Name: Callen Fe

Race: Human

Class: N/A

Level: 4

Stats:

Str - 4 (9)

Dex - 7 (12)

Con - 5 (10)

End - 4 (9)

Int - 5 (10)

Wis - 5 (10)

Luk - 3 (8)

Free points: 20

Abilities:

Break the Chains

Their Death Fuels Us

Stat Thief

Fast Learner

Aura Control

My stats were nothing too impressive, at least I didn’t think they were. Assuming the average human had 5’s across the board, this seemed about right. The only things of note were that my dexterity was above average and my luck was far below, which I had suspected all my life. Not that I felt like life was bad, but that my everyday luck was low. Getting screwed in a card or board game from bad luck, taking longer than average to find drops in games, that sort of thing. But at least the system could confirm it for me.

I focused on my abilities and the information from the original window came up, with a few additions.

Their Death Fuels Us: Whoever said that no one heals by hurting others clearly never experienced life in the system. Upon killing a creature take 10% of their max health and store it to be used at any point to instantly heal you.

Amount stored: 37 hp

Stat Thief: Stats are very important, and the dead aren't using them anymore, right? Gain a chance on kill to steal 1 point of a random stat.

Stats stolen:

Luk - 1

Since I had killed 3 rats and had 36 hp stolen, that means each rat had around 120ish hp. But more interestingly, I actually had 2 luck before that fight. How far increased were the drop rates right now, and how much stuff could I have gotten if it wasn't so low. I sighed and moved on to allocating my stats. I wasn’t sure when I could get a class, or what kind of class I was going to get because despite how it looked, I knew this wasn’t a game. If I messed up or died I couldn’t just go back and make a new character or respec later. This was my life and I only had the 1 chance. This also meant that min-maxing like a game probably wouldn’t be a great idea.

If I can’t stay alive, then I can’t do damage. I should probably focus on Con and End to start.

I first tried to get my bars to show numbers instead of percentages. After a bit of mental effort, I found I had 129 hp, 111 sp and 130 mp. I tried to figure out how the math worked but didn’t see any uniformity to the numbers and just gave up. I put a point into each stat and saw that constitution raised my health, endurance raised my stamina and intelligence raised mana. I was also unable to use my point to increase luck, which was a little unfortunate but I shrugged it off. Using game knowledge, the process of elimination, and the obvious, I figured strength increase my hitting power, dexterity improved my movements, and wisdom probably increased magical power or something along those lines. I didn’t know how much increasing these stats would actually affect my body because in games it's not like your character would grow bigger with more strength.

But that’s a game, and this is real life. I reminded myself and I sighed. Won’t know until I try right? I placed 5 points each into constitution and endurance, then placed 3 points into strength and the remainder into dexterity and finally closed the window.

I turned the corner of the large building to see all the survivors gathered in the fire drill meeting spot. They were gathered in groups trying to figure out what to do. After waiting a few minutes and trying to count how many people made it out, I figured no one was going to take control of the situation. As much as I hated being the centre of attention, I stood on top of a large rock and did what needed to be done.

"Alright, so something has happened here. Assuming you all saw the screens earlier, the world seems to have been turned into some kind of video game and those giant rats probably aren't going to be an isolated incident. Anyone that can drive should take as many people that can't with them, we all fill up at the gas stations around us, there are 2 close by so don't everyone pile up at one. Then we go to the local police station, and see if they're organizing an evacuation. We'll take it from there. If you know how to drive and don't own a vehicle, look for keys within the dead. I know that seems a little disingenuous but we need to prioritize our survival. Everyone good?" I saw nods across the group and people started heading to various vehicles, a few people went inside and I started to head inside as well when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Hey man, glad to see you made it out." I turned to see Jackson. I couldn't really call him a friend, but he was the person I was closest to at work.

"You too, man." I said as I stored my sword back in my inventory.

"You seem like you're taking this well. What's going on?"

"I have no idea, I'm just compartmentalizing until we get everyone to safety. I'm basically guessing about what is happening based on video game logic and following survival guides." I shook my head. "At least 30 people died from those rats, we need to get somewhere safe and now's not the time to be freaking out."

I could feel his concerned gaze on me as I pressed onward.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Well did you drive here? Can I ride with you?"

"I brought my motorcycle today, if you trust me enough you can come with. I only have one helmet though."

"Sure, I've never been on a bike before, and I'm sure no one cares about helmet laws at a time like this." Jackson put his hand on my shoulder and headed past me into the break room and grabbed his bag and threw it over his shoulder and walked back over to me. I put my back into my inventory and grabbed my helmet and headed back outside toward my bike.

"How do you do that?" He asked as we reached my bike.

"I just thought the word inventory and it appeared, you can store and take items from it whenever you want. You should also check your character sheet while we drive and see if you got any good abilities." I explained as I mounted my bike and started the engine. He managed to make his backpack vanish a few moments later then got on my bike as well.

"Hold onto me or the strap on your seat." I slipped on my helmet and started scanning the area. I could see that both gas stations near the warehouse were full of the other cars and some people were still leaving the parking lot. I revved my bike as I felt Jackson's arms wrap around my stomach.

"I've never felt this close to you Callen." He said with a chuckle.

"Don't make it weird." I drove off towards the north gas station.

As I got into the station I stopped at the front letting Jackson off to get whatever food and drink there was left. I saw that the glass had been shattered from the inside so I guessed a monster must have spawned inside and killed whoever was working here, then fled the area. The wall behind the counter was covered in blood and not much of the counter was left intact. I flicked up the visor of my helmet and spoke as loud as I could to anyone still at the station.

"Does anyone not know where the police station is?" I saw a couple people raise their hands. "Alright follow me in that case, I'll also stop at a couple of stores so we can stock up just in case. If you think the word inventory the screen should appear and you can place anything in it.” I pulled my bag out of my inventory as an example and then placed it back in.

I pulled my bike up a free pump and started filling the tank. Jackson came back standing next to me, whispering to me that he got the food from the station.

“You don’t need to whisper, I told everyone we were going to a couple of stores to stock up, there's a grocery store, a hobby shop and a clothing store on the way. We’ll get what we can and head to the police station.” He nodded. I checked if everyone was ready then mounted my bike again. Once Jackson was situated as well, we drove off again.

Since it was still the dead of night, the roads were mostly clear. A few cars had clearly seen some action, crushed and broken, thrown off the road. Something worse than the rats was definitely out here, but there was nothing in sight. As we pulled into the plaza, there were bodies all over the blood and organs were thrown across everything, walls and been knocked over. I couldn’t really say a battle had taken place here as the only bodies were clearly human. Some monster had just massacred everyone and everything it saw. I steeled my nerves as I turned to Jackson.

“Tell everyone to keep their cars running and someone in the driver seat. We may need to run at a moment's notice.” He nodded and turned to tell all the cars parking. I pulled out my sword and headed for the grocery store. As I entered I could see a whole section had been toppled, blood and guts covered everything in that section. This time however not all of it looked human.

I guess the cleaning crew managed to get something. Doesn’t look like they made it out alive tho.

As I got closer to it I could smell burning and saw cinders lining the floor. They must have tried to start a fire and then bury whatever they were fighting. I saw that nothing in the area was salvageable and turned around to the other side of the store. I got to the non-perishables and immediately started shoving everything into my inventory. I didn’t know how it would handle food that could spoil and didn’t really have time to investigate how the system worked so I just took as many canned goods and bottled water as I could. I still left plenty for the other groups of people but made sure I had at least a month's supply for myself and Jackson.

Leaving the store I took out my phone from my inventory, realizing that in all the panic I never bothered to check it. It was still on but had no signal. Something big must have taken out the cell towers or something. I was sure what else could cause this and just stored my phone again. I heard the sound of skittering as I headed toward the clothing store. I held my sword at the ready while I scanned the area. It was very difficult as most of the street lights and store signs had been knocked over or just weren’t working for one reason or another.

“FUCK!” I screamed as I opened the door to the clothing store, a giant centipede bared down on me. I raised my sword quickly and its pincers clamped down on it. Its giant body weighed too much for me to try to hold up so I forced it to the left, pushing it off with my whole body. As it tried to regain its balance I slashed at it, only managing a small cut. I quickly jumped back as it wriggled around and started running at me again. I slashed downward at the bug and my blade was stopped on its carapace and it bit into my leg. I screamed in pain and kicked it with my free leg, it reacted wildly and reared up, not missing my chance I stabbed my blade into its underbelly and tore down its body. It fell limp and a loot window appeared in my vision. I saw 2 scrolls, a potion and 150 more coin. I hit loot all and the window vanished. Pulling up my inventory I pulled out one of the scrolls.

Scroll of Flame Bolt.

Scrolls are useful tools for people that have very low mana or no affinity for casting. This scroll contains the spell Flame Bolt level 2

Flame Bolt: Fire 4 (2 + spell level) bolts of flames at a target with high accuracy

I closed the window and looked into the store realizing how much of an idiot I was being and changed the vision of my God Eye to darkvision. Everything suddenly got brighter like all of the lights were turned on. I shook my head at my stupidity and headed inside. Once I saw that there were no other monsters in the store, I sat down on one of the display tables and pulled up my pant leg. The injury didn’t look terrible so I tore a random shirt on the table and wrapped it around my leg to stop the bleeding. I tossed the rest of the shirt and went to find some clothes in my size, not paying any mind to style or design and just got changed out of my bloody, gore-covered clothes as fast as I could. I used the old clothes to wipe the blood off my face and tossed them aside as well. It wasn’t a full shower and scrub but it would have to do for now. I heard a couple of voices at the entrance talking about the insect corpse at the front door as I stored everything else I picked up in my inventory and headed back to my bike.

As I got to my bike I saw Jackson looking around for monsters. “Do you have a weapon?” He shook his head at me. “Alright head to the hobby shop, get something sturdy, a bat, a big metal rod, whatever you can find to defend yourself, then get some clothes. I’ll give you some of the food I grabbed when you get back.” He nodded at me and rushed off the hobby shop.

As I stood by my bike watching for anything incoming I started to plan out the next steps.

What do we do if the police are dead, or have no orders? Where is the next safe place to go? We should look for something easy to defend. Maybe an apartment building, one with only 1 or 2 entrances. Board up the windows on the first 4-5 floors. Or maybe an Underground parking garage. I don’t really know of anything safe in this kind of situation. If only I got more than a couple of pages into ANY survival manual. Although, it looks like some of these monsters are easily able to knock down walls. And they are supposedly only going to get stronger, there’s no way those rats were level 100 like the system said it was going to be.

While I was wrapped up in my thoughts Jackson ran back up to me. I looked around and saw most of the others were in their cars waiting on me. I opened my inventory and went to take a bunch of cans out to hand to Jackson when a new window showed up.

Would you like to initiate a trade with Jackson Bellos? Yes/No

I hit yes and an exchange window appeared. By Jacksons' reaction I guessed he also got it, I placed half of the food I collect in it and hit the trade button at the bottom.

“That’s pretty convenient.” He said as we both got back on my bike and rode off towards the police station