Chapter 59:

"Oh, shit," Titus muttered next to her, and Alice couldn't help but agree.

The people were back, and they were everywhere. She had forgotten that this was a dense metropolis. In the days they spent wandering around, it was a ghost town full of monsters. Now, monsters weren't the only things on the streets. People were everywhere.

The crowds were still a decent ways away because anyone who had been teleported back into the area of the ants was running for their lives. And from what she could see, there was combat everywhere, with monsters and people fighting. Except the people were not leveled for this. Most of the tutorial returnees she saw were levels two through four.

"Should we help them?" Titus asked. Alice was slightly taken aback by his callousness, but then she remembered who he was. It was a fair question.

Could they help them? Sure, they could fight some monsters, but they were only two people, and there were millions of monsters and people in the city. Millions. Would they make a difference? Even then, if they wanted to systematically destroy all threats, it would take months, if it was even possible at all. Besides, they had other people counting on them. At least, Elane was.

"Maybe," she said. "I said we should try, but we need to get moving."

"I agree," Titus said, "But first, lets take a second to deal with the level-ups. We’ll be more effective that way."

Alice nodded, pulled up her status screen, and blinked. What?

Name: Alice Wright

Titles: Mother of All, Tertius

Perks: Quick Learner, Agelessness

Level: 29 - E (capped)

Speed: 30

Power: 78

Control: 30

—

Physical: 2

Magic: 5

Free: 15

* Warlock -- Upgrade?

* [Pact Bond] - lvl 4

* [Life drain] - lvl 9

* [Communion] - lvl 1

* Gen Skills

* [System Identification] - lvl 7

* [Mana sight] - lvl 9

* [Mana Bolt] - lvl 11

* [Second Chance] - lvl 2

* N/A

1. N/A

She had gone all the way up to level 29. She was at a higher level than Titus now. By ten levels, actually. Then she checked him and saw that he was also now level 29. It appeared that she was at the rank E level cap, but the system hadn't helped her move up to D rank. She supposed she'd have to figure that out herself.

On top of that, she had two general skills choices waiting, and it appeared that the rank-up involved a class upgrade as well. That wasn't even considering her significant skill growth. [Mana Bolt] even broke level 10. She had hoped something would happen for that. She knew the lack of reward wasn't because of the non-essential functionality of the System being turned off. At least, she didn't think so.

Titus whistled as he pulled up his own skills. "I'm going to go with the same strategy for point allocation," he said.

Name: Titus

Titles: Ancient, Primarch

Perks: Enhanced Reflexes, Relentless

Level: 29 - E (capped)

Speed: 69

Power: 47

Control: 68

—

Physical: 5

Magic: 2

* Eternal Predator -- Upgrade?

* [Eagle's Vision] - lvl 5

* [Nature's Blessing] - lvl 6

* [Primal Marksmanship] - lvl 7

* Gen Skills

* [System Identification] - lvl 6

* [First Aid] - lvl 5

* [Critical Strike] - lvl 7

* [Inventory] - lvl 4

* [Map] - lvl 2

1. N/A

Alice nodded as he read out his status sheet for her. His skills were moving along nicely at a much more even pace than hers, where she really needed to work on buffing up [Communion]. But she didn't want to be balanced like he was. That wasn't her path. If her stats were that lopsided, maybe her skills could be too.

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If she wanted to keep [Communion]. She wasn't sure what a class upgrade would do, but maybe it would let her readjust her skills, as she didn't want to have telepathy with Titus. Especially not one that took a very long time to cast. Maybe as it got to a higher level, it would help, but still, she really wanted to dive into the casting side of her class a lot more.

Sadly, the help with upgrading her class was also offline. She could tell that it would come with the rank upgrade. But she had no idea what form it would take.

Alice considered what to do with the 15 points she still had to assign. As they began their walk down the hill, she found she had trouble stepping easily with her power more than doubling her control and speed. Each time Alice pushed off the ground, she felt a little unbalanced. Eventually, she got used to it, but it was something that she didn't want to continue.

She was getting dangerously unbalanced, and honestly, she was fearing what would happen when she had to channel mana again. Her mana channels and internals were still not fully healed, and she was actually grateful for the lack of mana in the area, as she didn't even have anything to draw on that could possibly hurt her. And with the power she had, well, that could go very poorly.

As they moved and picked up the pace, Alice was getting more and more used to her walking speed. She decided to put ten points in control and five in speed, which helped almost immediately balance her out, and they broke into a jog as they headed for the first group of monsters outside of the ants' territory that were attacking humans. As they moved, Alice felt the mana slowly coming back, and she hesitantly pulled it into her mana channels. The power circulated into the mana source welling up from within her, combining it into her channels as she slowly moved it around.

It was sore as if she were trying to run the day after she had finished a marathon. But like that, the more Alice moved the mana at a languid pace, the better it felt. It never went away fully, and she didn't want to push herself. Still, it seemed that small uses were actually beneficial. Slowly, she fed some tentatively into the hollow marble at her very core, and it accepted the power without complaint. There was no pain or twinge from the depleted resources as it slowly refilled with power.

Returning her focus to the world around her, Alice couldn't help but be satisfied. It felt that her magic would likely recover. But first, they had a job to do. One of the more common types of monsters had cornered a small family in a car. A [Darkhound - lvl 15]

The family with two small children seemed to have been lucky that they had been teleported exactly back into their car, as it must not have moved since they left. But the pack of hounds surrounding them was slowly getting more and more bold as they bit at the tires, which were already deflated. Their claws dug into the doors as they scrambled up to get to the windows.

Titus dashed ahead, spear ready as he jabbed and thrust, immediately dispatching two of the six hounds on one side of the car before he vaulted over the hood, sliding feet first into another hound, stomping on it as he whirled his spear, knocking aside another. Alice ran forward, drawing her knife, and despite her relatively low physical stat, the massive value of her power stat made up for it.

When she attempted to stab the wolf in the side, her hand sunk in deep and burst out the other side up to her elbow as she buried nearly two feet of limb raw into a monster. Alice flailed, and the wolf creature flew off her arm. She flicked the blood off her face and hands in disgust. The monster, which had started attacking the car next to the one she had brutalized, looked at her with apparent fear in its eyes and turned tail to run. Without thinking, Alice pointed, and a [Mana Bolt] smashed through it, turning the thing into a paste. The searing burn through her channel caused her to wince, but it was bearable. Still, she had no need to do anything more as Titus finished off the last monster.

Even as the family exited the car, the father attempted to thank them, but they were already moving down the road, taking out the next pair of monsters as wordlessly they made their way to the edge of the city. It was with unspoken agreement that they traveled through the streets, helping anyone who was immediately in their path. But even half an hour later, most of the fights were winding down.

Either people were left ripped apart and bloody or banded together to form groups where they would tackle the monsters in great numbers as they went. Alice finally saw someone over level five. A level six human was leading a group of twenty people looking scared, clutching improvised weapons.

Alice and Titus simply let them handle the level ten monster, a purple praying mantis-like creature, as they seemed to have it well in hand. It just wasn't realistic for them to help everyone, and soon, before they even reached the city limits, they were rarely stopping to help anyone. It seemed they might not be needed after all. This was a huge relief to Alice as she didn't want to spend her time trying to lead or protect a settlement.

This time, they didn't steal a car; with their incredible pace, Titus could run faster than one easily, and Alice thought she might be able to as well. Now that people were back from the tutorials, cars weren't nearly as available as they used to be. People seemed to have been teleported back to the nearest possible location to where they were taken. So, if they were in a car that crashed, they weren't teleported in the car or exactly where the car was. If something was in the area but nearby, that didn't mean they were safe from monsters, but it meant they weren't being teleported into things or off the heights of skyscrapers. She hoped the people in the planes were okay.

But no, she and Titus had a mission.

"Does your map give you a path to the destination?" Alice asked.

Titus nodded. "Yeah. I made sure to set a waypoint when she first texted."

"Good," Alice said, not out of breath despite having run for over an hour. They set off again, and a little while later, Titus broke the silence.

"So, are you ready to meet my family?"

Fin