NOVEL NEXT Chapter 50: Into a Pattern
<Alex, Real - Endure, Apartment Building>
With the building now known to be clear—Alex's group chuckling and easily forgiving him for his delayed use of his Detect skills—they swept through it like vikings, pillaging the open apartments, breaching the empty ones, and trying to take the survivors with them.
Though, unlike the vikings of old, they wouldn't force the unwilling, and killed no one, at least for the present moment.
Their goal was speed, so when they received a denial, they moved on. There were many, many apartment buildings to clear, and Alex's detection skills had shown that at least those nearby were not in good states.
Many occupants accepted departure immediately. Many of the few who initially refused, changed their minds when they saw—or were introduced to—the teachers. A few groups or families knew students or staff at the school, and those were the most excited to go with them back to the high school.
In total, they were blessed to find all six families that they'd hoped to check on in this building. All were shaken, scared, and in a bit of shock, but they were alive and well otherwise.
As to the continued resource gathering, the teachers only took what they were 'allowed' from apartments where they found people, but they utterly emptied everywhere else.
As a result of all this, by the time they headed back to the school, they had another hundred people—most folks having been at work or school themselves when the apocalypse started—along with well stocked Inventories.
Alex was working alongside everyone else—doing a final sweep through the building on their way to the basement—when he felt an odd, building pressure come to a head, followed by a relief of that pressure, leaving him feeling… almost exactly the same.
Following what felt like an instinctive hunch, he pulled up his basic status.
Alex Johnson
HP: 2351/2351 [Max: 2880]
SP: 1508/2232
MP: 907/1100
His base HP had gone up by one point. With a frown, he thought back. It had been around an hour since he'd sent his Life out, and during most of that time he'd had full health…
Is it that simple? I think that's about ten thousand HP of healing. Ten thousand regeneration is what it takes to naturally recover one Life point? If that's the case… He started to do the math in his head, but then just decided it would be easier to pull out his phone and use the calculator. Twenty-two days at full health before I'm back to Max capacity in my HP, unless I can find another cure or means of healing.
That… that hurt quite a bit, actually. He was grateful that he didn't have to stay at full health the entire time, and the 'regeneration' seemed to be cumulative… at least if he understood it correctly. Moreover, it was obviously better than the Life being gone forever, but it still wasn't great.
Regardless, it wasn't really something he could address right at that moment.
Other than his minor recovery of Life, the trip back was uneventful, even with Alex and Natasha standing guard on one side of the underground thoroughfare and John and Pilar on the other.
There simply seemed to be no threats in the underpassages as of yet.
Grant led the teachers and survivors back to the gym and to Kaylee.
Kaylee, for her part, welcomed all the people, shunting them off to the various school administrative staff that she'd drafted to handle getting new people settled.
The teachers emptied their Inventories on the grass of the school yard, and voluntold workers descended on the massed resources, working in groups to sort and store it appropriately throughout the school.
There were even biology teachers—and those who had acted as assistants in those classes—who willingly began to harvest the requested parts from the bodies Alex had asked that the group bring back with them.
All told, it was a rather efficient operation.
An operation that didn't need Alex and his group to be there.
Thus, as soon as things were underway—and as soon as they'd each eaten, drunk, and sat down for a moment—they turned around and went back out, aiming for the next apartment building.
It was time to do this all over again, and hopefully do it more quickly the second time.
At least we can get into a pattern.
<Sophia, Real - Proof of Worth, Defragmenting Earth>
Sophia didn't want to believe that this was really happening, but the last eight or so hours—and seventy-two broken ribs—had proven to her that she didn't really have the luxury of skepticism.
She wheezed against the pain, but she couldn't stop. She remembered hearing somewhere that when in terrible situations, those who took time to stop, died.
She didn't want to die. Dying seemed like a terrible thing to do.
So, she kept moving.
Of course, she knew that she didn't actually have seventy-two broken ribs. She didn't even have seventy-two ribs to begin with… she was pretty sure about that.
Still, she hobbled through the sporadically changing landscape.
At the moment, she was flanked on her right by truly alien trees—their trunks glowing with an odd, yellow–brown inner light—and on her left by what seemed to be a parking lot full of cars built on balls instead of wheels. More than that odd feature, they were clearly created with not-quite-human design aesthetics.
She should know. She paid way too much for an art degree to have missed something as obvious as inhuman inspiration and design constraints. But that hadn't actually gotten anywhere. Instead, she was making lattes while sending her portfolio to anywhere with a publicly available address.
No… Now, I'm trying to find safety in an alien dystopia. Dystopia was such an odd word… but she could contemplate that later.
She'd gotten her broken ribs very simply, and to be fair, nothing 'alien' had been the cause.
The world had shifted as she was running from some crazy, coked-out chihuahua—a tiny dog which had been rather effectively mauling a mail truck before it saw her—and the change in terrain had caused her to trip and fall… off of a retaining wall that hadn't been there the moment prior.
She'd landed in a bush, but it seemed that it wasn't like the movies… or she'd found a particularly non-fluffy bush, because it had hurt. The sound of breaking branches had almost hidden the sound of similarly splintering bone.
That had been an hour earlier.
She hadn't seen anything living since then, and she had mixed feelings about that. She was safe for the moment, but another shift could happen practically at any moment.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
As if the thought summoned the effect, the path she was on suddenly seemed to become… more real? It was like someone had turned up the saturation.
At the same time, the alien forest and parking lot both faded away only to be replaced by more earthly forests on both sides, with two more paths intersecting up ahead.
A group of hunters—each armed with a rifle and wearing bright orange—came from her right, and at the same time she saw two massive bears through the trees a good distance away to her left.
She almost laughed and cried at the same time. I'm lost in the woods, do I choose super bears or a group of men I don't know.
It was a stupid question, clearly born of an overtaxed psyche.
Hey, my one psych class wasn't a waste after all… even if I did get a D… Leslie was such a— She cut off her own rambling thoughts, shaking her head and wincing at how the motion hurt her side.
She waved at the six men who immediately trained guns on her before jerking them away, all clearly seeing she was human.
They must be as stressed as I am. That brought a nervous chuckle from her lips. I'm in danger…
When one of the men frantically motioned to her, she did her best to hobble-run over to them.
The one who'd motioned met her and quickly assessed her situation, whispering as he asked after her state and inquired about her injuries after she admitted to them.
It took less than a minute for him to give her some medicine, which he apologized was only a basic pain reliever.
With that sorted, she thanked the man, then asked an important question. "Are you after the bears?"
The men all stiffened, immediately looking around with narrowed eyes and intent gazes. "There!"
One of the men yelled, his rifle immediately coming to his shoulder. He pulled the trigger, and Sophia screamed, dropping to her knees and covering her ears as the crack of gunfire started all around her.
She then screamed again as the drop jarred her ribs.
The bears roared, and the ground shook as they thundered forward.
The hunters didn't break and run. Instead, they each took rapid, methodical shots, and in no time at all, everything went quiet.
Kill Assists:
Camo Bear (Uncommon), level 2 x 2
Reward:
Experience to be granted when the Tutorial begins.
System Note:
There will be no experience earned, nor penalties given, for any member of your own species killed during this phase of Initialization.
Sophie blinked at the new 'notification' from the System.
She'd… helped?
Apparently, her warning was enough to count as assisting?
She looked toward the bears… only to turn away and vomit at the sight of the dead, blood-covered things.
She helped cause that…
As one of the men helped her back to her feet, he asked softly. "First time seeing something die?"
She nodded, using an offered cloth to wipe her mouth. "Yeah. I… I sort of hate it."
The man chuckled. "Oh, I agree."
She jerked, looking at him in surprise.
His smile grew a bit. "What? You didn't expect a hunter to dislike death?"
"No? That's hypocritical."
He blinked at her a few times, seemingly confused at her vocabulary.
I guess he's not very educated...
Regardless, the man shook his head and shrugged. "I hunt to put food on the table… at least I did. In this case, though?" He moved his head to indicate the dead bears. "It was them or us."
Sophia frowned. She… she thought she understood that. "I think I might be able to accept that."
The other hunters were already swarming over the corpses, taking what they could harvest from the beasts.
She swallowed, wincing at her pained sides. She didn't want to be alone again, and these men did seem like they were capable… "Do you think I could come with you all?"
He smiled and nodded. "Absolutely. We humans have to stick together, after all. It's a crazy new world we've found ourselves in."
"No kidding." She hesitated, sticking out her hand. "I'm Sophie."
He took it and shook it. "I'm Jake, welcome to the group."
<Alex, Real - Endure, High School Gym>
Alex was a bit sick of apartment buildings by this point. It had been roughly three days since their first one, and they had only just finished the last in a circuit around the school, including the first two layers of buildings outward.
Each subsequent clear had been a little harder than the last, as the undead had gotten more time to grow and entrench, but in the end, they still had been able to rescue more than a thousand additional people.
None of those had come from the last five buildings, unfortunately, and the high school counselors seemed rather out of their depth when trying to comfort those students and staff who'd had family in those buildings.
As everyone was out of their depth, that wasn't anything new, but even so, Alex felt for them.
Blessedly, Kaylee had found a way to satisfy the System's base-building setup and expanded their base into the apartments easiest to access through their underground escape, and she was working on adding in more to keep there from being over-crowding.
She'd also done something with their base that limited the growth of the undead in the area, which had likely aided in their task quite a bit. She'd said she wanted him to look at the result when he had time, but that time hadn't come about yet, and it likely wouldn't for a bit longer.
It had been an exhausting stretch of time, during which, Alex had only slept the minimum amount possible, hours though that still was. James, Lenka, and even Kaylee had traded out with John, Pilar, and Natasha—each at various points—but his immunity was too valuable to leave behind, meaning that he'd been required in every building.
Similarly, the teachers had come on every outing, but as they weren't fighting, and could rest most of the time, they were only exhausted, rather than fully spent. Though, they were all asleep at the moment, prepping for a true outing beyond the sway of the school.
Unfortunately, the nurses from the blood drive were also asleep, so he'd have to wait to bug them with his few questions until later.
Through the clearing time, Mr. Weston had helped Alex expand his Inventory to a full five-foot cube. At that point, the teacher had told him he needed to let that settle for a week before they continued, and Alex had happily listened.
He hadn't quite been able to execute a perfect switch, pulling in a larger box while pulling out a smaller one, but he was getting closer. Similarly, his ability to reflexively pull items in was improving. In fact, it felt like he was right on the cusp of getting it, at least for the expansion boxes.
He'd remembered to use his Detect Life and Detect Unlife skills profusely, to the betterment of every apartment clearance. It even helped them rush to those in need a few times when he detected units in process of being breached.
As he'd used the skills more and more, he'd detected an interesting resonance between the two, but he hadn't been able to lock down exactly what that meant or even if, indeed, it meant anything.
He'd had the others try formal complaints to no result, and he was still hesitant to 'abuse' the ability, so he held off for the time being.
Alex had done quite a lot of fighting, all things considered. Being on what amounted to keep-the-undead-back duty necessitated that outcome, especially given his immunity to undeath and close-quarters fighting abilities. After that first apartment, as things got worse and worse, he took on more and more of the load, even as the others continued to level and grow in strength and capacity.
As such, he'd managed to bank enough experience that he believed that he'd be able to go up two levels in both his race and class, though he hadn't accepted the levels in either. He'd been hoping to fulfill his racial quest first, but no matter what he tested, nothing seemed to help him increase the power of his Life Force… however that was supposed to happen. In truth, they'd been so busy that he had been able to justify the delay due to time constraints.
Additionally, the teachers had heard of Life Force, but empowering it wasn't in their knowledge base. Thus, he'd have to hunt for that secret somewhere else.
There was still hope that the reward for his hidden quest would fulfill this need… somehow, but he wasn't willing to start experimenting until it had finished distilling. So, that would have to wait at least another couple of days at the very least.
An unfortunate side effect of fighting so much was that he'd been unable to bend too much of his regeneration of HP toward regaining his lost Life, leading to him only earning back another forty points of Life after the time he'd spent injured, or down HP due to his use of Basic Life Transfusion both as a weapon and as a 'clean up' skill for the undead corpses they'd become so skilled at creating.
While a total of four levels across his race and class wasn't anything to be ashamed of, when compared to the rest of the team all now being well over level 10 and acquiring their second classes—in some cases even allowing that secondary class to grow considerably—he was falling farther and farther behind, at least in a level sense.
His actual ability, though? He was finding himself right on par, if not still a fraction ahead, of his companions, even if he had a far narrower scope of capacity. That wouldn't last, however, and he had run out of reasons to delay.
It was time to accept the level-ups. Even if it might not be 'optimal', it would have to be good enough.