Chapter 22 #3
“More than you,” he shot back, amused. “What are you going to do when a pack of raptors catches a whiff and surrounds your little beach house?”
“How big’a raptors we talking?”
He stopped and shifted me to one arm and placed his free hand about two feet off the ground.
I scoffed. “That’s smaller than a dog, I’ll just kick it away.”
“And when there’s twenty of them?”
“…I’ll go inside and lock the door. It’s not rocket science.”
He stared at me for a moment before hauling me over his shoulder and marching off. “Less than a day.”
Osid set me down once we reached the quaint little town nestled in the valley of snow.
Everything from storefront to lamppost was decked out in strings of holly and twinkling lights.
There was an eerie, disjointed jingle coming through false rock speakers scattered throughout the town square.
Flying reindeer paraded around the sky like they were this town’s terrifying version of pigeons.
The AI lost the plot a little bit when it came to the winged ice angels duking it out in the fountain while wielding oversized candy canes, but it added an air of gravitas to an otherwise pretty standard Christmas town, so I enjoyed it.
I snatched a lantern hanging next to a windowsill and pressed my hands against the glass sides. Its warmth spread into my frozen fingers, and I squeezed it tightly to my chest. “Sweet, beautiful fire!”
The townsfolk were the same kind of odd looking androids we saw on our first date, but something was a bit different.
They moved around with nervous, jerky energy, and a lot of their actions looked repetitive if I looked too close.
A woman in a bright-yellow coat waved to nobody in particular, her hand glitching in and out.
A gaggle of children patted snow against the base of the snowman, their laughter looping every few seconds, which would’ve been odd enough, but the fact that their faces were unnervingly blank sent a chill through my spine.
Some residents were more frantic, aimlessly darting around and speaking in that nonsensical chatter.
A baker held the tray of gingerbread cookies out to a businessman, his gibberish almost pleading.
But the would-be patron only fell to his knees and started sobbing.
“What in the glitching sim characters…” I trailed off, finally noticing the lack of detail in their faces compared to the android from before. Flat eyes, stiff smiles, and poorly textured clothing. “Where did the budget for this room go?”
“They do seem to be acting a little strange,” the king said.
“A little strange?” I looked at him incredulously, then pointed to a dog reared up, its hind legs surrounded by bowing children. “Those kids formed some sort of corgi cult. This is beyond a little strange.”
A clear voice cut through the garbled noise.
“You there! Stranger!” An old man dressed in a well-tailored suit and top hat with glittering tinsel and a sash that read “Mayor” waved over at us from next to a gargantuan Christmas tree.
His face held the same flat features as the others, but his beard, that luscious flowing beard, probably ate up a good 20 percent of the budget of this room.
He stroked a nervous hand down the luxurious mane.
“Please, come here!” He waved. We had only just begun walking toward him when he broke out in a half run to close the distance even faster, his expression a blend of panic and desperation.
“Thank the stars above, our prayers are answered. You must help us!”
“Yeah, yeah.” I sighed. “We know, look, let’s skip the whole dire citizen monologue. How do we find your star of Christmas to fix your tree or whatever?”
The mayor shook his head violently. “Not the star,” he cried. “We have the star! It’s the nose we’re missing.”
“The nose?”
“The nose!”
“…You lost me.”
“The nose is the light of Christmas,” the mayor said, his voice dripping with despair. “Without the nose, Rudolph won’t be able to fly up and place the star on the tree.”
Just then, the saddest no-nose-having reindeer walked out from behind the tree. It neighed pitifully and slumped to the ground in utter defeat.
To my surprise, I felt Osid shiver beside me. The proud king actually looked a little disturbed. He took a step back and kept his eyes locked on Rudolph. “What kind of monster goes after a single body part? This task will be more dangerous than we thought.”
I swatted his shoulder. “Oh, don’t freak out on me now. It’s just a simulation, that’s not even a real reindeer.” Turning back to the mayor, I asked, “So, who’s the thief and where do we find them?”
“An evil spirit, the dreaded Krampus, stole Rudolph’s nose.
The light of Christmas is lost, and we can’t hold our celebration.
The people of this town rely on Rudolph’s light.
Without it, we’re starting to fall apart.
” He gestured around us, and I noticed how ragged the townsfolk looked.
Some of them even hammed it up and began sobbing quietly, their clothes literally becoming tattered the more I looked at them.
Others slumped against the nearest surface, lamenting their despair in their weird little garble speak.
“He keeps the light to himself at his home under Sugarplum Bridge.”
I stuck a hand on my hip and shifted my weight to one side. “Got it. Kill Krampus, get the nose, save the transaction of Christmas. Anything else?”
The mayor shook his head.
“What is a Krampus?” the king asked warily.
“It’s, uh…well, come to think of it, he looks a lot like you but with a long beard and a love for beating naughty people with a switch.”
His brow lifted. “You have Sankado on your planet? I assumed your species’ males would also be human.”
“They are. Krampus isn’t a Sankado. He’s not actually real, either way.
He’s like a…storybook character with goat horns and a penchant for stuffing kids in sacks.
Apparently in this world, he steals the noses off innocent simulated reindeer.
Anyway, at the end of the day, he’s still just a man.
So let’s stab him or whatever and get this over with. I’m already sick of the cold.”
“Jumping straight into assassination, then? I knew I liked you.”
“Of course you like me, I’m a fresh breeze on a summer day. It’s your unlovable ass that we need to work on.”
“I see the warmth of the lantern has made you bold. Wasn’t I ‘husband dearest’ a few moments ago?”
“Times change, Your Majesty.”
“Is that right?” The king reached for the lantern, opened the little door on the side and doused the flame between his thumb and forefinger, a cruel smile playing on his lips.
I gasped. “A plague upon your house.”
He smirked. “Our house.”
The mayor’s expression went blank, and he dropped his arms to his sides as he grew very still. His mouth fell open, but it was the speaker’s voice that rang from his mouth. “Emotional dissonance detected.”
“Shit.”
The ground rumbled beneath us.
“Oh come on, he was just teasing!” I slapped Osid’s shoulder frantically and held up the lantern. “Light the candle, light the candle, light the candle!”
He took it from me and breathed fire onto the wick until it lit once more. Shoving the lantern back in my hands, he came to stand behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “See, we’re still getting along. No need to—”
“Adjusting difficulty level to encourage bonding under duress. Increasing Krampus threat.”
“No!” I shouted, passing off the lantern to Osid. I grabbed the mayor by his shoulders and shook him. “Take it back! Don’t you dare make this any harder!”
The mayor blinked. “Understood: Increase difficulty to Dare level. Configuring adjustments.”
“No! No, dammit, turn off!” I punched the mayor, trying to shut him up. I felt a crack against my fist as his nose broke. His arms remained flat at his sides as he fell backward into the snow.
“Error! Error! Adjusting difficulty.”
“No! Osid, help me out here!”
Tossing the lantern to the side, Osid ran up beside me and slammed his hoof down on the mayor’s face, crushing it. The error message faded off into a blurred lull before the voice fell silent.
Cautiously, I glanced around to find that the rumbling had stopped. “Do you think we fixed it?” I asked.
The creepy Christmas jingle stopped, and the announcer’s voice came in from every speaker in the town. “Command received, Kaiju-level difficulty accepted.”
With a deafening crack, the cobblestone ground beneath my feet split open, sending showers of snow and rubble into the air.
The townsfolk screamed, scattering in every direction, some of their bodies clipping through the scenery like the simulation itself was struggling to contain the hell it just wrought.
A low groan drew my attention east just in time to see the candy cane railings of Sugarplum Bridge snap and crumple like toothpicks.
A massive clawed hand—each digit tipped with curling, blood-colored talons—burst into view.
The hand slammed into the ground and gored the land with deep grooves as it tried to drag the rest of its huge body from the river.
Slowly, impossibly, the rest of the creature followed, an enormous horned figure that stretched higher and higher until its head eclipsed the simulated sun.
Kaiju Krampus.
His fur was the color of pine bark, and his massive horns curled up to the heavens, scraping against the invisible barrier of the simulation like the personification of Christmas misery.
Globs of drool hung from a gaping maw filled with jagged icicle-like teeth.
His glowing red eyes burned in righteous fury.
Around his neck was a necklace woven of twisted branches and sleigh bells that jingled with every movement.
In the center of the necklace was a shining red light. Rudolph’s nose, I realized.
Osid froze at my side. “That…is not a Sankado.”
Krampus reared back and let out an ear-piercing roar, his voice distorted with static.
“…Nope.”