Eik left the library feeling hopeful. After finalizing his choice of [Profound Toxin], a seemingly unique ability, the script had faded and displayed a new message.

[Acquired Resistance: Toxin lv. 24]

Against any of the toxic monsters that had appeared in the past nine years, at least around Forest, a [Resistance: Toxin] skill of level 24 would neutralize the venom to the point where it would do no more than sting.

In the sinkhole, he had been lucky to face a variety of monsters whose main threat was directly countered by his only skill at the time. The physical strength of the Xaraxis-series was laughable compared to some of the other monsters ranking around F-rank. And their tendency to latch on and stay latched on made them easy to hit.

With a resistance to their only real weapon, venom, Eik had been in the best possible down there. That likely wasn’t going to be the case again.

Most of the monsters the citizens of Forest had encountered in the past nine years did not utilize toxins. His resistance ability could definitely save him in certain situations, but he’d need proper offensive and defensive abilities for the dangers to come. If he wanted to be able to subjugate the monster that put Olivia in a coma, he’d need combat capabilities, and if he wanted to develop the skills for that, he’d need to fight.

***

By the time he made it to Mission Central, the sun was starting to set, yet the place was crawling with more people than he had ever seen there. Mission Central was called so because it was first established as the point of contact for any monster hunts and forages into the wilderness when they had first settled here.

Even now, it still served that purpose, but was thought more of as a hub for Awakened to exchange information, form hunting parties, and sell some of the monster parts they came back with.

“What’s going on here?” Eik asked a passerby as he approached, people literally spilling onto the street.

“What?” the guy asked back.

He gestured around at the throng. “What’s with all the people?”

“We’re looking for hunting groups. I just awakened,” he said proudly, pulling out a wooden plate and showing off his skill. “I picked swordsmanship.”

Eik looked around in disbelief. “Everybody here is Awakened? There are hundreds!”

The man gave him a look, following Eik’s eyes as if that would reveal something about his confusion. “Not just here. Everybody in Forest at large has become Awakened now. Have you been sleeping somewhere?”

“You could say that…” Eik said and continued towards the large wooden building, leaving the man to stare.

He massaged the bridge of his nose with a sigh. He weaved his way between people shouting out recruitment offers or hopeful individuals looking to join up with a group. If the entirety of Forest’s population was now Awakened, then the few hundred people here now were an extreme minority. It had been like that ever since Awakened had first begun to appear. Most people weren’t cut out for combat, had no wish for it, and would rather live a peaceful life to whatever degree they were able.

Even most of the newly Awakened here at Mission Central would probably be back to their old jobs within the week. Some might go as far as a month before they decided to give up. Only a few would actually end up sticking with the hunting life. It was undeniably a necessary profession in today’s world.

Eik, on the other hand, would never give up. He couldn’t give up. He needed to be stronger to be able to help Olivia and the other victims. And while he wouldn’t admit it out loud, he was excited at the thought of fighting monsters. He’d been envious of the Awakened for years, and now he had awakened as well.

Ignoring the complaints of the other newcomers, Eik began to push his way in through the crowd, shoving people gently aside. His F-rank strength was likely lower than a good chunk of the Awakened here, but people could usually still be moved if they weren’t prepared for it.

The interior of the Mission Central building was well lit and spacious. The ceiling was crossed by thick, wooden beams, wide catwalks running along the outer wall with tables and chairs for people to enjoy snacks and beverages. The crushing number of people aside, it really looked more like some kind of medieval tavern than anything else.

As he approached the front counter, the mayhem only intensified. Even outside, people had been speaking over each other, but in here, in the closed space of a roofed building, the noise was deafening.

Eik considered just going home right then and there and trying his luck again tomorrow. Unfortunately, if everyone had truly awakened two days ago, he had probably already missed the best chances while unconscious, so he couldn’t really afford to waste any more time by going home just because it was a little inconvenient and spine-shiveringly uncomfortable to be here.

Huffing with determination, he pushed through the last couple of layers of people and popped out at the front like a fawn finding itself suddenly on a trafficked forest road. There were about ten clerks running to and fro, looking the most stressed they had ever been. People were shouting demands to the employees of Mission Central from all the way out on the street. These poor sods wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.

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“Excuse m—” A hip caught him right in the thigh and practically sent him to his knees.

“Sorry,” a short woman said hurriedly as she pushed her way to the front exactly as he had done. Somehow, he still managed to feel slighted.

“That’s okay,” he lied with a smile, and turned back the counter. “Excuse m—”

“I want to register a hunting party.” the woman shouted, drowning out Eik’s words and deafening one of his ears in one fell swoop. “Two people. Front liner with a shield and an archer. Both F-rankers.”

Eik scowled and elbowed past her. “I’d like to register for recruitment.”

“We’re not accepting anymore today,” a clerk said as she passed by the two of them, carrying a fat stack of documents that she almost dropped to the floor when another clerk bumped into her in the rush. When she came by again ten seconds later, she finished. “Give it a couple of weeks and come back. We’re way over capacity as it is. We’re not even close to properly equipped to handle this massive increase in the number of Awakened.”—She pulled her own wooden plaque out from her shirt to underline her words—“We could realistically handle maybe a fifth of what’s going on here right now, and many Awakened already gave up and went home, for now.”

“B-But, we just—“

The clerk held up a hand to stop the woman who’d bumped into Eik and skipped him in line. “I apologize, but there’s nothing I can do.”

“What about all the others here?” Eik asked.

“They’re already registered, and if not, then we’re going to tell them the same thing I just told you.” A few hopefuls waiting by the wide counter sighed and began to work their way back towards the exit, Eik following their example and pushed his way back through the crowd.

When he emerged from the throng, he had to stop and gather his thoughts. B and C-rankers could venture out on their own and be more or less safe. Even a D-ranker could probably get away with it if they were careful enough, but a newly awakened F-rank like him would have to be absolutely brainless to attempt something like that. And the message to the Awakened that spoke about a new phase Earth was entering didn’t bode well for his chances alone either.

That meant that there was no choice but to wait and try another day. Eik turned to leave.

“—and that we had to wait weeks, possibly months.” a familiar voice complained. It was the same woman who had just pushed past him inside Mission Central.

“What? But we’ll fall behind completely!” a man said.

“That’s why we start now and register later.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

She gave him a look. “Don’t be such a baby, Heathy. It’s not like it’s illegal.”

“I know, but—”

“Excuse me, but are you goi—” Eik said, approaching hurriedly. An earsplitting howl tore through the crisp evening air, followed a second later by a titanic silhouette swooping down from the sky and snatching up a woman from the middle of the crowd. Her scream faded into nothingness within moments as everybody watched her disappear at unimaginable speed.

“M-Monster!” someone screamed, the reaction acting as a trigger that threw the entire mass of Awakened into a headless panic. Eik was knocked to the ground from behind by some inconsiderate bastard too preoccupied with their own safety to care about who they might hurt in their escape. Before he could get up, someone right next to him was taken, the gust of descending air pushing him back into the ground. This time the scream of fear was cut into silence by a wet, fleshy crunch.

Eik rolled over at looked up, catching a glimpse of the monster as it stole away yet another person. The orange light of the evening sun penetrated the membranes of its massive wings, of which it had a large main pair in place of forelimbs, as well as a smaller pair around a third of the size further down along its waist. It had two legs and a tail of freakish length, each of the legs at least twice the length of its body, yet spindly like sick, bony twigs. When the beast dove, the legs would lay flat against the tail, reminding Eik of a gigantic dragonfly.

As it claimed another victim, a warm, wet substance splashed onto Eik’s hair, body, and face. He was surrounded by a pool of red, the torn off lower half of a jaw falling into the grass mere centimeters from his hand. He leapt backwards in shock, bumping into somebody as he forgot his own awakened strength.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his words drowned in the din of constant screams. He turned just in time to see the person collapse on the ground. Leaping to help, he turned them over, glassy, lifeless eyes staring up at him. A deep, messy gash had been ripped across the man’s torso, spanning from shoulder to waist.

Eik left him there and ran.

It was chaos all around. This wasn’t just a few flying monsters. This was a second wave.

Eik had neither ranged capabilities nor freedom of movement sufficient to tackle anything in the air, so all he could do was retreat for now. Mission Central was not located on the outer perimeter of Forest, but it was close enough to almost be a matter of opinion. Eik headed out, hoping to help out around the hospital area where he himself had woken up just hours earlier.

He darted into a narrow alleyway, knife at the ready, hoping to avoid running into anything dangerous until he reached the hospital tents. He turned the corner, only to immediately come face to face with a dog-sized, many-legged monstrosity. He had caught the horror chewing through the bicep of an older man.

With at least a dozen glowing, yellow eyes, the thing locked its eyes on him as it dropped the arm, letting the injured man crawl slowly away, sobbing. Its skin was dark and roiling with agitated muscle.

“Ah, crap,” he muttered, looking from the thing to his knife, and then back to the thing. He hadn’t even had time to buy a proper damned weapon yet.

Eik put up his hands to try for appeasement, but the monster simply charged, its speed putting it within range in an instant. It was all he could do to get his knife in front of the monster, which, up close, didn’t much resemble any Earth animal at all. It’s snapping jaw was not bisected in an upper and lower part, but rather four equal quarters that came together in a point, similar to the beak of a bird.

Was its strength somewhere around early E-rank?

With razor-sharp claws, the monster raked Eik across the arm and then pushed through his defense with brute force, sending him stumbling backwards helplessly.

Meanwhile, he activated his new [Profound Toxin], a luminescent, blue substance eagerly bubbling up through the skin of his fingers. By whipping his arm forcefully, he scattered pellet-like droplets of the glowing fluid through the air, and while the velocity of it wasn’t great, the monster’s own advance carried it headfirst into the barrage, splattering the toxin across its skin.

Right away there appeared to be no reaction, Eik seeing no choice but to flee. He ran at full throttle but it was quickly catching up. He let out more poison, throwing it over his shoulder as if he was tossing salt to ward off bad luck. Unfortunately, this particular instance of bad luck was about to bite right through his ass cheeks.

As they approached a small house, the beast was finally beginning to show some signs of discomfort if nothing else, and although it continued to pursue him, it was awkwardly trying to scratch at its eyes and skin as well.

At level 1, even a unique skill like [Profound Toxin] apparently wasn’t nearly enough at these volumes in the hands of an F-rank. He needed to get more of the toxin into the monster to take it down.

Eik planted a foot on the wall of the house and jumped up to grab the rim of the roof before pulling himself up. As he stood, he turned just in time to see the horror flying through the air, coming right for his head with an unearthly wail.