It was a clear day with not a cloud in the sky and almost no wind. A good day for shooting, with visibility near perfect and the target clear as a glittering quarter. The arrow arced through the air with graceful ease before plunging downwards, catching the bulbous head of the monster about to clamp down on the screaming girl with a splotch, embedding deep within. Legs reflexively thrashed before going still, and far away on top of the clear parking garage roof, Lance was already drawing another arrow.

“We’re running out of arrows,” Lance said, absently to his team. He let his gaze dance across the street arrayed out before him, bodies of numerous monster corpses all strewn on the ground. Around the corner, another of the long-legged, carapaced monsters came barelling outwards.

Arrow nocked already, it was a simple matter of draw, aim and loose in a single motion. No fixed, slow motions like Olympic archery here, not for anyone in the group. Five of them, just coming back from an afternoon of playing in the rented community hall; all of them fans of instinctive archery.

The kind you watched on Youtube, where trick shots and quick and fast reflexive shooting happened. The range they might shoot at might be a little lower, the accuracy a little worse over the long-term. But each of them could draw and fire faster than any Olympic trained fool.

Even if most of them had come from that tradition to start with.

“I’m looking, I’m looking. Hold your horses…” Yanesh grumbled, pushing his glasses up.

As he searched for another arrow, Brad – standing a short distance away to get angle on the other side of the parallel streets – muttered. “Could you imagine, us on the horses? I hope Red River is doing well and taking care of Misty…” He shook his head. “I’d hate for her to be injured.”

“Well, isn’t it the HEMA guys doing their cavalry training today?” Matt said, the chubbiest of the group muttered. Not that chubby was that fair – he might have put on a few pounds since he stopped competitive wrestling after college, but the majority of his bulk was still muscle. “I’m sure they’d do well. They have all their armour on-hand too.”

“Aaargh, I hate those guys. They always leave their gear in the wrong places,” Lance complained, sighting another chitin-monster and firing. The entire area beneath them, beyond wrecked cars and a pair of twitching human bodies were littered with monster corpses. For the last ten, ever since these creatures had started spawning, they’d been holding the area down, firing upon anything they came across.

In so doing, they had also witnessed the screams the panic as humanity came face-to-face with monsters in real life, spawning in open spaces and bursting through flimsy locks; searching for prey. The bark of gunpowder weapons was rarer now, as though those who had managed to find a weapon were either running out of ammunition or dead.

The middle of a city was not generally the place to find gun lovers.

“Got it!” Yanesh said. “Alright, repeat after me – Loot: Options. Autoloot Active.”

Rather than argue, the group repeated after Yanesh. A second later, to their surprise, corpses on the ground began disappearing. In the corner of their eyes, where little icons burned; a new one appeared. A little gold coin, with the numbers ticking up with each body.

“One coin per corpse?” Lance said, letting a little question mark out at the end.

“Yup.”

“Looks like.”

“Great. We got loot. Now what?” Brad said, drawing and firing again. He hissed, shaking his head as he missed, his mistake soon followed by the crashing of broken glass and screams from within. “Get out of there…”

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“Problem?” Lance asked, glancing over. He didn’t have sight of what Brad was looking at from his location, and couldn’t spare the time. A half dozen tiny green creatures came trotting around the corner, each of them carrying clubs and broken pipes. “Six targets here…”

He drew and fired as quickly as he could, the group running down the street. Pedestrians and confused civilians had come out, some of them thankful for the arcing arrows, others worried or puzzled at the disappearing corpses. Either way, their overconfidence turned to screams as the surviving three gobs piled into the clustered group.

“Fight, you fools!” Lance snarled, shaking his head as the majority fled.

One woman, swinging her handbag clocked a goblin on the side of the head, sending it sprawling. It sprung back up, a little more woozily only to fall as she kept swinging. A man tried to throw hands with two of the others, only to be tackled to the down and clobbered by pipes. Line of sight clear at last, Lance loosed another arrow, watching it sink to its fletching in a head before the man struggled upwards and together with the girl, finished the fight.

As corpses disappeared, the pair grabbed the fallen club and pipe, looking up to the parking garage. Lance took his hands off his string to wave in greeting, taking the time to work out the kink in his shoulders.

“Shop.” Yanesh muttered. “Open Shop. There you go… Arrows. Ummm… bodkin heads?”

“Broadheads!” the group chimed in unison, making Yanesh correct himself.

“Right, five coins per quiver of twenty.” Yanesh glanced at the group, the arrows they had. “There’s also, umm, something called a Never-Ending Quiver; but that’s a hundred coins minimum.”

“Get the basic,” Lance said, glancing at his own display.

“I got no coins,” Yanesh grumbled. “Or not enough…”

“Whatever.” Lance concentrated, flicking through the options in his mind. Thankfully, whatever this was, it worked on mental commands too. Within seconds, a quiver of broadhead arrows suited to his bow – thank god it was the right length! – appeared next to him. He propped the quiver upwards, sliding an arrow into his string as he stood back up. Thankfully, no new monsters though he did see the pair of fighters – girl and guy – making their way over to the parking garage.

“So, what do you think? A LitRPG apocalypse?” Matt said, having picked up his own set of new arrows seconds later.

“Looks like it,” Brad said. “Yanesh, you taking over?”

“Ummm… I’d like to see about this a little more…” Yanesh mutteed. “This looks like a giant Shop system, where coins give you powers. So if I can find magic…”

“Well, I’m leaving,” Brad said, firing one last arrow before stepping backwards. His eyes narrowed for a second, before another quiver dropped before him. “I got to get home to my family.”

“You live an hour’s drive away, Brad. If traffic is as bad as what’s out there, you won’t be able to drive,” Lance said, looking over his shoulder. “Maybe you could bike it… but the monsters seem to be spawning outdoors.”

“I got to try man.” Brad shook his head, conjuring up a travelling quiver and strapping one over his back and another, the travelling quiver, across his waist and down his leg for easy access. “They’re my family.”

Lance paused, then nodded after a second. “You’re right. Go. Thanks for staying.”

“Nah, you were right. We needed to figure what the hell was going on,” Brad said. “Anyone else going?”

Yanesh and Matt glanced at one another, before looking to Lance. Yanesh was the first to speak. “My family’s in Pakistan. Nothing I can do but survive…”

“And mine’s in Atlanta.” Matt shrugged. “Keeley, she’s on her way here.” Matt tapped his pants pocket where his phone was.

“You didn’t want us to go to her?” Lance said, surprised.

“Hah! She’d kill me, if she thought I was babying her,” Matt said, lightly. Still, his fingers clutched at the bow tighter, his head unconsciously turning towards the waterfront. “I… she’ll be fine. She and her officemates are coming, together.”

Lance frowned but eventually nodded. The monsters were spawning, but there were a lot fewer than he had been led to believe in those apocalyptic books he’d read. Lots of death and destruction, spread across the entire area and a lot of screaming and from the smoke rising in the distance, burning – but no dragons, no magpies, nothing insane.

“Alright then. Good luck, man,” Lance said. He’d go over and shake his hand, but motion in the alleyway had him raising his bow. He relaxed when he realized it was just a homeless guy, creeping out and looking scared. By the time he looked back, Brad had walked away.

Yeah, the apocalypse was bad, but it wasn’t world ending.

Yet.