Szeth was spent.
His head throbbed. His heart was beating against his chest like a pneumatic drill wanting to pry his rib cage open. His whole body was drenched in blood, both his own and the dull blue of the xenos'. The left arm that had been bitten off was sending flares of pain through the stump of his shoulder as if instead of ripped apart it had been thoroughly grinded. There wasn't a part of his body that wasn't riddled with Termite bites, whole chunks of flesh outright missing from several probably important places.
Szeth wasn't too sure a human was supposed to survive without most of their right kidney. At least, not if that part was torn open and bleeding.
But still, he was alive. Somehow.
Moreover, he was satisfied.
He had punched and kicked and slashed to his heart's content. He had attacked a xenos nest, the very heart of a Blight outbreak. And, miraculously, he had come out of it alive.
And also...
"Hey, System? You still there?"
— Affirmative.
For some unfathomable reason, he had become a Watcher.
The events had come just one after the other. A part of him was too tired to process the fact that he now formed part of the ranks that were supposed to act as humanity's protectors.
The other part was too tired to care.
I don't feel particularly protective anyway.
More importantly, at this rate, he would probably bleed to death in the span of a few minutes.
Fortunately for me, I've got the help of a voice in my head.
He was forced to admit that didn't sound terribly reassuring.
"Hey, System? Any chance you sell other stuff beside cool swords? I don't know, something to patch me up and get me back on my feet before I bleed to death, maybe?"
— The System provides the Watcher not only with blades. The arsenal accessible by the Watcher is currently limited by their account balance. In the future, they will have access not only to slashing, but stabbing, bludgeoning, sawing, burning, freezing, melting, explosive, disintegration, teleportation and other, more exotic manners of weapons, as well as a combination of the above.
"Thanks for the elaborate list of ways to kill things, pal. Now, maybe give me one of ways to heal them? Unless you want me to buy that big ass greatsword and stab myself in the chest with it."
— It is highly improbable that the Close-Combat Light Greatsword "Courage" will be able to pierce the Watcher's thoracic cavity. The blade is designed to prioritize cleaving over piercing attacks, and the Watcher is in a severely weakened state.
"And if you keep talking shit, that severely weakened state will become a severely dead state. Healing? Please?
— Acknowledged.
— Searching for instant-effect restorative items within the Watcher's budget...
— Match found.
Szeth's brain was presented with new information flowing directly into it. In his mind's eye, he could see a syringe. The contents were covered by a pitch-black casing.
— Regenerative Booster "Crimson Tears"
— A shot of nanomachines equipped with special hormones to trigger high-speed cell multiplication.
— Side effects of using this item may include nausea and extreme exhaustion.
"Well, the side effects sound annoying, but it's better than dying."
— Due to the Watcher's critical condition, at least three uses of this item are necessary to achieve an effective recovery.
"Can I afford it?"
— Each instance of "Crimson Tears" costs 200 Watcher Points. The Watcher's total balance, following the extermination of 20 builder-type Xenos "Termites" and a hunter-type "Soldier", ascends to a total of 4500 Points.
"Well, big numbers are always good to hear. Give it to me."
— Acknowledged.
As soon as the voice on his head finished speaking, Szeth picked up the faint noise of something being teleported to his side, a faint whining. The light that accompanied the process faded nearly as quickly as it had appeared.
Szeth gathered what little energy he had left to twist on his side.
Three pitch-black rubber-steel boxes the size of his outstretched palm were lying next to him.
"I hope they're not the type you need both hands to open," he muttered to himself, uncomfortably aware of his missing arm.
The boxes were surprisingly normal, for Custodes tech. Szeth opened one and grabbed the syringe inside. He removed the cap protecting the needle with his teeth and spat it, looking carefully at the sharp tip and asking himself if there was s proper way of pricking himself.
"I guess anywhere is fine," he decided.
Szeth stabbed the needle on his thigh and pressed.
The effects weren't immediate. It wasn't as if someone had cast a spell on him and his body had been fixed back to normal in a miraculous flash of light.
Rather, he became aware of a warm feeling quickly spreading from the tip of the needle and into the rest of his body. He hadn't been aware of just how cold his body had turned in the span of a few minutes. It was slightly disturbing to consider he might have just died a few moments later without even realizing.
Almost as soon as the warmth had spread to his entire body, the burning started to fade.
He watched in shock as the holes that had been ripped open by the Termites, some of then showing cracked bones, started to heal.
Still, it wasn't a perfect recovery. His wounds closed and his bleeding stopped. The shattered bones had been probably fused back as well. But the holes weren't magically refilled: they had just been patched.
And along with his miraculous recovery came a heaviness that nearly forced his eyelids shut.
— It is advised that the Watcher does not fall asleep, as there are still xenos in the vicinity.
"That's... easy to say for you... You don't even have a body," Szeth complained, suppressing a yawn. Still, he was perfectly aware that losing consciousness on this place was the same as dying a nasty death. "Anything that could help me with that?"
— The Watcher is showing extreme confidence in the System's resources.
"That wrong?"
— It is the correct behavior. The System most definitely has any resources the Watcher's underdeveloped imagination could possibly conceive. These are, with some exceptions, completely at their disposition, assuming they can afford them.
"Well, that's reassuring."
What the voice was telling to Szeth was "You can get whatever you want, so long as you have the money." Ignoring the insults to his creativity, since they were mostly right anyway, he concluded that the main reason why so many Watchers willingly threw themselves at the dangerous Blight was most likely the rewards they could buy with the points they earned at the end of the battle.
Once this whole mess was over, Szeth ought to take his sweet time and do some research on the things he could buy for himself with his points, he decided.
Though that means getting out of this one alive.
"Alright! System, find me something that wakes me up. No cheating my own body this time! If I go through the shock of having all the exhaustion hit me like a truck again, I might pass out for real."
— Acknowledged.
— Searching for energy restitution items...
— Match found.
— Energy Boost "RAGE"
— A stimulant-packed, sugar-rich concoction with high concentrations of easy-to-assimilate nutrients. Boosts energy and temporarily reactivates the body in exchange for a long period of lethargy once the effects have expired. Comes with several flavors.
— Cost: 200 Points.
"Yup, sounds like super-powered energy drink."
"A long period of lethargy," it says. I have the feeling I'll be feeling like absolute shit at the end of this night.
— Affirmative.
"That's not how you advertise, friend. Fine, give it to me. I feel like someone grabbed my eyelids and replaced them with bricks."
— Select a flavor, Watcher.
"I'm feeling lucky. Give me whichever you want."
— Acknowledged.
A boringly normal-looking can was teleported to his side with a flash of light. Though it was completely black, like the rest of Custodes tech, there was a logo painted in scarlet red. on a side.
It was a skull with its eye sockets burning.
Hey.
System.
Care to explain why there's something in the drink I just bought that looks uncomfortably close to a warning label?
— Advertising.
"Like I said, that's not how you advertise!"
Szeth sighed in exasperation. Still, he had bought the drink: it would be a waste not to use it now. Besides, if he didn't do something soon, he would fall asleep like a log in the middle of a xenos nest.
He wasn't sure he had killed every last one of the Blight creatures, but even if that were the case, taking a nap in the thing that was used to melt the corpses of the dead into a stinking sludge wasn't exactly the smartest course of action.
Besides, this isn't the only contact point. I saw several blight shards falling from the Dead Moon, and I'm willing to bet my good eye another Blight zone will be reaching this place before long.
Somehow managing to open the can with one hand, Szeth brought the hissing beverage to his nose.
It smelled like salts and industrial colorant.
This can't be healthy, he thought as he swallowed the whole can in one go.
Oddly, the thing tasted extremely sweet. The flavor was similar to something between an apricot and a mango, with a hint of a floral taste.
Szeth felt the effects a few seconds later.
"Wait wait wait wait wait! What's this?! What the hell is this feeling?!?!"
A boiling knot formed on his stomach. Liquid fire coursed through his veins, and his pleasantly warm body turned into a raging furnace. Szeth suddenly felt the urge to stand up and do laps to release at least some of the lava that was seething inside him. His eye was wide open, darting all around the place. He felt like he might breathe fire.
— The effects of consuming "RAGE" for the first time are sometimes described by Watchers as "drinking fire." The Watcher has nothing to fear, as their body will get used to the sensation rapidly.
Just as the System said, the bubbling inferno inside of Szeth eventually calmed down, turning into a latent power that invigorated him. Instead of bursting to flames, he felt like he could run like the wind and stay awake for days without the need to sleep.
This shit is dangerous.
And probably addictive.
Do I want to know what's in there?
— Negative.
Then I won't ask.
"Still... It tasted nice. Oddly, for an energy drink. What flavor did I get?"
— Persimmon. It is a fruit that was commonly cultivated in the Eastern islands of the Asiatic region. Though the nation was fast to succumb to the Blight, its rich culture is engraved in the hearts of many Watchers.
"I like the flavor. Write it down somewhere. I want to buy some persimmon juice when this is over."
— The Watcher is advised not to treat the System as their personal note taker.
"Why, does it make you mad?"
— It would be a waste of the System's resources.
"So, it makes you mad. Alright, I get it, I get it. I'll take my own notes."
Szeth sat on the ground again, taking the other two black casings and opening them to reveal another two syringes. He stabbed them on his tight and pressed the plunger, the light pain of the needles drowned by the energy that filled his body.
Some of that energy was spent as the holes that had been merely sealed before now began to fill up again. To Szeth, the sight of his own flesh bubbling in lumps and rushing to regrow the missing parts of his body was slightly disgusting.
The smell of rotting corpses and the things that he had witnessed through the night drowned the discomfort.
Still, the injection was evidently a first-aid 'patch up' solution. It didn't regrow complex things, like Szeth's lost arm or his missing eye. He was willing to bet the parts of his organs that had been damaged before hadn't been fixed either. They felt more like muscle-and-skin patches that served to keep the body working on the short term. No wonder they were comparatively cheap for a recovery item.
He'd have to see about a more permanent recovery method later. Walking around with some organs damaged, even if they were patched, ought to be unhealthy. He absently wondered if he could get himself treated in a hospital now that he was a Watcher.
Though, thinking about it, it was probably better just to buy a better fix from the System later. There were probably a dozen different options to pick from, and he wouldn't have to bear the fearful stares of the people around him.
A specter Watcher. I wonder how the people are going to react to that.
Though, honestly, I couldn't give less of a fuck.
The Szeth that had cared about the motives of strangers was gone. He had been bitten to death by Termites. The Szeth standing now couldn't be bothered to care about what other people thought about him. If someone feared him, let them run away. If someone hated him, let them try and come for him.
They'd taste the edge of the blade that had cut a dozen xenos in two with their flesh.
"Alright! I'm all patched up. I'll be dropping half-dead once we're through with this, but for now, I'm ready to go."
He grabbed Antinomy by the handle and used it to raise from the ground, twirling it around with his fingers. The feather-weight blade hadn't ceased to amaze him. Even now, the glowing cyan and jet-black left afterimages in the air as he spun it around.
"That said... No more xenos are coming. I guess I killed all from this nest, huh?" Szeth had spent some time to recover, but no monsters had approached him since he had slain that Soldier. Maybe he really had exterminated every last one of them in the vicinity. That only one hunter-type had formed from the Blight fragment in this zone was pure luck.
A fake calm dominated the scene.
"What should I do now?"
— In accordance to the Contract, your duty as a Watcher is to combat any ongoing Blight outbreaks in the vicinity.
— Though you have effectively terminated all xenos in the immediacies, the outbreak is still ongoing.
— As a recently-contracted Watcher, you currently lack the firepower to assist with Blight purging duties.
— Therefore, your task is to help reduce the number of xenos and rescue any civilians that might still be alive in the area.
"Rescue?"
Risking his life to save another. To Szeth, who had lived his whole life rejected by everyone, and had absolutely no good memories of his interactions with people, the concept was dissatisfying, to say the least.
On the other hand, there was a duty he could perform gladly.
Seek and destroy.
Killing Blight monsters was something he could throw himself at gladly.
It was the reason he had left that warehouse in the first place. All the better if they paid him for doing it.
"Hey System, any ideas where the xenos are?"
— The system has direct knowledge only of its resources and the Watchers integrated to it.
— However, based on the Watcher's memories, a Blight shard is certain to have fallen northwest from their current position.
— It is advised you move with haste, Watcher. Blight grows quickly in both numbers and complexity. Time is of essence in extermination duties.
"I could have figured that myself," Szeth grumbled. Apparently the System was neither omnipotent nor omniscient... Though if that were the case, Watchers wouldn't be needed in the first place, he reasoned.
"Alright," he said, still spinning Antinomy on his hand. His eye suddenly came down to the now empty black casings where the "Crimson Tears" had come from. A thought flashed through his mind.
"Hey, System? Didn't you say something about a sheath for Antinomy?"
— Affirmative.
— The Close-Combat Light Katana "Mujun - Antinomy" includes a sheath for the blade and an adjustable belt to allow fastening it to the Watcher's waist or back.
— These additions were not delivered alongside it in consideration for the Watcher's haste. However, they may be requested at any time, free of charge.
Since Szeth had been in the middle of jumping towards a horde of hungry Termites when he had bought Antinomy, the System had been kind enough to deliver the blade ready for use. However, Szeth, who had only one arm now, couldn't allow himself the luxury of occupying it with a weapon he wasn't using immediately.
"Alright, give them to me. I can't go on carrying this thing in my hand forever."
— Acknowledged.
Just as he finished talking, the requested items appeared with a flash of light.
Antinomy's scabbard was fashioned from the same jet-black material as the blade, and it was just as light. A single, straight groove that fit with the back of the blade revealed its glowing cyan light, even when sheathed. The utility belt was also pitch black and had several positions to allow the wearer to use it either in the back or around their waist. A magnetic lock kept the sheath in place once affixed to it.
Szeth fastened Antinomy, sheathed and tucked on the belt, on his back. The blade was long enough that it almost grazed the floor if he put it on his waist.
Though it took some time due to the lack of one hand to help him, Szeth fitted himself with his only weapon.
"Okay! It's time to get moving!"
Turning his back to the ruined nest, he faced his next target.
Northwest. To the next contact point.
It was time to rack up some points.