NOVEL NEXT Chapter 22: Security Cage
<Alex, Real - Prepare, High School Gym>
Alex looked at his own condition in preparation for the task before him.
Wounds:
Broken Bone x 4
[47 HP x 1 required to heal]
[100 HP x 3 required to heal]
He was actually rather proud of getting rid of all the gashes. The few on his back had required incredibly uncomfortable wriggling against the wall to press them closed to be healed.
Still, his right arm was useless.
Every broken bone he had was in that arm or the accompanying shoulder.
A rather unpleasant brood-guard had been his last opponent, and it had been rather against him continuing to hack at it.
He'd had to resort to Basic Life Transfusion to come out ahead even as it beat him with eight fists.
It had apparently had about as much health as he did, the right unpleasant fellow.
He'd spent sixty mana just to finish it off, which if he had known, might have made him use Force Burst instead… but that would likely have been a disaster, given the already flimsy nature of the outer door.
Even if it had been a wise choice to use Basic Life Transfusion, that's where most of his HP had gone… when he was already in a wounded state.
That had probably not been the wisest choice. Fighting with my own HP as a weapon is awful.
With the task of sealing the school before them, Alex and Lenka turned back, before she carefully moved away from him, making sure he didn't fall over.
He steadied himself then nodded, dadao in his left hand. "Let's do it."
Lenka touched her makeshift brace on the door out into the high school proper, and it vanished into her inventory. It was both funny and sad how short a time that had been there, but changing circumstances necessitated changing plans and all that.
She then grabbed the door and slowly opened it for him.
Thankfully, it opened on well-greased hinges. Teenagers once again are smart enough to not want to get caught.
Alex stepped out and quickly scanned the main passage outside.
To his left, only about thirty feet away, was the expansive glass front of the school.
He easily saw the prominent 'In Case of Emergency' button catty-corner to himself, on a little pedestal beside the glass school-front.
That's the goal.
To his right was a locker lined hallway, with classroom doors obvious as gaps in the lockers every so often.
There were also several large banners hanging across the hallway, near the ceiling.
'Fall Formal is coming, sign up this week!'
'Blood drive today! Drink Water, Give Blood, Save Lives!'
'Canned Food Drive contest this month, feed the needy better than those people!'
That's interesting… But he couldn't focus on that at the moment.
Several of the doors were broken open, many others just had the glass shattered, the openings lined with blood as things had gotten cut climbing in or out.
There were at least a few undead pressing against the wood and glass of the few classrooms that he could see with closed, intact doors. They were scraping harmlessly over something that was possibly a bit away from the doors.
Force barriers? It made sense for schools to have such defenses available to them in a world like this.
James had said that if the classrooms were properly sealed, they'd be impervious for at least a day or so.
So, that's what he meant.
The closest zombie was at least a dozen yards away down the long hallway, which was good… but it was staring right at him.
Well… pancakes.
Lenka leaned out and fired her crossbow.
The hallway was far from silent as these zombies seemed to not have the same silencing skill that the others that Alex had fought seemed to possess.
He then had the thought that it might have actually been the brood-guard who passively negated all sound created by nearby zombies.
Well, and the wight. That thing was eerily quiet.
Alex didn't wait to see the result of Lenka's shot; though he did take a moment to wonder where she'd gotten the crossbow. In theory, Kaylee would have hers so this was a different one. It even looked modern, not that he'd taken the time to analyze Kaylee's previously. Maybe they were exactly the same?
But he was getting distracted.
His right arm practically screamed in pain with his every jostling footfall, but he grit his teeth against the pain.
Going across the hall to the far corner made the trip longer than if he'd run straight to the nearer corner of the front wall, but his goal was his goal. Wishing wouldn't change anything.
Behind him he heard a silence fall within the school, followed by a thwack. That thwack was unnaturally loud in the sudden silence.
He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the zombie that Lenka had shot falling backward, bolt straight through its eye.
Hey! Nicely done.
He arrived at the big red button and slammed his hand down upon it.
A System notice popped up, but this one was a different shade of blue. He intuitively knew that that was meant to convey 'this is an internal prompt from this world, not from the System.'
Notice:
It will cost 100 HP to activate the school lock-down procedures.
Continue?
Y/N
Alex mentally slammed the 'Y' and gasped as one hundred points of health were dragged out of him.
Alex Johnson
HP: 252/660
Instantly, two heavy steel grids—which comprised the security cage—dropped, one on the inside and one on the outside of the glass school-front.
His job was done.
Deed Accomplished:
Locked in
Due to your efforts, you, the survivors, and the remaining undead are all (mostly) sealed in the high school for the moment.
The real question is who is locked in with whom?
Reward:
Experience to be granted when in a safe location.
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He spun around, pushing off to race back to the men's locker room.
Emergency lights were flaring to life down the hallway, giving illumination to what had once been cast in shadow.
The mindless zombies had taken notice of their fallen compatriot, but still seemed torn as to whether to continue their scramble at the sealed doors or go after this new creature—Alex.
Then, an emergency light flickered on near the far end of the—honestly, insanely—long hallway.
A lone figure stood, draped in black, a hood pulled up and two purple orbs shining like stars where the eyes should have been.
Alex did not directly meet its gaze, but even as he lunged back into the locker room, he used Analyze.
Zombie Horde Lord
Level ??
A mind behind the horde
Conditions:
Enraged
Well, that was less than ideal.
The spark of life—unlife—within the creature was potent with the same odd undead twist. From that little observation alone, Alex would rather fight a gym full of brood guard that that one horde lord...
Lenka slammed the locker room door, recalled the brace from her inventory, and helped set Alex's arm once more all with methodical precision. It seemed that his running had shifted the bones.
He grit his teeth and tried to distract himself. Well, that explains the pain…
Then, she told him to start moving, and she set about placing and arming traps—at least that's what Alex assumed that she was doing.
Alex didn't understand how she was doing it, thus making him even more grateful that she was the one doing it.
He checked the quest timer.
Group Quest [Prepare]:
Create a base of operations from which you can survive the end of the world.
The outbreak has begun.
Survive:
03:13 hrs
All things considered, that had been a productive eight minutes.
Now, they would seal this off and deal with the school after the first quest timer ran out.
Nothing within the school was going to be changing anytime soon, and even if it did, Lenka's traps would give them good warning and drastically slow down anything that came this way.
<Watcher, Apology Tutorial #486 Control and Observation Room>
The Watcher weathered the tirade of her Supervisor.
He was livid that the Horde Lord hadn't attacked.
She calmly explained, once again, that a level twenty sub-boss could not possibly attack Initiates less than three hours into the Apology Tutorial. The System simply wouldn't allow it.
Instead, the Horde Lord had been shown to the Initiates as a warning and so that the Zombie would have the Initiate's scent.
If they survived the school scenario, that Horde Lord would likely track down Alex personally.
That was another thing that further angered the Supervisor. The Horde Lord wasn't going to be staying in the school for Alex's group to have to fight. It was being pulled out by the System through various means and for purposes obscured from the Watchers.
Alex would have to fight it later.
Honestly, the Watcher felt rather grateful to Alex. Her Supervisor had always seemed like a rather nice fellow, all things considered, and since she was up for promotion in the next few centuries, she'd been considering taking up his previous offers of a night out once that happened.
Now? Now, she could see his true character, how he acted when things didn't go as he wished.
Thanks for the assist, Alex. Keep up the good work.
<Alex, Real - Prepare, High School Gym>
Alex finally had returned to the gym, collapsing against a wall in exhaustion. His ropes of lights were piled off to one side, so that they wouldn't get in his way.
Apparently, they had some sort of magically rejuvenating powersource so they'd glow forever, or at least until they were broken.
I'm taking those when I leave this place… Assuming he could actually take anything physical with him.
He had just closed his eyes, when a system notice appeared, visible even with his eyes shut.
Safe location detected:
Calculating and granting experience…
Deed Accomplished
Locked In
You killed
Zombie Ravager (Common), level 3 x 11
Undead Brood-Guard (Uncommon), level 8
Zombie Ceiling Crawler (Common), level 2 x 7
Zombie Lurker (Common), Level 3 x 3
Reward:
Extra experience awarded for killing creatures above your level.
Some enemies defeated were two or more times the level of the victor.
Some enemies defeated were four or more times the level of the victor.
Experience earned multiplied accordingly.
All opponents were of a lower Rarity than the victor
Experience reduced accordingly.
He eagerly checked his experience bars and was excited to see that his Class was ready to level up.
His race… was not. In fact, it looked like it hadn't gained any experience at all, which he found irritating.
He quickly moved to pull out the System Basics book, whimpering when he twitched his right hand in reflex.
Lenka was beside him in a moment. "Alex? What can I do for you?"
"System basics. Race leveling?"
"Oh! We figured that out. Your Race only gains experience when no Class that you have can take the experience, and so long as it doesn't out-level your highest class."
He grimaced. "So, if I kill a ton of creatures without getting to a safe area, I will only ever get one level in my class? Or if my class can't take the experience for any other reason it will just be wasted?"
"No. That's not how it works. It's more like interconnected reservoirs, with priority. If your class fills up, any experience beyond that goes to your Race. If both are filled—or if your race already out-levels that class—then the experience is held in reserve."
"Alright… but I can still only add to my Race level if my Class is of equal level and is at the cusp?"
She frowned. "No? I'm not sure. We haven't dug that deeply into it. We've been a bit busy."
He huffed a laugh. "That's fair. So, what if I don't take my class level now?"
"I don't know your levels, but if my guesses about you are right, it would just be held in reserve for your Class. But we don't actually know."
Well… I only get 25 stat points from my class and 28 from my race, so leveling my race preferentially makes more sense to me. But it didn't sound like he could get his third race level until his class was at least level 2.
She shrugged. "Do what you think is best."
"Fair enough. Does leveling take care of wounds?"
She tilted her head to the side. "I'm not sure. I guess we get to find out now, eh?"
He sighed and nodded. "Alright, Accept Level Up."
Level Up:
Life-Aspected Warrior (Rare), F
Level 1 → Level 2
Stats assigned.
Two Unused Points Available
Alex groaned as one bone clicked back in place, but the other did not. It seemed that his wounds would not automatically, fully heal with a level up.
He glanced at what seemed to be an experience—or XP—bar, and saw that, just as Lenka had suggested, more experience had poured into his class, moving it closer to the next level.
To his surprise, it actually looked like he'd gotten about halfway to the next level, even with his class's higher XP requirement.
Alex Johnson:
HP: 252/660 → 252/780
SP: 309/410 → 359/460
MP: 90/160 → 150/220
Wounds:
Broken Bone x 1
[23 HP x 1 required to heal]
So, his level up gave him 120 points of HP due to the increases to his stats, and that had gone toward healing his wounds.
That was actually a bit terrifying. If he had ongoing wounds, he didn't know of anything that could actually heal him around those. It might be worth me trying to use Basic Life Transfusion to get around that limitation at some point… but not now.
He let his increased mental faculties process all the info before conveying it to Lenka. "It seems like the increase to HP, SP, and MP that comes with a level up are added to the pools, but the SP and MP pools aren't refilled. Additionally, the HP that would have applied to my health pool instead went toward healing my injuries. My wounds will be fully healed in about twenty five more seconds. But it's going to take more than ten minutes to refill my pool. I can fight anytime after this bone fully sets."
Lenka nodded. "Alright, I'll let the boss know."
<Kaylee, Real - Prepare, High School Gym>
Kaylee was rubbing her temples as she talked with some of the people that Alex had managed to convince to come.
Many wanted to know what the plan was, and they were surprised and concerned when they learned that Kaylee and her group didn't have one, at least not specifically.
Thankfully, the current petitioner was interrupted by James arriving at her side. "Hey, I didn't get a response from you."
She was in a side room to talk with people in a more private setting while James had run up to the roof to check things out, and Natasha and Grant were working with the Matt guy to finish off the last of the enemies in the locker room.
They'd prioritized letting Kaylee and James get kills so that they could return to other duties without missing out on experience too much, and that had profited her quite well, but now was hardly the time to focus on stat gains.
"What's going on?"
Thankfully, the person who had been talking with Kaylee was observant enough to realize that Kaylee needed some space. She left with a grumpy look on her face, but she didn't seem too put out.
Kaylee continued. "Well?"
James turned back to her as the door closed. "The zombies are close. I can see many of them down the side streets toward the north of the city, and there are even some other people running ahead of them. Many of those folks seem to just be searching for anywhere that's safe, but at least one group seems to be making their way toward the school."
"How can you tell the difference?"
"Most of the few groups I saw were checking every door they passed, this one is close to running down the middle of the street in our direction."
"Ahh, that would do it…" She frowned. "Get back to the roof and keep me apprised. I'm sorry I missed your message earlier. I should have just looked at my phone." She gave a chagrined smile. "I was 'being polite,' but in situations like this, that could get us killed…"
James nodded. "What do you want to do about the group coming this way?"
She frowned, then nodded to herself. "I'll see if Alex and Lenka are back, yet. The school's locked down, so they should be. If they are…"
Her phone beeped with a message from Lenka.
"Well, speak of the devil."