[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 162 - Vacation

Near the top of a snowy mountain climbed a man, his hair and beard cut short and tidy.

He was dressed more for a beach than the bone-piercingly cold peak, but he showed no signs of discomfort. Clad in his short-sleeve orange shirt—unbuttoned down the middle to reveal his perfectly chiseled body—and his khaki shorts, he wore large skates of crimson metal, serrated with jagged spikes on the bottom to grant him perch upon the loose snow. 

A pair of fancy sunglasses protected his eyes from the intense albedo of the pearly white reflection. He whistled a cheery tune.

He held a long crimson chain in his hands. There was a spiky star attached to one end. He casually swung it around in his hands and threw it over a stony protrusion, tugging on the end of the chain to ensure it was properly hooked into place, and then he dragged himself forward, carefully placing one skate before the other so his immensely dense body wouldn’t sink into the snow or start yet another avalanche. 

His climb continued for a few more hours. The beautiful, glorious sun upon the vast blue skies was a rare sight in these parts. As time flowed, the sun inched down, and he approached the peak, where he finally settled onto a rock and took a deep breath. 

Freddy didn’t consider himself the type to enjoy an old man activity like hiking. But after a long century in a cramped, damp, always slightly warm box, the sight of the vast expanse, and feeling of cold air caressing his skin, scratched an itch seared into his soul. 

And also, while he didn’t exactly feel 120 years old, he technically was. Maybe old man hobbies were just a thing he’d enjoy from then on. 

With the sun slowly starting to set, the already frigid temperatures sharply dropped. But he was barely bothered by it. His abrudly caloric diet made his body a living furnace. He sat on the rock and looked down upon the city of Repentawa. 

From where he sat, he got a nice look at all the rising plumes of smoke and spots where fires raged in the city.

Truth be told, he should be down there, putting out both figurative and literal fires. 

But that thing Insanity said about him being this close to losing it? That had been a fair warning. After over two weeks of non-stop bullshit, he was right about ready to begin indiscriminately slaughtering anyone who got on his nerves. And there was a long line of people waiting to do exactly that. 

So, whether it was the right time or not didn’t exactly matter. He told the others to take care of it and then selfishly abandoned them.

Raising his hand, he called upon his storage ring and extracted a large thermos bottle of cocktail. It was a crudely concocted drink consisting of… uh… “happy mushroom wine,” a whole jar of honey since Freddy hated the taste of alcohol, a load of cold brew coffee, and a massive spike of pure ethanol to make it as strong as possible. 

He was there to get fucked up beyond reason. Whatever it took to forget the situation he was currently embroiled in. 

With a swing, he extracted another item from his storage ring. It was headphones, brand new, loaded with music he hadn’t heard before. He put them on and started it as he leaned back into the snow, putting his arms behind his back as he slowly sipped on his drink and enjoyed the sunset. 

As for what exactly he was trying to forget about… well… 

It was complicated. 

Things had been mostly calm until Thor’s funeral, but after that, once they collectively started addressing the whole situation, everything rapidly fell apart. 

It turned out that, other than exploiting the poors, the ruling class actually did something kind of productive and kind of essential for keeping things from descending into anarchy! Who’d have thought!? Cerainly not Freddy, the butcher of the Repentawa ruling class. 

While he hadn’t expected the people to rush into streets and sing folk songs while dancing in flowery fields upon the news of the deaths of their oppressors, their reactions were a little too far in the other direction. 

It turned out that everyone of importance being dead and that one guy who was good at nothing but killing people and had mysterious motives being the proud owner of the whole city wasn’t exaclty good news in the eyes of ordinary civilians. Again, who’d have thought? 

But the dread looming above the masses wasn’t the big problem. 

That was the little p problem. 

The capital P Problem was the imminent, total, catastrophic collapse of the local economy. 

He watched the sky above as the first stars slowly began to appear. There were very few clouds above him, and many weren’t much higher than the peak he was resting on. He released a breath, watching the moisture condense and turn into a foggy mist. Then, he took another gulp and closed his eyes in bliss.

All of the head honchos were dead. And many of the littler-but-still-significant ones. Management of most local business had gone tits up. People were leaving en masse. In fact, The Umbra and Lapis clans had already vanished, and pretty much anyone else not bound by some sort of contract or too poor to leave was gone as well.

Food production had slowed down drastically. Delivery of crucial goods from other cities was halted. Monsters, given the lack of people to keep the local wilderness clear of them, were creeping closer and accumulating at a worrying pace. Many had taken to looting and rioting. 

Valhalla had spent a good part of the previous two weeks scrambling to stop things from descending into further chaos. And Freddy, as the owner of this city, had a big role to play. 

The first thing they’d set out to do was to buy out as many of the local businesses as possible. Well, “buy” was a generous way to put it. Freddy had a lot of authority in Repentawa. As in, he could literally kill everyone there and the adjudicator wouldn’t even raise a finger to stop him. But there were still things he couldn’t do. 

For starters, he couldn’t just take the companies for himself without the consent of a legitimate heir, or, in the absence thereof, the empire. He could, of course, bully the heirs into signing their companies over for free, but that didn’t mean he could force them to give him everything. 

There was a funny little thing about most of the businesses in Repentawa. They had debt. A lot of debt. Billions of dollars of debt, even. But they weren’t poor, and they were far from broke. 

Travis had explained it to him. Simply put, since they could get pretty cheap loans from the empire, they borrowed and invested the money. The returns on the investment were pretty much always greater than the interest. So they didn’t just have a shit ton of money. They also had a shit ton of debt. And somehow, this made perfect sense.

But this was where things got a little funny. See, the companies had a ton of debt. But all of the money was stored in private accounts. 

If there was any one god worshipped by the American Empire, it was money. And the banks were sacred temples that were not to be violated. 

If Freddy were to, say, try to bully the heirs into giving him the money from those private accounts, his head and torso would go through a swift and ugly divorce. Probably by the hands of the very adjudicator who had given him the city in the first place. 

Imperial banks were not to be messed with. If someone’s money was stored there, it was safe. No matter who asked. 

This made things difficult. 

Freddy needed to take the crumbling businesses over. If he let them collapse, the city would burst apart at the seems, causing a large-scale humanitarian crisis.

Thus, he had a few options. The first was to take all the companies over and just accept the debt. The second was to force the companies to disband, which would result in the legal heirs being forced to pay off the debt with their private funds. Then, he could buy up their assets and re-employ the workers through another company. And the third was to let the companies be and resolve their problems themselves. 

The third option was unacceptable. The way they did things was wrong. And the living heirs were all basically his mortal enemies now. No way he’d let the snakes fester in his garden.

The first option was painful. After all, he’d be saddled with almost half a trillion dollars of debt. That was a lot of debt to pay off. Even for him. 

Thus, the second option appeared to be the best choice. But it wasn’t. In fact, it might even be the worst of the three. 

The reason why was simple—if he forced the companies to shut down, the legal framework they’d set up would disappear with them. It was easy enough to buy up their assets. But renegotiating all the contracts would be impossible. 

While this was a bit shitty, it was true that the main reason most of the workers were still there was because they’d been forced into unfair contracts that didn’t allow them to quit before their term was up. If the companies shut down, pretty much all the workers would simply flee the city. Good for them maybe, but awful for anyone left behind.

In the end, Freddy had been forced to take the companies over with their debt included. The legal heirs were either waiting for execution or exiled from the city. All of the illegal, shady shit was closed down. 

Funnily enough, most of the pieces of shit waiting for their rightful execution had offered to buy their freedom with the money Freddy was forced to part with. And even then, he still wasn’t allowed to accept it. Imperial banks didn’t allow any sort of method that could bypass their protections. 

Other than that, there were also all the other traitors who needed to be tracked down, the riots, the victims of exploitation, the gambling dens, the workers fleeing despite their contractual obligations—it was all just too much. 

Freddy finished his bottle, and just as he reached the bottom, he finally started feeling the alcohol hit. He pulled out a second bottle and continued drinking. 

As the night descended, and the third bottle drained, he finally felt his worries melt away, leaving him with a brief moment of blissful peace under the starry sky. He took a deep breath. It was fresh. Delicious. 

No matter how many problems were standing in his way, he took comfort in knowing that he was in position to do the right thing. 

And more than anything, he wanted to prove it. That being better was possible. That making a productive and healthy society within the Northern Belt wasn’t a daydream. 

He wanted to create a city people wanted to live in. 

And he wanted to earn a metric shit ton of money. The company debt was really nothing compared to the taxes of a whole city. Naturally, he would reinvest them into the city a while.

But if he played his cards right, he could have an enviable stream of passive income. 

At some point, sleep finally took him. 

He dreamed of counting golden sheep. 

***

Freddy was woken up by a finger poking into his cheek. “Huh?” he blurted as he opened his eyes. “What the f—” he shouted as he rushed to his feet, leaping away from the figure covered in numerous layers of thick clothing. 

“Finally found you, you asshole,” Sophia’s muffled voice came from beneath the thick scarf. She pulled it down, taking a deep, ragged breath. “Man, the air is so thin. Oh god. I feel sick.”

“Sophia?” Freddy cautiously called. 

“Yeah it’s me, you fucking dickhead,” she cursed. “You said you were gonna go for a hike and then vanished for two whole days. Do you know how many people are looking for you? The only reason I managed to track you down is because your life force shines like a frickin’ beacon atop this mountain!”

He chuckled and awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, sorry about that one. How’d you get up here?”

“It’s just a mountain,” she said. “You might have left me far behind in power, but I am still a peak one-star and generally pretty fit.”

“Fair enough.”

“So. Why here?”

“I just needed some fresh air.”

“I get it,” she said, slumping into the snow and continuing to struggle with breathing. “You’ve told me about the crazy dungeon you went to. I swear to god you’ve been looking like you’re about to lose it these days, so I’m not surprised you’d do this. But the others have no idea what’s happening. And everything is on fire!” She groaned. “Couldn’t you have brought me back to life on a tropical island somewhere?”

“Just be thankful you’re no longer floating in a jar.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” She waved him off, but then froze. She turned to face him with squinted eyes. “You didn’t do anything… weird to me, while I was like that… did you?” 

He laughed. “No. Any other questions?” 

“How aren’t you freezing to death? You’re barely wearing anything. Did you get the ice affinity?”

He simply offered her his hand. 

She grabbed it and gasped. “Wow that is so warm. I can feel it through my gloves. Come sit next to me. Be my human radiator. Because I’m freezing my ass off.”

He sat beside her, looking down as the morning sun shone over the city. And yeah. It was still on fire. “I don’t think I’m ready to dive back into that chaos yet.”

“I think you have to.”

“I don’t think I do.”

“You’d let it burn?”

“Better than going apeshit and burning it down myself. My work is quite messy. Or so they say.”

“People do talk a lot about you, you know? Are you aware just much you terrify everyone?”

“I’ve heard some of the rumors. Bit exaggerated, if you ask me.”

“They say you blew up like several dozen people with a single punch.”

“Technically, I hit a ball of metal that shattered into shrapnel. So that doesn’t count.”

“Uh-huh. Right.” She leaned in. “Can you show me?”

He grinned at her. “Alright. You asked for it.” Hopping to his feet, he conjured a ball of crimson metal. “You might wanna step back a bit.”

She took a few steps back. He shooed her further back. 

“You’re punching in the other direction, Freddy. I don’t think anything is gonna hit me here.”

“You might go deaf.”

“I… What? Deaf?”

He nodded. “It’s pretty loud.”

“Damn. Well, it’s fine. I can heal if that happens.” 

Freddy shrugged at her. “Suit yourself.”

He turned around and whispered. “Twisted Pendulum.” Suddenly, everything appeared to speed up. He waited for the debuff part to pass, and then, once he started moving at double speed, he activated a double-starred Flowing Strike and hit the ball of blood metal. 

It exploded violently with a bright flash of light, sending a vast shower of shrapnel down the side of the mountain. The shockwave split the air apart, and further down, he watched the snow begin to shift as several avalanches triggered at the sudden shockwave.

His hand had yet again exploded, leaving his bones bare of flesh. Once the spirit ability ran out, he turned to face Sophia with a shit-eating grin. 

She was holding her hands to her ears and her mouth was gaping wide open. 

“How’s that for loud?” he asked.

“What?” she shouted. “Wait!” she conjured a life spark and used it to heal herself. “Okay, wow, you were not joking! And lord almighty! Now I feel kinda bad for those people. That had to have hurt.”

“I’m sure it did.”

She peeked at his wrecked hand. “Freddy. You said your Flowing Strike is—”

“Tsunami Strike.”

“Tsunami Strike, right. You said its stage 3?”

He nodded.

“Okay… and what concept did you use to upgrade it?”

“Explosion.”

“Of course you did.”

He grinned. Shrugging, he walked back over and sat down again. In the distance, he could still hear some faint echoes of the explosion. He pulled out the spark of undeath and started punching it to heal himself. 

A soft finger touched his arm, and a moment later, an intense rush of healing burst through his body, rapidly putting his hand back together. Sophia put her glove back on and rubbed her hands. “Its just faster.” 

He smirked and put the spark away. “Thanks.”

For a long moment, they simply looked over the city in silence. It looked so small from up there. So fragile. 

“So…” she started. “When we were at that funeral…”

“Hmm?”

“I asked you about what you wanted. You said you’d tell me later. You never did.”

“Ah, yeah. Kind of forgot with all the crap that was happening.” He paused. “I don’t really have a goal anymore, necessarily. I mean I do, but it’s not like, very specific. I have… more of a direction.”

“Mm-hmm. And where are you going?”

He chewed on his words for a moment. “I want to become wealthier, more powerful, and get better at enjoying my life.”

She chuckled. “I get the first two. But isn’t it, like… I mean I’m not calling you stupid, but just do what you want to do, you know? Shouldn’t be that hard.”

“It can be harder than you think.” His eyebrows twitched a bit and he glanced at her. “You know, during those hundred years, I’d spent a lot of time knocking myself out. Even with healing, I forgot more stuff than I thought I would. But some things I remember very clearly. I have a better picture of my life, kind of. The things I cared about, the events that shaped me into who I am.” He paused for a moment, hesitant. “Remember that time I told you about… you know, that woman?”

She scowled. And then, as she realized what he was talking about, she lit up like a candle. “That guy’s wife?”

He winced. “Yeah. That memory really stands out to me.”

She snickered. “Wow, was the sex that good?”

“I don’t know. I was blackout drunk. I don’t remember a single thing.”

She winced. “Oh. Yikes. Sorry.”

“It gets worse than that,” he said with a laugh. “That was my first time, too. And the morning after was just… argh!” He groaned and aggressively scratched the top of his head “So cringy and awkward and… just fucking embarassing. So yeah. Enjoying yourself isn’t always easy. At the risk of sounding kind of shallow, I’m not really the relationship type. But a healthy guy still has needs, you know?

“And after a hundred years of solitude…” He blew air through pursed lips. “It’s bad. Real bad.” He looked over at Sophia with an awkward grin. 

And semblance of a smile had vanished off her face now and she stared at him with a serious glare. “Wait… so you were blackout drunk? Do you at least remember how you ended up with her?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Okay. Wow. Uhm. Yeah, that’s fucked up. I mean she was like, what, fifteen years older than you? That’s a big age gap.”

Freddy froze. “What do you mean?”

“I think you were one who was being used there, Freddy.”

“I mean… she was pretty drunk, too…”

She crossed her arms and simply stared at him. “I think this memory stayed with you for a reason.”

Freddy sighed. “Look, she did mumble some stuff about using me and me being a kid and all that, so I don’t think she did something she was particularly proud of.”

“And that makes it okay?”

“It makes it… a mistake. I can come to terms with that.” Then he returned her glare. “And I’ll tell you the same thing I told her—I wasn’t a damn child. Anyway… fuck this went in an awkward direction. The point of what I was trying to say is… look… I think the reason it stuck with me is because of just how far removed that was from what I imagined it would be like. It was literally just all shame. Not a single thing about that experience was positive. 

“And her husband even tried killing me later. So yeah. Colossal fuck-up. I want to have fun with life, you know? But I can admit that I suck at it. And I’m aware that it can be complicated. Not just this, but… everything, really.”

“Well you went here,” she said. “Was the hike fun?”

He slowly nodded with his lips curled into a “not bad” expression. “It was pretty fun. I’d love to do this sort of thing again. Somewhere warmer next time.” He turned to face her. “You know, there’s a route within the local interspace that takes to an unnamed island in the middle of the ocean somewhere.”

She lit up at that. “Really? Beach?”

“Beach indeed. But also. You know… Maybe a… non-zero chance of being attacked by a deep-sea monster that would absolutely annihilate us?”

After a long moment of staring at him in silence, she said, “I’d take the risk.”

“Beach then?”

She squinted and nodded seriously.  “Also”—she shot him a wide grin—“maybe we take some hot babes with us?”

He broke out laughing. “Oh, dear god…”

“What? Did one bad experience make you go celibate or something? How exactly do you expect to get better at this without interacting with women?”

“Yeah but here?” He suddenly turned serious. “No. I’m too powerful here.”

“Yes… you are,” she said cautiously. “And you’re also, if I may say so myself, quite attractive. Should make things… easier?” 

“Easier for who? Who can I make a move on without wondering whether they’re going to be too scared to refuse my advances?”

“Fair enough. But I’ll bet you whatever you want that, when things calm down a bit, you’ll have plenty of volunteers to choose from.”

“And why will they be volunteering? Are they expecting something in return? Will it just be a power play?”

She laughed. “I get where you’re coming from, and, really, you’re a great guy just for even thinking of that. But… we’re talking about sex here, you know? Power is like super closely tied to why people even go at it in the first place. If you’re expecting it to never get a little dirty in a not-so-sexy way, you’re probably better off finding a wife.”

“Okay, thank you for your input, but I think this conversation is over. Why did I even start this topic with you?”

“I don’t know. Guess I just remind you about traumatic stuff.”

“Yeah. The cliff is also a memory I recall quite vividly.”

“Wow, okay. Isn’t that right, Freddy Cliff? Are you just gonna keep naming yourself after things that traumatized you? What’s next? Freddy Solitary Confinement?” Then, she smiled as if she thought of a joke that she didn’t know whether she should share or not. Whatever demon rested on her shoulder clearly won since she opened her mouth. “Freddy MILF?”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then, they broke out into a fit of laughter. 

Once they calmed down, she got up and slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, big guy. We really gotta go back now.”

He groaned. “What’s waiting for me?”

“Well, for starters, they finally tracked down the last few traitors. Including your friend’s mom.” 

Freddy froze at that. “Right.

“I guess it's finally time for the public execution.”