“Ghost.” As Ghost turns to me with a slightly confused and surprised expression, I tilt my head slightly towards my shoulder. Getting the meaning, Ghost nods and walks back towards the base while I approach the girl named Aerith and Winter stays on lookout.
Being this close to the young girl, I could see that she is way worse than I had initially thought. She’s thin, I could see part of her ribcage, her arms and legs skinny, cheeks and eyes shallow. Her eyes though, they still shone with determination as if wanting to keep living. Smiling gently as I look at her and looking around once more, I spoke to her.
“Hi, my name is Midnight. Can I ask who you are?”
“A-Aerith.” Speaking as if she hadn’t spoken in weeks, she looked at me as if she couldn’t believe I’m real.
“It’s good to see you, Aerith.” What do you say to one who has just wandered into your makeshift base looking like this? I had no idea, so I decided to just introduce everyone and get her inside. “This is Winter, she's my wife.” Switching to wife instead of fiance, I gesture to Winter who smiles gently before returning to looking around. “Behind me are our friends, the one you just met is Ghost, while there is also Lemon and Sheep. Aerith, come inside, we’ll get you some food and water.”
Aerith seemed unsure, instead opting to reach out a hand like she’s uncertain. Realising she might believe this to be a dream, I reach out a hand and take hers. Her eyes widened as I heard her mutter.
“Y-you’re real…”
“I could say the same for you. Come, we’ve got plenty of rice and canned food so don’t feel bad about eating or drinking.” Gently leading Aerith in while holding her hand, I kept an eye on her while we walked into the base. As we entered, I saw that Sheep had led the others away knowing that it would be better if Aerith isn’t overwhelmed with others. Taking her to the usual meeting room, Winter broke off and grabbed a bottle of water and some cans of food. Asking Winter in a small voice to cook some rice as well, she nods and leaves to do so.
Not wanting to overwhelm her by asking the dozens of questions in my mind, like how she’s survived this long, I handed her the food and water as she looked at it in amazement. Opening a can for her, I handed it to her with a fork and smiled softly.
“Don’t eat or drink too quickly. Take your time, ok?”
Aerith gives me a small nod and starts to eat slowly. Winter enters with a can of rice after ten minutes and sets it down next to Aerith, causing her to look at it with amazement. She hadn’t spoken much and I couldn’t blame her. With how weak she looked I knew she had been alone and without food or water for a long time now. Watching her as she slowly ate, worried that she might choke on the food, Winter and I remained silent.
Aerith finished after about an hour, muttering a quiet “T-thank you.” but before we could speak to her, she started to sway on her seat, barely able to keep her eyes open.
“Can you take her to one of the beds?” We didn’t have mattresses, but rather blankets from the storehouse on the floor with pillows. “Use mine.”
Winter gives me a nod and helps Aerith up, leading her out of the meeting room. Taking a deep breath in, I stood up, grabbed my bow and quiver and left the base. Walking slowly, I decided to walk around the block as my mind flared up with thoughts. Seeing Aerith like that had impacted me more than I had thought, making me realise that our group had been extremely lucky to be in the position we currently were.
If I were alone, could I survive for that long, without food, water, weapons or even a safe place to sleep? The five of us had been relatively close when we arrived in this world, and we knew it wasn’t just dumb luck, the odds were impossible for it to be a coincidence. We had been close because of the fact we were close in our world, which meant Aerith would’ve also been in our city. If we hadn’t been together, would’ve I survived till this point?
I couldn’t say. Without knowing that Rebecca is safe and sound nearby, perhaps I would’ve been torn up between the thoughts of her and mum, knowing I likely would never see them again. Sure, I have experience in deep diving and using an avatar similar to my own body, but surviving alone like that wouldn’t be possible, at least for me.
Then there is our group size, allowing us to complete the Survival Basics quests easily. Perhaps alone I could’ve completed the first quest, but the second would’ve been impossible. Alone with a single Colt that had five bullets, it would’ve meant I can’t kill more than five Husks, nevermind finding houses and storehouses to loot. Even if I had finished the first quest and gotten Weaponsmithing, collecting the materials to keep going would’ve been extremely difficult.
Larger groups than our own would have a hard time finishing the two quests for all their members too. Killing fifty husks for our group had been relatively easy since hunting as a group meant we could share the kills and keep each other safe. Doing that alone though? If you wander too deeply into the town, it would spell your end, and if you made a mistake you had no one to rely on. If you had a large group, you’d have to either prioritise certain people or take advantage of the night time, which would be extremely dangerous. Larger groups would struggle to get many past the quest.
Leaning against a fence and sighing, I looked at my surroundings and felt my heart tighten. This empty, desolate world, the uncertainties of it all, our bleak futures, what is it all leading to? Time and time again we as a group have become frustrated at the simple questions of what this world is, who our enemies are and what we’re meant to do. If only the System sold a book filled with the answers to this. Does it think we’d be overwhelmed and scared if it told us more? Well, I couldn’t refute that, Lemon and now Ghost would likely be too overwhelmed if the knowledge of what is to come is too heavy.
Shaking my head and getting off the fence, I continue to walk around the block as I think about our group's situation. Four days, three nights, until the Nexus event will happen. Barring Lemon, I felt confident in everyone else keeping a level head. Ghost isn’t that bad right now, from what Sheep has told me though he is heading in the same direction as those who shut themselves off to reality though, and I knew I could trust Sheep on this, he had experience from his workplace in the old world.
The new factor is Aerith. She isn’t able to fight, four days to recover is not long enough, she needed to recover, even I could tell that. I knew she hadn’t eaten for weeks from how she looked, and expecting her to stand with us to fight isn’t realistic nor would I allow it. I plan to talk to her slowly over the next few days and ask her the questions I had in mind, the most motivating question is where she came from. If we could figure out if she came from the same city or not, it might help us determine how far away more people were. I’m eager to link up with others, especially after the Nexus event. Whether it’s to ally or trade, it would be a massive help.
Slowly making my way back, I spotted two Husks down the street, nearly a kilometre away. The boost we had received to our strengths, and for me my vision, had made us both worried and excited. Worried because if we had to become stronger like this then what we were about to face must be powerful. Excited because who doesn’t get excited about getting stronger? Notching a wooden arrow, I patiently wait for them to get closer and after some time I fire a shot, hitting one in the head. Quickly firing another arrow, I kill the other.
I had to use wooden arrows while killing normal Husks like this. The carbon arrows I had sliced right through a Husks head easily, meaning it usually went a lot further. I had lost two carbon arrows because of that so I switched to wooden arrows, which weren’t the strongest but against normal Husks they were enough. Letting out a sigh, I wandered back to the base while my stomach churned with a mixture of feelings, the most overwhelming one is sadness at not being able to hug Mum.
Entering the base, I breath in and put on my game face. I didn’t want the others to see me moping about, their confidence levels were low enough as it is, if their leader had a face of fear and anxiety then it would cause them to crumble. Feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders, I move through the base slowly, avoiding the boys and arriving in the jail cells in the basement.
This is the final room that we would fall back to. It is essentially the end if we reach this room, it means we had run out of ammo, grenades and room in the other rooms. We had no other escape route that would be viable, any leading outside would become a potential breaching point for the Husks. The windows around the base had all been sealed tightly thanks to Lemon, eliminating them as breaching points.
Sitting down against the wall and picking up a wrench, I tossed it in my hand as I looked at my little pet project. Currently I had a problem when it came to Machinery, which is relying on Blueprints to build machines. I couldn’t help it though, I knew nothing about machines before, except to build a PC, which I could do easily, but that doesn’t really count.
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My pet project is intended to learn more about machinery, to build that missing knowledge of adding to or modifying machines. What I’m building is a heater, solely meant to act as one. I used the oven as a base and had been trying to modify it to act as a low powered heater, but so far I hadn’t really made progress. The missing knowledge made it extremely difficult to build it as I envision, but I had to do this.
I didn’t want to be completely restricted to what the System gave us. While what we had been given so far had been wonderful, there is always the possibility that one day we couldn’t use it anymore, or that it wouldn’t give us what we wanted. By learning by myself I could potentially make machines that were outside of what the System could give us, and maybe I could make a machine that we needed at any time.
I didn’t have the materials to continue progress, and while I had learnt a lot doing this so far I still had a lot more to learn. I just filled my mind with thoughts on progression to distract myself from the other thoughts I had before, and slowly I started to think of possible ways of building this heater, giving me something to look forward to.
I can’t lie when I say that we somewhat regret our choices back then. We had been in a bit of a rush to choose our Jobs, and while what we had would certainly bloom in the long run, they required a lot of patience and time. For example, Ghost’s choice of Farmer while good would certainly mean we would need to secure a location for the long term. Perhaps forager would’ve been the best option, but we were basically in the middle of a town and it had taken ages to find fruits for Ghost to harvest, I doubt forager would’ve been the best choice. For the time being, we planned to stay in this little base, but even now I could tell we had to move at some point after the Nexus event, it’s simply too small especially now we have one more person.
Dismantler and Machinist are certainly the best choices right now, being able to build machines like the water purifier or the whirling blades for defence has given us an exciting prospect for later, even more so now that ‘Advanced’ Blueprints have been unlocked for me. The only problem I’ve run into is a lack of ways to get the Blueprints for the next nodes as I had no Job Points.
After an hour, I got up and moved to the bedroom Winter and I had made. Entering, I saw Winter sitting down next to Aerith, holding her hand while Aerith slept. I smiled softly at Winter, I sat next to her and held her other hand, looking at the young girl who had wandered to our base.
As nightfall fell, Winter fell asleep on my shoulder. I had originally intended to keep watch tonight, but Sheep had come in earlier to tell me he would keep watch with Ghost and Lemon. It seems he is slowly working with those two to get their confidence up as well, and trusting him with that job I fell asleep by leaning my head against Winter’s.
“Ruby.” Hearing my name as I stirred awake, I blink a few times while my eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness and looked at Rebecca.
“Morning, beautiful.”
“Mm, morning. Aerith is awake.” Seeing Rebecca’s soft smile, her words quickly made me realise we weren’t alone. Tilting my head to look past Winter’s, I saw Aerith sitting up looking at us with a bit of surprise.
“Y-you’re real? This is real?” Aerith looked at the two of us with surprise and shock as I smiled gently.
“Yes. We’re real, or at least I hope we are. Come, we’ll get some more food and water for you.”
Winter and I lead Aerith from the bedroom and we pass Sheep who gave us a nod and a small smile to Aerith. Seeing the bags under his eyes, I knew he had had a long night, and planning to have a chat with him later to check his mental state, we took Aerith to the meeting room and fed her. She once again ate slowly, as if to favour the food she’s eating. We didn’t give her any rice this time, using the oven to heat up water to cook it simply wasn’t an expense we could do too often and starting a fire this early in the morning isn’t desirable.
As Aerith puts the can down and drinks a bit of water, she looks at us as a slight blush appears on her cheeks.
“T-thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. I’m glad you’re doing better.” She had been a lot more coherent and her eyes looked a lot more focused. “Aerith, I want to ask you a few questions, do you think you can answer them?” I smile at her gently as she nods. “Can you tell me about when you arrived in this world?”
“Y-you also arrived here?”
“That’s right. We were full diving into a game called Apocalyptic World.”
“M-me too! I remember, I got into my pod, then suddenly I ended up here!” Aerith stands from her chair and looks at me with some excitement.
“I see. Aerith, where did you full dive from?”
“M-Melbourne, Australia.”
I glanced at Winter and met her eyes. We shared a slight nod, both of us understanding the theory we had to be correct. It seems that the place you arrive is based on where you were in our world. We had full dived from a branch in Melbourne since the international main branch in the United States had been full.
“How old are you?” Winter turns to Aerith as she asks her that question gently.
“F-fourteen.”
This time I felt blown away at her answer. Fourteen and she’s survived this long by herself?!
“Have you been alone this entire time?”
“Y-yes. I woke up in a room by myself with a gun, but I only had t-three bullets. I-I’ve been trying to find people, food or anything, but I found n-nothing until I f-found you guys.” Aerith sat down as tears started to fall, before she started to cry. “I-I was so scared, I-I thought I would die. If it w-wasn’t for the m-messages I followed, I don’t k-know what would’ve h-happened…hic.”
As Aerith starts crying, I look at Winter, unsure on how to handle this. Winter gives me a look telling me she wasn’t sure either. I watch as Winter gets up and kneels besides Aerith and pats her head slowly. After some time, Aerith calms down and wipes her eyes, she looks at Winter and I and lowers her head.
“S-sorry…”
“Don’t be, we’re all feeling the same honestly, scared about this world and the future here. But we’re alive now, and we intend to keep it that way. Aerith, I don’t want to push you until you’re healthier but I must know, how far have you progressed with the Survival Basics quest?”
“C-craft a weapon.”
“Don’t you know how to open the Crafting System?” As I ask this, Winter gets up and leaves the room. Knowing that she’d be getting wood and stone, I guide Aerith to open the Crafting System while also teaching her about the Party and Clan Systems. Finding out she has killed a Husk, with her refusing to retell the story with a frightened face, along with the fact she’s technically looted a house, I explained what would happen next, selecting a class.
Deep down, I wanted to use Aerith to experiment with the magic based Job and Classes, to discover how magic worked in this world, but I knew there would be problems that came with doing such a thing. Firstly, none of us knew how magic would work, Classes don’t give knowledge on how to use them, meaning if we guided her to become a Mage, there is a high likelihood that she’d become useless due to us not knowing how her new power would work.
While the Jobs were different in that they do provide knowledge, the only Job I could think of would be Enchanter. Based on the description it would allow one to enchant our weapons or armour, if we obtained armour at a later point. This Job, along with Chemist or Pharmacist, were the most tempting, and with them giving knowledge, I knew they would round our team up well. I didn’t want to push it though, this is a fourteen year old girl after all, overwhelming her would be a really bad idea, especially with the Nexus event happening in three days.
Soon, we found that she could indeed select a Job after we showed her how to craft a weapon. I explained the positives and negatives of each Job to Aerith, but not wanting to make her too flustered I told her that we’d take our time. I didn’t want her to worry so I mentioned that we were fine as we were, and it did seem she had been a bit overwhelmed.
Aerith seemed to be hesitant about the Jobs, and telling her the three best that would best help everyone here, she ended up deciding between Chemist or Pharmacist. Telling her not to rush it, as we needed to get through the Nexus event, I changed the topic.
“Aerith, can you tell me about how you’ve survived these last few weeks?”
She looks at me then Winter before slowly speaking. “I-I’ve been finding houses without those zombies and sleeping in them with the doors closed. I had a gun before, but used my last bullet some time ago and the weapon broke. I-I haven’t eaten for a while and only drank m-morning dew by using a few leaves.”
Morning dew? Oh, we hadn’t thought of that, perhaps because it wouldn’t quince everyone’s thirst. A bit surprised, I smiled and looked at her.
“Don’t worry, from now on we can help out with food and water, though we are a bit short on canned food we do have plenty of rice, coffee and sugar. Aerith, for the Nexus event, I want you to remain safe so I won’t be putting you with us. Focus on recovering yourself first, ok?”
Aerith nods with a bit of uncertainty, most likely because she’s being told to hide while we fight. I decided to tell her what the plan after the Nexus event would be.
“Once you have chosen a Job and the Nexus event has passed, we plan to either leave this town or go deeper in, depending on what has happened. Our biggest problem is a lack of others around here, thus we must travel, but at the same time to survive this world it’s best to travel and link up with others. Once you’ve selected a Job, I’ll get you to start working so we can buy items from the store, like food. I suspect there will be a cap on how much we can buy and we’ll all be working on this goal. Do you think you can help us with that?”
Aerith nods slowly. “Y-yes, I can. I want to repay you for saving me, anyway I can.”
“Don’t think of it like that. We helped you, it’s not a problem for us at all.” Giving her a light smile, Aerith looks down for a moment before looking at me.
“C-can I ask a question?”
“Sure.”
“Are you Midnight, the Midnight, from the Dark Reapers?”