I have become Legion - 1 - Prologue

The demon looked at the monster before him. A giant gaping wound through his chest, one of his arms was severed cleanly off. He was quite certain that he had even cut off his head before, but that bastard had somehow reformed it.

Valac was afraid.

He was truly afraid of the monstrosity before him.

“47% left”

It spoke with a voice as cold as iron. It’s eyes did not contain any malice nor hatred, even when Valac had destroyed his body over a hundred times. That thing before him felt nothing.

If only Valac had not agreed to the duel.

If only Valac had let the monster plunder all his treasures.

If only Valac had decided to be lenient.

However those what if’s could never come true. The monster before him slashed his own neck off, and just like that his entire body regenerated. The arm missing was suddenly in place again, and the gaping hole through his stomach was closed off.

Before Valac was a monster that did not know death.

Only one name could come to Valac’s mind seeing it.

Legion.

===

I awake from the strange dream.

Quest, I had dreamt of it a couple times before, but this time it was different. It was much more vivid. It felt real, and that being that stood before the demon, I knew it. Of course I did, it’s the character I’ve been planning to use ever since the developers of Quest published the character builder.

I rose up from the couch I slept on, and went towards the bathroom. Quest is a single-player rpg like none other, it has a massive world and a story that takes over 200 hours to complete, per playthrough. And I’ve already completed multiple times, I’ve played through it with all of the origin characters, some even multiple times. On steam it shows my hours in the game as being over ten thousand. If there’s anybody who knows the game completely, then that would be me.

I finish brushing my teeth, and head to the kitchen. I take an instant meal from the fridge and put it in the microwave. It’s simple spaghetti, and it would be my breakfast today. Today was the release date for the new update of Quest, and this update was going to be big.

I walk over to my computer, which was setup on the kitchen table. Faint memories of my family pass through my head, the smiles, and the laughter…

Booting up the pc my mind clears. Right Quest is a massive role playing game, in it you are meant to save the world from six great calamities. In the in-game calendar the events take place over 10 years, and each of the calamities activate at a pre-destined date. When the game released you could pick from 5 starting characters, but that roster was increased over time. And now with the new update, we would be allowed to create our own starting characters.

Legion – Calamity Trait [EX]
You are the corrupted manifestation of the law of permanence.
– You are a hivemind of undead.
– All undead created/animated/controlled by the holder are added to the hivemind.
– All members of the hivemind have access to the Legion trait.
– The holder has 1% per second regeneration. This regeneration heals permanent injuries.
– The holder cannot die from an attack that does not instantly kill it.
– Upon receiving an attack that would instantly kill the host, the hosts body is restored by the law of permanence.
– Upon the complete destruction of the hivemind, the host is revived within the corpse of a recently deceased.

Like all other EX grade traits, the Legion trait is utterly broken. It’s the trait given to the third calamity [Legion], which is not meant to be fought by normal means, but rather sealed. However, the custom character creator allows us to use any traits in the game as long as the total points do not exceed 800.

The Legion trait by itself costs 1000 points, meaning the rest of the character has to have -200 points. Which is possible to do by giving it a lot of negatives. Various curses, horrendously low base stats, and no background bonuses.

The character I created is a commoner afflicted by twelve curses, is dying from a deadly disease, and is being exiled from his home village. With that it’s barely enough for the -200 points. For starting location I chose a small village nearby the misty forest. Since the misty forest has a unique grade weapon that would be really powerful for this build.

*Ding*

It seems my breakfast is done. I walk over to the microwave and take out the spaghetti, while it’s not healthy, I don’t really feel like cooking for myself. I take the food over to my computer, and open up Youtube. One of the people I know released a new video it seems, ’10 Character Builds for Quest 2.0′, I watch it while eating. The video is pretty interesting, some of the builds are quite strong, and would be fun to play.

But well the build I’m doing is going to be much stronger, but with the caveat that it’s going to be very annoying to play. Each fight is going to be a slog.

There’s a reason I’m doing this though.

Quest has a save% that’s shown at the end of the game, it shows how much of the world you managed to save from the calamities. On the easiest difficulties some people have managed to get 100% saved, but on hard difficulty the current record is 42.3%, set by me. With 2.0 a new Hell difficulty has been released, and I plan to switch to that. I am hoping that with this overpowered build I should at least be able to get 50% saved.

Anyway, the update is releasing in 2 hours.

So before that I should go to the store, and make sure I have enough food to play the game for a week straight, without any distractions. I put on an old jacket, and head out of the kitchen.

The house has 2 stories, on the 1st story we have the living room, kitchen, and utilities. While on the 2nd story we had our personal rooms, but well I’ve kind of abandoned the 2nd story. I got tired of walking up and down the stairs so I moved all my stuff to the kitchen and living room.

The village I live in is decently small, only around a thousand people. After ten minutes of walking I make it to the store. I pick out instant meals for the week. Some soda as well so I won’t feel drowsy. I’m not really worried about the money, my parents made a lot, and I’m living very frugally. I’ll be able to survive the rest of my life by doing nothing.

“Hey [] is something special happening?”

It was weird, it feels like my head blanked out for a second there, but I can still figure out from the context clues what he was trying to say.

“Yeah, the game I’m playing is releasing a new update.”

The shopkeeper was a long time family friend, he took care of me when my parents died for a bit, and then I fell into my current lifestyle.

“I see, well I hope you enjoy it.”

He was kind, but I knew that he was also disappointed. While he wasn’t family, he had been acting like so for my entire life. He was hoping that I’d also become as successful as my parents, but that just wasn’t meant to be. Nor would I want it, I’m content with my current living.

While walking home from the store, carrying all the groceries I fell a sudden jolt through my body. I stop, and right after from around the corner a car comes rushing by. If I hadn’t stopped then I would’ve died.

‘Huuh’

That was terrifying.

I take a couple deep breaths and then continue back home.

“I’m back”

I say, even though I know nobody else has been in this house for over four years. It’s just a habit…

After putting the groceries in the fridge I head back to my computer.

I’ve got a message.

[Hey once you’re done with your initial sprint, can you help me with my research for a lore video?]

[Its bout your favorite one. The Witch of the Far North]

[I was thinking nows a good time for that since you can actually play her using the custom character creator]

‘The Witch of the Far North’

It was a scrapped character from Quest, originally meant to be the hardest of the starting characters, similar to my new build, she had an [EX] grade trait, but with it she had a bunch of curses. The developers decided not to completely scrap her though, most of her items can still be found in the game, and her lore still exists. It was just changed, now instead of going to the tutorial area, she was killed by a mob of peasants two months before the game begins. If you’re doing quests for the inquisition you can find her diary.

I was the one who wrote the biggest lore summary for her, that’s why my friends think that she’s my favorite one. But she’s not, well probably not. I haven’t thought about it that much.

[The Saintess fan is cheating!?]

[Who could’ve guessed that this would happen]

I responded to him. Yeah my friend here was a big fan of the saintess, even his profile picture was of the saintess.

[Shut up]

“Hahahahaha”

I laughed a little, of course this guy was like that.

[Yeah I’ll send you my notes]

[*Attachements*]

[Look through them for now, I’ll answer questions in a week]

And with that I clicked on my profile and set it to ‘Do not Disturb’ mode.

[1 hour, 22 minutes remaining]

That was the text on their official site. Once this countdown was done, I’d get to play the new update. The developers were nice and made it so we could use the online character builder and then just click import in game, so I was using that right now. I was just double checking everything.

Name: Antir Bright
Class: None – 1
Species: Human
Strength: 1
Dexterity: 1
Constitution: 1
Mana: 1
Faith: 1
Willpower: 1
Charisma: 1
Traits:
Legion [EX-1]
Abilities:
Conditions:
Black Blight [B]
Curses:
Death Curse [EX]
Lucks Despised [EX]
Demon’s Curse [S]
Boiling Blood [S]
Magic Inability [A]
Excommunication [A]
Soul Scar [A]
Pain Echo [A]
Shadow Parasite [B]
Stigmata [B]
Hunger [B]
Grey World [C]

While this character might seem like they’re doomed to a really bad time. I set they’re starting location outside of the tutorial area for a specific reason. There’s an inquisition secret stash in the misty forest. And in that stash there’s a purifying flame. This purifying flame allows one to burn away ones curses and gain a bonus to your willpower for that. Most advanced Quest players for that reason always try their best to get as many curses as possible, since they just mean a stat bonus.

[3 minutes remaining]

My heartbeats are getting faster as the time gets closer to 0. Soon I’ll get to do another playthrough, and this time I’m going to use all the strats that I’ve learnt to beat Hell mode.

[2 minutes remaining]

I pour myself a glass of soda, excited and ready to play.

[1 minutes remaining]

“Heh”

I laugh a little seeing the spelling mistake of theirs.

…

…

…

“Huh?”

For some reason the time doesn’t continue ticking down, and the update download hasn’t started. What’s going on? I try to open up another browser so I can see if anybody else is experiencing this, but for some reason my mouse doesn’t move. Quite literally it just refuses to budge, as if it’s locked in place.

I look around and I notice that it’s strange. The world it’s seeming as if it’s slowly losing color.

‘grrgle’

I look down, and I start to feel really hungry for some reason. What’s going on?

And then on my back I feel an intense burning that forces me to the ground.

“Heheehhe”

On the floor suffering from the pain of my burning back I see that in my shadow there is something laughing at me. But I don’t have much time to contemplate that as the pain in my back suddenly doubles. Yet that’s not where my suffering ends, I feel a slash through the air, whatever it is, it hits me. And I feel like I’ve lost something, it doesn’t come with pain, but rather a sense of loss, what did I lose? I am not certain.

I get up from the ground as the pain from my back subsides, and I look around. The world is now in complete grey, I can’t see any color. There’s some kind of entity in my shadow laughing and sneering at me. Is that a Shadow Parasite? I remember from the in-game descriptions it sounds similar, they’re a decently annoying curse as it can cause your characters to develop mental illnesses.

I feel hot… I look to my hand, and my veins rather than being blue now look a deep red. I think in horror ‘this couldn’t be the Boiling Blood right?’, but to my dismay it indeed is. I am once again forced to the ground as my blood begins to boil.

[T*e **l**o**r **at *** ***n rai*** b* 1 p***t]

At the edge of my vision I see a blue window with some text on it, but I can’t focus on it due to the pain.

As I continue to suffer on the ground the windows increase and increase, and I slowly feel that I can deal with the pain.

I finally manage to push through it and I read the window.

[The willpower stat has been raised by 1 point]

“What?”

I speak out, my throat is dry so it hurts. I know that in Quest as you experience pain you can increase your willpower stat, but that can’t possibly apply to the real world, right?

[The synchronization between the targets has been confirmed]

[Beginning transmigration]

===

Saintess Selia was born a commoner. She was a completely ordinary commoner, from a rural village. But one day she ended up getting really sick, she had an incredibly high fever, she had to stay in bed for the entire time. Then one day, three holy knights came to the village, they said they had seen a prophecy of a saintess being born in the village. They went to Selia’s house, found her suffering from her fever, and they took her.

That fever was not ordinary, it was called the ‘Birth of a Star’ a ritual that acknowledges that a person is worthy to become a saintess. Selia had done this naturally, many of the previous saintesses had to do years of research before even attempting it, but Selia had done it without even knowing what she was doing. Though for her, this premature ritual caused certain problems.

Simply put, she took much longer than others to become level one. To be able to use greater powers. But when she was finally able to, the pope sent her out into the world. She was going to enroll in the Academy at the center of the continent, but first before that she would publicly debut as a saintess. She would go to the south and cure a bunch of villages that were suffering from the Black Blight. And so she did that, village to village she went and acted as a proper saintess. But at the final village she made it to, there was one person she could not save. The others said that his name was Antir Bright.

The saintess saw him on the hospital bed, he was suffering from the Black Blight like the others, but he was different. His body was infested with various curses, the saintess’ divine power did not work on him. He was outside gods’ grace, yet he was kind to the saintess. ‘It is fine saintess. You have done your best. It seems this is the path laid out to me.’

The saintess felt emotions she had never felt before, the powerlessness, and the guilt over not being able to save the man.

Yet the next day…

“I am sorry saintess. We could send out a search party, but they would probably not find anything. Nowadays Black Mages tend to use teleportation scrolls.”

Yes, Antir Bright’s corpse was stolen the day after his death.