Sponsored Apocalypse, ch 28

This one is probably rough editing-wise, but I really like this chapter. lol.

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“Okay, let me get this straight,” I said.  I was standing with the group of four guys I’d just met off to one side of the road, as much to get out of the way of the vehicle patrols as anything else.  “So you are a group of people who volunteer to fight monsters, and you’re out right now because you’ve all figured out that you get more XP from killing monsters at night?”

Even as I spoke, I got another level up notification.  Bacon was absolutely going to town.  I’d instructed him to avoid any monsters other than goblins, because…I really hated goblins.  I also doubted that goblins would be able to hurt Bacon very much.  So the levels rolling in right now were better than I could have even imagined, especially since I got less xp for weaker monsters the higher level I grew.

Bacon must be killing absolute droves of goblins.  Hundreds at least.  Maybe even thousands.  The thought made my heart grow warm.

It also helped explain something I was still a little confused about.  When the man named Steve had used Bone Truth Eyes on me, he’d seen two skulls.  I’d thought that was a little over the top at the time, the system rating me too highly.  But  since I could call Bacon to me at any time…

Okay, two skulls makes sense.

I’d heard that Steve was the highest level of this little group, and he was only level 11.  Bacon would probably make mincemeat out of them.  Even if Pete, the guy with the shotgun, managed to hit Bacon, I doubt it’d have much effect.

The leader, Nate, nodded.  “The first night everything happened was as shit show, but I guess enough people got skills or some other way to figure stuff out that word went out about not using guns and stuff pretty quick. Some folks were ahead of the curve from the get-go, though.”  He hooked a thumb at Steve.  “Like this dork.”

“Hey, I resemble that comment.”  Steve rolled his shoulders in his custom-fitted armor.  “And it worked out for me.  That’s why I’m ahead of you guys.  Higher level, bitches.”  He made an over the top flexing pose and his armor rattled.

Nate rolled his eyes.  “You’re gonna fall behind Pete in now time, though.  He can use real guns.”

“Not necessarily.  I don’t have unlimited ammo.”

“No dude,” said Steve. “You basically do.  It’s not like most of the guys in town are gonna be using their own ammo now.”

“But it’s still limited,” said the chubby, serious man.

“I think we are getting off track a little bit,” said the man with the bow.  He looked at me warily.  “Mister Miles, the truth is we could really use your help.  Yes, a lot of people are driving the roads right now to kill monsters and keep them clear, but most of them are still using guns.  Whether they’re just stubborn, or can’t kill monsters any other way…whatever, the fact is they’re all super low level.  Only the handful of people who are as crazy as us are actually leveling with any sort of speed…and there are more and more monsters.  A lot of them are coming from this direction.  That’s why so many people are patrolling this area.  But…we need some…elites.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Jackson.”

“Holy shit, Jackson just talked,” said Steve, his tone fake-shocked.  “I didn’t even know he knew how.”

“Shut up,” said Jackson.  “This is serious.  In fact, this is kind of huge.  Miles is proof that we have a chance.  This is huge,” he repeated.  As he spoke, he pulled a phone out of his back pocket and started typing.

I goggled.  For some reason, I’d just completely forgot that everyone had phones.  I’d weaned myself off of them for the last few months, preparing for the end of the world, and I’d had to leave mine in my house after the cyclops destroyed it.  Phones hadn’t even crossed my mind.  “You can still use your phone?” I asked.

“Yeah, we all can, but not all the time,” said Nate.  “The bandwidth sucks and there are dead areas all over the place, but I guess what is left of the world governments are prioritizing people getting power and information right now.  Like, the first night everything happened was bad.  Real bad.  But with the internet and everyone having a phone, the message boards and news and stuff have been super active since then.  Some places still have power, too.  We’re using gennies–”

“Gennies?” I asked.

“Generators.  Outside of town.  Some folks have set up their barns and shops to help refugees and there are some other points around the area where fighters like us can get power.  Town is still basically overrun, though.  Place is…bad.”

As I was listening, I was amazed by the organization I was hearing about.  It’d only been around two days since the world had changed and this community was already coming together.

“I’m texting Mister Gray,” said Jackson.

Nate inclined his head at his friend who was typing on his phone. He explained,  “Mister Gray is the sheriff, in case you didn’t know.  He’s helping organize everything.  There were deputees at his house calling or texting every number they had for folks around here.  When they got ahold of folks they gave instructions on where to go and what to do.  Mister Gray was on the ball, like less than two hours after the first system message, he was sending groups to houses to rescue people.  Phone lines were tied up, but texting still worked most of the time and the sheriffs had radios.  Had extras, too.

“It also turns out the mayor was a bigwig in the Cub Scouts or something and hasn’t slept in like 2 days.  But that’s why so many people are still alive.  It hasn’t been very long but anyone who hasn’t moved fast is either dead or running away right now.”

“Won’t get far,” said Steve.  He touched his sword hilt.

Pete slung his shotgun and frowned.  “That’s easy for you to say.  You’ve basically been training for this your whole life.  Normal people aren’t ready to be killing monsters, and the ones who are aren’t ready or able to do it with a sword.”

“Still pretty dumb of them.  This is worldwide.  Tons of people are dead.  We’re probably all still in shock and gonna need therapy.  Like, all the therapy.  But sometimes you just gotta fight,” said Jackson.  His attention was still on his phone.  “I’m telling Mister Gray about Miles right now.  You have anything to say, Miles?”

“Sure.  Tell him if you guys know of a place with really tough monster or a whole lot of them.  Places that are too dangerous for you guys to tackle right now, I wanna know about it.”

“He’s power leveling.”  Steve’s eyes sparkled.  “I think we met a future ranker.  Maybe a ranker now.”

“What the hell does that even mean?” asked Pete.  He crossed his dark-skinned arms.

“Like in games.  The system we’re in is a lot like we’re in a game.”

“I think it was aliens.  We were being trained for this,” said Nate.

“Maybe, whatever,” said Steve and waved the interruption away.  He continued, “So just like games, there will be some people at the top.”

“Pretty fucked up game,” said Pete darkly.

“Yeah, nobody is arguing there.  But you take what you can, right?  Or do you wanna give me your ability to enchant bullets.”  Steve grinned.  “Sure, I’ve felt I was born in the wrong century my whole life, but I’d still much rather be using your shotty than the longsword here.”

“I wouldn’t give it to you even if I could, but I get your point.  Still, it’s not like the ammo is gonna last forever.  I gotta rack up levels so I can diversify.”

Nate, the leader, shook his head. “I don’t know about that.  We have a lot of guys in town with ammo that won’t do them much good versus monsters for very long, not based on what we’ve been hearing out of some of the cities.  There aren’t many people like you who can actually use guns for anything other than small stuff and they’re not leveling that way.”

“Maybe,” said Pete.  “But even best case scenario, the bullets are eventually gonna run out.  Maybe not immediately, but…I think this is just the beginning. And I don’t think .22’s are gonna be enough for stuff we might be dealing with in 10 years or whatever.  I might be stuck with black powder.  My skill is awesome now, but later?  Who knows.”

“What is your skill?” I asked.

“I can enchant projectiles that I touch to do more damage and penetrate better.  It works on bullets, but there’s a limit to how much I can use it, so I’ve been enchanting shotgun slugs.  The guys here take out all the little stuff and I use this Mossy for anything big.”

“Or flying,” said Steve.

“Yeah, or flying.  I have a few rounds of buckshot just in case.  Took me forever to enchant them, I had to do every pellet individually.  But thankfully, most of the fliers have already been killed.”

“Really?” I asked.  “How?!”

Steve explained, “A lady in town, one of the recess teachers at the elementary school got a super kick ass random skill pull.  Her power can’t be used often, but it’s like a fucking death ray.  Only works on creatures in the air, though.  It won’t fire for her at all unless the monster is flying.  She’s at one of the biggest shelters now to protect it from fliers just in case they show up again.”

“Wow,” I said.  Healing spit didn’t seem nearly so cool to me anymore.

Pete said, “Yeah, so like I was saying, my skill was handy.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I have it and it’s helping me level faster than others, and I can save these guys when they’re over their head, but I don’t know how it’ll pan out long term.  Meanwhile, the lady with the sky death beams is gonna be set as long as there are flying monsters.  She’s putting points into magic, too.”  He sighed.  “So I’m glad I can fight.  It’s all I can do.  Better to keep my mind off of things.  I still haven’t heard from my mom.”

Steve’s voice was sober as he said, “Sorry man.  But like you said, there’s no point sitting around and just waiting.  At least this way we can get stronger.  The writing is on the wall.  This is survival now.  People like us who are adapting the fastest will be better off in a couple weeks when the majority finally leave wherever they’ve been hiding after running out of food and water.  I’m sure your mom is fine, and now you’ll be able to actually help her when she turns up.”

Pete hung his head a little and nodded.

Jackson suddenly looked up from his phone and said, “Mister Gray got back to me.  He said he’ll get back to us on where he can go to help if he’s okay with it.”

I was glad to hear this.  If anyone had made too much of a fuss or wanted to meet with me, I was prepared to just make an exit.  Meeting with this group   Maybe the sheriff had figured as much.  Or maybe he was just super busy.  Maybe both.  Either way, now I didn’t need to run away like I stole something just to avoid a bunch of annoying bullshit.  Right now I was focused on leveling, not getting involved in committees.

Although it did make me really happy that the people here hadn’t all been wiped out.  They were fighting back.

“Sounds good to me,” I said.  “Actually, could you do me a favor and let him know I’m looking for a cyclops?  The giant?”  As I spoke, I wondered if there was more than one giant.  That would suck.

“The cyclops!?  That thing is a menace!  Someone in town with a 50 cal shot at it and it didn’t do jack shit,” said Steve.

Jackson nodded.  “Alright, I’m letting him know.”

That’s a relief, I thought.  “So there’s only one giant around town?”

“For now, yeah.  But this is kinda interesting.  So you’re looking for the cyclops, huh?” asked Nate. “I bet there’s a story behind that.  Actually, how did you get so high level anyway And what is a champion?”

I eyed the four before me and thought about how to answer.   “How about I answer your questions if you answer another one of mine.  Why weren’t you guys nervous about me when we went over here?  I’ve seen some…bad people since everything started off.  Like, not all the monsters are monsters.  Cliche but true.”

The four of them looked at each other before Nate said, “Hadn’t really thought about it too in-depth, but I guess if I had to say why, it’s because most shitheads seem to travel together.  Bullies and those types are usually cowards.  You’re by yourself.  The real crazies who might travel alone are mostly all dead, except for maybe actual psychos…but they’d be more likely to ambush or something.  You walked directly up to us.  And even though you’re dressed a little crazy, you don’t talk crazy.”

“And we were still kinda dicks but you still just wanted to talk,” said Steve.

Jackson briefly looked up from his phone and said, “What they said.  Besides, we have Pete with the shotty.  If things went really sideways, his enchanted slugs pack a wallop.”

Pete shook his head.  “I dunno guys.  Miles didn’t seem to react much when we’ve talked about my guns.” He looked at me directly.  “Mister Miles, you had two skulls by your name.  Would you have any trouble taking out our group here?”

“Probably not.”

“That messes with my self esteem,” said Steve.  “It’s kind of rude to just ask people what their powers are, which is pretty fast for everyone to understand that.  Kind of a fascinating thing to think about–” His voice faltered as his friends glared at him.  “But that’s not what we’re talking about right now.”  He coughed.  “Anyway, would you mind giving a small demonstration of something you can do?”

I thought about it, pulled up my character sheet to remind myself of all my skills and abilities, then I shrugged.  After drawing my hammer from my belt, I threw it as hard as I could into the night.  Then I activated [Lindstrom Family Hammer] to return the tool back to my hand.

All of their eyes grew round.  “Holy shit, he’s Thor!” said Steve.

“Since I showed you that, how about you just tell me how many skills you guys have?”  I was curious and this was why I’d shown off in the first place.  It might help me gauge my relative level of power easier.

“Half of us have one skill, and half have two,” said Nate.  They all nodded.

“Okay, thanks.”  I rubbed my chin then shrugged.  It wasn’t complicated how I got my start and it wouldn’t hurt to share…some of it.  “Anyway, the reason I’m higher level than most right now is probably because when everything kicked off, the cyclops destroyed my house.  I had to run away–”

Steve’s jaw dropped.  “You escaped from that thing!?  How!?”

“Ran into the woods right away,” I said.

“Smart.”

“Well, in the woods there were some goblins.  I killed them.  And I’ve sorta just been killing monsters ever since.”

“‘Just killed them,’ he says,” said Steve, shaking his head.  “What a Chad.”

“So guys, I need to get going,” I said.  “But how about I come back in a while, later tonight, and find out if anyone can tell me where the cyclops is.”

“You’re leaving now?” asked Nate.  “You don’t need anything?  Like even any armor?” He flicked his football shoulder pad.

“No.  But how do I meet up again with you guys?”

“I’ll spread the word so if you come back, everyone will know who you are.  Not many people out there running around with pots and pans hanging off their belts.  Makes your description simple.  Even if you can’t find us, the folks you find can text us or text Mister Gray.”

“Yeah, at least as long as our phones keep working,” said Jackson, voice dark.

Nate frowned. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.  Let’s try to stay positive.”

“Alright guys, thanks for all the information.  I gotta go out and keep leveling.  Where I’m going there’s no people around anymore and there’s some weird stuff going on.”  With that, I turned and began heading away.

As I ran into the night, I heard Steve repeat, “What a Chad.  Absolute unit.”