The building was eerily silent as they made there way up. It was a bit creepy. Each party broke off to investigate the rooms they came across. Everyone on the team was prepared to leap back and lead any unknowns in Martin or Rose’s direction at a moment’s notice. Only a couple of nasty shadow monsters were slain as they went along, most of the building having already been cleared. By the time they reached the fifth story they had found four human bodies. Morale had dipped when a mother covering her child had been found on the third story. The child hadn’t looked more than four years old. Both had vacant eyes open in terror and desperation. Sickeningly, another metal railing had been shoved through them both. Pure rage had found its way into many of the members expressions, especially Rose’s. She was furious. There was already enough confusion, misery and fear going around without another human purposefully creating more.
The raid team now sat in one of the hallways, taking a break to gather stamina. Martin was one of the four members still standing and alert. Two people kept watch at each end of the hall. “We need to kill this bastard when we find them” Martin muttered “I don’t want to see any more dead kids, it’s not right.”
The hall had been fairly quiet, so despite his words not being overly loud, most of the team heard him. There were grim expressions and determined faces along the lines of fighters. No one said anything, but it was clear they were all in agreement. Right now, there was plenty of trouble in the world without serial killers being added into the mix. After half an hour, tired legs got back to their feet, and sore muscles hefted makeshift weapons up off the ground. Both the sixth and the first half of the seventh story was clear but that changed once they reached the way to the roof.
Moving forward as quietly as possible Martin and two of the self-proclaimed scouts of the team, Jason and Jasmine, crept forward. Rose and a few others also looked around the corner from where the rest of their team was staying back. There was a fit, middle-aged man standing at the door leading to the roof. He was repeatedly lifting his foot and trying to kick the door down. The loud banging was probably the only reason he hadn’t heard the raid group make their way through the seventh story. They had been trying to stay quiet, but there were twenty-five of them. It was a bit hard to not make some noise between all of the civilians turned inexperienced fighters walking about.
Focusing Rose analysed the man.
Humanoid – [HUMAN] – [LEVEL 5]
[MURDERER]
The young lady shivered. This was most likely the culprit of their most recent troubles. Level five too. She knew from asking around that upon levelling up humans got one point in [STRENGTH], one point in [CONSTITUTION] and two spare points to put anywhere the person wished. Everyone she’d come across so far had only gained one level. And from their experiences, levelling up sounded like a tangible power increase. Depending on where they put their points, accounts ranged from feeling like their bodies became more limber, to their muscles feeling stronger or even the thought processes feeling faster than ever before. Five levels though. This man might be able to take out all of them with barely a scratch. “Little piggies, little piggies, let me come in” the man called in a sing song voice between each thump.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Great. Not just a serial killer. But a crazy serial killer. Just what they all needed. At that, Martin motioned for the other two with him to go back. They crept backwards, all while constantly looking back to keep an eye on the man. Taking a long breath to steel himself during another thump, Martin ran forward as quickly and quietly as possible. Before the man even knew he was there Martin rammed his hunting knife through the back of the mans neck and through his spine. A quick kill. Better than the murderer deserved but she guessed that Martin hadn’t wanted to take any chances with the level 5. Focusing on Martin’s tag now she expected the [MURDERER] tag to move to him.
Humanoid – [HUMAN] – [LEVEL 4]
No red tag? Interesting. Deciding to figure it out for herself Rose went back into the description for her [LADY] title and found the [MURDERER] tag. Mentally expanding it, the explanation became obvious.
[MURDERER]
This tag grants the following abilities:
- Can discern if stats are more mentally or physically inclined. A purple race tag constitutes a mental inclination. A blue race tag constitutes a physical inclination.
- Can discern other [MURDERER] tags. A red tag constitutes intentional murder. An orange tag constitutes accidental murder.
- The [MURDERER] tag is mostly hidden from others.
- If someone without a [MURDERER] tag eliminates a [MURDERER] they will not gain this tag.
Well, that explained it. Dragging the body to the side Martin gave it a kick, then turned around and knocked on the black door that had lots of foot marks in it. “It’s okay, the murder guy is dead now. He can’t hurt anyone else. You can come out now.”
Seeing the coast was clear the rest of the raid team came out to stand behind their leader. Silence permeated the space. Martin nudged her, caught her eyes with his own and then glanced towards the door. She got it. Perhaps they thought that it was just the murder guy trying a new tactic. “He’s right. There’s twenty-five of us out here. We’ve formed parties, raid teams and even a clan through the nexus thing. We are making our way to the class core thing and are helping out those we can on our way there.”
Was that too wordy? She had been trying to explain things but perhaps she over explained. It was mentioned that public speaking wasn’t really her thing. Even to a black door. She wanted to just crawl in a hole and stay there for a while. But she couldn’t. Martin gave her an appreciative nod, which made her feel a little better, and they waited for a moment. After half a minute, the door opened slightly and an extremely fit looking young man peeked through the gap. Breathing out a sigh of relief the door opened wider and then he called behind him “its okay, there really are other people here.”
A cheer of more than a hundred people came back and then what sounded like relieved chatter began. With the door fully opened a rooftop terrace was revealed with people packed together like sardines. Men, women, children all cramped together. It was obvious they would all want to be back in the building very soon. “Hi, I’m Tyler. Thanks for saving us. We were all pretty terrified.”
As Tyler and Martin shook hands, a notification popped up in front of all their eyes.
“Tutorial Goal: ‘Clear your area to create a safe zone’ has been achieved.
Distributing Rewards Based on Contribution.
You have received a [COMPANION] allocation slot. A [COMPANION] can be summoned to your side at any moment.
Would you like to assign a [COMPANION]?
[Y/N]
There were sounds of surprise at the rewards but most were already filing towards the door, ready to get out. Moving away from the crowd, Rose entered one of the connecting halls and sat down on the plush, red carpet ready to have another break and look at what she was rewarded.