Collide Gamer Chapter 1676 – Consider the Reaper

John woke up with a splitting headache.

He had expected complications, yes, potentially massive ones, even. This was more than a complication, this was worrying, incredibly worrying even. “How is it only the second day of the expedition and we’re already dealing with Death? Capital D Death?!”

“Stop being such a worrywart, tiger,” Rave told him and presented him with a bagel.

Even while worried for their future, John could not resist the allure of cream cheese on round baked goods. A munch, so chewing, and a gulp later, he continued his lantations, “Jane, the literal riders of the apocalypse are here. The Four Horsen! The actual ones, not so video ga boss. This probably isn’t sothing we can solve with four tanks and good RNG.”

“Didn’t even know they were really real,” Lee mumbled.

“Anything you recall, Nathalia?” John asked the goddess.

She, Nightingale, and Eliana were displayed on a screen that was placed at one end of the breakfast table. They and the party were one hour removed from each other, which was little enough that they could eat around the sa ti. Lydia could not join, for the ti being, but John hoped that would change soti soon.

The 9th Perk of the Harem Gar Class, unlocked so ti ago, was Never Far. With it, anyone in his harem could teleport to his primary dwelling and back to where they had teleported from. What the primary dwelling was got dictated by the system. There were other limitations in place, preventing this from being used as a combat teleport, but that wasn’t important here. John just hoped it would eventually offer an avenue for Lydia to visit him for an hour or two at a ti. Lu Zhi would, sadly, not get that option.

While John was contemplating that issue, Nathalia was trying desperately to rember anything of worth. “Let’s start with this,” the Gar tried to jog her mory. “Does Death refer to the first rider or the Grim Reaper?”

“Should be old Grim,” Nathalia had an answer for him. It was the opposite of what he wanted to hear, but it was an answer. “One of the few tis we interacted, I think he ntioned a four rider project… Plague, Famine, War and Glory, I believe?”

“And now they’re here,” the Gar groaned and rubbed his forehead.

“I don’t see what the big issue is?” tra asked and rolled her head. “Claire was able to beat one of them on her own and she’s far from the local combat beast.”

“Much as I indulge in the idea that I had the upper hand, we were mostly playing with one another,” Claire weighed in. “I cannot justly claim that I was about to beat him, rely that I had the upper hand.”

It had taken everything inside John not to get mindlessly worried when Claire had dropped out of the ntal network because she had entered an Illusion Barrier. It took him a much greater effort of will not to wake up and imdiately start scouring the city for the three spotted riders. He had gotten as much rest as he could, knowing that, for so forsaken reason, he was dealing with the Four Horsen while looking for Aztec settlents in Mayan territory.

The Abyss was an absolute clusterfuck sotis.

“So, the god of death is around?” Hailey asked.

“There is no such thing as a god of death,” Nathalia answered. “Such Faith is too fractured and unfocused to be claid by any one entity. The Grim Reaper is the god of the fear of death. An important distinction.”

“He’s still the, officially recognized, second strongest god on this plane… or is it third now?” Momo looked to John. “After Eliana and Gaia.”

“If we go by all we know, he’d probably rank sowhere around fifth. Tiamat and Ferikrona are doubtlessly above him as well.” John made a tossing gesture. “The point is that we’re dealing with soone that very well could put up an obstacle to us.”

“All of us?” Rave asked.

“Grim is a preparing man,” Nathalia told them over the speakers. “He has forces of his own. His divine blessings lend themselves to that.”

“As you may imagine, the god of the fear of death has ways to stave it off,” John told them. “The Grim Reaper’s abilities are not disclosed in full anywhere, but I got Romulus to share that much with . We’re dealing not only with the god but also his personal army of undead.”

“Could we call in Krieg?” Scarlett asked. “Gods aren’t supposed to act with this degree of autonomy, right? Let’s throw the keepers of the balance at the issue. Have soone else suffer from the rules for once.”

John did not like the suggestion. “It… could work…” he relented hesitantly.

“But ya don’t wanna do it, ‘cause ya wanna solve this yourself,” Rave read his thoughts. No absurd acuity in interpreting his thoughts was needed here. His pride was practically written all over his face.

‘Technically, the wording of this Quest doesn’t prevent from calling in Krieg…’ the Gar thought. He pressed ‘Yes’ for the sole reason that there was no drawback to doing so. If the Quest failed, there was no Penalty listed, making having it in his log a benefit without drawback. “Nathalia, do you have any estimation on how strong the Grim Reaper would be?”

“I haven’t seen him in over 2000 years and he was already old when I achieved apotheosis…” Nathalia stared at the piece of bacon dangling between her claws. “…Humans fear nothing more than death. Even if his ability expands his power to immortalize those he takes a fancy to, it would return to him rapidly. You should assu that he is on par with Romulus. Were it not for the Godslayer’s Innate Ability, gods like the Grim Reaper would be ruling the world.”

“In other words an entity at the pinnacle of the Abyss. We should assu sothing in the ballpark of level 1000 to 1100.”

“C-can we beat that?” Gno stuttered. “Because, uhm, that seems a little big even for us… without Eliana and Nathalia here…”

“No, I think we could win that fight, at least on paper,” John inford her. “Our spars with Lu Zhi have proven that we’re individually outmatched against the very pinnacle of the Abyss, but if we group up, we should be able to take him on. The Lover’s Will mark is still the most effective power increase in the world. If each of his riders is roughly equivalent to one of our combatants, that’s still one of him against the remaining dozen of us. I would take those odds… however, this likely isn’t a spar…”

Undine finished John’s thought, “If he fights with the intent to kill, then we won’t co out of such a fight without losses. We will win, but we will be hurt in turn.”

“And we’re acting on the assumption that he has no other surprises than the Four Horsen,” John continued. “We know for a fact that he has a number of skeletons that were capable of holding back two of Claire’s familiars. Those in the barrier with Famine were likely only the rider’s personal forces.”

“Silver-lining, I don’t think they want to kill us,” Claire spoke up. “Famine was eager to carve the core out of this body, but he did not actually seem to wish to permanently harm . It was about sending a ssage. The other two riders could have attacked , but they retreated.”

“Outright hostilities definitely seem unwanted.” John’s heel repeatedly tapped against the floor. A nervous gesture that Momo mimicked. “Did you ever have any dealings with the Grim Reaper?” he asked the tracanas, just to fill any potential gaps.

Ehtra sneered, as if offended that he even asked. “If we had, I’d have spoken up already.”

“Mother Chaos did not take kindly to gods that weren’t her children in the fertile crescent,” tra added. “I once saw the Grim Reaper on the fields of Marakanda. He was scouting the survivors of the battle to find new followers. We stayed far away from each other, however. He had a distaste for , and as a daughter of Tiamat, the feeling was mutual.”

Hailey raised her hand. “Gonna have to be the stupid one ‘ere – is he associated with any guild we could contact?”

John shook his head. “The Grim Reaper’s whereabouts have been a mystery for the past 500-odd years. There were enough sightings to know he was still about, but nothing concrete could ever be said. There are so rumours he may be associated with the Apothecaries, but that’s likely just people associating the people where they go to avoid death with the entity renowned to bring death.”

Momo’s heel touched down with a loud clack. “A foe that we know barely anything about with an army of an unknown size pursuing a goal that we have no idea about. Fantastic conditions. Worse, there’s still another entity about.”

“Ya think?” Rave asked.

“If I may, my black vision was brought about when I touched the map,” Lorelei explained. “It could be that the Grim Reaper was the one that brought about the map, but this is highly unlikely. As Momo described, the gods of this land were dead.”

“And before anyone suggests it: even if there were translation errors, the iconography does not match the Grim Reaper. No robed figures with scythes are depicted anywhere in the records.”

“He could shapeshift?” Sylph suggested. “Could he shapeshift? Is the Grim Reaper a shapeshifter? Would he bother?”

“Doubtlessly he could, he has to get through real space in so way, but there is no reason to bother and no reason for the indigenous people to behave the way they did to worship him. Their culture venerated sacrifice. They made death their steady companion. If I was the Grim Reaper and I wanted to harvest Faith, I would try to make a healthy population that is just aware enough of death to fear the end to their long life.”

“The fear of death cos from attachnts,” John agreed. “From what Claire heard from Famine, it sounds like who or whatever we are aiming to find here once struck a bargain with the Grim Reaper and now he has co to collect that debt.”

“The coughing mummy…?” Lorelei mumbled, her milky, white eyes directed in the far distance. “The scythe hangs under… her? A crop ready for the harvest…” She shook her head. “The visions remain unclear. I apologize.”

“As long as you ddle with them, it also ans they don`t get a good read on us.” John showed her a calming smile. “That alone makes you incredibly valuable.”

Salamander handed her empty plate to Aclysia, who dutifully collected it. While the maid went to the kitchen, the apocalypse elental turned to everyone. “The question we should be asking now isn’t whether we can take on the Grim Reaper, it’s whether or not we will,” she stated. “And to be perfectly clear, I won’t mind a good fucking fight for the sake of it. I just want to remind everyone that we don’t have much of a reason to get in over our heads.”

“There’s one reason to stay that’s enough for ,” John responded imdiately.

“We don’t know anything,” Nia finished the thought on his head.

“That’s the sum and substance of it,” the Gar reclined in his chair, finding a headrest in Beatrice’s midriff. The passive maid played with his hair as he explained, “Best case, the Grim Reaper takes care of everything here. Worst case, the Grim Reaper forms a new guild here and two incredibly powerful entities are at its head, creating a new rival on the continent. There’s a massive spread between those two options and we know nothing. I’m unwilling to roll these dice.” He looked around the table for any sign of disagreent. “We stay. Right, Momo?”

“Huh?” The fairy maid raised her head and looked around. “Why- right… my expedition…” She sighed. “Yeah, we stay.”

“That’s decided then,” Rave chirped. “One Romulus-level threat around… can we at least call Krieg and ask if we can call our own goddesses out to help us?”

“If we do so, he’ll definitely know sothing is going on,” John pointed out. “No, we will keep this to ourselves for now… if at all possible I’d like to talk to him before we fully move onto hostilities. If and when any of us run into him or his forces, operate with that principle: suggest parlay first, punch second.”

All spoke up on their understanding and breakfast continued. Only when the maids cleared off the remains of food and the empty plates, did the serious conversation restart. “So, uhm, what’s our next step?” Gno asked.

“We’ll move ahead as previously planned,” John answered and looked out of the window.

The airplane currently rested at the outskirts of the city. It had taken all of yesterday to get to this point. Progression up to the jungle was expected to be much smoother. They could repurpose the main road that led out of the city right up until they had to turn into the forest proper. That would be about eight hours from now, all obstacles taken into account. Driving an airplane of this size around ant they constantly had to be wary of objects in the path of the rather wide wings.

“Considering the Quest, our paths are bound to cross again… If the Azure Tribe also shows up, as predicted, then we’re already in a four-way engagent.” He rubbed his forehead, feeling that headache co back. “This is going to be a ss unparalleled.”

“Not gonna lie, I love that,” Rave said with a grin. “This is becoming a real adventure.”

“I’d like it if my adventures don’t start feuds with the literal Grim Reaper and the Horsen of the Apocalypse.”

“Should’ve stopped levelling like 500 levels ago, then,” his first fiancée stated.

That was a fair point.