NO ESCAPE

Kael holds Haruto, ready to grind his skull into the ground with their dive. Haruto pulls his right arm free, letting Yggdrasil hang from the vines that had wrapped around his wrist as he pulled Aki's potion from his pocket. Kael grabs his wrist to stop the consumption.

"You think I'm just gonna let you potion up?" Kael's laughter mixed with the whipping wind.

Haruto gritted his teeth, kicking Kael in the face with the leg he had let go of. He wouldn't let go of Haruto's wrist. Haruto saw the System flying after them in their free fall.

"Haruto! Let it go!" The System screamed.

He did what it said. He released his grasp on the potion, letting it fly upward. The System's materialized hands came to the rescue, catching the potion and flying to Haruto's face. The wind wouldn't allow the potion to be drunk, however.

"Throw it in!" Haruto said, opening his mouth wide.

For once, the System didn't argue. It threw the potion into Haruto's mouth. Glass vial and all. Haruto bit down, breaking the glass and filtering the potion with his tongue the best he could. He could hear the cackling of spectral dice rolling. Just before his head hit the ground, a notification popped up in front of him.

Skill Cooldowns Reset

His eyes went wide as his head collided with the ground. The potion regained him no hit points, and he went to 0 instantly. Haruto was finished this time. Without a potion to keep him constantly healing like the one he drank before, this was the last life he had.

The dust rose from the impact they had just made. Kael pulled the broken Haruto from the ground and threw him to the side. He pounced on the System, holding it in an inescapable grip.

"You should have left him to die like the others!" Kael said. "He wasn't any different!"

Kael continued to laugh, the wind picking up the dust and sweeping it to the sky. This was his final victory. With this, the Career Management Society reached its goal. Now it was just a matter of time before they became an army that could change jobs at will. The ultimate power in this kind of world. People can take advantage of the power bug in specific jobs without sacrificing the versatility of all jobs at once.

"And look at you! You got caught this time because you stuck around." Kael continued gloating. "Did you think you were helping?"

"I... I..." Fat tears welled up in the System's giant eye. "I didn't want to leave him behind this time."

"That was your mistake. You could have just summoned another one." Kael poked and prodded in his victory. "Maybe the next one would have been—"

With a sudden crack, a stick parted the dust, planting itself firmly in Kael's nose. Haruto stepped forward as he expended all ten of his stored Barrage Stacks. Kael had already absorbed the impact of the fall, so all ten impacts crashed against his face at once.

Surprised, Kael released the System as the ten impacts threw him back. A blood-drenched Haruto stood before him, eyes shining behind his dark circles. Two notifications hovered beside him.

Passive Activated: Survivor
Skill Cooldowns Reset

Haruto spat the broken vial into the dirt. Kael looked at him in bewilderment, unable to fathom how Haruto had survived that dive. Haruto's eyes burned not with passion, just stubbornness.

"How?" Kael asked, the calmest he's seemed all day.

A bolt of black lightning fell from the clear sky, lighting the area in a flash. As the light receded, it left in its place a stage that seemed to float above the ground. Colored spotlights flicked on one after another, dancing across the sky. Five neon creatures stood upon the stage as the lights converged on them.

At the front, a ghostly beauty. Their singer was a statuesque woman with magenta skin and teal hair that floated as if underwater. Her grin stretched further than it should, and her breath came out in waves of shimmering mist. She held a microphone in the shape of a scythe.

To her left, a skeletal guitarist plucked a jagged instrument whose strings were taut veins. His bones glowed electric blue, and every note he struck reverberated with a vibration that shook the earth beneath Haruto’s feet.

On the other side, the zombified bassist hunched over, grotesquely elongated arms dragging along the fretboard of an instrument made from a coffin lid. His body pulsed with neon violet light, as though his marrow itself were alive with sound.

Behind them, the drummer was an eyeless figure with toxic green bones, each strike on his drum kit tearing sparks of black fire from the air. His sticks weren’t wood but femurs, each swing cracking like lightning.

And finally, the keyboardist sat behind a warped slab of teeth that clicked and rattled under his touch. His skull flickered with ultraviolet cracks, like a strobe light trapped inside, each chord distorting the very air with ghostly echoes.

"Are you ready to SCREAM?!" The woman asked, her voice switching easily from sultry and smooth to a gritty scream. She threw a wink at the bloodied Haruto. "I'm rooting for you, pretty boy."

"This is amazing! The Bardic Legion has blessed our battle." Kael said, regaining his excitement. "Regardless of which one of us wins, our battle will alter the course of this world. And the best part. That means there's no escape for you anymore!"

"Yeah! Graveyard rising!" The woman screamed melodically. "PLUG IN THE VIOLENCE!"

The music started, and the woman began to scream. Kael bounded forward, the fire reignited in his chest. Haruto ran forward to meet his challenge.

Kael’s fist met Haruto’s ribs like a hammer against brittle wood. Haruto felt them crack, air leaving his lungs in a guttural cough. His feet left the ground as Kael’s boot caught his chest, launching him backward. Haruto hit 0 HP.

Passive Activated: Survivor
Skill Cooldowns Reset

He dragged himself upright again, blood bubbling from his lips. His vision was doubling, but his legs didn’t listen to the pain—they just carried him forward. Kael lifted his arm for the killing blow, and Haruto’s eyes snapped open. He switched to Blue Tie Assassin, wrapping Kael's arm with his tie. With a guttural scream, Haruto yanked him off balance and headbutted him.

“Just. Die!” Kael’s voice was thunder, his follow-up kick colliding with Haruto’s head, snapping his neck.

The System screamed from above, but the notifications just kept flaring. Haruto stumbled up again, laughing maniacally. The skeletal guitarist struck a vicious chord, neon sparks running along his bones as though the song itself was keeping Haruto moving.

“NO ESCAPE!” The magenta singer shrieked, head whipping back in ecstasy. “THE DEAD KEEP CALLING!”

Kael grabbed Haruto by the throat this time, smashing his skull into the dirt hard enough to crater the ground. He didn’t let go—just slammed him again. And again. Each strike brought another popup.

Blood pooled. Bones bent. Haruto’s body looked like it should have collapsed into silence ages ago. And still, he rose—each time slower, each time less human, but each time rising.

“You don’t get it!” Kael howled, rage breaking through his grin. “You’re DONE! You’re just a bug! A glitch in the world!”

Haruto’s head lolled. He laughed as his mind kept breaking. No. He was clear-headed. It was the first time he's really let loose. No matter how badly he was broken, he was still moving forward.

"The song seems to be called 'No Escape,'" Haruto said. "I don't think they're singing it about me!"

Haruto’s hand twitched. Yggdrasil pulled itself toward him, shining a pale but warm light. His blood-slick grin lit the night. He had gotten level ups for multiple jobs during this beating... and a level up for Yggdrasil.

He hadn't thought too much about the reason the System gave him that specific stick in the fight against the Gob-uh-lin chief. Stick Hero works with any vaguely sword-shaped stick. But this stick had become special without him even noticing it. When he first picked it up, he gave it a job.

Kael felt the ground shift beneath him. Haruto’s wounds began to heal in the warm light of Yggdrasil. It wasn't Haruto's power. It was the power of the Holy Blade Yggdrasil.

“Impossible…” Kael's fear began to take hold. Without meaning to, he had contributed to the making of a monster. And for the first time, Kael took a step back.

"YOU CAN'T RUN!" The singer leaned into her mic-scythe and screamed. "THERE'S NO ESCAAAAAPE!!!"