Chapter 13 #2
There was a cluster of hunters right at the door, some minmaxers, some townies with homemade tech.
I loved the latter. Their gear was often truly ingenious, and I was delighted when I got a chance to examine it as closely as I dared.
Sometimes, their gear failed so badly that it took out half my opposition, so I was a huge fan of that too.
The minmaxers were tricky. Sometimes their magic worked on me, and sometimes it didn’t. I had no way of knowing when I’d be safe, so I always played it super cautious.
I decided to try and sneak past the group at the door by distracting them with my only flashbang. I didn’t have many traps inside and had no way of knowing if the ones I’d set up were still functional, but fortune favored the brave, and I was only going to win if I chose to be brave.
What was the worst that could happen? I’d die in pursuit of my only goal in life? I’d heard worse offers, though I was still hanging on to the slim hope I could get Vale to do me in.
I was about to toss my flashbang when someone grabbed my arm.
Shit. The glowing ball in their hand marked them as a minmaxer.
Letting one of those get so close to me was almost always game over.
My mind flicked to thoughts of Vale, and instead of wishing he was the one who might be about to kill me, I found myself thinking it was a shame I wouldn’t get a chance to apologize for being a dick to him earlier.
Somehow, I thought he’d be sad when he found out I’d died.
It was that thought alone that spurred me to twist free of the minmaxer’s grasp rather than letting fate take its course.
I didn’t want to give Vale another reason to be sad. I didn’t know what had happened in his life, but I refused to add to his burdens.
Unfortunately for me, the minmaxer managed to get a firm hold of my sweater—Vale’s sweater—and yanked me into them.
Light flared against my face, and the heat was searing, forcing me to shut my eyes.
I was pretty sure I’d accidentally found one of the nastier minmaxers, because that sure didn’t feel like a disabling spell to me.
I fought the minmaxer’s grasp, but they had too good a hold on me, and it was pointless.
“Sucks to be you, little pissant,” The minmaxer snarled around a mouth full of tusks. “My night’s been ruined, and I’m making it your problem.”
“Ruined?” I asked. Had I missed something? Or was this guy just having a bad night in general?
He didn’t seem inclined to elaborate, but instead was raring to go for the kill, but he paused in his tracks and sniffed the air. He dropped his hold on me and stumbled backward.
“I-I didn’t know…” he stammered before turning around and running out of the church yard.
Or he would have made out if he hadn’t gotten darted in the butt on his way to freedom. I was happy to see the toxin worked on minmaxers and made a mental note to write my findings down as soon as possible.
I was eager to get back into the fray, but then some crazy ass mother fucker set off an air horn.
Like what the fuck? An actual air horn?
It was too late to do anything other than scramble out of the churchyard because the pastor’s light went on and his window flew open. I hightailed it out of there, but I could hear him swearing up a storm behind me.
I don’t know if you know this, but preachers can swear better than almost anyone.
“Stop fucking around and get the job done, you bastards!” The pastor shouted. “You should have finished last night, you incompetent fucks!”
Yeah, Pastor Jonathan is a pretty badass motherfucker, and while I’m not a church guy, he’s all right with me. Dude hates the bells more than any of us, so if he was willing to acknowledge being woken up, we had to have been unbelievably irritating.
Apparently, an airhorn did the job nicely.
I was cursing under my breath, but at the same time, I was happy to have another chance to prepare for the next hunt.
I was so happy, in fact, that I didn’t stop to wonder why that minmaxer had practically wet himself trying to get away from harmless little old me, or why someone had brought an airhorn to the hunt.
I fell asleep on a pile of notes and plans that night, confident in my ability to make it to the tower first during the next battle and finally win the title.
The next morning, I went through my morning class on autopilot and ignored the mountain of papers in my inbox because I had something to do before setting my traps.
Unfortunately, my students were going to have to wait one more day for their homework to be graded. I had to make things right with Vale.
I found myself staring at Vale’s house, the hulking monstrosity that stood out even among all of the other frankenhouses our colonial town had to offer.
I was about to step onto the property when I noticed a few tell-tale signs of traps littered around the base of the building.
I hadn’t noticed them in my Apple-induced state the day before, but wow.
I must have seen them subconsciously, because the spot where I had tried to set up camp was mere feet from the first trap tucked up against the house.
I wondered what would have happened if the soldiers the day before had made it to the traps.
Would the residents even have needed to come out to defend their property?
They should spread their traps out closer to the edge of the property if they wanted to maximize the use of their security system to keep out random soldiers.
Speaking of soldiers, there wasn’t a single sign of their existence. No blood, no displaced grass. Nothing. Not even a hole in the ground where my haphazardly placed tent poles had been.
I stayed strictly on the sidewalk leading to the house, though I saw at least two areas on the path that looked like they could open up and drop an unwitting person into a pit trap of some sort. I stayed well clear of those by jumping over them.
Even the porch was rigged to send a person straight to the afterlife, but I had to trust it wouldn’t be triggered unless someone was being hostile. When I knocked on the door, I was barely paying attention because my eye kept catching on how obvious some of the wiring was on the door frame.
Talk about telegraphing your traps. Whoever made it might as well have put up a sign saying wear rubber shoes and gloves, or get electrocuted when you try to break in.
They’d have to put it next to the door, because it was already fully covered with a sign filled to the brim with deranged ranting about what could and couldn’t be allowed in the house. No dogs was crossed out along with No cats, but No wombats was circled and underlined half a dozen times.
What the hell had happened with wombats to get them banned? They were adorable.
When the door wrenched open to present Baz or Vix, I continued to stare at the wiring.
“Hey, it’s vampire snack boy! So nice to see you again!
” Baz or Vix reached out to shake my hand, and I stepped back out of reach.
I was pretty sure they were doing it on purpose at that point.
I wondered what would happen if I attached a joy buzzer to my palm and let them go to town next time I saw them.
Probably die if they were as morally bankrupt as they seemed.
Maybe I’d pass on that idea. It was Vale or no one at this point.
I pointed indignantly at the wiring and made a tch sound to show my displeasure.
“You don’t like my trap? Baz told me it’s awesome,” The person I realized was probably Vix said, eyes welling up.
Baz came up behind Vix and said, “Hey, stop pretending to be me! We talked about this, Baz. You can’t trick Paris into fucking you because he can totally tell us apart.” The person who might actually have been Vix punched the person who might actually have been Baz in the shoulder.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. When I opened them again, I squinted, trying to figure out who was who. Eventually, I gave up with a sigh.
It didn’t matter who was who. I wasn’t going to be able to talk to them much anyway, so it was a moot point.
Once again, I pointed at the wiring and gave it a dirty look before turning back to the twins and gesturing to them and then back at the wiring.
“Hey, I have a lot to do around here, okay?” One of the redheads said. “If you want better concealed wiring, do it yourself.”
I snorted, fished around in my cargo pants pockets, and pulled out a pair of rubber gloves, duct tape, and a pair of needle-nose pliers. I was loaded to the brim with trap-setting supplies, so it would be child’s play to do as they suggested.
I tried to mime shutting off a switch, but both men gave me twin expressions of confusion. I groaned in frustration, then pointed to the wiring and pretended to get electrocuted.
Once again, I was dying by Vale’s hands or nothing.
“Oh, shit, right. You don’t want to get electrocuted. Hey, Love! Shut down all power connected to the porch.”
Both redheads sat down on the porch and watched as I quickly tucked the wiring away and made it blend seamlessly into the faux wooden siding of the porch.
“He did that in two minutes; did you see that?”
“I could have done it that quickly if I’d wanted to—”
“But you didn’t, butt face, so shut up about it.”
“You’re easily three times uglier than I am, so you shut up.”
I put my tools away while they bickered about who was uglier, stupider, and worse at blow jobs, wondering how anyone ever managed to get anything done with them around.
I cleared my throat to get their attention, and when that didn’t work, I stomped the floor next to the closest redhead. “Vale,” I said firmly. I was there for a reason, not to be an audience for a two-man show, no matter how entertaining it may have been.
The closest redhead stopped mid-sentence and turned to me. “Here for another round? Vale’s dick is pretty spectacular, right? He doesn’t get a lot of repeat visitors, though, other than us, I mean.”