NOVEL NEXT Chapter 23: Ahead of the Horde
<Alex, Real - Prepare, High School Gym>
Alex breathed out a sigh of relief when, barely thirty seconds later, a message came back from Kaylee.
Lenka conveyed what Alex needed to know. "We're to go to the door leading in from the outside. James thinks he sees some non-infected trying to escape ahead of the horde. We might need to provide some cover to get them safely inside."
Alex nodded even as he pushed himself to his feet, happy that his bones were now fully healed.
Being so low on Health Points (HP) felt like being sick—even now that he had no wounds. There wasn't anything obviously wrong with him, but he felt rather bleh.
That was fine. He could bear through. People needed him.
He'd made his choices so that he could help people, so help people he would.
Oh, I need more magic.
He hesitated for a brief moment. "Magical Stat Descriptions, please."
Magical Stat Descriptions:
Power: The strength of magic that you can bring to bear before recovering. This is the basis for the size of your Mana Pool (MP).
Agility: How much control you can exert over your magic naturally as well as how quickly you recover your Mana (MP). Base Recovery Rate = Magical Agility x 5 per hour regeneration of MP.
Fortitude: This is how resistant you are to magical effects, and how easily your magic penetrates through the magical defenses of other creatures or things.
He pulled up the part of his class description that talked about his Magic Power (MP).
There really are too many possible meanings for MP: Mana Pool, Magic Power, Mana, etc.
Life-Aspected Warrior
Your MP is calculated at 20 x Magical Power.
So, based on what he just experienced with leveling up, putting his free points into Magical Power would give him 40 MP instantly, and increase his pool by 40 permanently.
But that's just a bigger pool with the same trickle filling it.
If he put the two points into Magical Agility, he would only get just about 0.17 MP/minute increase to his recharge rate. That would be less now, but much, much more in the long run, given that was an increase of roughly 18%.
He doubted that he would often have hours to refill his mana pool, making an increase to that a long-term increase in combat effectiveness.
But… it would take less than half an hour to refill as it was now.
He growled.
He needed the power now, and the capacity to fight longer going forward.
"Allocate unused points, two to Magical Power."
Alex Johnson:
Magical Power:
11 → 13
MP: 152/220 → 192/260
There, with that upgrade he would refill his Mana Pool in about thirty-five minutes. Not really useful in an individual fight, but with how often they were fighting he thought he'd be grateful for the increased pool as soon as they had even a moment to breathe.
"Let's go." He followed Lenka to the entry area, a side room that was clearly meant for receiving deliveries.
Lenka went before him, setting traps on standby in ways he simply didn't understand. "We're to wait here for James to call and tell us to sally forth and save people."
Alex nodded, dropping to the floor. "I'm going to stretch. My body needs to be reworked a bit. Let me know when we need to go."
Group Quest [Prepare]:
Create a base of operations from which you can survive the end of the world.
The outbreak has begun.
Survive:
03:08 hrs
So, everything would be decided in the next eight minutes when the main body of the horde arrived.
In the moment, he was familiarizing himself with his current limits rather than trying to increase them.
He was tired of hurting himself because he tried to move in a way that his body wasn't used to.
As soon as he had an hour or two at full health he'd push the boundaries.
He could probably do it now, but he might need every health point in the near future, and it just wasn't worth the risk.
Less than two minutes later, James called Lenka.
She answered motioning for Alex to stand. "A group is coming our way. They fought their way out of a sidestreet and are seemingly trying to make a break for the front of the school.
Oh… that'd be a nasty surprise for them. He'd just locked that down in a rather… impassable way, at least for the next twelve hours or so.
Lenka got right up to the door, phone back in her inventory. "Ready?"
Alex nodded.
She pulled the doors open, and Alex rushed out into a horror movie.
There were already scattered dead across the mostly empty street, never very near to the gym, but still close enough to cause him to internally cringe.
They almost made it. Why didn't James let us help? Why wasn't I out here to help?
Still, three things immediately caught his attention.
First, there was a group of nearly twenty people using cabinet doors, pot lids, and the like for shields.
At the core of the group were a few kids and two people who seemed far more confident.
Alex could sense mana pouring off of one of them, and the other had a pistol in each hand and enough clips on various belts, bandoliers, and a vest that it was boarding on comical, though he didn't actually seem to be switching out his clip…
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I guess I haven't really shot that much? Maybe clips are larger than I think they are.
The group saw him and the open doors even as he motioned for them, doing his best to gain their attention without yellingas if to reduce the chance of drawing the undead's attention to their safe haven.
Second, Alex saw zombies sprinting for the group from nearly every direction, but mainly from behind, which was the supposed direction of the horde.
The first would get to the group before Alex could, even if he ran, and he needed to hold the gym's door.
Because of the third thing.
Third, directly across the street from the gym's door was a pack of ravagers.
He Analyzed them to be sure, but he had no doubt even before the System message.
Zombie Ravager
Level 4
X2
Zombie Ravager
Level 3
x3
Zombie Ravager
Level 2
x5
The ten zombies had been running for the oncoming group of humans, but they clearly noticed Alex's arrival on the scene and pivoted toward him.
Alex had a moment to mutter under his breath. "Grandma's cookies."
Then, he did the only reasonable thing when people were in danger.
He sprinted at the ravagers.
<James, Real - Prepare, High School Gym Roof>
James sighed in disappointment when he saw the ten ravagers turn toward the gym door. There was no way that their group could allow those ten to get in. Alex and Lenka would have to—
He felt his eyes go wide as Alex left the safety of the gym door and sprinted toward the oncoming zombies.
James frantically started to text Kaylee, then realized that he was being foolish, and called her instead.
The clash was about to occur, and he didn't want to miss any of it.
He just hoped he wouldn't be reporting Alex's death.
<Alex, Real - Prepare, Street Beside the High School Gym>
Alex focused in on the task at hand.
This was an entirely different battlefield from his foray into the locker room. Here, they could use their numbers to flank him, but he was still incredibly confident.
As to why he was confident? First, he could actually see them all. Second, he didn't have to take terrain into account—they'd be clashing on open blacktop.
As he ran at them—and they at him—he was able to learn a bit about his opponent.
The higher level ravagers were just a bit faster. They'd had a lead on their weaker brethren before, but with bursts of speed, they were widening that gap in the last moments before the clash.
Alex knew exactly how this would go.
<Alex, Imagining - The Plan>
He struck a massive two-handed blow into the side of the first ravager, and it was thrown sideways into the second. At the same time, its momentum carried the twisting body into him where a pulse of Basic Life Transfusion dusted that undead.
The second was stumbling and blind from the zombie-dust, allowing Alex to whip his dadao back and up, cleaving it in half from groin to crown with his inhuman strength.
Then, he was among the lessers.
His blade flashed, followed by small pulses of green magic as each was turned to dust.
The group of survivors marveled at his efficient dispatching of the beasts even as they made it to safety.
He'd saved them.
<Alex, Real - Prepare, Street Beside the High School Gym>
Alex grinned, slashing sideways with his dadao.
The blow landed, but it didn't carry the front ravager into the one beside it.
Instead, it cleaved completely through the creature—head and spine, to embed in the second.
The first hit him with virtually unreduced inertia, even though it was more like a two-tined fork than a spear as it struck him.
He managed to send off a pulse of Basic Life Transfusion to dust the front runner, even as the runner-up weighed down his blade.
Kill Notice:
You killed Zombie Ravager (Common), level 4
Reward:
Experience to be granted when in a safe location.
Can't you hold notifications til I'm done!?!
Seeing the following eight ravagers making truly monstrous leaps for him, Alex allowed the weight on his sword to pull him well and truly off-balance.
He was sent sprawling across the black-top, even as he dusted the second level 4.
No notification filled his vision, but he felt like it was there nonetheless, waiting for him.
Alright, I can work with this.
He'd had to use a bit more power to finish off the first two than he'd have liked, but considering the normal ones could be obliterated with a bare 15 MP and 40 HP if they were undamaged, it hadn't taken him too much.
The eight others had already been in the air, and so couldn't change their trajectory.
That gave him about half a second to plan.
The group of survivors coming down the street was flanked with walls of fire, and the gunman was going through rounds like a tornado would go through trailers in a trailer park.
Wow… that's an awful analogy. But he had no time to think of a better one.
He didn't want to waste more MP than he had to, still…
I do have inhuman strength.
He timed his jump. The eight were arriving in two waves, and he couldn't wait for all of them to be in place.
He sprang up and over the three level 3 ravagers, and when he was directly overhead, he fired off a Force Burst.
The spell hit everything within five feet of him.
It crushed the ravagers below him to the ground as if he'd dropped on them from the top of a building.
It didn't kill them outright, but they were wrecked for the moment.
The level 2s were close enough that their outstretching hands were caught.
Mainly, that meant that they had their dominant hands ripped off, even as they were jerked downward.
Alex's jump was thrown off as projecting that much force outward changed his trajectory. This struck him as odd because he hadn't noticed any feeling of movement when he'd used the skill before.
Regardless, he tumbled back to the ground, tossing his dadao to stick in one of the random corpses on the ground rather than risk cutting himself in the tangle.
His System messages were really piling up, but he continued to ignore them, keeping them from filling his vision.
Even as he scrambled to his feet, the amputee ravagers were doing the same.
He touched his dadao and put it in his inventory briefly, even as he managed to get to the downed level 3s, sending Basic Life Transfusion into each with a touch to dust them.
It was then that the five lowest leveled creatures fell on him despite his Danger Sense and ability to move.
He had simply prioritized dusting the pulverized level 3s over dodging the level 2s.
He hadn't had another heavy coat to wear. In fact, he hadn't changed at all since his fight through the locker room, which was really an oversight.
Regardless, their teeth tore through the remains of his shirt with ease—or even just went through pre existing holes—biting deep.
He reacted on instinct, sending out a pulse of Basic Life Transfusion into each.
The five were all hurt, and they had less HP to start with—being only level 2—but still, it would have taken him far too much health to simply dust them all.
Instead, he hit them each just a bit, causing them to jerk back, screeching.
Then, his dadao was in his hands, and in less than two seconds he took off one, two, three, then four and five heads.
Another pulse of Basic Life Transfusion to each dusted them.
By that point, he was bleeding profusely. With a thought he pulled up his wounds notification.
Wounds:
Deep Bites, clean x 5
[25 HP x 5 required to heal]
Well, at least the bites are clean… Somehow… He groused.
He stood, staggering toward the gym doors once more. The group had gotten there ahead of him, and the magic lady was arguing with Lenka.
The gunman had a sad look on his face as he regarded Alex, despite the oncoming zombies less than a hundred feet away, "I'm sorry, friend. We truly do appreciate the help."
Alex frowned, continuing to move toward the gym. What is he talking about?
The gun came up. "We'll take good care of these folks for you."
Alex's eyes widened as his Danger Sense went crazy.