Terry jogged over and plopped down next to him where he had landed upon realizing the archer was dead. “Gimme.” Without a word, Karl passed her the baton. He took deep breaths, trying to catch up with this ridiculous level of exertion for a man his age. They both looked like hell.

There were several notifications in the corner of his vision that Karl had ignored completely during the fight. Unsurprisingly, he was now third level. He promptly put both of his free points into Constitution, then examined his stats.

Karl Friedrich Hausman

Class: Paladin

Level: 3

Experience: 150/1000

Health: 22/80

Mana: 3/130

Stamina: 20/100

Endurance: 13

Body: 5.3 (Strength: 4, Constitution: 6, Agility: 6)

Mind: 7.7 (Intelligence: 9, Willpower: 8, Aptitude: 6)

Social: 4.0 (Charisma: 6, Personality: 3, Allure: 3)

Skills:

Analyze Creature (1)

Brawling (2)

Short Spear (1)

Shield Bash (2)

Spells:

Healing Hands (1)

He sighed in relief. That was much better. Then he noticed that he had almost no mana. Wasn't that for casting spells? He tried to remember. There was so much to read it was impossible to remember all of it.

“Help 'healing hands'.”

Healing Hands:

This is healing spell specialized the Paladin class. It will heal 8X caster level in Health. Cost: 25 Mana

Karl thought. I used to have 90 mana before this. Which means I couldn't cast it four times. But somehow I did. He watched the mana tick upward to 6/130. Ah. I recovered just enough during the fight to cast it one more time. Hm. At least it comes back quickly.

His musings were interrupted by Terry muttering, “'Learning is best done by doing'? What kind of fortune cookie happy horseshit is that?”

Karl shook with silent laughter. When he had it under control, he asked, “So how are you doing? Need more healing?”

“Duh. What do you think?” Terry replied with a hiss, pointing to one of the arrows sticking out of her.

“Well, I seem to be almost out of mana, which is why it was hard to cast healing hands a fourth time. But give me a few minutes and I'll be able to do it once.”

“You can only do it three times?”

“I gained a level. Once I'm recovered I think I'll be able to do it five times, and it will work better than it did just now.”

“What level are you now?”

“Three. You?”

“I hit second level. Man, I only got forty experience from that one imp, and I just got three hundred during this fight! Those guys were tougher than imps.”

“You think?” Then he looked at his stats and did mental arithmetic. “Hm, I think you got all the experience for the one you beat before bringing the rest back to me. Then we shared for the rest. Oh, speaking of which, don't forget to loot.”

“To...? Oh! I never looted the imp! Damn it! How do...? Loot. Huh. Nice.” She staggered to her feet. “I'd better go loot the one I backstabbed before he melts or whatever.”

“Wait for me so I can guard you.”

“Don't worry, I got this. Back in a sec.” Karl turned around, but she had already vanished. He blinked. He hauled himself to his feet, then examined the archer's corpse.

Marsh Archer—partially looted

“Huh. I guess we both get loot when we work together.” He looted, then slowly climbed uphill to where he had fought the three warriors and looted them, then sat down again. He started slowly counting to a hundred. If she wasn't back by then, he was going to go search for her. He was just so damned tired right now. He was low on three of those stupid numbers and it felt like it. He kept looking at the woods to either side of the house, hoping that they wouldn't have another fight before they had time to recover.

His count reached fifty-five before Terry's voice startled him. “Hey, look what I found!” He craned his neck, looking around.

“Where are you?!”

“Oh cool! You really can't see me?” Abruptly the air shimmered and Terry was standing there grinning. “How about now?”

“How did you do that?”

“It's called Stealth. I might as well tell you that I'm a rogue type class now, in case you hadn't already noticed. Anyway, check this out!” She waved a staff in front of him. “It's another healing staff like the one you broke! I got it off the wimpy looking one I backstabbed at the start. Guess it was a good thing I took out the healer, huh?”

Karl thought about how close their fight had been and shuddered. “A very good thing. You saved our lives. Oh—don't forget to loot these three.”

“Didn't you do it already?”

“We both get to for our shared kills.”

“Sweet! Loot, loot, loot,” Terry sang, while twirling around and kicking each of the corpses. “Cha ching! Nice!” Then she hissed in pain and stopped. “Okay, that was stupid. Hey, have you got enough mana to heal me yet?”

“A couple more minutes.”

“Okay, I think I can go ahead and...nnngh!” With that, Terry abruptly yanked the arrow out of her thigh, then screamed and fell down while her thigh started bleeding.

“Damn it Terry, I said I wasn't ready!”

“Use the fucking staff!” She hissed through gritted teeth and held it out to him.

Shaking his head, he took it and shook it over her, causing the green glow. “Next time, wait for me to be ready! You might have bled out! This isn't a game, young lady!”

“Well it sure as hell feels like one! Fucking psychotic aliens are probably placing bets on us. We might as well be in the fucking Coliseum. Excuse me for wanting to get the fucking arrows out of me!”

Karl sighed and pointed to one of the holes in his side that had held an arrow. “I almost died doing that, and that was when I absolutely had to.” It took Terry a moment to notice, and then she had the grace to look abashed.

She stared off into space, and got quiet for several moments. Karl listened to the silence. A breeze rustled the young leaves on the trees.

“You know, this really sucks,” the girl muttered.

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“It does at that.”

Then Terry held her head in her hands. “Karl, am I a sociopath? 'Cause I think maybe I am one.”

“Why do you say that?” Karl looked around again, wishing they weren't so exposed here.

“Because the world is going crazy, tons of people are dead, I've killed things that might even be people, and I'm not even bothered by it! I should be freaking out! What the hell is wrong with me?”

Karl sighed. “It's not you. I'm feeling that too. I think it's the System.”

Terry lifted her head out of her hands and stared at him for a second. “Mo...ther...fuckers!” She dragged the word out to put extra venom in. Karl just nodded.

Karl watched his health and mana tick upwards slowly. After a few minutes, he stood up and walked around behind Terry. Reaching out, he grasped the arrow sticking out of her shoulder and ripped it out, immediately laying his hand on her and healing the wound. Terry cursed a blue streak anyway. He waited for her to run out of steam, which only happened when her voice started to get hoarse.

“Feel better?”

Terry glared up at him, then slumped. “Yeah. Thanks for not warning me, I know it would have hurt worse if you had. Not sure I could have done it myself, after what I felt with my leg.”

“Are we good to go? Because the longer we stay here the more nervous I get.” Karl kept his eyes darting everywhere. Terry looked like she wanted to complain bitterly, but held it back and nodded, getting to her feet. “Is there anything in the house?” he asked.

Terry looked down. “Nothing you want to see. The back door was glass; they smashed it in...those people never stood a chance.” She sighed. “We risked our lives for nothing.”

“Not for nothing, Terry. Those creatures, those spawns? I think maybe there's more and more of them, if you leave them alone. We might have saved the area from what would have been a horde of those things in a week or two.”

“You think so?”

“Hey, if you want to read the help files and take a better guess, be my guest.” He gestured, and together they resumed walking down the street. “I'll watch the left.”

They walked in silence for several minutes. “Karl?”

“Yes?”

“Are we the only survivors?”

“No.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Statistics.”

“Huh?”

“If only two people survived in the world, what would be the odds that they were neighbors?”

“Maybe we're in a pocket of low monsters.”

“I very much doubt that. They come much thicker than this and they'd have to fight each other instead of us.”

Terry nodded and fell silent. A few minutes later, another mailbox appeared on the left, and Karl pointed it out.

“I'll scout,” she said soberly.

“Hold up. Are you fully healed?”

Her eyes flickered for a moment. “Can you zap me up one more time?”

Karl bowed his head for a moment of prayer, then reached out and cast healing hands.

Terry stood looking at him for a moment. “Are you really praying to God when you do that?” He nodded. “Why? This is just System magic shit, right?”

Karl shrugged. “I prayed to God for help when I was about to die, and then I was saved. If it's the System, then praying doesn't hurt. If it was God, then I definitely want to stay on His good side. I'm not normally very religious, to be honest, but I pay my debts.”

“Fair enough. Hey.” Terry was looking over his shoulder and pointed. Karl whirled, but saw nothing. After a second he turned back to ask what she had seen as she wasn't visible. But he could hear her saying, “Made you look...” while receding into the distance. Karl shook his head in disbelief, then went to keep guard.

Several minutes later, she appeared most of the way up the driveway, trudging towards him. She shook her head. Without speaking, they resumed their grim march. After a while, Karl got a notification.

Endurance +1

“Terry? How much endurance do you have?” There was a momentary pause, presumably while she checked.

“Twenty. Why?”

Karl grimaced. “Never mind.”

“Why did you ask, though?”

“I was just trying to figure out if mine was low or what.”

“What's yours?”

“It's gone up in the past few days.”

“In the past few—you knew? After the first message?”

“I spotted 'Waiting Period' in the initial help list. I wasn't sure, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to start exercising right away. I've gotten two notifications that I got +1 to it when I have gotten tired and kept going. I just got another one.”

“What does that put yours at now?”

Karl sighed, considered not answering, and decided it wasn't important. “Sixteen. It used to be seven.”

“Seven?”

“Old man here, in case you didn't notice. Don't give me crap about it. If we keep going like this I'll probably catch up to you in a few more days.” He sighed. “If it weren't for the System, I'd barely be able to walk this far, let alone go all action hero afterwards.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. I'm assuming all your body stats are much better than mine.”

“Huh.”

“Not everything sucks about being a kid.”

“Huh.”

Karl realized that she didn't know what to say to that and he shut up. Frankly, he wasn't sure what he had been going at when he said it. I guess I've been jealous? I didn't think I was. I was okay with losing the vigor of youth. Well, that's not true. I got used to it. I accepted it. But I wasn't happy about it. And now...? He pondered. Will I...get younger? If my stats keep improving like this? Or will my body still be old, and my lifespan not be extended?

There were so many questions!

The next house came up on the right. Terry made a couple of gestures, indicating that she was going to scout again. Karl nodded, and the moment he glanced away, she faded from view. A few minutes later she was back.

“More marsh folk,” she reported.

“How many?”

“Six. I wanted to check with you before I attacked them.”

Karl twisted his lip, thinking. “Well, we've both leveled. So if they aren't any tougher, and you get the healer, we can take them. Is there anyone in the house, do you think?”

“I didn't see any broken windows or doors, or bodies. But I didn't see signs of life either.”

Karl nodded. “If you're up for it, let's do the public service and kill these bastards. The faster we level, the safer we'll be.”

“On it. I'll look for the healer. Oh, and we've got to get you more weapons somehow. You go through them like potato chips.” She started walking down the driveway. “Get ready to rock,” she called back.

Not a bad idea, Karl thought, and picked up a good fist sized rock and put it into his inventory. Minutes passed. Karl kept watch. Eventually, he saw four marsh folk running into view.

She got two of them. Nice. She was also clearly faster than them, as she appeared next to him, skidding to a halt, when the rest were still a few seconds away.

“Bad news. The little shit in the back throws fireballs. They hurt. Pardon me while I slip into something a little less noticeable.” Terry moved behind him, presumably to block the monsters' view of her so she could engage stealth again.

Karl wondered if the trash can lid would do anything against a fireball. He found out a moment later when the mage shot a fireball straight up the middle and the warriors split left and right as if they had practiced the move. To his relief, it wasn't instantaneous, and he had time to dodge partially out of its way. He still caught the edge of it, and the lid didn't seem to help, singeing his arm, but he vented the pain as anger and stabbed at the one warrior that had split from the others on his right. This one managed to dodge, and Karl dodged the return club strike. Then the others were on him. This was going to be rough.

What followed was a blur. He had to heal himself three times before he managed to take down one of them. He was stabbed with the mage pointing trick twice, but then it went down. Karl left his chopper embedded in one of his wounded opponents and grappled the other for his club. A head butt from the monster sent Karl staggering. He barely managed to dodge the next swing, but then he dove headlong at the warrior holding up his empty hands. At the very last moment, he summoned the rock from his inventory and caved the monster's skull in.

“Thanks for the idea,” he panted.

He turned to find that the last warrior had a vengeful look in its eye and Karl's chopper in its hands. Karl backed up, stalling for time. The monster feinted at him a couple of times. On the creature's second backswing, he distinctly heard Terry say, “Oof!” That still managed to startle and distract the warrior. Karl hit it with a shield bash, and then it was a matter of moments before the two of them took the last monster down. Terry kept coughing for a minute until Karl cast healing hands on her.

“Sorry about that,” she wheezed. “I almost had him. He hit me in the gut with the blunt end at the last second. Dumb fucking luck.”

“Hey, you did great,” Karl told her. “By my count you took down three by yourself and helped me with the last one.”

“How's...your health?”

“Not nearly so bad as before. The other fights were a knife's edge from death. This one was at least a spoon's width.”

“Ha-uff. Don't make me laugh. Let's...loot these bastards.” They looted the three near them, and Karl reclaimed the chopper. He also picked up another fist sized rock and put it into inventory. He was definitely going to use that trick again. Then Karl escorted her down to loot the other three.

They were just finishing, when they heard a woman's voice call out from the house. “Hello?”