Sponsored Apocalypse 2, ch 8

I walked away from the junkyard for some time, my feet seeming to carry me away on their own.

My earlier feeling that I was fine after killing people for the first time ended up being a lie.  It was true that I didn’t feel guilty, but I kept feeling worse and worse, like a knot was forming in my heart.  Stress filled my shoulders.

 Even though I wasn't breaking down into tears and was still functional, I realized that everything that had just happened was still bothering me the more I thought about it. The image of the summoned goblins stabbing bodies on the ground kept coming up in my mind’s eye.

Great, I thought.  Yet another thing to deal with.  I thought I’d been desensitized after seeing everything the goblins had done to people, but this was new for me.  At least I knew that I’d probably get over it.

I wasn’t sure I liked what the apocalypse was turning me into, but the alternative was death, so for what felt like the tenth time, I reminded myself of this fact and felt more at peace with it.

Without much of a plan or a destination, I took a detour off into some woods to plan my next move and get a handle on everything I had just received.

Once I found what I thought was a pretty good area, I climbed a tree, figuring that the ability of some nasty little monster like a goblin to ambush me was a lot lower when I was fifteen feet up with a good vantage point.

For good measure, I activated [Goblin Spirit Summon] and manifested my creepy new pet.  When it had been dismissed earlier, it vanished with a puff of smoke.  But every time it first popped into the world, it did so without any other effect.  One moment I was looking at the forest floor, and the next, a freaky, goblin-terminator was there.

The moment the thing was standing beneath me, head on a swivel for any potential danger, I realized something important. Whenever I had summoned Bacon, that ability didn't actually cost me anything because summoning Bacon was not actually an ability. Bacon was a divine-granted creature that just happened to be tied to me. 

This goblin-thing, on the other hand, was an ability–a stolen one.  And what's more, now that I wasn't hyped up on adrenaline and fighting for my life, I realized that the thing's very existence was draining me of vitality. The moment the goblin popped into existence, I immediately felt a wave of fatigue that very slowly but steadily began to grow.

At some point in the future, I was going to have to test out how long I could maintain my new goblin summon. I suspected that if I didn't already have such high stamina, using the terminator-goblin would wear me out after just a few minutes. The reason was obvious after I thought about it–I didn't have any mana.  All of my abilities seemed to feed off of stamina so far. This goblin hadn't been easy to summon, so it was costing me more stamina in place of mana.

This was good to think about now, because I had a better idea of what stats to prioritize.  After all, what I’d just realized meant that in the future, if I was able to get any more summons, I would definitely need to keep stacking endurance.

I left the goblin down at the base of the tree for the time being and started reading my various system messages that I had put aside until later. After only a few minutes, I cursed quietly. What was done was done, and it might not have even been a mistake, but I'd been under a vast misunderstanding. 

One message read, 

You have stolen Hailey Tindall's undead creature, [Summoned Goblin Spirit]. You now have zero remaining permanent summon slots. You may gain additional summon slots as you deepen your mastery of [Entity Domination].

I glanced down at the goblin guarding my tree again and sighed. Honestly, the thing's physical resistance was probably really good, and it was obviously much stronger than a regular goblin, too, the way it had torn people apart with its bare hands. But I couldn't help the fact I just hated goblins now. Repeatedly summoning one, spirit or not, didn't sit right with me. I’d thought that maybe later I could get a different monster and use it more often, but now I had no idea if or when that would even be possible.

With another sigh, I moved into the rest of my system messages. Unsurprisingly, I had not gained any levels. However, I did get a new title:

Manslayer. 

You have killed your fellow man. In fact, you are one of the first fifteen percent on your world to have killed another human being. If combat with another human ends without you or your opponent dying, you will feel their presence within thirty feet in the future.

Skill name: [Known Enemy Ambush Prevention]. Ability will cease functioning after combat resumes again with your nemesis.

I made an appreciative look at this one. It was a useful ability. What's more, it seemed like one that a lot of people would eventually want to get in the future.  Maybe.  I was just spit balling.

But in general, more skills meant more options.  And I couldn’t imagine how more information would be a bad thing, especially about potential ambushes.  Granted, it meant fighting someone first–and surviving–but I’d take it.

There wasn't much more that was really interesting about the system messages about the fight, so I moved on to the interesting items that I found in the junkyard. I went through and bonded with them one by one, minus the one item that was mundane.

The mystical items I’d found were a tuning fork, an old-looking medium-sized crowbar, and an old, military-looking compass that was half tarnished.

They turned out to be:

Tuning Fork of the Forgotten Composer: This bent and dented tuning fork contains the will of an old, would-be composer who died old and poor, but unbroken by life.  When activated, striking anything metal against another solid object will emits a high-pitched frequency that can disrupt or even shatter fragile objects made of glass or crystal. (Limited activations, depends on the tuning fork's remaining structural integrity)

Bent Crowbar of the Ben the Scavenger: This sturdy but dented crowbar, when activated, can vibrate at a high frequency and emits an aura to temporarily weaken metal structures or locks.

Heavily Borrowed Land Nav Compass: Used by hundreds of would-be ROTC cadets, this compass has been forgotten.

Seemingly broken and unreliable now, it will not point North anymore.  However, when held and focused upon a specific location (previously visited), it will slowly point the user back in that direction, even through unknown terrain. (Requires prior knowledge of the location, needle's direction can be erratic)

This was a decent haul, I thought. Some items seemed weird, but I’d learned over the last few days that utility could literally be a life saver.  The crowbar in particular was a lucky find.  I’d been jealous of how easily Aldina could break into doors before.  Maybe now I could do that too. 

Granted, I still hadn't gotten a real weapon like I'd been hoping, like a sword or something like that. But I definitely felt like I had more utility now. The stupid nail that I had bonded with earlier was the only exception, but luckily it was small enough that it didn't inconvenience me too much to carry.

I shimmied down the tree and regarded my weird goblin with a critical eye. The thing stared into the distance without an expression, except for one fleeting second where I could have sworn it glanced at me with mischievous spite. Somewhat creeped out, I dismissed it and walked back to the road.

While I'd been up in the tree, I had an idea about where I could go to find more monsters to level. Something Aldina had said about how lower-level monsters needed to eat was rattling around in my head. Outside the town, there was an area with several large farms, and I decided I was going to head there next to try my luck.