CHAPTER 4: WEAPONS AND CANNIBALS
The duo slowly descended from the stairs instead of jumping down because they were rational people, who knew that jumping down like suicidal idiots would give them an embarrassing death.
Alex quickly taught Alice his inspection skill in case she needed it. The group reached the bottom of the staircase, where they immediately saw a group of people who seemed to be residents of the building, one of the men in the group came before the duo with a makeshift spear, which was just made with a wooden rod and a knife was tied to the end.
"Who are you people, we already checked the whole building for anymore survivors, so where did you come from?" It seemed as though the man was the leader of the group, and it also seemed that his group had experienced quite a bit, all the women, girls and children had at least a single limb missing, and strangely, the men didn't have a single missing limb.
Alex talked in a polite manner as he used his inspect skill to see what they were up against
[Agato Najita]
[Age-36]
[Race-Human]
[Rank G-]
'This skill isn't as useful as I thought it would be…' Alex smacked himself in the head for forgetting how useless the skill was when a notification suddenly appeared
[DING]
[Skill [Inspect], has leveled up]
Alex looked at the notification for a second before inspecting again, and while he did all this, he never stopped talking to them, acting as natural as possible. Alice also conversed with the women while Alex watched closely.
[Agato Najita]
[Age-36]
[Race-Human]
[Rank G-]
[Health-11/17]
'Oh? It tells me their health this time, that's a good improvement! [Inspect]'
[Ryuto Akaza]
[Age-7]
[Race-Human]
[Rank G-]
[Health-2/5MAX] (Permanently damaged)
[Ai Nanume]
[Age-29]
[Race-Human]
[Rank G-]
[Health-16/21MAX] (Permanently damaged)
…
…
'Because of their lost limbs, they can't get their full health back… What a pity, but… something is wrong. How can all the men be okay but the women and children are essentially crippled???'
With a sigh, Alex decided not to bother himself and just leave as quickly as possible, but it seemed that Alice was really enjoying the company of the girls and women. "So, will you be staying here for the night?" The man suddenly asked a question. Alex peeked outside and noticed the night had already come, and they would never know the dangers of the night now, plus, it would give them a chance to actually prepare themselves.
"If it won't bother you then…" The man chuckled as he talked in a hearty tone "Of course you wouldn't, we would love to have you here!" Alex smiled and shook the man's hand, glad that such good people were still alive…
* * *
Alice conversed with the women and the girls together in the girls' room as they conversed about girly stuff, but slowly the topic changed unto Alice and Alex, who was absent from the room. One girl fetched a glass of water for Alice as she asked a question, "Sooo… do you like him? Cause it seems like you guys are really good friends. If you don't like him then I'll go for him! He's totally my type" Alice suddenly spat out the water she just drunk and spoke in a broken voice "You... how, can you say something like that!?" Alice said in surprise and turned her head, not daring to look any of the girls in the eyes. All the girls smirked as they started laughing together. While the women watched the girls converse with a motherly smile.
***
Alex laid down on the bed to try and sleep, but the sounds of the children moving about kept him awake. Suddenly, he felt a tug on his bedsheet, he immediately took a knife from his inventory and was about to stab in the direction of the movement, but then he immediately stopped after noticing the small child. "M-mister, can you please take m-my b-b ball for me?" The child's voice became broken the more he spoke. Alex quickly stored back the knife before the child saw it, and wore a smile on his face, quickly diverting his attention by asking him a question. "I-it's up o-on the shelf"
Alex looked at the little boy before him who looked not over five years old and it reminded him about his past… his late little brother… Alex shook his head to forget the past and raised his hand to the shelf to grab the ball, but it was really too high to reach. He just sighed before he created a water hand which wrapped itself around the little ball before bringing it upon his palm, after he willed it away, the hand instantly vanished, and the ball landed on his palm. "Here you go"
All the children beamed in excitement as the remembered what he did, "Woah! A real wizard!" And just like that, Alex had to spend the night entertaining them with his magic…
***
If one looked in the girls' room you would see all the girls huddled up in one bed sleeping soundly, and if you looked in the children's room, then you would see a pile of children sleeping over one person, who didn't seem to feel any weight at all, as if they were featherless. The night was a peaceful one and it faded away calmly, bringing light to a new day. Unfortunately, this day, would not be like that of the night…
"Breakfast is ready…" A voice sounded throughout the rooms and those who heard it woke up the others
Alex got up with a stretch, feeling invigorated. Slowly all the residents came out of their rooms after brushing their teeth, with the exception of Alex and Alice, who had no toothbrush. "Everyone only gets a small plate of meat, don't complain if you aren't full. After the food was served, a delicious smell wafted through the air and Alice immediately wolfed down the serving in one fell swoop. Alex conversed with the residents as he slowly ate his serving, he inspected everything to level up his skill when suddenly, he saw a disturbing revelation.
[Human Meat]
[Quality-3/5]
[Desc-This meal was made by an intelligent race which feasts on its own people when faced with extreme hunger, the meat is a human arm which was cooked by a human named Ai Nanume]
Alex's eyes slowly widened as he looked at what was on the plate, immediately after, he hunched over on the floor and started vomiting out all the food he ate. Alice was startled when they saw him vomiting, and the residents watched him with a glint in their eyes. Alex felt nauseous as Alice came over to him and wiped his mouth.
Suddenly, the child from earlier whose name was Yuta Akaza threw his suddenly glowing teddy bear at Alex.
Boom! The second the teddy hit the ground, a puff of red fog blinded everyone's sight. Alex's mind was screaming to move but his body wouldn't oblige. Immediately after the smoke cleared, the outline of a bear entered Alex's view, its body was slanted forward with its claw slashing in a perfect arc towards Alex.
Alex glared at the bear and a hint of killing intent escaped through his eyes which were changing. A furry red arm with no body could be seen in the air if one looked up. The room became silent and cold once again, which everyone's spines being chilled as they looked at Alex's eyes give a cold glint as he got up. They felt like if they moved, they would lose their life immediately, even the bear which wasn't supposed to have emotions begun trembling. Alice looked at Alex in confusion, and she questioned Alex "What are you doing, why a-" Her words were interrupted when Alex spoke in a chilling tone, "Use [Inspect] on the food" Alice looked at him questioningly but still did as he said while she talked
"Why? Was the food poisoned or someth-" Suddenly, she stopped speaking and just stared at her screen. Alex looked at her in pity, remembering how fast she ate the first serving.
She slowly fell on her knees as she tried to keep her tears bottled up, but it seemed that was too much to ask, because a second later, a river of tears fell down her cheeks. Alex slowly walked towards the group as he spoke "I was wondering why so many of you had missing limbs, so you people cut off your own limbs to eat, I won't even ask why you didn't just scavenge around… Scum like you shouldn't live!"
The residents were scared but one man who couldn't take anymore of Alex talking bad about them shouted, "IF YOU THINK WE'RE SCUM FOR TRUYING TO SURVIVE, THEN KEEP INSULTING US, BUT JUST KNOW THAT YOU ARE SCUM, JUST LIKE US!!! YOU ALSO ATE THE MEAT, WE ARE THE SAME! WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!!!!" Alex's body flashed as he appeared before the man, and punched him in the face, but due to his new strength, the man's face caved in.
Blood sprayed from the hole in his neck as his body moved haphazardly, before falling on the floor, never to move again. "We aren't like you!" Alex repeatedly screamed those words as his body flashed about and many thump sounds were heard, he hesitated for a second before killing the children as well, but just as he was about to kill Ai and a few girls who became Alice's friends in one night, Alice put her hand on his shoulder .
"I'll do this myself".
"You don't have to do this" Alex gave Alice a pitying look as he tried to talk her out of what she was about to do. "I-I'm okay, I can do this" Alex looked at her for a second before he slowly nodded his head in affirmation and walked back to watch the scene that would unfold, yet, the moment he did this, Alice vanished like a blurry shade.
With a swooshing sound, she had appeared within Ai's position as her ability activated. 'Now that I think about it, I don't know her ability, do I?' Alex watched with a curious expression which masked his still active killing intent. Ai immediately turned and ran with a frightened look.
Alice took a pebble from the ground and threw it on the floor, resulting in a gust of wind that messed up her hair, when the wind calmed down, a giant purple golem with flaming joints appeared in front of her.
Alice made an inaudible sound as she pointed her finger at the running Ai and murmured, "Hunt"
Boom! The purple golem broke the ground as it raced towards Ai, when it reached a reasonable distance, it's body suddenly exploded in flames and its purple flames covered her body…
Alex had a surprised look on his face as he excitedly thought, 'Those purple flames are from the girl who left Alice on the verge of death, while the golem itself… I think it's from the kid? Did she fuse them!?'
Suddenly, a hardened tentacle reached out from the flames and whizzed through the wind towards Alice, "I'm done pretending! Pathetic little girl, you think that would've been enough to kill me??" Ai appeared out of the flames with her body covered with only tentacles.
Alice watched the tentacle which had almost reached her face before it suddenly stopped. A steel rod stabbed the tentacle, appearing suddenly.
'The hooded guy's gift!' Alex was impressed.
Ai's mouth hung agape as she looked at Alice in absurdity. Suddenly, four purple tentacles tore out from Alice's back, Alice winced in pain for a second before her cold look returned. She grabbed a few pebbles from the ground before she threw then on the floor, the same thing reoccurred as four purple golems had been created. "Kill the girls".
Immediately the golems moved about killing the other girls while Alice focused on Ai. The hardened tentacles from both sides engaged in a fierce clash as many sparks flew around, but slowly, Ai was gaining the advantage. "Haha!! You may have copied my skill, but you can never beat the real thing!". Ai slowly relaxed after seeing Alice begin to lose and Alex who didn't seem like he was going to intervene.
"Say that again", boom! Purple flames erupted from Alice's tentacles, and every time they hit one of Ai's tentacles, the tentacles would quickly burn and extinguish. But even though Alice begun to win, her face seemed to be paler by the second.
Alex noticed this and realized she was running out of mana and he activated his [Shadow Transmission] and appeared behind Alice, slightly startling her, "Just will to absorb the mana in the orb" "Thanks" Just like that, he appeared back in his original position, as if he never moved.
Alice quickly absorbed the cores and as they crumbled to dust, her face started gaining color again. The golems had already finished their task, and Alice quickly ordered them to kill Ai.
Ai on the other hand was getting anxious as she tried formulating a plan to escape, but that moment she let her guard down, a fifth tentacle erupted from Alice back, and it moved at speeds unlike the others, it quickly appeared before Ai and the sound of flesh being torn took place. Ai couldn't even scream before her face was penetrated and decapitated by the other tentacles which quickly arrived…
Alice stared at the corpse for a good minute before falling on her knees once again and cried, remembering how much she was like a mother figure…
Alex walked up beside a random corpse and looked at the items which dropped after their deaths, he had noticed it earlier but he didn't care at that time. "[Inspect]"
[Skill Sheet]
[Lv 1]
[G- Rank]
[Skill sheets are the only type of book/sheet that allows you to insta-learn. In this case, it allows you to instantly learn a random skill from the deceased player. To use, tear up the sheet]
[Soul Fragment]
[Ability Type-Physical]
[Emotion-Neutral]
[It is a fragment of the soul of the deceased player. Deceased players can never reincarnate until they have a complete soul. Monsters and beasts do not drop soul fragments, only intelligent races and main NPC's do. Soul fragments can be used to make soul essence, which can be used to create a soul weapon, which is essentially a sentient weapon. Soul essence can only be formed from soul fragments of similar kind (same emotion, ability type)]
Alex raged internally as he immediately thought of the reason the gods had done this. 'Those sly bastards did it to make us kill each other, didn't they? Hmph, they will regret doing that.'
Alex quickly stored all the fragments and sheets he could see before he slowly walked up to Alice who had fainted from exhaustion, he used his thumb to wipe of the tears that remained on her face. Picking her up like a sac before throwing her over his shoulder, Alex used a beast core to restore his mana before he took one last glance, of which he was then swiftly consumed by darkness.
***
A few minutes later, exactly where Alex had disappeared, a man who had just appeared looked at the destruction that had taken place a few minutes ago. He seemed to be a youthful young man in is early twenties, with a clean-shaven face and glossy, red hair that swayed in the breeze.
His sharp chin took attention away from his hooked nose that was situated below eyes which glowed menacingly red. He had a scaly tail which shared the same color as his eyes. Slowly, the man opened his pale lips, "It seems quite a lot of chaos ensued here… It's hard to believe a G- rank did this… Sigh, everyone's gonna have a tough competition now that another abnormal is here."
Suddenly, a female with a statuesque figure and long silky hair as white as snow with pale skin appeared by the man's side. "Arc, stop talking to yourself and let's go, the captain will be mad if we're late."
The being identified as Arc clicked his tongue as he rebutted, "Don't call that traitor Captain, he betrayed his own race just to get in a low rank administrator's good books.
The female's face made a sad expression before it quickly changed back to its neutral expression. The woman tapped Arc's shoulder, and without a sound, they disappeared, as if they were never there…
***
In a far, far place...
A woman who wore a velvet red dress, shared a small resemblance with Ai but was worlds more beautiful than her and held wine that shared the color of blood suddenly coughed out a red liquid, it was unknown if that liquid was blood or the wine she held. "…Those two, they managed to kill a fragment of my consciousness…Interesting…"
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CURRENT PLAYERS: 6,664,141,469
NO OF DEATHS: 8,132,303,324
TOTAL NO OF DEATHS: 8,133,480,266
CURRENT GAME: TUTORIAL
CLEAR TIME: ONGOING
Note of the day
GRIMOIRES
Some magic dependent skill sets cannot be obtained through ordinary means. They are found in magical books called grimoires. These grimoires allow you to learn a skill set and to record additional skills that can be added to the skill set.