Chapter 27: The Price

  Mundane World, Day 14 After the Shattering

  The entire clearing had gone still, all eyes on Lukas and the man facing him.

  Mark and his friends stood close together, forming a tight line. Across from them was the advancing stranger, another broad-shouldered man at his side. Farther out, two separate pairs lingered near the skeletal remains of the enemies they had defeated.

  When the two closest men hesitated, unsure whether to escalate, Ewa’s gaze flicked to the others.

  The four men were watching, drawn by the raised voices—but they made no move to intervene.

  Good.

  Looks like they weren’t together.

  The man who had shouted at Lukas seemed to realize he was outnumbered. His confidence wavered for a moment as he faced four armed opponents standing shoulder to shoulder.

  His eyes shifted between their weapons and faces, and then his confidence visibly returned after realizing he was facing just poorly equipped and inexperienced teenagers.

  "Give it back, right now!"

  The man did not move, but resumed an aggressive posture, his tone an obvious threat.

  "We can't, even if we wanted to—it was absorbed," Mark pointed out.

  "Like I care! You will pay for it in full!"

  The man shook his axe in a threatening manner.

  "It doesn't look like the fight was going well for you. We saved your life—you should pay us!"

  "What are you on about, kid?" He emphasized "kid" as if to offend Mark.

  Mark pointed to the still-smoldering body of a man who had died.

  The axe-wielding brute just scoffed.

  "Yeah, right, that idiot was just useless anyway... so how are you gonna pay up? It's worth at least two thousand. What was the gem anyway?" He looked at Lukas, expecting answers.

  Ewa used her identification ability on Lukas.

  He was Tier 2 and Rank 1. Tier stood for active ability upgrades. Whatever he absorbed had now shot him straight from zero to Tier 2. And Rank meant he had obtained a passive ability as well. From all the information they were able to gather, it was unheard of to advance straight to Tier 2; however, the entire system was just two weeks old, so everything was still being discovered.

  Simon, after absorbing the crystal, was only Tier 1 and Rank 1.

  That train of thought made her realize she should do something she ought to have done earlier.

  She scanned the two men her group was facing. Both were Tier 0 and Rank 0, meaning they had the system but no absorbed mana crystals.

  The guy's attitude was all posturing—he was new to all of it himself.

  “They have no abilities—they’re complete newbies,” she said.

  A second later, she realized she probably shouldn’t have said that. They might not have had abilities, but they were still two big, armed, angry men.

  But it was too late.

  The axe-wielder's face reddened.

  "The hell did you just say?" His grip tightened, knuckles whitening around the haft. It seemed he was going to step forward and do something, but the other man intervened.

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  "Easy there, that's enough. Stop scaring them." He stepped in front of the angry axeman, his back turned to Mark's group, and gently pushed his teammate back.

  “I apologize for my brother. We’re not ‘newbies.’” He emphasized the word, looking at Ewa with faint amusement.

  “We’ve been selling those crystals. And you probably just robbed us of a decent profit from that special monster."

  "Hey! We haven't robbed anyone of nuffin'! We killed it!" Simon yelled. His voice was more squeaky than normal, his throat squeezed by nerves.

  "Alright, alright," the man raised his open palm in a placating gesture.

  "But you must agree you joined the fight uninvited and now you have all the valuables, so—some compensation is in order, right?"

  Whatever answer was about to be given died unspoken as the air shifted.

  The gray fog that came with the anomaly's expansion now began receding.

  It was not thinning the way normal fog would.

  Instead, it was withdrawing, swirling as if pushed by wind in all directions simultaneously—with no wind active at all.

  Its tendrils were moving out of the glade, like a living thing coiling to attack somewhere out of vision—behind the cover of trees and bushes.

  Everyone tensed, looking around, suddenly realizing there were more pressing matters than their conflict.

  "Spooks incoming!" It was one of the people farther away yelling, one of those not involved with their two groups.

  He pointed in one direction, but Ewa saw more movement in other places, between trees as well.

  "Nobody’s leaving! We will talk about your debt later!" The burly man who had been so aggressive with them moved with his brother in the direction of the other people, trying to assume command.

  "Everyone group up!"

  As soon as he gave them any space, Mark's group looked at each other in mute understanding.

  They were leaving.

  There were silhouettes of skeletons emerging from all directions, some armed, some not.

  Mark pointed to one opening between monsters close to their group.

  “There—follow me—don’t fight, just run.” Without waiting for confirmation, he darted off.

  They easily ignored the clumsy, slow skeletons, passing two before the sounds of the first combat reached them.

  “Hey! Get back here, cowards!” the axe-wielder shouted, realizing the situation—but it was too late. The monsters were already keeping him occupied.

  They ran for thirty seconds, passing a couple more enemies, when Simon demanded, wheezing:

  "Stop... I can't..."

  He had it the worst with his metal, spiky club, but all of them were winded at this point.

  There were no threats close by, so they did stop.

  "We can't—we're not safe yet," Mark brought up.

  "I know... but..." Simon began, interrupted by his own gasps for air. He was bending over, hands rested on his knees to recover.

  "I think we may just walk. No one is after us," Ewa interjected.

  Mark looked at the direction they came from. "Alright, let's slow down. If it's a mage, we run again—we cannot fight that thing."

  "Let's kill others. We need crystals." Everyone nodded in agreement.

  "Only if they are singles—don't engage groups. Let's not run, but if there are more than one, walk away fast." Mark presented the plan, and they were about to move on when Lukas stopped them.

  "Wait! Let me check my new ability." His eyes took on that characteristic look when someone was focusing on things not physically there, like the system interface in their heads.

  The group looked around nervously; it wasn't a good place to stand idle.

  "Oh wow!" he exclaimed. "This thing is amazing. I have something called heat bolt—I can just point and shoot it whenever I have enough mana, but that's not all. If I can perfectly follow the gestures the way the system is showing me, I can empower the effect many times over. And then I have the passive ability of spellcasting. If I cycle mana the way it instructs while using gestures from the ability description, it multiplies the power of a spell."

  He was more and more excited while speaking, totally geeking out.

  "Wait... is it additive or multiplicative?"

  Mark was about to stop him.

  "We..." Everyone followed the gaze of their leader. "Incoming!"

  It was one of the armed skeletons emerging, with only a rusted sword this time.

  "Oh, let me, let me!" Lukas was so excited he was practically buzzing, like an oversized bee.

  He took a step forward and, with a dramatic gesture, pointed at the incoming monster, shouting:

  "HA!"

  The air shimmered in front of his outstretched finger, at first spanning an area the size of a volleyball, then narrowing into an oval the size of a marker or a very fat pencil, becoming more pronounced, as if the heat itself were pooling there. Then it rapidly shot into the skeleton's head, hitting it exactly in the middle of its forehead.

  The monster's head bounced back, making the entire thing stop briefly. But almost immediately, it righted itself and continued its advance, with just a whiff of smoke emerging from its skull and a tiny black marking visible on the bone.

  "That's it? I'm telling you—we have a case of a retarded system."

  Lukas blushed like a little girl.

  "Shut up, Ewa! It wasn't empowered at all!"

  "That was with no gestures and fancy moves?" she accused.

  But they had no more time for bickering.

  The group spread out as usual to surround the thing and attack from all angles. First one to hit was Simon; he swung from maximum distance at an angle from the top.

  Despite seemingly being completely focused on Lukas, the skeleton raised its weapon to block the blow—but the force of the heavy club proved too much for the creature’s bones.

  The rusted sword was knocked aside, and the wrist bones shattered.

  The sword, along with Simon’s spiked mace, struck the skeleton’s shoulder, but without enough force to cause any additional damage.

  He promptly moved back, expecting the monster to chase him now that he had landed the last hit, but the creature seemed still fixated on Lukas—as if it had some grudge against magic being thrown at its face. It made just one step anyway before getting bludgeoned and dismembered by the rest of the group.

  Just as with the other monsters that had begun appearing today, it did not despawn.

  Once again, it was Simon who first reached for the loot.

  “Simon!” Ewa snapped, the group’s shared indignation sharp in her voice as his greedy streak resurfaced.

  "Chill, it's not the same as mine—I cannot absorb it anyway."

  He tried, and everyone knew he did. Because of course he would.

  Ewa sighed and inspected the mana crystal.

  "It's a cobalt mana crystal of darkblade, Tier 1 and Rank 1."

  "Well, that doesn't sound ominous at all. I'm the last one without an ability, so..." Mark commented, reaching for the crystal.

  "It's fitting for undead to drop such black crystals."

  The mana crystal quickly dissolved into his hand.

  "We all have what we came for. Let's not tempt our fate anymore—we should check on what's going on between blocks. Monsters may be spawning near our homes now."

  The first fifteen minutes on their way back, they met two more monsters individually. One of them was a new type with a weapon; the other was the easiest, without any items. They were both easy to deal with and gave no additional loot.

  After that, they stopped seeing any undead anymore. Instead, more people showed up, usually in small groups—attracted by the anomaly expansion. Monsters were already overwhelmed, and it was easier to meet people than enemies.

  After they descended the hills between blocks of flats, what welcomed them were more people armed with makeshift instruments, bunched in groups, and the flashing lights of ambulances and police cars.

  It turned out Mark’s predictions were correct.

  As the purple cracks expanded and new enemies emerged, the zone where monsters spawned widened with them.

  All those capable, fit, and ready to fight had rushed into the forest, eager to gather power or profit from the clumsy, easy prey. No one remained to defend the residential streets.

  Skeletons were slow and awkward—manageable for the strong.

  But back home, the elderly walking the streets were caught off guard, unarmed and unable to outrun the emerging undead.

  They paid the price for the power the System had offered.