A Gaming Conception

When I went to sleep, I didn't expect to be thrown into someone's Worm CYOA. I recognized it as the third version, but I don't remember making this one personally. But there is no time for that. If I hesitate I will age, if I retreat I will die.

And this is the final chapter for this story. I'll be sad to see it go, but it was never meant to be long. This chapter takes place a week after the last, mostly. I don't know how to go about writing the Legend speech, so that will be glossed over. Now, to start the chapter.

Chapter 5

I wake up to the sound of an alarm. The tone of it tells me that we are being attacked by the last Endbringer. I got ready to fight all that I could. I brought out my best equipment, weapons and armor made using the actual processes, got my skills ready. And finally, equipped the second Title I ever received.

[Heart Seeker: deal 100% of enemy health as damage when hitting the heart of an enemy]

My father entered the room as I was about to leave. "Rimuru! We're going to the Shelter!"

I smiled sadly at him. "I cannot. I need to protect my home."

Father looked at what I had prepared, and started crying. "No! I can't have another son die! I can't, I can't." He broke down sobbing.

I walked over to kneel down beside him, and gave him a hug. "Hey, I'll be fine. Don't worry about me. Get yourself and Mom to safety, Dad." He began to pick himself up, and I continued leaving. "I'm sorry, but I have to protect you both, and the rest of this city."

XXXXX

Right now, every Cape from what seems to be just about everywhere are all gathered in one area. Somewhat surprising that some aren't killing others, but this is the last Endbringer, and people want it dead more than the other Capes around them. I listened with half an ear to the speech Legend gave, but didn't catch all of it. There was the 'last Endbringer' the 'Scion is missing' bits, things like that, but I disregarded it all as unimportant. My focus was what my [Echolocation] could tell me about Leviathan's presence. He is currently not within my range, but I should be able to keep up once he is. My Dex stat is at 76, and from what I can remember my speed is close to his. Hypersonic, but my [Echolocation] no longer uses sound waves.

I saw the tsunami well before I heard it. Vision is further distance than my other senses, after all. And there, riding the wave, was Leviathan. Last time, when Scion fought and drove Leviathan off, he took off one of its limbs. For some reason, that wound hasn't regenerated, even if everything else has. Everyone else moved away from the Beast, but I stood my ground. Point of fact, I stood on top of a building, roughly centered in the wave. I spoke two words, "[Analysis] [Comparison]"

HP: 700

Str: 60 Dex: 80 End: 70 Int: 5 Wis: 3

Status Effect: Disarmed- Scion's final attack took one of the Beasts limbs, and even now its regeneration is being negated.]

[Rimuru Tempest (Lv72) Heart Seeker

HP: 1140

Str: 61 Dex: 76 End: 64 Int: 18 Wis: 20

Points to Spend: 213]

And this, is the absurdity allowed by the Gamer and Charles Atlas Superpowers. Not to mention the skills that it gives, and the conceptual nature of the power. Hm, I've already reached the point that I can no longer train my stats to any decent degree, so I'll just spend some points. 14 to Dex, 11 to End, and 9 to Str. That leaves me with 179 points left over.

[Skills

Breathing without Air (LvMAX): you no longer need to breath to survive. Evolved from Holding Breath

Swimming (LvMax): you can swim through any physical material with no loss of speed.

Legendary Weapons Mastery (LvMAX): your skill with a weapon possesses no equal. With a suitable edge, you can cut through mountains, split the seas, and nothing can pose the slightest resistance to the edge of your blade. A blunter weapon will crush all defenses, and carry the weight of mountains with each swing. Evolved from Mythical Weapons Mastery]

"Sever the seas, Aranrúth." With these words, I brought my sword out of the sheath, and swung from the ground up. I didn't want to cut the building in half as well, after all. And sever the seas it did. The massive wave that was about to hit the city, parted and crashed to the ground on either side. Even Leviathan couldn't quite dodge in time, getting half his tail cut off from the rest.

As the rest of the Capes currently protecting the city gapped at what I had done, I ran at the living natural disaster. While [3D Maneuvering] has never allowed me to fly, I still could walk on the platforms it gave me. Not really a platform, more just making it a fact that I can stand on empty space. My run had me stopping just short of the Beast, and I waited for it to make the first move. It took the offer, and swiped at me with the forelimb that hadn't been removed by Scion.

Its claws broke on the mask that covers my face. That same mask was made the same as my sword, after all.

[Anti-Demon Mask: a simple mask of cloth and metal, this in no way detracts from its defensive attributes. A perfect defense, as it does not truly follow physics. Any attack that hits is completely negated, with the attacker taking the damage it would have dealt due to the impossibility

Aranrúth: the perfect sword. The greatest weapon to have ever been created, nonetheless unadorned and simple. A wooden handle, surrounding a spine of steel. The blade, guard, and spine are made of one continuous pieces of metal. The sharpest blade that exists, and a blade that cannot be worn down or broken

Raiment of Tempest: the costume worn by the Hero Tempest. It is made using his hair as the thread of the cloth, and shares his durability]

These are what I had prepared for this fight. Any one of these would turn a normal person into a nearly unstoppable opponent, in this world, and they are the reason I could say with certainty that I will be coming out of this fight the winner. Perhaps, in worlds other than Worm, with more characters the likes of Scion, these wouldn't be as potent. But this is a low-powered setting, and power isn't what works here. That is why, for the last major threat to be destroyed, I will send Leviathan off to wherever these creatures go when they die in a manner befitting the work of Wildblow.

So saying, I jumped at the Beast, and slipped inside his many layers. Using my [Swimming] skill, I found his core. As in canon, instead of the common misconception of fanfiction, his core is located inside his chest rather than the base of his tail. And with the perfect, yet simple sword that is Aranrúth, split his core in half. Saying a prayer for all who have lost their lives to these creatures and their creators, I swam back out of Leviathan's body, and started walking back to the city I call my home.

[New Title unlocked

Titan Slayer: deal 100% more damage to enemies as large or larger than a building]

As the body of the now dead natural disaster turned gray and flaky, dispersing into the wind behind me, I spoke one sentence into the communicator on my arm. "Leviathan down, CD-4."

XXXXX

There were still things that had to be done, in the wake of the death of the last Endbringer. This is literally the Endbringer battle with the least casualties ever, the only death being the Endbringer itself. There may have been car crashes when the sirens first started sounding the alarm, but there weren't even any deaths from that.

And now the press, and people in general, were very interested in talking to and about the only cape to ever defeat an Endbringer, other than Scion. And he has disappeared, so they were quite rabid about it until I agreed. For my part? I was going to reveal just about everything that has to do about my own secrets in regards to the Wormverse.

The first question asked of me was one that I had expected, and am perfectly content with answering. "You say your power is just 'learning skill faster and beyond what humans are capable of' but it can't possibly be that simple! What is your real power?!"

I smiled, as I am so wont to do, even if it is a tired smile. "You are somewhat correct. My power calls itself 'The Gamer.' What it does is turn me into an RPG character, and subject to the same rules as they are.

That means my life is governed by stats, skills, levels, experience, quests, titles, and my health bar.

I started out with six inbuilt skills. One that was the source of my powers, another that made my mind immune to crippling emotion, or at least when it would cripple me to have strong emotion. One that was responsible for my extreme growth rate when learning skills. One that made it so my luck would be very extreme and help me survive, to the point that I could walk out of Ellisburg after killing hundreds of Nilbog's goblins and not be noticed leaving. One that makes me immune to anything that suppresses or copies my power, and another that made me immune to Thinker powers and was supposed to hid my identity.

The identity bit didn't work because of that PRT person leaking the picture, but my Thinker immunity would have worked even on the Simurgh. It is a law of reality, due to my power, that I am immune to any Thinker power other than getting picked up by enhanced senses and things like that. I was never given magic like you would see in most RPG settings, but this worked out just fine, did it not?"

The reporter was speechless for a minute, before clearing her throat and finding the words to respond. "Yes, I'd say you are correct. But you only told us what it called itself, and explained some of your skills. Will you say anything more about it?"

I giggle. Curse this 10-year-old body! It is making me more feminine! "Sure. I've already told you about my Skills, anything a human can do, and then better. Quests are just tasks that I can complete for Experience and other rewards. One such reward was my [Blacksmithing] skill, that I got from a quest where the goal was to escape Ellisburg. At this point, I can create things like that sword that I used to cut the Leviathan's tsunami in half. That sword cannot be stopped by anything, and cannot be broken. Its full potential can only be brought out by someone with [Legendary Weapon Mastery], another skill of mine. With the right weapon, I can cut through mountains and part the seas. Aranrúth is that weapon. Even Alexandria would pose no resistance to the edge of the blade. Again, it is a law of reality. There is no way block it. I also have a skill to figure out how the stats of even a creature like Leviathan compare to mine. That should be a good enough example of my powers effect on skills."

This time it took a lot longer for the reporter to pick their jaw of the ground. Yet I continued on with my explanations. "Experience is used to level up. The level of someone is an indication of how strong they are. Leviathan, for example, was level 90. My level is 72, but the skills I have and the weapons I created, not to mention the fact that Leviathan's intelligence was only 5, meant I am far stronger than he was. I could train to increase my stats, which are the measure of someone's abilities in a certain field, and spent stat points to increase those same numbers. Leviathan had a Dexterity score of 80, for example, which is the measure of how fast and nimble someone is, and was his highest stat. I gain three stat points every level, and the first time I used any of them was during that fight. I am now just as fast, a bit more durable, and stronger than he was. Leveling the field, and then I rushed in and killed him before he could actually do much to fight back.

The health bar is how much damage I can take before getting killed, and other than special skills I gain from having a stat reach a benchmark every 50 points, will always be ten times my Endurance stat. Health regeneration is 1% of my total health regained every minute, plus 0.1% for every point in Endurance above 1. Oh, yeah, the peak of human stats in any category, that is what any human being can achieve without powers or armor or drugs to increase them, are set at 10 for all stats. And these stats don't increase linearly, but nor is it exponential.

And finally, we have Titles. These are simply my power recognizing certain achievements and rewarding me for them, other than quests. I gained [Titan Slayer] from killing Leviathan, which allows me to deal 100% more damage to anything as large or larger than a building. And that's everything that I have on my power. Very much suited to long term preparation, and very overpowered once you get to a certain point."

I had to wait a good long while for the brains of... everyone around me, actually, to reboot. It was very funny, but we couldn't wait around all day. Snapping them out of it, we continued on with the interview. "Well then, since you're now apparently the next strongest Cape behind Scion, do you know what happened to him? And aren't you afraid someone will be able to do something about your power, now that you told us everything about it?"

I snorted at the ridiculous question. "Really? Do something about my power? There are easier ways to try and kill off the universe, rather than directly altering reality to kill me. No, the easiest way to kill me is still to just deplete my health, which is a general strategy for anyone you want to kill anyway. And Scion? He died, in a way. Those dramatic displays of power that he kept making drained the energy he lived off of. In fact, I myself will disappear, 10 years after when I first arrived. I may one day be able to come back, but I have no choice other than to leave this planet. Maybe I die before then, maybe some idiot destroys the planet and everything on it, but by the time ten years from my arrival is up, I will be gone to somewhere else."

XXXXX

After that interview, I just lived my life for the next nine years and eleven months. I was happy. My parents had another child, and a lot of the tragedies of Worm never happened. Cauldron still existed, but they stopped so morally corrupt. They didn't need to be anymore, after all. Their goal was accomplished, and their reward was to fade from history, never having left their mark. I got to see so many of my friends and family grow up, find their own families, and settle down.

I never settled down with anyone myself, not willing to hurt someone like that when I knew that my fate in this world was to disappear. But I was fine with that. If my fate is to have another adventure on another world, I can accept that. Most settings have magic, or some equivalent, I'm sure I can find my way back someday.

Finished

XXXXX

And that's the end of this story. As I've said before, the goal of this story wasn't to be some monster of thousands upon thousands of words. I am happy with what I have created, and I do have a general plan for the sequel. This story is everything I wanted it to be, and more than I expected. Some of the chapters are shorter than what I try for, but they end where they should, and that makes them work better than forcing them to be longer. This is my first completed story, and by far my favorite of all the ones I have both posted and made, because there are several ideas I've had that I haven't posted. Goodbye all, and may I see you in the next story.