The Rise Of A Porter

"So, where's the real you hiding at, huh?" Arnold mumbled as he grabbed Lucifer's head and slammed it on the pillar next to him, "I'm sick and tired of fighting the fake you. First in the dungeon and then in this stupid tower."

The battle between the devil and Arnold turned out to be more like a joke. It was far too one-sided to even call it a duel at this point. Lucifer had lost his sceptre when Arnold touched it, and his physical attacks were too lousy to deal any real damage to Arnold. 

Arnold wasn't interested in dragging their battle out because he wanted to leave the tower as soon as he could. But the only problem was... the moment he killed Lucifer, another one appeared to fight him. They all had the same strength but their defence scaled whenever a new one appeared in front of him.

For instance, Arnold killed the first ten Lucifers with a single attack from his bionic arm. But then from the 11th to the 15th, each of them took a couple of attacks and so on. Arnold knew the ones appearing in front of him were fakes because of their weak attacks so he initially paid them no heed. Instead, he focused his attempts on locating the responsible for causing these mirages. 

However, that did not help him at all. The one controlling them from behind was nowhere to be found. Arnold know that person had to be within the same floor to control the fake lucifer's, but he had searched the floor like a sniffer dog and yet there wasn't anything he could find to help him. Thus in the end he had to resort to interrogating the fake Lucifers rather than killing them. As much as a hassle it was.

"I AM the TRUE king of HELL-" Lucifer yelled with his mouth pushed against the floor by Arnold's fist.

"Oh, just die already..." Arnold squashed his head in a heartbeat.

The corpse disappeared as usual and then Arnold waited for Lucifer to reappear. As if it was written in the stars, another one of the Lucifers appeared. But this time he wasn't alone... he was there with his army from hell. Or at least a very small part of it. There were around a hundred of his hellish monsters looking at Arnold. However, this time something happened. Lucifer acknowledge him as if he had known him for quite some time.

"We meet again, Warrior from Earth." He mumbled, after teleporting behind Arnold, "You have had quite some fun with my doppelgangers. Now it's time I have some fun with you."

"Not gonna lie, that sounds wrong on so many levels," Arnold replied before doing the same trick on Lucifer, that he did to him, "But before you start being all touchy and feely with me, let me make one thing clear I'm not interested in men."

[I know you're not, but you sure sound like one. Touchy and Feely? No one uses those terms so lightly. I won't blame you though, he does look good.]

'I'm glad you don't have a dick, otherwise, I'll have to get rid of you somehow.'

[Who would feel that way about you? You're lucky that you actually got someone for yourself other than your hands.]

'... fck you.'

***

Meanwhile, on the outside, things were getting a bit weird. Just as the warriors were leaving as they had received the orders to leave the tower under Arnold's protection, something strange happened. Nicole walked out of the tower and she was surprised to see Talos and the others outside.

"Talos, what are you people doing here?" Nicole Asked the automaton who was dumbfounded to see her there, that too all alone. 

"If you're here... then where's master Arnold? He went inside to help you get out of there."

"No way... no way!"

Then she realised what was happening and immediately rushed ran back towards the gate of the tower. But it was shut permanently for her and didn't budge. She had cleared the tower and according to the rules, she could not enter it again for the next month. She tried destroying the stone gate using her ability but it was all in vain.

In Talos' opinion, Nicole had always been a bit... weird or over the top. He couldn't pinpoint why he thought so, but now she felt crazier than she ever did to him before. All of them rushed over to see just what was going on there.

"What is going on?" Talos asked Nicole as she crossed her arms in front of her chest and sat crossed-legged on the ground.

"The tower resets the level of difficulty according to the last person who cleared it." Nicole mumbled without looking at anyone of them, "When I went inside, each floor till the last floor was empty. And then I finally got to face the tower boss on the last floor... a crippled goblin. Basically, when I cleared the tower, it reset all of the floors according to my level. That means, no one below my level would have been able to clear the tower."

"Huh... so you're mad because...?" Alice asked her.

"Because now... Arnold will be able to clear the tower and it'll reset all of the levels according to his level!" She buried her head in her arms, "It'll be impossible for anyone else to even think about clearing the tower on a difficulty level set according to him."

"So you're not upset because Master went inside the tower to save you. You're upset because he will set the difficulty too high?"

"Why else would I be upset?" Nicole looked at them with perplexed eyes, "I'm sure he will clear the tower before we know it, and then it'll be too hard for anyone else but him to even think about entering the tower."

"With all due respect, ma'am," Talos spoke on behalf of everyone present there, "You're weird."

However, their fun time was interrupted by a call from Devon. Talos excused himself before picking up the call. As soon as he accepted the call, Devon blew up at him and began telling him what Bad-Breath had told him.

"Weird things? Like what?" Talos asked Devon.

"No idea, but Bob said he knows why the people were disappearing and requested for your help. He also said... don't send anyone alive here. I have no idea why he said that though."

"Alright, I'll get there as soon as I can. Till then, tell him to not let anyone go over there."

"Will do."