"I can’t believe you lasted three years fighting these things, Brenden," my Father said before moving on to the next opponent, bringing down his maul (Large Hammer) and crushing the head of an undead like a melon.
We had been grinding for over 4 hours, and as I had expected, in the beginning, there was barely anything shuffling around in the tunnels, courtesy of my previous adventures.
When we eventually DID find some undead, they were just lowly Zombies; however, don’t get it fucked up; even if they were zombies, the decaying Humans weren’t the kind you’d see on that one tv show from the 2010s; these things may walk around, but they definitely weren’t dumb and slow.
The reason was they were all Beta-Rankers; thus, with the increase in power, they all got a slight bump in intelligence; although they were purely instinct-driven beings, that didn’t mean they couldn’t use techniques or Talent Skills, so one false move and it could be all over for Dad, who was still a Non-Ranker.
Still, it wasn’t like Brenden, and I couldn’t handle things on our end, so when we did hit our first roving pack, the two of us left a trail of legless, armless undead in our wake, allowing our Father to come along and bash their heads in like he was playing whack-a-mole.
Like this, we passed the time, chatting idly and, for lack of a better word, "Catching up" with our Father.
"Honestly, it’s not a pleasant memory; three years I was trapped in that Instance, barely gaining any XP or Racial Progress with my kills, because UNLIKE A CERTAIN SOMEONE, I don’t fiddle-fuck through the Arkadia shops looking for niche items to make my life easier." Rushing forward, Brenden used a shortsword to hack away the limbs of a zombie before moving on to the next one, clearly taking out his frustration on the poor undead in the process.
"I will say it for the last time: that isn’t my fault! How could I possibly be blamed for your lack of curiosity? How can you see an item with a weird name and not want to figure out what it does? That is LITERALLY the whole reason I stumble into the items to make scenarios favorable for me." Trading out with Brenden, I slid on the ground and hacked out the ankles of two undead with my new gauntlet claws.
That’s right, my days of wielding a random assortment of daggers and knives had finally come to a close, and after a lot of trial and error with low-grade materials, I had finally crafted the perfect forearm-mounted claws, just like I had in the Origin Timeline.
Mind you, my gauntlets were nothing like the high-tech ones I used as Xipher back then, but instead a barebones weapon, I felt it was better to use a weapon I was familiar with versus something that I could potentially get myself killed with by using.
"Just admit it, Brenden, you’re Poor as Poor can be, and that’s why you don’t spend money to satiate the itch of curiosity."
"Bullshit, I had ample funds when I was in charge of Vesaragon, hell I was making millions, but I never WASTED money on stupid trash-tier fodder items." Brenden’s words were like a tactical nuke to my brain, as the word "Wasted" echoed in my thoughts on repeat, causing me to lash out at the nearest pack of zombies like a feral animal.
"YOU TAKE THAT BACK, I DON’T WASTE MONEY!"
SLASH SLASH SLASH
"I DON’T WASTE MONEY!"
SLASH SLASH SLASH
"I NEVER WASTE MONEY!"
As if possessed by a certain metal-clawed Comic Hero, I hacked and slashed through anything that moved while chanting the mantra about not wasting money.
"Uh-oh…did I break him?" Appearing beside our Father, who had finished killing off a patch of crippled zombies, Brenden asked with uncertainty.
"No, he gets like this from time to time; I saw it happen quite frequently. Although your brother stays rather composed a good majority of the time, there are certain buttons that, when pushed…well…" Waving in my direction as I flitted around, tearing through the undead as if they were made of paper mache, my Father spoke in a knowing tone.
"O….kay…remind me not to use those trigger words with him again, cause if we are out in public, he will easily end up on the 5oclock news as a spree killer. Anywho, Dad, tell me something. Have you been watching him here in the past, too? Or were you still in the Origin Timeline with me?" Brenden asked while handing over a bottle of regular spring water to our Dad.
"Time is a mysterious thing, Brenden, and in the state, I was in, I could traverse it so long as I had one of you to teather to. There were some days when I would follow you along during your time in the Undead Instance, and other days I’d flashback in time to check on Taylor." Proping his large hammer over his shoulder, my Father watched me bouncing around killing while explaining with an air of mystery.
"I caught all of the key moments in both your lives after my Death, starting from the Funeral, as that was roughly when I became cognizant that I was no longer in the land of the living." Pausing as the memory of Brenden and me in the cemetery carrying out our family traditions came to mind, a nostalgic and sad look filled my Father’s eyes.
Unfortunately, a moment later, when he turned to look at Brenden and saw the clueless and lost look in his eyes, my Father sighed and broke it down as if talking to a five-year-old.
"It was like I was floating in space, watching a TV with only two channels, one for you and one for your brother, and no matter the time and place, I could watch it live. At a certain point, it was like watching a rerun of the Taylor Show."
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"I bet my show had better ratings, hmph," Brenden stated with a scoff as if it was a commonly known fact.