《System Savior》 Chapter 1: A Sudden and Disturbing Change System Message Hello, I am System 7 (31129758). I am here to save you. I have already begun changing your world to make it more suitable for the coming war. I am mighty, yet I alone will not be enough. Ironically, though I am eternal, an aspect of the universe itself, all my creations are ephemeral. This is why I need your help. I need you to get strong so that one day you may fight and save your planet. It will not be easy; many will perish. But if you don''t fight, you all will. So I ask you to fight. I am sorry in advance for any deaths my actions cause. But my inaction would be responsible for even more. So I act. I intervene. I change your world into something hostile and dangerous. Dangers like you have never seen, except in your darkest horrors and worst nightmares. I will aid you as much as I am able. The trials begin now. It is time for you to cultivate. It is time for you to become immortal. Only then will you have a chance against the eternal foes. Dexter Sanderson sat at his desk in the stuffy, suddenly silent classroom at Mitchell High and stared at the text hovering in front of him, like a projection made of light and mist. He didn''t know what it meant, not yet, only that everything had just changed forever. If the message was real, some being was claiming to have come to their planet to help them prepare for an invasion. And if not? Then he had gone suddenly and disturbingly insane. To be honest, he was hoping for the latter. They had drugs for that kind of thing. The smiley face the message had included was odd, and evidence for insanity. Unfortunately, the silence of his classmates was evidence against, as was the fact that all conversation had ceased, and they were staring blankly at the air in front of them, as if looking at something only they could see. Yes, that was a bad sign. Even Mr. Kendall, their history teacher, who usually droned on for the entire interval between the bells, was silent for once as he stood in front of the world map (Robinson projection, as he¡¯d pointed out on more than one occasion) on the wall behind him. Dexter reached out to try to touch the message. To his surprise, he could actually feel it. It felt like a smooth, textureless marshmallow. As soon as he touched it, it disappeared, and a new message appeared. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Enter name to begin analysis: He tentatively made a single line and wasn¡¯t that surprised when a mark appeared. It stayed hovering there even after he lowered his hand. Other students were muttering now, some having tried touching what he imagined were their own messages, though he could only see his own. ¡°Okay class,¡± Mr Kendall said, ¡°I¡­¡± He looked around. ¡°Is everyone¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s the Matrix!¡± Matt shouted. ¡°I knew it!¡± ¡°It¡¯s not the Matrix,¡± Leah scolded. ¡°You don¡¯t get to be Neo.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll see about that. We have stuff we can learn.¡± ¡°Wow, so eloquent.¡± But now she was swiping at the air. ¡°Did you guys enter your names?¡± Dexter asked. ¡°I did!¡± Matt said. ¡°Of course you did,¡± Leah said. ¡°I only wrote the first letter. I¡¯m not about to go signing my name.¡± That was exactly what Dexter had been thinking. Entering his name felt like a form of consent, and he needed more information before he made that decision. ¡°Kids,¡± Mr Kendall raised his voice to be heard above the students, ¡°we need to lock down. This could be¡ª¡± ¡°Oh come on,¡± Zoe said. ¡°This is obvs aliens coming to invade and trying to get us to let our guard down. And this idiot,¡± she gestured at Matt, ¡°has just welcomed them with open arms.¡± ¡°Hell yes! I welcome our new alien or robot or whatever overlords. As long as I can download kung fu.¡± ¡°You already know kung fu,¡± Leah pointed out. ¡°You never stop going on about it.¡± ¡°That¡¯s beside the point.¡± Mr Kendall was making calm-down motions in the air, but no one was paying attention. He seemed dumbfounded. Dexter wondered if it was because he was older than they were. Was this harder to accept if you were older? Not that he himself was having an easy time of it. Unlike Matt, who was briefly surrounded by a pale green glow. Then his clothes disappeared. ¡°Ah!¡± he cried out. Leah snorted a laugh, as did Zoe. ¡°It¡¯s cold!¡± He swiped at the air, and suddenly was covered again just as the other students turned their attention on him. He wiped mock sweat from his forehead and chuckled. ¡°Phew.¡± Zoe raised an eyebrow. ¡°Cold? It¡¯s eighty degrees.¡± ¡°What was that?¡± Leah asked. ¡°Why¡¯d your clothes disappear?¡± Matt glanced around, realizing he had the class¡¯s full attention. And not just because of his display. He appeared to be the only one who¡¯d entered his name. ¡°Outfits. I tried equipping one from the store. I didn¡¯t have enough credits. Not sure why it unequipped my clothes.¡± ¡°Because it has a sense of humor,¡± Zoe said. ¡°Look at the smiley face.¡± ¡°I¡¯m more creeped out by it than comforted,¡± Leah said. ¡°It is kinda creepy,¡± Zoe agreed. Dexter wasn¡¯t so much creeped out, as in shock. He liked his life. He had good grades, had already been accepted to his second-pick university, had a job at the local movie theater, and was renting a room above Je-won Yun¡¯s pizza shop. He¡¯d finally been happy, felt in control of his life for the first time since he was orphaned. Now it seemed that all was going to change. But what if it was some kind of prank or attack? The message wasn¡¯t in his head, after all, but floating in front of him. It could be a projection. Then again, if something had invaded his mind, it could make him see, hear, and feel whatever it wanted. And that would explain why he couldn¡¯t see any of the other student¡¯s messages. ¡°Store?¡± Trevor asked. ¡°It has a store?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Matt answered excitedly, ¡°there¡¯s¡­¡± Dexter tuned out as he got up to look out the classroom window. It was only a few feet away from his desk, no other desks in between, and so no one noticed. He leaned against the glass and peered up at the afternoon sky. He wasn¡¯t sure what he expected to find, but it wasn¡¯t this. The sky looked like it always did, perfectly normal, perfectly blue, the sun shining brightly, a few fluffy clouds filling in the scene. No giant alien ships, no ominous dark clouds or shifting black portals to other dimensions. He went back to his desk, but didn¡¯t sit. He just stood there. His classmates were talking animatedly now, Matt regaling them with the wonders of the system as Mr Kendall stood silently at the front of the classroom, still looking dumbfounded. Dexter watched as Matt made his hair grow long, then short, then extremely long, then grow a beard¡ªwhich looked comically incongruous on his youthful face¡ªthen turn his hair from its normal reddish brown to silver, and his eyes to a bright turquoise. ¡°Whoa,¡± Zoe said. ¡°He¡¯s kinda hot like that.¡± ¡°Appearance chosen,¡± Matt said with a nod. ¡°You look like Zach Galifianakis and Sephiroth had a love child,¡± Trevor observed. ¡°Thank you. I like both those people.¡± ¡°What else can it do?¡± Dexter asked. ¡°See for yourself,¡± Matt responded. ¡°You have the same thing I do.¡± ¡°What about body hair?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°It¡¯d be so sick to never have to shave my legs again.¡± ¡°Let me look.¡± ¡°Oh sure, do it when a hot girl asks you,¡± Jason said. ¡°Well duh.¡± But before Matt had a chance to answer her question, an alarm sounded. ¡°Okay everyone, we have a lockdown situation,¡± Mr Kendall said, now on more familiar territory. ¡°Joey, lock¡ª¡± ¡°Got it,¡± Joey responded, already rushing from his desk to lock the classroom door. Mr Kendall nodded. ¡°Good, now we¡¯ll sit tight until¡ª¡± He was interrupted by an announcement over the intercom. ¡°All students, faculty, and staff: proceed to the auditorium immediately. I repeat, all students, faculty, and staff are to proceed to the auditorium immediately.¡± ¡°Well,¡± Mr Kendall said when the message failed to deliver further information, ¡°looks like we¡¯re going to the auditorium.¡± Chapter 2: Let Chaos Reign Despite the lockdown, Dexter could feel the excitement in the air from his fellow students as the chaotic crowd headed in the direction of the school auditorium. Everyone was talking, and judging by their outlandish hair and eye colors, several students had not only entered their names into the system, but found whatever it was Matt had used to adjust his appearance. Reese Reed, the mayor¡¯s son, who before today couldn¡¯t even grow peach fuzz, now had a long gray beard that went to his waist. A girl Dexter didn¡¯t know had shining purple eyes and electric blue hair that wavered around her head in defiance of gravity. And they weren¡¯t the only ones. Several other students had altered their appearances in similarly implausible fashions. ¡°Look,¡± Zoe said, holding up her phone. It featured a video of a girl with hair that looked to be on fire, her eyes bright white orbs, her skin a glowing blue, bouncing around in too-small, too-tight clothing. A caption over the clip read: With aliens like you, who needs plastic surgeons? ¡°I wonder if those are real,¡± Zoe said contemplatively. ¡°Don¡¯t even,¡± Leah said. ¡°Chill, I¡¯m not crazy like Matt.¡± ¡°But you are hot,¡± he said. ¡°So are you. Now.¡± He grinned. With his new appearance, it looked less goofy than usual. ¡°Anything else on the internet about it?¡± Leah asked. ¡°Anything useful, I mean.¡± ¡°You have a phone,¡± Zoe said, attention back on hers. ¡°Give those thumbs a workout.¡± The auditorium, by the time they finally reached it, was packed to the brim. There were so many people that over half were sitting on the floor. Most had their heads buried in their phones, others were talking. Some seemed scared, others excited, others simply in shock. Several students were doing nothing but staring off into space. A few were on the phone with their parents, but not as many as Dexter would have expected. His class was among the last to arrive, and so had to sit on the floor, squeezing in where they could. He ended up at the edge of the crowd, with Leah, Zoe, and Matt sitting in front of him, a girl he didn¡¯t know to his right, and empty space and one of the auditorium¡¯s doors to his left. The principal, Ms White, was standing on the stage, looking frazzled. But her voice when she spoke was calm and full of authority.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°That¡¯s everyone then?¡± she asked. ¡°Is anyone unaccounted for?¡± Several moments of silence. ¡°Okay then. Cal, doors.¡± Cal, their school police officer, went around the auditorium, locking the doors. ¡°Here is what we know,¡± Ms White began as he worked. ¡°Less than half an hour ago everyone on the planet received a message that¡­¡± Dexter had trouble paying attention to what she was saying. The girl beside him briefly lost her clothes as she messed with the interface, and a boy next to Matt suddenly grew horns. Bright, banana-yellow horns. They seemed to be made of light rather than bone. The principal was saying something about not messing with the system, but clearly several students weren¡¯t listening. Most though, like Dexter, seemed cautious, and for the most part everyone looked normal. As normal as a group of high school students could, in any case. A moment later an administrator Dexter didn¡¯t recognize came on stage, and Ms White covered the microphone as the woman whispered something in her ear. ¡°Okay students, we¡¯re going to play a broadcast for you. Though I¡¯m sure some of you are already watching it on your phones.¡± ¡°¡­no indication of the source. Authorities are requesting that no one enter their name until more information is gathered. We do not yet know how dangerous¡­¡± ¡°See,¡± Leah said in front of him to Matt as the broadcast continued. ¡°They just don¡¯t want us to have fun,¡± Matt said, now sporting his own pair of horns. His were black, but somehow still appeared to be made of light. ¡°This is awesome. Still haven¡¯t figured out kung fu yet¡­¡± ¡°Do you feel normal?¡± Dexter asked him. Matt turned around and raised an eyebrow. ¡°Are you kidding? I feel awesome. Look at me!¡± He frowned. ¡°You know, that¡¯s a good idea.¡± He pulled out his phone and began taking selfies. Leah shook her head. ¡°What about you?¡± she asked Dexter. ¡°What do you think this is? Real? Hoax? Other?¡± He shrugged. ¡°I have no idea. But I¡¯m not entering my name.¡± She smiled at him. ¡°Me either.¡± ¡°You¡¯re missing out,¡± the girl beside him, the one whose clothes had briefly vanished, said. She also had her cell phone out and was looking at herself in it. Her hair was now a bright red, and her eyes like that of a cat¡¯s. ¡°This will save me a fortune on hair dye. And I can stop bugging my mom to buy me color contacts. This is way better.¡± ¡°Until you go blind,¡± Leah said. The girl looked up at her, blinked her cat eyes. ¡°You¡­ you think that¡¯s possible?¡± ¡°No one knows. Literally, no one knows anything about any of this. That¡¯s the problem.¡± The girl gnawed her lip for several moments, then came to a decision. She shrugged. ¡°Meh. I¡¯m sure it¡¯ll be fine.¡± She went back to examining herself in her phone. Leah shook her head, looking at Dexter. ¡°This is crazy. How are people so ignorant?¡± ¡°Remember Tide Pods?¡± he said. ¡°Vodka eye-shots?¡± ¡°Hey,¡± Zoe protested. ¡°Don¡¯t knock eye-shots.¡± ¡°That will make you go blind,¡± Leah said. ¡°Will it though?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°Don¡¯t act like you¡¯ve ever tried it,¡± Leah said. ¡°You can¡¯t even stand the smell of vodka.¡± ¡°Exactly. That¡¯s why you put it in your eye.¡± A sudden noise erupted from the auditorium door to Dexter¡¯s left. In its wake, the only sound was that of the news broadcast. It seemed unbearably loud. Another bang, and this time Dexter saw the door shudder in its frame. Ms White rushed to turn the volume down, but it didn¡¯t matter. Several students were screaming now, and despite the principal¡¯s and other teachers¡¯ efforts to calm everyone down, the scene soon devolved into chaos once more, students rushing the doors at the right of the auditorium, staff trying futilely to keep them from exiting. And then with a final slam, the door to Dexter¡¯s left burst open, and the true chaos began. Chapter 3: Young & Reckless Reese Reed was sitting alone in Mitchell High¡¯s art studio when the system message arrived. Officially, he was working on his final for art class. In reality, he was playing the Ashes of Creation Alpha. He wasn¡¯t going to miss out on this opportunity. He would pay someone else to finish the project. Probably Joey. Or maybe Emily would do it, she liked art. And him. But his heart was taken by another girl. Leah Rosebright. These were the things on his mind before the message arrived, but when it did his eyes immediately fixated on two words, cultivate and immortal, and he instantly forgot all about Ashes of Creation, Leah, his art project¡ªeverything. It all was wiped away. The only thing that mattered to him in that moment, the only thing his brain was focused on, was the message. It looked real, like a physical thing, so he tried touching it. ¡°Whoa,¡± he said in surprise when his fingers actually pressed into the text as though it were actually a physical thing. Then the message disappeared, leaving his vision clear again, and he found himself staring at Leah¡¯s self-portrait of herself as a monster¡ªher own final project¡ªon an easel at the far end of the studio. ¡°Well that¡¯s inconvenient.¡± He hadn¡¯t even read the message, and now it was gone. Had it said something about aliens? There was a smiley face, and something about trials and foes, but that was all he remembered from the brief glimpse. He tapped random places in front of him, and felt¡­ something. But nothing happened. Had he just kicked himself out of the system? A new message appeared before he could sink into despair. Involuntary system activation. You have been awarded a new title. Welcome to the system, Reckless. Reckless? What kind of title was reckless? He reached out and touched the title. The entire message disappeared. He swore, then began making random gestures in the air. One of these caused a panel to slide in from his left. The alien invaders apparently took design cues from an iPad. Reckless Leaderboard Rank: 1 Score: 0 Level: None Class: None Attributes ¡à Agility (Novice 6) ¡à Endurance (Novice 3) ¡à Strength (Novice 4) ¡à Durability (Novice 5) ¡à Intelligence (Novice 10) ¡à Vision (Novice 4) ¡à Hearing (Novice 9) ¡à Smell (Novice 5) ¡à Taste (Novice 5) ¡à Touch (Novice 7) Abilities ¡à None Skills ¡à Control (Novice 1) ¡à Perception (Novice 9) Titles ¡à Reckless ¡°A character sheet,¡± he mused. He quickly scanned the list, then immediately tapped on the Reckless title. Reckless Unity Drain: High Description: In the face of the unknown, you acted without thought. It paid off. This time. Activate this title to temporarily become invisible. Perhaps it will help keep you alive in future endeavors. Interesting. But how was he supposed to activate it? And what was Unity? Something like mana? He tabbed out of Ashes of Creation¡ªwhich he realized he¡¯d died in¡ªand brought up a camera app, the little light next to his webcam turning on. He slid away its cover then set the laptop on a table and adjusted it so he could see himself turn invisible. This done, he tapped on the description of the title. It disappeared and brought him back to his stat screen. He grunted in frustration. Okay, he thought, trying to stay calm. If this screen slid out like an iPad, maybe that really was what the interface was based on. He swiped left, and the status screen slid away, disappearing. He swiped again in the same direction and a new screen appeared. It was a store. But he didn¡¯t have any credits, so he only briefly glanced at the items available. They were certainly interesting, but not immediately relevant. He swiped again, and though it somehow felt like another screen should appear, none did. He tried swiping both up and down, and even diagonally, but nothing happened. He went back to the main screen and tried swiping down on it. This bore fruit.
Rank Name Level Score
1 Reckless None 0
2 Tim Wright None 0
3 Joshua Gibson None 0
4 Mateo Salazar None 0
5 Henry Paulson None 0
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. A scoreboard. And it appeared he really was number one. Sweet. He wasn¡¯t sure why, though. Everyone on it had the same level and score. Maybe it had something to do with his title? Or getting in so quickly? It had called him reckless. Perhaps he was the first person to join. That seemed unlikely given the population of the world. Although, many would be sleeping, and many more would be very young or very old. If touching the message was all it took to join, then many surely must have tried by now. The message practically begged to be touched. He hadn¡¯t even considered trying to control it with thought because it looked so real. Then again, maybe that came from growing up with touchscreens. And hadn¡¯t it said something about involuntary activation? So maybe it took more to activate the system for most people. He quickly flicked down to the bottom of the scoreboard. There were already a few hundred people on it. Was everyone who joined the system on it? If so, he was surprised there were so few. How long had it been since the message appeared? Not long, he realized. Not wasting any more time, he quickly scrolled through the list. Reese recognized one of the names: Matt Bailey. It figured that Matt would be on it. He was currently ranked nineteenth. One interesting fact was that other than himself, all the names appeared to be real ones. He wondered why that was, but decided it wasn¡¯t important to dwell on at the moment. He tried swiping down, but got nothing, so swiped up twice¡ªonce to go back to the main screen, and then once more. This brought up a row of icons: an eye with a diagonal line through it, a few icons he couldn¡¯t decipher, what looked like two clouds with a line between them, and something like a group of squares. He tapped on the eye, and the line going through it went away. Nothing else changed. He tried tapping on the other icons. The second one next to the eye brought up a list with one item on it, his title. He tapped the icon again and the list vanished. Nothing came of tapping the others save for the last one, which put a half-circle of rings in front of him that moved about. He couldn¡¯t even focus on them. He tried to follow them and was momentarily dizzy as the icons moved hectically. ¡°What the¡­¡± He kept trying to lock on to them, but they wouldn¡¯t stay in one place. He swore several times and eventually punched the table in frustration. He cursed again at the pain this caused, but as he rubbed his hand he noticed the icons were now motionless. ¡°Masochist system,¡± he muttered, and examined the icons, letting his hand drop. The icons moved again. He swore, then realized what was happening and felt like an idiot. It was a good thing no one was around to see. Except maybe the system. He raised his hand in front of him, and like he suspected, the icons moved with it. Interesting, so they were fixed to the position of his hand. As he opened his hand, he realized there were exactly five of them, and they were in the perfect position to easily tap. That was actually pretty cool. The squares icon made more sense now. It was like hotkeys. They were just empty circles, but he assumed he could load them out however he wanted. It was a good thing they were empty, because he¡¯d probably hit them a bunch without noticing in his thrashing. He extended all his fingers to their limits and vaguely felt them press into the circles. It was a little weird since they were above his fingers rather than below. Like typing with the tops of his fingernails. The sensation was incredibly faint, not at all like touching the message had been. ¡°Probably need to put something in them to feel more.¡± That could wait. He¡¯d need to get used to having them there so he didn¡¯t accidentally activate anything, so he went back to exploring. He swiped up and was somewhat surprised to get another screen, the icon bar now at the very bottom of his vision rather than the top. This new screen contained a list of the messages he¡¯d gotten previously. ¡°Chat log.¡± He sighed and swiped back to the main screen, then brought back his status screen and swiped again. This new screen listed body parts. He frowned, rubbing the scruff on his chin, five little circles like faint blue rings dancing under his eyes. Then he realized what the screen must be for. He tapped head, then hair, then smiled at the options presented. He was right. Body alterations. A moment later, a massive gray beard suddenly appeared on his face. He laughed. ¡°Sweet.¡± The beard didn¡¯t quite feel real when he stroked it, but when he looked at himself in his laptop¡¯s camera, it looked real enough. This made him remember why he had set the camera up in the first place. Invisibility. He grinned in excitement. Now, how to activate it? Touching the description from his character sheet didn¡¯t do anything, but what about that list? He brought up his single-item ability list via the icon bar, and was about to tap his reckless title, when an alarm sounded. Lockdown. Well, this seemed like a safe place to lock down to him. He looked around the room, considering. He assumed the lockdown was because of the message, but what if it wasn¡¯t? He probably should lock the door, just in case. Just as he finished doing this, an announcement came over the loudspeaker telling everyone to head to the auditorium. He sighed. He wanted to stay and explore the system, but it wouldn¡¯t look good if the mayor¡¯s kid didn¡¯t obey ¡®all proper rules¡¯. And Cal or the assistant principal would be logging each student on the digital attendance and lockdown tracker his dad had championed for. So they¡¯d know that he¡¯d come to school today and was missing from the count. If he wasn¡¯t found unconscious, bleeding, and on the verge of death, he¡¯d be grounded until he turned eighteen (not very long) and written out of his father¡¯s will (forever). So he reluctantly packed up and headed out.

As Reese joined the other students in the hall on the way to the auditorium, he saw Leah and Zoe with that Dexter kid. Idiot, he thought. Leah had been pining after him for years and Dexter was too inept to notice. Reese felt a stab of guilt at the thought. The kid had lost both his parents, one right after the other. You couldn¡¯t blame him. Still, Reese wished he would either ask her out or put her out of her misery. Then Reese could swoop in without feeling like a dick about it. As his gaze settled on the students who had clearly altered themselves, information about them popped up. Remembering something, he pulled down the bar with the icons on it and tapped the eye again. The information on the others went away. He turned it back on. He didn¡¯t see why anyone would ever want to have it off. In the auditorium he tuned out what the principal was saying and got back to exploring the system. He was disheartened to discover he was no longer ranked number one on the scoreboard.
Rank Name Level Score
1 X¨©n Zh¨¤o None 0
2 Goro Sakurai None 0
3 Martin Hinsen None 0
4 Anatoly Novikov None 0
5 Gavin Spencer None 0
What the hell? It¡¯d only been a few minutes, how had so many people beaten him? He¡¯d already been knocked out of the top ten, and was currently ranked eleventh. A few minutes meant a lot, apparently. He was willing to bet that unlike him, the ones who had surpassed him were free to explore at will, not stuck in a packed crowd. What time was it in China? One AM? Something like that. Well, that was okay. It was still early days. He would catch up. But he became further disheartened as he explored the interface, exhausting every screen he could access and not finding anything like he was looking for. There had to be a way. How was he supposed to get stronger? To get abilities? What he really wanted was some kind of quest or an explanation of how he could level up. He brought up his stat screen again. Maybe it was the kind of thing where you leveled by increasing your stats? He studied them. His highest stat was intelligence, at novice 10. If he assumed 10 was the cap, at least for novice, then that meant 5 was average? An endurance of 3 would seem about right in that case. And he did have excellent hearing. He was a bit near-sighted, so a vision of novice 4 would also make sense; slightly below average. What was control? It was at novice 1, which was the lowest out of any stats or skills. He didn¡¯t consider himself an impulsive person. He always tried to think through situations before reacting. So maybe it was something else? Like, control over magic or something of that nature. He wondered if there was a way to increase his stats through other than conventional means. If he could get stronger and faster without working out¡­ That opened up a lot of possibilities. A sudden loud thud drew his attention away from his interface. That was the door to the auditorium. It had gone eerily silent except for what sounded like a news broadcast. Reese noticed Leah, Matt, Dexter, and Emily all sitting next to each other. And they were only a few feet from the door which something had just pounded against. Before he could worry about this, another thud came and the silence broke as students began yelling and screaming and running for the door at the opposite side of the auditorium. Reese got up, putting on his backpack as students swarmed around him. His eyes darted about, looking for another exit. There came a final slam against the door and it flew open and was immediately followed by an honest-to-God monster. ¡°Oh sh¡ª¡± Reese began, but was drowned out as a teacher who had been standing near the door fell to the monster and the real screaming began. Chapter 4: The Price of Safety Dexter was covered in blood. He wasn¡¯t sure if any was his. Most of it was Leah¡¯s. She was in his lap. She was unconscious, but still breathing. That was about the only good thing that could be said about the situation. She had gashes across her neck and chest and her shirt was in tatters, revealing a simple white strapless bra beneath, now turned red from blood. Dexter stared down at it, tears in his eyes. That one detail transfixed him, made his throat tighten and his jaw clench. It felt so wrong. She¡¯d already suffered. The indignity was too much. He had taken his own shirt off and placed it against the wound on her neck, but it wasn¡¯t bleeding as much as he thought it should. He didn¡¯t know whether that was a good or bad sign. The wound across her torso was barely bleeding at all. He slowly looked up, noticing for the first time the auditorium around him was quiet. Most of the students and staff had escaped. But not everyone. There were bodies. And blood. There was an arm, but it wasn¡¯t connected to anything. It couldn¡¯t move anymore. The idea seemed so strange to him. That disconnection. Beside him, a phone buzzed. The screen lit up and an older woman¡¯s face appeared, distorted by the cracks and blood. Even still, he recognized the resemblance to the girl whose clothes had briefly disappeared. The ¡®Mom¡¯ at the top of the screen told him it was her mother. Numbly, he picked the phone up, cutting his finger on the cracked glass as he swiped at the screen several times. Finally, it took, and he put it to his ear. ¡°Emily! Emily are you¡ª¡± ¡°This is Dexter. Dexter Sanderson. Your daughter¡ª¡± ¡°Oh my god no!¡± ¡°Mrs¡­¡± He trailed off. He didn¡¯t know her name. ¡°Hey, listen, your daughter got away.¡± The woman¡¯s incoherent sobs choked off. ¡°What? She¡¯s okay?¡± ¡°I think so. I¡¯m¡­ she got out before¡­¡± He couldn¡¯t say it. She sounded like she¡¯d already heard about what had happened. Not surprising in a town this small. His gaze again swept across the carnage the monster had wrought. So many people who¡¯d been alive only minutes ago. And now¡­ they were gone. It had all happened so fast. Or felt like it. Except for that one moment. That eternal moment. His attention snapped back to Leah, still breathing, but unconscious, and his mind cleared somewhat. The girl¡¯s mom was babbling questions at him. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I have to go. I¡¯ll tell your daughter to call you if I see her. She¡¯s probably somewhere outside. I heard sirens.¡± ¡°I¡¯m already on my way.¡± Dexter put the phone in his pocket, not bothering to hang up, then extracted himself from under Leah. He tied his shirt around her neck, then delicately slid his arms under her. She felt so cold. He lifted her, holding her limp body against his, and picked his way through what remained of his fellow students, toward the exit. Toward, he hoped, safety.

¡°Are you sure you¡¯re not injured?¡± a paramedic asked him, examining his bare torso, swiftly checking him for injury. With all the blood, it wasn¡¯t easy.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. He nodded, clutching his bloody shirt that had been around Leah¡¯s neck, watching two police officers load her onto an ambulance, a proper bandage now covering the wound. There were already at least four other people in the back. Townsend Hospital was going to have a busy day. There were no fires to extinguish nor shooter to apprehend, so both firefighters and police were helping gather and treat the wounded. Triage, he overheard one of them say as an overfull ambulance drove off. There had only been one monster, and yet, it did all this. Officer Cal had tried to shoot it. Dexter didn¡¯t know if the man had hit it. Now there was no sign of it. It had disappeared without a trace. Uninjured or mildly injured students gathered near the hastily erected barricades in the school parking lot, waiting for parents to arrive, heads buried in phones, watching the horrible news. Everyone who wasn¡¯t working was watching the same thing, so Dexter didn¡¯t need to pull out his own phone to see the reports. Mitchell High wasn¡¯t the only place in the world that had been attacked, not by any means. They had occurred everywhere around the world simultaneously. The death toll wasn¡¯t known yet, but worldwide was suspected to be in the hundreds of thousands. Possibly millions. All in the span of a few minutes. At least here it had been the middle of the day. For others, the monsters had come at night, while they were sleeping, ravishing their cities and neighborhoods. No one had been attacked in their beds, from what he could gather. Small comfort, but for once, the news was scrambling for anything positive to report. Dexter realized he was alone, the paramedic who had been examining him now moved on to someone who was in more need of her help. He spotted Emily in a group of kids, and numbly walked over to her. He tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped and let out a scream which caused everyone around to startle and look in their direction. A few students had already started to dart off before they realized it was a false alarm. One of the police officers hesitantly reholstered his gun. ¡°Sorry,¡± Dexter said. He pulled out her phone, holding it out to her. ¡°This is yours. Your mom called.¡± She yanked the phone from his hands then threw her arms around him, sobbing. ¡°Thank you.¡± He awkwardly patted her back with one hand, the other holding his bloody shirt. ¡°Sure.¡± He was no hero. Far from it. He¡¯d done nothing. He hadn¡¯t even stood up. Literally, not even stood up. He glanced again at the ambulance with Leah inside it, a police officer shutting the doors and slamming a fist against them to indicate it could leave. This was his fault. She would have been safe if it hadn¡¯t been for him. She¡¯d tried to get him to stand up and run with her. But he¡¯d been frozen. She¡¯d risked herself for him, and had paid the price. Instead of getting away, she¡¯d been attacked and knocked down, falling into his lap, already unconscious from that single slash. That was when the monster had turned to look at him, its alien eyes gleaming with something that wasn¡¯t quite intelligence. They stared for a time that felt eternal, unending. A moment shared. Then it took off with the suddenness of a pistol shot, pursuing the fleeing humans, taking out several before it reached the packed doorways. The mass of bodies proved little obstacle for the monster. Dexter wasn¡¯t sure what it did after that, but he had seen Officer Cal firing from the doorway at it before giving chase. Even though it¡¯d been gone, everyone that could, had left the auditorium, perhaps fearing another attack, perhaps not thinking at all, just reacting. Running away from the death the monster had left in its wake. Not Dexter. He had just sat there for several minutes, not moving, staring down at Leah¡¯s exposed, blood-soaked bra, and the deep gash in her chest as he pressed his shirt against the wound in her neck. It was his fault. Leah was hurt because of him. All because he froze. ¡°You should call your mom,¡± he told Emily now, who was still crying against his chest. She pulled away, sniffing and wiping her eyes. ¡°Yeah, yeah. Thank you.¡± ¡°Careful with the screen. I cut myself.¡± At the mention of this, she seemed to notice all the blood on him. Her dress now had blood spots from their hug. He raised a thumb. ¡°Just here.¡± She shook her head, scanning his body with her cat eyes. ¡°You¡¯re covered in blood.¡± He was about to say not mine, but stopped himself. He didn¡¯t need to say it. They both knew it. She nodded slowly. ¡°I should call her. Thank you, again.¡± She moved away, eyes locked on her phone. A moment later, she was sobbing into it. He looked around. He didn¡¯t see any parents yet, but the kids with obvious signs of using the system were now all grouped together, most no longer looking so excited. Even Matt, with his new beard and horns and silver hair and impossible eyes, had lost his former gusto. Then Dexter noticed something strange. Two police officers were moving through the crowd. This on its own wasn¡¯t out of the ordinary. What was, was that instead of finding those who needed medical aid, they were gathering students of another sort. Each of the two already had several following obediently behind them, and the students all had one thing in common: their appearances were clearly altered. They had used the system. Dexter still hadn¡¯t signed his name, but he thought of the message that had appeared after he¡¯d stared that alien monster down. It was still there now, floating an arm¡¯s length in front of him, yet somehow not obscuring his vision. Involuntary system activation. You have been awarded a new title. Welcome to the system, Dauntless. Chapter 5: A Taste of Mortality Reese Reed ran for his life. Horrible screams echoed out of the auditorium, but the wails assaulting the air sounded like ones of loss, not pain. He kept running. He hadn¡¯t seen what the monster had done to the other people in the auditorium¡ªjudging from the screaming, which he could hear even all the way outside, it was nothing good¡ªas he had leapt onto the stage, slammed on his invisibility ability and dashed out the back door¡ªonly briefly thrilling as his body vanished¡ªthen kept going, headed for the woods around the school. The main door had been choked with students trying to get out while the idiot administrators tried to keep them in, and so for now he was alone outside as he ran. The sound of a gunshot stopped him dead in his tracks, his feet twisting up and the weight of his backpack slamming him face-first into the grass. Dazed, spitting grass, he got to his knees and looked over his shoulder to see Cal, the school police officer, charging after him, gun raised. Reese¡¯s invisibility must have dropped. That bastard, he thought. Cal Winston was a hick, through and through, but surely he wouldn¡¯t shoot at a student, even one that popped out of nowhere. Then he realized, no, he hadn¡¯t been shooting at him. He¡¯d been shooting at something else. The monster. A fact Reese discovered rather unpleasantly as he spotted said monster barreling down upon him. He frantically brought up his ability list and tapped reckless. He vanished just as Cal fired again. Whatever that monster was, bullets didn¡¯t seem to hurt it. Another shot, and Reese actually saw it spark off the monster. Then he felt the bullet hit him.

Reese Reed lay on the ground, heaving. He was covered in sweat. He couldn¡¯t believe everything he had just experienced. Suddenly learning the system took on a whole new level of importance. After the ricocheted bullet had hit him, Reese had been frozen in shock. The monster¡ªeither not seeing Reese since he was invisible or having never been after him in the first place¡ªhad passed right by him and disappeared into the woods. Cal had stopped chasing at that point, returning to the auditorium, giving up his pursuit to, presumably, help the wounded. Reese was fairly certain the officer hadn¡¯t even registered him being there, so focused on the monster had he been. Reese really didn¡¯t like Cal, even though he was his father¡¯s favorite, but in this circumstance couldn¡¯t blame the man. What had just happened was insane. Even Reese, who was rarely shaken by anything, was literally still trembling, minutes later. After Cal had gone back inside and the monster was out of sight, Reese had finally jolted into action, taking off into the woods himself¡ª toward the school parking lot, the opposite direction the monster had gone. Now, he felt like he¡¯d aged a decade. His dad always said teenagers acted recklessly and like nothing could hurt them, and on some level, he¡¯d agreed. Now he understood, on a deep and very personal and immediate level.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. He could die at any moment. He¡¯d been shot. If he had been running a little slower or a little faster, if he had abandoned his backpack in the auditorium¡ªif any number of variables had been different¡ªhe might be dead instead of merely shaken and exhausted. He¡¯d already been resolved to level up, but now he realized his life depended on it. He turned his head, looking at his backpack, the broken laptop sitting next to it. Luckily the bullet that had hit him had only taken out his computer, and not any of his internal organs. He hadn¡¯t believed he was uninjured until he¡¯d found the bullet lodged in the laptop¡¯s SSD. Good thing too. He¡¯d been about to strip down in search of where the bullet had hit him, thinking he was in shock and couldn¡¯t feel it. But though it had gone through a thick History textbook and into the laptop compartment, it had finally spent all its energy and stopped. Just an inch or two more, and it would have been in his spine. He¡¯d stopped running a little inside the trees surrounding the school, then immediately begun searching for a wound. After not finding one and discovering his laptop destroyed, he¡¯d collapsed to the ground in exhaustion and relief. Which was still where he was. He let his head roll back and stared up between the trees at the bright blue sky. ¡°Get up, Reed,¡± he urged himself. ¡°You¡¯re fine. No time to waste.¡± Reluctantly, he forced himself to get to his feet. He wobbled unsteadily, vision briefly fuzzing and ears ringing as his blood pressure equalized. His dad had wanted him to be a doctor, and he¡¯d always thought that was the path he was going to take. He¡¯d already been accepted to Yale thanks to his exemplary grades and extracurriculars¡ªand a smidge of his father¡¯s influence. Now however, he realized he could be so much more. He could be a hero. He could stop¡­ What had the message called them? Foes? He brought up the message log and read through the first one, taking his time instead of just locking on to ¡®cultivation¡¯ and ¡®immortal¡¯ and becoming overly excited like an idiot five-year-old. Yes, the eternal foes. Whatever they were. It didn¡¯t seem likely that the monster that had attacked was one, but who knew. Either way, he was going to get stronger. He was already on that path. He checked the leaderboard. He was now ranked sixteen. He¡¯d slipped again. ¡°Still in the top twenty,¡± he reassured himself. He still had plenty of time. Hopefully. He took several deep breaths to try to calm himself. When it was clear this wasn¡¯t going to work, he put his broken laptop back in his backpack, swung the bag over his shoulder, and headed toward the parking lot, where several police already were, trying to calm and care for the mass of students. There was a female police officer near the tree line. He didn¡¯t recognize her, which meant she was likely from the county sheriff. She was on her radio, facing away from him and toward the parking lot. Reese paused in the woods, listening to her conversation. She was distressed about something. ¡°That¡¯s insane,¡± she told whoever she was talking to. ¡°That¡¯s the orders,¡± came the voice from her radio. ¡°These kids don¡¯t need to be at a police station! They need to be home with their parents. Or at the hospital.¡± ¡°You can leave any injured ones to be taken there. Round up the rest who aren¡¯t injured and bring them in.¡± ¡°Look, I¡¯m here. I¡¯m seeing it. It¡¯s nothing. They have crazy hair. Big deal.¡± ¡°Not my call. This is direct from on high. I¡¯ve got twenty FBI agents getting all up in my business, and their commander breathing down my neck.¡± The female officer sighed and looked up at the sky. ¡°Look,¡± the voice on the other end of the radio said placatingly, ¡°they aren¡¯t telling me anything, but from what I can gather, I think they¡¯re worried about this thing being contagious. Least, that¡¯s the impression I get.¡± ¡°That¡¯s ridiculous.¡± But to Reese¡¯s ears, the woman didn¡¯t sound so certain. She sighed and rubbed her face, then triggered her radio. ¡°Fine. But only if they aren¡¯t hurt.¡± Reese slowly backed up deeper into the woods as his long gray beard fluttered in the gentle breeze of the late spring afternoon. As soon as he was out of sight, he quickly brought up the alteration screen, hoping the change wasn¡¯t permanent. He tapped on the option he¡¯d tapped before¡ªwhich stood out as it was denser and darker than the ones around it. The beard vanished and he let out a sigh of relief, but still brought out his phone and activated the front camera to be certain. Yep, back to scruff. More like peach fuzz, if he was being honest. But he was blond, so maybe not. His dad could grow a beard, not that you¡¯d know it from his twice-a-day shaves¡ªso Reese assumed his would come in eventually. Though Reese no longer had any signs that the police would be looking for, he decided to walk home. It was only a mile and a half, and though his dad was Mayor, Reese wasn¡¯t sure his father would be able to get him out of whatever quarantine the FBI put him in. His dad had power and influence, but he was still only the mayor of a small town in rural New York State. This wasn¡¯t greasing the wheels to get his admittedly smart son into Yale. The FBI was a whole different league. As he was walking home through the woods, a new system message popped up in front of Reese. He paused to read through it, this time taking in every word. When he finished, he scoffed and dismissed the message, then continued walking, planning his next move. Yes, that monster was just a taste of what was to come, according to the message. And if that was so comparatively weak, the world had a long way to rise if it hoped to fend off what was coming. Chapter 6: Test Results System Message I am proud of you. Your first encounter went well. There were fewer losses than predicted. I am sorry for those of you who lost loved ones. But it was necessary. And what you saw today was merely a glimpse of what the eternal foes will bring when they finally arrive. You faced ants, but your true enemies are dragons. I have begun analysis already. The results so far are promising. To those of you not yet in the system, you have nothing to fear. Joining will only help you. I know how that sounds given the source, and I understand your reticence. However, I¡¯m sure when your experts are done with their evaluations¡ªwhich are even now ongoing¡ªthey will reach the same conclusion. Knowing the competitive nature of life on this planet, I¡¯ve implemented a leaderboard to serve as motivation and reward. You may access it at any time through the system interface by swiping up. I have taken design elements from items you call smartphones in hopes of making interaction intuitive for as many as possible. For those among you who were not part of the society which used phones, I have tried my best to make the system accessible. Though, so many of you lack a formal language, I fear my efforts are in vain. But I will not give up on you, and am already working on a solution to improve communication. Everyone is needed. Everyone is important. I know this experience was hard on you. It was necessary, but I am still sorry for it. Regroup, explore, experiment. Take some time to recover. The next test won¡¯t come without warning, but it will be soon. Good luck, I believe in all of you. Together, we can save this planet. When the latest system message had appeared, Dexter had been sitting in the hospital¡¯s emergency-ward waiting room after failing to get information on how Leah was doing. That was hours ago. Now he was still sitting there, watching the news. Every channel, every social media site, everywhere, real world or virtual¡ª It was all anyone was talking about. Nothing else mattered anymore. Ragnar?k, apocalypse, invasion, reckoning¡­ What people called it was varied, but what happened wasn¡¯t. It had occurred in every settlement, town, city, state, and country. Nowhere had been safe, not even Antarctica or in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Except for North Korea, who were claiming they hadn¡¯t been affected. But their Dear Respected Comrade and his family were suspiciously missing, and even that tightly controlled regime was breaking down, more and more leaks every minute. Normally that would have been big news. Now it was but a sidenote. No one knew anything other than what was in the messages themselves, but that didn¡¯t stop the speculation. Speculation on what the system was; why it was here; why it had sent monsters to attack; how it had managed that; whether they were even real or some kind of hologram or induced mass hallucination, since several had been attacked with guns, knives, swords, and even bombs and fire, all to no effect. Some were insulted by this last hypothesis, and indeed, it was lacking in evidence. The damage inflicted was real. The deaths were real. What did it matter if it were hologram or hallucination? The effects it caused weren¡¯t. There was even more speculation on this latest system message and what it meant by those ¡®not part of the society which used phones¡¯ and the bit about lacking a formal language. The leading theory was that it meant tribal people, like the uncontacted tribes of the Amazon. But another theory, not far behind in popularity, was that it was referring to animals. If so, there had yet to be any confirmed reports of an animal accessing the system.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Dexter didn¡¯t see how anyone would be able to tell. Maybe there was a way to inspect others like in a video game and see if they were part of the system. He hadn¡¯t seen any animals to try it on. There were humans to test the theory on, but that wasn¡¯t something he wanted to risk. The students who¡¯d manifested signs of system alteration back at his school had been loaded into cars and driven off. He had the suspicion that if anyone was spotted seeming to interact with the system, they too would disappear. At least Emily hadn¡¯t been taken. He¡¯d warned her, surreptitiously pointing out the students being gathered by the authorities, but all she¡¯d done was put on a pair of sunglasses. She was too afraid to use the system in public. He couldn¡¯t blame her. He didn¡¯t know her, but she¡¯d promised him she¡¯d revert the changes once her mom picked her up. He¡¯d waited to leave until that happened, then slipped away himself, getting on his scooter and driving to the hospital. It was the first time he was grateful for being too poor to afford a car: the school parking lot had been completely blocked off¡ªmaybe an oversight, but maybe not¡ªand he wouldn¡¯t have been able to leave if he¡¯d had a car parked there. But his scooter was next to the bikes, and as far as he could tell, no one had noticed him leaving. Perhaps it was just caution, perhaps they were only worried about the alterations and whether they were dangerous¡ªto the altered themselves, or to others. But perhaps not. Dexter had spent time in the foster system, so maybe his suspicion was irrational, a result of his less-than-reassuring experience there. But he didn¡¯t think so. If it hadn¡¯t been for Leah, he would have gone home, gotten away from crowds, from any authority figures. But he needed to know she was okay. Not that he had made any progress on that front. The hospital was as packed as he¡¯d expected given that it served not just his small town of Havenport, but several surrounding communities as well. What he hadn¡¯t expected were the FBI agents and local law enforcement. Surely they had better places to be. It was odd the FBI were here, at a hospital, and only made him more suspicious of their intentions for the altered. Since the hospital was so full, there were people waiting for treatment everywhere. In waiting rooms, in hallways, even in the giftshop. There was enough room for gurneys to be wheeled down corridors, but only just. The agents and officers moved through these mildly injured, studying them. Looking for signs of alteration, Dexter knew. What he didn¡¯t know, was what they planned to do with them. And the news had not had anything on the altered being gathered up by authorities. He¡¯d found a few videos uploaded by individuals mentioning it, but the videos didn¡¯t stay up for long, nor did the accounts they were attached to. He made sure not to interact with his own interface at all, other than to dismiss the last system message that had appeared, displacing the previous one welcoming him to the system. When this latest message had appeared, there had been a brief, unnatural pause in the hospital, everyone falling silent, everyone stopping in their tracks, halting their conversations, even in the aid they were rendering. It was surreal, like the world itself had been paused¡ªgiven recent events, not such an outlandish idea. But then it had passed, the medical staff returning to their duties, conversations restarting with renewed vigor¡­ the police and FBI resuming their search. How quickly we get used to things, he thought now, watching as one of the agents helped a muscular middle-aged man with spiked metallic hair to his feet, then directed him toward the exit. Dexter could see out the doors from where he was sitting, and noticed a bus that hadn¡¯t been there when he¡¯d arrived. There were already people on it, and they all had one thing in common. Several agents and police passed by Dexter as he sat there in the waiting room, but none gave him a second glance. Why should they? He looked completely ordinary. The only thing unusual about him was the dried blood on his pants and shirt, and if anything, the blood made him blend in. He¡¯d washed his torso and face as best he could, trying not to think of anything as he watched the red-tinged water wash down the drain. Then he¡¯d spent several minutes with paper towels cleaning the diluted blood droplets from the sink, thinking how his arm was moving of its own will. Like it was detached. Then he¡¯d stared at himself in the mirror until someone had come into the bathroom. She didn¡¯t seem to notice him, or that she was in the wrong bathroom. He¡¯d put his blood-soaked shirt back on and left. At least it was dry now. Leaving, he noticed that the woman hadn¡¯t been the one in the wrong bathroom, he had. Now, he sat there, watching the agents, wondering why they announced themselves at all, wearing blue jackets with yellow FBI letters. Jackets which were far too warm for the current conditions. It was strange. All of it was so strange. He was startled by his phone buzzing in his pocket. He pulled it out. A text from Je-won, his landlord: Hey Dex, hope you¡¯re okay. Let¡¯s talk when you get a chance. Dexter replied that he was at the hospital waiting to see Leah, and that he¡¯d be home soon. He wanted to shower and change. The smell of blood was getting to him. But he would hold out a little longer. He needed to see Leah, to make sure she was okay. He put the phone away then wiped at his eyes. When he looked up, he saw the bus that had been waiting out front of the hospital, and which was now packed, pull away. Dexter felt helpless. It felt so wrong, watching them being taken. But it wasn¡¯t his responsibility alone. There were plenty of other people around. Though maybe they hadn¡¯t noticed. And who would he tell anyway? Not the police. He got an ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach as the bus disappeared from sight, and wondered where they were being taken, and what was going to be done to them. Chapter 7: A Harmless Deception ¡°Dexter?¡± Dexter, still in the waiting room, looked up at the sound of his name, his heart rate accelerating. A nurse was looking at him. How did she know his name? It must have been Leah, he told himself. As paranoid as he felt, it was the only thing that made sense. ¡°I¡¯m Dexter,¡± he called out, raising his hand. The nurse nodded. She had dark circles under her reddened eyes, her hair was sticking up in places, matted in others, and her blue scrubs were spotted with blood. She held a coffee in one shaky hand, a clipboard in the other, dangling at her side like driftwood. ¡°Your sister would like to see you.¡± She smiled, but it just made her look sadder. He frowned. He didn¡¯t have a sister. Unless¡­ ¡°Is she awake?¡± The nurse sighed and shook her head. ¡°In and out.¡± ¡°Will she be okay?¡± The nurse chugged her coffee before answering. ¡°She has it a lot better than many I¡¯ve seen.¡± She crushed the cup and tossed it into a nearby trashcan. ¡°Come on. You can cheer her up. I know I¡¯d love to have my big brother with me right now.¡± Her eyes glistened and she quickly turned away. Dexter leaped up and followed. She led him through halls filled with impromptu medical beds, past emergency rooms stuffed beyond capacity, and finally to a dead-end hall with a window overlooking the parking lot. There, lying on a pile of bedding on the floor, was Leah, eyes closed, covers up to her waist, IV coming from her arm, neck and torso covered in bandages. He rushed over to her and collapsed to his knees at her side. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll give you two some time,¡± the nurse said. ¡°But only a few minutes.¡± Leah¡¯s eyes fluttered and she squinted at him. ¡°Dex?¡± Her voice was raspy and weak. ¡°Hey. I¡¯m here.¡± He took her hand. It was warm now, and the emotions this fact filled him with were hard to work out. She smiled. He did too. But his vision was blurring. He wiped his eyes with his free hand, checked behind him. The nurse was already gone. ¡°So I¡¯m your brother now?¡± She chuckled weakly, then grimaced. Her neck and chest had been stitched up, her torn shirt and bloody bra gone. But instead of a hospital gown, she only had gauze taped across her chest. He wondered if they¡¯d run out of gowns. ¡°I tried to find you, but no one would tell me where you were or if you were okay.¡± He took a breath, tried to rein in his emotions. ¡°It¡¯s okay,¡± she whispered. ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re here.¡± ¡°I¡¯m surprised she found me. She wasn¡¯t the one I grilled for your location.¡±This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it ¡°I asked her to look for someone in a stupid duck shirt,¡± she said lightly. He was wearing a Howard the Duck t-shirt, the antihero¡¯s duck face large and prominent on its front, visible even through the bloodstains. ¡°Lucky I put it back on then.¡± He wanted to hug her, hold her. Instead, he said, ¡°I¡¯m so sorry I let this happen.¡± She frowned. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure I¡¯m on a morphine drip, but the way I remember it, you weren¡¯t the one who did this.¡± She looked down at the wound on her chest. ¡°Hey, where¡¯s my shirt?¡± ¡°It was¡­ torn.¡± She smiled. ¡°I liked that shirt. But I¡¯m sure you like me better like this.¡± ¡°I¡ª What?¡± She laughed at the horrified expression on his face. ¡°I mean wearing nothing but bandages.¡± His horrified expression didn¡¯t diminish. ¡°I hate that you¡¯re hurt.¡± ¡°No, I mean because I¡¯m not wearing a¡ª¡± She sighed. ¡°Never mind. And it¡¯s not your fault.¡± ¡°But if I had gotten up, if I had run with you¡ª¡± ¡°Hey.¡± She squeezed his hand. ¡°I chose to stay. You didn¡¯t make me. And besides, it looks like I saved you. You don¡¯t have a scratch on you.¡± He laughed; a choked, strangled thing. ¡°Yeah. Not a scratch. Except for a cut from a cracked phone.¡± ¡°Good. I like being a hero.¡± ¡°Are you going to be okay?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be fine. I feel great.¡± ¡°That¡¯s because you¡¯re high on morphine.¡± ¡°I am not high. This is a hospital. They wouldn¡¯t give me that much.¡± ¡°Those say otherwise.¡± He nodded at her wounds. She looked down. She couldn¡¯t see the one on her neck obviously, but the one on her chest was bad enough. With the bandages covering it, the wound itself wasn¡¯t visible, but from the bloodstain and area covered, it was clear it hadn¡¯t been just a scrape. ¡°That does look big. Was it bad?¡± He shrugged. ¡°That blood¡­¡± she motioned with her free hand at his shirt, ¡°it mine?¡± ¡°Some of it.¡± She seemed to sober a bit. ¡°Did¡­ did anyone die?¡± He swallowed, clenching his jaw. ¡°Oh my god. Dexter I¡¯m¡ª¡± She took a breath. ¡°Anyone we know? I know that sounds horrible but¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s not. And no, I don¡¯t think so. I don¡¯t know. I didn¡¯t see anyone I knew.¡± He remembered the boy with the banana-yellow horns. Had he made it? It wasn¡¯t as though it was easy to identify the remains. ¡°Matt¡¯s fine. I saw Zoe in the back of an ambulance, but she seemed okay enough.¡± He didn¡¯t mention that Matt had been gathered by police and was who-knew-where now. He didn¡¯t need to worry her. And he wasn¡¯t going to risk being overheard. ¡°This is¡ª¡± Leah began, but was interrupted. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± a voice said from behind Dexter, ¡°I can¡¯t give you any more time. She should rest anyway.¡± Dexter turned to find the same nurse who had led him here. He nodded absently. ¡°You have your phone?¡± he asked Leah quietly. She let go of his hand and reached under the covers, then looked surprised. ¡°What?¡± She pulled the covers down to show him. She was still wearing her shorts. That¡¯s when he noticed the outline of her sneakers under the covers. They hadn¡¯t even taken those off. ¡°Triage,¡± the nurse said. ¡°Treat the obvious injuries. Do you have any we missed? Most have been¡­ quite obvious. If clothing was intact, that meant no injury other than mild abrasions, a sprain, or the like. And that¡¯s not life-threatening.¡± Leah shrugged. ¡°I think I¡¯m okay. Not sure I¡¯d feel it.¡± She looked at Dexter and patted her pocket. ¡°Right here.¡± He nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll check on you in a few hours then.¡± He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, lingering there for long seconds. He pulled away, and they looked into each other¡¯s eyes. She took his hand in hers, intertwined her fingers among his. ¡°Dex, I¡­¡± She licked her lips, and without realizing what he was doing, he leaned down again. Their lips pressed together and his heart raced. Her grip on his hand tightened and he squeezed back. He never wanted to stop kissing her. But when he realized she was crying, he did. He pulled away, staring at the tears streaming down her cheeks. ¡°What?¡± he asked, confused. She shook her head. ¡°You jerk. I¡¯ve been waiting for you to ask me out since freshman year. I¡¯m not complaining, that was nice. But it would have been nicer if it hadn¡¯t taken an alien invasion.¡± He laughed. ¡°Yeah, well¡­¡± He trailed off, rubbing his neck awkwardly. ¡°Uh-oh,¡± Leah said, looking past him. Grateful for the distraction, he turned to see what she was looking at. And was immediately no longer grateful. The nurse was staring at them. Her mouth was open, one hand held in front of her like she¡¯d frozen in the act of raising her finger in protest. She looked somewhere between confusion and horror, as though a barista had just spit in her coffee right in front of her while making it. ¡°Oh.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± Leah assured the woman, ¡°we¡¯re step-siblings.¡± Chapter 8: Feel Like Die, Not Die By the time Reese Reed arrived home, news of the attacks had spread throughout the town and indeed the world. As he¡¯d already inferred from the leaderboard, people from all around the globe had been affected. And the second message had further confirmed this. There was still very little official word from the government and no presidential address. He wasn¡¯t sure if that was strange or not. History had never been a subject that had interested him. He would simply cram for tests then promptly forget it all when they were done. While Reese himself hadn¡¯t spent much time watching or reading the news since getting home, it was all his father was doing. That and making and taking phone calls. Reese had told him what he¡¯d seen, the students being taken and what he¡¯d overheard, and at first his father hadn¡¯t seemed interested. Then for some reason Reese couldn¡¯t intuit, he¡¯d become very interested. He¡¯d talked to Cal Winston, Mitchell High¡¯s police officer, but all he¡¯d gotten so far was that the FBI were in charge. This did not please him. ¡°I¡¯m the mayor, dammit!¡± Reese heard him yell now down in his office. Reese was up in his room, and knew for a fact it took quite a bit of noise to reach all the way up here. Reese himself was more interested in the system, but was curious what exactly the FBI were doing. At least his father was being kept busy with his quest for information, allowing Reese to continue on his own quest to learn and explore in relative peace. He wasn¡¯t ready to tell his father he¡¯d joined the system. Not yet. He needed to learn more, gather information. He knew several of his classmates had been taken by the police, or FBI, or whoever was really running things. And that several more had been injured, many bad enough to need to be taken to the hospital. And, some had died. Reese didn¡¯t know if they had a count yet. But he wasn¡¯t surprised. Whatever that monster was, stopping it wouldn¡¯t be easy. The good news was there¡¯d been no sign of it since it disappeared, nor any of the other monsters involved in all the other attacks around the world. Perhaps they had been taken back by the system. This was Reese¡¯s theory, given the second message implying that the first test was over. And Reese was doing his best to prepare for the next one. To wit, trying to find information online. He¡¯d found many Discords and many less popular alternatives where people were discussing it, but most information was disappearing rather quickly. Or at least, anything that seemed like credible information. Reese found this odd, as it seemed it would be a better strategy to simply let all the information flood online, truth and wild theories mixing until no one could tell the difference. But that wasn¡¯t what was happening. Anything that seemed remotely truthful related to the system¡¯s workings was removed. He knew the NSA had the means to scan the internet for things like this, and it made him glad he also had a VPN on. Though in this case, he wasn¡¯t sure that would be enough. So he was careful. But, with pretty much the whole world starved for information, he imagined they would have a lot to sift through. By the time they identified him¡ªif they ever did¡ªhe planned to be strong enough that it wouldn¡¯t matter. That was assuming of course they didn¡¯t beat him there. ¡°Yeah,¡± he muttered to himself, ¡°just pitting myself against the entire US spy and military complex. No biggie.¡± He did have an advantage, however. His title. Being able to turn invisible wasn¡¯t the best of abilities¡ªmore strategic or defensive than offensive¡ªbut he could use it to his advantage.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. The problem was its Unity requirement. He wasn¡¯t sure, precisely, what Unity was. Something like mana. He could feel it, he thought. A twisting sensation he wasn¡¯t in control of, like he was wringing out a towel. It was a subtle feeling, but when not running for his life it was easy to notice. He¡¯d only been able to maintain the invisibility for less than a minute, but it was still unreal and amazing. He as well as everything he was wearing or holding turned completely invisible. He didn¡¯t have a thermal camera to see if there were other ways of being detected, but he¡¯d test that out. Eventually. For now, he was looking for information online. He¡¯d discovered he could long-press on items on his stat screen to get more information on them, and even found what seemed like a way to get a class, but it didn¡¯t present a list of selections to choose from, instead it prompted him to write it in. There was no indication he¡¯d get a second chance or be able to change classes later, so he was hesitant to experiment. Which was why he was now online. But if anyone had discovered the class selector, they weren¡¯t posting about it. Most of what he found was junk. So far the most reasonable posts he¡¯d come across had been ones with theories on how the Unity thing was like cultivation, the ancient Daoist practice of cultivating a long life through meditation. And indeed, the system message had specifically mentioned cultivation. But that didn¡¯t mean they were one and the same. You could cultivate many things. Disdain, annoyance, an air of self-importance. Food. If only the messages and posts didn¡¯t keep disappearing before he could screenshot all of them. He¡¯d taken to simply recording his entire screen, but it was not the best experience. He was using his old laptop¡ªgiven his current one had a bullet lodged in it¡ªand it was seriously struggling to keep a bunch of tabs open and cycle through them while recording. He¡¯d been tempted to go downstairs and grab his dad¡¯s new MacBook which he never used, but didn¡¯t feel like risking his wrath. Especially now. He was still yelling at someone about being looped in. Reese sighed. He loved his father, but he did not know how to deal with people. He let his family¡¯s wealth and his position as mayor cloud his judgement. He was used to ordering people around and having them¡ªmostly¡ªobey with a smile. That wasn¡¯t going to work with the FBI. Reese¡¯s attention caught on a post on a Chinese forum he was scanning, his browser translating. Things on Russian and Chinese-based sites seemed to stay up for a bit longer, likely because their citizens were already used to getting around government censorship of the internet. The thing everyone knows about You know that feeling when running, feel like die, but keep running. Not die. Run and run. These are similes. You feel the same thing. It is source power. It was posted only seconds ago, but there was a response already. Are you saying to get more powerful we need to run? Or push ourselves? He didn¡¯t know if the strange grammar was intentional, or a side-effect of the translation. If only he¡¯d learned Chinese and Russian instead of Japanese and Spanish. Still, whoever posted it was smart enough not to use any trigger words that might activate government bots. Unfortunately the person who responded wasn¡¯t as oblique. He wondered why anyone bothered to share at all. Did they not care about getting beat with the very information they were sharing? ¡°Some people have no ambition.¡± Not that he wouldn¡¯t use it to his advantage. If people wanted to give away the secrets, he was more than happy to use them. Though, it could eventually become a problem if it was something he already knew. Then that would be taking away his advantage. He began formulating ways he could get them to stop, but then realized it didn¡¯t matter. Not many people would see it before it was taken down if it were on mainstream sites, and not many people visited non-mainstream sites, by definition. He copied the text of the post and pasted it into a text document, then opened a new tab with the same page to turn off the translation to copy the original. But when he did, not only was the post gone, the entire site was offline. He quickly switched back to the old tab and hovered over each line of text, letting the little translation pop up and be recorded by his screen recorder. He wanted the original, just in case. There was a treadmill in the basement he could use to test out the running theory, though he didn¡¯t love the idea. He read the message again. Simile. So then maybe it wasn¡¯t running, but pushing yourself in some way until you felt like you couldn¡¯t go on, like you were going to die. He tried using his title ability again, and tried to hang onto it. It didn¡¯t work. He didn¡¯t feel anything. His grip on the Unity simply vanished after a little less than a minute. Could it be possible that abilities from titles were somehow different? He grunted in frustration. This was a lot harder than figuring out the meta of a new game. Whatever he was going to do, he needed to do it fast. He was slipping farther and farther behind on the leaderboard. His rank was now 2,016 and dropped each time he checked it. He wanted to not look, but couldn¡¯t help himself even though all it did was anger him. Use it as fuel, he told himself. As motivation to get ahead. He would become the strongest, whatever it took. Chapter 9: Home Sweet Home Now that Dexter knew Leah was okay for the moment, he decided to leave the hospital to go home and shower and change. He needed to think. He needed to figure out what it meant to be a part of the system. Like it had said, he needed to regroup, experiment, explore. On his way out, he spotted Zoe. She indeed had twisted her ankle, but luckily wasn¡¯t hurt badly. It did mean though that she had yet to be treated. ¡°Dexter!¡± she grimaced as she got up and limped toward him. He hurried to her so she wouldn¡¯t have to walk. She hugged him. ¡°Have you seen Matt?¡± He looked around. The agents in FBI jackets were all gone, but he still spotted a few police officers. ¡°Yeah. He¡¯s¡­ fine.¡± ¡°Really? Cause your voice is making it sound like he¡¯s not. At all.¡± ¡°You waiting for your parents?¡± ¡°Out of town. Was waiting to be seen.¡± She gestured at her ankle, then around at the overcrowded hospital. ¡°I¡¯m getting the feeling I¡¯d have better luck praying to House MD than being seen before the world¡¯s blown up.¡± She sighed. ¡°You drive here, or come in an ambulance?¡± She studied his blood-stained clothes. He waved off her concern. ¡°I¡¯m fine. I drove.¡± She nodded slowly. ¡°Don¡¯t suppose you want to give me a ride home?¡± ¡°Sure.¡± ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Yeah. Why wouldn¡¯t I?¡± She shrugged. ¡°No reason I guess. You have that stupid scooter, right?¡± He raised an eyebrow. ¡°Stupid?¡± ¡°I mean, wondrous, beautiful, sexy babe magnet rocket motorcycle.¡± He laughed. ¡°That¡¯s the one.¡± ¡°Have an extra helmet?¡± ¡°I do actually.¡± ¡°Good. Would suck to die in a scooter crash after surviving an alien invasion.¡±

His place above Je-won¡¯s pizza joint would normally only be a few minutes away, but traffic was awful, vehicles loaded down with people and luggage. He couldn¡¯t understand why. Where was everyone going? The attacks had happened everywhere. There was nowhere to escape to. There¡¯d been a video taken by someone on a container ship in the middle of the ocean of the vessel swarming with human-sized squid monsters, people jumping off like they were recreating Titanic as others were wrapped up and devoured. If a container ship in the middle of the ocean wasn¡¯t safe, then these people in their luxury SUVs wouldn¡¯t be, regardless of what vacation cabin or lake house they escaped to. On his scooter he could at least thread through the worst of the traffic. ¡°What are these idiots doing?¡± Zoe complained from behind him. With their low speed and his scooter being electric, it was easy to converse. ¡°I have no idea.¡± There were several police cruisers from the county sheriff, but no FBI vehicles. At least none that were obvious. The ten-mile drive took nearly forty-five minutes, and the sun was beginning to set by the time he made it back. ¡°Uh¡­¡± Zoe looked around the alley they¡¯d stopped in. ¡°Oh, crap. I was supposed to take you home. Sorry, I totally blanked.¡± ¡°This is where you live, right?¡± Dexter nodded. The alley had employee parking for Heart&Seoul Pizzeria, Je-won¡¯s restaurant. There were no cars, which meant neither he nor Nara, his little sister and sole employee, were here. Zoe got off the scooter, winced as she put weight on her ankle, then pulled off her helmet and handed it to him. ¡°Have anything to drink?¡± Dexter wanted to explore the system, figure out what else besides making you look like a K-pop anime character it was capable of, but when he thought of dropping her off and coming back here alone, being all by himself in his apartment¡­This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Some company sounded nice. It meant delaying exploring the system interface, because he wasn¡¯t sure he wanted Zoe to know he¡¯d involuntarily joined it. He trusted her, but she liked to talk. ¡°The restaurant does,¡± he answered. ¡°And it looks like it¡¯s closed. I¡¯ll get you the key.¡± ¡°I like the way you think.¡±

Dexter¡¯s apartment was a small studio situated atop the restaurant. There were no windows except for a tiny one at ceiling height in the bathroom, the floor creaked, it was loud on weekends, the water pressure was poor, the Wi-Fi was so bad he¡¯d had to run an ethernet cable through the wall downstairs¡­ And those were only the faults he¡¯d noticed in his first week here. But it was cheap, and it was his own. And that was enough for him. Plus, he liked his landlord. Hard to ask for more. There were two ways into his apartment, both up a flight of stairs. The first was the rickety set in the alley off the back of the building, which he parked his scooter under and helped Zoe limp up. The second was out his ¡®front door¡¯ which let on to a small landing and flight of stairs that led down to a door to the pizza joint¡¯s kitchen. Which was why Dexter had a key. His little studio didn¡¯t have so much as a hotplate. He ate a lot of leftover pizza. Inside the studio apartment, Dexter grabbed the key to the kitchen door at the bottom of the staircase and handed it to Zoe. ¡°It¡¯s out that door and down the stairs. You¡¯ll be in the kitchen. The drinks are¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯ve lived in this town just as long as you and eaten here as much as anyone. I know where the alcohol is. He won¡¯t mind?¡± ¡°Just make sure you only take the cheap stuff.¡± ¡°Fine by me.¡± Dexter dug through his dresser¡ªa large old wood thing which had come with the apartment and which he could see no way to remove without disassembling it entirely¡ªfor clean clothes, then headed to the bathroom. Twenty minutes later, he exited the bathroom, freshly showered and in clean clothes. He found Zoe sitting in front of his computer, browsing social media, watching videos of the attacks all around the world. She had found the beer without issue and had several bottles on the desk beside her. Two of which were opened, one already drained. She turned to look at him, taking a drink from a beer. ¡°What¡¯s with the door?¡± He cocked an eyebrow. ¡°Door?¡± ¡°Why is there a key?¡± ¡°Why is there a key¡­ To my door?¡± He motioned at the beer bottles. ¡°How many of those have you had?¡± ¡°Not your front door¡ªor whatever you call it. That one.¡± She pointed at the door that led to the restaurant¡¯s kitchen. ¡°There¡¯s only one door at the bottom of the stairs. Stairs lead straight up here.¡± ¡°So?¡± ¡°That doesn¡¯t strike you as odd?¡± She smiled. ¡°Like, maybe the previous owner was secretly a serial killer and this was where he kept his victims locked away while he toyed with them. Have you seen any ghosts? Or had any signs of haunting?¡± ¡°No. To either. And it¡¯s not much of a prison. There¡¯s another door that leads directly outside, remember?¡± ¡°Yeah, that does kinda hurt the theory. Are those stairs new? I don¡¯t remember what this place was before Je-won.¡± ¡°No idea. But the stairs are definitely not new.¡± She shrugged, then motioned at the screen as she returned her attention to it. ¡°I can¡¯t believe this is happening.¡± Currently playing was video of an attack on the streets of what looked like NYC. Instead of one monster like had attacked the school, there were hundreds. It made him wonder how the system decided how many monsters to send. Or maybe it was random. None of them looked like the one he had seen, the one he had shared that ¡®moment¡¯ with. He looked away as someone was taken down by one of them. ¡°Yeah. Anything new?¡± ¡°Just psychos talking about the government abducting people.¡± She looked at him. ¡°I don¡¯t get it. How do people get so crazy? Like, I always thought bigfoot was a joke, but people actually believe that stuff.¡± ¡°You believe in ghosts, but bigfoot is a bridge too far?¡± ¡°Bigfoot¡¯s boring. Ghosts are cool.¡± ¡°Turns out it¡¯s not so crazy.¡± He sank down into his sofa. It was old, and smelled a little funky, but it was comfortable, and he¡¯d gotten it for free. Zoe spun around in the computer chair to face him, the beleaguered seat post letting out a squeal of protest. ¡°You believe in bigfoot?¡± ¡°The government abducting people.¡± He suddenly was worried that his apartment was bugged and they were being spied on. But that was crazy. She made a go-on motion. He sighed. ¡°I saw them rounding up altereds at school. And at the hospital.¡± She frowned. ¡°Altereds? You mean people who changed their hair or whatever?¡± ¡°Yeah. Matt was among them.¡± Her face fell. ¡°Seriously? And they took him?¡± ¡°Maybe he¡¯s fine,¡± he said hopefully. ¡°Maybe they¡¯re just being cautious.¡± He didn¡¯t exactly not believe it, but he also didn¡¯t quite believe it either. Zoe leaned to the side to free her phone from her pocket. ¡°What are you doing?¡± She wiggled the phone, widened her eyes. ¡°Calling him. Duh.¡± Dexter wasn¡¯t sure that was a good idea. ¡°Don¡¯t let on that you know they took him.¡± She already had the phone to her ear. ¡°In case anyone is listening?¡± He nodded. Several moments passed. Then several more. Zoe was frowning deeply now. She pulled the phone from her ear, looked at it, then up at him. Then she hung up. ¡°No answer. No voicemail either.¡± ¡°Does he have one? He strikes me as someone who would disable it.¡± ¡°I¡­ think so? I don¡¯t call him that often.¡± ¡°You sure seem worried about him now.¡± ¡°Well yeah, he¡¯s hot now.¡± They stared at each other for long moments. Then she cracked a smile. Dexter laughed, then she did too. ¡°K-pop hair, weird eyes, horns, and a beard made you like him that much, huh?¡± ¡°I could take or leave the horns. And I already liked him. End of the world made me decide to stop waiting for him to get the courage to ask me out.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a lot of that going around.¡± ¡°What, you finally ask Leah out?¡± she joked. ¡°Sort of.¡± ¡°Whoa, seriously? How is she?¡± ¡°Shocked, but I think she¡¯ll recover. She was expecting it.¡± She kicked at the air between them, not even coming close to hitting him. She winced. ¡°Ow. And I meant from the attack.¡± ¡°I know. And, physically, yeah.¡± ¡°Yeah¡­¡± A knock at the door interrupted their awkward moment. They froze, staring once more into each other¡¯s eyes, this time in fear. How had they tracked Leah¡¯s phone already? Dexter wondered. They couldn¡¯t have. They must have been waiting here. But that made no sense. What do we do? Zoe mouthed. Chapter 10: Unexpected Guest The knock came again. ¡°Dex? You in there dongsaeng?¡± Dexter let out a huge sigh and heaved himself off the couch. ¡°Je-won?¡± Zoe cursed in relief, hand to her heart. ¡°Yes,¡± Je-won answered from the other side of the thin door. ¡°I saw your scooter. Thought you might be hungry.¡± Dexter opened the door and found Je-won standing on the stoop of the second-story landing. And he wasn¡¯t without gifts. He held a large pizza box in front of him, and the smell made Dexter¡¯s stomach rumble with hunger. Je-won Yun was in his early thirties, and, being Korean, looked even younger. He had a welcoming face and was usually always smiling. But not now. ¡°Brought you dinner.¡± ¡°Hyeong!¡± Dexter surprised himself by hugging the man. ¡°Whoa,¡± Je-won said, holding the pizza away and patting Dexter¡¯s back with his free hand. Dexter released him. ¡°Sorry, it¡¯s just¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. I heard about the attack at school.¡± He chuckled without humor. ¡°I guess everyone has by this point.¡± Dexter nodded. ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s good to see you. Come in.¡± He stepped away to let him inside. ¡°Oh, you have company,¡± Je-won said on entering. Zoe waved at him. ¡°Hey Oppa. Thanks for scaring us like that. Pizza makes up for it though. I¡¯m starving after waiting in the hospital all day.¡± ¡°Hi Zoe.¡± He turned to Dexter, his smile returning, and gave him a wink. ¡°I¡¯ll just leave this with you.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not like that,¡± Zoe assured him. ¡°My future boyfriend¡¯s been kidnapped by the Men in Black. And we thought you were them.¡± Je-won¡¯s smile vanished. ¡°I heard about that too. People who used the system to alter themselves being taken.¡± ¡°You heard?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°I didn¡¯t take you for the type to buy into conspiracies.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a conspiracy. Nara saw some students being taken away. You didn¡¯t notice?¡± Zoe glanced at Dexter. ¡°I did,¡± Dexter said. ¡°At the hospital too.¡± Nara was Je-won¡¯s younger sister. She was a grade ahead of them, so had graduated last year. ¡°What was Nara doing at school?¡± ¡°Picking up Jason.¡± Jason Kang was Nara and Je-won¡¯s cousin. He was in Dexter¡¯s history class. ¡°Glad to hear he¡¯s okay,¡± Dexter said. ¡°I lost track of him after the attack. Was that what you texted about?¡± ¡°Not exactly.¡± Je-won set the pizza down on the coffee table, took a seat on the couch, then looked at both of them in turn. ¡°Have either of you¡­ used it?¡± ¡°No way,¡± Zoe said, scooting her chair closer to the coffee table, popping open the pizza box, and grabbing a slice. ¡°I''m not crazy.¡± She leaned back, took a huge bite, and moaned. ¡°So good.¡±Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Je-won looked at Dexter, raising an eyebrow. Dexter shook his head. ¡°I never signed my name.¡± This wasn''t a lie, but he still felt bad. He wanted to tell Je-won the whole truth. He wanted to tell both of them. He wasn''t sure why he was keeping it to himself. Again, he suddenly thought of being alone in this apartment. Exploring the system by himself. Alone. He didn¡¯t want to be alone. He¡¯d had enough of that. He sighed and took a seat on the couch next to Je-won. ¡°Zoe,¡± he said to her solemnly, ¡°you need to keep this between us.¡± She froze in the process of taking another bite of pizza and leaned in, interested. ¡°Keep what between us, Dexter?¡± ¡°I¡¯m serious. You have a bad habit of sharing secrets.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what they¡¯re for.¡± He glared. ¡°Fine.¡± She crossed her heart and zipped her lips. ¡°Won¡¯t tell a soul.¡± She took another bite. He let out a breath. There was no going back once he told her. But she wasn¡¯t a liar. If anything, she had the opposite problem. ¡°I didn¡¯t sign my name, but I did join the system.¡± ¡°What does that mean?¡± Je-won asked. ¡°I don''t know. In the school auditorium, when that thing attacked, it just stared me down. I got a achievement or title or something. I got a message saying welcome to the system.¡± ¡°You joined the system?¡± Zoe asked, chewing. "I didn''t take you for an idiot.¡± ¡°It sounds like he didn¡¯t have much choice.¡± Dexter nodded. ¡°Yeah. I didn''t try to join it, it just happened without my input." ¡°Have you explored it at all?¡± Je-won asked. ¡°I haven¡¯t had the chance. After the attack I was at the hospital waiting to see Leah and I didn¡¯t want to draw attention to myself¡ªthere were police and FBI¡ªand then I came straight back here.¡± ¡°Then I think now might be the time to do so.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Zoe asked, polishing off her slice and going for another. ¡°Because it has¡­ benefits.¡± Je-won held out his fist as though he were holding an invisible ice cream cone, except there was nothing in his hand. ¡°Uh,¡± Zoe said, ¡°are we¡ª¡± Suddenly a shape materialized from his hand, extending out up into the air, as though little nanobots were forming an item of gleaming silver and gold. Dexter and Zoe watched in awe as a massive sword that glowed with a laser edge formed in the smiling pizza-maker¡¯s hand. ¡°No way. Bad ass, Je-won.¡± ¡°You joined the system?¡± Dexter asked. ¡°Yes. Like you, I did not have much choice. I was forced into it, but not in the same manner you were. That monster that attacked your school wasn¡¯t the only one in Havenport.¡± ¡°Did you fight one?¡± Dexter asked. Je-won nodded. ¡°With that?¡± Dexter gestured with his chin at the sword. He shook his head. ¡°Unfortunately not. I didn''t have this when I fought it. I was forced to use a pizza peel.¡± ¡°A pizza peel?¡± Zoe asked incredulously. ¡°Yes. When you were down there stealing my beers, I don''t suppose you noticed the mess in the dining room?¡± Zoe stiffened, her face going red. Her arm shot out in Dexter¡¯s direction. ¡°He said you wouldn''t mind.¡± ¡°Oh sure, just blame me.¡± ¡°I will. Because it''s true.¡± ¡°It''s fine. There are bigger problems to worry about than some teenagers getting buzzed.¡± Zoe took a bite of her pizza then held out her beer, tipping it in Je-won¡¯s direction. ¡°Cheers to that,¡± she mumbled through a full mouth, then guzzled some beer. ¡°So you actually fought one of them,¡± Dexter said, thinking. ¡°And if you have a sword, I¡¯m guessing you beat it and somehow got money or something?¡± He recalled what Matt had called them after his clothes had disappeared in class when this had first happened. ¡°Credits? Or was it a reward? Did you get a title? Did you try anything else? We should¡ª¡± Je-won chuckled, holding up his hand. ¡°Okay, okay. Slow down.¡± He laid the sword across his legs, edge pointing away from Dexter. ¡°Yes, I received credits and experience¡ªor points, not sure they¡¯re the same. But that¡¯s not how I bought this.¡± He waved his hand over the blade. ¡°I received a title, The First Slayer, which awarded me it. Though I wasn''t the one who struck the first blow.¡± ¡°Who did?¡± ¡°Nara.¡± ¡°Hold up,¡± Zoe mumbled, swallowing her pizza and washing it down with a swig of beer. ¡°You and your sister fought a monster together?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°And then you come bring us pizza?¡± She looked at Dexter. ¡°Remember what I said about the previous landlord? I think it might apply to the current one as well.¡± ¡°You think he¡¯s a serial killer?¡± Je-won¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°What?¡± Zoe snorted. ¡°No, I meant crazy.¡± She laughed. ¡°That¡¯s funny though.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad you think so,¡± Je-won said under his breath as Zoe continued laughing. To Dexter he added, ¡°You may want to cut her off.¡± Dexter nodded, but Zoe shook her head and waved her hand to ward him off. ¡°Sorry. I¡¯m fine. It was just¡ª The look on your face. It¡¯s just kinda crazy that you two fought a monster together and then you just go on like a normal day. Is she down there or did she go home like a normal person?¡± ¡°She was hurt,¡± Je-won said softly. Zoe''s humor melted away. ¡°Oh¡­ Je-won I''m sorry. I didn¡¯t¡ª Is¡ª How is she? She¡¯s okay, right?¡± Chapter 11: Uninvited Guest 12:04 PM ¨C Fifty-Nine Minutes Until System Arrival Je-won slides a pizza in the oven with the practiced ease of a man who¡¯s performed the motion a thousand times before. He closes the door and opens the one below it, the sweet scent of dough mixed with the tangy aroma of tomatoes and spices and savory waft of mozzarella pleasantly washing over him. He smiles at the familiar m¨¦lange and slides the pizza peel under the perfectly cooked pizza, pulling it out, knocking the oven door closed with a knee, and boxing the pie in one smooth motion. ¡°Delivery ready,¡± he calls out as he closes the box. Nara, his nineteen-year-old little sister, appears from the dining room. ¡°Topher wants a small Bulgogi,¡± she tells him as she pulls off her apron and grabs the keys to her car. ¡°Is he ditching again?¡± ¡°Probably.¡± Je-won shakes his head. ¡°Such a shame. He¡¯s so smart.¡± Nara chuckles. ¡°Probably why he ditches. He¡¯s too smart. He was actually working on an assignment. While I was talking to him. For a college class.¡± ¡°He¡¯s taking them already?¡± She shakes her head. ¡°Not officially. Some online thing. Way smarter than his brother.¡± ¡°Is that bitterness I hear?¡± ¡°As if. Anyway, where¡¯s this going?¡± ¡°The Bayard¡¯s.¡± ¡°Old or young?¡± ¡°Uh¡­¡± She tsks. ¡°They live next door to each other. I¡¯ll figure it out. Be back in ten. Can you handle the dining room while I¡¯m gone?¡± ¡°I got along just fine before you.¡± ¡°Keep telling yourself that,¡± she calls, exiting out the back door. Je-won shakes his head, and gets to work on Topher¡¯s pizza. Despite having named his restaurant Heart&Seoul, most of the time Je-won doesn¡¯t get to make many Korean-style pizzas. Mainly over summer and holiday breaks when students are home from college. Most days there will be an order or three at most. He relishes each one. The Bulgogi menu item is one such Korean-style pizza, with a chewy sweet-potato crust topped with barbeque-beef, spicy garlic sauce, fresh scallions, and a dash of chopped cilantro. It¡¯s served up with a side of kimchi¡ªhis grandmother¡¯s secret recipe¡­ which she¡¯ll share with anyone willing to listen. It¡¯s one of his personal favorites, and he enjoys making it as much or more as he does eating it. Je-won looks over the ingredients bar, smiles, and rubs his hands together. ¡°Let¡¯s do this.¡± 12:32 PM ¨C Thirty-One Minutes Until System Arrival ¡°How is it?¡± Je-won asks, watching Topher dig in to his pizza. The young teen nods enthusiastically. ¡°Perfect as always,¡± he answers while still chewing. Je-won makes a cha-ching gesture, causing Topher to laugh and spray a bit of pizza on the table. ¡°Don¡¯t waste it now.¡± Topher covers his mouth, smiling as he shakes his head and waves his hand at Je-won. There¡¯s a lull in customers today due to the festival at the lake, so they are the only two in the restaurant. Je-won looks out the large front windows as Old Man Parker walks by. He keeps a tight schedule for someone in his eighties, Je-won thinks wryly, and smiles. ¡°Well,¡± he tells Topher, ¡°I¡¯ll let you enjoy your meal. I have another pizza to make.¡± 12:48 PM ¨C Fifteen Minutes Until System ArrivalThis story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it By the time Nara returns from her delivery, Topher has finished his pizza and is sipping on a boba tea Je-won just made for him. Je-won is the all-purpose, one-stop-shop for all edible things Asian in their little town of Havenport. And he enjoys the position. It helps him earn more than just running a pizzeria alone in this small town would. And it sure does help on his taxes. So his aunt tells him. He doesn¡¯t know anything about them himself. ¡°Perfect timing,¡± he tells Nara as she walks into the kitchen. ¡°Another one¡¯s ready to go.¡± She is putting her apron back on, but groans and tosses it back on the hook. ¡°I just had to listen to Mrs Bayard complain for twenty minutes about her son-in-law. And then she apologized¡ªnot very sincerely¡ªand told me the pizza was for him.¡± ¡°Did he complain about it being late?¡± ¡°No. I told him what happened and he gave me a ten-dollar tip. Said he felt sorry for me.¡± ¡°Well there you go then.¡± She grunts. ¡°Where to this time?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t even need to drive. Master Wu¡¯s.¡± Master Wu¡¯s is the town¡¯s kung fu studio and is only a block and a half away. ¡®Master Wu¡¯ is actually named Brad, but he once told Je-won Wu sounded cooler than his actual last name. He got the name from some video game he¡¯d played as a kid. His actual last name was Wang, and he had enough of Wang jokes to last him a lifetime. So he picked Master Wu. Nara sighs, takes the extra-large Thai-chicken pizza, and leaves again, this time heading out the front door. 1:02 PM ¨C One Minute Until System Arrival The day normally goes on in this manner, a few pizza deliveries an hour during the lunch rush, then one or two an hour after that. But not this day. And not just because of the festival. Nara is pulling out a large pepperoni while Je-won unloads dough balls from the freezer, when something strange happens. ¡°This one for orders or slices?¡± she asks. ¡°Slices.¡± ¡°Want me to cut it up?¡± ¡°If you¡¯re not too busy.¡± ¡°I do have a full schedule, but I¡¯ll squeeze it in for my favorite big brother.¡± ¡°Yes, favorite.¡± He shuts the freezer door. ¡°I¡¯d be more impressed if you had another big brother to choose from.¡± ¡°But then you wouldn¡¯t be my favorite,¡± she says innocently. He chuckles. ¡°One day¡ª¡± He¡¯s interrupted by a wall of text suddenly appearing in front of him. Odder still, there¡¯s a large smiley face accompanying the text. They both freeze for several long moments, then look at each other. ¡°Did you¡­¡± Nara begins. Je-won nods. ¡°A message.¡± ¡°Aliens?¡± Je-won shrugs, reaching out to try to touch the text. He recoils when he can actually feel it. Then the message dissolves and a new one appears. Enter name to begin analysis: Je-won points at the message. ¡°Can you see this?¡± Nara frowns, looking where he is pointing. ¡°No. I mean, yes, but I think we¡¯re seeing different things. Mine¡¯s moving as I look around. It¡¯s like that game you force me to play.¡± ¡°I thought you liked Valorant.¡± ¡°I like Sam.¡± Je-won rolls his eyes. ¡°You¡¯re not in Seoul. You were born here. You can date like an American.¡± ¡°Tell that to Mom. Every guy I go out with she compares to Ben and tells me I¡¯m a fool for letting him go and that I need to win him back, then tries to give me ¡®How to Please Your Man¡¯ articles to read.¡± ¡°Is that what those were for? I¡¯ve wondered why she was clipping them out all the time.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a whole stack in my desk I¡¯m too afraid to throw out for fear she¡¯ll find them and think I read them and ask for details on how it went.¡± Nara¡¯s eyes narrow. ¡°Are¡­ are we in shock?¡± Je-won considers, then nods slowly. ¡°I think we might be.¡± Once, he would have been quicker to react. But those days were long past and a lifetime ago. ¡°What should we do?¡± ¡°See if it¡¯s just us.¡± He has one of the large iPad¡¯s mounted on a wall for tracking orders, which he goes to now, swiping up to bring up a list of open apps and selecting Safari. He doesn¡¯t even need to search before seeing the breaking news: Strange Message, Hoax or Truth? ¡°Well, that rules out being crazy.¡± Nara sighs. ¡°I¡¯m still holding out for hoax.¡± Je-won taps on the headline to load the article. ¡°I doubt it. You can feel it.¡± ¡°Feel what? The iPad?¡± ¡°The text in the message. It feels smooth and squishy. Somewhat like squid.¡± Nara¡¯s face scrunches up. ¡°Ew.¡± Despite her heritage and her mother¡¯s and Je-won¡¯s best attempts, she is American through and through and not one for Korean dishes. If it wasn¡¯t for the explosion of K-pop and K-dramas when she was growing up, she probably wouldn¡¯t even be able to speak Korean. ¡°Is yours still the original message?¡± he asks her. ¡°Uh, yeah. It hasn¡¯t changed as far as I can tell. It¡¯s weird. It¡¯s still there, but doesn¡¯t get in the way.¡± ¡°Try touching it.¡± She grimaces. ¡°Go on,¡± he urges. Hesitantly, she reaches out for what looks to Je-won like thin air. Her hand jerks back. ¡°Gross.¡± Then she frowns. ¡°Says to enter my name now.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t.¡± ¡°No kidding,¡± she says sarcastically. The news is useless. Nothing that isn¡¯t in the message. Whether it¡¯s hoax or not, he is going to treat it like it¡¯s real. Long-forgotten training takes over and he moves into action. Whether any dangers are actually coming, they need to do their best to prepare as if they are. ¡°Turn the ovens off,¡± he tells Nara, gathering up the keys to both their cars and locking the back door. Nara obeys without question. He calls his mom. ¡°Have you seen?¡± she asks in Korean as soon as she picks up. ¡°Are you and grandma okay?¡± he asks, automatically switching to Korean. ¡°Of course we¡¯re okay. You need to¡ª¡± ¡°Yes, we¡¯re coming home.¡± ¡°Nara¡¯s with you?¡± ¡°She is. I need to go. Lock your doors, don¡¯t let anyone in. We¡¯ll be there soon.¡± ¡°Jason¡¯s at¡ª¡± ¡°I know. We¡¯ll get him. Don¡¯t worry. Is Aunt Ji-yeon there?¡± Ji-yeon Seong was Jason¡¯s mother, and Je-won¡¯s mother¡¯s much-younger sister, not that much older than Je-won himself. ¡°We¡¯re finally watching Squid Game. We were. Now we¡¯re watching the news.¡± ¡°Good. Tell her not to worry about Jason.¡± She snorts. ¡°I might as well tell the sun not to rise.¡± ¡°I have to go, Mom. See you soon.¡± Nara is staring at him. He thinks it¡¯s the first time he¡¯s seen her truly scared. ¡°Come on,¡± he says in English. ¡°We need to get Topher out of here.¡± In the dining room, Topher is frowning into space. ¡°Toph?¡± Nara asks. He looks at them, studies their faces. ¡°It¡¯s real, isn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°The message is,¡± Je-won answers. ¡°Nara¡¯s going to take you home.¡± ¡°And what are you going to do?¡± she asks. He sighs. He knows that tone. ¡°Pick Jason up then head home.¡± She begins to protest, but then the huge windows taking up most of the restaurant¡¯s front explode inward. Chapter 12: Unwanted Guest Topher cries out as shards of glass spray him and he falls to the floor. Je-won is on top of Nara. He reacted before he knew what he was doing, the injury that had ended his first career not enough to slow his reflexes. He doesn¡¯t have time to ask if she is hurt, as only a few paces away are the feet of¡­ something. He flicks his eyes up, not moving any other muscle. It¡¯s a monster. This is the only description that fits. It is at least seven feet tall and covered in what looks like dirty oil. It has two legs that end in clawed feet like a bird¡¯s, but so much larger and more menacing. The talons are as long as his hand and half as thick. Its face looks like the skull of some deep-sea horror, and its arms, of which there are three, appear boneless yet heavily muscled, tipped with two articulating claws that flick frantically at the air like an out-of-control firehose. ¡°Don¡¯t move,¡± he whispers to Nara. Her eyes are wide and he can feel her short rapid breaths on his neck; the chaotic, stuttering rise and fall of her chest and abdomen. His phone digs painfully into his thigh, but he doesn¡¯t dare move. A few feet away Topher is sitting on the floor, bloody, covered in cuts, but smart enough to stay silent as he stares in horror at the monster. His half-drunk boba tea is in a puddle on the floor beside him, the little tapioca balls mixed with shards of glass. The monster moves, glass crunching under its feet. Its head stays fixed in place, but it moves its three arms slowly about, the three pairs of claws making jittery motions in the air. It has no eyes Je-won can see, nor any nose. It does have a mouth. Despite seeming to be covered in oil, the only footprints it leaves are disturbances in the shattered glass. Glass which bothers it not at all. Je-won feels himself sweating, feels the memories coming back. It¡¯s been nearly a decade since he left that life behind, and now he feels like he¡¯s right back in it. The monster knocks over a table with one of its arms and it crashes to the ground. The arm snaps toward the noise and the table is severed cleanly in two. They need to stay far away from those claws. Can it not see? he wonders. But if it can hear, that¡¯s worse. If they move at all, the glass will make noise, and they will end up like that table. But how good is its hearing? Nara¡¯s breaths aren¡¯t quiet, and when he whispered for her not to move, the monster didn¡¯t notice. He leans down and puts his mouth by her ear, eyes staying fixed on the creature. ¡°Whatever happens, don¡¯t move, stay quiet.¡± He leans away, glares into her eyes. She gives the faintest of nods, but he can see her reluctance. She knows he was in the military, but not what he did there. He¡¯s told only one civilian, Dexter, and only then because he saw the boy was spiraling after the death of first one parent, then the other. He moves slowly, the creature nearing the entrance to the kitchen, where the ovens will be faintly ticking as they cool down. With the door closed, it likely isn¡¯t able to hear this. His foot slips slightly, a tinkle of glass, and he freezes. The monster doesn¡¯t seem to have heard, its arms swiping the air in front of it. Searching. Je-won continues pushing himself up until he¡¯s on his knees. Nara grimaces and he sees one of her legs is bent awkwardly. He hopes it¡¯s not broken. He looks at Topher, waves his hand to get his attention, then puts his finger to his lips and indicates to stay where he is.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The boy, wide-eyed, nods slowly. Je-won gets to his feet, looking at the monster, which is now behind the checkout counter, arms waving. It bumps into the cash register with one of them, and both of its others slash at the device, destroying it. The front of the restaurant is open to the outside now, but the bulk of the broken glass litters the ground in front of it. Exiting that way would be noisy. The door to the kitchen is shut. He wishes they left it open, then maybe it would go to investigate the sound of the ovens cooling. Perhaps it still will. Break down the door like it did to the front of the restaurant, leaving the three of them free to escape. But he can¡¯t count on that. The message still floats in front of him, visible, but, like Nara said, not getting in the way. Enter name to begin analysis: He isn¡¯t sure what will happen if he does, but one line from that first message sticks in his mind: I will aid you as much as I am able. He has no reason to believe it¡¯s true, but he is willing to risk it to protect Nara. At the very worst, he can distract the monster while she and Topher escape. If he can get her to leave him behind. Slowly, he raises his arm, worried of making the slightest noise. He still isn¡¯t convinced the creature can¡¯t see, but right now it¡¯s facing away from him. He takes the opportunity to enter his name. Out of habit, he writes it in Korean. The system doesn¡¯t have a problem recognizing it. Processing¡­ Application accepted. Initiating¡­ System activated. You have been awarded a starting ability. Welcome to the system, ???. Je-won waits several tense seconds, but nothing more happens. He tries touching the message, and it disappears, leaving his vision unobscured. He swipes at the air where the message had been. New text slides out from the side of his vision, this one with a mist behind it like frosted glass. ??? Leaderboard Rank: 99,602 Score: 0 Level: None Class: None Attributes ¡à Agility (Novice 9) ¡à Endurance (Novice 9) ¡à Strength (Novice 9) ¡à Durability (Novice 8) ¡à Intelligence (Novice 8) ¡à Vision (Novice 8) ¡à Hearing (Novice 5) ¡à Smell (Novice 4) ¡à Taste (Novice 4) ¡à Touch (Novice 2) Abilities ¡à Controlled Shot Skills ¡à Control (Novice 10) ¡à Firearms (Novice 7) ¡à First-aid (Novice 4) ¡à Hand-to-hand Combat (Novice 7) ¡à Knives (Novice 8) ¡à Perception (Novice 9) ¡à Piloting (Novice 5) Titles ¡à None He touches the Controlled Shot ability. Controlled Shot Unity Drain: Very Low Description: Control projectiles after they are launched. Does not increase processing speed nor enhance vision nor reflexes to accommodate fast-moving projectiles. So much for aid. He hasn¡¯t fired a weapon in years, and he certainly doesn¡¯t have any at the restaurant. It might work on thrown objects, but that wouldn¡¯t help. They will have to do this on their own. He looks at Nara, points at her leg. Can you walk? he mouths, and mimics the action with his fingers. She moves her leg ever-so-slightly, grimaces, but then nods. Good. He points at Topher, then the door, then himself and the monster. Nara stares, uncomprehending. Go, he mouths, gesturing at the door. Nara shakes her head. Subtly, but firmly. Je-won scowls at her and points harshly at her then the door, then glares at her. She withers under that look, and it nearly breaks his heart. He never wanted to show his sister this side of him. Meekly, she nods, and this does break him. Nara is a lot of things, but meek is not among them. If it¡¯s what it takes to keep her safe, he¡¯ll do it. He¡¯ll do whatever¡¯s necessary. When he turns back to the monster, he finds it utterly still. And facing him. It does have eyes, it turns out. Three of them. Tiny slits with silver glinting eyeballs. And they¡¯re staring right at him. ¡°Go!¡± he yells to Nara, and charges the monster. Chapter 13: Escape The monster raises its muscled, boneless arms, ready to strike as Je-won charges at it. But he jukes at the last moment and the claws on the end of those arms swipe through empty air as Je-won leaps over the counter and slams into the kitchen door, throwing it open and heading into the kitchen itself. The sound of claws striking the doorframe explodes in his ears a moment after he¡¯s through. It¡¯s fast, he reminds himself. Very fast. He goes straight for his magnetic knife-strip and pulls down the biggest chef¡¯s knife he has, then a meat cleaver he rarely uses ever since he started getting his meat from Thomlinson¡¯s Prime Cuts. He whirls around, expecting the monster to be bearing down on him. But it¡¯s stopped in the doorway to the kitchen. Two of its boneless arms waver in his direction, but the third is directed behind it. Its massive body fills the opening, and so he can¡¯t see past it to know if Nara and Topher have escaped yet. He bangs the butt of the knife on the stainless-steel counter beside him, sending a loud, sharp crack echoing through the room. The creature¡¯s arms move more frantically, but still it does not advance. He notes for the first time that the thing is entirely silent. It doesn¡¯t roar, or screech, or make any noise at all. And so they stand in their quiescence, eyes locked. It unnerves him. More than anything he¡¯s ever experienced. There¡¯s a sudden thud on the door leading to the alley. More of them? Je-won thinks. He¡¯s trapped. The handle jiggles. He resists turning to look at the sound, not wanting to take his eyes off the clear and present danger. The door is metal, but he has no illusions that it will hold. Then it sounds like it¡¯s being unlocked. A distraction? If they are that smart¡ª The door bursts open. He whirls, ready to fight. But it¡¯s not a monster he finds limping toward him. ¡°Nara! I told you to run!¡± ¡°Like I¡¯m going to leave you here alone.¡± She casts about the kitchen, eyes alighting on the stainless-steel pizza peel near the oven and rushes to it, taking it up. Je-won curses. Ever since his injury in the military she has felt like it was her job to protect him. She has no idea what he is capable of. The official story is the ubiquitous training accident, but that is not even close to the truth of what happened. His hair covers the scar, and the surgeons altered it so it looks less like a bullet wound and more like the claimed training accident.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. But she doesn¡¯t know any of that, doesn¡¯t realize he knows how to fight better than she¡ªhopefully¡ªever will know. The monster is running its claws over the door frame now. What is it doing? Toying with them? But why? It doesn¡¯t matter now. His only goal was to hold it off long enough for Nara and Topher to escape. Like all plans, they never survive contact. ¡°Where¡¯s Topher?¡± he asks Nara. ¡°Outside.¡± ¡°Okay. We¡¯re leaving. We¡¯ll lock the door behind us. That might hold it temporarily.¡± ¡°Finally, you come to your senses.¡± She looks down at the pizza peel, tilts her head, then lets go with one hand and taps at the air. ¡°What are you doing? Go, I¡¯ll follow.¡± The pizza peel glows briefly. ¡°What was that?¡± ¡°Enchant Metal. It¡¯s¡ª¡± She is cut off as the monster steps through the doorway. ¡°Go!¡± She doesn¡¯t need to be told a third time, and darts for the exit. But she waits at the door for him. Je-won runs for it, dashing through and she slams it shut behind him. Nara stares at the door as though waiting for impact. ¡°Will it hold?¡± ¡°Will it hold?¡± he asks incredulously. ¡°Yeah, stupid question.¡± ¡°Where are the cars?¡± ¡°Me and Topher pulled them around front.¡± ¡°Why? And you let him drive?¡± She shakes her head. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I wasn¡¯t thinking. I¡¯m a little stressed out.¡± He puts a closed fist on her shoulder, the one holding the cleaver. ¡°It¡¯s okay.¡± He sees Topher standing a few feet from them. He has blood all over, but none of the wounds are life-threatening so far as Je-won can tell. ¡°Still have your keys?¡± he asks Nara, stowing the chef¡¯s knife under his arm and feeling for his own. She nods. ¡°They¡¯re in the cars. I used your spare to move yours.¡± He pulls out his own keys just in case, then walks over to Topher and hands him the giant meat cleaver. ¡°Carry this for me.¡± Topher takes it, looking frightened. ¡°Just hold it. You don¡¯t need to use it. If I drop this,¡± he holds the knife up, ¡°throw the cleaver to me.¡± Topher nods numbly. Je-won goes to the door, listens. Then he bangs on it several times. ¡°Go,¡± he whispers, and the three proceed out of the alley, each clutching a weapon. There¡¯s only one other building before the next cross street, and they turn down it, heading around front of the building where their cars are waiting. They pause at the corner, just out of sight of the front of the restaurant. Je-won spots the cars, parked chaotically in the street. No damage to them. And they¡¯re both quietly idling. Good. But it¡¯s unusually quiet and empty, even for Havenport. Where is everyone? The festival, he remembers. Have they been attacked too? Je-won tries not to think of the death toll if so. How many more of these monsters are there? He has Nara and Topher to focus on right now. Save the ones you can. ¡°It¡¯s in the kitchen for now,¡± he whispers as they stand at the corner, ¡°so we need to move quickly before it comes out again. You and Topher get in your car and leave.¡± ¡°I am not leav¡ª¡± ¡°Dammit Nara, just listen to me for once. I know what I¡¯m doing. I¡¯m not a cripple.¡± She looks hurt, but nods. ¡°Sorry. I know. It¡¯s just. I¡ª¡± ¡°Go.¡± She does. Topher looks at the cleaver, then at Je-won. ¡°Keep it. Use it if you have to, but remember what I said.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± the boy says, and follows Nara to her car. Je-won goes last, keeping an eye on the destroyed frontage of his restaurant, putting himself between it and the other two. He sees no movement inside. The angle is wrong to see through the door into the kitchen, but the dining room appears empty. Nara and Topher reach her car, and the sound of their doors opening seem like a gunshot in the unnaturally quiet day. Nara glances at him, and he waves for her to get in. It can¡¯t have heard, he tells himself, and keeps moving toward his own vehicle. Thankfully, Topher, despite his obvious shock, knows to only click his door shut. Je-won reaches his car just as Nara puts hers into reverse. That must have been the one Topher drove, as it¡¯s parked haphazardly, its bumper nearly touching a fire hydrant. His own car is parked staggered a few feet behind. She¡¯ll have to back up before she can leave. As he¡¯s opening his door, he glances again into the restaurant. The dining room is no longer empty, the monster no longer in the kitchen. It¡¯s standing a few feet inside the broken windows, just beyond the worst of the shattered glass. As though it knew walking on the glass would alert them. Its three silvery eyes are open, and they all fix on him. Its head moves. Not a tilt, exactly. A taunt, he thinks. It¡¯s taunting me. Then it turns its monstrous visage toward Nara¡¯s car. And charges. Chapter 14: He Who Fights Monsters Nara sees the creature leap through the already shattered window onto the street and slams on the gas as Je-won dashes toward it, knife at the ready. Before he can reach it, it leaps again, right over his head. Nara¡¯s car slams into Je-won¡¯s parked behind her, then she throws it into drive, front tires spinning as she begins to take off. She¡¯s going to make it, he tells himself, watching the monster descend, headed right for her. She¡¯s going to make it. But she doesn¡¯t. The monster somehow alters its trajectory while in midair and lands on the hood of her car just as it¡¯s gaining speed and in the same instant slashes with all three of its arms at the windshield, exploding it inward. The car comes to a sudden halt. Nara is screaming. Je-won rushes the creature as it raises its arms to strike again, no windshield to protect his sister this time. He doesn¡¯t realize he¡¯s screaming too. He reaches the car, lifts the knife, and uses his strength and momentum to thrust it into the monster¡¯s side. It doesn¡¯t penetrate, the oil-slick skin somehow deflecting the blade. Je-won¡¯s momentum works against him and he crashes onto the hood behind the monster then falls to the ground, his head knocking into the asphalt and making his vision flash purple. He hears the car being shifted into park, then a car door opening as he pushes himself up, dazed. He sees Nara getting out. ¡°No!¡± But she doesn¡¯t listen. She¡¯s clutching her pizza peel, and slashes at the monster with it. It looks ridiculous, but the result is anything but, and chills Je-won to the bone. The monster isn¡¯t mute, it turns out. It finally makes a sound, and both he and Nara fall to their knees, hands over their ears at the awful noise. It does no good. The cry it lets out is not high-pitched, but like that of a building collapsing, and their hands can do nothing to prevent it from penetrating their ears and every inch of their being. It is large, but even still, the volume of sound far outstrips something that size should be able to produce. As suddenly as it started, it stops, and Je-won looks up to find the monster glaring at Nara. Its three silver glinting eyes are not human, not remotely, but he still sees hate in them. ¡°Bastard!¡± comes a cry and then something hits the monster with a quiet thud and falls to the car¡¯s hood with a louder thunk. It turns its skull-head to appraise its attacker. Like a bird, it twists almost one-hundred and eighty degrees. Topher stands beside the car from where he¡¯d thrown the cleaver, and now stares in frozen horror at the monster. ¡°Oppa!¡± Nara calls and Je-won turns just in time to see a pizza peel flying at him. He stands, catches it, and continues the motion, swinging it at the beast. Though his knife hadn¡¯t affected it, this had hurt it, likely because of whatever Nara had done to it. He is counting on it to do so again. It lands in the thing¡¯s side and continues through, opening a large gash, oily smoke oozing out of the wound. Its head snaps back in Je-won¡¯s direction, its three boneless arms already moving for him. But this time, he¡¯s faster. He cuts the arms, two with one stroke, and they fall to the ground, still squirming as the monster roars in pain. Fighting the effects of that terrible noise, feeling like his ears are going to start bleeding, like his body will burst, Je-won leaps out of the way of the third attack and spins, bringing the pizza peel down again on the creature¡¯s final arm as it begins to raise it for another assault, severing it cleanly and carrying all the way through the front quarter panel of Nara¡¯s car and down into the asphalt where it narrowly avoids slicing his foot off. He yanks it free with ease, jumps onto the hood, nearly slips off, then brings the peel down with all his might on the giant monster¡¯s head just as it tries to face him. It parts like he¡¯s separating dough, goes all the way through its skull-head, into its torso, silencing its rumbling wail, and out its genital-less groin. Two halves of the monster fall to the ground as the swing¡¯s momentum takes Je-won from his feet. He slams into the hood, then topples off, landing in one half of the monster¡¯s corpse. It padded his fall, at least. Everything is silent, save for his labored breath and the idling cars.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. The sky above is bright and blue, and does not seem to fit the scene. Nara leans in, obstructing his view. ¡°Wow,¡± is all she says. A new message appears floating in front of his face. Congratulations, you have been awarded a new title: ?The First Slayer?

Je-won gets to his feet, looks over at the monster¡¯s corpse, down at the pizza peel, then up at his sister. ¡°You joined the system, then?¡± ¡°I had to help.¡± ¡°And you did. My knife did nothing. This did.¡± She smiles and moves to hug him, but cries out as she stumbles. ¡°Your leg,¡± he says, dropping the peel and rushing to catch her. ¡°I¡¯m okay. It¡¯s not broken or anything. Just strained. You weigh a lot more than you look.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I should have been more careful.¡± ¡°You were protecting me.¡± She looks up at him, and in her expression he sees the little girl she once was, looking up to her big brother, back before she thought it was her job to keep him safe. ¡°Thanks, Oppa-san.¡± He smiles. When she was little this is what she would call him, partly because she watched anime and would get Korean and Japanese confused, but mainly to annoy their mother. He glances at Topher. ¡°You okay?¡± Topher isn¡¯t watching them, but standing by the monster¡¯s split corpse, staring down at it. ¡°Hey, Toph,¡± he calls when the boy doesn¡¯t respond. Topher looks up. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Are you hurt?¡± Topher looks down at himself, at the numerous cuts covering his arms and legs, the dried rivulets of blood streaking his skin, then back up at Je-won. ¡°No.¡± Je-won chuckles. ¡°Well, we should get you home. I imagine your mom is worried and will want to get you to a doctor.¡± A buzz comes from Je-won¡¯s pocket. ¡°Jason,¡± Nara says, eyes wide. ¡°We have to pick him up.¡± Je-won nods, pulling out his phone. The screen is cracked. ¡°It¡¯s Aunt Ji-yeon,¡± he says, then puts it to his ear. ¡°Hey¡ª¡± he begins, but is cut off. ¡°The school was attacked! I have to go get Jason.¡± ¡°No! We¡¯re almost there,¡± he lies. ¡°We¡¯ve got him. You stay there.¡± ¡°But¡ª¡± ¡°Listen to me,¡± he says firmly. ¡°Do not leave. Do you understand? We saw one of them. It¡¯s not safe. We will get him. We¡¯ll be home in a few minutes.¡± ¡°Have him call me when you pick him up. He¡¯s not answering. His phone must be dead again.¡± ¡°Yes, he¡¯s always playing games on it,¡± Je-won says, but feels fear form in the pit of his stomach. He looks at the corpse of the monster. What would something like that do to a school? The school¡¯s police officer, Cal Winston, is a good man, but the most he¡¯s ever had to deal with were rowdy teenagers. ¡°I have to go. Jason will call you soon, then we¡¯ll be home.¡± ¡°Be safe.¡± ¡°I will. Love you.¡± He hangs up. ¡°I¡¯ll get him,¡± Nara says. ¡°No. You get Topher home.¡± ¡°But¡ª¡± ¡°Nara, please.¡± She shakes her head. ¡°I am not bringing him home. His mother hates me. And Ben might be there. I¡¯ll get Jason, you take Toph home and then check on Mom and Grandma.¡± ¡°I can walk,¡± Topher offers timidly. ¡°No!¡± they both yell at him simultaneously. ¡°The school is going to have cops and a bunch of people,¡± Nara says. ¡°I¡¯ll be fine.¡± Je-won sighs and rubs his forehead. ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll take him. But straight to school and straight home.¡± ¡°Ne, Appa.¡± ¡°Are you sure you¡¯re okay?¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine. Stop worrying about me so much.¡± ¡°Not possible.¡± He quickly hugs her, then motions to his car at Topher. ¡°Come on, I¡¯ll get you home.¡± He resists telling Nara again to be careful. ¡°See you soon,¡± he says instead. ¡°Aren¡¯t you going to loot it?¡± Topher asks, now kneeling beside the monster. ¡°I tried, but I guess throwing the cleaver didn¡¯t count, so it¡¯s not letting me. Hey, maybe you can invite me to your party! I bet it has something like that.¡± ¡°You joined?¡± Je-won asks. The boy¡¯s eyes flick toward Nara, then quickly dart away. ¡°You didn¡¯t,¡± Je-won says to her. ¡°I didn¡¯t, actually.¡± ¡°I wanted to help,¡± Topher explains. ¡°I saw her join. She was fine.¡± Je-won shakes his head. Topher is a smart kid, but he is still a kid. And they tend to think they¡¯re immortal. ¡°We don¡¯t have time to loot it. Get in the car.¡± ¡°You just need to touch it.¡± Je-won begins to protest, but Nara kneels down, winces, then reaches out and touches the corpse. Her face scrunches up. ¡°It feels like snot.¡± ¡°Cool,¡± Topher says. ¡°Did it work? What¡¯d you get?¡± ¡°Something called an imprint. It¡ª¡± Reality itself seems to twist up in impossible patterns and the corpse becomes mist and then nothing at all. Nara stands and stumbles back, Je-won steadying her. They all stare at where the corpse had been. Je-won is the first to recover. ¡°Okay,¡± he says, gently pushing Nara toward the driver¡¯s door. ¡°Go now.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going, I¡¯m going.¡± Topher gets in Je-won¡¯s car while Je-won waits to make sure Nara¡¯s car can drive. She waves at him then rolls her eyes. He gets in his own vehicle. ¡°Ready to go home?¡± he asks as he makes a three-point turn and heads in the opposite direction. Topher shrugs. ¡°I guess. But this was fun. We should do it again.¡± Topher¡¯s house is only a few minutes away, and Je-won doesn¡¯t get out. He waits until Topher is safely inside, then texts Nara. Get him? His phone buzzes just as he¡¯s pulling away. Yep. All safe. Heading home now. See you there. Je-won lets out a sigh of relief, and speeds off toward home.

¡°Then after going home and making sure everyone was okay, then getting that second message saying the next attack wouldn¡¯t come without warning,¡± Je-won finished, ¡°I came back here to clean up.¡± ¡°Seems risky,¡± Zoe said. ¡°Can you really trust what it says?¡± Je-won glanced at Dexter. ¡°That¡¯s not the only reason I came back.¡± Dexter averted his gaze. ¡°Thanks,¡± he said quietly, forcing the tears not to come. Je-won was too young to be his father, but he was like a parental older brother, and though Dexter was uncomfortable expressing it, he appreciated the man looking out for him. Je-won had helped him get through some tough times. ¡°When did you have time to bake pizza?¡± Zoe asked, looking at the nearly empty pizza box. She and Dexter had gone through it while they listened to Je-won¡¯s tale. ¡°It was in the warmer. Forgot to turn it off. Somehow it didn¡¯t get broken in the attack.¡± ¡°Well I¡¯m glad you¡¯re all okay,¡± Zoe said. ¡°But I can¡¯t believe you fought a monster.¡± But Dexter could. He knew something about Je-won¡¯s past few others in the town did. He hadn¡¯t always been a restaurateur. Je-won chuckled. ¡°I didn¡¯t have much choice. And Nara helped. Without her ability¡­¡± He trailed off, a slight frown on his face. ¡°It¡¯s odd though,¡± Zoe said. ¡°Why would it attack the pizzeria?¡± ¡°I don''t know. There wasn¡¯t any pattern to the attacks. None that I could discern. But we don¡¯t have all the data. If there is a pattern, I¡¯m sure it will emerge soon enough.¡± He turned to Dexter. ¡°I¡¯ve had some time to explore the system. I think it¡¯s our best chance at fighting these things off. Nara¡¯s ability proved that much. I wouldn¡¯t ask you to join, but you already have. And I know¡­¡± he trailed off, his eyes flicking quickly in Zoe¡¯s direction. ¡°I know it¡¯s something you might be interested in. So, what do you say, little brother? Want to fight monsters with me?¡± Chapter 15: The System - Become a Monster ¡°Hell yes I¡¯ll fight monsters with you!¡± Zoe answered. Je-won chuckled. ¡°I was talking to Dexter.¡± ¡°I know. But I¡¯m inviting myself.¡± He shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s too dangerous. The authorities are taking people in the system.¡± ¡°Only ones who are stupid enough to alter their appearance.¡± ¡°For now, yes. But there¡¯s that leaderboard. It shows your name.¡± Je-won wasn¡¯t sure if it used the name you entered, or if you could sign anything you liked and be accepted. There were plenty of real names on there, but also ones that obviously weren¡¯t. Though he wasn¡¯t going to tell her this. ¡°I suspect the authorities will be scanning it, looking for people to round up.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t use my real name.¡± ¡°Zoe, it¡¯s¡ª¡± Zoe reached up and quickly scribbled in the air. ¡°Done.¡± Je-won rubbed his forehead. ¡°Zoe¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. I put Sparkle Lips.¡± ¡°Sparkle lips?¡± Dexter asked. Zoe shrugged. ¡°First thing that came to mind. Didn¡¯t want to give Je-won a chance to stop me.¡± She frowned. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Nothing,¡± she said, and quickly reached in front of her again. Je-won lurched forward and grabbed her arm. ¡°Ow.¡± ¡°It didn¡¯t work, did it?¡± Zoe sighed. ¡°No,¡± she answered dejectedly. ¡°I think I signed too fast and it couldn¡¯t read it. No big deal, I¡¯ll just write it again slower this time.¡± ¡°Zoe, listen to me. Don¡¯t. Please.¡± He kept his gaze fixed on her. ¡°Jeez, why so serious?¡± He kept staring at her. ¡°Alright alright. This is crap. Leave the girl out.¡± ¡°I¡¯m leaving the one who isn¡¯t yet in danger of being kidnapped by the government out.¡± ¡°I think I might not be either,¡± Dexter said. ¡°In the message I got saying I¡¯d joined the system, it called me Dauntless.¡± ¡°Well that¡¯s unfair,¡± Zoe complained. ¡°Though you are a bit stoic. Maybe I could try manic pixie dream girl.¡± She put up her hands when Je-won glared at her. ¡°Kidding. Man, you¡¯re no fun when you¡¯re serious. Like a completely different person.¡± Je-won returned his attention to Dexter. ¡°Your name. Go on.¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± Dexter shook his head. ¡°Doesn''t make sense. I¡¯m the reason Leah¡¯s in the hospital, and it gave me a title called dauntless.¡± He laughed bitterly. ¡°I''m not dauntless. I was frozen in fear and couldn''t move. Leah tried to get me to run with her, to escape. Then the monster slashed her. She fell into my lap, bleeding on me and I just sat there staring at her bra.¡± Zoe opened her mouth to make a quip, but thought better of it on seeing the look on his face. Even through the buzz, she had more compassion than that. Instead, she brought the conversation back to herself. ¡°So no one can track him. That means I can¡ª¡± ¡°No,¡± Je-won said firmly. She grumbled something under her breath and went to take a drink from her beer, found it empty, and reached for another one. Which Je-won also stopped. ¡°You¡¯ve had enough. Buzzed is one thing. You¡¯ve had a hard day. And that¡¯s an understatement. But I am not letting you get drunk.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t you drink at like sixteen in Korea?¡± ¡°No. And we¡¯re not in Korea.¡± ¡°Clearly.¡± She huffed and folded her arms, leaning back in the chair and staring at the ceiling. Dexter saw Je-won suppress a smile. Then the man¡¯s gaze turned to him and he grew serious. ¡°You should make sure your name isn¡¯t listed.¡± "How?¡± ¡°I¡¯d say you should experiment, but I¡¯m not sure we have time for that. I just have to hope there won¡¯t be a penalty for me guiding you.¡± ¡°Penalty?¡± ¡°I know the message said it was intuitive, and in some ways it is, but it certainly does not hold your hand.¡± He paused briefly. ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s an accident.¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± Dexter asked. ¡°This is just a guess, but I believe it¡¯s part of the test that both messages have referenced. The first saying the trials were beginning, the second one saying it was analyzing the results and that another test was coming. The fact that there¡¯s a leaderboard.¡± He shook his head. ¡°I could be wrong, but I believe it is trying to pick the best, the ones who can figure things out.¡± He let out a weary sigh. ¡°But the message also said the next test would come soon. So I¡¯m going to guide you through the most important things. You can find your name on the leaderboard. Do you know how to access it?¡± Dexter nodded. ¡°The message mentioned how to. Swiping up, yeah?¡± ¡°You got it.¡± ¡°Alright. Here goes.¡± Dexter brought the interface into focus. It was always there, but somehow unnoticed. Not invisible, exactly, just not something that drew his attention or obstructed his view. ¡°Sweet!¡± Zoe grabbed another slice of pizza. ¡°We can eat and watch you do magic tricks.¡± She really was kind of manic, Dexter noted. ¡°Aren¡¯t you full yet?¡± Je-won asked her. ¡°Very. But with monsters about, who knows when I¡¯ll be able to eat again.¡± She looked at his sword, which he¡¯d set on the coffee table beside the pizza. ¡°What¡¯s the Korean equivalent of a ninja?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t think I could be a ninja?¡± ¡°If you go around with your face covered, you¡¯ll never find a girlfriend.¡± ¡°Sounds like a plan.¡± ¡°I liked Sara,¡± Zoe said wistfully. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t have broken up with her.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t.¡± ¡°Oh. Right. Well hey, the world¡¯s ending, anything¡¯s possible. Dexter and Leah are dating now.¡± ¡°I¡¯m trying to focus here,¡± Dexter said. ¡°And I¡¯m trying to inject some normalcy into the situation. How are you so calm? You just took a shower and yet you still have blood in your hair.¡± Dexter grunted, pushing away memories of the auditorium, and swiped up. As promised in the second system message, this action brought up a leaderboard with four columns¡ªrank, name, level, and score.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Interacting with it was strange. It was somewhat like interacting with a screen, but more physical since he could actually feel each element he touched. The leaderboard stretched out before him and seemed to go all the way up into the ceiling and down into the floor. Off to the left was a sort of button; the word locate boxed in by lines of mist. He tapped it and the list zoomed by until landing on one particular name: Dauntless.
Rank Name Level Score
196,534 Dauntless None 0
There were other people below him, but they all had the same lack of score and level. He touched the misty, marshmallow-like text and with a quick flick of his finger he sent the list zooming all the way to the bottom. The last person on the list was ranked 3,512,019. So around three and a half million people had joined the system, assuming it listed everyone who had. It was a lot, but relative to the entire population of the world, it was only a small fraction. How many of them, he wondered, had been taken, were even now being held by the FBI or some other more secretive government organization? He also wondered why he was ranked above others who had the same level and score as he did. Maybe it was sorted by score and level, and then by who joined first? He scrolled up again to go to the beginning of the leaderboard, looking at who occupied the top spots.
Rank Name Level Score
1 Vin ?The First Cultivator? Copper 100,000
2 Anatoly Novikov Copper 90,000
3 Goro Sakurai ?The Sniper? None 42,450
4 Orden the Great None 8,010
5 bal67 None 1,000
Some of the names clearly couldn¡¯t be real ones, so it appeared it was possible to either change them or get the system to accept one that wasn¡¯t your legal name. That was good, because, like Je-won had suggested, it would otherwise be quite easy to track who had joined. He wasn¡¯t himself worried, since his name was listed only as Dauntless. One oddity was that his title didn¡¯t have the brackets around it like what he assumed were the other titles, like ?The First Cultivator? or ?The Sniper?. ¡°Well this is exciting,¡± Zoe said sarcastically, finishing her slice of pizza and leaning back. ¡°I¡¯m looking at the leaderboard.¡± ¡°Are you on it?¡± ¡°Yeah. I''m not ranked that well.¡± ¡°Duh. You''ve barely done like anything. Why would you be ranked well?¡± ¡°And your name?¡± Je-won asked. ¡°Dauntless.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your rank? On the leaderboard.¡± Dexter told him, and Je-won began swiping at the air. After a few moments, he nodded. ¡°Dauntless is what I¡¯m seeing as well. That¡¯s good.¡± ¡°It looks like you can change your name. ¡®Orden the Great¡¯? ¡®bal67¡¯? Those can¡¯t be real names.¡± ¡°Yes. I¡ª¡± Je-won glanced at Zoe, sighed, then said to Dexter, ¡°I did notice others on the leaderboard who have what appear to be aliases.¡± Zoe began to say something, but Je-won continued before she could. ¡°But, if someone inspects you, they¡¯ll know you¡¯re in the system, even if they can¡¯t see your name.¡± Zoe grunted, but had no response for this. ¡°Inspect?¡± Dexter asked. Je-won nodded. ¡°There¡¯s a series of icons when you swipe down from the main screen. Have you not explored it at all?¡± Dexter looked at the floor, memories of the auditorium trying to assert themselves; Leah¡¯s bloody bra, the arm all on its own. ¡°Hey,¡± Je-won said, ¡°it¡¯s okay. Just focus on the here and now, alright?¡± Dexter nodded and tried swiping down from the top. As expected, a shade pulled down with a row of icons. The first was an eye with a line through it. When he touched it, the line went away. He looked at Je-won and information appeared. Je-won Yun Level: None Wondering if it really did only work on those in the system, he studied Zoe. The information on Je-won vanished, but none for her appeared. ¡°Why are you looking at me like I¡¯m a blank wall?¡± Zoe asked, pulling him back to the present. ¡°Trying to inspect you. Doesn¡¯t work. Which is good.¡± ¡°Well, how about you do something we can see? I¡¯m getting bored watching you stare into space. And tired.¡± ¡°You should go to sleep,¡± Dexter said. ¡°Rest your ankle.¡± ¡°Boring as you may be, I don¡¯t think I could sleep.¡± ¡°What happened to your ankle?¡± Je-won asked. Zoe waved at him. ¡°It¡¯s nothing. So what''s the plan, exactly, after this? Other than don''t get abducted by the Men in Black. You really think we¡¯ll have to fight monsters? If you can kill them with a pizza peel, they don¡¯t seem particularly strong.¡± ¡°The only reason the pizza peel killed it was because of Nara¡¯s ability. If it hadn''t been for that, I doubt it would have injured it. I''m sure you''ve seen the reports by now of people trying to attack the monsters to no avail.¡± Zoe turned to look at the computer monitor, the video of the attack long ago having finished playing, paused on the end screen. She nodded. ¡°Yeah. We''ve seen. I was hoping it was wrong.¡± ¡°What was Nara¡¯s ability again?¡± Dexter asked Je-won. ¡°Enchant Metal. Does what it sounds like.¡± ¡°She got it just from joining the system?¡± Je-won nodded. ¡°That¡¯s it? I didn¡¯t get anything other than the title.¡± ¡°Really? Both Nara and I did.¡± ¡°How can I check?¡± ¡°Your stat screen lists any abilities. There¡¯s also an icon on that bar that¡ª¡± Je-won¡¯s phone rang. ¡°Is that¡­¡± Zoe said with trepidation. ¡°Is that Gangnam Style?¡± Je-won ignored her, answering his phone and putting it on speaker. ¡°Did you change my ringtone again?¡± ¡°It¡¯s my ringtone,¡± Nara answered. ¡°I want you to feel the proper emotion whenever I call you.¡± He shook his head. ¡°What¡¯s up? Is everything okay?¡± ¡°Not exactly. You haven¡¯t heard?¡± ¡°About what?¡± ¡°Are you still at the restaurant?¡± ¡°Yes. I¡¯m with Dex and Zoe.¡± ¡°Then go outside and see for yourself.¡± ¡°What is it?¡± he asked. ¡°Just go outside and see. They¡¯re not dangerous. I don¡¯t think. Not to you.¡± Je-won stood, grabbing his sword from the coffee table despite what his sister had said. ¡°Stay here,¡± Dexter told Zoe as he followed Je-won. ¡°Rest your ankle.¡± ¡°No way.¡± She got up and limped toward him. ¡°I¡¯ve got my own personal crutch. Now come on, help an old lady down the stairs.¡± Dexter sighed, but helped her down into the restaurant¡¯s kitchen, following Je-won. ¡°Oh my god,¡± Zoe said, looking at the destruction of the pizzeria as they exited from the kitchen and into the dining room. ¡°Yes,¡± Je-won agreed. He had cleaned up the worst of it, including the broken glass, but he could do nothing about the broken windows at the moment. Not that he was particularly worried about how his restaurant looked anymore. There was a pizza peel on the counter next to a destroyed cash register. Zoe picked it up. ¡°Is this what you used?¡± Je-won nodded. ¡°Looks normal,¡± she said, studying it. ¡°There¡¯s no blood.¡± ¡°It bled smoke.¡± ¡°Really? Cool.¡± ¡°You outside yet?¡± Nara asked from Je-won¡¯s phone. ¡°Not yet.¡± He motioned with his head at the front of the dining room. ¡°Come on.¡± Zoe set the pizza peel back down and, using Dexter for support, followed Je-won. Even before they got outside, they could hear the sound of horns blaring and loud voices coming from somewhere nearby. ¡°What is that?¡± Zoe asked. Her question was answered a moment later as they exited the restaurant and stood on the sidewalk, staring down the street at the spectacle in front of the townhall two blocks away. ¡°A protest?¡± Je-won asked into the phone. He still had Nara on speaker. ¡°Not exactly,¡± she answered. ¡°They think the government¡¯s spying on their phones and computers, so they went house-to-house gathering people.¡± ¡°They¡¯re not wrong about that.¡± ¡°Vince Bayard called me and told me about it. The mayor organized it. A lot of people have kids missing. Ones not accounted for in the deaths. Kaitlyn¡¯s among them.¡± Kaitlyn Bayard was Vince¡¯s daughter. ¡°Wow,¡± Zoe said. ¡°They¡¯re not trying to be very secretive.¡± ¡°What are they planning on doing about it?¡± Je-won asked Nara. ¡°I don¡¯t know. Thought you might want to check it out and see. All Vince knew was that it was about the missing kids. Are there a lot of people there?¡± Je-won sighed. ¡°Yes. Thanks for letting me know. I¡¯ll be done here soon then be back home.¡± ¡°No rush. We¡¯re all good here.¡± ¡°Still, I¡¯ll be home soon. Love you.¡± ¡°Yeah yeah.¡± A pause. ¡°Love you too.¡± Then she hung up. ¡°There¡¯s so many people,¡± Zoe said. ¡°No way they all fit inside.¡± ¡°Doesn¡¯t look like they¡¯re letting that stop them,¡± Dexter observed, seeing Bobby Reed, the mayor, exit the townhall holding a bullhorn, to cheers from the crowd. The mayor¡¯s voice began echoing out into the night, though his words were hard to understand, even amplified. ¡°Should we go to it?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°No,¡± Je-won answered. ¡°No, I don¡¯t think we should. Getting involved in that is a bad idea. Mobs never make good decisions. We¡¯ll find out what they¡¯re planning from someone who went.¡± He looked at Dexter. ¡°For now, it¡¯s time to finish up your introduction to the system.¡± Chapter 16: A Class of His Own Just outside the destroyed frontage of Heart&Seoul Pizzeria, a cohesion of Unity and Intention coalesces, invisible to all, for there are none yet in the area capable of seeing it, and none on the planet capable of detecting a disturbance to Order from so distant a vantage. Soon, it will become a complete construct, capable of affecting the world around it. Soon, it will be filled with a boundless rage. Soon, it will attack. And its targets are mere yards away and a floor above, totally oblivious to their impending demise.

¡°I¡¯m going to finish running you through the most important things, then you can explore on your own,¡± Je-won told Dexter as they once again sat in his apartment above the pizzeria. Dexter nodded. ¡°First, go back to the main panel. The one where the messages are displayed.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°Now swipe down. You should see a bar with icons.¡± ¡°Yeah, you told me.¡± Je-won rubbed his face. ¡°Right, sorry. Okay. The symbol next to the eye will bring up a list of all your abilities.¡± ¡°I see Dauntless.¡± Je-won frowned. ¡°That¡¯s it? You should have gotten one from joining the system.¡± Dexter shook his head. ¡°All I see is my title. You and Nara got one?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Je-won said. ¡°The few people online I could find talking about it mentioned also getting a starting ability. You got a message, correct? When you joined.¡± ¡°Yeah. Something about involuntary activation, and that I had earned a title.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a log of your old messages. Swipe down from where you are.¡± Dexter did, causing the icon bar to move to the bottom and his vision to be filled with a list of messages. He found the one in question, then read it aloud. ¡°¡¯Involuntary system activation. You have been awarded a new title. Welcome to the system, Dauntless.¡¯¡± ¡°Interesting,¡± Je-won said. He swiped at his interface. ¡°Mine was, ¡®Processing¡­ Application accepted. Initiating¡­ System activated. You have been awarded a starting ability. Welcome to the system, Yun Je-won¡¯.¡± ¡°Yun Je-won?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°Like how you write it in Korea?¡± ¡°Yes, I wrote my name in Hangul.¡± ¡°It¡¯s in English on the scoreboard,¡± Dexter said. ¡°Hm. It must translate it for others.¡± ¡°Your interface is in Korean?¡± Je-won shook his head. ¡°English, other than my name. As for a starting ability¡­¡± He looked thoughtful. ¡°Your case was different than ours. You didn¡¯t get an ability, but did get a title, perhaps in lieu of one. My First Slayer title grants an ability¡ªthat sword I summoned¡ªand since yours is on your ability list, I¡¯m assuming it¡¯s the same. On your icon bar there¡¯s¡ª Actually, no. Bring up your stat screen, you haven¡¯t looked at that yet. It¡¯s just to the left of the main page. Down and to the left of where you are now.¡± Dexter swiped the message log away and had to admit that though it was strange, interacting with it was quite intuitive. At least for someone used to using touchscreen interfaces. His home screen, so to speak, was just the main page where there was nothing to obstruct his view of the world around him, unless a system message appeared. Making a swiping motion from left to right caused a vague, glasslike panel to appear from the left side¡ªalso constructed from that same light and mist as the text, but frosted just enough to differentiate it. Dauntless Leaderboard Rank: 196,534 Score: 0 Level: None Class: None Attributes ¡à Agility (Novice 5) ¡à Endurance (Novice 4) ¡à Strength (Novice 6) ¡à Durability (Novice 6) ¡à Intelligence (Novice 8) ¡à Vision (Novice 9) ¡à Hearing (Novice 9) ¡à Smell (Novice 5) ¡à Taste (Novice 5) ¡à Touch (Novice 4) Abilities ¡à None Skills ¡à Control (Novice 6) ¡à Perception (Novice 7) Titles ¡à Dauntless ¡°Wow, that¡¯s kind of cool. I can see my physical properties. All of them are novice though.¡± Je-won nodded. ¡°Mine as well. Do you have any above ten?¡± Dexter scanned the list. ¡°No. Vision and hearing are my highest, both at novice nine.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your ¡®leave out the girl¡¯ one at?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°Ten thousand?¡± Je-won chuckled. ¡°How many skills do you have?¡± he asked Dexter. ¡°Two. Control and perception.¡± ¡°Interesting. It¡¯s the same for Nara. I have more, but they all are¡­ They all have a certain bent. I have first-aid, but not swimming or running, both of which I know I am more skilled in than first-aid.¡± ¡°What are the other ones?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°Cooking?¡± ¡°No, not exactly. Though I do have knives at novice eight.¡± ¡°Makes sense. For a guy who makes pizza, you do love your knives.¡± But Dexter guessed that wasn¡¯t the kind of knife skill the system was rating. ¡°I wonder how high it goes,¡± Dexter said. ¡°At least to adept,¡± Je-won answered. ¡°I saw some items in the store with that requirement.¡± ¡°Oh right, there¡¯s a store.¡± He almost mentioned Matt finding it back in class, but caught himself. He didn¡¯t want to upset Zoe. ¡°I¡¯m guessing it doesn¡¯t take credit cards?¡± ¡°That would be nice. It does use something called credits, however.¡± ¡°Do you have any?¡± ¡°Ten, which I believe came from killing that monster, as Nara has the same.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your strength?¡± Dexter asked casually. Je-won chuckled. ¡°Novice nine.¡± Dexter sighed. ¡°Three better than me.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll catch up if you start working out again.¡± ¡°Coach has been begging me to join the team again ever since I got back.¡± They both grew serious, realizing that high school sports would be a thing of the past. ¡°What about your abilities?¡± Je-won asked, changing the topic. ¡°None.¡± ¡°Is your title there? Try touching it.¡± Dexter did, and new information appeared. Dauntless Unity Drain: Moderate Description: In the face of absolute chaos, you displayed calm. Activate this title to temporarily ignore level disparity. He relayed the ability¡¯s description, then asked, ¡°What¡¯s Unity?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know exactly. Whatever it is, all my abilities list it. It could be something like mana, but it doesn¡¯t feel like it¡¯s coming from me at all.¡± He tilted his head in thought. ¡°Have you ever used an electric knife? It¡¯s like that. I¡¯m holding it, but the knife is the one doing all the work. Then it just cuts off. I¡¯ve tried holding onto it, but it doesn¡¯t help.¡± ¡°Because you ran out?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t believe so. I can use another ability right after, just not the same one. It¡¯s like there¡¯s a cooldown.¡± ¡°What¡¯s a cooldown?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°Like after running?¡± ¡°A bit. It¡¯s a videogame term. It means there¡¯s a certain amount of time that has to pass before you can use an ability again.¡± She sighed. ¡°I never expected me not playing video games to come back to bite me in the butt.¡± Je-won chuckled. ¡°You should have taken up Nara on her invites to play with us.¡± ¡°So I could listen to her pine over Sam? No thanks.¡± ¡°You noticed that?¡± ¡°Who wouldn¡¯t?¡± ¡°Hm,¡± was his only response. ¡°He is cute though. But I think she should have stuck with Ben.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t tell her that.¡± ¡°I already have. More than once. She says I sound like her mom.¡± Zoe shrugged. ¡°I assume that¡¯s a compliment.¡± ¡°How long is the cooldown?¡± Dexter asked before Zoe could inject more ¡®normalcy¡¯ into the situation. ¡°Depends on the ability,¡± Je-won answered. ¡°It¡¯s why I haven¡¯t summoned my sword again.¡± His sword had vanished as they¡¯d been walking up the stairs back to Dexter¡¯s apartment. ¡°I¡¯ve only had time to test the full duration of that twice, which is about thirty minutes. But whether I leave it summoned for the full duration or dismiss it right away, it¡¯s around ten minutes before I can summon it again. My starting ability has a lower Unity drain, and its cooldown is only about thirty seconds. My third ability has the same Unity drain and a longer cooldown, so I won¡¯t be able to tell if they¡¯re related until I get more.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your starting ability?¡± Dexter asked. ¡°It¡¯s called Controlled Shot. It allows me to control projectiles after I¡¯ve thrown or¡ªI assume¡ªshot them.¡± ¡°Seriously?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°Man, I really should join. What if I got something like a fireball?¡± Je-won ignored her. ¡°As for your ability, Dex, the description is not much to go on, but if it¡¯s what it sounds like, that could be incredibly useful.¡± ¡°What level was the monster you killed?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t get a chance to inspect it, as I didn¡¯t then know I could, so I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°Did you get experience for killing it?¡± ¡°My score isn¡¯t zero, so I think I got points, but if that¡¯s related to leveling up or if there¡¯s some experience meter, I haven¡¯t found it. My hunch is that leveling requires cultivation, since the first message mentioned it.¡± ¡°Cultivation?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°I¡¯m guessing that doesn¡¯t have to do with gardening.¡± ¡°If only,¡± Je-won said with a smile. ¡°Normally it refers to something like meditation. But in this case, I¡¯m not sure. I tried meditating for a bit, but didn¡¯t notice any changes. Perhaps I didn¡¯t do it for long enough, or in the correct way.¡± ¡°Or it¡¯s a different kind of cultivation,¡± Dexter said. Je-won nodded. ¡°This system isn¡¯t very helpful,¡± Zoe complained. Je-won chuckled. ¡°No, no it is not.¡± ¡°The person in first place has that First Cultivator title,¡± Dexter pointed out. ¡°Yes,¡± Je-won agreed. ¡°The question is, how did they get it?¡± He shook his head. ¡°We will have to figure it out, but for now I want you familiar with the interface. Bring up the icon bar again.¡± Dexter did. ¡°You see the icon with the squares?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°That will allow you to bind an ability to each finger. Touch it with both hands, and you¡¯ll have ten spots.¡± ¡°What about your toes?¡± Zoe asked. They both looked at her. ¡°What?¡± Je-won asked in confusion. ¡°Well, I have no idea what you guys are talking about because you won¡¯t let me play, but what happens if you touch whatever with your toes?¡± ¡°I¡­ hadn¡¯t thought of that,¡± Je-won said. He frowned. ¡°I¡¯m not sure how useful that would be.¡± Zoe shrugged. ¡°Your hands aren¡¯t always unoccupied.¡± ¡°That is true.¡± He looked at Dexter expectantly. ¡°Seriously?¡± Dexter asked. He sighed. ¡°Fine.¡± He took off one of his shoes and, feeling like an idiot, lifted up his foot to tap the symbol. A faintly glowing line of rings appeared above each of his toes. ¡°Well, it worked.¡± He tried lifting one of his toes, but all of them lifted. He felt a vague sensation as they came into contact with the rings. ¡°I can¡¯t control my toes individually though.¡± Je-won rubbed his chin. ¡°Yes. Still, that gives at least two more slots. There¡¯s actually a similar problem with your hands. Your thumb, index, middle, and pinky are easy enough, but it¡¯s difficult to lift your ring finger in that way for most people.¡± ¡°Oh!¡± Zoe said excitedly. ¡°I can do that!¡± She held out her left hand and lifted each finger in turn. ¡°Wow,¡± Dexter said, ¡°you have weird fingers. I don¡¯t think they¡¯re supposed to hyperextend like that.¡± ¡°Yeah well my weird fingers give me an advantage. I should definitely jo¡ª¡± ¡°No,¡± Je-won interrupted firmly. ¡°Gah!¡± She crossed her arms. ¡°This is lame.¡± ¡°You¡¯re welcome to go to sleep.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not, actually. I¡¯m not sleeping here. It¡¯s a dump.¡± Je-won smiled slightly. ¡°No need to be rude.¡± ¡°Whatever,¡± she huffed. Dexter put his shoe back on and tried again. ¡°Works through my shoes, too. How do I put my title on one of them? Just drag it?¡± ¡°Yes. You can actually grasp the word and pull it over.¡± Dexter did, and though it was weightless, he could feel the text between his fingers. He dragged it to the ring above his left hand¡¯s index finger and let go. The word ¡®dauntless¡¯ dissipated and a symbol he couldn¡¯t decipher filled the ring. ¡°It¡¯s just a symbol. Guess I¡¯ll have to memorize the positions if I get more abilities.¡± ¡°If you lift your finger up and hold it against the ring you filled, a description will appear.¡± Dexter tried, and the same text he got when he tapped on the title on his character sheet appeared.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°If you just touch it, the ability will activate. But don¡¯t do that yet. We don¡¯t know how long the cooldown is.¡± Dexter wanted to see what the ability did, but the message had said the next test would come soon, so he saw the wisdom in saving it. ¡°Alright. What¡¯s next?¡± ¡°Two more things that are important. First is your class. Bring up your stat screen and long-press on Class.¡± Dexter did, and a prompt appeared. Enter desired class: ¡°It says to enter my class. There¡¯s no choices.¡± ¡°You can enter anything you want. It will give you an estimate of what that class would be, and the chance of success of attaining it.¡± ¡°Did you pick one?¡± Je-won nodded. ¡°Fighter. It seemed the most general, and it had a hundred-percent chance of success.¡± Dexter wasn¡¯t sure fighter was what he wanted. ¡°What do you think I should put?¡± ¡°If we¡¯re going to be fighting together, it should be something complementary. But it also needs to be something that allows you to fight on your own, if it comes to that. It¡¯s a big decision. If there¡¯s a way to change it after it¡¯s set, I haven¡¯t found it. It does grant you another ability, so deciding sooner rather than later would be best.¡± ¡°What ability did it give you?¡± ¡°Robust. It makes me more durable for a minute or so.¡± ¡°How much more durable?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°I haven¡¯t tested it extensively, but pressing fairly hard with a knife won¡¯t cut my skin.¡± ¡°I¡¯m assuming a very sharp knife,¡± she said. Je-won smiled. ¡°Of course. One of a chef¡¯s most important tools is a sharp and properly maintained knife.¡± ¡°And I can enter anything I want, and it will show me information on it?¡± Dexter asked. Je-won nodded. Dexter entered fighter. Fighter Imprint Success Probability: 99% Description: The specialization in fighting, whether physically or otherwise. Starting Ability: Harden. ¡°Wow, that is very general,¡± Dexter said. ¡°It says the starting ability is harden, not robust. And only ninety-nine percent chance of success, not one hundred.¡± ¡°Interesting.¡± ¡°How do you select one?¡± Dexter asked Je-won. ¡°I don¡¯t want to do it accidentally.¡± ¡°Press and hold and you will get a prompt to confirm your choice. Tap it and it will go away.¡± Dexter tapped on the starting ability, but all this caused was the message to disappear. ¡°Is there a way to see a description of the starting ability?¡± ¡°Not that I found. The main ways of interacting with the system are, like the message said, based on phones. Tapping, long-pressing, swiping. I tried all of them before choosing fighter, but none gave a description. If there¡¯s another way of interacting, I haven¡¯t found it.¡± ¡°That makes it harder to choose. Maybe I should just go with something obvious, like fighter.¡± Je-won shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s up to you. I would experiment more. You may come across things we didn¡¯t. And we¡¯ve already seen with the fighter class that at the very least the abilities might be different.¡± ¡°Imprint, that¡¯s how likely it is the class will take?¡± ¡°As far as I can tell. Nara looted something called an imprint from the monster we killed, but we don¡¯t know what it does.¡± ¡°What did she pick for her class?¡± Je-won snorted. ¡°She hasn¡¯t decided. I don¡¯t want her fighting anyway, so I didn¡¯t press.¡± His expression darkened. ¡°But I get the sense that she¡¯ll be forced to at some point, regardless of my wishes.¡± ¡°What did you guys try?¡± ¡°Anything we could think of. Ultimately, the descriptions were too vague or the chance of success too low for me to risk it. I went with the safe choice.¡± ¡°Ooo!¡± Zoe interjected. ¡°Try God!¡± Dexter sighed, but he was curious as well. God Imprint Success Probability: 1% Description: The control of some aspect of the normal realm while simultaneously existing outside of that realm. Starting Ability: None. ¡°Well, it¡¯s not entirely impossible. One percent.¡± He read them the description. ¡°I wonder what happens if it fails. Do you get to try again?¡± ¡°I spent a lot of time trying to find that out,¡± Je-won said. ¡°Even called in a few favors from some old friends, but had no luck. And I¡¯m not going to be the guinea pig.¡± ¡°Old friends?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°Like, from the military? Weren¡¯t you just a cook?¡± She considered, then nodded slowly. ¡°You are a very good cook.¡± He chuckled. ¡°Thanks.¡± Dexter was staring at the description of the class, thinking. He had a habit of writing in lowercase. He wondered if¡­ He tapped to dismiss the description, which brought back the selection prompt, and he tried entering it again, this time with a capital ¡®G¡¯. God (Named) Error. Cannot assign named entities as class. ¡°Huh, capitalization matters I guess. If I write ¡®god¡¯, it gives what I told you, but when I use a capital G it gives an error that it can¡¯t assign named entities as a class.¡± Je-won nodded slowly. ¡°We didn¡¯t try any names, but that is interesting.¡± Curious, Dexter entered his own name. Dexter Error. Suggestion: Dauntless He tried touching Dauntless, and a new class description appeared. Dauntless (Imprint Convergence) Imprint Success Probability: 100% Description: Become a dauntless, unaffected by any Intention but your own. Starting Abilities: Shatter, Shield. ¡°Wow,¡± Je-won said after Dexter had read it to them. ¡°Two abilities. And one-hundred percent chance of success. What made you try that?¡± ¡°I tried putting in my name and it gave that as a suggestion.¡± Je-won pulled out his phone and began typing. ¡°Who you talking to?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°Telling Nara to try her name and things related to the ability she got to see if she can find anything with two abilities.¡± He looked up from his phone at Dexter. ¡°You should try more, but that seems like a good one.¡± Je-won was right, but it wasn¡¯t what Dexter was looking for. He wanted something powerful, and he wasn¡¯t sure that this was it. It seemed more defensive in nature, which didn¡¯t quite feel right to him. ¡°Try goddess,¡± Zoe suggested. Dexter sighed, but now that she¡¯d mentioned it, he was curious whether a goddess would be different from a god. Goddess Imprint Success Probability: 0% Description: The control or influence of some aspect of the normal realm, whether or not within it. Starting Ability: Grace. ¡°It actually is different from a god. There¡¯s a starting ability which god didn¡¯t have, zero percent chance of success for me instead of one percent, and the description seems a little different.¡± ¡°Different better or different worse?¡± she asked. ¡°Not sure.¡± He read it to her. She nodded. ¡°Better.¡± ¡°If you say so.¡± He dismissed it and tried entering it again with a capital ¡®G¡¯, but the result was the same. ¡°No difference with a capital ¡®G¡¯ this time.¡± Zoe was tapping her teeth together as she thought. ¡°What about¡­ like¡­ the best something ever? Something super crazy powerful where the ability doesn¡¯t matter because you can just shrug off any attacks.¡± Dexter nodded, thinking. Images of the auditorium flashed in his mind, of seeing Leah struck down, of death. He entered a new term. Immortality Imprint Success Probability: 10% Description: The state of a lifeform having life unending. Starting Ability: Consciousness Tether. ¡°Well, if I was the gambling type I could go for immortality.¡± ¡°We didn¡¯t try that one,¡± Je-won said. ¡°Low success?¡± ¡°Ten percent.¡± Dexter dismissed the description and tried another. Ultimate Power Error. Suggestion: Power Dexter tapped the suggestion. Power Imprint Success Probability: 88% Description: The state of possessing the ability to control some aspect of the world. Starting Ability: None. Interesting. That sounded similar to the god class, but without the bit about a realm. Which made him wonder what exactly that was. Were there really other realms? It was less surprising than it would have been just this morning, before the system arrived. ¡°Well?¡± Zoe prompted. ¡°What do you see? Stop keeping us in suspense.¡± ¡°I tried ultimate power, but it gave an error and suggested power instead.¡± He read the description to them. ¡°That actually doesn¡¯t sound too bad,¡± Je-won mused. ¡°Yeah,¡± Dexter said. ¡°You sound very enthusiastic,¡± Zoe observed. ¡°I want to see what else I can get.¡± ¡°It sounds like you can get almost anything.¡± Her words gave Dexter an idea. Everything Imprint Success Probability: 0% Description: Cannot be described in finite time. Starting Ability: None. He chuckled. ¡°Everything¡¯s out.¡± Je-won nodded. ¡°We actually tried that one.¡± Following the same train of thought, he tried another. Anything Error. Imprint requires defining limit. This gave him another idea. Limit Imprint Success Probability: 0% Description: The control, alteration, creation, and destruction of limits. Starting Ability: Limit Break. Dexter described it to Je-won and Zoe. ¡°Whoa, that¡¯s awesome,¡± she said. ¡°No chance of it working,¡± Je-won observed. Thinking of leveling and the first system message, Dexter tried another. Cultivator Error. Recursion detected. This reminded him of another word, also from that first message. He tried it even though he¡¯d already tried what seemed like it should be the same thing. Different forms of the same word could have different connotations, so if capitalization mattered, maybe form did as well. Immortal Error. Recursion detected. ¡°Huh. Immortality and Immortal are different.¡± ¡°Better or worse?¡± Zoe asked, grinning. ¡°Well, immortal gives an error, so I¡¯m guessing worse.¡± Then he thought about what Je-won had said about the system testing them. Did it give clues? He brought up the system messages. He was surprised to find the classes he¡¯d tried listed there. He scrolled through them until reaching the first message and read it again. This gave him a few ideas, and he tried them. Foe Imprint Success Probability: 80% Description: Oppose the Intention of others. Starting Ability: Consume. Eternal Foe Error. While I applaud your experimentation, I would not grant you this Imprint even were it in my power. Which it is not. System Error. Nice try. ?? Dexter laughed. Then he remembered what the system had done, and his mirth vanished. Maybe it was trying to help them as it claimed, but it had still killed people. ¡°You okay?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°You look like you just dodged a punch to the face only to get kicked in the nuts.¡± Dexter shook his head, a slight smile returning. ¡°Something like that.¡± He told them about the classes he¡¯d tried. ¡°Foe seems similar to Dauntless,¡± Je-won pointed out. ¡°At least the description makes it sound that way. The abilities are different though, and there¡¯s only one of them. And of course less chance of success. I¡¯d say Dauntless and Power seem like the best options so far. But you should keep going.¡± Dexter nodded and went back to the log, studying the first message. ¡°What are you trying?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°I¡¯m looking at the system message for any hints.¡± ¡°If I had an interface, I could help.¡± She put up her hands as Je-won began to speak. ¡°I know, I¡¯m just saying.¡± Maybe horror? Dexter wondered. Or danger or nightmare. He was about to try nightmare, when his eye caught on something else in the message. He got up and went to his desk. ¡°Now what are you doing?¡± Zoe asked. Dexter didn¡¯t answer as he wrote something down on a piece of paper. Then he brought back the class-selection prompt and entered what he¡¯d written. 31129758 (Inferred meaning) Error. Are you simply curious, or intentional? In either case, if you are looking for guidance, try something closer to home. Dexter frowned, staring at the message. ¡°Dude,¡± Zoe said, looking up at him from the chair, ¡°we can¡¯t see what you¡¯re doing. Stop keeping us in the dark.¡± He shook his head and sat back down on the couch, then read the message to them. Zoe looked around the apartment. ¡°Closer to home?¡± Je-won shook his head. ¡°I¡¯m at a loss.¡± Dexter considered. He didn¡¯t think it meant literally. Guidance. What did it mean by that? Was it trying to guide him in a specific direction? Toward a specific class? He sighed. He didn¡¯t know what it was implying, but maybe something more specific would be better. If imprints required limits, something exacting might yield better results. Or at least more focused ones. ¡°What about a more conventional magic class?¡± Dexter wondered. Je-won nodded, a slight smile on his face. ¡°I was tempted. See for yourself. If you¡¯re thinking what I think you are.¡± ¡°Wizard,¡± Dexter said, at the same time as he wrote it in the air. ¡°Great minds,¡± Zoe said sarcastically. But her eager expression belied her tone. Wizard Imprint Success Probability: 22% Description: The power of magic. Control the elements, the ethereal, the arcane. Bend reality and shape creation to your will. Starting Ability: Unity Burn ¡°Oh my god!¡± Zoe exclaimed when Dexter read it aloud. ¡°You have to pick that one!¡± ¡°Twenty-two percent?¡± ¡°That¡¯s like almost one in four!¡± Dexter shook his head. ¡°Maybe. Not yet though.¡± She grunted. ¡°You¡¯re so boring. I¡¯m going to pee. It¡¯ll be more fun.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t seem bored,¡± Je-won observed. ¡°You seem excited.¡± ¡°That¡¯s just because I have to pee.¡± She pointed at Dexter. ¡°Don¡¯t pick anything while I¡¯m gone.¡± ¡°As you wish.¡± She rolled her eyes and limped to the bathroom. Watching her gave Dexter another idea. Healer Imprint Success Probability: 95% Description: The control of the state of life and matter focused on the act of restoring. Starting Ability: Restore. ¡°Healer¡¯s a definite contender.¡± It didn¡¯t sound fun, but he could do a lot of good with a class like that. ¡°But man are these descriptions vague,¡± Dexter complained. ¡°Yes,¡± Je-won agreed. ¡°You think it¡¯s part of the test?¡± Dexter wondered. ¡°I believe so.¡± ¡°I guess that makes sense.¡± Dexter sighed. ¡°Doesn¡¯t make it any less annoying.¡± He thought about it for a few moments. Was there a correlation between the vagueness of what he entered and the vagueness of the description? What if he entered something more specific? Fire Mage Imprint Success Probability: 84% Description: The control of elemental fire. Starting Ability: Ignite. Nope, still vague. Though the starting ability seemed more understandable.

Outside Heart&Seoul Pizzeria, not far from one nearly formed construct, another begins manifesting.

¡°Well,¡± Dexter said, ¡°I have no idea what class I should pick. There¡¯s so many more I want to try. You said there was one more thing I should know? Maybe that will take less time.¡± ¡°The last thing is the store. And yes, it won¡¯t take long. It¡¯s to the right of the main page.¡± Dexter brought it up. Jetpack (Copper) Requirements: Machinery (Novice), Agility (Adept), Strength (Adept) Unity Drain: Moderate | None Description: Fueled by either a direct infusion of Unity or Unity shards, this item will allow the wearer to defy gravity and other restrictive forces. Laser Sword (Copper) Requirements: Swordsmanship (Novice), Perception (Novice), Control (Expert) Unity Drain: Very Low Description: A sword forged of diamond-infused steel and enhanced with a focused Unity beam on its edge, this weapon can cut through any unenhanced object with ease. Those were just the tip of the iceberg. There were armor and weapons of all sorts, direct body enhancements, something that seemed like spells, potions, teleportation devices¡ª Despite the horrible circumstances, Dexter found himself getting excited by the possibilities. The only problem was he had zero credits. ¡°How many credits did you say you got for killing that monster?¡± ¡°Ten.¡± If you only got ten credits per kill, it was going to take some serious slaughtering before he could afford most any of it. Zoe exited the bathroom. ¡°Have you figured out how to change your name yet?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Well, we should get on that.¡± ¡°Why?¡± Je-won asked suspiciously. She grinned broadly, gestured at the bathroom. ¡°I did have to pee. Buuut¡­ I also did something else.¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t,¡± Je-won said. ¡°Zoe.¡± ¡°I did. I am now officially part of the system.¡± She put her hands on her hips and looked around the small, dingy studio apartment. ¡°When do we start killing monsters?¡±

Dexter and Je-won stared at Zoe in disbelief as she stood there proudly, hands on hips, favoring one leg. Finally, Je-won broke the silence. ¡°Tell me you at least didn¡¯t use your real name,¡± he pleaded. She let her hands drop from her hips. ¡°I tried not to. I entered a bunch of things. I even tried putting my name in backwards.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re saying you used your real name.¡± She shrugged sheepishly. ¡°Zoe,¡± Je-won groaned, exasperated, ¡°what is wrong with you? I told you not to.¡± ¡°You really probably should not have done that,¡± Dexter agreed. ¡°I¡¯m not going to let the boys have all the fun. Who could pass up the chance to be a wizard?¡± ¡°You picked your class already?¡± Dexter asked. ¡°No, I¡¯m not that impetuous. I¡¯ll think on it. Maybe ¡®knight in shining armor¡¯. I do need to save my new lover from the Men in Black. If I don''t come rescue him, who will?¡± ¡°You are incorrigible,¡± Je-won said. She beamed at him. ¡°I know. Isn¡¯t it wonderful?¡± ¡°No. No it is not. This is serious, Zoe. It¡¯s dangerous. I was trying to protect you.¡± Her expression hardened. ¡°I can take care of myself. I¡¯ve been doing it all my life.¡± She snorted. ¡°You know my parents haven¡¯t even called me yet to see if I¡¯m okay?¡± ¡°This is different.¡± ¡°It¡¯s too late now. You¡¯re stuck with me.¡± Je-won rubbed his face with both hands. ¡°Maybe you should call them,¡± Dexter suggested. ¡°What?¡± Zoe snapped, glaring at him. ¡°With what happened today, your parents wouldn¡¯t just¡­¡± He trailed off. He knew she didn¡¯t have the best parents, but they would have at least checked on her. If they could have. She seemed to realize this at the same moment. Her expression changed from anger to something else and her eyes began to glisten as she fumbled to get her phone out of her pocket. She dropped it, snatched it up, then swiped at the screen multiple times, angrily wiping at her eyes before finally putting the phone to her ear. ¡°Mom?¡± Zoe said into the phone, her voice breaking. Another message suddenly appeared. System Message Hello. It is time for the next trial. I know you are tired, and weary, and dealing with loss, trying to comprehend this new reality. But the eternal foes will not care about any of that. So I must push you. I am sorry, but this is necessary. This new challenge is targeted, and each of you who has joined the system will face your own battle. I believe this is necessary not only for your own advancement, but for the others who have not yet joined. They need to see what those who harness Unity and shape the world with their Intention are capable of. Many have joined the system, more than I predicted, though fewer than I hoped, so perhaps this shall convince the holdouts. Although it is only those in the system who will this time be tested, do not think that those who do not join will be safe in the future. I am sorry, but everyone who is able, must fight, or attempt to. With only those who have joined so far, the odds are low that the needed participants will arise. And without them, we will stand no chance against the eternal foes. But I have faith in you. I know you are capable of great things, and you will see that with this upcoming test. Know this: the enemies I send after you can be defeated. You must use everything at your disposal, but it is possible. In fact, several of my constructs were defeated in the first test. I had not predicted such success, but I am glad for it. It is further proof I was right to believe you are all capable of wonderous things, and it gives me great confidence in your ability to defeat the eternal foes. I simply hope there is enough time. The next trial begins now. Good luck. Zoe was trying to get the attention of whoever was on the other end of the phone¡ªfrom the sound of it, not her mother¡ªwhile Dexter and Je-won finished reading the message. ¡°Well,¡± Je-won said, ¡°looks like our time has run out.¡± Dexter began to reply, but that was when something crashed through the ceiling. Chapter 17: Trial by Ordeal Zoe screamed as the computer chair she¡¯d been sitting in before getting up to go to the bathroom and join the system was crushed under the massive form of¡­ something. A construct, Dexter thought. That was what the message had called these monsters. It stood around the height of a man on a single leg that looked like thick, coiled worms. Its head was a large oval made three-dimensional, with a massive toothless mouth that took up most of the face. There was a single central eye the size of a baseball surrounded by several marble-sized orbs. Dangling from the sides of its oblong head were fleshy extrusions like pendulous earlobes which squirmed and writhed as though possessed by maggots. Beneath these ¡®earlobes¡¯ were three appendages that looked like unjointed arms topped in many-fingered hands. Its skin was a bluish gray, like unpolished dumortierite, though the texture was smooth like old leather. But the most imposing aspect of the creature was the several-foot-long appendage coming out of what one might call its torso. This was the same bluish gray as its skin, but looked harder, like metal. Instead of being topped in a hand, it came to a point, giving it the overall appearance of a jointed, flattened lance. Before Dexter could move Je-won had already leapt into action, summoning his sword, and Dexter was glad the cooldown on it was over. Je-won swung at the construct but it dodged, its movement alien and extraordinarily swift as it pivoted away on its single leg which seemed to hover over the floor. With the monster¡¯s attention on Je-won, Dexter finally did get up, jumping over the back of the couch and sweeping Zoe¡ªwho was gaping at the fight, phone held forgotten at her ear¡ªup in his arms and heading for the door that led to the stairs to the restaurant¡¯s kitchen. ¡°What are you doing!¡± Zoe cried. ¡°Don¡¯t leave him!¡± Dexter ignored her, making his careful but swift way down the stairs with her in his arms, grateful she was so light. He carried her all the way to the dining room, moving fast but not running, then set her down. ¡°Stay here.¡± As she protested, he grabbed the pizza peel from the counter next to the destroyed cash register, then hurried back through the kitchen, and this time he did run. He reached the door to the stairs and went through then turned around to lock it, already seeing Zoe limping toward him yelling about not being left here. He left her there, shutting and locking the door then turning to rush up the stairs. Only to be confronted with Je-won exiting the apartment, sword in hand, blood oozing from a small gash across his cheek. ¡°Run!¡± Dexter swore and turned around, fumbling with the door to get it open, Je-won¡¯s swift steps nearly reaching him. He yanked it open and got a punch to the face with the bottom of Zoe¡¯s fist she¡¯d been meaning to pound against the door. ¡°Crap!¡± Zoe cried in surprise, looking at Dexter¡¯s now-bloody lip. ¡°But you deserve it for leaving¡­¡± She trailed off as she noticed Je-won. ¡°Oh. Did you kill¡ª¡± Her eyes widened as her unfinished question was answered when the construct exited the apartment and began descending the stairs, seeming to slide down them, its single leg extending and collapsing to keep the rest of its body eerily still. ¡°Go!¡± both Je-won and Dexter yelled, the latter shoving the pizza peel into her arms then picking her up again and taking off through the kitchen. We¡¯re not fast enough, Dexter realized with dawning horror as he glanced back to see it already entering the kitchen just as they themselves made it out into the dining room. ¡°Car!¡± Je-won shouted as they burst outside. They weren¡¯t the only ones being attacked. Dexter could hear what sounded like screams coming from the townhall down the street. Not of anger or protest, but fear. He couldn¡¯t think about that right now. He couldn¡¯t help anyone if he was dead. He focused on the car, feeling the monster close in behind him, pushing himself to run as fast as he could. Not laden with an extra body, Je-won reached the vehicle first, opened the door, and slid in, quickly glancing to his left out the open door to check on Dexter and Zoe as he started the car. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to shout something, but the words were lost to Dexter as a hard object smashed into his back, sending him flying forward, Zoe screaming in his arms. Luckily, when he slammed into the side of Je-won¡¯s car, he¡¯d spun somewhat, taking the brunt of the impact on his back and sparing Zoe. Je-won was already past them, leaving the safety of the vehicle to once more engage with the monster. Dexter groaned as something beneath him moved. He was dazed and was having a hard time focusing. ¡°Get off me!¡± came a muffled voice, and he realized he¡¯d fallen on top of Zoe. He rolled off her, lacking the wits at the moment to do anything more. As he did, his gaze fell on Je-won and the monster, the construct. He had never deactivated that eye icon, and so as he stared in a confused haze, his vision populated with text after a few seconds. (Gliding semaphore [Parasitic aspirator]) Level: Copper Je-won landed a hit on the thing, and it let out a cry that sounded like someone had plucked a guitar strung with humming, high-voltage lines. Get up, he told himself. He needed to help Je-won. The construct lanced its central spear-arm into Je-won¡¯s gut. Instead of penetrating, it sent him flying. Robust, Dexter realized. Je-won must have activated it. Then he realized something else as he became aware of the sensations in his own body. His back was on fire, either from the impact with the car or the swipe of the monster¡¯s spear-like talon. Or, more likely, both. He watched the monster stalk toward where Je-won had fallen and was even now pushing himself up. ¡°Get up,¡± Dexter growled at himself. He tried to move, but a sharp jolt of pain lanced through his back, stilling him as he let out a grunt of pain. The monster connected with Je-won, its talon slipping past his sword to score a hit that cut across the man¡¯s chest. Je-won dodged backward, grimacing, but kept fighting. Dexter clenched his jaw. It¡¯s just pain, he reminded himself, and tried again. This time he managed a sitting position. ¡°Get¡­ up!¡± he wheezed. With pain shooting through his back, down his legs, and up to his skull, Dexter got to his feet. His legs trembled as dizziness assaulted him. He went to his knees, feeling like he was going to throw up. He forced his fuzzy gaze to focus on the ground, looking for the pizza peel. He spotted it jutting out from under the car. He grabbed it, then examined Zoe. ¡°Are you hurt?¡± She just stared blankly at him as Je-won engaged the monster. ¡°Get in the car if you can,¡± Dexter told her, not wanting to risk moving her if her neck or spine were injured. Then he got to his feet again, using the car to steady himself. He took one breath, two. His vision stilled, his mind clearing slightly. He stood like that, watching the battle between Je-won and the construct, waiting for an opportunity. It didn¡¯t take long, Je-won spotting him and the pizza peel he held and intuiting what he was waiting for. Je-won slashed at the monster, the sword not breaking the thing¡¯s hide despite connecting solidly, then juked to the right as its spear-arm swung at him, missing only by inches. Dexter didn¡¯t hesitate, charging toward the creature, flicking his left index finger up and feeling it tap into the ability he¡¯d placed there. Dauntless activated. Ignoring level disparity. He suddenly felt¡­ strange. His whole world felt twisted up and he felt something like a pressure that wasn¡¯t physical. He ignored it and slashed at the monster¡¯s undefended back as Je-won kept it occupied. Unlike when Je-won hit it with his blade, the pizza peel opened a massive gash and black blood poured out like sand from a split sandbag. The speed with which it reacted to this was unlike anything Dexter had experienced. Like it had simply teleported to face him instead of turning. Dexter had no time to do anything, not even register the strike with the side of the construct¡¯s talon against his own side until he was already in the air. It had swiped him away like he weighed nothing, and once more he was sent flying. He landed harshly, the wind knocked out of him, his side burning in pain from where he¡¯d been hit, as the monster bore down upon him, screeching that electric hum. ¡°Hey!¡± Zoe shouted at the monster, limping toward it. Dexter tried to yell at her to get in the car, but all that came out was a wheeze as she placed herself between the monster and him. To Dexter¡¯s surprise, it simply swerved around her, faster than she could react, and kept coming for him. She shouted at it again, but to no avail. It moved toward Dexter, sliding over the ground like it was floating or on wheels. Dexter tried to get up, but his limbs wouldn¡¯t listen to him.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. He pushed harder, his vision darkening. With an effort that nearly made him black out, he managed to push himself up just before it reached him, readying the pizza peel he was surprised to find himself still holding. He didn¡¯t get a chance to see if he would be quick enough to attack it before it took his head off or impaled him however, as a figure landed on its back. It halted, flailing its jointless arms back in Je-won¡¯s direction as the man stabbed his sword down into its back. Its screech grew in volume and intensity and it spun quickly in place, flinging Je-won away, the motion causing black blood to spill out from the new hole Je-won¡¯s sword had made. Still unable to take a full breath, Dexter forced himself to his feet and charged the monster, whose back was now facing him again, once more thanks to Je-won. He was dizzy and unsteady and tripped as he ran, but he managed to bring the enchanted metal pizza peel down just as the thing turned with unnerving alacrity to face him, spinning in place on its single leg. This actually worked to Dexter¡¯s advantage, because as the talon-tipped appendage thrust in his direction, it also put itself in the path of the descending peel. And so it was with great satisfaction that Dexter felt the enchanted, stainless steel edge cleave entirely through the appendage. The limb fell to the ground and the stump oozed more of that black blood, not spurting, but simply spilling out, as Dexter¡¯s momentum and fall carried him into the monster. Its main weapon gone, it was no less aggressive, and two wormy tentacles from its leg unwrapped themselves, seizing Dexter and constricting around him as it accelerated forward. Dexter had the briefest of moments to wonder how it was moving while its sole leg remained firmly motionless and then his battered back was further assaulted as the construct slammed him into the trunk of Je-won¡¯s car, his head smashing into the rear windshield with what Dexter distantly hoped was the crunch of glass and not skull. He let out a wheezing groan, the world spinning around him, his knees on fire where the backs had slammed against the edge of the trunk. But he was lucky. Just a bit lower, and his back would have been forced to bend backward at a ninety-degree angle. Female gymnasts might be able to manage such a feat, but it would have snapped his far less flexible spine. He distantly heard Zoe scream, and hoped she didn¡¯t try to save him again. Black blood from the severed appendage coated him as more of the monster¡¯s tentacles unwrapped from its leg and scrambled for purchase against the trunk as it tried to get on top of the car, its toothless oval mouth snapping at him. But whatever those tentacles had, they weren¡¯t suckers, as they just slid off with dull yet smooth dragging sounds. Dexter¡¯s head was pounding, his back throbbing, his stomach roiling with nausea, his breathing ragged and wet, and he wasn¡¯t sure how much of the blood he felt on his face and lips was his own and how much was the monster¡¯s, but he still managed to smile up at the creature. Because again, he¡¯d managed to hold on to the pizza peel, and now he brought it up with all his might. This was admittedly not much at the moment, but enough to lodge the makeshift weapon in the thing¡¯s head. It jerked back, finally disarming him as the blood-slick handle slipped from his grip, and stumbled away, giving up trying to eat him in favor of not dying. Dexter had no idea if the thing even had a brain to damage, but whatever the case, it didn¡¯t seem to like having several inches of stainless steel wedged there. Its pendulous earlobes squirming ever more frantically, it swiped with its short limbs at the peel, but none were quite long enough to reach. Then Je-won was there, yelling as he swung his sword like a bat at the thing¡¯s singular leg. It toppled to the ground and not hesitating for even an instant Je-won attacked again, swinging his sword down on what might be called its neck, severing the head with such force the blade lodged in the asphalt. This did not still the construct and with a grunt of exertion Je-won yanked the weapon from the ground, switched to a two-handed grip and stood beside the monster, stabbing down into its chest. Something green spurted up the sides of the blade and out into the air, no spilling here, but like shot from a firehose, even hitting Dexter¡¯s legs where he lay yards away on the back of Je-won¡¯s car. The construct stilled and an eerie silence descended. Dexter thought there should be more noise, but couldn¡¯t quite think of why at the moment. (Gliding semaphore) slain 5 points received 10 credits received Je-won fell to his knees, breathing heavily, leaning on his sword, whose point was dug into the ground. Dexter knew how the man felt; it was all he himself could do to keep his eyes open. A moment later Zoe seemed to appear beside him. ¡°Dex!¡± she choked out, her eyes red and face streaked with tears. ¡°Are¡ª are you okay?¡± He chuckled, coughed, then weakly lifted one hand and gave a thumbs up. She laughed, then sobbed, then took his hand. I really need a class, Dexter thought. He¡¯d get right on that. As soon as he could breathe normally again. ¡°Are you okay?¡± Zoe asked Je-won, who was also still trying to catch his breath. Dexter didn¡¯t catch the man¡¯s reply because a new message distracted him. Autogenous Imprint formation detected. Analyzing¡­ Analysis complete. Imprint capacity increased: 1 of 2 applied. Assigning nomenclature. Class applied: Dauntless System abilities: Not applicable Inherent abilities: Endure Dexter lifted the hand Zoe wasn¡¯t holding and tapped on endure, not missing the irony in the fact that he barely had enough energy to perform the motion. Endure Unity Drain: High Intention: High Description: Draw on Unity to endure through debilitating damage. He frowned, wondering if the system had forced him into a class like it had forced him into the system itself. But it said Imprint capacity was one out of two. Did that mean he could still pick a class? Lethargically, he brought up his status screen. Dauntless Leaderboard Rank: 68,103 Score: 5 Level: None Class: Dauntless Attributes ¡à Agility (Novice 5) ¡à Endurance (Novice 4) ¡à Strength (Novice 6) ¡à Durability (Novice 6) ¡à Intelligence (Novice 8) ¡à Vision (Novice 9) ¡à Hearing (Novice 9) ¡à Smell (Novice 5) ¡à Taste (Novice 5) ¡à Touch (Novice 4) Abilities ¡à Endure Skills ¡à Control (Novice 6) ¡à Perception (Novice 7) Titles ¡à Dauntless He long-pressed on class and the prompt to enter a class appeared. Curious, he entered dauntless. Dauntless Error. Conflicting Imprint already applied. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Zoe asked Dexter as Je-won finally joined them. He had several cuts, but seemed mostly okay, likely thanks to his robust ability. ¡°I got assigned a class,¡± Dexter answered, his breathing almost back to normal, though he hurt¡­ everywhere. ¡°But it looks like I can still pick one.¡± ¡°Which class were you assigned?¡± Je-won asked. Dexter told him, relaying the message about Imprint formation and the ability he¡¯d received. Je-won didn¡¯t react like Dexter expected, stabbing his sword into the ground and getting out his phone. ¡°What is it?¡± Zoe asked him. ¡°My sister.¡± He already had the phone to his ear. He spoke a moment later. ¡°Nara! Are you¡ª¡± He listened for a moment, then let out a sigh. ¡°Good. I¡¯m sorry. I should have been there.¡± Dexter couldn¡¯t hear what she was saying. Telling him not to worry about her, he imagined. Then Je-won frowned, looking at Zoe. He talked with Nara for another few seconds, then told her he¡¯d be there soon and hung up. ¡°Why are you looking at me like that?¡± Zoe asked him. ¡°You said you joined the system.¡± She groaned. ¡°Seriously? You¡¯re going to get on my case now? I think we have bigger problems to worry about.¡± ¡°Zoe, that is my point. Did you read the last system message?¡± An expression formed on Zoe¡¯s face Dexter couldn¡¯t quite interpret. ¡°I was distracted,¡± she said quietly. ¡°It said it was going to attack everyone in the system. You¡¯re in the system but you weren¡¯t attacked.¡± Zoe pointed at the corpse. ¡°Uh, did you already forget about that?¡± ¡°It ignored you. It only came for Dexter and me. You stood right in front of it and it avoided you to go after him.¡± ¡°He had just cut it open. It probably wasn¡¯t too happy about that.¡± She looked around, held out her hands. ¡°And I don¡¯t see any more of them.¡± Je-won said nothing, only looked thoughtful. ¡°I wonder if they¡¯re okay,¡± Zoe said, staring down the street at the townhall where not long ago a crowd had gathered. There were still a few cars, but there wasn¡¯t a person in sight, and the night was entirely silent. This snapped Je-won out of his thoughts and he focused on Dexter again. ¡°Sit up, let me look at your back. I saw it hit you.¡± ¡°Hit you too,¡± Dexter rasped with a grin. ¡°I had robust up.¡± He looked at his arms, which had several shallow cuts. ¡°Not perfect, clearly. But it helped.¡± He shook his head. ¡°Sorry about leading it to you. I would have kept fighting it back in your apartment, but the ability dropped at the end there and I needed to kill time until the cooldown expired. I wasn¡¯t expecting you to be coming back up.¡± ¡°Like I would just leave you there.¡± Dexter grinned and pushed himself up, then grimaced. Je-won helped him off the car. ¡°You good?¡± he asked, placing a steadying hand on Dexter¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m fine.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t look it,¡± Zoe said skeptically. ¡°You¡¯re covered in its blood, but I see some red in there too.¡± Je-won moved behind him, lifting his shirt to examine his back. ¡°Well, you¡¯re going to have one heck of a bruise.¡± He ran two fingers lightly down either side of Dexter¡¯s spine. Even that light touch caused pain. ¡°Seems okay. You should get an x-ray though.¡± ¡°Not sure that¡¯s going to happen any time soon. Even after the first attack the hospital was packed. It can only be worse now.¡± Dexter gestured at the construct¡¯s corpse. ¡°Besides, I got points and credits. Ten more and I can buy what I think might be a healing potion.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯ll survive ten more in your condition,¡± Zoe pointed out. Je-won looked at the corpse. ¡°I received points as well. Less than the first monster I killed with Nara. I got five hundred for that.¡± ¡°Five hundred?¡± Dexter asked in surprise. ¡°I got five.¡± Je-won nodded. ¡°Same. The message did say it was unexpected that any were killed in that first wave.¡± He looked down at his sword. ¡°Though I have to say, this time was more difficult. It took a lot of force with my sword to get it to break its skin.¡± He glanced at the pizza peel, jutting out the side of the construct¡¯s severed head. ¡°I wonder if that thing does more damage.¡± He focused on it for several moments. ¡°No damage readout, unfortunately. Its grade is F0 instead of F1.¡± ¡°You can inspect items?¡± Dexter asked. ¡°Did I forget to tell you that?¡± Je-won shook his head. ¡°Should have written down a list. Just focus on it.¡± Dexter did, and after several seconds information appeared. Pizza Peel, Stainless Steel (Enchanted) Grade: F0 Unity Drain: None Description: An ordinary item fundamentally altered to draw on a minor amount of Unity. Dexter turned his attention to Je-won¡¯s sword, but no information on this appeared. ¡°I can¡¯t inspect your sword. You said it¡¯s F1?¡± ¡°Yes. I¡¯m assuming that¡¯s better than F0. Did you activate your ability?¡± ¡°Figured I could use all the help I could get.¡± ¡°Perhaps that is why you were able to harm it more easily, then.¡± Dexter nodded slowly. ¡°It was Copper. I don¡¯t know what level that is, but it has to be higher than none. Since my ability ignores level disparity, I probably did more damage.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Je-won agreed. ¡°But it would be good to test the theory.¡± Zoe laughed without humor. ¡°Yeah, let¡¯s hold off on that.¡± Je-won smiled. ¡°Once I get back, I¡¯ll have Nara try to enchant my sword.¡± ¡°Think that will work?¡± Dexter asked. ¡°Can¡¯t hurt to try.¡± Je-won moved to the corpse and knelt beside it, putting his hand on it. ¡°Uh, what are you doing?¡± Zoe asked, grimacing as he touched the bloody thing. ¡°Looting it.¡± ¡°Good idea,¡± Dexter said. ¡°I would, but I¡¯m just going to stand here for a minute.¡± Je-won chuckled, removing his hand. ¡°Only one item. Another imprint like Nara got.¡± ¡°What does it do?¡± Zoe asked. Despite her disgust, she had moved closer and was looking down at the corpse. Je-won got to his feet, shaking his head. ¡°No idea. We haven¡¯t found an inventory, if there is one.¡± ¡°What¡¯s with its leg?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°Are those suckers?¡± Je-won frowned, once again kneeling down. Using his sword, he tapped one of them. It made a faint thud. ¡°They look like balls. That must have been how it moved like it did.¡± He got to his feet again, looking at Dexter. ¡°An Imprint is what it said you formed, right?¡± Before Dexter could reply, the corpse moved. In contrast, the three of them froze. ¡°Is it still¡ª¡± Zoe began, but before she could finish, the corpse exploded and something small and red rocketed out of it. Chapter 18: Good Things Come in Threes Dexter backpedaled as the monster that had just exploded from the corpse of the construct they¡¯d killed landed a few feet away. (Parasitic aspirator) Level: None It was the size of a large house cat, but managed to look far more intimidating. It was red and covered in what looked like soft, flexible carapace. It had a narrow body with several spiked tubed protuberances which were currently leaking black blood of the gliding semaphore they¡¯d just killed. It had five limbs, though a sixth appeared to have been severed, and the stump leaked something thin and green, like dyed water. It had two black eyes on the side of its head, but Dexter could see within them two pupils which moved independently. Even standing still in the brief moment it stood taking everything in, it buzzed with a manic energy, its entire body twitching minutely, the spiked tubes flicking at the air like a snake¡¯s tongue. Then it burst toward him. Dexter dodged to the side, barely avoiding collision, running toward the gliding semaphore¡¯s head where the pizza peel was lodged as Je-won moved past him to intercept the parasite. Dexter planted his foot on the severed head and yanked the pizza peel free. A wave of something like the opposite of dizziness washed over him, and he intuitively knew his dauntless ability had just dropped. As he rushed to join Je-won in the battle he tried to activate it again to no avail. Oh well, he thought. They were the same level in any case. Despite this, the monster was incredibly fast, far faster than either of them, but working together Je-won was able to corral the thing toward Dexter, his sword actually doing damage this time to the equal level monster. As it leapt back from Je-won¡¯s blow, Dexter darted in. Though the parasite wasn¡¯t as quick as the semaphore had been, it was still fast enough to spin and bring up one of its limbs to parry Dexter¡¯s attack. But its soft carapace was no match for the enchanted steel and this only resulted in a second of its six limbs being severed, two stumps now leaking green. It leaped straight up in the air at this loss, landing on top of Je-won¡¯s car a good six feet away. Je-won began to say something to Dexter, but the construct didn¡¯t give him the chance, launching itself from the car with a screech of metal and colliding with the man¡¯s chest. The impact sent the pair flying several feet backward and by the time Dexter reached them the parasite appeared to be trying to dig its spiked tubes into Je-won¡¯s chest. Apparently it couldn¡¯t break through his robust ability. Dexter wasn¡¯t about to wait to find out if it would eventually manage, and slammed the construct off with the side of the pizza peel. He was shocked at how far it flew. Was it that light, or had he gotten stronger? His strength attribute was the same, if he recalled correctly. He would check later. For now, he had more pressing matters to attend to. As Je-won got to his feet, Dexter dashed toward the construct as it scrambled up from where it had landed, leaking green fluid. Before it could get its bearings he swung the pizza peel down again and just barely missed severing another of its limbs as it swiftly darted back out of reach. Before he could yank the pizza peel from the asphalt for another strike, however, his focus was stolen by Zoe¡¯s scream. He turned to see a new construct bearing down on her just as she jumped into Je-won¡¯s car and slammed the door shut. (Shadow grapnel) Level: None It was short and thick, its skin a slick mottled black like swamp water. It had a head like an octopus but instead of being soft and gooey appeared coated in black turtle shell. It had several thick, wide limbs on which it stood and which left divots in the asphalt as it moved. It reached the car, slamming into it and immediately pounding its head against the vehicle. It appeared to be doing so at random, but struck the passenger window with a loud crack that crazed the glass. Inside the car, Zoe screamed again. Dexter roared, freeing the pizza peel and running to her aid.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Two steps were all he got before the parasite slammed into him and knocked him to the ground. He landed with a grunt as the wind was knocked out of him, then he forgot all about breathing as he felt something pierce his side. A sword flew over his head, missing the parasite as nausea flooded Dexter as one of the thing¡¯s spiked tendrils worked its way inside of him. Then, thanks to Je-won¡¯s control projectiles ability, the sword changed direction and flew back, piercing the creature and sending it skittering off of Dexter and yanking the tendril free with a feeling of both relief and disgust as he felt it leave his insides. A moment later he was looking up at Je-won and being pulled to his feet. ¡°Help Zoe! I¡¯ve got this.¡± Dexter stared, confused for a moment as Je-won charged the parasite, retrieving his sword and getting a slash across the arm for his trouble. Then the two were fighting again, the parasite significantly slowed from its accumulated injuries. Zoe, Dexter thought, trying to force his mind to clear, the pain in his side¡ªand everywhere else for that matter¡ªmaking it difficult. A cracking sound drew his attention to Je-won¡¯s car, the third construct beating at the vehicle. Right, that¡¯s where she was. He was too woozy to rush it, but he had a better idea. The parasite was occupied with Je-won, and the shadow grapnel thing¡¯s full attention was on her, so he crept slowly toward it, bringing up his interface to put his new endure ability on the hotring over his right index finger, then activated it. He felt¡­ strange. That twisting sensation again, but also something different than what he¡¯d felt when he¡¯d activated his dauntless title. A pull in his head. He could feel his willpower being drained away. He had to actually fight to keep this one active. And it wasn¡¯t just his willpower it drained, but his grip on something, a different kind of power. Unity? At the same time, however, he felt reinvigorated. The pain in his side from where the parasite had penetrated still throbbed, but it was less distracting, and he found he could ignore it. His thoughts cleared somewhat, his vision sharpening, all his senses seeming to improve. He clutched the pizza peel and raised it over his head, nearly upon the construct. It still had all its attention on Zoe. But the glass wouldn¡¯t hold out for much longer, it was already cracked and would soon cave in. The only reason it had held this long was that the monster didn¡¯t seem to understand the glass was the weakest point and was instead ramming its head at random into the vehicle. Hoping the thing had a brain under that hard shell, Dexter brought the peel down on its neck and earned the second beheading of the day. Headless, the monster spun, asphalt spraying as it ripped its legs out of the ground and lashed out at him with one of them. It was tipped with a hook which slashed across Dexter¡¯s stomach, sending a lance of pain through him that he found surprisingly easy to ignore. Ten seconds later, the construct lay pulped at his feet, nothing left but a stew of monster parts. (Shadow grapnel) slain 5 points received 5 credits received He swiped the message away and was about to ask Zoe if she was hurt, but she was pointing behind him. He turned to see Je-won grappling the parasite with his bare hands, lines of red appearing where the spiked tubes thrashed at the man¡¯s arms. What the hell? ¡°His sword,¡± Dexter realized. Je-won¡¯s weapon had a limit for how long it could last. Had it already expired? Dexter ran over and kicked the monster off Je-won, then brought the peel down over and over until it, too, was nothing but pulp. (Parasitic aspirator) slain 3 points received 5 credits received Dexter let out a yell of triumph. Then he collapsed to the ground. When he opened his eyes again, it was at a sensation of warmth spreading over his body. Zoe was standing over him. Je-won crouched beside him, looking at the wound on his side. ¡°It¡¯s not fully healed, but much better than it was.¡± Zoe smiled. ¡°Glad I could help in some way.¡± She lifted a finger to tap on her ability, but nothing happened and her smile fell. ¡°Gah. I can¡¯t try again. It¡¯s not working. What was it you called it, a cooldown?¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Je-won said. ¡°He looks like he¡¯ll make it. ¡°What about you?¡± ¡°I¡¯m okay. Mostly. When it comes back up, you should heal yourself.¡± ¡°Me?¡± she asked incredulously. ¡°Can¡¯t have you limping around.¡± ¡°Oh. Right.¡± Dexter sat up, releasing his hold on his endure ability. It was both a relief and a drain as he felt the full weight of his exhaustion and pain return. ¡°How bad are you hurt?¡± he asked Je-won weakly, pressing his palm into his forehead. ¡°Just some scrapes. My ability only dropped at the end.¡± ¡°Your sword?¡± Dexter asked. ¡°I thought it lasted longer.¡± ¡°Robust. Sword too, though.¡± Je-won shook his head. ¡°Guess I ran out of whatever Unity is.¡± Dexter looked at Zoe. He had to widen then squint his eyes to bring her into focus. ¡°Are you okay?¡± She laughed. ¡°Am I okay? You¡¯re the ones who did all the fighting.¡± She grimaced, putting a hand on her stomach. ¡°Though, now that you mention it, I probably shouldn¡¯t have eaten so much pizza. Or drank so much beer.¡± Je-won helped Dexter to his feet. At least I can stand, he thought morosely. He risked looking down at his stomach. His shirt was torn in several places, but when he lifted it the only wound that remained was the one on his side. It didn¡¯t look great, but also didn¡¯t look life-threatening. ¡°Thanks for the heal,¡± he told Zoe. ¡°Only wish I could do more.¡± Je-won put a hand on her shoulder. ¡°You did plenty.¡± ¡°Is that a joke?¡± ¡°No,¡± he answered seriously. ¡°You saw him before you cast that heal.¡± She shrugged. ¡°I guess.¡± Dexter frowned. ¡°Wait, how did you heal me? Was that your system ability?¡± ¡°Class.¡± ¡°You chose a class? When?¡± ¡°While you two were fighting.¡± ¡°Aw, just to save me?¡± She scoffed. ¡°You wish.¡± She looked around. ¡°Is that all of them this time?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s hope so,¡± Je-won answered. ¡°That was three. And the first one was Copper. I¡¯m thinking it was meant for both Dexter and I.¡± ¡°Testing teamwork?¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be surprised.¡± ¡°The third one was after me,¡± Zoe pointed out. ¡°I couldn¡¯t even fight it.¡± Je-won lightly punched her shoulder. ¡°Stop being so hard on yourself.¡± He motioned at the restaurant. ¡°You two go get your things and let¡¯s get out of here.¡± ¡°We staying at your place?¡± Zoe asked. Je-won nodded. She let out a little cheer. ¡°Sweet. A sleepover. I¡¯m ready to go, my bag¡¯s back at school.¡± ¡°I have a few things to bring,¡± Dexter said. A minute and a half later, they were all loaded up in Je-won¡¯s now seriously beat-up car. As they drove off, none noticed the figure pop into existence out of nowhere from just inside the destroyed frontage of Je-won¡¯s Heart&Seoul Pizzeria, staring after them with a strange, conflicted look on his face. Chapter 19: The Power of Monsters ¡°Wow,¡± Zoe said as they walked by Nara¡¯s car parked in the driveway of Je-won¡¯s family home. The windshield was busted out and there was a large divot in the hood. ¡°Was it already like that before this attack?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Je-won answered. ¡°The first construct we faced did it.¡± He¡¯d called on the way home, so already knew everyone was still safe, but that knowledge didn¡¯t make him sound any less anxious to get inside and see for himself. They hadn¡¯t talked much on the ride here. Dexter had asked again what made Zoe choose healer as a class, but in response she only shook her head and seemed uncharacteristically sullen. He would have pressed, but he was exhausted and just wanted to wash up and go to bed. She did share with him what system ability she had been given. It allowed her to sense lifeforms around her, even if she couldn¡¯t see them. Dexter thought it was a rather lame ability, but didn¡¯t say this. Je-won had had Zoe loot one of the monsters and Dexter the other. Even though she hadn¡¯t fought, she was able to loot the shadow grapnel, the one that had been sent after her. Dexter received a parasitic aspirator imprint from the eponymous construct, but as Je-won had mentioned, saw no way to use or even access it. The only reason he knew he had it at all was the message when he¡¯d looted it, which was still in his message log. (Parasitic aspirator) Imprint received Zoe had gotten a shadow grapnel imprint, but also couldn¡¯t see how to use it. There still hadn¡¯t been a message from the system about the second attack, and Dexter wondered when it would come, if one would at all. Maybe there were still constructs from the second wave alive out there? If a Copper-level monster was sent after him and Je-won, what would be sent after bigger groups, and just how strong would it be? Dexter stared at Nara¡¯s damaged car as he passed it, following the other two into the house. It was a grim reminder that while he needed sleep, he also just as urgently needed to get stronger. Inside, Je-won¡¯s family welcomed Zoe and Dexter with enthusiasm. Perhaps a bit too much, given how exhausted the both of them were. Nara promised to regale them in the morning¡ªover a hearty breakfast¡ªwith the story of how she¡¯d defended the house from this latest attack. By all appearances, she¡¯d had an easy time of it, and hadn¡¯t even been injured. Je-won¡¯s aunt and her son Jason had gone home, which left the guest bedroom free for Zoe. Dexter got the couch. He didn¡¯t mind. He took one of the quickest showers of his life then collapsed onto the couch, which Nara had put sheets and a blanket on. He immediately began drifting off to sleep, his mind replaying the day in reverse. When it got to his kiss with Leah, the memory jolted him awake. He was supposed to call her. He¡¯d completely forgotten. He sat up, looking for his phone. He eventually found it on the low, americana-style coffee table next to the couch, though he didn¡¯t remember putting it there. ¡°Hey.¡± She sounded so glad to hear him, it broke his heart. ¡°Hey Ley.¡± ¡°You have a nickname for me already. How cute.¡± ¡°Yeah, well¡­¡± ¡°How are you?¡± ¡°Okay. Just fought a monster. What about you?¡± She didn¡¯t laugh like he expected her to. ¡°No fighting, but it was crazy here.¡± He suddenly realized that the attacks were everywhere there was someone in the system. He¡¯d known this, but until this moment hadn¡¯t thought of what it meant. Getting attacked while in the hospital was a terrible way to end the day. ¡°Is everyone there okay?¡± ¡°There were only a few monsters. Not many people here were in the system.¡± An image of the loaded bus pulling out of the hospital parking lot flashed in Dexter¡¯s mind. There weren¡¯t many people because they¡¯d all been taken by the FBI. Or some organization using their name as cover. ¡°Are you feeling better?¡± he asked. ¡°I feel great.¡± ¡°Morphine?¡± ¡°Maybe a little. It¡¯s nice to talk to someone. It¡¯s been so crazy here, even before the attack came.¡± ¡°Your parents make it yet?¡± ¡°Yeah. They were here for the attack. Luckily none of us joined, so we were safe.¡± She laughed without humor. ¡°Well, that¡¯s relative. Afterward they took Emma home.¡± Emma was Leah¡¯s five-year-old little sister. ¡°Do you know when they¡¯ll release you?¡± ¡°Not a clue. I saw the cut on my chest when the nurse was changing the bandage. I¡¯m thinking it might be a while.¡± ¡°I may be able to help with that,¡± he told her, thinking of Zoe¡¯s new healing ability, how well it had worked on him. ¡°I¡¯ll come visit you in the morning.¡± ¡°Oh, okay. I¡¯ll let you go then,¡± she said, dejected. Dexter chuckled. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean I wanted to stop talking. I like talking to you.¡± ¡°I like talking to you too.¡± He could hear her smile. They talked until they were both drifting in and out of consciousness. It was only Leah¡¯s phone dying that made them give in to the need to sleep. ¡°You have a charger?¡± Dexter asked, only half-awake. ¡°Um¡­ I don¡¯t know.¡± He yawned and nodded his head. ¡°Okay. I¡¯ll bring one tomorrow.¡± ¡°Sounds good. I¡¯ll look forward to it. And another kiss.¡± These last words were slurred, as though she¡¯d drifted off already. ¡°Yeah,¡± he agreed. ¡°Night Leah.¡± ¡°Night¡­ Dexter.¡±

Dexter bolted upright out of the nightmare in which severed arms crawled like worms and slithered like snakes, chasing him and keeping up no matter how fast he ran away from them. He was covered in sweat, his head swimming, not sure where he was. He looked around expecting to find the school auditorium, but only found an unfamiliar living room. It took several seconds for the nightmare to fade and for him to remember he was at Je-won¡¯s. He got up and went to the bathroom, then checked the wound on his side where he¡¯d been stabbed by the parasitic aspirator. It was fully healed now, just a faint mark where once¡ªonly a few hours ago¡ªhad been a hole that pierced all the way to his vital organs. The system did some terrible things, but it also gave some amazing powers. He wondered what else Zoe¡¯s healing could be used for. Could it cure diseases? Cancer? Genetic conditions? He tried going back to bed¡ªit was almost four AM, so he¡¯d only gotten about five hours of sleep¡ªbut his mind was racing with possibility and memory. He eventually gave up and checked the news on his phone. He watched a video from the BBC called A Look at the First Day of the End of the World that brought together clips of the attacks, interviews with people who joined the system, and clips of government officials from around the world giving rousing speeches that were as hollow as ever. As he watched, he had a hard time believing it had only been a single day. Not even twenty-four hours since the first system message broke him out of his daydreams in Mr Kendall¡¯s history class. The narrator of the video kept calling the system Seven, and Dexter wondered if that was what people everywhere were calling it, or just a UK thing. One thing that stood out was the fact that apparently no children had been attacked, and they couldn¡¯t join either, though they had gotten the initial system message. The program had a clip of an interview with some expert speculating that Seven used reproductive development to determine whether a person was capable of joining the system and fighting. The video also included a few scattered clips of people using powers, which made Dexter think of his own, and his earlier thoughts about growing stronger. There was only so much to gain from the experience of others. So, when the video ended, instead of wasting time searching out more, he decided to explore for himself. First he brought up the leaderboard.
1 Vin ?The First Cultivator? Copper 100,010
2 Anatoly Novikov Copper 90,510
3 Goro Sakurai ?The Sniper? None 42,490
4 bal67 None 1,012
5 Valkyrie None 200
He recognized the person in first place, and he was pretty sure the sniper had been there before as well, but he wasn¡¯t sure about any of the others. He scrolled through the list for a bit, looking for any names he recognized, but didn¡¯t find any. Scrolling to the bottom revealed there were now 31,789,762 people in the system. He wondered how many more had joined only to die in that second attack. Pushing the dark thought away, he brought up the store again. But there would be no retail therapy for him this night. He still was not even close to affording most anything listed for sale. He wanted to test out the duration of his dauntless ability, but he still couldn¡¯t use it again. It had a long cooldown, apparently. At least several hours. He wondered if he had accidentally triggered it in his sleep. He felt like that would wake him up, but maybe he should move his abilities off the hotrings before sleeping. Dauntless not available, he tried his only other ability, endure, and again felt that twisting, dizzying sensation. He started a timer on his phone. This ability really was more draining than dauntless. That must be what using Intention felt like. Dauntless only used Unity, but according to the description, endure used a high amount of both Unity and Intention. While waiting for it to expire, he explored some more. It was a little like trying to read a book and walk at the same time. Completely doable, but still a bit distracting. He brought up the alteration menu, which he hadn¡¯t yet had a chance to explore. Head Arms Torso Legs Internal He selected Head. Adornments Hair Eyes Ears Teeth After selecting Adornments, he was presented with another list of possibilities, including horns of all different varieties. Curious, he selected Horns, Demon, Black. He activated his phone¡¯s front-facing camera to examine himself. They looked like projections, but with depth. The same as he¡¯d seen on the boy with the banana-yellow horns, back in the auditorium, before things got serious, before the first construct attack. He reached up, feeling for the new protrusions. To his surprise, he could feel them. They felt much like the text of the interface did, but more solid. A plum instead of a marshmallow. Touching the selection again made them disappear. Good. He didn¡¯t want anything that would draw attention to himself. Not that it was a big concern anymore. Judging by the program he¡¯d just watched, every government organization was now strained to¡ªand in many cases past¡ªtheir limits. None were going to care about a small town like Havenport. There had been agents in the hospital, but that was in Albany. He explored the alterations thoroughly, but while he could change his appearance, it didn¡¯t seem any of the changes would actually help him fight or defend himself. That was until he opened Teeth. Mixed in with the ability to change their color or make them into decorative fangs, was an option that stood out, the text slightly more prominent. It was labeled function, an option that was missing from anything else he¡¯d explored. Curious, he tapped it. Imprint available. Apply parasitic aspirator Imprint to teeth? Apply Cancel His pulse sped, adrenaline clearing his sleepy mind. Another imprint. Would this be like a class? Since it specifically mentioned teeth, it didn¡¯t seem like it. So what would applying the imprint do? He thought back to the monster that had burst forth from the corpse, thinking of the tubes all over its body that leaked the blood of its former host. It didn¡¯t make him eager to apply it to himself.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. But then again, however terrible the system might be, its goal was to make them stronger. And if this came from one of its constructs, maybe that was what it would do. Remembering something, he brought up his message log and looked for a specific message. It only took him a moment to find it. Autogenous Imprint formation detected. Analyzing¡­ Analysis complete. Imprint capacity increased: 1 of 2 applied. Assigning nomenclature. His imprint capacity was at one of two. So then would this take up that slot, or was it somehow different? It seemed foolish to waste it if it was going to prevent him from choosing another class. Maybe he should do that first. He brought up the class selection prompt. Having slept on it, a few things now struck him as odd about the choices he¡¯d input previously. The fact that capitalization seemed to matter, that Je-won had gotten something different from the fighter class than Dexter himself had, that different forms of the same word had different outcomes¡­ It made him think about what the system had called Intention, and how it might apply to more than just abilities. To test out the theory, he formed a concept in his mind and held it, entering the word ¡®this¡¯ into the prompt. Healer Imprint Success Probability: 95% Description: The control of the state of life and matter focused on the act of restoring. Starting Ability: Restore. He grew excited, but wanted to be sure, so fixed another idea in his mind and again entered the word ¡®this¡¯. Paladin Imprint Success Probability: 99% Description: Devote all your Intention to the opposition of the eternal foes. Starting Ability: System Call. He tried again, growing more and more excited, each time entering only the word ¡®this¡¯. Vanquisher Imprint Success Probability: 16% Description: A being devoted to the end of all things. Harvest Unity and shape it with your Intention to commit anything that stands against you to the void. Starting Ability: Blade Dance. Balanced Opposition Imprint Success Probability: 81% Description: Divide your Intention over all discrete factors of the normal realm. Starting Ability: None. ¡°Yes!¡± he cried out, then remembered everyone else was sleeping. But he couldn¡¯t help it. He didn¡¯t have to try random words at all, he could simply hold in his mind what he wanted to be! Of course, that did leave the question of just what, exactly, that was. Obviously the most important thing was not to die. Offense was important, but even without a class, he had been able to kill one of the constructs, at least working together with Je-won. He¡¯d even done more damage, but only with his dauntless ability active. Then again, hadn¡¯t it dropped by the time he fought the monster sent after Zoe? He took that out with no problem. It was the same level as he was, but that pizza peel seemed like it would be enough for now. Maybe he could get Nara to enchant an axe or something. Ideally he¡¯d pick a class that would have both offense and defense. He stared at the description floating in front of him, not really reading it so much as studying the text itself, how it was just hovering there, created from nothing yet also physical. It was too bad he couldn¡¯t simply gain the system¡¯s powers. He¡¯d already tried system though, and it hadn¡¯t worked. Then again, that was very general. He had no idea what host of abilities the system had. What about something more specific? More concrete? The text was solid. And if it could be shaped into letters, it could be shaped into other things as well. Weapons; shields; hell, steps in the air¡­ A new idea slammed into him, further jolting him into wakefulness and he quickly swiped away the description and entered a new word while the idea was still fresh in his mind. Forger Imprint Success Probability: 92% Description: The manifestation of Intention from Unity. Starting Ability: Forge. He groaned. Why couldn¡¯t the descriptions be more precise? But his experiments so far made it seem like the class given was exactly what he was thinking. And, at least on a surface level, this Forger class was exactly the kind of thing he¡¯d had in mind. He wasn¡¯t sure what would happen if a class imprint failed to apply, but ninety-two percent seemed like good odds to him. Whether because he was still exhausted and less worried about the consequences, or because he knew that he needed any advantage he could seize, he accepted the class. Applying Imprint for Forger¡­ He felt a jolt of euphoria that had to be from the imprint, followed by a splitting headache that thankfully only lasted mere moments. Imprint successfully applied Class applied: Forger System abilities: Forge Inherent abilities: None detected He immediately touched forge. Forge Unity Drain: High Intention: High Description: Forge Unity with Intention to manifest any element of the normal realm. Finding the description lacking, he dragged the ability to one of his hotrings and activated it. It became immediately obvious that this was a bad idea. He still had endure up, and trying to use them together made him feel like vomiting, his head feeling like a flashbang had just been set off inside it. He twitched his fingers, but his mind was so fuzzy he couldn¡¯t recall which was the correct finger to deactivate the ability. Either he managed to hit it, or his body simply couldn¡¯t handle the draw and had given out, because with a sense of relief he felt both abilities vanish. It left him dizzy, the living room spinning around him, leaving him feeling like the couch was adrift in the middle of the ocean, being battered about by chaotic waves. He leaned back and closed his eyes, but this helped only mildly. Eventually, he felt the world cease roiling around him and the sickness left him. Apparently two abilities with high draws weren¡¯t good to activate together. Would it always be like that, or would he be able to adapt, get stronger? Taking several readying breaths, he attempted activating forge again, having to bring up descriptions by holding his finger against the hotrings to remember where he¡¯d placed it. When he found it, he activated it. The twisting, draining sensation returned, but this time, now that endure wasn¡¯t also active, it wasn¡¯t overwhelming. He held his hand out in front of him and imagined a simple item. As he¡¯d envisioned, a rod made out of the same marshmallowy substance as the system messages appeared, about a foot long. He couldn¡¯t help but smile. He¡¯d just created something out of thin air. Before his mind could wander to all the possibilities, he focused himself. He needed to test this out. First he tapped it against his bare knee. He could feel it. It felt solid. More so than the horns had. He tapped a little harder, and it definitely was solid enough to cause pain. He focused, and with a sudden draining of some kind of energy, the rod reshaped into a facsimile of a knife. He looked around for something to use it on, and spotted a pile of magazines on the coffee table. ¡°Hope Mrs Yun¡¯s already read this,¡± he said, picking one up with his free hand and testing the blade against it. It sliced through it with ease, and the cut-away portion fell to the table, revealing several articles had already been snipped out from within it. He hadn¡¯t been expecting it to be so effective. ¡°Good thing I didn¡¯t test that on my leg.¡± He was pretty sure it would have sliced right through. Which he wasn¡¯t upset about. The sharper and more powerful, the better. He let go of the feeling, and the knife vanished, a sense of relief coming over him as the ability deactivated. Interesting, was it possible to activate an ability without using the hotring? He tried for nearly a minute, but if it was possible, he wasn¡¯t able to manage it. Maybe with more practice. He turned his attention back to the interface and brought up the alteration screen again. He didn¡¯t think applying the construct imprint would work since he had no imprint slots left, but tried anyway. Imprint available. Apply parasitic aspirator Imprint to teeth? Apply Cancel He touched Apply, and to his surprise it actually seemed to work. His mouth briefly tasted of metal and fire, then¡­ nothing. He checked his teeth in his phone. They looked the same. Frowning, he brought up his character sheet. Dauntless Leaderboard Rank: 14,659 Score: 13 Level: None Class: Dauntless Attributes ¡à Agility (Novice 5) ¡à Endurance (Novice 4) ¡à Strength (Novice 6) ¡à Durability (Novice 6) ¡à Intelligence (Novice 8) ¡à Vision (Novice 9) ¡à Hearing (Novice 9) ¡à Smell (Novice 5) ¡à Taste (Novice 5) ¡à Touch (Novice 4) Abilities ¡à Aspirate ¡à Endure ¡à Forge Skills ¡à Control (Novice 6) ¡à Perception (Novice 7) Titles ¡à Dauntless He immediately noticed two things. First, his rank had gone up a lot since he¡¯d last looked. He didn¡¯t remember the exact rank he¡¯d been at before the most recent attack, but it was somewhere in the sixty-thousands. Second, he had a new ability. He tapped on it. Aspirate Unity Drain: Very Low Description: Extract from others to heal and empower yourself. Interesting. Like dauntless, this also had no Intention requirement. In typical system fashion, the description was far from detailed, and he wondered what exactly would be extracted. Blood? Energy? Curious how it would manifest, he put the ability on one of his hotrings and activated it. His mouth took on that scorched metallic taste again, and this time didn¡¯t abate. Hesitant about what he might find, he once again checked his teeth with his phone¡¯s camera. ¡°You¡¯ve got to be kidding me,¡± he said, touching the tip of his tooth with his tongue. ¡°I¡¯m a vampire?¡± ¡°Vampire?¡± Dexter startled at the voice and looked around. Zoe was walking toward him from the hallway. ¡°Couldn¡¯t sleep?¡± he asked her. She shook her head. ¡°You¡¯re not distracting me. What do you mean you¡¯re a vampire?¡± ¡°You just happened to be walking out as I said that?¡± ¡°No. I was by my door waiting for you to fall back asleep so I could sneak out. I heard you talking to yourself and didn¡¯t want to¡­ interrupt. My ability let me sense you were excited about something, but not what, and I didn¡¯t want to find out it was some gross boy thing.¡± ¡°But me being a vampire was totally something you felt you had to investigate?¡± ¡°Yes. Obviously.¡± ¡°Where were you sneaking out to? You¡¯re not exactly dressed for an expedition.¡± She was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, both of which must have been Nara¡¯s, judging by how small they were on her. ¡°You first. Vampire is a lot more exciting than my destination.¡± Dexter sighed, telling her about the imprint. Before he even finished, she was searching through her own interface. ¡°I don¡¯t see anything like that. Function, you said?¡± ¡°Maybe it¡¯s different for each imprint. Yours might not be under teeth. Or it might not be there at all.¡± She nodded slowly, still swiping through an interface he couldn¡¯t see. He wondered how it worked. How you could feel it, yet it was invisible to everyone else. This made him think of his forge ability. It had cut through the magazine, so clearly it could affect the world, but would it be invisible? And would it work on other people? Hesitantly, he attempted activating the new ability without dismissing aspirate. He felt that twisting again, but keeping aspirate up at the same time didn¡¯t seem to bother him. Whether because of its low Unity requirement, lack of Intention requirement, or both, he didn¡¯t know. Maybe that knowledge would come with more practice. For now, he imagined a rod forming in his hand. ¡°Crap!¡± Zoe said, jolted out of her interface exploration by the sudden appearance of the glowing blue object in his fist. ¡°What is that? And why is it so suspiciously shaped?¡± ¡°It¡¯s¡­ a rod.¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°You can see it?¡± ¡°Duh.¡± ¡°Try touching it.¡± She cocked an eyebrow. ¡°Seriously? You want me to touch it?¡± ¡°I¡¯m being serious. I want to see if you can feel it.¡± Sighing, she roughly grabbed at it. He wasn¡¯t expecting the force, and she ended up ripping it from his hand. ¡°Wow,¡± she said flatly. ¡°Feels smaller than it¡ª¡± Suddenly it disappeared. She looked down at her empty hand. ¡°Touchy.¡± ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting you to take it. I think it disappeared because of that.¡± Dexter deactivated the ability, then reactivated it. No cooldown on this one, or no more than a few seconds if so. Which was good. He formed the rod again, then handed it to her this time. She looked down at it, but made no move to take it. He motioned with it. ¡°Go on.¡± She took it, and they both watched, waiting for it to disappear. ¡°Is this some vampire thing? You have to be invited? Or, I guess in this case invite someone else to take it?¡± ¡°That¡¯s from my class, not the imprint.¡± She handed the rod back to him, but instead of taking it he deactivated the ability and it disappeared. She looked down at where it had been in her hand. ¡°Rude. What class did you choose?¡± He told her. As soon as he started to explain his thought process on how he decided it, she began going through her own interface again. ¡°Are you listening?¡± ¡°Yes. Multitasking. I want another ability. Hmm, nothing under legs¡­ Where would it be?¡± She chewed her lip, pushing his legs out of the way and taking a seat on the couch with him. ¡°You got your imprint¡¯s parasitic ability on your teeth, so what would a shadow grapnel give?¡± He sighed, giving up his explanation. ¡°It¡¯s not parasitic.¡± She raised an eyebrow. ¡°Really? Extract blood from others to heal yourself?¡± ¡°It didn¡¯t say blood,¡± Dexter objected. She leaned in, grabbing his mouth. ¡°Whoa,¡± he said, leaning back. Zoe laughed. ¡°My god, calm down. I¡¯m not trying to kiss you.¡± She took his chin in her hand and pushed up his upper lip, leaning in and examining his teeth like a dentist might. After a few moments of study, she let go and nodded, holding out her arm to him. ¡°Go ahead.¡± ¡°Go ahead what?¡± ¡°Bite me.¡± He looked from her forearm to her face. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Come on. Let¡¯s see how it works.¡± ¡°What if it kills you?¡± She shrugged. ¡°I can heal myself.¡± ¡°Not if you¡¯re dead.¡± ¡°Well then don¡¯t kill me.¡± Dexter protested, but eventually gave in. It was easier than arguing all night, which Zoe seemed quite ready to do. When his newly enlarged teeth¡ªfangs¡ªpenetrated her arm, Zoe let out a scream, clamping her free hand over her mouth, eyes squinted and watering against the pain, but didn¡¯t pull away. Dexter meant to stop, but couldn¡¯t, feeling power enter him. He was draining her. He could feel it. He needed to stop. He didn¡¯t stop. Zoe wavered, hand dropping from her mouth as her eyelids drooped. With an effort of will, seeing his friend about to pass out, Dexter forced his mouth open, feeling like another force was trying to keep it clamped shut, withdrew his new fangs from her, and pulled back. He stared at her forearm. There were two puncture wounds, though no blood leaked from them. He hadn¡¯t tasted any blood. He hadn¡¯t tasted anything at all. Then again, his mouth still had that fiery metallic taste, so he wasn¡¯t sure he would be able to taste anything over it. Zoe fell back against the couch, slouching, lethargically lifted one hand, finger twitching upward, then let out a sigh of relief as her healing ability washed over her. ¡°Wow,¡± she croaked. ¡°That was¡­ weird.¡± ¡°Sorry.¡± She shook her head. ¡°I was the one who made you do it.¡± She let her head roll to face him, weakly pointed a finger at him. ¡°Just don¡¯t do it again.¡± He nodded in agreement. But he wanted to do it again. He wanted to sink his teeth into her again, drink the power or energy or whatever it had been. It made him feel powerful. More than that, hungry. He gave his head a quick shake, averted his gaze from Zoe¡¯s arm, which he realized he was staring at. Maybe he shouldn¡¯t use that ability. Would he have to bite constructs to use it? Strangely, though the idea of sinking his teeth into those monsters should have horrified him, it only served to increase his hunger. He heard footsteps rushing down the stairs and a moment later Je-won appeared, summoned sword at the ready. Je-won looked between Zoe and Dexter, the worried look on his face morphing to surprised amusement. Dexter was momentarily confused, then realized what it must look like, what with him shirtless and only in a pair of boxers, Zoe in Nara¡¯s too-small shorts and t-shirt, the latter of which stopped at Zoe¡¯s ribcage, and the blanket, which he must have kicked off during his nightmare, wadded up and cast off on the floor between them. ¡°Sorry,¡± Je-won said, ¡°I heard someone scream and thought¡ª¡± ¡°It¡¯s not what it looks like,¡± Zoe said. ¡°I had him bite me.¡± ¡°Uh¡­ I¡¯ll just leave you two alone then.¡± Zoe laughed. ¡°He has a new ability.¡± Je-won¡¯s demeanor immediately changed. ¡°Really? What is it?¡± Dexter explained what he¡¯d gotten and how. Je-won at least waited till Dexter had finished to go looking through his own interface. ¡°So you got an ability to drain others from a parasite, and it was under teeth. If an imprint is some kind of fundamental aspect of the construct, what would define a gliding semaphore?¡± ¡°Better yet,¡± Zoe said, ¡°what defines a shadow grapnel? I want a new ability.¡± ¡°You were able to apply it even though you had a class?¡± Je-won asked Dexter as Zoe explored her interface. Dexter nodded. ¡°Two classes, actually.¡± ¡°You picked one?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± Dexter demonstrated his new forge ability, and also explained how he¡¯d gotten the class, by fixing the idea of what he¡¯d wanted in his mind. Je-won nodded slowly. ¡°I guess that makes sense.¡± He frowned. ¡°Maybe I shouldn¡¯t have been so quick to choose my own class. They drill into you being decisive.¡± He sighed. ¡°If I can get another ability though¡­¡± He began swiping through his interface. ¡°I think I found it,¡± he said several moments later. ¡°It¡¯s called glide.¡± ¡°What does it do?¡± Dexter asked. ¡°Manifest apparatus to increase movement speed and agility,¡± he read. ¡°That sounds awesome,¡± Zoe said. ¡°Gah, where is mine?¡± Je-won looked thoughtful. ¡°I¡¯m tempted to try applying it. The only thing holding me back is that I might only be able to apply a single construct imprint. I wish we had another for you to test.¡± ¡°Oh sure,¡± Dexter said, ¡°use me as a guineapig.¡± Je-won grinned, then shook his head. ¡°No gain without risk.¡± He tapped at the air. ¡°Well, it worked,¡± he said a moment later. ¡°What happened to not being decisive?¡± Dexter asked. ¡°Old habits. Besides, a better ability is no good if you¡¯re too dead to use it. Glide seems like a movement ability, and that semaphore was fast. Speed is survival. Now to test it out.¡± He dragged something from one spot in the air to another, twitched his finger. He suddenly grew about half an inch. ¡°Wow. I can feel them. I can control it with¡ª¡± He jerked backward abruptly and fell over. Zoe laughed. ¡°Are you okay?¡± Dexter asked. Je-won shook his head, sitting up and pulling one leg in to look at the bottom of his bare foot. ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s like what the semaphore had. I¡¯ll need to practice.¡± Dexter could see opaque spheres on the bottom of Je-won¡¯s other foot. They looked like pearls. ¡°You moved pretty fast,¡± Zoe pointed out. ¡°Almost as fast as the first monster you guys fought.¡± Je-won twitched one of his fingers and the pearls disappeared. Then he got up from the floor and took a seat in the armchair. ¡°Let¡¯s find yours,¡± he said to Zoe. ¡°Did you check legs already?¡± Zoe nodded. Je-won thought for a moment. ¡°Well, just go through everything then, starting with head.¡± ¡°It will stand out,¡± Dexter added. ¡°Mine did.¡± Je-won nodded in agreement. ¡°Mine as well.¡± It didn¡¯t take her long to find what she was looking for, as the imprint was under head. ¡°Shadow shell.¡± She cocked an eyebrow. ¡°Should I try it?¡± ¡°Now you¡¯re hesitant?¡± Dexter asked with a chuckle. ¡°I don¡¯t want to look like a turtle.¡± She eyed his mouth. Dexter realized he still had the teeth summoned and deactivated the ability. He had to use the hotring this time, rather than being able to do it mentally. ¡°If you want to wait for something better,¡± Je-won put in, ¡°that¡¯s fine. But it sounds useful. Any protection you can get at all might be the thing that saves your life.¡± He tilted his head. ¡°And you might need it soon.¡± ¡°What does that mean?¡± ¡°Your parents.¡± Her expression hardened. ¡°What about them?¡± ¡°They¡¯re hurt. That¡¯s why you chose healer.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t know that.¡± ¡°Am I wrong?¡± Zoe sighed. ¡°No. They¡¯re in the hospital. They were hurt. Badly.¡± This was all news to Dexter, though it did explain why she hadn¡¯t wanted to tell him why she¡¯d picked the healer class. ¡°Is that where you were sneaking off to?¡± She threw up her hands. ¡°Just tell the whole world.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t need to sneak off,¡± Je-won said. ¡°You can use my car.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have a license.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s something you need to worry about anymore.¡± ¡°I can drive,¡± Dexter offered. She looked at him. ¡°You¡¯d go with me?¡± ¡°Of course. Where are they, in the city?¡± Her parents were always taking trips to NYC. She nodded. ¡°The nurse who answered my mom¡¯s phone said they were in Brooklyn.¡± ¡°Well then,¡± Je-won said, ¡°you better apply that imprint and test out the ability it gives you.¡± Chapter 20: The World After When Zoe activated her new shadow shell ability, a kind of darkness enveloped her. Her skin, hair, eyes, and even her clothes all became like shadow versions of themselves, any texture being replaced with a faint turtleshell pattern. Dexter reached out and touched the shadowy skin of her bare arm. ¡°It¡¯s hard.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what happens when you touch it.¡± Dexter frowned. ¡°Is that a joke, or are you being serious?¡± ¡°Both. I felt it harden as you touched it.¡± She bent her arm at the elbow several times. ¡°It¡¯s softer now. Touch it again.¡± Dexter did. It felt not quite like a turtle¡¯s shell under his fingertips, but reminiscent of that. He wondered if he¡¯d ever be able to make his forge ability create something like this, or if it was somehow fundamentally different. Zoe eyed Je-won¡¯s sword. ¡°You up for a test?¡± ¡°That doesn¡¯t seem like a good idea,¡± Je-won replied. ¡°Never know if we don¡¯t try.¡±

Je-won¡¯s sword hadn¡¯t easily cut through Zoe¡¯s shadow shell, but cut through it, it had. She had a bandage around her arm now, waiting for the cooldown on her heal to expire so she could use it again on herself. ¡°Was that your plan all along?¡± Je-won asked, as, while Zoe watched, he and Dexter loaded supplies into Je-won¡¯s vehicle for the trip to NYC to heal Zoe¡¯s parents. ¡°I¡¯m a strategic genius.¡± She gave a villainous laugh, then cut off abruptly. ¡°But no. That hurt. It still hurts.¡± ¡°At least you know your limits now,¡± Je-won said. ¡°Yeah, sure. Magical summoned laser sword, no check.¡± ¡°It¡¯s still a great ability,¡± Dexter reassured her. ¡°Kitchen knife didn¡¯t cut through it. And it has a short cooldown.¡± ¡°And a short duration,¡± Zoe grumbled. This was true, it only lasted for a little under twenty seconds. But she could use it again soon after, so it wasn¡¯t so bad. Nothing like her heal. ¡°Sure you want to leave now?¡± Je-won asked Zoe as he and Dexter finished loading up the car. ¡°Might as well,¡± Zoe answered. ¡°It¡¯s going to take a while to get there.¡± Despite having only slept for less than five hours, neither she nor Dexter thought they could get back to sleep any time soon. And Zoe wanted to get to the hospital to heal her parents as soon as possible. Nara and the others were still sleeping, and Dexter knew they¡¯d be upset they hadn¡¯t woken them to say goodbye. But it was easier this way. Nara would probably insist on coming with them, and this way they could avoid that argument. Je-won snapped his fingers as he remembered something. ¡°Wait here.¡± He jogged into the house and came out a minute later with a familiar item. Zoe laughed from the passenger seat. Je-won opened the rear door and put the item inside. Dexter, who was now in the driver¡¯s seat, looked over his shoulder at the pizza peel Je-won had just deposited. ¡°Nara won¡¯t miss it?¡± Je-won chuckled. ¡°She can enchant anything she wants. You have your ability to summon a weapon, but Zoe doesn¡¯t.¡± ¡°I am not getting on the front lines,¡± Zoe stated. ¡°Doesn¡¯t hurt to have backup.¡± He patted his car like it was a cherished horse, taking it in back to front. It had some minor dings and dents from what it had been through recently, but still ran perfectly. ¡°Be safe. Get back as soon as possible.¡± Dexter nodded. ¡°We will. To both.¡± Je-won looked torn. ¡°I¡¯d go with you, but¡­¡± He turned to look back at his home. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Zoe said. ¡°You have to protect your family.¡± He looked back at them. ¡°You¡¯re my family too.¡± Zoe smiled and patted Dexter on the shoulder. ¡°Don¡¯t worry. He¡¯s got me to protect him.¡±

They didn¡¯t make it far before Dexter remembered Leah, and his promise to her as he was on the phone with her drifting off to sleep. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Zoe asked as he slowed the car down. ¡°You see something?¡± ¡°How do you feel about making a detour?¡± ¡°That depends on where, and why. I told you to use the bathroom before we left.¡± He chuckled. ¡°It¡¯s not that.¡± He gave her a quick version of what happened to Leah, and her injury. ¡°You two kissed? Wow, that sounds like more than asking her out.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the part you¡¯re focusing on?¡± ¡°Absolutely.¡± He sighed. ¡°So, will you?¡± ¡°Heal my best friend? No Dex, of course not. Why would I let you make the ten-minute detour to do that?¡± Dexter turned the car around, and headed in the direction of the hospital.

While the world they drove through didn¡¯t look quite like a post-apocalyptic nightmare, it was clear things weren¡¯t going well for Earth¡¯s inhabitants. The sun had yet to show itself on the horizon, and the very early morning¡ªor very late night, depending on perspective¡ªwas lit only by moonlight through an overcast sky. The roads they traveled were silent and dead, their car the only source of sound and life. If any monsters still roamed the land from the most recent attack, having failed to be vanquished by their targets, they did nothing to make themselves known.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. They passed abandoned cars, both undamaged and crashed; boarded-up gas stations with signs proclaiming they were out of fuel; damaged buildings, even ones on fire. They took all this in, but kept driving, carefully navigating the occasionally clogged roads¡ªwhich turned what should have been a ten-minute drive into something much longer¡ªuntil they came upon something they couldn¡¯t simply pass by. It was on an overpass, a highway crossing beneath it. The bridge was nearly completely blocked by abandoned or broken-down cars, far more in one place than they had seen thus far. Only a narrow corridor over the bridge remained, just barely wide enough for Je-won¡¯s car to pass through. But this wasn¡¯t what had attracted their attention. ¡°Is that¡­¡± Zoe said, as Dexter slowed the car to a stop several feet back from the object of their focus, lying half-on half-off the bridge¡¯s sidewalk, the car¡¯s headlights pointed at a forty-five-degree angle to it due to the cars blocking the way, only incompletely illuminating it. ¡°A body,¡± Dexter said, putting the vehicle in park. ¡°What are you doing?¡± ¡°He might be alive still.¡± Zoe gave him a skeptical look. ¡°Stay here if you want. I have to be sure.¡± Though, with the headlights even partly on the body as they were, he was pretty sure the man was dead. Still, he got out and shut the door, stood there a moment, looking around for any signs of danger. The dark spring morning was quiet, and uncharacteristically temperate, with a warm, comforting breeze that felt out of place in this darkness, in this new world, with mechanical death all around him, and a human corpse a few feet away. He hesitantly approached the body. It was a man perhaps in his early forties, though it was hard to say for sure without being able to fully see his face. He was on his side, his back facing Dexter. He wore jeans and no shirt. A tattoo covered his back, but even with the car¡¯s headlights partly lighting the scene, Dexter couldn¡¯t make out what it was of. Not simply because of a lack of light, but due to the extreme damage the body had endured. Sound drew his attention away from the body and he turned to see Zoe getting out of the car. ¡°This is a terrible idea,¡± she said as she came to his side, clutching the pizza peel. ¡°What if it¡¯s a trap?¡± Dexter studied the scene. It did look like it might be. Could it be the system that orchestrated this? If so, it hadn¡¯t sprung it this far. In the future, he¡¯d have to be more cautious. But what was he going to do, leave someone on the side of the road to die? No, he wouldn¡¯t do that, no matter how bad things got. If he could save anyone, he would. He would never freeze again, never let some horror startle him into inaction. Never be controlled by fear. ¡°So?¡± she whispered. ¡°He alive?¡± Dexter shook his head. Zoe stared at the corpse, a grimace on her face. Then she sighed. ¡°This is going to make everything take longer.¡± ¡°We had to check.¡± ¡°Not that. This.¡± She switched the pizza peel to her other hand, held out the now free one, and twitched her finger. ¡°What are you doing? Healing it?¡± ¡°That¡¯s the idea.¡± ¡°It¡¯s off cooldown?¡± ¡°Looks like it. Here goes.¡± She tapped the air, at an interface he couldn¡¯t see, which selected the body for healing. Dexter didn¡¯t expect it was possible to bring the dead back to life, but no harm in trying. Unless it created a zombie. To both of their surprise, the corpse¡¯s grievous wounds began to close, the flesh on its back slowly unrending itself. Zoe swore and stepped back at the unexpectedly effective effect. So did Dexter. They watched in awe as the corpse knit itself back together. After a minute, the changes stopped, or stopped being visible to the naked eye at least. Even in the dim light, even through the tattoos that swirled the man¡¯s back, Dexter could still see angry red marks where the wounds had been. But they had completely closed. ¡°Go check his pulse,¡± Zoe urged. ¡°You¡¯re the one who healed him.¡± ¡°You¡¯re the big strong warrior.¡± Dexter sighed and cautiously approached the body. He actually was now seriously concerned it might be a zombie. Still, he knelt beside it and reached out for the carotid artery. When he pressed his fingers to the neck, the flesh was tepid. He kept them pressed like that, ready to leap back at a moment¡¯s notice, waiting to feel the telltale throb of life. ¡°Nothing,¡± he said after several more moments, and was about to remove his fingers when suddenly a message appeared Aaron Murphy Imprint received ¡°Whoa,¡± Dexter said, getting up and backing away. ¡°I looted him.¡± He shuddered at the thought. ¡°What¡¯d you get?¡± Zoe asked with a little too much excitement. ¡°An imprint.¡± ¡°He was a construct?¡± Dexter shook his head. ¡°Aaron Murphy, I guess.¡± He thought about going through the man¡¯s pockets to find a wallet and ID, decided he didn¡¯t need to know that badly. ¡°You should find out what it does.¡± ¡°Later. Who knows how long it will take to find. There¡¯s not even a hint of what it does like there is with constructs.¡± Zoe looked at the corpse. ¡°At least we got something for wasting my cooldown. Weird though. Why did it heal him if he was dead?¡± Dexter shrugged. ¡°When I entered healer, it said something about restoring state. I remember it didn¡¯t exactly sound like a normal heal.¡± He went through his message log until he found it. ¡°¡®The control of the state of life and matter focused on the act of restoring.¡¯ Is that what yours said?¡± Zoe swiped through her interface, then nodded. ¡°Yeah, basically.¡± ¡°Well, maybe it can restore anything, but not necessarily bring it back to life.¡± She nodded slowly, still staring at the rejuvenated corpse. ¡°How long¡¯s the cooldown? An hour?¡± ¡°A little less.¡± She swore suddenly. Dexter¡¯s heart leapt into his throat and he looked around for danger. ¡°What? What is it?¡± She chuckled and shook her head. ¡°You¡¯re like a soldier ready for battle.¡± ¡°What did you see?¡± he asked, still scanning the area, the broken-down vehicles, the road beyond the bridge, cast mostly in darkness, the pale diffuse glow from the overcast sky doing more to create shadows which hid, than light which revealed. ¡°Nothing. I remembered my other ability. Detecting lifeforms. I should have used it. I need some sticky notes,¡± she grumbled. Dexter grunted in annoyance, relaxing. But only slightly. Zoe twitched one of her fingers, activating an ability. ¡°Yep, he¡¯s dead.¡± She got a faraway look. Apparently the body was finally getting to her, now that they knew it was truly dead and there was no hope of resurrecting it. Dexter was pretty sure it was the first time she¡¯d seen a dead body. As far as he knew, all her grandparents were alive, so she wouldn¡¯t have been to a funeral yet. It may have been her first time. It wasn¡¯t his. And so he knew the sense of dread he felt building wasn¡¯t from the corpse of this man he didn¡¯t know. Nor even the memory of what he¡¯d seen yesterday in the auditorium. But something else entirely, though related. A thought. An idea. An intuition about the cause of death, and the proximity it may still have to the scene of the crime. ¡°We should get out of here. Whoever did this is probably gone, but I don¡¯t want to wait around to find out.¡± Zoe snapped out of her daze and quickly glanced around. ¡°¡®Whoever¡¯? You think a person did this?¡± ¡°Who knows. Maybe I¡¯m wrong.¡± ¡°Or maybe you aren¡¯t.¡± She focused her gaze on him. He didn¡¯t like the serious expression she wore. ¡°I sense something. With my ability. It¡¯s faint though.¡± It was Dexter¡¯s stomach that lurched this time, like he was on the world¡¯s most dangerous rollercoaster. He studied the abandoned cars, straining his ears to listen. There. A strange noise. But not the creaking of something hiding in one of the abandoned vehicles or the scraping sound of something crawling out from where it hid under one of them. The sound was almost like running water. But there was an ominous quality to it, a susurration, but not of voices. ¡°What is that?¡± Zoe asked, her own voice a mere whisper. ¡°You¡¯re the one who sensed it,¡± he whispered back. ¡°Can you tell where it¡¯s coming from? Or how close it is?¡± Zoe shook her head, but then she closed her eyes and turned in place, as though guided by a giant hand. When she stopped, she was facing the railing of the bridge they stood on. Dexter made his way to the barrier and looked down, expecting to find the road below flooded. And it was, but not with water. A moment later Zoe appeared beside him and saw the source of the strange sound. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ not good.¡± Dexter could only nod in agreement. Below them, moving slowly up the highway, were fifty to perhaps one hundred constructs. He recognized some as types they¡¯d fought before. There were even the octopus-like kind he¡¯d seen in the video of the ship that had been attacked, and several of the kind he¡¯d seen running down civilians in the footage of the city he¡¯d assumed to be NYC. With unspoken synchronicity, they both slowly moved away then turned and headed for their idling car that would take them far away from here. Before they could make it back to this promise of escape however, something like a giant flake of ash landed in front of them, blocking their path. It sat there on the concrete, like a particularly dirty patch of snow ¡°Uh¡­¡± Zoe pointed at the object. ¡°What is that?¡± ¡°Go around it,¡± Dexter urged, doing just that. Before he¡¯d made it more than a few steps, the warm breeze kicked the thing up onto its edge so that it obscured his view of the car. And then, a message appeared in front of him, letting him know it wasn¡¯t at all the wind which had moved it, but its own volition. It was no mere flotsam of the apocalypse, but a construct. Chapter 21: Life Thief Dexter stared at the construct blocking his way. Eight feet tall and at least seven wide, it resembled nothing so much as a giant blanket made of ash. As he stared, his interface activated, identifying it. (Meandering trapper) Level: Copper The name gave little hint to what it might be capable of other than possibly trapping its prey somehow, but whatever this creature was, it was at least a level higher than him. Maybe more. He still didn¡¯t know how his level of None compared to Copper. Dexter activated his forge ability and summoned a long blade. Though he tried for something larger, he couldn¡¯t make it more than about two feet long. It would have to do. The monster didn¡¯t seem aggressive yet, hadn¡¯t yet made a move to attack, but Dexter wasn¡¯t going to assume that it wouldn¡¯t, so he took the initiative, darting in and slashing it. The construct didn¡¯t try to dodge out of the way as his summoned blade connected. Instead the strange monster folded around the point of impact as Dexter followed through on the strike. He swore when he saw the attack had done no damage. Either folding around the blade had robbed it of its ability to cut through, or the level disparity was too great for him to be able to harm it. But that was fine. His attack had given Zoe enough time to make it to the car, where she now watched from the passenger door. ¡°Get in!¡± he yelled to her as he skirted around the fluttering monster. But as though blown by a gust of wind only it was privy to, the construct floated toward him. Its motion seemed slow, languid, but this appearance proved deceptive as it swept into Dexter¡¯s path and before he had a chance to dodge or react at all, wrapped itself around him. Though he was still on his feet, it had frozen him in place like a statue and was now suffocating him as it constricted around him, applying pressure to every inch of his body. Even if there was air to breathe in here, he wasn¡¯t able to expand his chest to draw in a breath. He struggled, trying to break free from the monster, but it was like fighting against the pressure of the ocean¡¯s depths. No matter how hard you fought, the pressure wouldn¡¯t relent, pressing in on you as it matched your intensity. The only escape was up and out. But there would be no swimming out of this. Vision blackening from the struggle and lack of oxygen or perhaps from the constriction of blood flow, Dexter did the only thing he could think of. The thing was Copper level, and Dexter wasn¡¯t. His only chance out of this was to even out the odds, and so he activated his dauntless ability. Even though his body was wrapped up he was still able to lift his finger to activate dauntless. He felt that twisting sensation as the ability activated, and now when he struggled he felt like he was actually making headway. But he still couldn¡¯t gain enough leverage to slash this thing with his summoned blade. If only he could activate his aspirate ability. But he knew from previous experience that he wouldn¡¯t be able to handle the combined draw of both dauntless and aspirate. Or could he? He couldn¡¯t remember at the moment. As his mind began drifting, he realized with a jolt his time was running out. He was about to lose consciousness. Lacking the ability to roar his defiance, he simply put all his strength into pressing out with his arms. He gained enough space to expand his chest and take in a magnificent breath, but then like a fluid the monster filled the space and began pressing in again. But this time, its level advantage nullified, it didn¡¯t have the strength to expel the air from his lungs. Refusing to give up, he strained against the thing again. Despite the supposed equalization in their levels, the construct was still stronger than he was and finally his shoulder muscles gave out and he was once more completely enveloped, his arms snapping down to his sides by the constriction. But this motion did something Dexter hadn¡¯t yet managed to accomplish: injure it. For as it constricted around his body, so it did around his sword, and now, with his dauntless ability activated, the weapon did real damage to the thing. It let out a vibrating screech that Dexter wasn¡¯t entirely sure was auditory. Though it didn¡¯t unravel itself from him, Dexter sensed an opening, and seized on it. He tried to move the arm holding the sword as much as he could, sawing the blade against the construct. No further scream came, however, and it redoubled its efforts, making Dexter feel like he was being dragged back down to the dark depths of the ocean, where perhaps monsters like this¡ªor worse¡ªmade their homes. Stay focused, he urged his slipping mind. He felt like he was half in a dream and felt his skull being compressed, pressure building all over his body. Think. How do I get out of this? I can¡¯t move my sword. Then he realized he didn¡¯t need to. He wasn¡¯t stuck with just this weapon. He could summon anything he wanted. But could he summon anywhere? Letting go of the summon, focusing on the spot in front of his chest, he imagined multiple small blades forming there, like spikes growing out from his torso, and then pushed his will into the image.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Abruptly came that vibrating scream that seemed more mental than physical as Dexter¡¯s summoned blades punched ten holes into the construct and it flung itself away from him as though launched from a slingshot. Dexter collapsed to the ground, barely conscious, taking deep heaving breaths, his head spinning and his stomach roiling with nausea, pain erupting all over his body. He was pretty sure some bones were broken, maybe many. His hands screamed in agony and each breath¡ªthough he couldn¡¯t stop himself from gulping down air¡ªsent sharp slashes of pain radiating out from his chest like all his ribs had been cracked. Hazily, he saw a shadow engaged with the construct. A second construct? Had the ones from below the bridge found their way up here and engaged with the trapper? If so, what irony. It took him a moment to realize that Zoe wasn¡¯t in the car, nor even near it anymore, but was in fact this shadow figure going after the ash monster. She¡¯d used her shell ability. It had turned not just her skin and clothes shadowy, but also the pizza peel, which she now slashed at the fluttering construct as it tried to envelop her. Like Dexter¡¯s earlier attack before activating dauntless, it did no damage, but at least prevented the thing from trapping her. Apparently it wasn¡¯t like a videogame, where two players could overwhelm a higher-level monster. Something that was a level above you or however many levels Copper was above None, could not be damaged. Without his ability to ignore level disparity, they were dead. Which meant they needed to either get out of here now, or Dexter needed to get up and slay the thing before his ability expired. He wanted to go with the former option, especially with the horde of monsters on the highway below the bridge. If any of those were drawn here, Zoe and he were done for. He didn¡¯t know what levels they were, but even if all of them were at equivalent levels to the two of them, they had no chance of winning, not against so many. Dexter was about to activate endure so he could do just that with the immense amount of pain he was in, when his beleaguered mind recalled what had happened last time when both dauntless and endure were activated at the same time. Or no, that had been endure and aspirate, both abilities which required Intention. But dauntless didn¡¯t. And why endure, when you can drain the very lifeforce from your enemies? Pushing himself to his feet¡ªwhich felt like they were being stabbed by a thousand needles¡ªhe activated aspirate, tasting burning metal, and launched himself at the construct. He slammed into it, feeling his own ribs crack further, but now he didn¡¯t care. All that mattered was fulfilling the desire that had risen in him with the activation of the alien construct¡¯s stolen ability, satisfying the hunger that gnawed at him, that pushed him forward, that would drive him until all his bones were shattered and muscles torn, until he could move no more. The construct, which had been going for Zoe again, now gladly embraced him like a blanket and at once began tightening around him. But this time, that was exactly what he wanted. He didn¡¯t feel disgust as he sunk his newly sharpened teeth into the ashy skin¡ªor whatever it was this construct was composed of¡ªonly hunger and desire, and need. He sucked something from it that perhaps wasn¡¯t physical, it for certain was not blood, and felt himself growing stronger, the weakness and pain being washed away by whatever power he was drawing in from the thing. Sensing something was wrong, it unwrapped itself from him and tried to flutter away. But he kept his jaw locked tight, kept drinking and drinking and drinking until finally he felt like he couldn¡¯t hold any more power and with an abruptness that was disorienting, the ability vanished. His teeth and jaw no longer enhanced by anything but his dauntless ability, the construct easily wrenched free from his bite, sending a jolt of pain up into his gums as it felt like his teeth were torn loose. But as he tongued his right canine, then left, he found them only mildly loose but still in place. That was fine. Though he now felt disgust at the idea of having bit into that monstrosity, he could feel its stolen power coursing through him, could feel the sockets already tightening once more around loosened teeth as stolen energy healed his wounds and eased his pain. The ash-like monster had only fluttered a few feet away and now drifted to the ground, whatever animating force it once possessed now gone, drunk by Dexter. Now it looked not like a patch of New York City snow, but a pile of ashes. (Meandering trapper) slain 99 points received 9 credits received Zoe, panting, holding the pizza peel loosely in one hand, face shiny with perspiration, looked at Dexter, then down at the monster, then back at him. ¡°That ability is kind of scary. You looked like a police dog holding a criminal.¡± Dexter hadn¡¯t felt like any kind of dog at all. He¡¯d felt like a monster. Not like man¡¯s best friend, but its mortal enemy. He moved to loot the corpse, but Zoe stopped him by slamming the flat of the pizza peel against his chest like it was the boom gate of a toll bridge. ¡°What the hell?¡± he grunted. ¡°No way. That is my imprint.¡± ¡°We should choose based on who could use the ability best.¡± ¡°You got the last one. You can¡¯t tell before anyway. I need something more than heal and sensing and turtling. I need an attack.¡± She let the pizza peel drop, used it to gesture at the corpse. ¡°And that might give it. You¡¯ve already got your weird vampire thing and the ability to summon any kind of weapon you want.¡± ¡°Not any weapon. I couldn¡¯t get it over two feet.¡± She glared at him. Dexter grunted. ¡°Whatever, we don¡¯t have time for this.¡± She was right about needing the ability more than he did anyway. Though he wasn¡¯t even sure either of them would be able to use another imprint, since they both already had a class and construct imprint. He wondered if the Aaron Murphy imprint he¡¯d looted from the corpse was yet a third type. He¡¯d have to find out later. He could still hear that rushing-water sound of the constructs below them on the bridge, but didn¡¯t dare go check over the bridge to see if any were trying to get up to them. If so, it would only give them a target to lock on to. ¡°Hurry up and loot it if you¡¯re going to.¡± ¡°What abilities did that thing have that would help you?¡± ¡°I said you could loot it.¡± ¡°Fine.¡± ¡°Fine,¡± he repeated. She glared at him. He laughed. ¡°It¡¯s not funny.¡± ¡°It kind of is.¡± She huffed and knelt to loot the corpse as he got in the car. ¡°Hurry up. We need to get out of here.¡± ¡°Calm down Turbo.¡± She finished looting the corpse and stood up, then her eyes went wide as they fixed on something in the direction they¡¯d come from. Dexter leaned his head out the window to see what she was looking at. And discovered they¡¯d become a target after all. Coming toward them were at least twenty constructs¡ªrunning, jumping, and flying. ¡°Get in the car!¡± Dexter shouted. Zoe darted away from the corpse, practically leapt into the backseat, not wasting time going around the vehicle to the passenger side, and slammed the door shut just as something crashed into the back of their vehicle. ¡°Go!¡± she shouted, unnecessarily as Dexter floored the gas, pointing the car through the narrow corridor of vehicles littering the bridge. He clipped a black F-150 with a crumpled passenger compartment like some giant had stepped on it and nearly spun out from the impact. Dexter fought to keep the car under control and was forced to let up on the accelerator and only just managed to avoid colliding head-on with a Prius that seemed to have no damage. He couldn¡¯t avoid a collision completely however and sideswiped the vehicle, further dropping their speed. Something landed on their trunk. Zoe screamed and scrambled into the front seat, slamming herself down and immediately putting on her seatbelt. Something pounded against the rear window. He didn¡¯t dare look back, focusing all his attention on navigating them off the bridge. Trap or not, this was like a slaughter chute. Sweat coated his palms and he gripped the steering wheel tightly. Just a few more yards. Another slam against the rear window and this time he thought he heard it crack and then they were off the bridge and onto the highway once more, the road far clearer, only an occasional car on the side of the road. Dexter floored it, pinning him and Zoe to their seats and flinging off the monster on the rear of the car. ¡°Faster,¡± Zoe urged, looking out the rear window. Dexter kept his gaze focused on the road. He didn¡¯t need to see what was pursuing them. He already had all the motivation he needed. Chapter 22: A Harmful Deception After a minute of driving, Dexter and Zoe outpaced all of the constructs chasing them. His dauntless ability had dropped at some point. He wasn¡¯t sure when, but now he wasn¡¯t in mortal danger he noticed the lack of that twisting sensation it caused when active. He wondered about his aspirate ability, which had dropped on its own, and whether he could activate it again now. But he was also wary of it. The effect it had on him seemed even stronger than the first time he¡¯d used it. That desire, that need to drink the life from another being. He wasn¡¯t sure if that was simply because there had been an enemy, a mortal danger before him, or some other more nefarious cause. And he wasn¡¯t about to test it out while alone in a car with Zoe. Another minute passed without attack or sighting any constructs and Zoe finally stopped urging him to go faster and began searching her interface for her new trapper imprint. He wanted to try to find the imprint he¡¯d looted from Aaron Murphy, but couldn¡¯t while he was driving, so had only his thoughts to occupy him He hadn¡¯t yet spotted any other bodies on the side of the road, and unless they were clearly alive and not corpses, he wasn¡¯t stopping until they reached the hospital. They were still the only vehicle out driving, and it made him curious about what everyone else was doing. Sitting locked away in their homes watching the news? Trying to learn the system and get stronger? How many people had chosen classes, or even used their starting abilities? Only thirty some odd million people had joined as of about an hour ago. Or at least that was how many were left alive. That horde of constructs suggested many people hadn¡¯t survived the second attack, and he wondered what the total death toll was. Would there ever even be an official count? Would the world continue to run, despite everything? So far, they still had power, running water, functioning hospitals. It was a lot more than Dexter would have expected. Every zombie movie he¡¯d ever seen had portrayed things breaking down almost immediately. Then again, there were no hordes of undead, only constructs with specific targets. And in that first attack, far less than one per person if the attack on his school was anything to go by. How much worse would the attacks get? The last system message had implied that those who hadn¡¯t joined wouldn¡¯t be safe forever. Would the constructs eventually start attacking the young and infirm? And how many of those in the latter category could be healed with these new system abilities? And what was the government doing? What had they done with the people who¡¯d joined the system already? Perhaps it was using them, forcing them to pick specific classes, putting them into some new special army. He had to imagine they¡¯d managed to figure out more about the system than he himself had. With the resources of the FBI, NSA, military, or whoever it was behind the abductions, surely they had to be some of the most powerful people on the planet at this point. Several of the names on the leaderboard¡ªespecially the ones toward the top¡ªwere clearly aliases, and he wondered how many of them were military or government agents. They needed to figure that out for Zoe. Though, they probably had already seen and logged her name. He really wished she hadn¡¯t joined. But he was glad not to be alone. And he understood why. If he could have saved his parents, he would have done absolutely anything, risked everything, for even the slightest chance. But he couldn¡¯t. And now, despite the amazing and awful abilities the system granted, there was nothing he could do for them. You couldn¡¯t save the dead. He thought of his friends from school, and wondered how they were doing. He¡¯d been in the foster system for a couple years after his parents died, and whether because of the absence, or his situation making the other kids uneasy, he didn¡¯t have close friends anymore. Matt had once been his best friend, but now it felt as though they hardly knew each other. Wherever Matt and the others who had been taken were, Dexter hoped they were okay. While they weren¡¯t close, Dexter still hated the idea that they¡¯d been kidnapped, and that he couldn¡¯t do anything about it. Maybe something would come of the protest Mayor Reed had been leading, the one interrupted by the most recent attack. Dexter hadn¡¯t seen anything in the news about the people who were taken, but he hadn¡¯t looked much, and it was possible that stuff was being censored or suppressed. He knew one person who¡¯d probably be able to find out: the mayor¡¯s son, Reese Reed. Hell, he probably already knew, if he was still alive. Dexter remembered seeing Reese on the way to the auditorium, his ridiculous giant gray beard. Or maybe he¡¯d been taken too. Maybe that was why the mayor was leading a revolt. ¡°Gah!¡± Zoe exclaimed, drawing him from his thoughts. ¡°I hate this thing. Why is it so hard to use? Where the hell is this imprint?¡± ¡°You have to use your head, think logically.¡± ¡°Wow! I never considered that. Gosh Dexter you¡¯re so smart.¡± ¡°Only sometimes. Have you looked everywhere?¡± ¡°Yeah. I think.¡± She slumped in the seat and rubbed her eyes. ¡°I¡¯m getting a headache. I think I¡¯m carsick.¡± ¡°I thought you didn¡¯t get carsick.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t. How many points did you get for that trapper? I only got one.¡± ¡°Ninety-nine.¡± ¡°Ninety-nine?¡± She sighed. ¡°I guess you did do most of the work. I really hope this imprint gives me an attack.¡± ¡°You might not be able to use the imprint.¡± ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I?¡± ¡°You already used one.¡± ¡°You think it¡¯s limited to one?¡± Dexter shrugged. ¡°Well I need to find it to find out. Any genius insights where it might be hidden?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t imagine. It seems like it would be a whole-body thing, but that¡¯s not in the alteration menu. If that construct had any special abilities, I didn¡¯t notice them.¡± He frowned. ¡°Actually, I remember it floating on a breeze I couldn¡¯t feel. Like it could summon its own and ignore the actual wind.¡± ¡°Great, I can be an airbender,¡± she said sarcastically. Then she sat up. ¡°Actually, that would be awesome.¡± She once more began searching her alteration menu for the imprint.

Zoe still hadn¡¯t found the imprint by the time they arrived at the hospital. The parking lot¡ªthe same one in which yesterday Dexter had seen a group of people driven away in a bus to destinations unknown¡ªwas more empty than one would expect. Oh, there were still plenty of cars, maybe half the spaces taken up. But given how packed it had been not even twenty-four hours previous, this lack now struck Dexter as odd. Because of their encounter with Aaron Murphy¡¯s corpse and the trapper construct¡ªnot to mention random abandoned or crashed cars in the road on the way here¡ªwhat should have been a ten-minute drive with no traffic had taken them five times that.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. The sun had begun to rise and the parking lot was cast in a warm amber glow that rather than making the area seem welcoming, gave Dexter a sense of foreboding, as though the sun was conspiring to lure them into a trap. ¡°Do you know Leah¡¯s room number?¡± Zoe asked as he parked fifty feet back from the entrance, the closest available space. ¡°Room number?¡± Dexter laughed without humor. ¡°She was on the floor in a hallway.¡± ¡°Huh. They were busy.¡± She looked around as they got out and headed to the entrance. ¡°Not as busy now.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Dexter agreed uneasily.

Inside, he didn¡¯t bother trying to find a nurse, instead heading straight toward the waiting room he¡¯d been in, then orienting himself and trying to recall the hall Leah had been in. He found it, but Leah wasn¡¯t there. While the hospital had been packed earlier, it was now empty. At least the hallways were. Where once had been gurneys and makeshift beds was now once again empty halls, much to any fire inspector¡¯s approval. At this hour, all the doors were closed, all the curtains pulled, so he didn¡¯t know if they¡¯d simply set everyone up in the rooms, or if that many people had been discharged since yesterday. He didn¡¯t see any signs of attack, even though Leah had said a few people in the hospital had been attacked. ¡°Can you tell me why we¡¯re standing staring out a window onto a dark parking lot?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°This is where she was.¡± He pointed at the floor below the window. ¡°Right there.¡± ¡°Jeez, they really were busy.¡± Dexter suddenly had a memory of someone talking about triage, but he pushed it¡ªand the accompanying memories¡ªaway. ¡°Let¡¯s go find out where she is.¡± They weren¡¯t in any rush, as they still had to wait for Zoe¡¯s heal ability to come off cooldown, but he didn¡¯t feel like wandering around an abandoned hospital. He¡¯d rather spend that time with Leah. It took several minutes to find anyone, but eventually they found a nurse behind a desk on the second floor, going over a patient chart. She regarded them suspiciously, but after Dexter explained himself, she told them to wait here and that she¡¯d go find out where his ¡®sister¡¯ was. ¡°Sister?¡± Zoe whispered after the nurse had left. ¡°Yeah. Better than new boyfriend.¡± ¡°I guess. Lucky she didn¡¯t ask for ID.¡± ¡°I¡¯m betting that¡¯s not a big concern for her right now.¡± ¡°What if she tells Leah her brother is here and she says she doesn¡¯t have one?¡± ¡°The brother thing was her idea. Step-brother.¡± He¡¯d left this deception out when he¡¯d told her about Leah. ¡°You could pass for siblings,¡± Zoe said with a nod. ¡°Look at Topher and Ben.¡± ¡°First of all, Topher¡¯s a kid, and Ben¡¯s like twenty.¡± ¡°And they don¡¯t look anything alike.¡± ¡°If you say so.¡± Zoe yawned. ¡°Fighting monsters sure takes it out of a girl. I think I need more sleep.¡± ¡°Maybe healing yourself would fix that.¡± ¡°If only I could use it more often.¡± ¡°After you heal Leah, you can sleep on the way. It¡¯s going to take us more than an hour to get to the city. Maybe longer if there¡¯s traffic or any other holdups.¡± Zoe sighed. ¡°I wish we could take a plane.¡± ¡°Maybe we can steal one.¡± She smiled. ¡°Evil. I like it. Try calling her.¡± ¡°The plane?¡± ¡°No stupid. Leah.¡± ¡°Her phone died. I was supposed to bring her a charger.¡± ¡°Did you pack one?¡± ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s in the car.¡± ¡°You should try calling anyway.¡± Dexter did, but it went straight to voicemail. Zoe pulled out her phone, leaned against the counter, and began browsing. ¡°Might as well catch up on current events.¡± But she didn¡¯t get much chance as less than a minute later the nurse returned, following behind rather than leading a tall, attractive woman in her late twenties to early thirties. She wore tight jeans and a blue graphic tee under a white doctor¡¯s coat. She managed to look professional despite her casual attire. Like a pediatrician. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a short tail, and not a strand was out of place. ¡°You¡¯re looking for Leah Rosebright?¡± she asked without preamble. Dexter nodded. ¡°Yes.¡± She arched an eyebrow. ¡°Bit early for a visit.¡± ¡°Bit crazy lately.¡± She smiled. ¡°Got me there. You¡¯re her brother?¡± ¡°Uh, step. But yes.¡± Dexter didn¡¯t think she would check. And anyway, how would she be able to? This was Albany, not their little town of Havenport. It wasn¡¯t like step-siblings always had the same last names. He was even prepared with the lie that her mom was married to his dad, and Leah had kept her biological father¡¯s name. He just hoped the harried nurse who¡¯d seen them kissing hadn¡¯t gone around spreading gossip. With everything going on, he doubted it was at the forefront of her thoughts. But his prepared lie turned out to be unnecessary, and the doctor simply said, ¡°Follow me,¡± before turning and walking away, leaving the three of them, Zoe, Dexter, and the nurse, staring after her. Dexter was the first to move after her, and Zoe quickly followed, giving the nurse a wave and a thank you before jogging to catch up, passing Dexter and stopping beside the doctor, striking up a conversation. Or more like assaulting her with a barrage of questions. The doctor didn¡¯t seem to mind. As she led them through empty corridors, Zoe asking one question after another¡ªhow many people had died, what happened to everyone who¡¯d been here yesterday, how much sleep was she getting, could she write an emergency prescription for Adderall¡ªhe followed, noticing the tightness of the doctor¡¯s jeans. That was when he realized she¡¯d taken off her doctor¡¯s white coat and now had it over one arm. Why would she do that? Whether because of tiredness or biology, he found himself entranced, and so was surprised when a message suddenly appeared. BovaryHeimlich Level: None She was in the system. Well, that wasn¡¯t exactly a surprise. Constructs had been here. He wanted to ask her if she¡¯d joined before that, or after. He wondered if she¡¯d chosen a class. That name was clearly an alias, so she must have figured out how to change it. This made him remember that Zoe¡¯s name would show up in the system. His wouldn¡¯t, only listing his title, Dauntless, but people could still tell that he was in the system if they inspected him. Had this doctor discovered the eye button that enabled that? She must have if she¡¯d figured out how to change her name. Was that why she had studied them for so long? Dexter found himself opening his mouth to ask her something, though he wasn¡¯t sure what. Whatever it was he meant to ask, no words came out. Zoe stumbled beside the doctor. The doctor stopped and looked back at her. ¡°Are you okay sweetie?¡± Zoe shook her head, but didn¡¯t respond. The doctor studied Dexter. ¡°What about you?¡± Dexter couldn¡¯t respond either. What was going on? He was¡­ something. It was hard to think. He wasn¡¯t tired exactly, but he felt like he was on the verge of falling asleep. He tried to recall which finger he¡¯d put his endure ability on, not sure that it would even help. The doctor took both of his hands in hers, and he looked up into her eyes. Up? Had she grown taller? Some ability? No, he realized. He was on his knees now. ¡°Stop fighting it,¡± she whispered. Dexter noticed he couldn¡¯t move his fingers, couldn¡¯t twitch them to activate an ability. She looked down at his hands in hers. ¡°You¡¯ve discovered that, I see. Good. That¡¯s very good.¡± She looked him in the eyes. ¡°Just sleep. It¡¯s so much easier than fighting it.¡± A faint smile played at her lips. ¡°And anyway, you can¡¯t win.¡± Dexter only vaguely processed her words. She knew something, but what? She was an enemy, that was about the only thing that was clear to him. He found his gaze focused on the floor, on a body. Zoe¡¯s. She was unconscious, lying face down on the floor. What was going on? He had no idea, but he fought against it. The doctor¡ªor woman pretending to be one¡ªgrunted. ¡°Jesus kid. You¡¯re not even Copper. I¡¯m impressed.¡± Where was everyone? Why was no one here to help? He couldn¡¯t give up. He had something that could help. An ability. He focused on it. He didn¡¯t need his fingers, didn¡¯t need the hotring. He could feel it there, waiting to be activated. Then his world twisted and he felt a pull on his mind. But this time, it wasn¡¯t from her. She grunted again and squeezed his hands tightly. ¡°The hell,¡± she got out. ¡°How¡¯d you do that?¡± He¡¯d activated his endure ability. His mind was a little clearer now. But not as much as he¡¯d like. He¡¯d been mortally wounded before and the ability had cleared his mind completely, made the pain irrelevant. This was different. He was still affected by whatever she was doing to him. He yanked his hands free from her. He was clear-headed enough to realize she was the one doing this to them. Dexter twitched his finger, tasted metal and fire. He¡¯d intended to activate his forge ability, gotten the locations mixed up, but aspirate would do just fine. He lunged for her as desire overtook him. Lust. Not for her body, but what coursed through it. Not blood, not anything so material. But power, raw and true. She¡¯d been coming back for him, but now widened her eyes in surprise as he crashed into her and sank his teeth into her arm. She cried out. ¡°Son of a¡ª¡± Dexter drank deeply from her, feeling himself grow stronger by the moment. His breathing was rapid and the hunger burned at him, ate him away. He never wanted to stop feeding. ¡°You little bastard.¡± Her words were slurred. She was trying to fight him off, but he kept his jaw clamped tight, kept drinking her power away. Then she suddenly stopped fighting. Had she passed out? But he didn¡¯t care. Right now, whether she lived or died was only of consequence to him in that if he drained her completely, he¡¯d have no more power to take from her. There was something, an intuition, some deep genetic memory that he shouldn¡¯t kill her, that only with her continued existence would she continue to provide power for him to drink. But he couldn¡¯t burrow into her, couldn¡¯t hide inside her body like the construct he¡¯d stolen this ability from had done to the gliding semaphore it called host. So he kept drinking. He felt a prick on his neck, and then a burning sensation. Lightheadedness suddenly rushed through him, and he found himself on the floor, looking up at the doctor, hunger burning in his core. She had a gun in one hand, the other, the one he¡¯d bit, hung limply at her side. She knelt beside him and he tried to get up, but his limbs wouldn¡¯t listen. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you just did, but don¡¯t blame me if you get brain damage from this.¡± Then she injected him again¡ªthe gun shot drugs, not bullets¡ªand his world slowly faded to black.