An Unexpected Complication
I ran through the hallway, my excitement barely contained, as I made my way to the computer lab. I knew that the only computer room within the old building was in an old, secluded area tucked away in a corner on the 2nd floor.
Back before all this had happened, I hardly ever visited the location, so it took a while for me to remember it existed.
Well, it doesn’t matter now, the only thing I really cared about right now was the possibility of the internet, which caused my budding excitement to swell.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to call me an internet addict back pre-apocalypse.
As it might already be obvious, I gave of the impression of someone who spent long hours of solitude in front of a luminescent computer screen, and that isn’t necessarily wrong. So you might be able to understand why I’m so excited in the first place.
Using all this excitement as fuel, I hurriedly moved along the hallway. I was excited, too excited in fact, that it took me a while to notice the unconscious feeling of… strangeness that was beginning to form within my mind.
[Something is wrong….]
That was the impression I got, but I couldn’t really pinpoint as to why I was feeling such apprehension. My eyes began to frantically look left to right.
I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I knew there was something wrong.
I came to an abrupt stop, as my eyes scanned the surroundings. Hina and Cielle followed suit, and upon noticing my strange behavior, they readily entered into amateur stances and began looking over at their surroundings as well.
[Same, old, same old….]
The areas along these walls, at first glance, looked basically the same as the rest of the 2nd floor. The floors were banged up, blood was splattered everywhere, really, to me it looked like the same type of destruction I had so often observed in my one week of time here.
“....”
No, that was wrong.
It was the same, yet different.
While it was true that this adjacent hallway was still just as “monster damaged” as the rest of the school, there was one significant difference; the type of monster that caused the damage.
Unlike the rest of the floor, which was usually adorned in heavy hoof prints and smashed lockers, this particular hall was covered more by scuff marks along the tiled floor, and claw marks riddling the locker doors.
But the most important, the most distinct feature that I only now came to notice, was the presence of fur. Rather, shedded fur.
“....”
I sighed out despondently.
There was really only one monster I ever encountered so far that had any resemblance of the type of fur found here. It was black and course, unlike the minotaur’s brown and surprisingly soft hide.
It was, obviously, werewolf fur.
“Be careful. Keep as quiet as possible.”
I instructed briskly to the people behind me. Hina and Cielle saw the look of concern shrouding my face, and readily nodded in compliance.
I moved slowly, following the trail of canine destruction while attempting my best imitation of ninja steps.
I had already brandished Efhermet, while I thought over the current situation.
There was an unexpected complication.
For some reason the monster species which spread havoc ceaselessly throughout the night, was somehow close by. I didn’t know whether this was a stroke of luck or misfortune.
I followed the trail, until it led me to a pair of double sliding door.
The door was readily scratched and clawed out more so than the rest of the hall, but nevertheless, it stayed tightly shut.
I took in bated breath, as my hands cautiously moved to the handle. I gently tried pushing the door open, and surprisingly, it gave way rather easily.
I quickly closed the door once more though. Even if it was open, there was no reason to just haphazardly enter a potentially dangerous location.
Instead, I opted to peak out of the small window that framed itself on the upper half of the door.
Wiping off some of the crusted blood on the window sill, I carefully peered into the room.
It was dark, much more so than usual. From the looks of it, the windows were blocked by a heavy pair of curtains.
I gave my eyes a minute to adjust, while my ears unexpectedly perked up. I could hear the rhythmic exhales of whatever lay inside. No, scratch that, what I heard wasn’t a whatever, rather it was several dozen whatevers.
Looking carefully, I could finally make out the hides of glistening black fur that covered the monsters currently resting.
Werewolves.
A rough estimate would bring me around 40 to 60 heads. That was a hell of a lot of wolves.
They all congregated at the center of the room, where they rested rather quietly. If I didn’t know any better, I would say that they looked more like cuddly puppies, than vicious, night pouncing monsters.
My body unconsciously shivered at this scene. While the 50% reduction in fear from my [Psychopath] title kept the fear from mentally taking over, I guess I couldn’t just easily brush aside the effects it had on my physical body.
I took a deep breath, and attempted to quiet my quickly beating heart.
I looked deeper into the room, and almost let out an audible groan.
[Damn it…. of all my luck….]
I cursed mentally, as I went to confirm what it was that depressed me so quickly.
The room, the classroom these beasts had decided to call home, was the place I was so excitedly looking forward to visiting.
The Computer Lab.
Along the walls, covering three sides of the room, were rows of several computers.
From what I could make out, none of them were turned on, but it also didn’t look too damaged from here. Rather, the insides were pretty… neat. Well, at least when compared to the rest of the school.
While my eyes scanned through all of the computers and wolves, I verified that almost all of the computers were reliant on a physical ethernet cable. This was quite a stroke of luck for me, since a physical cable was exactly what I was looking for.
Although unfortunately, my luck was quickly doused by misfortune.
My eyes continued scanning through the room until they came to rest on the one hulking beast that stood out from the rest of the pack.
A large, greyish-black body rested off to the side of the room. It’s massive jaw haphazardly placed on top of an equally as massive paw.
It was twice as big as the others, and from the looks of it, was, in all likeliness, the leader of this particular pack.
Gulping down the growing worry, I forcibly calmed my mind, and used identify on the beast.
[Identify!]
Alpha Werewolf - Level 37
600/600 hp
[Darkness Attribute in effect] - 15% reduction in status during the daytime.
I gulped upon seeing this. The Alpha werewolf was over 10 levels higher than the scout I fought last week.
Fighting something like this face on was going to be one ridiculously difficult challenge.
… Although it wasn’t like the situation was all bad. At least it received a 15% reduction. I guess its only natural to receive something like that, especially with that overpowered 20% boost during the night.
I inwardly sighed and looked at the scene one last time, before I slowly cautioned myself away from the Computer Lab.
Taking deliberately slow steps, I made my way back to where the girls waited, before I sighed, confirming before hand that I was well out of earshot.
“W-well?” Hina brought up upon seeing my despondent expression.
I looked briefly at her, before I shook my head helplessly.
“Its the werewolves.” I began to explain. “Or to be more precise, its a whole pack of them. Plus an elite ranked monster at their side.”
“Uwaah… that sounds bad….” Hina’s face unconsciously frowned.
I nodded solemnly at this.
“The level difference is too wide, plus what makes it worse is that they decided to choose the Computer Lab, of all places, as their base of operations… this puts us in a tight spot.”
I muttered indignantly.
Although I felt that the situation was extremely unfair, it wasn’t like I was going to give up just because of something like this.
“I really want to get on a computer to check whether the internet still works…. but to do that…..”
My voice lapsed into quiet silence, as my brain rattled with probably one of the toughest decisions I would make throughout this apocalypse.
Hina and Cielle waited quietly, although I could tell that just with the little bits of information I managed to give, they were already quite frightened.
While these two had grown used to fighting minotaurs, they had grown complacent, especially with their lack of experience against other types of monsters.
Sighing out once more, I looked back up at the girls. I had decided our next course of actions.
“We’re going to fight them.” I stated simply, my face quickly turning impassive.
“F-fight? There’s no way we can drive off an a-a-army of monsters with just the three of us?!”
Hina reflexively raised her voice, to which I quickly replied with a “shh” gesture.
She clamped her hands down onto her mouth, as I said,
“Drive them off? Who said anything about that?”
“Eh?”
“We’re going to hunt them all down, obviously.”
“H-hunt? H-how many of those things did you say there were?”
Her eyes widened in both fear and surprise as she shakingly asked.
“Oh, about 40… maybe 60….”
“Sixty…”
Hina’s face paled as she could only blankly stare at my own.
“Don’t worry so much,” I chided, “The situation doesn’t seem as bad as it looks.
For one, all the monsters are asleep right now. And considering they were mainly active in the night, we can assume that Werewolves are a nocturnal type of monster.
Hina, what time is it?”
I asked abruptly.
“Erm, um…” Hina looked around dazedly. I completely forgot, but the girl had no watch.
“.... It’s 11 am.” From off to the side, a faint voice replied back.
I turned to look at Cielle, who was looking fixedly at the luminescent screen of her smartphone.
I nodded a thank you for the response, and continued talking,
“See? its only 11 am and going by previous encounters, they don’t start moving until its completely dark out. So, considering the fact that its summer right now… I’d say we’ve got until 8 pm. That’s like what, 9 whole hours?”
“....But still, what could we possibly do against a pack of high level monsters? The last time you talked about werewolves, you told us that the one you fought was at level 23.
They not only outnumber us, but also out level us…”
Hina was still unconvinced, and presented her worries flatly.
It’s not that I didn’t understand, in fact, I was probably the one most aware of how dangerous facing off against them would be, but this was an opportunity we couldn’t miss.
This wasn’t just about the internet anymore, no, I was thinking big picture now.
Not only were they sleeping, making it a perfect chance for a surprise attack, the wolves were also bombarded by a stat reduction.
There was probably no better opportunity than now to eliminate these creatures all in one fell swoop.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
So, with that in mind, I expressed my own logic.
“Look, there’s no better chance than now. These wolves are under heavy stat reduction, mostly since its still day out.
With that, it might just be possible for us to kill them all.”
After I explained, Hina still frowned, but beside her, Cielle was reluctantly nodding her head.
Hina, glancing back at her sister, and sighed tiredly.
“You too, Sis? You’re on board with what this idiot’s planning?”
Cielle returned her sister’s gaze, before redirecting it to me. After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded solemnly once more.
“.... I see… Well, I would be lying if I said I saw no merit in this… It would be a perfect opportunity to gain some exp….”
My mindset seemed to rub off properly on Hina, as she lamented over what I considered the “practical” bonuses of my plan.
After a minute or so, Hina finally sighed and agreed.
“Agh! Fine, fine, fine... I’ll comply for now, but Hide… what exactly are we going to do…..”
Upon this question I paused briefly. Carefully choosing my words, I sighed out and said,
“... I’ll think of something… for now, let’s stay away from this particular location. Let’s collect some supplies and brainstorm a few ideas.”
With that, we moved cautiously away from the computer lab. Our past happy go lucky atmosphere had mostly disappeared, as a mood of seriousness overwhelmed us.
We seriously pondered how to exterminate the pack of wolves sleeping comfortably in that computer lab.
As we pondered, we decided to go through a bit of the nearby classrooms, in hopes of finding anything useful.
Unfortunately, nothing comes to mind. Literally everything was useless. Even any would be improvised weapons seemed pointless at the face of those creatures.
As for items, well, like I said before, most of the ones I found were useless. Even after [Identify] was used on them, they weren’t anymore useful.
Broom[b]
A ragged tool once used for cleaning. The end has been snapped off, leaving it with a jagged edge.
+3 agility
+2 attack
Durability: 4/7
[b]Backpack
An old, worn out bag. It can be used to store objects.
+4 hp
-5 agility
-3 dexterity
Special Effects:
(???)
Durability: 6/10
Door Piece (Improvised Weapon)
This piece of wood was once part of a solid oak door. Now it has been separated and turned into an impromptu shield.
+7 hp
-7 agility
-3 stamina
Special Effects:
Resistance to physical damage: 3%
Durability: 3/15
As we scoured the nearby rooms, things like that were the general types of items I came across. For my particular preference, these were useless. And while the door piece did seem like a good shield, it wasn’t for me.
For one, it lowered my speed, which was crucial to me.
I pondered whether I should give it to the girls, but in the end, I decided against it.
The stat boosts only applied to me after all, and at most, the door frame would be an impromptu shield that would, in the end, only hinder the girls. They had invested more towards speed, much like me, so something that slowed them down would not be a welcomed item.
And the shield would definitely slow them down. While they weren’t subjected to the stat penalties, the weight of the whole thing was enough.
In the end, it really was just a useless item. No different from the rest.
We continued looking though, and eventually we made our way to one of the places I had planned on visiting in the first place; the chemistry lab.
This room doubled as both the physics and chemistry classroom, and in my opinion, those two classes were probably one of the only studies that dealt with things that were dangerous.
If I was going to find anything useful, it would be here.
“Okay, this room is a bit more special than the rest. Hopefully, we can find something useful.”
I spoke to the group, a hint of enthusiastic hopefulness leaking into my tone, as I instructed them to fan out and search.
We moved along haphazardly through the room.
It wasn’t as destroyed as the others, but still, obvious signs of monster presence was evident; scratch marks, destroyed beakers, a corpse of an old teacher that was already rotting…
I ignored all that and began inspecting the contents of the room. I opened cabinets, checked drawers, even pushed aside the dead teacher in order to gain access to the half destroyed teacher’s desk.
In the end, it wasn’t very fruitful, and items like these were the only things I managed to find;
Safety Goggles
A pair of goggles that are often used in laboratory experiments.
+2 hp
+4 intelligence
+4 wisdom
+3 dexterity
Special Effects:
(???)
Durability: 8/9
Erlenmeyer Flask
A tool used for measuring various liquids and chemicals.
+2 attack
+2 wisdom
Durability: 1/2
Magnet
A piece of iron that can attract various metals, albeit with a weak force.
Durability: 3/3
In the end, everything was a bit too useless, although I did ultimately decide to put on the safety goggles. I might end up looking ridiculous with these things on, but hey, stats were stats.
And on the eve of mounting such a risky plan, I could use all the stats I could find.
I ended my search through the basic layout of the chemistry lab, and instead, decided to move towards the back and enter the storage room that connected another classroom with the chemistry lab.
I guessed that all the “dangerous” and “harmful” chemicals were all stored away and kept out of reach from the students’ hands. In my case, all the useful items should be located within this storeroom.
Opening the door, I briefly looked around the room, before a smile on my face formed.
Of to the side, blocked by one single pane of glass, were rows upon rows of commonly used school chemicals. Things like sodium, potassium, rubbing alcohol, etc.
While for the majority of the chemicals I knew nothing about, mostly since I decided to take physics instead of chemistry this year, I at least had some common sense to identify the readily useful chemicals.
For one, I’m pretty sure rubbing alcohol was flammable… so if I ever needed to set a monster on fire….
I went about [identifying] each and every type of chemical I saw.
Surprisingly, [identify] provided basic information about the chemicals. Although this was already well within my range of predictions.
Isopropyl Alcohol
Isopropyl alcohol is a chemical compound with the molecular formula C₃H₈O or C₃H₇OH or CH₃CHOHCH₃. It is a colorless, flammable chemical compound with a strong odor.
Abscisic Acid
A plant hormone. Abscisic acid usually functions in plant developmental processes, including bud dormancy.
Can Cause serious eye irritation, skin irritation, and respiratory irritation.
When applied by [Equip] skill owner, following effects will be amplified.
Hydrogen Sulfide Water
A chemical compound with the formula H2S. It is a colorless gas with the characteristic foul odor of rotten eggs; it is heavier than air, very poisonous, corrosive, flammable, and explosive.
Fatal if consumed. Effects may vary depending on species.
This was just a mere sample of the collection of chemicals I managed to find.
I pondered various ways I could possibly use all these chemicals. Maybe throwing acid at a monster’s eyes… I could sprinkle some over open wounds…. was it possible to make a bomb out of all these?
In the end, I sighed. If it wasn’t readily obvious, I didn’t have any in depth knowledge on chemicals, and as such, I was going to be rather hard pressed finding an effective use for this essential “arsenal” of acids I found.
But its not like I’ll be discouraged just because of that. I’ll think up something… sooner or later… I’ll definitely come up with something…
As I pondered this, my eyes slowly drifted over to a small corner in the storage room.
Of to the side, blocked by empty boxes, and covered with old papers, was a freezer. The electricity was still running, so the metal white box made a soft humming noise, indicating it was still in use.
Overcome by curiosity, I moved over to the metal container and cautiously opened it.
Rather ominously, a soft white fog escaped the cracked hatch, and as I quickly separated the white fog with a free hand, my eyes came to rest on stacks upon stacks of… of white.
It took me a moment to recognize, but this was clearly dry ice.
They were emitting a thing, white smoke, that showed exactly how dangerous this solidified liquid was to touch.
Looking over at the dry ice, my mind vaguely remembered what one particular Physics teacher had informed the class;
“Since today is the last day of school, it would be pointless to do any real work. Instead, we’re going to do “fun” sciency experiments!”
“...”
Apparently, those experiments involved dry ice. Tons of dry ice.
But, its not like I’m complaining. There were several kilos of this solidified carbon dioxide, and I could only think this was a positive thing for me. My mind instantly geared into action, as several uses of this substance floated through my train of thought.
…. Primarily though, the ways I’d use this ice mainly involved… explosions…lots of explosions.
A slight smile formed on my face as the inner workings of a plan began to formulate within my mind.
*****
Author's Note:
Did you guys think that using internet in an apocalypse was easy? I'm afraid not my fellow readers.
The battle will start (and hopefully end) next chapter. Get hyped? I don't know.
Follow, favorite, comment, and rate/review if you find this story enjoyable. It might not be much, but it keeps me going.