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

<Alex, Real - Endure, High School Class Room>

Alex sat as the meeting with the other Initiates started.

Kaylee had everyone's attention, and so she continued to speak. "First of all, the Detect Trove skill found a stash of healing and cure disease potions. They were in an emergency supplies locker that none of the faculty or staff seemed to be aware of. The Principal, Vice Principal, and a few other high level administrators were at a conference in another part of the city."

Natasha grimaced. "I apologize, again, for not learning the skill earlier. I will take a bit of time tomorrow to go through the entire base, including the surrounding buildings."

There was a round of positive responses to that before everyone settled back down.

"Now, Alex proposed that we take tomorrow 'off' from venturing out and focus on training our System skills and spells, really trying to figure out the edges of what they can do, as we prepare to venture out once more. Now that we've all had some time to consider it, what do we think?"

There was a round of positive responses, and Alex felt his eye twitch. They were all falling into a bit of a passive, repetitive pattern in this meeting already.

He almost set himself as a devil's advocate in order to force an actual discussion, but he managed to restrain himself as he didn't actually want to take the time that would be required to convince everyone to take the day.

"Alright, then. Is there anything else that we should discuss? I think we've met the conditions of everyone's side-quests already."

"Oh!" James held up his hand. "I got a new, odd one, 'vermin extermination.'"

As soon as he said that, clearly with the intention of sharing it with them, they all got the System Notice.

Quest Alert! (Vermin Extermination)
Ignore at your peril.

Vermin pose a problem in every civilization, and as you strive to maintain a bit of that for yourself, you must face this ancient bane.

Keep vermin of all kinds at bay. Obliterate as many as you can.

Reward:
Experience and Merit based on individual performance and status of your base at the end of this scenario.

Alex blinked a few times. "It explicitly mentions merit."

Merit was apparently the money of the System world.

They got it for quests and such, but Alex couldn't recall it ever being explicitly called out before.

"Yeah." James nodded. "That's one of the things that caught my eye, too."

With the System store seemingly using merit both in the Tutorial and out in the 'real' world, the specific granting of such should have been wonderful.

Even so, they all saw an issue, and John was the first to say it out loud. "This seems to make the quest more important than I'd have thought. It's almost like the System wants to make sure we pay attention."

Alex grunted, thinking of 'cheesecake lady' as he muttered under his breath. "Or whoever is creating the quests."

Pilar grimaced and groaned, seemingly hearing her husband and not Alex. "I just remembered something."

"Oh?" Kaylee turned to the other woman. "What is it?"

"Pigeons are often referred to as flying rats and are decidedly vermin…"

Grant sucked in a breath. "Leathery steak!"

Pilar nodded. "Exactly."

Kaylee frowned. "I understand that we need to watch out for pigeons too, but… what am I missing?"

Pilar grimaced. "I torched a flock of undead pigeons on our last outing. I believe I mentioned it in passing, but I didn't think anything of it, not really."

James shook his head. "And the System seems to want us to explicitly remember vermin."

Kaylee's eyes unfocused for a moment. "I can buy some anti-vermin or even luring enhancements for the base. The anti-vermin ones would make actually collecting on the quest hard, but it would address much of the concern. It is a ground-based effect, so it wouldn't really keep the pigeons from doing fly-bys if they have reason… which they probably do." She rubbed her temples. "I hadn't even considered defending from flying undead, let alone smaller, more numerous threats."

They all let that sink in. They weren't soldiers, and while many of them were strategic thinkers, they were used to more limited situations in which to think strategically.

Now? Now, they needed to think outside of a tightly defined 'ruleset' and try to figure out what might be needed without all the information. In all likelihood, they should have thought of dozens of things about which they didn't even have hints to go off of.

Alex tilted his head to one side, a thought coming to him. "What sort of enhancements? Can they be localized? Are there deterrents as well as lures? Or is the anti-vermin stuff just something that would kill them outright?"

Kaylee frowned for a moment before her eyes widened. "Oh! If we create a specific place that they are lured in and then held somehow for us to kill, while 'deterring' them from everywhere else…"

Alex smiled and nodded. "We should make sure there's a path for them to take that is either 'lure' or unmodified. That should protect most of our base from that threat, and let us farm this side quest."

Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea, giving Kaylee her next task.

Once that was agreed, John cleared his throat. "But what do we do about flying threats overall? Sure, the deterrent and lure system will likely funnel many flying vermin to that area as well, but what about other flying creatures? Raw chicken, we just had that undead spawn-queen flop down from somewhere above. What if something is catapulting greater undead to land within our base?"

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

James grunted, adding in his two cents. "In that same vein, we eight can't defend the whole school if these 'waves' that the System seems to be hinting at arrive. We have eight ground-level points of entry, in the various cross-streets around the school. Do we each take one and hope that nothing comes from underneath? Nothing from overhead? Nothing to overwhelm any one of us?"

That caused everyone's expression to shift toward dower.

Did we bite off more than we can chew? The potential rewards from all these people—all this space—were massive, but what if they were just a soap bubble, waiting to pop?

Kaylee sighed. "Well, we can ensure that everyone knows to evacuate inside the school as a start. That way if we have to fall back, away from the apartment buildings, we won't be scrambling." She grimaced. "We've already entirely sealed up the underground connections outward with many, many layers of solid material. Aside from that, as awful as it is, the very fact that more than half the students, faculty, and staff were already dead before we secured the school gives us enough room to house everyone in the various classrooms if we need to. This was a big school, and we could pack it out way more than we have been."

They talked a bit more about how they'd handle such a System event. The most likely plan would actually be similar to how they handled the vermin. Open one obvious way in, while pulling all the civilians back to the school, fight the undead in the streets, withdrawing back into the school if they were getting overwhelmed.

Grant asked a pertinent question near the end. "John, didn't you get some sort of gun-maker class? Couldn't you just make weapons for some of the civilians?"

John sighed. "Yes, but no. I didn't get any sort of 'mass production' ability. And even to make new weapons from scratch, I'd need good materials and a proper workstation. It wouldn't be very fast, either, though it would likely get me some good levels. The class I chose was more focused on enhancing and repairing existing weapons." He patted one of his holsters. "It seemed like a better place to start, though I'll likely try to get a 'build from scratch' class at some point… probably as my final class as it'll be quite hard to level, whenever that happens." He chuckled. "Only being able to get experience when creating brand new weapons will be tricky, maybe prohibitively so. We'll see. I've much to learn yet, before I make a final choice."

Grant grimaced. "Yeah… sometimes, these classes are oddly specific…"

With that, the overall discussion was at an end, and they separated to get some rest and to train their skills.

They'd take the next day to truly delve into what they could do, and get ready for what was to come.

<Pierce, Real - Bug out, Abandoned Building>

Pierce grimaced as the units of death squires patrolled past their location once again, slaying the lesser undead that had either spawned or wandered into the area since the last patrol.

The group of Initiates had only made it a block from the police station before they'd encountered the first difficulty, and only Steven—an Initiate who had chosen death magic—had kept them alive.

He was, at that very moment, maintaining a 'death field' around their group, which hid them from the odd ability of the undead to sense the living when they were nearby.

Even so, something had clearly changed within the city, and they were having a very difficult time progressing.

We should have left as soon as we got the quest. Pierce grumped, irritably.

Some had pushed for that, but most had wanted to stay with the police officers as long as possible.

Now, they'd already lost a few of their number, and it was going to take days to reach their destination.

Steven looked tired, but some of that might have been his practically emaciated frame. In his words, he wasn't much of an eater, and as the man didn't exhibit any signs of drug use or addiction, Pierce was inclined to believe him.

He'd be the happiest, most chill heroin addict ever, if I'm wrong… Regardless, the man's skills were keeping them alive, and his very personality was a boon to everyone around him.

Pierce did smile at that thought. If any of them survived, it would be because of the Death Mage.

In the land of undeath, it seemed that Death reigned supreme.

<Alex, Real - Endure, High School Sports Field>

Alex was back outside once more, and he had to hand it to the designers of this school. It was pretty easy to miss the massive chain link fence that surrounded the non-building sides of the area.

Even so, that tendency to fade into the background didn't negate the fact that it stretched a good twelve feet into the air and had a horizontal portion that capped it like a capital T, making it much more difficult, if not impossible, to simply climb over.

You know? I bet I could jump over that… Well, he might be able to, but he had no desire to.

He was out here because Master Adams was leading a large group of people—a mix of students, faculty, staff, and families—through exercise and basic martial training. The man had a few of his instructors and students helping him out.

There were other activities going on as well, most of which were physical in nature. The idea was to keep everyone entertained, active, and at least a little worn out. Kaylee also put on various movies at night, letting the locals pick as none of the Initiates knew the difference between Stellar Quest and Trek Wars, nor what films would actually be desirable in or out of any franchise.

It cost mana to run the large screens and sound systems, but it was worth the expense to help keep everyone pacified.

We've been here less than a week, and we have a month total to endure. We need to get into some good patterns, or this will take forever.

Regardless, though, Alex was coming out to get Master Adams' help.

The man had offered to help him train his kinesthetics and weapon skills. He also hoped to move them over into being Class skills as he felt it was rather odd that they weren't already. He knew that he just needed to raise them above 'Common,' and he should get the prompt, but only time would tell for sure.

The martial arts instructor saw him coming and passed the instruction of the large group off to someone that Alex recognized as a black belt student of the studio.

"Thank you for your willingness to help me, Mast… Matt."

Matt gave a small smile. "Of course, Alex. Shall we begin?"

"Sure, what do you want me to do?"

"Let's start with the forms. I want you to do them as slowly and perfectly as you can."

"As slowly as I can?"

"Yes, but you must be steady in your pacing. So if you take an hour to start a step, and then fall through the last bit, you've failed the task."

Alex grunted. So, Matt wanted him to focus on precise, balanced movement.

"I'll tell you what. How about you first try to move at… one quarter speed. How does that sound?"

"That sounds good." Alex nodded.

"That should also help train any of your perceptual skills, at least if you're actually paying attention to yourself, your movements, and your surroundings. Empty hand forms first."

He nodded, taking a moment to center himself, then began taking his first step, his hands moving in sync with his front foot.

The movement immediately felt right in a deeply comforting way, and he settled into the sense of it, allowing his movement skill to completely control the 'how' of his actions, even while he monitored it and held the next desired stance and hand position in mind.

It was odd—simply letting his body move to the tune of the skill—but the skill was a part of him. Following it felt like simply doing what felt natural… even while doing so wasn't natural for him, not yet.

Yeah, Alex. That makes total sense.

Master Adams walked around him, nudging him here and there as he moved, helping him tighten up his form and perfect his actions.

Each time, Alex felt a resonance with his kinesthetic skill, as if it were a person exclaiming 'That's what I was telling you!'

He found himself smiling at the novelty and joy in each action.

Alex felt sure that a day of this was going to be pure bliss.

He was mistaken.