Choose Your Apocalypse (A LitRPG Apocalypse, Progression, System Fantasy) [CYA]

<Alex, Real - Secure, High School Lower Hallway>

Alex only hesitated a moment, glanced toward where Grant lay, broken and bloody, a faint green light seeming to glow within him, alongside his now-stable spark.

Something made Alex certain that Grant would live, at least if he wasn't hit again.

That final glance was enough to solidify Alex's resolve, and he pushed off, running back toward where Natasha, Pilar, and Lenka were struggling against the final flesh golem.

It was likely frustrating for Pilar to have been able to utterly torch the one enemy, but be unable to do the same to this second one, because of their anti-magic bones.

That emaciation put the horribly twisted, mismatched, and jumbled nature of the golem's clogded together skeleton on display.

I will have to ask Grant what he did that let her get around that anti-magic protection. Whatever it was, it had a high cost—if Grant's state were any indication.

As he was near, Natasha looked his way and shouted instructions, "Cut something off, flay it and ash the flesh. We'll keep it distracted!"

That… was actually an excellent plan. "Yes, ma'am!"

He slashed out at the flesh golem's leg, his dadao passing through the knee from the back and separating the lower leg.

He spun, grabbing the freed body part and throwing it to the side, even as muscle extended both up from the shin and down from the thigh to try to reknit the parts together.

The flesh golem roared, seemingly more in irritation than in pain as it staggered, falling and catching itself on one of its hands.

Natasha and Pilar immediately attacked again, fighting to keep its focus, but it was Lenka who carried the day.

Her setup was finally complete, and—with a somewhat theatrical snap of her fingers—her traps triggered all at once.

Lenka, off to the side, seemed to focus on something they couldn't see, likely a system notification, but Alex couldn't focus on that.

Long loops of barbed wire snapped out, seeming like sprung springs as they shot forth, tangling around the flesh golem. Then, motors—either magical or mechanical—whirred to life, running those loops like chainsaws.

If Alex had been focusing more, he would have thought that it made no sense, it shouldn't have been able to work that way, but it did.

Regardless, he was busy slicing tenacious meat from the bone and ashing it as it fell free. Thankfully, most of the muscle that had been kept had been kept lower on the beast's body, so it still had enough mass to come free with relative ease.

With a wet sloshing sound—and a flood of the smell of copper—the barb-saws violently painted the hallway in blood and kept the golem contained for the seconds that Alex needed to finish and return for the next limb, but it also was obvious that it wouldn't keep it contained for long.

The arms were the greatest threat, so despite wanting to do the other leg first, Alex went for the upper limb.

Alex had to work faster. He felt like he needed a plan, but he didn't have the time, things were just happening too fast.

Even as Alex cut free one of the arms at the shoulder, the other lashed out and smashed the core of one of Lenka's traps.

She had been clever and doing so triggered another trap, this one sending a dangerously buzzing skill-saw-blade flinging at the offender.

It embedded deeply, clearly causing a lot of damage—even if that damage healed rapidly.

Alex, though, was dealing with the arm trying to get at him as he was carving the muscle free.

He had pulled out one of his sharpest kitchen knives from his inventory, and he was working with abandon.

He retched, barely keeping his bile down at the disgusting act he was performing.

It's a monster, it's not a human arm, and it's certainly not a living human arm that I'm cutting apart. He retched again even as he ashed a huge bunch of flesh that had served as the tricep of the golem.

His mantra was helped by the clearly wrong bone configuration… there should not be six staggered, overlapping bones in the upper arm alone.

Natasha hadn't been idle, continuing to thrust her spear into the beast, trying to wedge pieces away, even managing to get a force shield into some of the wounds as the golem flailed about.

The magic had acted as a wedge—somehow more stable and able to resist the anti-magical aura than Alex's own spells—tearing the flesh open further until it got too close to the bone for even it, and it was disrupted.

Pilar continued to work her fire, keeping a constant burn before the eyes of the monstrosity, and that was likely the only reason any of them were doing well at all.

Alex whimpered slightly as he had to individually flay the fingers, and the fact that they looked so human really hit him, despite the overarching disjointment of the situation. Even the inordinate number of them didn't help.

What am I doing? I'm an office worker, a home office worker. What am I doing? What am I doing?

His mind started to spiral, and he swallowed again, trying to keep his gorge down.

The previous flesh golem had been bulkier when he'd taken it apart on his own, which—ironically—had made it easier to get the bones free, avoiding this whole situation.

This golem? It had been so reduced that every bit of flesh that it had left was clinging to the bone like an over-adhesive sticker… filled with blood… that twitched, undulated, and squirmed against his efforts.

He turned and vomited then.

Natasha saw and cursed. "Pilar! Take over for Alex. Flay and ash."

"Yes, ma'am." Pilar responded, moving forward without hesitation.

Alex stumbled away from the hand, the arm bones already stripped and stored in his inventory or tossed up the stairs.

The hand was mostly fleshless, but was still holding together tenaciously.

He retched, but was able to Create Water in his mouth to swirl and spit out the remnants, which lowered his instinctive need to vomit again.

"Alex! Help me keep it away from that hand!" Natasha's voice snapped out, jerking Alex's attention back to the monstrous matter at hand.

He nodded dazedly, still feeling off from the loss of life energy, which he'd imparted to Grant to keep him alive.

Focus, Alex! He stumbled forward, bringing his dadao to bear even as the last of the barb-saw traps was destroyed.

The flesh golem looked nothing like its original, corpulent form.

Now, it looked like a mummy in a museum, except the flesh wasn't desiccated.

It was also missing an arm and a leg, but its unusually numerous bones—and the clearly superhuman muscles wrapping around them—still left it with a lot of striking power.

That was made apparent as Alex reacted to his Danger Sense, bending and twisting out of the way of the strike that whistled through the air where he had just been.

Alex had heard of swords or other small weapons making such a sound, but when an emaciated fist the size of his upper torso did so, it was a whole different thing.

The resonant boom as that fist cracked the floor upon impact didn't help with his impression of danger either.

Still, he had enough presence of mind—and dependance on his skills—that he was able to thrust forward landing a blow between the two conglomerations of arm-bones and driving his blade all the way through to protrude from the otherside by quite a ways.

With a twist, the arm burst apart. Even if it pulled back together shortly after, it was a good delaying strike.

That's how they proceeded.

He was able to keep his gorge in check when simply hacking and slashing against the clearly inhuman thing, and Pilar didn't seem to have an issue working with the all-too-human-like pieces that they separated for her to deal with.

In the end, that was enough.

Ten agonizing, bloody minutes later, Pilar burned the last bit of flesh golem, and they all got the kill notice.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Kill Notice:

You have aided in the destruction of
Flesh Golem of the Plague Guard (Uncommon), Level 16

Reward:
Experience to be granted when in a safe location.

Alex groaned dropping heavily to the floor even as the a bank of lockers chose that time to topple to the ground in a great crash.

He didn't even care.

He was exhausted.

SP: 280/850

He'd been using his multi-strike a lot there at the end, and something about the over-usage made him feel like just eating some food wouldn't be enough to recover it.

I'll need to sleep again. But at least the danger had passed.

…It had passed, right?

He checked his quest.

Group Quest [Secure]:
You have chosen to stand with others, and you've succeeded.
Now, fully claim your base of operations.

Reward:
Unlock Base Related System features
Unlock the next Tutorial Quest
Experience

It wasn't done.

For some reason, it. Wasn't. Done.

He laid back with a groan, his eyes closed. "We must have missed one somehow. I'd have thought all this hullabaloo would have drawn them here, but apparently not."

Pilar chuckled even as she was tending to her husband, but it was Lenka who responded, "Hullabaloo?"

Natasha had gone to check on Grant while Alex got a short breather.

"What? You understood what I meant." He reached up and rubbed his eyes. The sound of creaking metal made him concerned that something else might be about to fall. So, despite wanting to fall asleep right there, he opened his eyes and froze.

He was staring straight into a pair of undead eyes above a silently frothing mouth.

The undead he'd embedded in the ceiling was writhing and trying to get at him… and the ceiling tiles that were holding it in place were shifting.

Oh. That was all the time he had before it broke free and came crashing down atop him.

He let out an involuntary, squeal of surprise even as he tried to react.

Thankfully, before the thing landed atop him, it was struck in the head with a bolt and caught fire.

That just meant that it was fully dead again and on fire when it landed atop him.

He instinctively pulsed Basic Life Transfusion to ash it, and that worked to put out the fire as it deprived the flame of ready fuel.

Alex scrambled up out of the cloud of recently-zombie ash, spitting and coughing to try to clear his mouth.

Create Water came in handy once again.

Even as he spit one last time to clear his mouth, a System message pulsed before his eyes:

Group Quest [Secure]: COMPLETE
You have chosen to stand with others, and you've succeeded.
Now, fully claim your base of operations.

Reward:
Unlock Base Related System features
Unlock the next Tutorial Quest
Experience

Reward Granted:
Base Related System features Unlocked
Next Tutorial Quests Unlocked
Experience to be granted when in a safe location
Merit to be granted when the Store is next made available

Individual Quest [Secure]: COMPLETE
Your chosen path is that of a defender.
Keep casualties to a minimum while claiming your base of operations.

Reward:
Based upon results achieved

Reward Granted:
Experience to be granted when in a safe location
Merit to be granted when the Store is next made available

Another notice popped up before his eyes, and he read it carefully.

Base Related System features Unlocked:
Choose a Base Manager

You have one vote.

He didn't think about it too much. Kaylee was really the only option in his mind. He wasn't about to do it himself.

That seemed to be all that was required. He just thought about her specifically, and his vote was cast.

Base Related System features Unlocked:
Choose a Base Manager

Congratulations, by unanimous vote, Kaylee is the designated Base Manager.

Alex immediately had two more System notices pop up, the new Quests.

Group Quest [Endure]:
You have chosen to stand with others, and you've succeeded.
Now, build up your base of operations and range outward for supplies.
Maintain a secure base of operations for 30 days.
Keep those who trust you safe.

Reward:
Based upon results achieved
Unlock the next Tutorial Scenario
Experience

Endure:
29 days 17 hrs 8 min

Individual Quest [Endure]:
Your chosen path is that of a defender.
A defender must have those whom he defends.
Gather more survivors under your charge and keep them safe.

Reward:
Based upon results achieved
Experience

Huh. Well, that'll make things… interesting.

<Kaylee, Real - Endure, High School Gymnasium>

Kaylee stared at the system notification before her.

Base Related System features Unlocked:
Choose a Base Manager

Congratulations, by unanimous vote, Kaylee is the designated Base Manager.

A series of curses ran through her mind, half in glee and half in horror. Now she had to be responsible for this madness?

I really need a drink.

She almost pulled out a bottle that she'd taken from her apartment in this fake place, but she had responsibilities to attend to.

It wasn't hard to pull up the Base Management System, and it was… extensive.

Thankfully, it was actually a relatively well laid out UI, and it further refined itself with her simple thoughts about how she wished it would be.

There was a large counter in the upper right corner, showing how long they had until the school's defenses would go down.

Well, that's far too soon.

In response to her thoughts—at least most likely—a prompt overlaid the currently open management screen.

Would you like to Impose a Mana Tax?

Y/N

A mana tax?

Base Manager Notice: (Apology Tutorial)

A Mana Tax is simply the passive draining of the mana of all occupants of the base, when their mana pool is full*. In that way, their passive generation goes into the base's reserves rather than being wasted.

*Downside:
All occupants will technically have 0.1 point less Mana available at all times when they would otherwise be at their maximum in order to allow their passive mana generation to continue uninterrupted.

She stared at that for a long moment before shrugging. "Yes."

Immediately, the counter in the upper corner vanished, and it was replaced by three numbers: mana per second earned, mana per second used, and total mana reserves.

Apparently, even uninitiated had a mana generation—even without their magical stats unlocked—so every single person provided an incredibly small inflow.

When she thought about it, the section expanded, showing exactly how much each person was contributing.

No one in the group that had gone with Alex was currently giving mana, but that made sense. None of them should be anywhere near full up.

Regardless, every student was giving at least 0.001 mana per second, with the teachers giving closer to 0.02 on average. Together, they were generating more than two mana per second.

She also noted that there were more students and faculty than there really should be, indicating that those in the rest of the school—who had yet to be recovered—were also contributing.

That's convenient.

When she opened the costs section, she saw the expense for the ongoing protection: 1.5 mana per second.

She was absolutely floored at the efficiency of that, even as she realized that it would still cost nearly a hundred thirty thousand mana to defend the school for a day.

There were also other active drains on the schools mana reserves, including more localized defenses for where the other students and faculty were hiding.

She was able to find a place that indicated the absence of enemies within the school, the ground and upper floor clearly visible in this menu. So she used her control to deactivate those draining, localized defenses.

With that done, the reserves started to tick upward at a healthy clip.

Alright. That, at least, should be useful.

She wondered what she could do to improve the school from this menu, and the answer popped up.

She could spend mana for improvements across the board. Water generation, temperature control, food storage and preparation, and improved defenses were all available for incrementally increasing bulk mana costs, each with their own attending, ongoing mana cost as well.

So, mana is the currency of Base Management, then? I suppose that makes some sense. Then, she saw that in each category—both those that she'd already seen and others—had many, many options, with most locked behind population requirements. I see. The System won't let us bunker down with just a few people. We need to gather more before it will let us make a truly unassailable fortress.

And that was actually one of the big things that she'd learned.

The school's defenses were now breachable.

The System had held them as inviolable before the school was claimed, but now? Now, the defenses were quantified: impassability for anything below level 15, invisibility from anything below level 20, and a simple perception diverting mechanism for anything above that.

Basically, if they left the defenses as they were, they'd be facing powerful creatures sooner rather than later.

Alright, Kaylee, time to steward our resources and get down to some good old tower-defense… I wonder if I can get some protective plants somewhere.