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Chapter 12 - 12. Who is Okutake?

CHAPTER 12: Who is Okutake?

There were a hundred weapons in front of me.

Probably more.

Each one shimmered with promise. Power. History. They all had stories etched into their edges, stories of warriors long gone, kings long dead, monsters slain in ways that defied logic or mercy.

But only one called to me.

Not loudly. Not with some blinding glow or anime sparkle. No chorus of angels. No ancient spirit whispering cryptic riddles into my ear.

It just waited.

It was quiet. Calm.

A black scabbard resting upright against a pedestal of obsidian glass, so dark it looked like it absorbed the light around it. The blade itself, what little I could see from the slight reveal at the hilt was pitch. Not painted black. Not stylized black.

Devoured-light black.

Like it didn't reflect the world so much as consume it.

I stepped forward.

"This one," I said, without needing to second guess.

The System Administrator nodded once. "Dux."

"Dux," I repeated, the name tasting unfamiliar and cool on my tongue. "What does it mean?"

"Old word. Means 'leader.' General. Commander. It was forged to respond to strength, not just in body, but in will. It feeds on Ki. Sharpens with it. Grows with it."

I ran a hand across the scabbard.

Even the touch was heavy. The weight of it buzzed through my fingertips like it wasn't just metal, but history. Expectation.

"So the more I grow…"

"The more it grows," S.A. confirmed. "If you become stronger, so will the sword. If you die? It'll rot with you."

I grinned. "Well. That's not ominous at all."

"Pick it up," he said.

I tried.

Emphasis on tried.

The moment I gripped the hilt and pulled, my arm locked up like I'd just tried to deadlift a building.

It didn't even budge.

"What the…"

"Yeah," S.A. said casually, adjusting his cufflinks. "It weighs about eight hundred pounds right now. Give or take."

"What?!" I nearly toppled over. "Eight hundred?! That's not a sword, that's a damn collapsed star!"

"It's bound to your potential, Kaizen. If you chose Dux. That comes with cost."

I grunted, trying to lift it again. My legs braced. My Ki flared. My back screamed.

Nothing.

"Okay. Fine. Great. So what do I do, train by carrying groceries and fighting imaginary chickens until I can lift it?"

"Roughly," he said.

I glared at him. "I just killed a goblin Chief while held together by spite and cracked ribs. Give me a break."

"You'll get your break in about a week."

I blinked. "A week?"

"Time moves differently outside the system shell. You'll have seven days of in-universe time to recover, train, and acclimate. When you're ready, return."

"And how am I supposed to get the sword then?"

He turned and started walking back toward his desk.

I limped after him.

"Hey, wait… so I don't get to take it?"

"Nope."

"Come on, man…. throw me a bone. Or at least a backup dagger that doesn't require a forklift."

He didn't stop. Just sat down behind his desk, leaned back in his chair, and said:

"When you're ready, come back. I'll keep Dux safe until then."

I rubbed my temples. "So what, I just knock on the sky and ask for it?"

"Close. I'll show you how in a minute. But first..."

His eyes flicked toward the door.

Here we go.

"...You were going to ask about Rachel."

I froze halfway to the coffee table. "What? Me? No-well-I mean. I was just gonna say she has a strong... stride."

"Stay. Away. From her."

I raised an eyebrow. "Why? She your girlfriend or something?"

"She's a loose canon with the patience of a nuclear warhead on a hair trigger. She's not just an assistant. She's a failsafe. And before you get any clever ideas, yes… she could kill you before you even registered pain."

I blinked. "That's... specific."

"She likes power. Challenge. Combat. You? You're not even a blip to her. Yet."

I whistled low. "And here I thought she was just into strong shoulders."

"She's into outlasting gods in combat trials."

"…Right. Good talk."

He opened one of the desk drawers and pulled out something I hadn't expected—three thin, glowing slips of parchment. Looked like laminated train passes made of light.

He held them out.

I took them.

"What are these?"

"Tickets," he said simply. "They let you change a mission."

I stared at them. Each one shimmered with faint golden patterns. Abstract. No writing. Just a feeling of importance.

"Change how?"

"Before a standard mission begins, you'll have about one to three minutes of foreknowledge. With the full details of he mission unlocked like the title and mission parameters and objectives. During that time, you can choose to use a ticket. It will re-roll the mission parameters entirely."

I blinked. "That's insane. That's… wait. There's a catch, isn't there?"

"Of course," he said, smiling faintly. "Changing a mission doesn't mean the new one will be better. It could be worse. Much worse."

I stared down at the tickets. "And only standard missions?"

He nodded. "Specials are fixed. Non-negotiable. You can't reroll them, you can delay them as you know, or prep for them. They come when they want to come. Once they come you only have the two delays that buys you 15 hours of delay. When that mission start comes the third time, you will not have any choice but to start the mission right then and there."

I felt my mouth dry a little. "And the specials are...?"

"Imagine being told to assassinate a continent. Or dismantle a monarchy. Or kill a god or your lover's best friend or even your lover herself. That's a special."

"...Cool."

"You get three tickets. That's it. No more unless you earn them."

I slipped them carefully into my pocket like they were sacred. Because they were.

"And how do I use them?"

"Before the mission starts, if you don't like what you see, hold one of the tickets to the sky. You'll be brought back here. You'll have one chance to change it. That's all."

"Got it."

He stood again, walked around the desk, and looked me directly in the eye.

"No one's made it past all one hundred in over a million years."

I didn't reply.

"Every failed primary objective is instant death. No appeal. Every time you delay a mission, that's a countdown. Three skips? You're done."

"I get it," I said.

"Do you?"

I stared back at him.

Tired.

Scared.

But steady.

"Yeah," I said. "I do."

He nodded.

And then the world shimmered again like glass turning liquid.

The office blurred.

The skyline folded in on itself.

And the soft comfort of that couch was gone.

I woke up lying on cold stone.

And the first thing that hit me—before the smell, before the memory, before even the realization that I was alive, was how freakishly good I felt.

Like a fresh install.

No broken limbs. No bruised ribs. No Ki backlash rattling around in my spine. Just me. Whole. Rested. Not even a scratch.

It felt... wrong, honestly.

And then I opened my eyes and remembered why.

The cave hadn't changed.

Not like me.

It was still the slaughterhouse I'd left it in.

Bodies everywhere. Dozens of them. Four dozen? Five? I didn't count. Goblins sprawled across the chamber like green garbage dumped out by a truck that had hit a landmine.

Blood soaked the floor in black puddles. Limbs twisted in wrong angles. Eyes frozen wide with death.

And in the center of it all?

The Chief.

Still lying there. Still massive. Still terrifying, even in death.

That blade I'd thrown, the last thing I did before blacking out was still jutting from the side of his neck, halfway buried in meat and bone. It glinted slightly in the dim torchlight, the black steel of the hilt just barely visible beneath the dried blood.

I stared at him for a long moment.

Then slowly pulled myself to my feet.

Even my balance was perfect.

The system's full-heal post-mission treatment wasn't a joke. My nerves were calm. My muscles fresh. No soreness. No fatigue. It felt like waking up after ten hours of dreamless sleep, followed by a deep tissue massage and a blessing from God.

I looked down at myself.

Yup—wool clothes back. Same ones I'd worn before robbing dead goblins for armor. No cuts. No holes. Like nothing had ever happened.

But everything had.

And the proof was still all around me.

I turned slowly, scanning the chamber.

Blood. Guts. Orbs shattered and intact. Weapons. Armor. Bits of charred flesh where some of Rordan's fire spells had connected. The metallic tang of death clung to the air like perfume in a brothel.

And in the far corner—

There he was.

Rordan.

Still crumpled. Still looking like a bundle of snapped twigs in noble robes.

His chest wasn't moving.

I walked toward him.

Not quickly. Not with urgency. Just... walked.

I stared down at him, his face twisted sideways on the stone. One arm bent underneath him, the other across his stomach like he'd tried to hold his organs in after the Chief had folded him in half with a backhand.

I didn't feel... anything.

Not guilt. Not grief. Not relief.

Just observation.

He was a guy I'd met about an hour ago. Less. We'd fought together. Barely. I'd saved him. He'd saved me. But when it came down to it? I'd intended to use him as a meat shield. A distraction. Some idiot noble to draw fire while I circled around and did the real damage.

And I had tried to save him, when it mattered. When it meant something.

But now?

Looking at him broken and empty?

I didn't feel a damn thing.

Except for the vomit rising in my throat.

Because god, the smell.

I turned to the side and lost it.

Everything.

Pizza. Coke. Probably my soul.

I heaved violently against the wall, choking and gasping, the taste of acid and grease hitting my tongue like betrayal.

Welcome back, Kaizen.

From luxury office to blood-and-bile cave in under five minutes.

I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and turned back to Rordan.

And then…

He moved.

Just barely. A twitch. A sound. A breath.

I blinked, stumbling toward him and dropping to one knee.

"Rordan?"

His eyelids fluttered. His lips moved. Dry. Cracked. Barely a whisper.

"Kaizen…"

I leaned in.

"Yeah, I'm here. You're not dead yet, man."

He gave a weak, strained smile. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

"Tell my... niece…"

I frowned. "What?"

"Tell her… it was... Okutake..."

That was it.

He exhaled.

And stopped moving.

Just like that.

Gone.

I sat back slowly, staring at his face. The strange half-smile still frozen there.

"Okutake…?" I said under my breath.

What the hell did that mean?

His niece? What niece? What the hell was "Okutake"? A name? A place? A code word?

I stared for another moment.

Then shrugged.

And moved on.

Whatever it was, it wasn't my business now.

I got back to my feet and wiped my hands on my shirt.

It was time to get back to business.

Looting.

I started with the goblin mages, the ones with the intact orbs still faintly pulsing in their ruined staffs.

I yanked the red ones free first, fire orbs. I knew what they could do. Burn, explode, incinerate. Always handy. Then the blues, ice. Not subtle, but effective. Good for slowing down enemies or freezing the path behind me.

Then the green ones.

I still didn't know what they did.

Which meant I needed to find out. Later.

The armor from the guard goblins was a mess, battered and blood-soaked but a few sets were still usable. I stripped the best ones, adding them to a pile near the wall.

Some leather. Some metal. Nothing fancy. But usable.

I tied together the extra swords. Took a couple of shields. Pocketed some coin from a goblin pouch. Every bit counted.

And as I finished packing my haul, I looked around the chamber one last time.

This place had been my tutorial.

My intro course.

And it had been more brutal than most final exams.

But now?

Now it was cleanup.

I wasn't leaving a single one of these little green bastards alive.

If there were goblins left in this cave, hiding, regrouping, praying to whatever filth-god spawned them...

I was going to find them.

And I was going to slaughter them all.

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