Amazon Apocalypse: Chapter 4 (Patreon)

The ground opened with a mighty crack, split asunder with the roar of grinding earth. I slammed on the breaks just in time to stop us from sliding in.

A fountain of lava shot out of the ground into the air in front of me. It stretched up into the sky like a massive hand reaching for the sky.

With alarm, a window appeared, telling me that the geyser really was a hand.

Lava Elemental (Level 35)

Status: Neutral.

Now that I stopped, the system finally let me bring up my own status screen.

Carter Smith (Level 2)

I looked between my level and that of the towering lava monster.

"Crap, crap, crap!"

The monster bellowed in a voice that sounded like stones grinding against each other, proclaiming its birth to the world.

I threw the car into reverse, turning my head as I slammed on the gas to get the car up to full speed. We were getting out of here as quickly as possible.

Once we were out of immediate danger, I did the fastest three-point turn of my life and started driving down a branching path. This one was narrower and made of rougher soil, but it would also eventually get me to the base of the mountains I was headed for.

"That was a pile of moving lava," Regina stated. "Lava that moved and roared."

"That was a monster too. Just one we aren't prepared to fight."

My pounding heart only started to calm when the roaring lava elemental was far behind us. That took quite a while, and I frowned as I realized I'd been driving for nearly half an hour.

"Something's wrong. I've never spent more than ten minutes driving down this road." I frowned. "See if you can bring up a GPS on your phone."

I was worried that the system would have knocked out the satellite network, but surprisingly the map on Regina's phone worked just fine.

"Weird. I'm out of signal range, but the map is working... wait a moment... it's only showing places we've traveled to already." Regina briefly turned her screen so I could see. Sure enough, most of the map was grayed out, as though we needed to explore that area before it was visible to us on her map.

From a brief glance at the scale on her phone, I saw the distance we'd traveled nearly twenty miles down a five-mile road.

I glanced at the road around us. It looked the same as always.

A shiver ran down my spine. It felt almost like someone had taken this entire piece of wilderness and stretched it.

"Check the glove box for an emergency tent," asked Regina. "We may be spending the evening under the stars. I doubt we'll make it to my bunker by nightfall."

Luckily, I had a few of those little Mylar blankets and a one-man emergency tent. I didn't have much in survival gear in the car I took to work every day, but I had all the basics. That would be enough to last on a day-long hike until we made it to my bunker.

I brought us to a stop when we finally reached the place where I usually parked. Even before the integration, it had been an hour's walk to get from my car to my bunker. Now it would probably take an entire day. We made it about a third of the way up before the sun started setting, and I knew we had to break for camp or risk setting up our stuff in the dark.

"Let's gather some wood before the sunsets. I've got a few protein bars for dinner, then we'll set up the tent."

I was surprised at how readily Regina followed orders, despite years of things going the other way around. Maybe it was the confidence I had in keeping the two of us alive, or perhaps she just wasn't sure what to do and was happy to have someone else take the lead while she processed what was going on. Whatever the case, I was glad she was content to follow my lead.

She gathered firewood with all the speed and efficiency she saw to her everyday work. She picked up wood like she hammered out emails every morning, piling up a stack of logs half as tall as I was.

"You can stop, Regina. I expect you've gathered enough to keep a bonfire going all night," I said as I put a hand on her arm.

She nodded shakily and started stacking wood with me to make a fire. I set a pile of kindling out, then went to the car to fetch the tent.

While I was setting up the tent, I found Regina with two sticks in her hands, furiously rubbing them together in an attempt to light a fire.

"Come on, come on! Light, you stupid under-performing shoddy pieces of wood!" Regina growled as the sticks as her face turned red with effort.

I strung the piece of string that ran through the center of a tent. It wasn't much to look at, but the small triangular chamber would be big enough for one person to rest comfortably. Maybe two if we were willing to get cozier than would be approrpriate.

"That's not how you light a fire with sticks," I chuckled as I watched Regina fail to light a fire.

If you want to start a fire with just a pair of sticks, you need something easy to light at the read. Like this piece of dry cattail, I plucked earlier, see? Then you take your hands and rub them back and forth with the stick in between, keeping steady pressure on the stick while you do it. Do it over a notch on a flat piece of stick."

Regina watched me with fierce intensity as I gathered a burning ember and blew it into flame. At the same time, it was cupped in my hands. I gingerly placed the tiny flame onto the rest of the tinder, and suddenly the fire was burning.

"I'll remember that for next time," Regina promised.

"You could do that," I nodded, "or you could just grab a lighter from my survival pack."

Regina blushed, and I laughed. I'd seen more looks on her face tonight than I had in the last year.

We roasted our protein bars over the fire for a little while just for the sport of it, and I boiled water from a local stream once the fire started dying down. Once that was done, I unfolded the Mylar blankets and handed one to Regina.

"You want the tent or the truck?" I asked her.

"The tent, obviously." Regina harrumphed.

I nodded. "Alright then. I'll be the gentleman and sleep over here by the fire."

Regina scowled at me. "Out on the open ground? What if you catch a cold or get attacked by a wild animal? Then I'd be all alone out here, and I don't know how to get to your stupid bunker. There's more than enough room in the tent for two. We'll just have to get cozy."

I was about to protest again, but Regina was a beautiful lady, even with her new horn. I'd never dreamed of being anything but a colleague with her, so I'd tried not to notice it before. The fact that she could be a real slave-driver helped most men in the office ignore her looks. Still, it would hardly be appropriate for me to sleep in a tent with my boss.

But then again, was she still my boss? The world I knew was over, and Regina's company was likely gone with it. So was there any point in trying to hang on to the customs of a time gone by?

"Get in! I don't want you waking me up by moving around after I fall asleep." Regina huffed.

I decided no, there wasn't. So I slipped under the sheets and lay next to Regina in the tent.

***

I wasn't dumb enough to fall asleep without setting a watch, so I kept my eyes open for a while. I figured I'd wake Regina to take over for me in a few hours so I could catch some shut-eye myself in a bit.

But until then, I was spending some time getting acquainted with my system screens. There were lots of them, and they sprung to mind whenever I made the conscious decision to see them.

"Remarkable..." I muttered to myself.

They didn't show up when I said a word, nor did they show up from thinking up any command. I just had a desire, and the system showed me what I wanted to see.

"And scary..."

It meant that the system was so invasively connected to me that it could read my thoughts, interpret them, and present me with information accordingly. The fact that something with so much power could exist was downright terrifying.

Carter Smith (Level 2)

Race: Human (Level cap: 25)

Class: None

Strength: 7 (+2)

Dexterity: 5 (+2)

Constitution: 7 (+2)

Intelligence: 7 (+2)

Wisdom: 4 (+2)

Charisma: 6 (+2)

Titles: First Adventurer: First to hunt and slay a monster in the new world. (+1 to a random stat per level)

First Defender: First to slay a monster in defense of another. (+2 to all stats)

The additional stats from my new title were probably what had given my body that extra kick. From the information in the help menu, five was human average, with ten being peak human.

Strength was just what it sounded like. Dexterity represented speed-based deft movements and plain old physical agility. Constitution was both a combination of my overall health and my endurance. Intelligence meant my thinking speed and ability to recall large amounts of unrelated information with speed and accuracy. Wisdom represented my perception skills and my connection to the world around me, and Charisma was my ability to influence others with my words.

My lowest stat was wisdom, which wasn't surprising considering my glasses prescription. I wondered if...

I'd pulled my glasses off to go to sleep, but I hadn't focused on anything distant until now. Sure enough, I could see just as well without my glasses as I could see with them. So that was those two extra stat points in wisdom doing work.

How much would ten stat points do? Fifty? Could someone with a hundred points in wisdom see a gnat on the back of a mountain lion a mile away? My gut said yes.

There was more to my systems screen than just my window. Most of them had help dialogues nearby, which I could flip through and read to learn more about the box itself. There was lots of helpful information there, and I would definitely go over it again to better grasp the system itself. I noticed curiously that there was no additional information on the system itself or where it had come from.

I also notice a new prompt appearing before me when I looked at Regina.

Would you like to view Regina's system screens? She has given you consent to view all screens.

The system itself said that Regina was okay with me taking a peek, so I selected yes and looked at what she had.

Regina Tsuya (Level 6)

Race: Red Oni (Level Cap: 75)

Strength: 12

Dexterity: 13

Constitution: 14

Intelligence: 8

Wisdom: 8

Charisma: 6

I stared at her screens in shock. Her level was way above mine, as were all of her stats! I checked the change log and found all of them had come from a racial transfiguration from human to oni. Regina had really lucked out by discarding her humanity. My First Defender Title meant my stats were already better than what any normal guy ought to have by now, but hers were still higher than mine.

Horn or no, I would have happily grown a horn on my forehead for that kind of level boost. With stats like that, she'd have an easier time surviving this apocalypse than I would, preparation or not.

And what was that level cap box mean?

I asked the system for help and paled when I read what it said.

• Humans have a maximum level of twenty-five. This human limit is as strong as a human can possibly get. After reaching level twenty-five, all additional XP will be held in a buffer or converted to spirit crystals.

Humans could only reach level twenty-five? My heart pounded at that thought. That meant I was screwed once I hit the level cap. In contrast, Regina could merrily skip along until she reached level seventy-five, without a care in the world.

I ground my teeth at the unfairness of it all, only stopping when I remembered I had the Amazon token in my pocket. I'd had my share of lucky encounters as well.

Something jumped in the corner of my vision, and my screen abruptly went dark. There was something out there in the woods. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have been afraid of anything smaller than a bear. But, there were only black bears around here, which weren't anything to be scared of.

But this wasn't ordinary times. There were monsters about.

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