Our makeshift convoy pulled up to the local police station to see that plenty of cars were also being ushered around by the officers on duty. I drove my bike up on the sidewalk and as close to the nearest officer as I could.
“What’s the situation?” I said pushing up the visor on my helmet.
“We are taking any and all survivors to a shelter on the order of the army. How many are with you?” He asked as Jackson hopped off my bike.
“I didn’t get a full count but there are at least 15 full cars following me.”
“Alright well stay with the group so we can get an accurate count. Are you the leader?”
“No. He will be.” I pointed at Jackson and he looked at me with wide eyes. “I’m not staying. I’m going to go check on my family and see if I can bring any more survivors to the local stations.”
“We really don’t recommend that but, I can't really stop you.” I turned to Jackson and held up my hand as he tried to speak.
“Look, I can't just stand idly by, I need to see if my family is alive and safe.” Jackson nodded. “You’ll be fine, just stay with the group.” I pulled down my visor and rode away in a hurry.
They already got orders from the army? Either they knew what was going to happen ahead of time, or they just happened very prepared. And I sincerely hope it’s the latter.
I had no idea what to make of any part of the situation, and I needed more information. If I went with the army I knew they wouldn’t be telling anyone anything, so I decided to try to get answers for myself. Barring that, I knew I had to get stronger if I wanted to survive in this new world we were thrust into. Hiding behind the army would not let that happen. As I rode down the road, I could see, what looked like soldiers gunning down a very large snake in a field, I stopped my bike and threw down the kickstand, pulled my sword from my inventory and ran towards them. I veered off the right and stabbed my blade down into the moving grass. I pulled up a large cockroach I had skewered and flung it to the side. I had noticed something moving towards the backs of the soldiers and knew that losing our first line of defence would be terrible for the average civilian unable or unwilling to nut up and fight for their life, so while they were fighting off a giant snake with their big guns I would watch their backs. I saw more movement a bit further away and ran towards it, slashing my blade downward with all my strength and blood sprayed up at me covering my visor. I wiped it away and kept going, these cockroaches weren’t much of a challenge but they were quiet compared to the sound of the guns going off. After taking out 8 more of the large incests, I brought up all the loot windows and took everything that was there, netting 200 more coin, 2 more flame bolt scrolls and couple more potions.
I turned around to see the snake still managing to make its way to the soldiers. It looked bloody but still able to put up a fight. It tried to slam down on the line of soldiers but they quickly moved out of the way and realigned themselves. While the snake got itself back up I scanned it with my God's Eye and quickly took out a scroll.
Frostbite Serpent. Unlike a normal snake, the bite of a Frostbite Serpent will cause the affected to become magically cold. If left untreated the area will become completely frostbitten.
HP: 3000
MP: 1200
I held up my magic scroll and activated it. The scroll glowed and vanished, replaced by an intricate symbol. 4 bolts of red fire flew toward the snake hitting it in the head. As the symbol faded from the space in front of me. I felt something whirling in my head, my left eye buzzing with magic like it was starting to understand the information. I quickly pulled another scroll and fired another 4 flame bolts at the snake, this time paying close attention to the symbols that appeared. Multiple windows opened in my vision as the snake fell to the ground, but I had to close them all as one of the soldiers came up to me.
"You can't be here buddy. This is an active combat zone." He said as his gun vanished into his inventory.
"That's a funny way of saying 'thank you for your help." I placed my sword in my inventory and pushed up my visor.
"We had that fight well in hand." As he spoke I motioned to the dead cockroaches I had killed nearby.
"Maybe but none of you were watching your backsides and were almost pinned by a group of bugs." As they turned to look at the pile all of them had shocked expressions. "Exactly, you're welcome." I pushed down my visor and headed back to my bike
Level up. You've reached level 5!
Eye of the Analytical God evolved. The eye of a god is much more impressive than that of a mortal, able to read, understand and translate the magical scripts. Gains a chance to learn spells from spell scroll.
New spell learned. Flame bolt, level 1.
I hit loot all on the snake monster's window as I got back on my bike, pushed back my kickstand and drove away.
The rest of the way to my parents' place was very quiet. The streets were empty, no cars, no people, not even any monsters. I was starting to get concerned when I rounded the corner and came to a screeching halt. My jaw dropped as I saw what looked like a huge web, lair thing covering the entire block. I could see a couple of large spiders crawling around inside. I swapped over to heat vision and could see a group of heat signatures grouped together near the back.
The farthest part from me…I let out a huge sigh and took off my helmet. I turned off my bike and rested it on the stand, hanging my helmet on the handlebar. I pulled out my sword and headed into the nest.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
I started slashing my way through the web, my blade cutting it like paper. I switched to darkvision as a spider skittered towards me and I thrust my blade into its mouth slashing down and cutting it in half.
Stat stolen! Dexterity.
I quickly looted the spider and continued forward. I could hear more spiders gathering around me, they weren’t a quiet bunch now that they were the size of cars. As soon as one came into vision range I pulled up a flame bolt scroll and it, along with the webs around it was set ablaze. As the fire started, I could hear screaming, as more spiders started running at me.
Guess they didn’t like that very much. I slash left at the nearest spider, cutting its legs off then kicked it back into the others. It seems like they aren't too tough, but they’re probably venomous, or could probably bite my head off.
I slashed upwards on the webs causing 2 of them to fall to the ground. I bolted forwards and slammed my sword down on the midsection of the closer one. Before I could turn to the other one, it bit down on my side. I cried out in pain jamming my elbow into its eye. It squealed and stumbled back a couple of steps and I dislodged my blade and slashed down on the spider's head.
You have been poisoned. You will lose 5 hp/s for the next 30 seconds, or until you are cured.
“Shit, I was right. Venomous, I can't let that happen again.” I slashed around wildly, cutting down all the webbing around me then stabbed up at a spider that had fallen off. My blade punched clean through its body, covering me in gore. I tossed the body to the side and wiped off my face focusing on the next enemy. 4 more spiders stood in front of my watching me.
I really didn’t think this through before rushing in here blindly, did I? I’m outnumbered, but they die very easily. My HP is at about 75% and falling. It doesn't look like the poison is going to kill me before it passes through my system… not that that makes any sense, but I guess we are running on video game logic. At least partly.
As the poison timer reached 10 seconds, another set of fangs jammed into my shoulder from above. I howled in pain and punched the spider in the face. As it fell off me I spun around and stabbed down on it.
You have been poisoned. Duration refreshed.
The other 4 spiders ran at me as I pulled my blade out of the offender, I spun around again, swinging my blade horizontally swiftly cutting through the first 2. I lost my momentum cleaving through 2 of the large incests and only managed to smash my weapon into the third spider's body causing it to veer off course and slam into its fourth friend. I kicked the 2 of them back and pulled out another scroll firing 4 more bolts of fire at them, lighting the webs around them on fire.
As I looted all the spiders I killed I saw 2 more drop down, on fire and screaming. The fire had started to spread a lot further and none of them were able to approach me anymore.
This would be a great time to catch my breath. If only the fire wasn’t gonna start burning me if I waited around. I picked up a stick off the ground, catching it in the fire. I started running to the back of the lair waving the flaming stick around catching whatever webbing I passed on fire as well. The screaming from the spiders got louder as the whole lair was burning up around them. I got to the point of the life signs and saw the pods they had wrapped at least a dozen people up in. I quickly cut one open and out fell the dead, withered body of a middle-aged woman that lived next to my parents. My eyes widened as I realized I might already be too late.
I quickly cut each one open to find that only 2 people had been left alive. Every other body was withered and dried out, as if their blood had been completely drained, including the bodies of both my parents. I could feel something inside me crack and tears started to fill my eyes. I dropped my sword, fell to my knees and openly wept over their corpses. I just sat there for a minute, listening to the sounds of the screaming spiders and the raging inferno consuming everything around me.
I took a deep breath, realizing the air in this area was getting thin, I pulled myself up, grabbed my sword, and put my parents' bodies into my inventory. I lead the survivors out of the nest watching each spider fall dead as their lair burned up around them. The system was even kind enough to credit me for each kill as my xp bar increased with each death.
Stat stolen! Intelligence.
None of the spiders seemed to give a lot of xp but with the sheer number of them, I got pretty close to level 6. Once we were fully out of the lair, I handed the 2 people I had saved some food and water and wiped the tears from my eyes. My voice came out shaky as I spoke to them.
"Uhh, I don't have room on my bike to take both of you anywhere, but if you go to the local police station, they should be able to take you to shelter." They both nodded and I got on my bike and headed to the gardening store nearby. I quickly skimmed through the loot windows only getting one item of note.
Mana Ring.
Stores mana (amount equal to wearer's maximum) and gives an instant recharge when you run out of mana.
This seemed pretty good, but with only one spell I didn't know that it would see much use. Maybe I could sell it to a mage or something. I also got more money and a couple of potions.
I got off at the store, leaving my bike running. I picked up a shovel near the front and pulled it into my inventory, got back on my bike and made my way to a nearby field. I dug 2 deep holes and placed my parents' bodies in them and buried them. I stared down at the ground as the sun began to come over the horizon. I knew this was the fault of no one. Maybe the spiders, or maybe the system. But the spiders were dealt with, and the system was some kind of entity I couldn't fight. All I could do was keep living, for them, and if I wanted to keep living I had to get stronger. I slammed the shovel into the ground between their graves and turned to get back on my bike. I finally looked at my bars. My health was hovering at about 40% and my stamina bar was down to 20%. I used my ability, Their Death Fuels Us, to regain my health. There wasn't a lot in there, the insects and arachnids I had killed clearly didn't have a lot of HP, but it was enough to push me over 75% health.
I pulled out of the plaza and sat at the intersection and realized I didn't know where to go next.
Maybe I should go to the larger city. Maybe it'll have more things to fight or people that need help.
I nodded to myself and started off in that direction. As I was riding I turned my attention to an ability I was ignoring, my Aura. I turned my eye to my aura vision and watched clear energy flowing and moving around me. I didn’t know exactly what it could be used for, or how to use it in the first place, but the system gave it to me as a gift so I figured it had to do something. While watching the road, I tried to move my aura, with little results. It took most of the journey before I could get it to settle and conform to a more spherical shape. As I managed to move it I got the feeling that I could use my aura as something of a 6th sense. But at the moment I could only get my aura to be a little bit longer than my arm's length. It wasn’t much but I figured I’d have to work on it to get any real use out of it. I pull my attention back to the road as I entered a tunnel leading toward the city as a prompt appeared.
Now entering, temporary dungeon!