“Yeah, come on! I’m right here!”
A handful of squire beetles peel away from the mass in the garage, rushing at me as I taunt them from inside the house. Behind them, the knight beetle lets out a barrage of noises that I interpret as it being pissed the hell off with me.
After I checked the house room by room, finding and killing another twenty or so squires, I’ve taken to taunting the ones in the garage to draw some more of them away for easy kills. Only about half took the bait, but it’s better than nothing.
The latest batch of five squires rush me, darting around in that disturbing way only bugs can pull off. I kick the first one like a soccer ball and launch it into the squire behind it, killing both. Of the three remaining, two of them manage to flank me while I recover from the kick. They bite into my leg and hip, their mandibles piercing skin and drawing small fountains of blood.
I grab the last one as it lunges at me and use it to smash the other two off. When they’re all dead, I go back near the door to taunt them some more.
“Woohoo, look! Tasty human!”
No more of them take the bait. The knight beetle rushes the doorframe, wailing uselessly on it, but the remaining squires retreat to the opposite wall.
I can only count about ten of them, and I deem those numbers acceptable.
I spend a few minutes healing, and when I’m back in shape, I take a running start into the garage. I trigger a dash and use the momentum to ram into the knight, picking it up and slamming it into the far wall. It doesn’t die, but a bunch of the squires do. The remaining ones scramble, spreading out as they use that annoying chittering to buff the knight again.
My skills absolutely suck for both close quarters combat and for dealing with single targets, but I still use them. I don’t have much of a choice.
As the knight tries to right itself, I grab a dented tool cabinet and start swinging. It’s not as heavy as I expect, but it’ll do. I load a ground pound into it and smash it into the knight’s side, readying myself for the explosion of concussive force.
Problem is that I didn’t account for the contents of the cabinet. As the hit lands and the ground pound bursts forth, the drawers open. The tools all fall out, a random mix of hammers, wrenches, and screwdrivers, all propelled to high speeds and turned into projectiles by my own skill.
My own attack shreds me to pieces, throwing me around like a ragdoll. I land in a heap, with various tools poking out of me. The knight suffers a similar fate, getting pierced by drill bits and wrenches.
We’re both left in some truly deplorable states.
But on the bright side, the stunt does kill off the remaining squires. Their corpses are strewn around, looking like they just came out of an industrial blender.
I try to force myself to my feet, to finish the job before the knight can recover its wits. My legs wobble and it takes a bit of convincing, but I manage. Barely.
The knight is missing a couple of legs on either side of its body, but it gets up as well. It retreats into a corner, either too hurt or too scared to come at me again. I grin, though in reality, I feel very much the same way. I’m in no condition to rush at it either.
But it can’t be helped. One of us has to die here.
I take a deep breath, reach down, and pull free some of the tools poking at my insides. With a screwdriver in one hand and an adjustable wrench in the other, I rush at the knight. It squeals and swipes at me with its mandibles, but I dodge the attack. I retaliate, swiping at its head with the wrench. It gets dazed, and I use the momentary opening to pierce one of its beady eyes with the screwdriver.
I let go of both tools and reach down to pull others out of my flesh, and I keep at it. Take them out of myself, plunge them into the knight beetle, dodge the occasional attack. It’s less of an awe inspiring ballet of death and more of a drunken stumble, as neither one of us has any coordination left in our bodies.
A few minutes later, the knight beetle is finally dead — turned into a pin cushion as I keep stabbing it with anything I can get my hands on.
Monster defeated: You have killed a Knight Beetle - level 35.
Rewards: +250 experience (bonuses apply).
Quest completed: Spawn Camping.
Rewards: +20000 experience, +1500 system credits (based on performance).
I crash to the floor, gasping for air as the system healing kicks in.
----------------------------------------
It takes me a good twenty minutes to heal fully, but I don’t move until it’s done. The damage and the pain are gone by the end, but I can still feel them linger in my mind like an afterthought.
I get up and go to the front door, but it's still locked. Yet this time, as I push a little harder, it easily splinters into a million pieces. So it was the system reinforcing the structure after all, probably because it was a monster nest.
We'll have to be careful about these in the future.
I do one more lap of the neighborhood, not finding anything else. With my immediate surroundings clear, I feel a little more confident about going to sleep in my own bed for the first time since the apocalypse started.
I go up to my house and enter it, finding the few beetle corpses I'd left here during the first night. They started rotting, filling the house with a pungent smell. The flooring is ruined too, having soaked up the blood and putrid fluids.
But I don't care. All of that can be fixed later.
Something more immediately interesting is the notification I get as soon as I step foot through the door.
Notice: You have been detected as the previous owner of this structure (2314 Willow Creek Drive). As such, you have received priority in purchasing the property’s System registration.
Price: 120,000 System credits.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Do you wish to purchase 2314 Willow Creek Drive?
Yes/No.
Warning: 2314 Willow Creek Drive is not part of an established Bastion. The ambient Mana flows in the area are not stabilized, and as such, monster spawning might still occur on the property.
The notification has me fuming for multiple reasons. For one, it’s my damn house. Couldn’t the system make it easy on us for once and give us our properties for free? Why do I have to buy it again? And on top of that, the price is pretty insane. I have the credits, but I’ve been risking life and limb for a week straight to get them.
What about everyone else? How will they get the credits to buy their properties from the system?
With a sigh, I choose yes. However much I hate the circumstances, I still want my house. The purchase leaves me with just about eighty thousand credits to spare.
Congratulations! You have purchased 2314 Willow Creek Drive. For more property management options, please check the “properties” tab.
A new tab labeled properties does appear in my interface. The thing is getting pretty crowded already, but luckily, the tabs are getting smaller the more of them I get. I open the new one to see what’s up, and I find a bunch of nested menus.
“God damn it.”
I go sit on the couch as I browse the options. One of them is a three dimensional holographic map of the house, showing the structural integrity of most things. A few spots are highlighted in red, showing the beetle corpses and the mostly cosmetic damage they caused to the flooring. The inner door of the garage is also displayed in red, having sustained some scratches that first night when the beetles tried to reach me.
I have an option to purchase system repairs and cleaning, costing just shy of two thousand credits.
I don’t feel like cleaning beetle guts and trying to get the stains out of the wood, so with a heavy heart, I relent and buy the repairs. Muted pops resound from the house, and I look to see the corpses and the damage vanishing into puffs of cyan mist. Said mist quickly dissipates into the air, leaving behind pristine floors.
“Nice.”
The other menus are all themed around certain aspects of housing. The two pertaining to electricity and water throw up errors as soon as I open them, letting me know that the house has neither right now. With the grids having gone down, that’s not surprising.
I focus on the errors to get more details, and the system offers solutions. I could buy various generators, wells, rain catchers, or a thousand other items that would give me access to power and running water.
Problem is that all of them are very pricey. A small solid fuel generator similar to the one in the Bastion would set me back by 35,000 credits by itself.
I keep looking through the options for half an hour, trying to come to a decision. I’m not in desperate need of either electricity or running water, truth be told. Something tells me I won’t have time to sit down and watch TV for a while to come. As for water, it’s a similar deal. I could probably get an ice mage to make some water in my backyard for far cheaper, and I’d only need it for cooking and washing up.
But then again, a warm shower after a long day of fighting would be mighty nice.
Fueled by that desire, I single out three items.
Item: Aetheric Power Cell.
Description (User Generated): As far as power storage solutions go, the Aetheric Power Cell — hereby referred to as the APC — is sure to satisfy all of your needs! Equipped with high density Mana crystals and direct Mana-to-electricity converters, the APC can store Mana from a variety of generators and convert it into electricity for your grid on demand!
Notice: The APC can only interface with System standardized power grids. Attempts to connect the APC to custom power grids may lead to malfunctions that are not covered by the warranty.
Price: 15,000 credits.
Do you wish to purchase the Aetheric Power Cell?
Yes/No.
Item: Mana Harvesting Array.
Description (User Generated): Are standard Mana generators too big, expensive, and wasteful for you? Do you want a smaller alternative fit for a smaller structure? Have you ever stared at your full Mana bar and wished you could put it to work outside of battle? If your answer to any of those questions is yes, then the Mana Harvesting Array is the perfect solution for you! Just set it up and watch it put your lazy Mana bar to work! Batteries not included.
Notice: Sustained use may cause Mana blockages and shortness of soul. Consult a doctor before installing a Mana Harvesting Array in your living quarters.
Price: 10,000 credits.
Do you wish to purchase the Mana Harvesting Array?
Yes/No.
Item: Aqua Genesis Reservoir.
Description (User Generated): Clean drinking water is a problem across the galaxy. That's why we at AquaTek have taken it upon ourselves to bring you the solution. Introducing the Aqua Genesis Reservoir! Using proprietary Mana-infused condensation technology, this system extracts moisture from the air and turns it into fresh, potable water right in your home. Our advanced filtration and purification modules meet strict galactic standards, ensuring every sip is not only safe, but also delicious. Trusted by over a trillion customers across thousands of worlds, the Aqua Genesis Reservoir is your answer to reliable, clean water. Try it today and taste the difference yourself!
Price: 30,000 credits.
Do you wish to purchase the Aqua Genesis Reservoir?
Yes/No.
Getting all three is a hell of an expense, but I do it anyway. They’re my best options by far, as they’re small and require little input or maintenance from me to work. If I understand things right, the array will take mana straight from my own reserves and add it to the battery. That would then convert it into usable electricity for appliances and for the reservoir.
After fiddling with the menus for a little while longer, I get all three upgrades installed. The process is easy enough, all things considered, as the system connects them to the appropriate grids on its own. I just need to tell it where in the house to put the items.
I also need to buy a system standardized power grid to actually make use of the electricity, as well as a sewage solution, and all in all, my funds run dry by the end.
But fuck it, I can finally turn the lights on and take a proper shower.
I do a final lap of the house to see the upgrades in action. The reservoir is installed in the backyard, up against the back wall of the house. It looks like a giant thousand gallon tank with a funnel on one end, and it hums along silently as it takes in air to strip it of moisture. It’ll take a while to fill up, but it should have enough for a quick shower in an hour.
The battery is in the basement, and it’s surprisingly compact. Only about the size of a washing machine, but when I approach it, I get the same feeling of immense power and potential I got from the bastion core.
The array I can’t see anywhere, but after I look through the menus, I figure out that it’s installed into the walls to form a field that covers the entire interior of the house. It steadily saps my Mana, but I set it to slow absorption mode so it won’t wring me dry in case I need to fight. This way it’ll need a few days to top up the battery, but I’m in no hurry. I don’t have any big power drains in the house.
With everything taken care of, I finally claim my prize. I take a nice, warm shower to wash away the blood and grime of a night of battles, and I go to sleep alone in my own bed.
A ton of things go through my mind as I lay there. All of the fights, all of the losses, all of the craziness in the span of a mere week. Mike and Mom, Emily and Jessica, William and his men, James and his friends. So many wants and needs. So much work left to do. So many fights left to fight.
Right before sleep claims me, I think of Pops and his sacrifice one more time. It’s still fresh and hurts like hell, but I can’t do anything to change it now. All I can do is hope that he made the right choice. I’ll try to prove him right and make him proud.
But all of that starts tomorrow, one step at a time.