Nightmare System - Volume 1 Chapter 22 The Reset

“Why?! Why did I even open my mouth back then?! I knew The System likes screwing me over!” Hell was finally blowing his top off after finally being through with many troubling matters. He started sparing a few copies to train Sons of Shadow as they trained his own army, sent two of his knights out to gather more information on other Vampire Lords as the other Lords were mostly enigmas on their own with widely-accepted legends about themselves at best, making Virgil’s The Strongest Vampire Lord title worth far less than is. There really was a possibility he really was the strongest, but vampires were immortal creatures who had an eternity to get stronger and stronger. Moreover, he had also organised his base properly with some help from Virgil.

The problem was that his chosen class was already “Archwizard”. What was he to do with such a class, Hell didn’t favour spells by much. He yelled his heart out as much as he could, but the System would ignore him, perhaps as a response to Hell’s own efforts in ignoring the class itself. There were times the System responded to him before, he didn’t know if it was the way he asked or if the System only replied whenever it felt like it.

He thought of his brother for a while. He must be heartbroken, frantically searching for him. Hell could imagine that there would already be a bunch of cops snooping around his beautiful bedroom.

“His bedroom?” The thought then struck him. There were otherworldly bows and arrows in there! It would inevitably cause a great disturbance if anyone found out about them, but the unease in his heart subsided soon after it arose. After all, they didn’t look that different from regular ones. After giving such topics some thoughts, he summoned his class menu.

“Skill Tree,” Hell commanded in his mind with a defeated feeling. A skill tree was seen before his eyes as a panel along with some information on his class. He gazed at the skills he could get from being an archwizard, but he needed to hit 50 at least to start getting the good stuff, but the stuff he could get early on also wasn’t bad neither, he could choose an element and master it. “Lightning” element seemed particularly lovely to his eyes, coupled with the first spell he could choose, it sounded great.

*Galincee’s Lightning Body: The user covers his body with lightning for 5 mana per second. +150 lightning damage upon touching another*

The spell would be spectacularly useful when used by his copies. Since the mana consumption wasn’t much, they could use this while healing up for every hit as well.

“What is that?” Hell murmured in wonder. Just when he was about to unlock the skill, he saw a button at the top right corner and hovered his finger on top of it, unsure of what to do. It was just a red button without any indication of its function.

“Oh, f.u.c.k it,” Hell said and pressed it.

*Would you like to change your class to: Random? Cost: 0*

“This is better than my thinking of a class! I can just check them all one by one, finally getting a proper fighting class eventually, I mean, how many classes could there be anyway?”

Pressing the button, the somewhat digital voice of the System was heard again. The rather girlish voice sounded as if mocking him from time to time.

*A random class is chosen*

*Player’s new class is: Enchanter*

“What an interesting class,” Hell thought as he checked a few of the skills he’d get. It was a half-caster, mostly had some crowd control and curses other than enchants or traps he could apply on items. Unless he got to really high level in this class, Hell didn’t think how it could be worthwhile to choose this class. “Let’s see what the next class is,” Hell said as he pressed the button again.

He waited for a minute, yet there was no sound from the System still. The red button slowly faded away.

“Huh?” was the only thing Hell could say as his brain didn’t register what was happening. “Did you- Did you put that button there to mess with me further?” Hell said and added, shedding a tear:

“Cool.”

Around seventy vampires could be seen training with Aurus and Anton supervising them, as promised by Virgil. They seemed to be squabbling between one another, however.

“Did you hear what Lord Virgil had to say?”

“Aurus, you must understand that Lord Virgil always wants the best for us, and he was clearly not mind controlled nor is he someone that could be brought down with neither rewards nor fear. Are you insulting him?!” Anton said in a solemn tone, his voice reverberating in Aurus’ eardrums, with a hint of an older brother’s scolding.

“What did you say?!” Aurus was incensed. “I will give it without any reservations if Lord Virgil were to wish my life. I would present my heart to him myself in such a case. But I cannot accept any other than Virgil as my Lord!”

“So what? You are still serving Lord Virgil. Jack and Slinora received his blessing before they started their training. Didn’t you see how much stronger they have suddenly gotten? They were smart, and you should accept it just the same. I, for example, will also swear fidelity. I had a small peek at their training as well, he is sure to help us break through to the next level even, eventually.”

“How can you all trust that greenhorn of a Lord so easily?!” Aurus yelled without realising, seventy vampires in training who were about to collapse seconds ago from fatigue had their eyes locked at them now, some almost growling at them. They knew Hell would be the only new Lord as of now, the address of the insult open and clear.

“I will respectfully ask you to take that back,” Porter said, distinguishing himself from the crowd. The highest progress was made by this guy, and since the 60% bonus would be applied as their stats were raised, he would jump leaps and bounds by the time the training was over. He had already surpassed the remaining knights and soldiers in raw strength and speed.

“Or what?!” Aurus said, unable to control his rage. It seemed everyone loved this Hell person, but Aurus didn’t trust him. He could sense he wasn’t a person that was right in the head. Adding that to his inquiry of Vaun and learning how they met in a forest following needless slaughter, it was apparent this was an evil person through and through, without any actual motive for his deeds.

Rest of the vampires stood up, some of them began growing their nails, and some were about to lunge at them if they didn’t apologise. Anton was flabbergasted, he didn’t think things would escalate so rapidly so soon.

“You think you can defeat me even If you-” Aurus was cut short with a slap to the back of his head that shook his brain, almost losing his balance and falling down.

“We apologise from Lord Hell. This one’s extreme loyalty can be problematic at times,” Anton said, looking at Porter. He knew Hell’s strength the best, and Lord Virgil had even mentioned his power having risen by many folds since Sons of Shadow fought with Hell. It had only been a few days since then, and it was impossible to ascertain how this could have happened. But, after all, the witness to his power was Lord Virgil himself. On top of that, he could now make copies of himself, and they were almost just as strong as Hell, too.

“He doesn’t mean anything bad by it,” Anton added.

Porter’s grim expression turned into a suave one again, supported by his handsome demeanour. “Of course, Sir Anton. Obviously, as long as there is an apology, we would not be sour as I doubt Lord Hell would approve of it.”

The other vampires seemed to be less volatile following the words of Porter, some starting to focus on their training once more. Porter himself also turning back, he was about to continue his push-ups which was also suggested by Anton who told them all that raising their strength first would be the fastest and best option as long as they stuck to a harsh training regime, when a voice was heard in the hall, garnering the attention of everyone.

“Of course I wouldn’t!” Pseudo Hell said, and all seventy vampires turned their posture into a kneeling position within a breath’s time. Some acted so fast that they had clearly injured their knees in the process.

“Lord Hell!” A unanimous greet filled the entire hall.

“What are you guys up to?” Hell asked, turning to Anton and Aurus after beckoning to Porter.

“Training your fanatics as per Lord Virgil’s orders.” Aurus left the room after a moment of silence that ensued. “I’ll go get something to drink,” he said with an indifferent tone.

“Lord Hell, please don’t mind-” Anton was saying as he was interjected by Pseudo Hell: “I don’t mind, pal. I know his temperament.”

“In that case, I would like to say that I accept-” Anton was once again interrupted by Pseudo.

“Not to me,” Pseudo said.

“I see. I thought Lord Hell would be around here. Where is he, if I may inquire?” Anton politely asked.

“He’s figuring out a way to get stronger, I guess I could put it. He’ll be around, don’t worry about the allegiance or whatever you want to propose.” Pseudo said, waving his hand away as if it wasn’t anything important.

“Understood. We shall continue the training then, shall we, Porter?” Anton said with a sullen look, turning to Porter, Anton seemed to be slightly disturbed as his resolution slightly wavered, taken so lightly by Hell, even if it was only a copy.

“Lord Pseudo!” Jack was seen at the doors of the fighting grounds. “We have recovered and are ready for another lesson!”

“Well, my fans are waiting!” Pseudo said with a laugh as he disappeared in moments.

Jack and Slinora had found out that although they had the kind of teamwork that would allow them to bring down the best of the best, facing an opponent by themselves was a lot harder. It also didn’t help that they were so used to their group tactics, leaving themselves open when they fought the same way, which was exploited continuously by Pseudo Hells.

After they received a boost to their abilities and saw the progress they were making in such fights, they convinced Hell to keep up only three copies, but for four hours at once. Hell was fine with sparing 2400 mana a day, he would recover that much in a tad more than 6 hours, he would just save that part of the day for some contemplation on his abilities.

It was undoubtedly true that even with his physical superiority, he was overpowered. For a moment, even though he dispersed the thoughts after a moment and getting angry at himself for thinking It, he wondered if he should kill some of these Sons. He found out during the Sons’ and his copies’ fight that Slinora, for example, had an ability that allowed him to have a field of perception around him that worked as a detection mechanism. When anything entered a radius of around 2-metres of Slinora, he could react, even without looking or wasting any movements.

He liked Virgil, however, as well as some of these guys. He didn’t want to lose the friends he made here, who knew what kind of person he was but still accepted him. Hell then returned to his room to think about what to do with this “Archwizard” class he was given to. He would really like some cooler class like “Barbarian” or “Assassin” if he could take it.

After spending a few minutes not knowing what to do, he simply gave up on whining about it and directly unlocked the first skill on his skill tree, available on his current level, 42. He was already stuck with this “Enchanter” class, what else was he to do?

“Let’s see what this piece of shit class has to offer.” Hell tapped on the skill he unlocked and read the information.

*Branding: 500 mana, the creation of the brand is permanent until activation unless the surface the brand is created on is damaged. The effects are as followed: Explosion, Cutting, Decay and Healing. Brands fade away after activation. There can only be five brands in total, the sixth brand created will result in the first one fading away*

Hell gazed at the symbols that needed to be drawn for the wanted effect. It seemed you could activate these mentally without much of a requirement. He drew the required symbol on a piece of furniture and activated it after turning it away from himself. The explosion resounded outside in the corridors as the butler rushed into a nigh-destroyed room with Hell wearing a smile on his face. He said he would go out and left the messed-up room to the poor butler.

“I’ll be back in an hour or so,” Hell said as he rushed outside in excitement.

It was still noon outside with various bugs, small animals chirping around along with dense trees. Hell created a copy, drew the symbol on his chest and told him to activate it after hugging a tree. He also wanted to know if his copies could activate it themselves.

It worked, the explosion happened with a massive chunk of Pseudo’s chest being destroyed as he dropped dead immediately after, without a chance of healing with the skill. The tree, however, also lost a huge chunk where the explosion happened as the rest of the tree fell on Pseudo’s now nigh-liquid body. At least it seemed the majority of the impact went to the tree, but such a rebound would probably destroy or highly damage most regular weapons when used to channel the skill, nonetheless. Hell spent a few hours journeying into the forest to spend time, trying not to use any skills to save up mana.

He saw a myriad of creatures outside from oddly large animals to crocodiles of immense size and to wild T-Rexes while he was dying to try out his new skill on one. As it was enough to destroy a tree, one such creature should not be a problem. But he simply wanted to see the destruction it would cause when used against a fierce creature like a dinosaur. He couldn’t sever his link to the copies yet, he would need an hour for himself to have enough mana for a copy and a brand once more without having to sever the bond. Thus, he hunted a creature that seemed like a boar and started cooking it eventually, getting sick of the fruits he could find on the trees. What Hell didn’t think however was both the T-Rex he was stalking, as well as many other predators in the area had smelt the delicious flesh of the boar.

Before the meat was even ready, the steps of a large animal were audible to Hell, clearly arriving in his direction. He looked at the meat for a moment and realised soon that it indeed smelt a bit strongly. He took out the Sword of Blood as he almost ignored the mental attack from the sword this time around. He was getting used to it as well, it would soon be hard enough that he could probably even resist it in his sleep.

“God, I’m cool,” Hell mumbled to himself as a T-Rex was seen among the dense foliage. The smaller creatures such as velociraptors and what seemed like a Megalosaurus. These creatures seemed like they could be easily handled with, but a bite from Rex could still be deadly, nonetheless. Of course, with Hell as is now, it wasn’t a fair fight for the dinosaurs.

Hell didn’t want to use any mana of his, which was why he summoned the sword in the first place. He stabbed himself with the sword and felt his abilities be increased for another notch further. Hell would rather kill one with his brands, but he would just find another one later anyway. This was a jungle with seemingly no end to it. Tyrannosaurus went mad with the smell of fresh blood and immediately attacked Hell, wanting to swallow him whole. Hell dodged to his right and swung the sword in an upwards bow as he could tell it sinking into the creature’s chin, felt like slicing through butter.

“That’s sharp!” Hell exclaimed as he heard the creature shake following a shriek, hitting his head to trees and moving around with fear. Teleporting to in front of the creature, he finished it in one blow, ending its pain. He turned to other creatures with a grim smile that gave off a dangerous feeling, ready to dispatch the remaining smaller ones, only to be met with not one of them present and the meat was gone.

“Damn thieves!” he could only yell into the distance.