Jamie only realised she hadn’t taken the time to learn the girl’s name after she killed her first monster. In the past she might have felt awkward asking their name after spending a decent amount of time with a person but such anxieties had been torn apart by the System. Or at least, she had thought as much. Yet, when the girl had screamed in fear, Jamie felt a crack in her ice sculpture body.
Not the romantic kind of crack, but a fracture of mortification that filled quickly with anger and disgust. It had only been a week, and she was already so different. So cold. “What’s your name?” Jamie asked simply, offering a hand to the girl who was still panting in the gore her vicious battle had created. The girl took her help and stood while looking around for her weapon.
There weren’t many spare weapons floating around, but Jamie had upgraded from her grisly goblin knives on her first night in Thistledon. Pulling the same weapons Jamie had first used from the body of the gnoll, the girl grunted. “Valerie,” the mousy girl answered. “Well,” she corrected, “I prefer Val.”
Jamie breathed a slight sigh of relief. That might have been too many similar sounding names for some people to remember with herself and Kylie. “Well, Val, you did well.” The absolute mess she had made of the small hyena man was clearly not the girl’s first kill, evidenced from her being level three, but there was no finesse in it. Jamie looked at the four she had handled, similarly ripped to shreds, and shrugged. “Are you going to loot it?”
Val’s eyes lit up at the word. “How… How do I do it?”
“You don’t know? Don’t you go out with Huckle?” Looting was as simple as touching a creature which you had fought. Even by accident, it should have happened at this point if she had killed enough monsters to level up twice. Technically you just needed to be nearby, but a test with herself and Kylie suggested it was better to loot your own kills.
“Huckle doesn’t let anyone else loot the monsters.” Val’s excited look turned a little bitter, which is the only reason Jamie’s anger didn’t overflow. Likely seeing the vein pop on Jamie’s forehead, Val held up her hands. “He’s a higher level than the rest of us, so arguing isn’t…”
Something to deal with when they returned, Jamie promised herself. “Just touch the gnoll and you’ll see the option.” Val did as she was told, eager to move on from the gory scene as quickly as she could. Jamie collected her own gains, putting the coins into her backpack. It was only a few due to the low level of the enemies, but an offer of a solid gold coin could get someone moving almost as well as the promise of food. Val picked up her coins and held them out to Jamie, who tilted her head.
“Um, they’re yours?” Val offered the question as an explanation, or an offer for one. Jamie felt her shoulders tighten with anger.
“He made you give him all of the loot?” She asked, keeping her voice measured. It was endearing in a way when Val seemed to panic, clearly worrying about getting Huckle in trouble. The man was around Jamie’s age and had, apparently sensibly, kept out of her way and been lost in the sea of faces. The patchy stubble and watery blue eyes came to Jamie’s mind now and were etched into the ice.
After assuring Val she wouldn’t kill the man, the girl gave a recount of her own time in the System. They walked as Val spoke. Jamie did her best to appreciate the increasingly beautiful natural world as Val forced herself to talk about the way the apocalypse ruined her life. “We were on a trip to London when the voice started speaking. Our car crashed into nothing and once everything started a giant rat jumped onto the car. My dad killed it by running it over. We tried to head into London but then… Then we got attacked by orcs. I killed one somehow and got my first level but my dad and brother… I’ve fought when I can, and most of my attributes are in Agility and Resilience…”
Is this what we have now? Jamie’s mind was filled with the sight of a family she had abandoned to their fate. The intense colours of the snake which had attacked them. The screams for help which she had ignored, only for her to leave her family to their choices later. Would Jamie ever know if they died? A world of orphans is what we’re left with.
Thankfully, as the newest layer of ice covered Jamie’s heart, a howl broke the quiet which had fallen. Without noticing, the pair had journeyed further into the wilderness than Jamie had meant to. Three figures made themselves visible from around wide tree trunks, but that wouldn’t be the only members of the pack. She bared her teeth in response to the appearance of the wolves, barking a single command to Val before leaping forward. “Survive,” she told the girl. With no way to know a monster’s level until you fought it, Jamie had been relying on instincts.
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Her instincts told her this was going to be a challenge even for her. She had run into a group of these things on the second day, but she had been with Kylie. The other woman was seriously potent, easily able to swing her new mallet with the speed of a jackhammer. Any unbalancing which the weapon might have forced in the past was outright ignored due to her attributes, turning her into a nightmare for anything which fought at close range.
Jamie didn’t have the same luxury with her own upgrade from the knives she had found on that first bloodstained day. As she did her best to make the wolves focus on her, Jamie couldn’t even stay near Val to protect her. The drawbacks of her weapon were annoying, but as she slipped it from her waist, Jamie couldn’t help but smile even wider. The chain tinkled as she whipped the weight around faster and faster at her side. As much as she hated to admit it, this part was fun.
Item - Savage Sickle And Chain (Rare)
Sometimes named a kusarigama, the brutality of this weapon is inherent in design. A sensible enchantment makes it impossible to injure oneself with the weapon unintentionally.
One of the two rare items which Jamie had seen so far, Jamie was initially reticent about using the exotic weapon but quickly came around. A heavy round weight sat at the end of a long chain which connected to the handle of a sharp sickle. Jamie wasn’t sure if it was a metal from Earth, but the cutting power definitely fit the word “brutal.”
The main issue with the weapon was alleviated by the enchantment. Additional points in Agility and Dexterity over the two levels since looting it off the corpse of an Orc had made her more comfortable with the strange movements required for its best use, and its efficiency was too high to ignore for something more conventional. As the first wolf mistakenly entered her range, Jamie released her grip and let the weight fly.
The best thing she could do for Val was finish this quickly. As the weight smashed through the skull of the wolf, she gave silent thanks. Val would be able to handle at least one or two of these things while she did the rest. Within a few seconds of the first casualty, the rest of the pack was charging in. Jamie lost herself to the chaos of the battle.
She was honestly glad when the first enemies began to break her defensive posture and get up close. They met the sickle and without fail came away lesser. Less blood. Less limbs attached. Less enemies surrounding her once her work was done. Her focus was such that even though there were multiple occasions where the creatures gave her some breathing room, she didn’t notice the level up until after the battle.
Panting, falling to the ground next to Val, Jamie laughed. “Good job surviving,” she told the girl, the pair of them laughing as the adrenaline wore away. Exhilaration and fear tried to become guilt and shock. Neither of them were new to this anymore, though, so all of those pent up emotions simply became laughter instead. It was irreverent, but that was part of the point.
“Good job being an absolute blender,” Val offered back, which caused Jamie to judge her handiwork. The description was apt. There were a lot more portions of bodies than whole ones, but mostly that was because of their flimsy bones. The weight at the end of her weapon was about twenty pounds of death, easily able to rip through one of the wolves at full speed before hitting another. Jamie just shrugged.
“Did you level up?” Jamie asked, placing her own gains into Recovery, Resilience and Agility. Val nodded, the look in her eye telling Jamie she was also placing her attribute points around. “You don’t have to tell me your array or anything, but what is your main attribute? Agility?”
“Dexterity, but Agility is a close second. Actually, this level I’m going to try something.” Even before Val explained what she had done, Jamie was wincing. She had heard a few people say the same thing. They decide to take a point of Power, Regeneration and Command. It had an effect, but not one Jamie cared about. Mana was a video game thing and while it was probably important, it was nothing compared to surviving the day. Without fail, people found that they got a few points on their Character Window which they couldn’t do anything with.
Jamie couldn’t control Val, even if she thought other attributes were more important. If Val could keep up, then her attributes were her business. The girl didn’t seem disappointed when she, like everyone else, found no change after placing her points there. Privately, Jamie added another notch against the waste of Attributes, even if some people were trying to put more points into each trait and hoping something would change. Maybe they could find an item which used mana, or something.
Jamie didn’t much care. They continue for the rest of the day, with Val reaching the easy height of level six, doubling her levels and matching Huckle. Every battle was life or death - for Val. By throwing her to the wolves, literally in some cases, the growth was more prominent. Whether that was the higher value enemies or the struggle itself was hard to know. Jamie and Kylie agreed that it was both.
Jamie herself didn’t gain any more levels over the day but the feeling in her chest like she needed to burp wasn’t going away. She would level again soon, probably tomorrow. The thought made her a little hungry to go and hunt some more, but nighttime was much more dangerous than the day. Monsters appeared from the shadows, and that meant they could form anywhere in the dark of night. When the pair arrived back at the camp, Jamie sent Val away with a promise to talk tomorrow.
Sighing, Jamie walked over to the dome and sat against it. She often did so. For some reason, it soothed the thaw inside of her slightly. Not anywhere close to the heat of battle or the flames of assigning level up points, but it was something. She looked at the light of the camp, the only light for miles and miles. “Tomorrow.” Jamie whispered to herself. “Tomorrow things are going to change.”