We decided to go back to our loaned house before speaking more about the news I brought back.
"So, are you saying we're stranded in the middle of nowhere?" Iyana is the first to speak as we enter the house and gather around the kitchen table.
"Well, to be honest I'm not sure if there are more zones to our south or west, and even if there aren't and I'm right about this being a 3x3 square of zones, we still don't know if there are more clusters of zones nearby or not." I explain to her.
"Right, but we need to leave Earth ... to find more of humanity?" Andy was the one to speak.
"That sounds weird but yeah." I respond.
"So, are we standing on a mix between Earth and another world, or you said there might be more worlds in the mix?" Rick asked.
"Well, there are definitely two worlds here, but if there's two, why not more?" I shrug my shoulders; it was just a theory.
"This is all a lot to take in." Gideon mutters.
"I think it could be pretty exciting though. New worlds to explore and all that." Lilly says.
With a small chuckle at Lilly's enthusiasm for exploration, I change the subject.
"So, who is going to get the sword we found in the Kontrix armory?" I ask the group, but focus on Andy, Gideon, and Rick.
There are a few seconds of silence as everyone switches gears and thinks about the question.
"I think I'm actually fine with my bat for now, Gideon or Andy could make better use of the sword." Rick is the first to speak.
All of us seem surprised by the statement, though I can understand where he's coming from, being a tank, he is probably almost better off with the bat.
"How about this, you can have the sword, but I'll take your machete now that you aren't using it." Andy was the next to speak and again, it was a surprise.
"Are you sure about that?" Gideon asks Andy.
"Yeah, your machete would be an upgrade for me anyways, why not give us both an upgrade." Andy affirms.
"Wow, yeah okay. Thanks man." Gideon says reaching out to shake Andy's hand before picking the sword up off the table.
Then Gideon hands over his machete to Andy.
"Thanks" Andy says with a huge smile.
"There was something I wanted to talk to you all about. I was thinking about exploring the zones ... alone." I wasn't sure how they would feel about my idea, but I traveled so much faster without them, and it would be much safer if I was the one out exploring. At least until they leveled up some more.
"Alone?" It was Lilly who spoke first.
"Well, yeah. It will be safer if you guys stay here and get some more levels." I explain.
"I know you're pretty strong Reaper, but I don't think you would survive on your own." Gideon looks at me like I'm going crazy.
"You might be surprised." I say with a smirk.
Everyone looks around at each other.
"Well, it's not like we could stop you, just be careful alright." It was Rick who spoke, breaking the silence hanging in the air.
"Of course I'll be careful, don't worry about me. I'll be back soon." I said, giving them a reassuring smile.
"When are you leaving?" Sam asked.
"I have something I want to do, but then right away." I tell my companions.
"Oh, Okay." Sam mutters.
As everyone nods and a silence once again settles over us, I turn to Lilly.
"Hey, could I talk with you for a seconds?" I ask her.
"Sure" She says before walking into the living room.
"Before I left, I wanted to show you how to use that gun you have. I know I kind of forgot about it, and I'm sorry, but would that be okay? If we went out now and I showed you." I said to her.
"Oh, uhm, yeah sure. I kind of forgot too." She nods before looking away.
"Do you have it on you right now?" I asked.
"Yup, it's in my backpack. Let me grab it from the kitchen and I'll meet you outside." She said.
I just nodded and walked outside to wait for her. It doesn't take long before she joins me in front of the house. We walk until we find monsters, I give her some basics on weapon safety and how to load it, the safety, and anything else I can think of/. When we finally spot monsters, it's thankfully a group of Beetles. I stop a little way away and tell Lilly to get her gun out. I talk her through the steps again, but this time she follows them as I instruct her. Soon, we have in front of us a fully loaded Glock 19, I had her empty then fill the magazine, before loading and cocking the gun.
"We should only shoot about three times, you don't have very much ammunition left, and we don't want to attract too many monsters, or stay too long before we leave. Ideally you would have hundreds of rounds to practice with, but this will have to be enough." I start.
"Go ahead and aim at one of the beetles, remember to keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot, and check for what is behind your target." I remind her.
"When you feel ready, go ahead and flip the safety off, then slowly squeeze the trigger, don't pull." I finish and wait for her to fire.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
It's not long before a moderate bang resonates down the street. She hit one of the bugs but only in the hind quarters, it's still alive.
"That's alright go ahead and try again when you're ready." I instruct in a calm voice.
She doesn't have all the time in the world, but she has enough, we were a decent distance from the bugs. A second gunshot echos, and the Beetle she wounded goes down, from what I could tell it was a good center mass shot.
"Good, one more and then I'll take care of the Beetles and we'll leave." I tell her.
A few seconds later comes a third bang. A second Beetle falls, as the bugs finish closing in, I move up and start killing them one by one, only using my Energy Blade, manifesting it only in the second before I strike. I'm not great at this yet, but I manage with the slow Beetles well enough. After I've dealt with the rest of the monsters, we leave that area, not wanting to stay and be swarmed by anything that heard the gunshots.
During our walk back to the house, I talk with Lilly, asking about how it felt to shoot, and what she changed the second time to improve her aim. I also tell her to keep the gun hidden as long as possible and only use it in emergencies. She assented, she knew that a gun was a dangerous weapon still, even with skills out there, and that some people might not take too kindly to her having that kind of firepower if she showed or used it openly. Not to mention didn't even have an entire extra mag in spare ammunition. When we returned to the house, I brought Lilly with me to find Andy.
"Hey so I'm going to go by our apartment and pick up my supply of food and water, but I'll leave yours in case you ever need to drop by and grab it." I tell them both.
"Ok, sounds good." Andy nods to me.
"Alright." Lilly responds as well.
I bring the two with me and find the rest of our group still in the kitchen. With all of them together I say my goodbyes and tell them all I'll be back soon once again. With that I leave the house, on my way southwest back into the city where all this started.
It takes me the rest of the day to reach my apartment building, I have to fight through the monsters as I go, but it was easy at this point. By now the simple monsters were merely a whetstone on which I practiced my skills - In the non magical ability way - because they were no longer a challenge if I was paying any attention. Once there I gathered as many supplies as I could carry from my stockpile. After I had stocked up, I take a break to eat some dinner, then decided that instead of sleeping I was going to finally go back to hunting some real prey. Night Stalkers, with darkness finally falling upon the city I could feel them out hunting with my Energy Control skill. I waited for a Night Stalker to pass by my building.
It wasn't long before I had my target, or targets. There were two Night Stalkers prowling down the street in front of me. With my cowl activated and my Energy Control skill on full blast until the fight was over, I moved into the once pitch black night, that now laid bare before me with my night vision skill. Tonight, the Night Stalkers were the ones being hunted.
The fight was over in less than four seconds, two Energy Daggers right through their abyss black bone plate covered spiky chests. With gaping holes where their hearts should be, the two Night Stalkers collapsed to the ground, never having even turned towards me. This was going to be a good night.
What came next was several hours of hunting down Night Stalkers, gaining Void energy and Class energy galore. I even tried taking down a lone Night Stalker without my cowl to save on energy usage. It worked well enough, but I still used it for the larger groups. I was almost to my next level as the sun rose over the horizon and the Night Stalkers fled to wherever they went when the sun was up.
With dawn here, it was time to go back to my apartment and sleep. I wanted to travel at night from now on, taking advantage of abundance of walking class energy as I traveled the zones. I figured I might as well be efficient about the whole thing. So, exhausted after staying up for nearly 24 hours, and excited for what the new day would bring I crashed on my good ol trusty bed and fell instantly to sleep. There was just something nice about being in your own bed.
I awoke a little before night fell. I took my time eating breakfast, I wasn't going to be leaving until the Night Stalkers were out and about anyways. When night did fall, I finally began my journey southeast, to the intersection of the city, the plains, and the forest. It was time to see what other zones were around us. My trek was much more entertaining this time, having to actually focus on my kills, on being precise with my aim. Not that I wasn't before, but I had to be precise now, or I was going to be ripped to shreds before I could say 'Ah shit on a stick' or something, those are shitty last words, and yes, that was a pun.
What was not a pun, was reaching level 7 only an hour into my voyage. Finally, back to being somewhere I can earn skills regularly. With that I found someplace secure to sit and opened the System notification.
Congratulations, you have reached Level 7.
For reaching level 7, you have received stats according to your class.
+5 Intelligence, +4 Wisdom, +4 Agility, +3 Dexterity, +4 Free stats
Name: Cassius Heart
Titles: Primus
Class: Void Tainted Spell Blade (Lvl 7)
Unallocated Stats: 4
Strength: [13] +20% effectiveness
Vitality: [18] +20% effectiveness
Endurance: [19] +20% effectiveness
Dexterity: [31] +20% effectiveness
Agility: [36] +20% effectiveness
Intelligence: [47] +20% effectiveness
Wisdom: [42] +20% effectiveness
Skills:
Energy Blade
Energy Control
Burst
Void Tainted Sight
Void Tainted Cowl
I decided to put 2 unallocated points into Strength 1 into Vitality, and 1 into Endurance bringing my improved totals to 15 Strength, 19 Vitality, and 20 Endurance.
It took most of the night to reach the southeast corner of the city, and before I left, I was going to farm Night Stalkers until the sun rose. Once dawn arrived, I pushed forward to the cut in reality that defined the zones and passed through. I was on the edge between the forest, and what was a part of a lake. On the side closest to the city, and curving west towards what I could now see was a desert of some kind with impressive amounts of sand and little else, was a green landscape that slowly sloped into the lake. That was the only portion of this zone that was land though, the rest was entirely submerged under beautiful crystalline blue water that shone from the rays of the dawning sun sparkling from its surface.
Where the lake met the other regions, Including the other world that was beyond the lake to the south, the ground of the other zones cascaded into the lake creating steep embankments that dropped off nearly completely into the depths. It seems like once the System placed the pieces of land, they were allowed to interact with each other, so the Lake wasn't a perfect cube, but had saturated parts of the world around it making the edges of the lake an uneven sorta square.
Even with the unnatural look of the lake it was still breathtaking. Looking into the forest from the shore of the lake, I spotted what I think might actually be a damn monkey, in one of the trees. How that thing isn't monster food is beyond me, perhaps monsters are scared of poop? Either way there in that tree was a small brown monkey, I'm glad more earth animals survived, though I wonder why it didn't flee like the birds. Who knows, maybe it just isn't attacked because of where it lives, O well, maybe I'll figure that out later.
After slaughtering any monsters stupid enough to come near me, I took another thirty minutes to just sit in the sand and watch the view as the sun rose, then I decided it was time to get some sleep and prepare for my trek west. Settling into the most intact building at the corner of the city, I ate dinner, which was pretty much the same thing I had for lunch, canned chicken noodle soup, honestly it was pretty good. After that I found someone's empty bed that looked clean enough and laid down. Tomorrow I would confirm if my theory of a 3x3 zone held, or if for some reason it expanded 50 zones west, at this point I was fairly confident in my prediction, but I wasn't sure why we the pieces of earth were separated like this. Those were the thoughts running through my head as I passed out.