The only sound in the building was the quiet humming of the lights and appliances, masking the quiet tapping of my shoes against the ground.
As I ventured further into the large building, a slight pungence filled the air, growing stronger and stronger as I travelled.
Is that the troll? I queried Karl, almost retching in disgust.
Yes. I told you you’d know when you were getting close.
I refocused on the problem at hand and resumed my slow march, pulling my shirt over my nose to mask the rancid smell.
A few minutes passed, and I was just starting to get impatient, when a loud crunch came from a few aisles over.
Cautiously, I approached the source of the noise, and heard a series of similar, if quieter, sounds. After listening from outside the aisle for a second, I deciphered the familiar queues.
Something was chewing.
Sounds like bone. That’s probably our troll, Karl helpfully informed me.
I peeked into the aisle that a sign above helpfully identified as meat.
The doors to the refrigerators were shattered, scattering glass all across the floor. Crouching in front of them was a large, green humanoid, similar to the goblins in some ways but not in others. Its nose and ears were excessively large, and its face was far more flat than a normal human’s would be. On the sides of its face, tusk-like bone structures reached out, curling into circles on the ends like a ram’s horns.
Currently, the eight-foot beast was hunched over a bag of chicken legs, tearing them out and shoving them sloppily into its mouth before crunching into them with sharp, yellowed teeth.
I pulled back quickly, hiding myself behind the row divider.
Karl, I really don’t think I can handle that thing. I kept my breathing slow, steady, and quiet, trying not to draw any attention. That monster could tear me in half, bite my head off, and call it a light snack.
Relax, kid, Karl said with a deep breath. It’s not just you fighting this thing. It’s us. Let me handle this, alright?
I swallowed. Yeah, yeah. You’re right. Just be careful, okay?
Karl took over.
As always, he moved fast. He used my stats, and he didn’t have access to anything that I didn’t, but he was just somehow better at using everything that I possessed.
Before it could react, the troll was getting torn into.
Katars moved in a storm of steel, and I was certain that the fight would be over in seconds.
Then it hit me. The troll’s hand, that is.
If not for my Shielding Clutch, I would’ve probably died on the spot. As it was, I felt most of my Manavanish into thin air, and the sheer force of the backhand sent me flying into a refrigerator, taking yet another hit to my Manaas shards of glass plinked off my body before I was “cushioned” by a wall of beef.
Even Karl seemed stunned for a second, but he quickly recovered and hopped back up before diving out of the way of a fist that went straight through the wall my body had just been positioned in front of.
Their only weak spot is their heart, Karl reminded me, one clean hit and this fight is over. I just need to get deep enough to fully destroy its center.
Karl sheathed his left katar and drew the deagle, clicking off the safety and firing a round into one of the troll’s eyes while it tried to extricate itself from the shelving it’d broken into on the other side of the wall.
Flesh rippled and turned into chunks of gore, exposing the beast’s brain to the air. It slumped over, and if not for Karl’s comment, I would’ve cheered in victory. As it stood, though, I just grimaced internally and watched the monster’s brain start to writhe and tie itself back together.
Karl moved, closing in on the troll rapidly while it was recovering, moving to punch through its back with his katar.
The troll’s body suddenly stiffened, causing Karl’s attack to instead plink against the back of its ribcage, missing the spot he’d been aiming for. Then I lost track of the fight as my world turned into a blur, settling a second later with the troll facing Karl, who was now missing one of his blades. My Manahad taken yet another hit, though this one was much more manageable, leading me to conclude that Karl had, at most, been clipped by the troll’s sudden movements.
The monster raised a fist above Karl’s head, but my companion quickly fired a shot into its skull and another into its chest, then quickly drew out the sheathed katar and slammed it into the exposed flesh, tearing sideways to carve a huge line through it.
Noticing that the thing’s flesh was still wriggling, he bent down and flipped it over by the shoulder, sheathing the gun to recover his lost katar and plunge both blades into the troll’s back again and again until it was clear that the monster had stopped healing.
Then my body was mine again, and I quickly stumbled away from the terrible stench that emanated from the troll’s body.
Can you handle the echo? I really don’t want to get any closer.
Without responding, Karl exited my body as a smoke-like apparition that resembled the body he’d once inhabited, delving into the body of the troll to use Ghastly Apparition.
Shielding Clutch (Lv. 4) → (Lv. 5)
+2 Mana Regen
+1 Attribute Point (Human Versatility)
I quickly dumped the new point into Mana before inspecting my new, updated status.
Name: Kenny Bert
Race: Human (Earth)
Role: Speaker for the Dead
Strength: 5 (+16)
Mana: 14 (+20)
Dexterity: 5 (+7)
Mana Recovery: 11 (+11)
Passives: Human Versatility, Echo Garden
Skills: Ghastly Banquet (Lv. 4), Shielding Clutch (Lv. 5)
Quests: Reintegration (4%)
I did some quick math which told me I hadn’t gotten anything from the death of the troll, then consulted Karl.
Once again, I feel that something about me is greater, but I do not believe that my strength has increased in any way. Mana typically prefers to discard excess numbers or store them elsewhere rather than put them somewhere they would be rounded, but it is unclear to me where this potency is going if not into statistics.
Another mystery with the system, I supposed.
“Whelp,” I commented, stretching my back, “I guess now we can load up on groceries.”
Should we not first go inform the survivors that we’ve slain the troll?
“Nah. You know, for a dragon, you’re surprisingly soft.” I started walking towards the camping isle in the distance. “I’m gonna grab stuff first, then let them know it’s safe in here. I’d rather not have competition for what I’m looking for.”
…Callous, but fair enough.
When I reached my destination, I grabbed a camping backpack and started stuffing it with “camping rations” and MREs, stopping when I felt I had enough to live a couple weeks. Luckily, they were pretty compact, so I was able to fit that much easily.
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Once I’d gathered that, I also started gathering some of those heavy duty water filters and grabbed a tent and sleeping bag pack. While I wasn’t planning on leaving my house, it wasn’t a certainty that I’d be able to avoid it, and if the area around my house became too dangerous to safely live in I’d regret not having basic supplies like these.
Afterwards, I navigated to the more agricultural parts of the store, picking up seeds. Lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, and radishes went into the bag, as well as some potatoes to cut up into seeds. The former options would grow fast enough to be ready by the time food completely dried up, and potatoes were hardy, renewable plants that could produce a lot out of just a little. While they most likely wouldn’t produce enough to be useful in the short term, having them at the ready after Reintegration would be extremely useful.
It was at roughly that point that my luck ran out and a mimic disguised as arugula tried to grab me, pink tentacles suddenly sprouting from the plant and lashing around my arm. Just as I started to panic, though, Karl jumped in and tore the thing in half, splashing purple blood all over the aisle.
I took a few moments to calm down, then set out to continue my shopping spree, now with a bit more caution.
A couple of first aid kits got chucked into the bag after I thought about it and realized that I might not always be able to get magic doctors to kiss my booboos, as well as an axe and some lighters of both the butane and flint varieties from back in the camping section. There were also a couple of general “survival kits” that I grabbed, with everything from duct tape to safety goggles.
I needed to get a second bag at that point, and after redistributing to make sure the weight wasn’t too unbalanced I decided that I was pretty much set. I nabbed some microwave foods and a few different bags of chips for Karl to try, and then I set out, not stopping at the little camp in the entryway and just waving my bags at the old man to let him know that I’d accomplished my goal.
Eventually my car came into view, and I quickly unloaded everything into the back seats.
“So, Karl,” I queried, clearing my throat, “What do you think about all that?”
You got a lot of the same stuff multiple times, he pointed out, you got an axe but most of those kits you grabbed also had axes. I don’t see the point. Why do you need so many axes? Shovels, too, I’m pretty confident you already had one of those.
I shrugged. “Efficiency is nice and all, but in delicate situations redundancy is king. If one of the axes breaks, I’ll have a backup. If one of the shovels breaks, I’ll have a backup. Same thing with the backpacks, honestly, even though I wasn’t really thinking of it at the moment. Nothing lasts forever, so it’s better to have too much stuff than not enough.”
For you, that’s rather wise.
“That feels like an insult.”
It’s called a backhanded compliment.
“I’m aware.”
Shocking.
“I’m not giving you any chips now.”
Wait, no! I take it back!
“Too late. Suffer.”
----------------------------------------
It was only once I got back home and popped some burritos in the microwave that I realized that I hadn’t taken the troll’s corpse with me.
I was beating myself up over the blunder when Karl reminded me, It probably wouldn’t have fit in your car anyways.
I sat down to eat my burritos and idly checked my phone to see the time. I mostly left it at home these days, since the main uses I’d have for it vanished with the lack of internet.
I almost dropped my phone when it started buzzing like crazy in my hand. Dozens of notifications came rolling in all at once, and I checked the time on them.
Apparently, sometime within the last ten hours, the Internet had been restored. There wasn’t any WiFi, but data was better than nothing.
I checked for any messages from my aunt, but there was nothing. I didn’t let myself despair over that, though– the connection was spotty where she was, so it was rare that I got a message from her anyways. She might not have even realized the connection went out in the first place, to be honest.
The national news was going crazy, and a couple classmates from High School had put up a ton of posts on SwiftGram and ClickTalk, trying to figure out if anyone was still alive.
I quickly responded to a couple of them, inserting in my location and general status– that is, having basic amenities, supplies to last, and enough personal strength to keep myself alive for the moment.
It may have been a mistake to put all that out there, since anyone who saw it might decide that my home was a “safe spot” for them to hide out in, but I wasn’t too worried. Most of the people who would even see my comment were too far away to do anything to me and my personal strength was probably great enough to scare off anyone who wanted to force me to give up my property or supplies.
Kenny, Karl butted into my thoughts.
“Yes?” I begrudgingly pulled my attention away from my phone.
Are there any well-known mythological figures in your world? Ones from your history? His question seemed innocent enough, but the contents of it were confusing.
“Uh, yeah, lots. Why do you ask?”
You’re aware of how your powers work, yes?
My thoughts jumped to where he was.
“Oh, you’re thinking of– well, that probably wouldn’t work anyways. Myths are just that: myths.” I shrugged. “I’d have to put in a ton of effort to find any actual bodies from historical legends, and even then I probably wouldn’t get much out of it.”
Karl was silent for a moment. Kenny, what is the title of your current quest?
“Reinte– ohhhh.” I realized what he was thinking. “You think those people really were, like… wizards and stuff?”
Indeed.
“Well, the system helper person said that all those creatures were being brought back to the world. They wouldn’t even be here anymore, would they? Like, their bodies would’ve been taken with all the other magic?”
No. Creatures that are inherent to the world would have remained, but the loss of Manawould have caused them to wane in power and eventually die off, he explained.
My first thought was King Arthur. A quick search on the internet later, I realized that Glastonbury Abbey was theoretically an accessible location… The problem was that it was in England, and I had no way of getting there.
Instead, I changed my search to “Mythological Figures Buried In Ohio.” It wasn’t very clever, but I figured it was good enough to get the job done.
The first result I found was of the “Griffin Warrior,” an ancient tomb dating back over three thousand years, but the actual burial site was in Greece, not Ohio. No clue why it popped up and raised my hopes like that. Some digging revealed that there were a few mummies in Toledo, which was only a couple hours away. Still, there wasn’t too much going on there. I doubted the mummies had too much in the way of power, and I wasn’t going to spend over five hours and break into a museum to potentially get nothing.
The truth was that I just didn’t know enough about mythological figures to know where to find their bodies.
“Maybe someday we’ll get around to that, but right now it’s all a continent away, and…” I quickly checked to see if the Cleveland airport was still functional. “Yup, no flights right now. Maybe if you still had wings we could get there.” I chuckled slightly.
Being grounded is terrible, I don’t know how you land dwellers stand it.
I shrugged. “I have our own ways of touching the skies.”
I did a bit more scrolling and poking around on the internet before deciding to return to productivity. It was starting to get dark, but I took a moment to plant all the seeds I’d gotten, following the instructions on the bags. For the most part, they just wanted me to dig to a certain depth and water them a certain amount every day. The potatoes needed to be cut up, which having the internet back helped with, since I otherwise wouldn’t have known the right size to make them, or to make sure they had buds on them.
When I started watering the plants with the hose, I noticed that the water was sinking into the soil better than I’d expected, and figured that my Echo Garden was actually helping me, well, garden.
Nifty.
“Do passives upgrade? I’m pretty happy with the way Echo Garden works, but the dopamine of all these other boosts is getting to me.” It was a bit greedy, most likely, but if everything else was getting better than why not this?
Karl hummed in my mind. You will eventually be able to alter your Role and gain new Skills and Passives. At this point, what you currently have will be enhanced to suit your new theme.
“Oh? When is eventually? Do I need to hit a certain Skill or Ability threshold?”
Your Skills will reach their peak at level 10, at which point you’ll gain options for your new Role. I would recommend waiting until both reach their maximum level, as they will only be able to influence your options at that point.
“Really? With the simplicity of everything, I sort of figured stuff like that wouldn’t exist.”
The Mana System is designed to scale forever– as you are, you’ve barely scratched the surface of what it’s capable of.
I thought about that for a second. “You know, that would almost be a bit comforting, but that also means that monsters are going to scale infinitely, doesn’t it?”
Indeed.
“So those ‘Gods of Destruction’ and such that were mentioned when the Reintegration quest got sent out?”
They are likely entities powerful enough to bring total ruin to your realm. They were grand enough to escape this plane when it lost its connection to Mana, which means their own potency was likely at this realm’s prior peak.
“Its peak?” I queried, “Is there a maximum level or something for planets?”
Not quite, Karl elaborated, It’s more that, past a certain level, you cannot gain any more from a place. They were mighty enough that their own potency could not be enhanced by the ambient energy present here.
“So the only way to get stronger would be to leave? And that’s exactly what they did?”
That is correct.
“So are you saying that, when they return to Earth, they’ll be more powerful than anything on Earth could ever become?”
Karl was quiet for a moment.
That is also quite likely correct.
I grimaced. “Great. So it doesn’t really matter what anyone does, we’re all just screwed in the end.” My tone was more bitter than I’d expected, but I didn’t regret it. Learning that everything I’d ever known was completely screwed and there was nothing I could do about it wasn’t exactly conducive to improving my attitude.
Karl was still hesitant, but when he finally spoke, his tone seemed to have a sort of questioning hope in it. Like he wasn’t quite sure about what he was saying, but wanted to believe it anyway. That may not be the case. Ignoring my heartless scoff, he continued, If it is possible for them to leave this realm to gain might, why should it not be possible for one of this Earth to do so as well?
I frowned, catching his implication. “You’re saying that I should find a way off the planet and go grind Skills somewhere else? Karl, even if I do that, they’ve been at this for centuries at least, probably millenia. I’m not going to catch up to them in ninety five days.”
I sighed and started getting myself ready for bed. Karl was silent, but I could feel his thoughts running wildly somewhere near my subconscious, like a light tickle in my brain.
Just as I was tucking myself into bed, he finally spoke his mind.
Get some rest, child. I may have a strategy, but we can discuss it in the morning. You’ll need to be at your best tomorrow.
I took his advice and nodded off in spite of the complex emotions and thoughts tracing a web through my mind.
I dreamt of green gelatin and pistachio ice cream.