The dormitory building was a long one. It only had three floors, just like all the others, but it could fit many. It was meant to hold over three hundred students at any time with its original capacity. Most of the rooms were meant for four people while a few were for two or six. It wasn’t room that they had to worry but the rations.
Rex stood under the shadow of a tree, his massive claymore in one hand but armor absent. If it was before the System, Sean would wonder how he could swing that thing around. Alas, it was a world where a teen could punch a small hole in a wall.
He didn’t even pay attention to Sean, instead trying to move as delicately as possible. He was swinging at thin air with both eyes closed, spinning around as if there were people there. While he wasn’t expecting to see Rex out in the morning, it was a welcome encounter.
Then Sean saw Rexford hold the blade with two hands and swing it sideways with the broad end just as he was over ten or so meters away from him. It seemed as if the very air resisted it and tried to stop it, but it pushed on, blowing the wind forward.
After he stopped, the air was instantly launched forward with a boom, almost visible. The grass on the ground parted sideways very much like water parting after a motorboat passed through. After it travelled ten or so meters, it stopped and he opened his eyes, panting.
Sean activated his Appraisal and saw that Rexford was almost out of Mana Points. He had a total of around 250 but now he had 123. So that meant people other than Mages used Mana?
That wasn’t something he’d expected, but he did indeed see non-Mages have less than their Total Mana.
Rex was sweating, all his clothes drenched. There was a big grin on his face, as if content with what he’d done. He was breathing hard, almost panting. Without a second thought, he let go of the sword and it turned into small blue particles which then disappeared —that was what happened when something was put into the Inventory.
After he caught his breath a little, Rex turned his head around to look at the school building. That was when he spotted Sean.
“You should stay back if you see me holding a sword. It’s meant to kill things,” said Rex in-between long breaths, taking long pauses between every two or three words.
“I can see that,” said Sean. As sluggish as Rex looked, he was faster than Sean. His larger frame and mass made him look like he was slow, but he was anything but that.
“You seen Jason? I think he left for the school early. Managed to wake me up on the way out,” said Rex as he stretched. His back cracked as he did so, sounding oddly satisfying. Then he took a seat down on the grass.
“Yeah. I passed by him on the way out,” said Sean. His mouth wasn’t loose enough to drop the fact that he was positively fuming back there. But more importantly, he had something to tell Rex. Him and everyone, hopefully.
It wasn’t his place to help them, but ever since that conversation with Uncle Jeremy, Sean felt that they had a chance. What felt like something that was impossible before now felt as if it was possible with a chance of more than 50%.
Maybe it was just the rebellious part in him speaking, or maybe it was the actual logical side.
He didn’t even want to think that he was thinking otherwise because of Clara before. Maybe that wasn’t Clara’s hypnosis doing something. Maybe it was some demon that had latched on to him for some reason, just like Uncle Jeremy said it might be because of.
“So… here to meet someone?” asked Rex, dragging Sean back to reality. He got lost in his thoughts again.
“Yeah. It’s better off if you follow me as well. I need to tell you all something,” said Sean and let out a breath, “You know how to drive, right? We might need a car.”
The basic outline of a plan started to form in his head and Sean gulped. He felt like it could work if he tried to drive a car around. That ought to draw the attention of people… right?
“Were there any keys back in the school?” asked Rex. There were quite a few cars in the parking lot of the school outside the fence, but that didn’t mean that they had the keys inside unless-
Unless the cars had stopped outside on the road because the driver disappeared!
Most wouldn’t even care about the key and leave it there after coming back and realizing the car didn’t work, most likely.
“You’re up too early,” said someone lazily from above the stairs. It was Max, finally up. Sean spotted a few people looking through the windows as well. The three of them stayed on the first floor near the door, making it the closest room to the exit. It was meant for four people, though.
That was also the one that Sean was looking for, but having Rex near him would help.
Then Sean realized something… weren’t there people right here?
“Why the hell are you looking at me like that for?” asked Max, his nose somewhat scrunched up. He strained whenever he walked. That was understandable, as the injury hadn’t healed completely.
How these things worked was a complete mystery to Sean. He was at full HP, most likely, yet his injuries hadn’t healed… The same could be said for his broken bones. They healed quickly, but Sean wasn’t sure if it was the Heart Factor or the System that did it, or both of them in conjunction.
Rexford looked across his shoulder at the people that were looking out the window. Then he leaned closer to Sean and whispered, “Is it a secret?”
“Not really. But it’s better if we talk about it before we let the… normies know,” said Sean, speaking normally instead of whispering back. That’s what his family called the normal people that didn’t know about the monsters in passing.
He didn’t know why he was trying to do this. The conscience inside him may be trying not to get everyone enslaved, or maybe it was a part of him that just wanted to help others, as unneeded as his help may be.
“Who? What? What the hell are you talking about?” asked Max as he came up to them under the tree.
There was no need to lie to them. In fact, the only reason that he was thinking of lying to the ‘normies’ was how outrageous it might sound to them. Maybe not so outrageous now, after living with ghosts, giant mosquitos and weird plants.
“I’m thinking about actually bothering to tell people about monsters instead of acting like assholes and chilling out here,” said Sean, “And I don’t mean only the people here. I mean everyone in the city if we can help it.”
“You what?” asked Max and looked at him, his head slightly tilted to the side.
“So basically, tell people that monsters actually exist and to tell them to get a grip and rebuild society,” said Rexford and nodded, “That sounds alright. I’m surprised that people haven’t done that yet.”
“Maybe they have. We’re basically on one edge of the city with over five hundred thousand people. They should have, and something tells me that the monsters couldn’t have killed or kidnapped that many yet,” said Sean. If it was only Vampires doing things, then the ones that stayed home during the day would be completely safe.
“And worse yet, we have to somehow manage it by tonight. I’ve overhead that the monsters may be making a major move starting tomorrow,” said Sean. How he knew of it didn’t need to be revealed. Surely, Clara wouldn’t lie to him… not then, at least. After she was convinced he was going to that side.
He didn’t feel that… longing to be with her, but still, it was a big decision to make.
You didn’t just decide to reveal information about an impending war that easily, after all. Especially if you were going to that side. If he could manage it, he would want the monsters to just stay in hiding to keep the status quo they did before the System came —make this side an escape, like how Clara was used to it.
“Honestly? Fuck that,” said Max shaking his head, “This is fucking bullshit. I’m out.”
“What?” asked Sean. Did he just… give up? He couldn’t have, right?
He bit his lips and looked back at Sean, staring right into his eyes, “You know, I was supposed to be a vet or something. Just some random job that’d let me get a decent pay and have plenty of free time to play games. And what do I get? This… Nah, I didn’t sign up for this.”
Max turned to leave, but Rexford’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. They were both strong in terms of physique, but it seemed that Rex was the stronger one —maybe it was because he had better Strength while Max seemed like he had better Agility.
“That’s the reality we live in now. We have to adapt or we’ll end up being turned into mindless slaves like the ones here back when we came,” said Rexford. He pulled on Max’s shoulder and forced him to turn around, “And think about it. We killed sixteen of them.”
“Don’t you remember that one of them managed to swat away two of our tanks and ignored our glass cannon’s attacks like it was nothing?” Max asked. He then shook his head and tapped Rex on the shoulder, “Nah. I’m not fighting in close quarters with things like that again.”
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And with that, he turned around.
“You know, that’s what you were saying before you drunk the fairy blood,” said Rexford.
“Well, happy to know I had common sense after getting my eye gouged out,” said Max. He didn’t even stop as he said that.
“After the pain subsided, you said that you wanted to be a cool guy like them. You agreed to become a hunter. That was when Jeremy gave you the fairy blood,” added Rexford.
Meanwhile, Sean simply stood aside, happy to let them sort it out themselves.
Max turned around, and raised a finger. His arm twitched a few times before he started to speak, “Yeah, and I’m saying I don’t want to become one now. Sure, characters in movies are cool. They shoot guns everywhere on a battlefield like they won’t get hit. And you know what? They won’t be. They have fucking plot armor. Look at me? Do you see a main character tag on my head? Well, I don’t. So no, I ain’t doing this shit.”
“It’s the lives of people we are talking about. Innocent people. People that mightn’t have fought before,” said Rex.
“Most of them died before. They’ve seen shit worse than most soldiers, so no, don’t pull that shit on me. The ones that didn’t die are anything but innocent,” said Max, “Look around you, for fucking god’s sake. The world has ended and all of us got transported to some death trap. We made it out, but at what goddamn cost, huh?”
“Yes, and most of them don’t even want to think about fighting again!” shouted Rexford, as if he finally snapped, “They’re scared and they’re afraid and they can’t protect themselves against monsters. We’re different. We decided to go out and murder giant bugs for XP.”
“That was for giant bugs that died after one or two hits. I was fine with killing snakes, yenno. You just stepped on them and they died. Then I was fine with overgrown bugs. But fucking vampires that can kill me with one good scratch or tree-sized snakes? That ain’t it, chief,” said Max. He shook his head and stormed away before Rex could say anything.
That was one down.
And that conversation most certainly drew attention.
Rexford gulped and rubbed his forehead. After a few seconds of silence, he turned to Sean. He spotted bags under Rex’s eyes, which he’d failed to notice before, “He’s out. Sorry, I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“It’s not your fault. He’s only one of many. We need a lot more than one person,” said Sean and turned to the building. At the very least, if he managed to persuade them, then he’d have done a lot. And if he was lucky, they’d remember something.
“Yeah,” said Rexford far too quietly.
Maybe he was down. He’d recover soon.
“Everyone, come out, please! There’s an important announcement!” shouted out Sean. He had anxiety whenever he spoke in front of a lot of people back in high school, but university had a tendency to fix that. You had to choose between failing it and becoming social —and Sean chose the latter.
And after that, he waited.
Sean saw the people looking through the window fade off back into the darkness of the room, making him unable to see them. There were some that still looked through, though, staring and waiting.
Maybe to see whether people actually came out.
“University, huh?” said Rex quietly, almost a whisper, but it was clearly meant for him to hear. Sean turned to him and gave him a nod. That was the polite thing to do. Sean noticed him leaning on the tree, hands crossed.
Sean wished that he could talk about it to his mother, but she was sleeping and wasn’t woken up as easily as Uncle Jeremy.
The leaves and branches of the tree rustled in the wind, making Sean feel relaxed. It’d make the job of telling a lot of people about what happened a tad bit easier.
Then, after what felt like forever, came out the first person. Then another one. He counted not the number of people, but the seconds that passed. He lost count a few times but he knew just about how long it took.
After he counted a hundred without anyone coming out, Sean turned his attention to them —there were more than fifty of them, but he didn’t know the exact amount.
It did take forever. That took ten minutes, but then again, it was early. Maybe some were sleepy for now.
He looked at Rex, hoping he’d say something.
Rex didn’t.
In fact, he didn’t even do anything. He just stood there, leaning on the tree, as if waiting for him to talk about whatever nonsense he’d devised.
Maybe not the exact words he’d say, but just about.
Sean hated doing this, but something far more important than grades was at stake, and he managed to make decent presentations and explain it when it was about grades.
There were over a hundred of them but twenty or so were outside. That was better than he expected. That was a quarter of the people there, and he was sure half of them were children and older people.
They were originally kept there to lure people in by giving off the illusion of normalcy, and then keep them there until night when they could be Charmed to become mindless drones. Something like an influence, one that Sean was affected by, wasn’t limited by time of day and could be done at any time, though.
The knowledge hunters had about monsters was extensive, especially considering that they’d only started out back in the 19th century. At least the modern ones.
It was a classic trick in the book of the Vampires.
Sean spotted Liz’s dad in the crowd. He wasn’t easy to miss with his large frame.
“So… do you have any memory of what happened before you umm, lost consciousness?” asked Sean, first of all. If they remembered being brainwashed and controlled, then they’d instantly join the cause.
He hoped they would.
Maybe they’d be afraid. Max’s reaction was odd, given the scenario, but it wasn’t unlikely that others would think so as well.
It was cringe-worthy to stand out here and try to persuade them. He associated it with the ones that advertised pyramid schemes.
Sean looked over them with Appraisal, ignoring all irrelevant information like titles and names —he was only looking at their Classes and Levels.
Most were understandably Level 1 or 2 and only one was Level 3 from among them. They’d wasted who knows how long acting like flesh puppets while even the hardcore levelers like Rex’s group were only Level 5 after killing more than a dozen vampires.
Leveling was difficult, that was for sure.
There were no Knights among them. That was understandable, as Sean had heard they could resist the detrimental effects of the Charm and other mental effects.
Most remained silent, but one among them spoke out. It was a Healer —that was a rare Class, one that Sean hadn’t seen before even among the people he ran into in the streets on the way to the Manor.
It was a woman that seemed to be on the older side, standing almost at the very front. Maybe in her late forties or early fifties, wearing old-fashioned clothes that only teachers or old people wore. The fact that her hairstyle bob didn’t help either, showing plenty gray hair. There were glasses with red frames placed on her nose, its shape pointy toward one side and slightly tinted toward the top.
“You mean before we got mind controlled?” she asked, a big frown on her face. That was what Sean would expect an old professor to sound like —stern and strict, somewhat pissed off at the world. Not that he’d studied anything other than a mandatory Math course with an old professor in university, and that one was a sweet one.
At least they got that down.
That’d make it easy.
“Yes. Before you were mind controlled,” said Sean. He recalled reading that people didn’t keep any memory of the mind control.
Then another one came to the conversation. It was a Warrior —a Class Sean had seen on Hugh. He was middle-aged, if he could be called that. He looked a bit on the younger side, closer to Oliver in age, wearing a white shirt not tucked into his pants and messy hair that made him look probably far better than he would with a near haircut. That was exactly what Sean would imagine a haggard office worker to look like after a fight.
“He gave a monologue about how useless our resistance was and how he’d enjoy using our bodies for all sorts of unsavory things before doing that,” said the man in a single breath. An office worker having such a Class felt weird. He’d expect a delinquent to have that.
That made it… a lot easier.
“I see,” said Sean awkwardly. He dragged it on longer than necessary.
No, it didn’t make it easier. It made it a lot harder. He nodded his head after a few seconds, finally hit with the reality that he wasn’t some all-knowing narrator trying to explain something to them.
Regardless, he had to make a speech, and that came in the form of wildly gesturing with his hands —that made him less nervous, “So there’s an army of them coming soon. So many that they could take over the city in a single night and enslave all of us here. We need to… fight back against them. It’s not hard if we have the right tools.”
There was a slight silence, but then the old woman spoke.
“An army of monsters that can brainwash people?” she asked.
Sean almost nodded, but stopped.
His throat was slightly dry.
“Only a few can. Most of them are just strong and… and fast,” answered Sean. He didn’t tell them that some of them may or may not be able to cast magic —the fairies and the spirits.
He breathed in and out.
“But I assure you that there are at least ten times as many humans out here than there are monsters,” Sean added, hoping to reassure them.
He didn’t truly know how many monsters were in the Undercity, but he supposed it couldn’t be any more than the humans… right?
“You’re welcome to leave the city, but I can’t assure your safety. The only safe way out is through the river and not even half of us can escape that way,” said Sean. He let out a deep and long sigh, “And I don’t think we’ll make it even if we do try.”
He was out of his depth here.
The Vampires couldn’t reach the river but there were other sorts of them —too many of them, in fact. What Sean knew was that they’d be weaker, if not inept, during the day.
The shore wasn’t safe for the same reason —Vampires weren’t the only foes they had to fight, if the Encyclopedia was anything to go by. He didn’t know what kinds lived there, but there were nasty ones that didn’t care about anything.
“It’s the only way,” said Sean.
That was a lie. Somewhat. There were other ways. They could potentially run away, but fighting back seemed like it was the right choice. Five hundred thousand people… Even if half were gone now, that left two hundred and fifty thousand people. They just couldn’t be left there.
“What he means to say is,” started Rex as he finally joined the conversation. He put a hand on Sean’s shoulder and gave him a small nod, and the height difference showed, “There are too many innocent lives at stake. Five hundred thousand people. That’s more than the number of people killed by even the most devastating natural disaster, about to be enslaved by monsters that have no qualms about killing us for our blood and flesh. We have more of a chance if we band together and fight back than if we run away separately. It’s easier to pick off stragglers than it is to fight against many of us.”
That was… not true.
They’d be kept in human farms, or so explained Clara. They wouldn’t starve and they wouldn’t be killed off.
Maybe that was a more idealistic explanation than reality, but still…
Even with that ‘possession’ taken care of, it seemed like he was still thinking about her. He still thought of what she’d told him as truth. Was that some foreign influence trying to enter his mind when he was sleeping?
No, Presence should have taken care of that unless it only worked while he was conscious. It activated automatically, so he assumed that it’d protect him even when he was asleep. Maybe it was some demon that was trying to possess him? But still, he hadn’t even seen one in his life.
Maybe before the System…
He just figured that they had a chance if they banded together instead of turning tail the first thing.
If he was a bit more skeptical, he’d have asked how many monsters there were back when he met Clara.
Alas, he wasn’t.
“So, what’s the plan?” asked Rex, snapping Sean back to reality. He’d ended up drifting off again.
He looked at them. They didn’t look all too eager, but they seemed to have agreed. That’s the idea he got.
“Well… We find as many people as possible and spread the news,” said Sean.
He didn’t have to lie to them but what about the others? He wished that they would believe in the actual reason than an excuse, especially now.
Maybe it would work…
Now he was having second thoughts about the plan, after setting it in motion.
Maybe going to Clara was a better idea, or maybe fighting them was better. Only time would tell, and Sean could only choose one. It was annoying. If he didn’t have an option, it’d have been far easier.
But he did.