Troja's True Form!

Thanks to Rose’s so-called “Jorden hops,” as she referred to them, we cleared all the islands and made it to the college. There weren’t any zombies outside of it, so we ran right in.

Davy may not have ever come here for a proper education, but he claimed he knew how to sneak around and to steal magic items from professor offices. We took his word and found some airducts.

He didn't seem very focused though. He kept squinting and hunching over like he was going to fall asleep.

"Davy, you alright?" I asked.

"I'm fine... Just a lil' winded is all."

Crow continued to keep an eye on him. Ginger wore an uncharacteristically worried face.

We crawled through air ducts until we were over a large auditorium chamber full of countless, precious heirlooms of valuable gold. We exited the vent at the head of that.

Up a large flight of stairs on the other end of the room was a throne, and just in front of it was the access point, already deployed into the virtual scape.

A lone figure sat on the throne, relaxed in posture and clad in heavy spiked armour. Like his taste in decor, his armour was impractical and over designed, but still held an imposing enough presence.

“Troja…” I muttered.

He was all smiles, cocky with a young, mid twenties face. He definitely had that air of ‘I’m a hot shot and you’re nothing’ around him.

Two scantily clad zombie girls with muzzles over their heads sat on the arms of his throne, his own arms wrapped around them, forcing their bosoms to press against his head.

“I could just eat you up…” one of the zombie girls said in a seductive tone.

“What a tasty meal…” the other zombie girl said.

“Ha ha ha!” Troja laughed. “Please, ladies… There’s plenty of me to go around. But I think I’ll be the one doing the biting, if you don’t mind!”

“Oh yuck,” I grimaced. “As if I needed anymore reason to hate this guy…”

Just above his throne was another girl, this one trapped inside a big bird cage. I couldn’t blame her for that vexed glare she was shooting down on Troja.

“I hate you…” she said, speaking the rest of our thoughts. “Just wait until I get out of here, you useless manchild.”

“Keep talking, Mally!” Troja taunted as one of the zombies fed him some grapes. “You should have gone out with me instead of that nerd Paul.”

“F off! At least Paul got a decent paying job! What did you end up with? Paying rent to use your mother's basement? Loser.”

“Hey! Owning a house is expensive right now!” he shouted up to her. “I’m saving money, okay? Besides, if this hacking gig works out, I’ll be swimming in cash.”

“Yeah, right. Like things are going to work in your favor.”

Did these two have history or something? I felt like we shouldn’t have been hearing this.

“Whatever semblance of fear I had for this guy is dead,” I commented.

-Man lost all his aura.-

“Aye…” Ginger looked very disappointed. “This bloke ain’t as cool as yee’ played him ta’ be.”

“Don’t underestimate him…” Crow said. “He’s a crafty one, if not annoying.”

If he knew how to manipulate the game, that was a scary enough feat for us to stay on guard.

“Who just sent that chat?!” Troja shouted as he read Rose’s message. “Come out, I say! You better not be talking about 'my' aura!”

“We already are out,” I shouted up to him as we approached the steps to his throne. “Look down here!”

“Huh?” his gaze turned down to the bottom of the steps to his seat. “Oh! Well well well, looks like you losers finally…”

-Look everyone, it’s ‘I never met my father's expectations because I'm a beta male, the boss!-

“Uhgaba… What did you just say about me?!” He quickly lost his cocky composure. “Oooh, you guys are in for it!”

Rose didn’t even give him a chance to monologue us. That was a savage move on her part.

“Is this guy really the one we’ve been looking for?” Tensei looked up at him with disappointment, much like the rest of us.

“Yes, little pipsqueak fairy,” replied Lord Troja. “I, Lord Troja, the epic infiltrator of panties and slayer of gods, am a hacker of the highest caliber!"

-Dude, touch grass. OMG like did you actually just say all that? You’re such a 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴 (˃⌓˂)(˃⌓˂)(˃⌓˂)-

“He’s probably never seen a woman other than his mom,” I added.

“Hah!” Malwaria laughed from above.

Lord Troja was getting visibly frustrated. I could practically see steam coming out of his ears, that's how bad they were pissing him off.

“S-stop it!” he sounded like he was going to start crying. “D-don’t you make fun of me! I’m rad as hell!”

-And you talk like a washed out DND hipster living in the 90’s. So cut to the chase and let us beat you up!-

The zombie women at his side were clearly supportive of him and blew raspberries our way, but their muzzles got all humid and wet and they couldn't reach in to clean it with their hands.

“Very well…” Troja said. “Now, you’ll face me in glorious combat!”

But, he didn’t get up. He continued to sit in his throne with his arm thrown out into the air.

“Is something supposed to happen?” my brow raised.

“Yeah. Come up here and fight me,” he said. “Unless, you're weak and scared, pleb.”

He just unironically called me a pleb. There’s a big difference between a nerd and a geek. I was a nerd, this guy was a geek.

“No,” I protested. “You come down here and fight us. We came to your boss arena, so now you meet us halfway.”

He let out a deep sigh and rolled his eyes.

“Why should I do all the work? You guys are invading the city I’ve rightfully stolen.”

Was this wannabe edgelord serious? There’s no way we were going to go all the way up to him just so he didn’t have to be inconvenienced.

-Ray, let’s just shoot magic at him until he comes down and fights like a man.-

“Good idea, hon,” I laughed as she raised my hands and primed lightning bolt. Electricity was good against armor.

Crow pulled out a crossbow and Davy shakily took aim with his rifle.

We let rip our projectiles his way. It gave Rose enough target practice to reliably get some headshots in to deal critical damage.

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Crap!” Lord Troja shouted. “Stop that! Ouch! Stop it, now! I swear, you’re all going to regret this impertinence! Ouch!”

“Gee, I’m not regretting it yet,” I said. “This is kinda’ fun.”

“Let me try!” Tensei picked up an expensive looking vase and threw it at the guy, but her little arms hardly launched it more than a few feet up in the air before it came crashing down to the floor. “Opps!”

“Hey!” Troja shouted at her. “That was an ultra-rare furniture pull! You owe me thirty thousand premium gold for that!”

Furniture pull? Were they really going to implement a system to get random housing furnishes in this game too? I really needed to work closer with the marketing team.

Rose had me purposefully shoot off lightning bolts into each of the expensive looking items on display and funny floating skulls. They all shattered to bits.

“Nooo!” he screamed like a toddler.

-How clumsy of me (≖ ᴗ≖)! -

“I hate all of you!” Troja shouted. “Fine! I’m getting up!”

He started to stand out of his seat like a decrepit old man in a rocking chair. Slow and steady, he eventually stabilized his stance long enough to pose proudly.

“Here I come!” His foot shuffled forward, slow and steady. Once it made some distance, the other foot took the lead. “I’m on my way!”

The stairs proved to be a whole other complication for him. He wobbled around and shuffled his feet like a penguin, careful not to tumble down the steps.

“Sonuva…” he turned his head, barely able to look over his oversized shoulder armour. “Screw it. Zombie babes! Lift me down there!” He extended his arms in a T pose.

The two zombie women both looked at each other with unsure faces, but tried to pick him up by his arms. They barely had the strength to do it together, even with the extra power their zombie bodies gave them.

-Hey, edgelord, you forgot your sword.-

It was literally just sitting there at the side of his seat.

“Ladies, you forgot to grab my sword!” he shouted.

They both rolled their eyes and let him down on the ground in front of us, then went back to his throne to grab the weapon. That thing was almost as big as him, so it took both of them to bring it down.

If he couldn’t move well before, there’s no chance he was moving with that oversized meat cleaver.

“This gave you trouble?” I asked Crow. "He's clearly over encumbered by all that bulky armor."

“I’ve only ever fought him on horseback,” Crow replied. "The horse did most of the work."

Ginger wasn’t the least bit impressed with him as she approached. She gave him plenty of time to get his sword and prepare to fight.

“Hit me,” she said, standing perfectly still.

“Don’t mind if I do!”

He raised up his sword. But as it came down, his sword just phased through Ginger without doing any damage.

“Huh?” his face filled with shock. “Hey, stand still!”

“I am,” she replied. “Are yee’ blind, halfwitt?”

He kept trying and trying, but each time his sword went clean through her without leaving a scratch, he just got more and more frustrated until he started seething with rage.

“What’s going on?!” he shouted. “How come I can’t hit you?”

Now I understood why she so boldly stood up to him like that. The Floating-point precision error. We’d been battling a lot with it constantly messing with us, so we more or less got used to it and were able to predict where an actual hit box was going to be. He however hardly ever got into a fight, so it was much harder on him to figure out how to get around it.

In retaliation, Ginger stuck her hand out to the side of Troja and pushed it forward. His whole body started toppling over. Tensei shouted “Timber!”

“Ooof!” he announced as he hit the ground and kicked his feet around like a turtle on his back. “C-can someone help me?”

-This boss battle sucks. (´д｀) -

It really was underwhelming, like he never planned anyone would actually make it this far and thought his armor would be enough of an intimidation factor.

Speaking of said armor, Ginger easily broke open his armor and yanked his frail little stick figure of a body out of it, then simply tied him up with rope and pushed him to the side.

“Looks like all yee’ armour was fer’ compensatin’ after all,” she chuckled.

“Hey!” Troja shouted with a flush red face. “Let me go, or you’ll be in trouble!”

-Spare us, dork. The only trouble here is us having to listen to you.-

"If you say so..." his cocky grin returned, and his brow bounced. "But don't get mad at me when your teammate with the gun over there decides to bite you in the back..."