Chapter 4

Training

He wasn't sure how long he stayed that way, curled up on his bed, but when he looked up, according to his bedside clock, it was 4:01 in the afternoon.

He uncurled, sat up, and took a deep breath. You're twelve. You just received an implant and you know the world is going to end in a month. What do you do?

The opposite of what he'd done last time, to start with. Note to self. Don't be an idiot and take a bunch of Bio-Blessed

Okay, he thought. Let's keep it simple.

Step 1. Get the word out. Warn everyone that the world's ending.

Step 2. Get a character class that doesn't get its ass kicked.

Simple enough. Unfortunately, at this point, neither step seemed possible. If only he could warn people and somehow convince them he wasn't crazy.

“Imp. Is there a character class that would allow me to communicate with everyone with an implant within the next month?”

Few implant users in the future, years from now, had that power. High-level generals and advanced power-wielders did, but Leo didn't have years to develop this ability. He needed it now.

If he could get the word out to other implant wearers, it would take only a few believers to give them an advantage when the Change hit, or if he was extremely lucky, to somehow stop the Change from happening.

“The short answer is no,” Imp responded. “Nothing that will let you communicate with large numbers of implant wearers at low levels. Implants were designed with your freedom and privacy in mind, and the skill you're asking for is difficult to obtain, even at higher levels."

So not an option.

He opened the old laptop sitting on his workbench and waited for it to boot up. It asked for his password. To his extreme embarrassment, he couldn't remember. After half a century, it was easy to forget the little things. With some laptops, it was possible to force-boot them without the password, but he was pretty sure this wasn't one of them. No password meant he had a big paperweight.

Pushing the laptop aside, he pulled his calendar off the wall and grabbed a pencil and paper.

He forced himself to remember everything that had happened between today and the day of the Change. A day the survivors knew well: Thursday, October 16th. Today was Sunday, September 14.

He drew a skull and crossbones on Thursday, October 16th.

Day of Death.

Then he wrote everything he remembered about the month before the Change. Not much. It wasn't like he'd followed current events or the stock market. Maybe more would come back to him? In the meantime, he needed to improve his stats.

“Imp, put my Demon Tears into Intelligence.” Demon Tears were valuable, but he needed to raise his Intelligence if he was to have any chance of saving the world, and he needed to do it fast.

Right away, Leo.

His Demon Tears vanished. There was no apparent change to his stats, but he wasn't expecting any. Increasing stats was a cumulative, time-consuming process. The best way to increase Intelligence was to perform mind-improving exercises. Solving problems and learning complex concepts. Doing that should combine with the Demon Tears to increase his Intelligence more rapidly than could happen otherwise.

He pulled out his old math textbook, and some papers from his school book bag that might have been schoolwork, and started going through them.

He alternated ten minutes of studying with ten minutes of physical training exercises: sit-ups, push-ups, squats, jump rope, attempts at juggling, holding his bat like a sword, and going through half-remembered training drills, anything he could think of to increase Strength and Agility. Fortunately, Strength and Agility were the easiest stats to raise. The harder he pushed himself physically, the faster he could raise them. Vitality would increase on its own as his implant healed the damage he did to his body. Common Sense was the hardest stat to raise. His Common Sense had increased over time, but nobody seemed to know how to raise it, or for that matter, what it was good for. And considering the world was about to end, Charisma could go to hell.

He remembered the last fight he'd survived. The fight he was proudest of...

***

Leo remembered...

Leo heard a faint rustling from the grass. When the source of the rustling got close enough, his oversized, dirty hand lashed out with superhuman speed and grabbed it. The rat squeaked as it tried to escape. He bit the creature's head off, squeezed the blood into his mouth, then proceeded to eat the thing raw.

Even in this day and age, he could usually find the occasional tuber, candy bar, or freeze-dried food package, but fresh protein was hard to come by and his body craved it desperately.

His plan was simple. Runners were like bloodhounds. If there were any surviving humans in the area, they'd find them. He would then kill the runners, saving the day, and join the humans. Simple. He'd been alone in the wastelands for over a month. He was desperate for human contact. Any human contact.

He'd been following a small pack of Afflicted runners, being careful to stay downwind of them. If they spotted him or caught his scent, they'd hunt him. He'd have to kill them and find another pack.

A sad looking old billboard watched over the long unused highway. He could barely make out the words.

THE ONE WITH THE MOST

WINS

It was a popular advertising slogan selling some long forgotten product before everything fell apart.

There was an inhuman scream in the distance. The alpha runner of the pack Leo was following perked up and let out an answering scream, its mouth opening wider than any mouth had the right to. “Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

His pack started running towards the other, more distant, screamer.

Runners were stupid, but they had a basic vocabulary. That scream meant a group of humans had been found, but they were too tough for the runners on the scene to handle. The scream was to summon reinforcements. Every Afflicted in this area would converge on the original screamer.

Unless the human group could escape, they were fucked.

He followed the pack down the highway into what had once been a small town. Scavengers had long since picked it clean of anything useful. He should know.

***

The Afflicted runners surrounding a rundown abandoned house made it obvious that this was where humans were hiding.

At least ten of the surrounding runners were dead. From the looks of it, their heads had exploded, blood and pieces of their bodies lying all over what had been a yard. The humans must have at least one implant wearer. Maybe more.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

Leo approached quietly. He'd been unnoticed so far, but that could change fast.

He activated his implant's Time Dilation special skill, giving himself a quick three-second burst. This was the most useful skill he'd picked up from the implant. After forty-six years, he'd managed to work his way up to TimeDilation level ten: “Increase your personal time flow to ten times that of everyone around you. For every second that passes in the outside world, ten seconds will pass for you”.

Everything around him slowed way down. Flying insects were still. Sounds changed, becoming distorted. The Afflicted runners' screeches became jagged and lower-pitched.

He sprinted forward, moving at ten times his normal pace. Thanks to his high Agility level, this meant he charged a group of Afflicted runners at over two hundred miles an hour. Grabbing his sword, he chopped off the first runner's head before it knew what hit it. Same with the second and third. The fourth and fifth had just enough time to turn around and raise their arms before following the first three into whatever passed for these filthy creatures' afterlife.

He backed away, his plan being to find cover and hide for the thirty-second cooldown. There was movement in the corner of his eye. A large clawed hand came out of nowhere and slammed into his side like a speeding truck, sending him flying over thirty feet.

Ow. That blow would have killed a normal human. With his Strength and Vitality, it just hurt a lot. His bruises and cracked ribs would heal in a few hours. However, surviving that long might be problematic.

His time dilation wore off while he was flying. His surroundings sped up again, and he hit the ground, hard. Bounced. Hit the ground again. Jumping to his feet, he ran for his life, followed by the screams of the Afflicted.

So much for finding cover. He cursed himself for not noticing the Low-Level Boss Afflicted. He'd seen it, but thought it was just another large, heavily armored runner. A Boss was another matter entirely. Even Low-Level Bosses were strong, fast, and smart. He knew this was a Low-Level Boss because he was still alive. A High-Level Boss would have killed him instantly.

He checked his cooldown time. 21 seconds. Shit. Not even close.

He ran like a terrified mouse trying to escape a hungry cat, desperate to find cover, turning unpredictably to avoid his larger, faster pursuer. He threw himself under a truck, counting on the much larger Boss being unable to fit underneath. With a roar, the Boss picked up the truck and threw it to the side. Leo ran again, checking the cooldown time. Ten seconds left. A lot could happen in ten seconds.

A rusted-out car flew by, missing him by inches and slamming down onto the broken asphalt nearby. He ducked into an alley, then threw himself through a broken window, cutting himself on the glass. He found himself in an old, abandoned house. The Boss didn't even bother with the door, tearing a hole in the wall and coming after him. Leo threw himself out a window on the opposite side of the house. A claw brushed his boot while he was in the air, cutting through its leather and sending him flying into a broken, rusted, wheelbarrow in the abandoned home's backyard.

Leo checked the cooldown time again. Finished.

He was in an abandoned, weed-filled backyard in a ghost town, lying next to a broken, rusted-out wheelbarrow, seconds from getting eaten by a pissed-off Boss.

This time he maxed it out, pushing as many Demon Tears as he could into the skill, supercharging it. The Demon Tears would increase the duration and effect of this skill. But as always, cooldown was a bitch.

He'd have one minute. For him, that one minute would feel like fifteen. It would be days before he could use this skill again, but he'd burn that bridge if he lived long enough.

The world around him slowed. He flung himself to the side as a piece of the house missed him by inches. A claw slashed toward his head. This time, he was expecting it. Ducking back, he swung the sword he'd somehow hung on to, cutting off one of the dirty claws, along with part of the Boss's finger. For a Boss that was a flesh wound, and the finger and claw would grow back in a day or less.

With an angry roar, the Boss's foot connected with Leo, a glancing blow, sending him some twenty feet into a broken-down cement block wall. Leo felt something coming at him from behind. He forced himself up and jumped over the broken wall, backing frantically into what was left of the street.

There were two Bosses now, directly in front of him. The second Boss was a little smaller than the first, but just as fast, the dirty yellow fang in the left side of its mouth was chipped. He wondered how it got that way.

With loud, low-pitched growls, the two Bosses spread out, coming at him from opposite sides.

He backed up quickly, keeping both of them in view. He was a little faster than they were now, but they were bigger, stronger, and covered with heavy bone armor that he knew from experience was hard to penetrate.

He rushed the larger Boss, Boss One, his sword held high. It raised its hands to block his sword and grab him while the second Boss moved around behind him to pen him in. Instead of swinging his sword at the Boss's head, he dove between its legs, putting all his strength into pushing his sword through Boss One’s left foot. Its feet were armored too, but not as well.

He drove his sword through the bony foot and into the broken asphalt beneath while rolling between Boss One’s legs. Once he was behind it, he pulled out his backup dagger, a long ice pick he'd picked up at some forgotten location.

There was a small gap between the thick bone armor of the Boss's skull and its almost nonexistent neck. If it wasn't for this gap, the Boss would have been unable to move its head. As the Boss reached down to pull Leo's sword from its foot, Leo had the perfect opportunity to jump on its back and shove his ice pick through that gap and into its brain.

A wildly swinging arm from the dying Boss One caught Leo and hurled him backwards. Ignoring the pain, he forced himself up. He rushed forward and jumped on the Boss's back and used its body to fling himself up into the air at Boss Two. While flying through the air, he activated his second skill, Wind-Sword.

The Wind-Sword was a psychokinetic sword with a long range and excellent armor penetration that he could summon at will. Like his other skill, its cooldown was a bitch. Which was why he saved it for emergencies. Like now.

Boss Two backed away from Leo, like a linebacker going out for a catch, knowing that if it caught Leo, it could tear him to shreds instantly.

Leo swung his Wind-Sword at Boss Two as fast as he could, using it like an axe to cut through its armor. His Wind-Sword was unable to penetrate its heavy bone armor, but did damage it. He focused his strikes where the side of the boss's armored head rested on its chest and shoulder, cutting away at the bone covering the side of its head, neck, and collarbone.

Then, just before he was within grabbing distance of the Boss, he pointed the Wind-Sword downward, sliding it beneath the Boss's collarbone and into its heart. Twisting to the side, he somehow avoided its grasping arms. Then, pushing off its head, he dropped to the ground and kept running. Boss Two slowly collapsed behind him.

Two Boss monsters down, and he still had over forty seconds of real time left. Ten minutes for him. He retrieved his sword from Boss One’s foot and ran around the area, killing every Afflicted person he could find. Compared to Bosses, ordinary runners were cake.

Both Time Dilation and adrenaline wore off as he approached the abandoned house where the humans were hiding. He wanted to collapse with exhaustion, but forced himself to stand up straight, casually walking up to the house and knocking on what remained of the front door.

There were five humans in the house: a young man, a pregnant woman, and three small children. The pregnant woman appeared to be in her early twenties and looked exhausted. Her eyes stared off into the distance, like she'd seen too much.

“You saved us,” said the man. Like many people these days, his face was lined, prematurely aged from fighting to stay alive. “You're Goblin, right? I've heard of you. That ugly, deformed guy with an implant.”

“Yeah, that's me. Pleased to meet you, too,” Leo said. “Haven't seen another human since the group I sheltered with got wiped out over a month ago. I was foraging for supplies or they'd have gotten me, too.”

The truth was, he'd seen the Afflicted coming, and knowing there was nothing he could do to protect the other residents, he'd run for it. What could he say? Being a coward worked for him.

“Your timing is impressive,” the young man said. He raised his left arm and activated his implant so it glowed violet. It was the implant wearers' greeting. “Illusionist. Rare.”

Leo smiled sadly, raised his own arm, and did the same. “Swordsman. Common.” Illusionist was so much better than a swordsman. Illusionists could turn invisible, hiding themselves and others from Afflicted runners and Low-Level Bosses. In addition, Rare meant the Illusionist would get more advanced and unusual special skills to begin with.

The young man pulled out a map. “You don't owe us anything, but if my charges are going to survive, I have to lead our pursuers away. If you can get these people here,” he pointed at a dot on the map, “without being followed, someone will meet you. If you're followed, nobody will meet you, and you'll probably die out there.”

Leo studied the map and nodded. “I'll do it.”

“There's a nearby stream you can use to throw them off your scent. Good luck.”

“You as well,” Leo answered.

The Illusionist vanished. Leo never saw the man again.

***

Leo's bedroom door inched open, ejecting him from his past. It was his sister, sneaking into his room to return his VR gaming glasses. Leo stopped doing squats and hid behind the door, waiting for her to come inside. When she did, he shut the door silently behind her.