using what he'd gathered from the fifty people he'd killed in Pied's Kingdom, but he'd kept a few in reserve for situations like this. Willing out one of the swords, one that was thin and light weight, he nudged Voss. "Come on, I know you're in pain. Just take the sword and slice through one of those mini-blobs, a few cuts should be fine."

Voss swayed again on his feet, but biting his lip, he grabbed the sword by the handle. Cradling his other hand to his chest, an undecipherable expression crossed his face as he gazed down at the mini-blob. From fear, frustration, to finally, anger.

With a growl, Voss used that anger to thrust the sword clean through the mini-blob, spearing it, before thrusting with an upper cut and going directly out the other side.

"That'll do," said Logan.

Logan moved the fireball to the next mini-blob and got to work.

***

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 122 Plastic Ooze Monster! Experience points reduced and awarded based on contributions made!]

Logan snorted. After all of that, he hadn't even leveled up. The blob hadn't been too difficult of an opponent, nothing that Logan couldn't handle, but its size and regenerating capabilities would have made it impossible for anyone else. Without Logan, they would have needed to either form an army or invited Damsel to lead the group.

But that was one annoying, oozing blob down. Hopefully all this shit hadn't been in vain. Rushing over to Voss, Logan helped lower him into a sitting position, and then crouched in front of him and peered into his eyes.

"Did you level up?"

Voss licked his lips. "Ten times."

Logan raised an eyebrow. Gone were the days where he could level up that much after one monster defeat, but ten levels would give Voss fifty free attributes. He could throw them into his constitution stat. That just might be enough. "Assign them to your constitution attribute."

Voss' eyes were far away, that same look everyone had as they studied their System messages. "Already working on it, mate."

With a gasp, Voss straightened, a bloom of healthy color spreading over his face. He grimaced and scrunched his eyes closed as he panted and cradled his injured hand closer to his chest.

"Did that help?"

Logan still had [Life Fabricator] up his sleeve, but after what happened with Tasha and Jack, he was hesitant to try healing when he could just as likely birth a monster hand.

Voss peered down at his hand, his mouth twisting with pain. "I don't know. It doesn't feel as bad, but I have no skin! Ugh, my nails are gone. I look like a frigging Frankenstein. Does your constitution stat allow you to grow back skin?"

"It should. Given enough time." Even before he'd bonded with Ernie and obtained [Regenerate], he'd managed to heal the stub of his missing toe with his constitution stat. If Voss continued to level up, he might just do the same.

"But I'm still going to be out of commission. This group doesn't like dealing with injured—"

"Oi!" burst Charlie, jogging over to them, Mia trailing behind with a disinterested look. Lachlan lagged behind them and darted a nervous glance at his surroundings. "Did you kill the blob, mate?"

Logan just looked at him. The answer should be obvious.

Charlie folded his arms across his chest, his lips pressed into a thin line. "You should have waited for us so we could attack at the same time and finish it off together, yeah. I can already tell that you gave Voss that opportunity. That's not cool, mate. We're a team here. We work together."

Was he for real? A team, when they'd expected Logan to do all the work? They'd taken advantage of him, forced him to allow a blob to swallow him, and this was the thanks he got? A muscle in his jaw twitched, and for a second, he debated taking everything back about waiting to take this asshole out.

"Charlie," interjected Mia. "You're being too hard on the man. He did us a favor, after all. It must have been a lot of work to deal with that monster, and he did it even though he doesn't want to join our group." She'd tucked her book back in her waistband and was looking at Logan with a wide smile.

There was something slightly unhinged about it.

"If that's sorted," said Logan, "can we get back to your complex? We did what we set out to do."

Charlie's eyes narrowed. "A promise was a promise. First though, let's see if we can't do something about Voss' injury. It looks pretty painful, mate."

Voss straightened and let his hand drop to his side. "It's not that bad."

Mia tsked. "So macho. Men. Don't be stupid. It needs a bandage at least."

Logan had bandages inside of his spatial storage. Besides, he could use [Threshold Shift] to take them back to the complex and get bandages there.

"I'll just—"

"No," said Mia, her voice hardening. "It's just up here," she said with a gesture of her chin. "A pharmacy. Come on."

Ice sloshed through his stomach, as if he'd just walked into a freezer. The back of his neck prickled in awareness, and that feeling of forgetfulness that he'd thought so strange earlier returned with a vengeance. When he tried to think of Mia, it was as if he had a mental block, as if…

Mia shot him a smile, something hidden glittering in her eyes. "It's this way, Idiot," she crooned.

"I…"

There was a quality to her voice that reminded Logan of everything that was right in the world. It was soothing, like a coaxing mother. Why had he wanted to go to the complex when he could stay here, in her company, and bask in her presence? Bask in her radiance?

He didn't know why he'd ever thought she was odd. It was such a bizarre thought. Mia was wonderful. Everything she said was right.

"Just a little further. Be a good boy, why don't you."

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