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

<Alex, Endure - Secure, High School Gymnasium>

Alex and Mr. Weston sat at right angles to each other, preparing to expand Alex's Inventory.

Mr. Weston had a few words of wisdom to share before they started, however. "Now, Alex. I want you to know that this can be very uncomfortable to do. Moreover, expect about a ten percent shrinkage after we remove the expansion blocks at the end."

Alex nodded. That made sense.

"You will be in charge of when we stop, but I would say you should aim for reaching at least a three foot cube. If you need to stop beforehand, we can, but that should be a manageable level of discomfort."

He nodded again. "Let's do this."

Without further ado, a one foot cube wooden block appeared in the space before them both. Mr. Weston hadn't needed to do anything to make it appear, and it wasn't even touching him as it did so.

Farmer Jim's tomatoes… how thoroughly has he mastered this skill?

The block itself was not standard, despite Mr. Weston's implications. There was a set of magical symbols on it that Alex vaguely recognized as impermeability and a temperature lock, both seemingly the sub variations and modified to best suit the material. Still, both were recognizable, even to his untrained eye. Neither were particularly strong, but so long as the wood was kept inside and not submerged in water, it shouldn't have any moisture penetration or change in temperature. That, in turn, would keep it from changing size or shape.

It did make sense that the central piece of an expensive set was critical to get right.

Despite his shock, Alex didn't delay, touching the wood with his finger and pulling it into the center of his own Inventory.

"Good. Try to act on the cubes without quite touching them. If you can't manage, it's fine to make contact, but try with each one regardless. We want you to master your skill even as you expand its capacity."

"I'll do my best. Thank you."

"Of course."

The next cube appeared. This one was a gun-metal gray and oddly textured.

No… Alex's mouth opened in shock yet again, and his eyes widened. The outside of the cube was covered in symbols, finely etched and then filled in with something that almost matched the titanium. An alloy of some kind?

Regardless, he wasn't here to study symbols… as much as he might want to. Thus, he reached for the cube, stopping just before he contacted the metal, willing it to come into his Inventory, trying as hard as he could to use the skill.

He felt something, but the cube didn't react.

He tried again, and felt like it almost worked, but the attempt failed again.

Not willing to delay further, he touched the surface—his finger unable to pick up the texture of the symbols—and willed it into his Inventory.

It appeared beside the wood.

Alex sighed. "Misfire."

He expelled the cube back to where it had been. This time—while being in contact with the metal—he very specifically willed the cube to come into his Inventory tightly around the wood cube already in place.

It worked.

The metal cube went over the wood like a perfect sleeve. Alex grinned. "That did it!"

Mr. Weston patted him congratulatory on the shoulder. "Very nicely done, Alex. Many students take multiple classes before they can do that first meshing. It is clear that the dexterity I saw when you emptied your Inventory wasn't a fluke."

What followed was a quick series of boxes, one after another, in which Alex tried twice to pull each into his Inventory without touching, then when that failed, he touched the metal and drew it into place.

It took twenty minutes to reach a two foot cube, which was actually rather impressive, because that was averaging only about six seconds per cube.

Neither Mr. Weston nor Alex did anything different as the next cube appeared before them.

Alex tried to draw it in without contact, then did draw it in with a light touch.

It felt… really odd. It was like being full and eating one last dinner roll. Or being tired on a hike and having someone add a water bottle to your pack. Or squeezing into pants that used to fit perfectly.

Overall, it was an odd, vaguely uncomfortable feeling.

He frowned slightly, but when Mr. Weston caused the next one to appear, Alex continued the process.

The pressure built over the next fifty or so boxes until Alex finally had to ask. "Should I focus on the feeling? Or try to tune it out?"

The boxes kept coming, and he kept adding them, waiting for the teacher's response. Finally, Mr. Weston nodded. "Most people find trying to ignore it futile, but those who do find a way have good results. For the others, focusing more fully on the feeling can actually lead to better results."

I've never been good at distracting myself from what I want to keep out of my mind. Another box appeared, and he pulled it into his Inventory.

Alright, then. I'll focus on it more fully.

He was butter spread over too much—No, that's too often used.

He was play-slime stretched on a camping cot frame. Moisturize me!

He was a little girl who loved chewing-gum and ignored a crazy inventor.

The feeling, however real, wasn't actually in him.

It wasn't his body that was feeling stretched, but something that was his.

He grit his teeth. "Where is an Inventory, anyways?"

"Ahh, deciding to attempt the distracted route?"

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Alex grunted. "No, but I was curious."

"Scholars debate that. The more spiritual say it's in the soul, which is why an Inventory's contents are deposited around a body after a person dies and the soul departs."

He grunted again.

"I, personally, plan to fill my inventory with confetti in my last days. That way, when I pass, it will be quite the party."

Alex gave the man a skeptical look, and Mr. Weston chuckled. "Everyone has a dream."

That made Alex chuckle. At least it's not collecting ceramic unicorns…

"Others say it's a sub-dimension keyed to our personal magical flavor or signature. This is supported by the very rare case of people's inventories suddenly being empty if they haven't accessed them in a long time, and they've changed their magic drastically in the interim."

Alex's eyebrows rose in alarm, but Mr. Weston was quick to assuage him.

"As I said, this is exceedingly rare. I believe it has been recorded only a handful of times in our entire history. Regardless, most believe that it is simply a storage space held by the System for you. This is why those with Dimensional Magic can't seem to breach even Simple Inventories. Same with those wielding other sorts of power. The System seems to hold Inventories as essentially inviolable, at least so long as the person is living."

"That's good to know." He grunted as he pulled the next box into place, feeling the strain yet again.

"Some who would know have said this process feels like getting pregnant."

"Why—by jim-bob's beard—would this feel like sex?"

Mr. Weston blinked a few times. "What? No. No! Not the act of getting impregnated." He laughed out loud then, being overtaken with a fit of merriment and taking a moment to calm back down and speak further, continuing the steady stream of boxes regardless. "No. They say it feels like having the baby growing within. Sometimes you feel the stretch, sometimes you don't, and when it's time to be done, you know."

Alex cleared his throat. "Oh… Right."

"Yes. Right."

They continued in silence, Alex focusing on the feeling yet again until his focus became so great that— "Hey! I pulled that one in without touching it."

"That you did, Alex. Good job. Now try to do it again."

It took four more boxes before he was able to reproduce the success, but after that he was able to do it every time, the System clearly stepping in to allow him to use his skill in such a manner, now that he'd shown that he could. Going forward, he was just trying to pull it in from steadily farther away.

After about forty five minutes of work, Alex finally started to feel like he was going to be sick from the pressure and discomfort, even though the sensation originated from a skill rather than his stomach. He groaned. "I think that's all I've got… how did I do?"

"Three feet, three inches, or near enough."

"Hey! That's wonderful. What now?"

"Now? Now you go take a nap. We have to leave in just over two hours. Leave the blocks in there and that will help the skill settle in. We can continue this either on mission or when we get back from the first, depending on how you're feeling when you wake."

Alex gave him a long look. "Why are you helping me so much?"

Mr. Weston chuckled. "Well, first of all, it's right near an apocalypse out there. I'd be a fool to hold back help. Beyond that, I'm grateful for what you've done for this school, and I want to help you." The man shrugged. "At an even baser level, I love teaching and helping people in general. That's why I'm even a teacher instead of working in the Industries. Pumpernickel, I could have been a private tutor, but that'd have meant I taught fewer people. Not worth it."

Pumpernickel? Oh… right, System censoring. He was still getting used to that.

Alex pushed himself to his feet, fighting a wave of vertigo originating from the overstuffed skill.

Mr. Weston was there, bracing him and helping him keep on his feet. "Take a moment. You'll be fine."

Alex swayed a bit, but then he nodded, regretting it instantly afterward. He groaned and Mr. Weston chuckled.

"Would you like help to your cot?"

Alex grunted an affirmative, before his eyes fell on his items that he'd taken from the inventory. "What of my stuff?"

"Oh! How silly of me. If you're willing to risk it, I'd suggest removing all the boxes sized two-feet or less."

"How is it a risk?" Alex frowned in confusion, trying to figure out what might happen. "Could the outer boxes collapse?"

"No, no. There isn't any concern of that. The risk is that if you aren't careful, you might expel all the boxes, and that would set back your progress."

Alex grunted again. "Alright. I'll try."

He focused on his Inventory and to his surprise, he was able to easily see everything within, identifying each individual cube as if it were separate.

Now that he considered it, his Inventory skill didn't really have a point of view that he looked in with. Instead, he simply knew what was there. I bet I could read a book that was in there.

It was worth trying… after a nap.

Following Mr. Weston's suggestion—while leaning on the man—he mentally indicated the innermost one hundred ninety three boxes, and tried to bring them out as a block.

He mostly succeeded.

Two cubes appeared beside his feet.

"Very good, Alex."

Without even moving, Mr. Weston pulled the two into his own Inventory.

"A stack of eighty, and one of one hundred and fourteen. Very well done indeed. You barely expelled more than you wanted, and you kept them mostly contiguous."

Alex considered for a moment. "This is another way of using the cubes to improve the skill usage, isn't it?"

"Well intuited. Yes. I have workbooks full of exercises to go through. 'Create two stacks, one with all the odd, the other with the even.' Or 'Create six stacks of equivalent collective volume.'"

Alex frowned. "I thought you said this was for the less academically inclined?"

"Yes, it is. Such things can be an easy function of the skill itself. There are innumerable things that can be done with the Inventory skill. I personally think that it is one of the most useful single skills under the System."

"I can see that." Now, he had a two foot cube open in the center of his inventory, which was only a bit smaller than what he'd had before. "Let me grab my stuff, then if you're willing, I'd love your help to make it to the cot."

Mr. Weston obliged, helping Alex over to his pile.

Alex did his best to take in everything at a distance, but he still had to sweep his foot across above the pile to get everything. "This is going to make collecting supplies so much easier."

"Indeed. I can grab things up to three feet from myself, so long as they aren't claimed by others, and I can place them down up to four feet away with relative ease."

Alex's eyes widened. "That's incredible."

The older man chuckled. "Oh, not really. I came to this later in life."

Alex hesitated. "May I Analyze you?"

"Hmm? Oh, certainly. I assumed that you already had."

Mr. Weston
Human, Level 1

"You're only level one?"

The teacher smiled. "Yes, yes. The System does reward skill growth, but only when such is in line with a class, and I am afraid that I was a bit foolish when selecting my class."

Alex felt conflicted. He was curious, but it also seemed like it would be a very personal thing.

Mr. Weston came to his rescue. "When I was a child, I saved a little girl from being hit by a car. It's actually one of the reasons I was able to earn an Initialization into the System. But, as a result of my actions, one of the classes I was offered was a 'Hero' class, specifically geared around saving others from physical harm… Unfortunately, it turns out that I am a bit of a coward." He gave a self-deprecating smile. "I tried to train as a firefighter, a policeman, and even a more general first responder. No matter what I tried, however, I simply couldn't get over the shakes when faced with imminent danger. I'd saved her without thought, and since that moment, I'd done little but imagine how it could have gone wrong."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Yet, you're going to come out into danger with us?"

"I'll be trembling the whole time. I won't lie to you or delude myself. I'll be useless in combat, but for carrying things? For comforting those who need it? I'm your man."

Alex couldn't understand. How could someone be so unable to overcome such a state?

He then remembered how long he'd been in a daze after…

Yeah, he could understand how someone could get trapped in a cycle of self-isolation and delusion. It had taken strong intervention by those around him to correct the issue and get him back out in the world.

It seems that Mr. Weston had never had someone force him to overcome his fear of danger.

That did make some sense. What would others do? Throw him into a fire?

It was sad, though. Alex could clearly see the tinge of longing in the older man, tainted by fear.

"Well, we're glad to have your help, in whatever capacity you're willing to give it."

Mr. Weston clapped him on the back. "Come on. Let's get you to bed."