Since it's up to me now, I was going to have to go and take a look at the other two zones; if I could stumble upon some weaker mobs, I might have a chance to catch a small break.
How optimistic my guesses were, forgetting entirely where I was. When I went to the area isolated by a green curtain, the handful of hope inside me hung its head and withered away.
This was the place where social media creatures lived, and there were a dime a dozen of various monsters.
Youtuber lvl 1
Instagrammer lvl 1
Vlogger lvl 1
These were the titles of a few Fallen that caught my eye. They were all passive mobs in every other regard; they condemned people to watch them through their absurd actions and consumed their life energies until they were depleted.
There were many people watching the Fallen with their jaws dropped wide open. I realized we weren't getting a slice of the pie here, so without wasting time, I headed to the last zone.
Before I could even say I shouldn't have bothered, these lands welcomed me with a red shield, and just one step beyond it, there were types dancing like maniacs.
Street Thug lvl 1
Edgelord lvl 1
Guido lvl 1
I bounced back from the base of the barrier I had rapidly approached with the exact same speed. The scene was a disaster. The Fallen and humans had mixed together, dancing as if it were their last day in Hell. It was a complete eclipse of the mind; their moves were all tangled up, and there wasn't a single uncracked neck or unpopped belly left.
My last hope would go down the drain too; aside from the ones who entered these two zones first, I didn't know a single tough guy who would dare take a step in. While my feet slowly dragged me toward the shops in the center, people suddenly started materializing in front of me.
I couldn't figure out what was happening at first. I approached them to see if these people were other sinners coming to suffer their punishment. I would realize in time that my thoughts were wrong, because the condition of these people was nothing like my initial state.
Their behaviors were divided into four categories. Some were crying with hiccups, while another group was perched where they were, just waiting. An idea had popped into my head, but I needed to examine the remaining two groups to confirm it; fortunately, I would quickly realize that I had made the right guess this time.
The sight of hundreds of people staring blankly at a single point, accompanied by others in another corner chewing gum like maniacs, made everything clear. Those who stepped outside the shield in the first wave and perished at the hands of the Fallen had returned after completing their eight hours of torment.
What was said was that every time you died, or if you failed to kill mobs equal to your level within a day, you would suffer an eight-hour torment. However, there was also a lingering effect left on these people right in front of my eyes. It was as if they had forcefully taken on the behavioral patterns of the Fallen in the zone where they were killed. Even though I watched for half an hour, it didn't look like they were going to snap out of this state.
As the superficiality of the explanations on the obelisk became undeniable, I started feeling the signs of the mounting fear inside my body. My hands were shaking, cold sweats were pouring down my spine, and I could feel my right eye slightly twitching.
Motionlessly, I waited for the people under the effect to come to their senses. There was a critical decision I had to make right in front of me: either wait inside the shield and submit to the eight-hour torment, or step outside and try to kill a Fallen, only to die and take on a lingering effect on top of it.
Exactly four hours later, some of those who died in the first round were regaining their consciousness. I jumped up from where I was sitting and grabbed the closest one by the collar.
"Buddy, how's the torment, is it bearable?"
I admit it was a bit of a stupid question, but making my intention clear immediately was very important. The man, who was staring at my face like a dead fish, probably wasn't expecting this either.
"Brother, do whatever it takes to try and kill a Fallen. No matter how much I tell you about it, you can't even imagine this agony without living it!"
Four hours had passed since the torment they suffered, but looking at his sluggish movements and trembling voice, it was obvious the effects were still ongoing. There were many people like me clinging to those returning from their punishment. We were like kids dressed in uniform right now; all of us had that bitter taste of despair on our palates.
'What's done is done. Since there's no escaping fate, might as well dance to the same tune!'
While heading toward the zone smelling of alcohol, a few rhyming words spilled from my tongue. I fell down here because of raki; it would be more poetic if the rest came from its family tree.
Okay, I threw caution to the wind, but I wasn't neglecting to keep an eye on my surroundings either. I started watching the movements of the Fallen wandering around in groups.
"Tipsy lvl 1"
I got to work by observing these types first. My eyes were on a group of three mobs sitting together.
These mobs remained stationary. They would call out to people who came within a certain distance, and at the slightest hostile movement, they'd rapidly stand up and walk toward them. Of course, as I had witnessed before, there were people who attacked them, but no matter what they did, their end never went beyond being captured and drained.
"So what, man, at least we didn't sell out our dreams!"
The Tipsy Fallen had caught someone. While the most down-and-out of the trio immediately started talking, he was executing the attack I dubbed "Guilt Tripping."
"What can you do, kid? We just couldn't become great men!"
The mob right next to him chimed in immediately. The veins on the forehead of the person forced to listen to them were slowly becoming visible.
"Are you a beautiful soul, beat down by life, just like us?"
This was the final blow. As a result of the three-stage Guilt Tripping attack, the victim slowly fell to the ground. A few seconds later, as he vanished into nothingness, the Fallen would take another sip from the wine bottle in their hands.
'These guys are very dangerous, they're constantly joined at the hip, and their attack speed is pretty high!'
The words passing through my mind were the reflections of my thoughts. These guys were a hazard, and I didn't have a chance to risk it.
"Wasted lvl 1"
I had marked these mobs as my next target. The reason was that even though they wandered in groups, I hadn't seen any synchronization between them. Spread across a wide area as a massive cluster, their clothes were in tatters, and they stumbled around taking steps as if they were about to fall at any moment.
Thanks to some impatient fellas, it didn't take long for me to see them launch an attack. I call them fellas because a group of four, as if having reached a consensus, was running toward a Wasted who had strayed a bit from the crowd.
Holding my breath, I settled in to wait and see what would happen. The team was rapidly approaching their target. Ten steps, five steps, two steps—and suddenly, something incredible happened. The mob, incapable of even keeping its head straight, suddenly turned to them as if controlled by a remote and hocked a breath so nasty that its smell even dizzied me inside the shield.
Yeah, no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't find another name for it. Opening its mouth, it had sent a massive cloud of breath toward the attacking humans. How horrific their annihilation would be. It was clearly an area-of-effect attack by the mob; it had one-shotted all four people, causing them to pass out simultaneously.
That crossed off one more target for me, the Fallen named Wasted. Against a mob that four people couldn't handle, what could I possibly do alone?
"Drunk lvl 1"
I only had one chance left. I was after the guys wandering around with their hands on each other's shoulders or gripping each other by the waist.
I waited. I waited until one of the duo mobs let go of his partner to attack the human coming toward them.