Matt opened his right eye, while the left was covered by a bloody bandage and cotton. The first thing he saw was actually his own Summoner card.

[Summoner: Matthew Leblanc
ID Code: Trashmob-707
Rank: Unranked
Level: 7
Experience: 9/10
Mana: 7/7
Cards: 38
Description: A Player with zero skill, but a decent amount of luck. The kind of Summoner who makes other Players want to go out of their way to kill him.]

Just from that information alone, he knew that Michael had killed at least eight people while he was unconscious. After groaning from the dull ache, he looked around and noticed that he was in what seemed like a small hotel room. Except he could immediately tell that his room was moving. Then he looked outside the window and saw the bright sunshine and ocean waves crashing against the side of his ‘building’.

“I’m on a boat? What the fuck?” Then he quickly realized, “This is a cruise ship? And it looks kinda nice outside… Definitely not winter.” As he tried to get up out of bed, he heard someone shout towards his left.

“Oh holy fuck! You’re actually awake! Hahahaha~! I totally expected you to die!”

Even though he couldn’t see Michael, Matt could obviously recognize the obnoxious man’s voice. He turned around and felt dizzy, nearly falling to the ground. Fortunately, the nudist rushed forward and made sure that his Summoner didn’t lose his balance.

“Mike… What happened? Why are we on a cruise ship and how the hell did we get here?!” Matt noticed that they were both totally naked and felt extremely awkward, but at least they weren’t ‘dirty’. In fact, both of them seemed strangely clean considering the circumstances. He looked around for some boxers and a t-shirt, before quickly putting them on.

Meanwhile, Michael explained “Oh yeah, it was pretty fucked up. Your eyeball like flew outta your head and smacked onto my face. And the blood from your neck splashed all over me. Fortunately, it was so fucking cold that I only needed to put some snow on your neck and it froze over. Your eye socket too. And then I killed a few people who were trying to murder us… After that I was just driving around aimlessly, before I noticed that a cruise ship was being used to bring refugees away from Baltimore.”

“Wow, we were really lucky then.”

Matt smiled for a moment, before the nudist continued “Ah, not really. I’ve always believed that we make our own luck… Through violence and a whole~ lotta killing, hehehe~! Hahaha~! So I like, brought you over to the ship and they were all like ‘Hey, we ain’t lettin no crackers on board! Get that guy outta here!’ Then I started shooting people who had guns and yeah, I kinda-sorta became the captain through murder and brutality. You’re welcome!”

“Wait, you know how to drive a cruise ship?”

“What? Fuck no! Haha~, I’m just really good at killing and scaring the shit outta people! So yeah, there are obviously lots of other people on board. Also, when I said I was the ‘captain’, I meant more in the spiritual sense. I have no idea how to captain a vessel or pilot it. Best I can do is give general orders.”

While Michael was rambling on, Matt checked his empty graveyard, then his ‘active cards. Aside from the naked man, the magical clothing and the pitch-black armor, everything else had obviously returned to his deck. Then he checked his hand and found three new cards: Copper Coins, Simple Rifle Rounds and Fancy Tent… All of which were useless to him at that moment.

“Alright, so what’s the situation exactly? Where’s the ship headed?” Matt asked, as he discarded the Fancy Tent and drew a new card: Azrael’s Silver Keep.

“Ah, yeah, at first we were gonna head on down to Florida or the Bahamas, but then I had a much better idea… Why not go to Africa? So yeah, we’re off the coast of ummm… Well look, there’s like lots of fucking sand so I’d guess, Sahara desert maybe?” MIchael pointed out the large, open window, at the distant orange sands. It wasn’t simply a beach, because even beyond the shore, there were seemingly endless dunes.

Matt started laughing nervously, before shouting “Why the fuck would you go to Africa?! Even under normal circumstances there are pirates, bandits and warlords! What do you think it’s gonna be like now?!”

The naked man snickered, “Isn’t that a good thing though? Plenty of crazy bastards to kill, while they’re nowhere near as well-armed and organized as the US military. There’s no internet in this area either, so it’d be hard to track us once we ditch the giant target we’re riding in… Hmmm, should I kill the crew and passengers for experience before we leave?”

“Oh my God, you’re a fucking psychopath… Ugh, how the hell are we gonna survive in a desert anyway?” Even though he said that, Matt didn’t disagree with abandoning the ship and traversing the desert. His head hurt too much to even think about anything at that moment.

Michael smirked, telling him “Listen Kid… You don’t gotta think about anything, okay? Just let me do all the dirty shit and keep your innocent little brainbox outta trouble. You’re a Summoner, not a warrior. I on the other hand, wouldn’t feel right if I let those evil fucks live after what they did… To you.”

“Wait, what happened when I was sleeping?” Matt suddenly grimaced, “If you tell me that I got gangraped while I was unconscious, I’m gonna be really pissed off Mike!”

“What? Ah, no, not you.” He sighed and explained “We had at least a couple hundred passengers and a hundred crew when we first started. I had to kill a dozen or so assholes along the way, but other people started killing and raping each other. Since I was the captain, I was responsible for dealing out punishments for various crimes committed between crew and passengers. We lost a hundred or so people in the Atlantic. Then we got attacked by pirates, who killed even more people… And eventually, after about a week, we made it here with less than twenty crew and fifty passengers left. Everyone who survived until this point is definitely a murderer, or worse. Oh, and I also killed like five people because they smoked near me. Don’t ever fucking smoke near me!”

“Huh, then why did you say they did something to me?” Matt frowned, complaining “You scared me for a second there!”

“Oh yeah!” Michael snickered, “I almost forgot to mention that the crew all voted to either kill you or kick you off the ship, since you were practically dead the whole time. So I tied them up and was debating whether to hang em or like, just shoot em in the head. Then the passengers took the opportunity to kill off a bunch of them, there’s maybe one or two guys left. Like I said, we should probably kill em all for the experience, right? How many levels have you gotten since you got shot in the head?”

Matt grumbled “I only got eight experience… Providence, why didn’t I get EXP for Mike’s kills while I was unconscious?”

[In Old Earth Online, combat experience can only be earned from their Creatures when the enemies are powerful enough to threaten them. Also, experience is only earned through direct kills. Of course, these rules are different depending on which game you are playing.]

“Shit!” Michael cursed, “If I fuckin knew that, I wouldn’t have thrown all those half-dead assholes to the sharks! I figured it didn’t matter as long as I just killed people for you. Also, I tried not to let anyone threaten our lives, so sorry for not being reckless!”

 

*Author’s Note*

Finally got around to editing and posting some more chapters… Also finally added Next Chapter’ links to the past like 20 chapters… Took a while lol