Amazon Apocalypse: Chapter 6 (Patreon)

You have led your party to victory against a fellow party leader! As a result, you have been awarded the title Raid Captain.

When leading a party, your stats receive a boost equivalent to 1% of the average stat of everyone in your party across all stats.

I looked up at Craig, and his eyes met mine. I didn’t like the look in his eyes. They reminded me too much of the monster I’d fought. Just like the Rat Matriarch, he wanted revenge.

My arm throbbed, so I assigned one point to vitality. That eased the pain somewhat, but didn’t cure the Toxic Bite affliction. Craig was saying something to the others, but I couldn’t hear him over the throbbing in my temples.

I needed to think straight and stand. I had three more points to spend. I could dump them all into vitality, but something told me that wouldn’t cure the poison, just temporarily abate its effects. Maybe that was just instinct, or maybe I had a real reason. If only I could think clearly, I’d know.

Coming to that realization, I put one point into Intelligence.

The pain still hurt as much as before, but reaching ten points in Intelligence felt like crossing a threshold. It was like that one point invested counted far more than those before it. I could think clearly despite the pain. It was still there, but a calculating, analytical part of my mind realized I couldn’t do anything about it and shelved the problem. It felt almost like a superpower.

We'd been chatting a bit and made a few guesses at what different thresholds of stats represented. A few suspected that nine was the most anyone could start with in any stat and might be what an olympic athlete might get in stats relevant to their category. In contrast, ten stat points represented a single step beyond peak human ability. And now I had ten points in Intelligence. Perhaps this was how humanity’s greatest geniuses before the System felt.

Now that I could think again, I immediately realized I needed to flip through my menus. I was poisoned, and I needed to figure out how it affected me.

My stats displayed my total health, equal in points to my vitality. My health was at half of the maximum capacity, and as I watched, the vitality ticked up once, which represented my natural healing. But then the poison took effect.

You are afflicted with the poison [Toxic Bite].

As soon as I had the message, my health points went down by two. My stomach sank in my chest as I felt myself growing weaker and watched my total health decrease. I was dying.

There was only one thing I could do. I needed to boost my vitality enough to at least match the amount of health Toxic Bite was stealing from me. That would keep me from dying. So with no other choice, I dumped my two remaining free points into vitality.

The immediate surge of extra health made me feel a lot better. Looking at my stats, my health point total went up proportionally to the health I’d just added. But Toxic Bite was still there, and it would nip at my health every so often until it was gone. I would have to check this screen frequently, but something told me the three points I put into the stat wouldn’t be enough to heal me of my affliction. I needed more levels if I didn’t want to die.

But my spear was broken, and my body poisoned. I couldn’t fight, which meant I couldn’t kill. Not being able to kill meant I couldn’t level. The conundrum spelled certain death for me, at least until I saw another notification.

Your Intelligence has reached 10. You may select one intelligence skill from the following options. Choose carefully! The skills you utilize and the feats you perform will reflect in the class choices you will be presented with at level 10.

Focus (Common)

Allows the user to ignore all distractions for up to one hour.

Illuminate (Common)

Consumes mana to generate a glowing light.

Mana Bolt (Common)

Propels a raindrop-shaped bolt of mana at the target, dealing ranged damage proportional to the amount of mana invested in the Mana Bolt.

There it was. A lifeline. We already suspected reaching ten in a stat was a watershed moment, and someone in our group had already unlocked the examine skill by doing just that. Now that I had reached ten in something, I could pick up a skill.

I selected Mana Bolt. From the sound of things, it was a spell. I wasn’t sure how powerful it was, but if it could kill, it could save my life. I needed to find monsters weak enough to put down and farm before the poison finished me.

Finally able to focus, I turned my attention to the outside world. Two figures hovered over me, with a third much larger standing above them with his arms crossed.

“Leave him, you two. He’s dead,” Craig said.

I coughed and spluttered. “Not yet, Craig.”

“Carter, you’re alive!” Sakura wrapped her arms around me.

“You looked dead,” Caleb said.

Behind him, Bridget smiled. “I told you he was too tough to die.”

I sat up and climbed to my feet. Craig straightened his back as soon as I was on my feet again, as though he was trying to remind everyone that he was taller than me.

“Great. We have another wounded man to lug around.” Craig rolled his eyes. "Ditch him. He can't protect you girls anymore."

“Hey, we’d all still be huddled in the break room if Carter hadn’t shown up! Show some respect!” Bridget yelled.

“Maybe that’s where you should still be,” Craig replied. “Some people are born to be hunters. Others are prey. And the lot of you? You’re prey. Your job should be to support me from the rear.” Though he spoke to everyone, he stared at Bridget with darkness in his eyes.

“Fuck off, Craig,” Sakura finally said. “We could have handled those rats on our own. And if we’d done so, a few of us might even have higher levels than we’ve got now. I’m sure by now that you’ve discovered how useful having some extra stat points can be.”

Craig’s dark look turned Sakura’s way. “The experience points would be wasted on the rest of you. Look at you all. You’re running around with table legs. With my gun here, I bet I could level faster than all of you combined.”

I realized he was right. With how fast he killed off those rats, Craig’s level had to be high. Probably way higher than mine. Even if I was in full health, I wouldn’t dare fight him now.

“What level are you now?” I asked, figuring I might as well feel him out.

“After that last batch of rats, I reached level nine,” Craig smugly replied. I could see him looking at me, and I felt a tingle come from his general direction. Had he just used the Examine skill on me?

“Hmf,” he snorted. “What did I tell you? Weak. You’re all too weak to fight. Just go back into the break room, and I’ll guard the door until help arrives.”

There were even a few nods from the group behind me. They wanted to take cover and hide while someone else protected them. It was the straightforward path to survival.

Warning! Party cohesion has decreased by 20%

“If we do that, we won’t gain any levels,” Sakura protested. “And you weren’t here, but we already called the police. They aren’t coming.”

Craig’s eyes rolled toward Sakura’s. “I’m sorry. Did I ask for your opinion?”

“I’m your boss!” Sakura said. “And I put Carter in charge!”

Craig snorted again. “You used to be my boss. You’re not anymore. No, I think I’m going to do whatever the hell I want.”

“You...” Sakura scowled.

Craig shook his head and laughed. “What are you going to do, fire me?”

The others didn’t really get why Craig was laughing so hard since news of him getting fired hadn’t spread with the sudden arrival of the System. But I saw them looking between Craig and me. He was taller, stronger, not poisoned by a rat bite, and most importantly, he had a gun.

I was promising them safety if they stuck by me and gained levels. Craig promised them they could hide in the break room while he defended them. I knew who most of them would pick.

Warning! Party cohesion has decreased by 20%! Party cohesion has fallen to critical levels!

I dismissed the prompt. I didn’t need the System to tell me how things were going. As I watched, the party interface flickered and faded. The seventeen faces there disappeared one by one until there were only four. Me, Sakura, Bridget, and Caleb.

Dissidents have left your party. Party cohesion has stabilized at 65%.

“Clearly, we’re not wanted here,” I said with a shake of my head. “Let’s go.”

“But...” Sakura protested. I shook my head.

“Their Craig’s employees now. Let’s go scout the rest of the office complex for more survivors.”

"Bridget! Ditch those losers!" Craig shouted at Bridget, arms held wide with a boyish grin on his face. "Come join me instead."

"We were doing fine before, Craig. We'll be fine again," Bridget said, though she shot a worried gaze in my direction.

Craig's look soured. "You'll be regretting that decision soon enough, Bridget. I wanted to make you my alpha bitch. My right hand woman. But if you refuse me now that offer's gone."

Bridget turned to join us.

"Answer me, Bridget!" Craig shouted after her. She ignored him.

***

We headed deeper into the law office while Craig and the others returned to where they’d come from. Only the three other people in my party leader's interface came with me. I cast a wary glance back at Craig, half worrying he’d turn around and fire that pistol at my back. I made sure to take cover behind a desk the moment I could. No shot rang out, which was a good sign.

He probably didn’t feel the need to turn violent. That had been a tremendous victory for him. He’d shown up like a hero to save everyone, then humiliated Sakura and me by making everyone abandon us.

I grit my teeth. Hopefully, that was the last I’d ever see of that asshole, though something in me doubted it. With that gun of his, he’d keep leveling even faster than I could.

One thing still bothered me, though. Why did his gun work? When we called the police station, they said all the weapons in their armory had broken suddenly. And yet Craig’s pistol worked just fine.

I was so mired in my thoughts that I stumbled over my own feet. Sakura caught me, glancing at me with a worried expression. Her gaze darted to my wounded arm, and I realized there was no point in hiding anything from her.

“I’m poisoned. It’s draining vitality from me every so often,” I explained.

“What can we do? How can we cure it?” Sakura asked, worry on her face.

“We could try to find a first aid kit.” I shrugged. “But I think the better option is to keep leveling. If we find more monsters to kill, I can put more stat points into fighting against the poison.”

And so we started looking for both a first aid kit and more weak enemies to hunt for the experience. It wasn’t long before we found the rest of the lawyers. This had been a big law office, and about as many people survived in it as had survived in our office.

They too had taken cover in the break room, so in a way, we were seeing what might have happened to everyone if they’d stayed there and never left. The lawyers were a little more proactive about defending the break room than people had been in our office, though. They’d built a barricade in front of it and were throwing mugs, silverware, and even a toaster at an approaching army of giant cockroaches, just like the ones we’d fought before.

They looked the same, and they died easily enough to improvise projectiles. That meant they were level one, which made them perfect for leveling with my new skill.

One thing was obvious, though. they were weaker than our group. This was their first real fight. They hadn’t leveled as fast as we had, nor as fast as the Rat Matriarch. If something like her attacked this group, she’d be able to tear through their makeshift barricade in seconds and lead her rats to rip them all to pieces.

“We need to help them. I need to kill a few of those cockroaches to level.”

Sakura looked at me with concern. “But Carter... your arm. Are you sure you’re fit to be holding a spear?”

I shook my head. “Probably not. But I think I have a new trick. I got a couple of skills to choose from when Intelligence reached ten, and I think I can use it to fight instead.”

Rather than describe Mana Bolt, I decided it would be better to just show her. So I held up my good hand and pointed at the nearest cockroach.

Just as I realized I had no idea how to use this Mana Bolt, I felt it work. The moment I used it, the knowledge of how to work the ability flooded my mind like a sharp and sudden pinch.

Using mana for the first time felt strange. Like I was moving a muscle I never knew I had for the first time. The closest analogy I could think of was using my mind to squeeze brain juice from my skull and pour it into a ball in my arm.

The feeling left me lightheaded, but by the time I was done, a shimmering ball of something clung to my hand. I imagined it shooting forward, and the mana bolt soared in an unfaltering straight line that struck the nearest cockroach.

The moment it touched the cockroach, the monster froze. Its shell cracked right down the center, and its guts splattered across the ground like it had been hit by a rock. It seemed like Mana Bolt was a simple kinetic energy attack.

You have slain [Cockroach - Level 1]!

You have gained the Neutral Mana proficiency!

You have gained the Caster proficiency!

The lawyers behind the barricade spotted the attack as well. Several stood up from where they were hidden behind their barricade to see who was attacking, which struck me as very poor survival instincts. I waved to them, and Sakura raised her club in salute. The people behind the barricade cheered, which we took as an invitation to join the fight.

Sakura and Caleb led the charge, and Bridget followed close behind. Sakura started herding some cockroaches toward me, and she even gave some of them a light bash, so they were wounded. All it took was a small mana bolt from me to finish them. That was good because I was getting a feel for the skill and realized I’d been way over committing to the amount of mana I needed in each bolt.

The skill gave diminishing returns for the amount of mana invested in the attack, and past a certain threshold, it was no longer worthwhile to add more mana when I could just use that power to cast a second bolt. At the high end of the spectrum, I could splatter a cockroach across the floor like I had with the first. Or I could punch ten finger-sized holes in their shells like shooting little magical bullets. Part of the trick was gauging exactly how big a bolt I would need to create to kill the cockroaches in one blow and not using a drop of power more. That gave me the greatest effect for the smallest power expenditure.

Even so, I was feeling lightheaded when I killed the fifth cockroach, and a warning flashed before my eyes.

Warning. Your mana has reached critical thresholds! Depleting your mana reserves further will result in unconsciousness.

I had to hold off on casting any more mana bolts. But I still hadn’t received a level. It seemed like the System didn’t like the idea of strong people killing lots of enemies, many levels weaker than them to farm experience points. I approached the threshold where these cockroaches were doing increasingly less for me. But at the same time, I was too wounded to fight anything similar to myself in level.

Come on... just one more..."

I grit my teeth, hoping the notification of a new level-up would come soon. Sakura sensed something was wrong when I stopped using Mana Bolt. My head hurt nearly as much as my arm did, and I was stumbling more than I was walking. Sakura ducked beneath my arm to steady me, looking like she wanted to bring me to safety. But I shook my head and pointed at the remaining cockroaches.

She helped me over to them, kicked them over one by one to reveal their more vulnerable underbellies, and let me stomp on them with her help.

You have slain [Cockroach - Level 1] x8.

Congratulations. You have advanced to level 5!

Caster Proficiency has reached 2.

I sighed in relief the moment the notification I was waiting for finally came, and I put a point into vitality, bringing my total up to 9. That had me just about even with Toxic Bite, and I wasn't losing ground to it anymore. My health was staying roughly level.

But that brought me face to face with a new problem. I didn't have enough mana to use in a fight. My headache hadn't come from my missing health points, but from my depleted mana pool. That was bad, since there was no guarantee the next foe we ran into would be as weak as these cockroaches. What if we ran into something like the Rat Matriarch?

More points in vitality might bring me up to full health, but I doubted that alone would be enough to heal my Toxic Bite affliction. And I had a hunch that the affliction simply wouldn't let me get to full health.

But sometimes they say the best defense is a good offense. I wanted to empower Mana Bolt to the point that I could blast even the Rat Matriarch aside if I needed to. Even with depleted health, I could stand back behind the others and shoot projectiles at our enemies to contribute that way. Whereas if I tossed my remaining points into vitality I'd just be another compromised front line fighter with a wound that wouldn't heal until I found a way to make it heal.

So I put my remaining three points into Intelligence, further bolstering my mana reserves. The last traces of my headache vanished, even though I hadn't regenerated much of my mana pool, I felt like I could fire off a half dozen more Mana Bolts without issue, though I definitely didn't plan on picking a fight until I'd regenerated a bit more of my reserves.

“Carter... are you?” Sakura asked, worry in her eyes.

“I’m better now. The affliction is still there, but it won’t be killing me any time soon now.”

Sakura wrapped her arms around me, sighing in relief. She seemed more relieved at the news that I’d live than I was. “I’m glad.” She rubbed her cheek against my shoulder. I winced since it was my right shoulder, and that entire arm still throbbed. She noticed a moment later and pulled away. “Sorry!”

“Try the other side next time,” I chuckled. “Anyway, let’s go meet the lawyers from across the hall.”

I gestured to the survivors who’d barricaded themselves in their break room. They waved us over, eyes still darting to the dead cockroaches on the ground.

<Note>

So I might have been a little too quick saying I was going to move up the release rate. I'm slowing down a bit working on chapter 11 because I have to make a few big decisions for the story (finalizing how jobs, classes, and settlements work) and I'm finding myself going back to the earlier chapters quite a bit to make sure things work out the way I need them to, and I think it'll be confusing if you guys catch up to me only to find a prior chapter has been heavily edited after you guys read it. So I'm going to hold back those chapters a little longer so I can make those changes without messing with your reading experience.

The office arc is going to last a bit longer than I thought, but it should be ending with a bang. I'll still try and do an extra chapter this week, but once all that stuff is settled and we're no longer focused on this mini-arc that I want to complete properly, I should hopefully be writing a chapter a day again and then we can finally speed up. Especially when we start covering chapters that we touched upon for the previous version of the story.

<Edit Note>

So I rewrote the last chunk of the chapter (and a few select chunks of the two previous chapters) to fix that stat accounting error from earlier of the chapter. I'm on the fence with this fix, since I think Carter really should have chosen to push his vitality to 10 and put only two in intelligence, but that would have required me to rewrite the next six chapters (plus I'm trying to only do one skill selection scene per chapter, that works better narratively), so for now we're going with this.

Carter Smith (Human, Level 5. Rank F)

Strength: 6

Agility: 4

Perception: 6

Vitality: 9

Intelligence: 13

Willpower: 6

Charisma: 6 (+4)

Luck: 0