Riley’s Point of view.
Linsday and I poked our heads out of the classroom to check if the hallway was safe. It looks harmless enough but will we ever be safe again, I gently slapped myself; not the time for philosophical thoughts of the end of the world. As we ran down the hallway, I glanced up my manna had refilled to 114/200, dam only 2 minutes have passed since I crushed that last slime. That means not accounting for Linsday’s soul bound weapon we can only encounter one more slime before I can’t cast create. Then its a 33 minute wait till I can cast again. Ergh I should find out what Linsday claimed before we get out of the school.
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stamina used 5.
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Slightly winded I asked Linsday “What did you claim for your soul bound item?” “what do you mean, the right-hand thing… I uh haven't claimed anything I’m too nervous to make the wrong choice like Brock did.” I skidded to a stop now uh strange we should have caught up to that laughing kid by now mh “what is is bad that I haven’t chosen yet?” she asked her voice filled with worry “no, in fact, it’s wonderful, give me a second.” I looked around where we had stopped, right outside the gym and the gym storage room wait don’t we have a fencing club here at school? Let’s see we it all went to hell in 5th period; there should be no one in the gym “Hey Linsday, how do you feel about using a sword?” I asked “en guard” she pantomimed stabbing towards me, “sweet Jesus even in the apocalypse you're a dork, let's go get you a weapon.” we poked our heads into the gym, and saw three green blobs right in the middle, we retreated a safe distance from the gym, where we guessed they couldn't hear us wait can slimes here at all? Can they taste or smell? What scenes do slimes have? I shook my head is random philosophical thoughts a side effect of having the limit of human intelligence? “Ok so how are we going to avoid the slimes in there?” Linsday asked “well I’m hoping to sneak around them, but I’d guess slimes have 360-degree vision.” as if to reaffirm this I got a notification in the corner of my vision.
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You have increased system knowledge by 3%
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“Well, that rules out that” Linsday must have better luck than I because as we were discussing our plans, several loud bangs came from the adjacent lunch room “you want to check that out?” Linsday asks “not particularly no,” but the slimes did I guess they can hear.
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You have increased system knowledge by 3%
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You know that will get annoying, I wonder if the system can hold off notifications till I bring them up and just like that the text box in my vision disappeared, and a small blinking black diamond appeared in its place. Mhh smart system now let’s go and get Linsday a weapon, we were free to waltz into the gym and subsequently to the equipment room. Then we could see the padlock on the door “the one day that Mr. Smyth decides to lock the equipment room is the one day we need access.” Linsday complained, “well it wouldn't be easy if it wasn't locked, hang on let me try something.”
I put my hands on the lock and imagined stone filling the keyhole and then protruding an inch or two, after a few minutes of picturing this key, and finally feeling satisfied with my mental image; I uttered: “create a stone key.” When I opened my hands, I saw that just as I pictured there was about an inch and a half of grey porous stone sticking out from the lock. I heard a small ping, and the square started blinking again I saw the blue bar plummet as well. I turned the stone key, and the lock popped open, Inside the equipment closet, there were all sorts of options for Linsday’s soulbound power, frisbees, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks, then my eyes settled on the fencing equipment. I grabbed all the feasible options and brought them out to her. I unloaded my arms onto the ground.
“what do you think I should pick Riley?” “well really something from the fencing equipment gives you the best chance of having a powerful weapon, but it's up to you.” Just then I hear shouting from the lunch room, although I couldn’t make out the words, And then all hell broke loose. We were lucky we didn't go into the lunch room because there were sounds of an intense battle, and deep gouges were sliced into the walls, giving us view of around a hundred students grabbing anything they could and rushing at one student standing on a table, he had what looked like liquid metal swirling around his arms and body. Shit, that’s the laughing kid I knew he was trouble. My increased memory kicked in because I remembered his name was Catalyn though I still couldn’t remember why he hated me.
Catalyn was standing near the back of the lunchroom slicing down students that were attacking him without breaking eye contact with a girl holding an arrow in her hand, also on a lunch table, my boosted intelligence kicked in again Madeline, she was in my English. I saw Madlin launch her arrow at Catalyn which he narrowly dodged while slicing a kid with a claymore in half, did he get a legendary weapon as well? I saw the arrow streaking towards where we were standing “LOOK OUT,” and I tackled Linsday out of the way, narrowly dodging it myself. As Linsday fell towards the pile of stuff it thought would make good soul bound powers she put her hands out to catch herself, in doing so both hands landed firmly on a set of fencing pads.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
A bright light flashed, and the result was interesting, The female, armor rule of games held to this world. After my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw the padding had been turned into minimal armor with a segmented steel skirt, and a steel-plated leather strap around her breasts. “Umm Linsday” “yeah” “you may want to look at your soulbound power now…” I gestured to her attire; she responded in cold rage “I swear to god if I meet the god or whatever that made this system I AM GOING TO RIP HIS DICK OFF” I went to help her up and realized that I couldn’t move anything but my eyes.
Through the gap in the wall, I saw and heard the god that I’d already encountered once shit. He said something I couldn’t quite make out what he said, but after he was done talking Caylan just disappeared, in the silence, there was a small ping. Then he was by us two he turned towards me and spoke “why can’t you humans just get along with each other when given absurd amounts of power, I gave out ten legendaries. Ten, two for each major country, now I’ve had to take care of two of them, there are only eight of you left. Let me warn you DO NOT make the same mistakes that the other two did. Also, I forgot to give you a bonus for having the highest possible skill level in system knowledge without experiencing the system. You are already set in the weapon department so wisdom it is, know this young one, this building going to turn into a very high leveled dungeon very fast. Fight hard, grow strong, and meet me again.” what is that his catchphrase or something “yes it is young one. And as for you little miss rage, be grateful you are one of a hundred to get epic ranked soulbond powers. Don’t blame me for the armor, it is based on the games that this world played before, now I have other matters to attend to, there's a dungeon on the west coast that somehow already has 3rd tier slimes…” he muttered to himself as we got control over our bodies again. Wow, he is weird.
I helped Linsday up and gave her my sweatshirt to cover herself with. Ignoring the rather large group of students now fighting the mass of slimes that had been attracted by the noise of the battle, we exited out the gym and started to make our way towards the front doors. It wasn’t far really only fifteen feet of hallways and then about thirty feet of the entrance way, but since we were taking our time and trying to move as quickly as possible it took us about ten minutes to get to the front doors, and what we could see through them was not a pretty sight. Through the doors we had a pretty good view of the town, there were numerous, plumes of black smoke rising into the sky and as we watched, we saw a building collapse. It’s the end of the world as we know it and I’m filled with joy… does that make me a terrible person?
“Well, we’d better go the longer we wait for, the better chance a slime attacks us.” I tried the door “locked, its still school hours after all” I told Linsday, she responded, “well can’t you just do the same thing you did with gym equipment closet?” I thought about it for a moment then remembered: “no it's an electronic lock, we can, however, go unlock it with the control panel by the secretary's desk.” We made our way towards the secretary’s office. As we made our way inside, I wondered where Kathrin is? Kathrin was the secretary for the school; she was also a woman in her twenties that all the guys in school lusted over, through the connecting door we could hear the sounds of two people embracing the end of the world.
I looked over at Linsday's horrified face as she came to the conclusion that I had, “ew” was all she muttered “what they are fucking like it’s the end of the world, which it is.” I whispered back “well it’s gross is all I’m saying, look there are the lock controls let’s go” she went over and clicked the button to unlock the doors. With a rather loud buzz, the doors popped open. From the door to the principal’s office we heard “what was that George.” then “who care the worlds ending anyhow now flip and put in my….” we couldn’t make out the rest, this time I gave Linsday the horrified look “what they're just embracing like it’s the end of the world.” I shot her a glare. “Whatever let’s get out of this school and find somewhere to hide out for a while so I can regen mana.”
We made our way into town and saw some bizarre things along the way you know in apocalypse novels and media the towns are always deserted for some reason even like an hour after the apocalypse there’s just nobody here what do they all die, or escape to the countryside or something how fast do people get out, we were warned. Goddamned increased intellect was making me think about the number of people who were probably pooping on their bosses desks like they always told Janice from accounting they would. As I emerged from my musings, I realized that we had traveled a fair distance and were near my apartment. I thought about it, my place was centralized in the building, on a relatively high level, with sturdy walls, and of course, I was a bit of a collector of older weapons that would help with this situation.
“Hey let’s camp out at my place, for now, we are near there anyway.” “oh yeah.” She responds still seemingly in shock. As we made our way up the building to my apartment, I noticed a strange lack of slimes I wonder why that is? Someone like me that adjusted to the system and made quick work of the simes in the buildings. We entered into my four room sparsely decorated apartment and a small notification popped up.
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You have entered into an unclaimed safe place, as long as the claimer is living no monsters can spawn in this area.
Would you like to claim Yes/No
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I, of course, choose yes and a bright light flashed through the apartment, when our eyes had cleared nothing had changed except near my bars of health and such, there was a small symbol showing a bed. “Well that’s nifty did you also get an option to claim this space?” I asked Linsday as I settled onto the couch “What, no? Is that what that light was?” she shot back “oh ok, it appears that some places are counted as safe places that can be claimed to create anti-monster zones.” now that it’s safe I should get to investigating with my new class, powers, and this system in general.