Amazon Apocalypse: Chapter 7 (Patreon)

Sakura’s company owned the building, so she was naturally a familiar face to the law office. She was the one that collected their rent, after all. Sakura wasn’t exactly friends with everyone here, but she recognized a few people by name, so I left them talking to her.

They had many obvious questions. Mostly about what had happened, if we’d experienced that strange meeting with the System, and if monsters were showing up everywhere or just in their office. Sakura brought them up to speed while I browsed my menus and waited for my mana pool to recover.

Carter Smith (Human, Level 5. Rank F)

Strength: 6

Agility: 4

Perception: 6

Vitality: 9

Intelligence: 13

Willpower: 6

Charisma: 6 (+4)

Luck: 0

There was more to this menu. I’d glimpsed it the last time I was fiddling with my start menu, but I had been too busy allocating stat points to look into it. I was pretty sure I’d seen it when I focused on my stats.

I strained my eyes, staring at the words floating before me. After a second, the information besides my name expanded.

Human (Earth) - F Rank

Species Level Cap: 25 (End of E Rank)

Class Titles: None

A level cap for humanity? I didn’t like the sound of that. Level 25 still felt like a long way away, but I knew I’d get there eventually. I tried to focus on that phrase to see if I could get the System to share more information, but nothing came up. It probably wanted me to earn the information on my own or something. The System seemed very intent on making everyone work for every scrap.

Class titles had been explained to me by the System during my brief meeting with it. I would start seeing them at level ten, which was coming up sooner than I thought.

I stared at the rest of my stats. My most pressing need right now was to cure the Toxic Bite infecting my arm, so more Vitality might be helpful. Crossing ten had given me a skill, and I heard crossing ten in Perception did the same. Would the same hold true for Vitality? I was starting to reconsider my last allocation of stat points. Maybe I really should have pushed vitality to ten with one more point.

It might be worth trying if I couldn’t find any other way to cure this Toxic Bite. The trouble was right now, my main attack scaled off Intelligence. I needed to keep that strong so I had at least one powerful ability to deal with enemies. It would be a careful balancing act between investing enough points into skills to get them to ten and unlock whatever benefit they had and also putting enough points into my combat stats I could continue to defend myself and gain levels.

After all, I didn’t plan to stay in this office for long. Not with Craig here and gaining levels faster than I was with his gun. I had some supplies back at my apartment and even more in my secret mountaintop hideaway. I hadn’t known exactly what form Myrina’s apocalypse would take, so many of my preparations would be useless. But not all of them. And the sooner I got to my supplies, the sooner I’d be able to use them.

“Hey, Carter!” Sakura yelled to catch my attention. I noticed sitting down and relaxing had restored my mana points faster than when I’d been standing. Maybe next time, I’d need to try meditation. “Everyone is wondering what that trick was that made the cockroaches explode when you pointed at them!”

I stood, and I saw Sakura smiling when she saw I was walking steadily again.

“Hey there,” I nodded to the lawyers, one man, and one woman. I’d seen them around the building but never had cause to talk to them.

“This is Margaret and Benjamin. The pair of them started this law firm a decade ago, just after they got married,” Sakura said by way of introduction. “Margaret, Benjamin, this here is Carter. My right-hand man.”

I ran my fingers sheepishly along the back of my neck. My actual position had been nothing important, but Sakura had put me in charge of all matters related to office combat and survival. So I guess, in a sense, I really was her right-hand man these days.

“Pleased to meet you,” Margaret said as she held her hand. I shook hers and then her husband Benjamin’s hand right after.

The couple looked extremely similar. The man was slightly taller and had slightly shorter hair, but otherwise, they were dressed in matching suits and had the same stern expressions on their faces. They reminded me a lot of Sakura trying to look as boss-like as possible in front of all her employees. Except for these two, it looked like this was their natural disposition.

“So, Sakura said your office survived this crazy giant bug attack situation largely thanks to you.” Benjamin’s grip was firm, and I returned the gesture. He was pretty strong, but I wasn’t sure if that was because he started strong or because he’d recently put points into his strength stat.

“I can’t take credit. Everybody fought for their own survival,” I replied.

“But that trick of yours! You just pointed at the cockroaches, and they exploded! What was that?”

There was no reason to withhold any information, so I answered honestly. “That was called Mana Bolt. I was given three choices when my Intelligence stat reached level ten. Since Mana Bolt seemed the most directly applicable to combat, that was the one I chose.”

“Fascinating. So there really is something to these stats...” Benjamin muttered.

Margaret elbowed him in the side. “I told you, dear, it’s like a video game!”

“So it is, dear. So it is...” Benjamin ran his fingers across his chin in thought. “Tell me, Carter. Do you think we should aim for this Mana Bolt as well? I received a level for killing some of those bugs. Should I put all those points into Intelligence?”

I shrugged. “That’s up for you to decide. But don’t think the Intelligence stat is the only one worth leveling. We’ve already heard from someone getting an useful skill that lets them determine the levels of monsters before fighting them when they hit ten Perception. I plan to pick that one up whenever I can spare the stat points.”

“I see. I see...” Benjamin nodded. “In that case, it would do as well to diversify our efforts. Perhaps we can have someone aim for each stat point, then pool our knowledge about what skills are unlocked. That seems like the best way to figure out how.”

“That would be clever. We’ll keep in touch.” That really seemed like a useful idea. It would be a long time before I rallied the spare stat points to reach ten in every stat. But with more people, we could figure out exactly how the System worked much faster.

Margret and Benjamin had stayed in the break room since the integration began and had been exploring their stat menus that entire time, so while they had little experience fighting monsters, they had plenty to share. I was pleased to have made their acquaintance.

“Oh, one last thing before we go. Do you guys have a first aid kit?” I asked.

They had a first aid kit sitting unattended in the break's corner room. I had planned on wrapping up my rat bite to protect it, so I didn’t hurt myself whenever Sakura brushed up against me. But I was greeted by a pleasant surprise when I found a tube of topical antibiotics. It wasn’t anything special, just the typical yellow tube stuff with some pain relievers mixed in. But it was perfect for me.

You have applied [Antitoxin Medicine - Common].

Your affliction [Toxic Bite] has reduced in severity.

I tried to apply more but didn’t receive the message. But I didn’t plan on giving up on it entirely.

“Do you mind if I take this? I’ll pay you back at some point.” I held up the first aid kit.

Benjamin waved his hand. “With all the tips you gave us? Consider it a gift given in thanks.” He leaned in close. “Also, I’m pretty sure that is Sakura’s first aid kit. She loaned it to us a month ago, and we forgot to give it back.”

We parted ways a few minutes later, heading for the stairwell again. Sakura turned to me in surprise once we were out of the law office.

“I’m surprised. I thought you were going to have them follow us or something,” Sakura said.

I had thought about doing just that. There were certain benefits to having a big party, and I was sure I’d be able to talk Benjamin into joining me. But the chain of command would be unclear since the people in that office worked for him and not Sakura. I had an even more important reason for not teaming up with them.

“It would have been a bad idea.” I shook my head. “That was their first fight, which means they can’t be above level two. That means they’d need to fight cockroaches or the like of them. I don’t know about you two, but I’ve been getting far fewer experience points from cockroaches than I used to. We need to fight stronger monsters. They wouldn’t survive fighting stronger monsters.”

“I see...” Sakura nodded. “Well, I suppose those insights are why I put you in charge!”

There were four floors in total in our office building, but not all were filled. The economy wasn’t the best when the apocalypse began, so Sakura only had five of the eight offices filled. Assuming the same ratio of survivors held true in each office, I estimated there were about eighty people with us.

I revised my estimations downward when we came to the next office, one floor up.

“Oh god, I’m going to be sick,” Bridget went pale. Caleb shook his head.

We stood before a pile of blood and shredded corpses. Sakura turned her head to avoid looking at it, and I wanted to do the same. But I needed to examine the corpses.

“These look like rat bites...” I muttered. “I think we know how those rats leveled so fast.”

If only I’d killed the Rat Matriarch the first time we met outside of Sakura’s office. Maybe some of these people would still be alive.

I turned to see the others all looking queezy, and the grim sight had my stomach feeling a bit upset as well.

“If the rats were here, they aren’t here anymore. Let’s check the other wing.”

We headed across the stairwell to explore the other office we hadn’t explored yet. There were corpses here too, but there were also a few still alive. Like the law office, many of these people had locked themselves in the break room. A few others stood on desks. Beneath them, giant cockroaches crawled along the floor, munching on a pair of bodies in the center of the room.

There were seven of them and four were the same size as I was used to. But the other three were twice as large. That those three were the ones munching on the human corpses didn’t escape my notice. They’d probably leveled up with those kills.

“Oh god, not again.” Bridget averted her gaze, and Sakura tucked herself behind me.

“We’ll avenge them,” I promised. “Get ready for another fight. Let’s take care of these bugs.”

I nudged Sakura toward the bigger bugs gnawing on the human corpses. Bridget and Caleb were lower level than the two of us, so it would be better to leave the weaker cockroaches to them. We would take on these stronger ones since, it would probably take dozens of the weaker cockroaches to level anymore.

Once Sakura saw my gaze set on our enemies, her own expression firmed, and her aversion to the corpses was overcome with bitter determination to avenge them.

“I’ll handle the front lines this time,” Sakura said. “Can you fire your magic bolts from behind?”

I nodded. The man in me didn’t really like sitting safely in the rear while Sakura held the front lines. I wanted to be up there alongside her. But with my wound, I couldn’t fight properly with my wound, and between the two of us, I was the only one with any sort of ranged ability. It was only natural that I be the one to support her from behind.

The smaller cockroaches scuttled around the room, trying to get away from us as we approached. But I ignored them completely, focusing entirely on the larger monsters. Bridget and Caleb peeled off to deal with them.

The bigger cockroaches turned to regard as both, and now that I saw them up close, I realized their mandibles were as wide around as my wrist. Instead of just nibbling at your legs, these bugs could probably snap off a limb and eat it. In fact, judging by the state of the corpse behind them, they’d been doing just that.

Sakura attacked with her club, smashing down on top of one cockroach. It tried to dodge, but for all its many legs, it wasn’t as nimble as Sakura’s human limbs. She hit it in the back with all her strength, which was considerable now that she’d put more points into the stat.

Even then though, this cockroach was far tougher than the level-one variety, and it shrugged off Sakura’s attack without a scratch. It was stunned, but that was all. Worse, the other two giant cockroaches were heading for her themselves.

The moment Sakura was in danger, my Hero of Sakura Miyamoto title kicked in and boosted all my stats. Suddenly, fighting with her in front seemed like the logical choice.

I poured extra mana into my next Mana Bolt. These things were bigger and tougher, so I wanted to scale up the amount of damage I was doing accordingly. My spell landed squarely on the third giant bug, blasting it right through the torso and shattering the armor over its thorax. The monster stumbled backward, convulsing itself until it collapsed onto its back.

Sakura charged forward, slamming her club into the second giant cockroach’s head. With enough force to shatter her table leg, she crushed the cockroach’s head instantly. Its body toppled to the ground in pieces, leaving nothing behind except a trail of thin green blood.

We dealt with the other two cockroaches the same way, though Sakura now only held half a club. I pushed my Mana Bolt ability hard and struck each of the cockroaches in the face, driving them back.

Sakura discarded her broken weapon, and her eyes darted around before they lit on a baseball bat leaning against the wall. She used the moment of cover my mana bolts had given her to snatch it. It was bigger than the table leg she had been using and had a bit more heft to it. She returned and gave the cockroach another swing, this time shattering its shell.

It was weak and crippled, and my next mana bolt finished it. That only left one bug, and between the two of us, we made short work of it. I’d gotten better at targeting my mana bolts now, and I could snap some of the bug’s legs with a lucky shot. That disabled it enough that it had no hope of avoiding Sakura’s swings.

She batted it back and forth until the monster was finally dead.

You have slain [Cockroach Scavenger - Level 3] x3

I was surprised to get credit for all three kills, but Sakura said she also got all three kill notifications. It seemed the System knew when people were working together, and experience points were shared accordingly. At least now we didn’t need to worry about who got in the last hit.

Caleb and Bridget had finished the last of the cockroaches by then, and the survivors in the office were stepping down from where they hit on top of their desks or locked n the break room.

“The monsters are dead for now, but I would be careful. There are things more dangerous than those bugs roaming the halls,” I warned everyone present as they stared back at us.

“Those things! They were monsters!” A man shouted.

“I know. And we killed them for you. But we won’t always be there to kill them,” I replied.

“Is help arriving?”

I shook my head. “Look, if you want to be safe, head downstairs to the law office. There’s a man, and a woman named Margret and Benjamin. Tell them we sent you and join up with them.”

These people looked about the same level as most in the law office, so they would probably do well to team up. Hopefully, with enough numbers, even a creature like the Rat Matriarch would think twice about attacking them.

The rest of our exploration was uneventful after that. We cleared out every room and cubical on the second floor, save for one small office where we found a woman hiding underneath a desk. She looked terrified and was trembling slightly, but Bridget could talk her out of hiding and have her take shelter one floor down with the others.

On the third floor, we encountered another group of survivors. This time there were six of them, including a middle-aged couple huddled in a corner. One of them was injured and bleeding, but it didn’t seem serious enough that death was imminent. Thankfully I was still carrying that first aid kit, so we patched them up and sent all of them to Margeret and Benjamin.

The other wing of the third floor was the strangest of all. Apparently, the manager in charge there had decided that two-thirds of his employees vanishing, and a magical talking voice telling everyone it was the apocalypse was no excuse for not getting work done. When we walked in wielding improvised weapons and covered in insect blood, he tried to shoo us away.

“What are you doing, Damien?” Sakura said. “We need to evacuate these people!”

“My bonus depends on us finishing this job on time! I don’t care if the internet is out or if two-thirds of our employees vanished.”

I sighed. “Damien, you’re going to get you and all your employees killed.”

He glared at me furiously. “Don’t lecture me. You’re not qualified.”

Damien was annoying, and part of me wanted to let him get eaten by a giant rat or a horde of bugs. But his employees didn’t deserve to die for his ignorance, and his position was understandable. The System had appeared, and they’d all gone through a strange experience, but without being thrown into a life-or-death situation, it was easy to fall into old habits and just get back to work.

I needed to shock them out of their stupor, and for that, I needed a monster. So went back to the other wing, scooped up a few level-one cockroaches, and let them loose on Damien’s desk. He screamed like a little girl, and I had a good laugh.

“Heavens above, what the hell is that thing!?” Damian shrieked as he backed away from the giant cockroach.

I pointed a finger at the bug and put it down with one Mana Bolt. “That’s what will eat you if you don’t get to safety. Everyone is grouping up on the first floor.”

By now, the monster had drawn everyone’s attention, and the way I’d killed it simply by pointing at it had been even more shocking.

“You all have stat menus. They’re there for a reason. The world has changed, and your old lives are dead and gone. To survive, you will have to fight monsters like these. If you stay here doing what you’re doing, you’ll die the first time one of these creatures finds your office. If you don’t want to die, head down to Margaret and Benjamin’s office on the first floor. That is where we’re sending everyone.”

“Don’t blow this out of proportion! It’s just a few bugs!” Damien said. “Sakura, get control of your employee, please! We don’t pay rent to have our workdays disrupted.”

Sakura shook her head. “If you don’t believe him, just head to the other wing. Two bodies are lying on the ground.”

Damien’s face paled, and a few employees stood and left to check before their boss could order them back to work. Once they came back and spread the word, I was pretty sure the rest of the people in the office wouldn’t care what Damien told them to do anymore.

Having said my piece, I left. Some of them would do as I said, but it looked like Damian was intent on keeping everyone in their cubicles. I’d check on them again on the way back down, but every moment more we wasted on them was a moment we weren’t helping the others on the last floor.

The survivors on the fourth floor were untouched, though convincing them to leave was a lot easier. I found another first aid kit, and I used it to replenish the supplies in the one I was carrying. I also applied more antibiotics, and like I hoped, it was effective again.

You have applied Antitoxin Medicine (Common). The severity of Toxic Bite has been reduced.

The affliction still hadn’t gone away, but it was not taking away health points as quickly anymore. My health points had stabilized higher than before, and now I was running pretty consistently at two-thirds of my maximum.

We ran into a few more of those Cockroach Scavengers, which was a bad thing for the people they were harassing but was a good thing for our group because everyone gained another level.

Congratulations! You have reached level 6. You have four stat points to distribute.

I allocated my stats, putting two into Intelligence, hoping to grow my mana reserves a little more. There wasn’t really any increase in the quality of my attacks, but I could store far more mana than before, enough that I could go an entire fight just casting Mana Bolt.

I put the remaining two points into Vitality. The throbbing in my arm had been greatly reduced with the antibiotic applications, and now I was finally feeling confident in being able to get rid of the affliction completely. All I needed was one big push in the right direction, and maybe crossing the ten stat threshold would be that push. Again, I held my breath.

The theories Ben and I had together proved true. Just like with Perception and Intelligence, Vitality also granted a skill when it reached ten.

Your Vitality has reached 10. You may select one Vitality 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.

Sacrifice (Common)

Give your health points to another, healing them and damaging yourself.

Regeneration (Common)

Increases health point regeneration by double when active. Also can regrow lost limbs.

Mind Over Flesh (Uncommon)

Grants the ability to convert mana into health points.

Once again, I had three skills on offer. Sacrifice was out. I wasn’t about to become a healer who had to hurt himself to heal. Especially when it would leave me without a way to heal myself after. It sounded like a good way to get myself killed.

Regeneration sounded interesting, as it would help deal with my Toxic Bite affliction. I could probably get myself to full health with it, which might make the affliction go away completely.

But I ignored it thanks to the third skill, Mind Over Flesh. The ability was one rank rarer than the others, which was good. But beyond that, it synergized well with my stats since I’d been pouring so many points into my Intelligence stat.

So that was the skill I took. I proved my choice correct a moment later when I converted most of my remaining mana points into health points, instantly bringing myself to full health.

Your health has been restored to maximum capacity.

The affliction Toxic Bite has been removed.

I flexed my arm again, whole and healthy once more. Not bad at all.

“Let’s finish up here, then head back downstairs to see how the survivors are doing. If they get attacked again, I want to be ready.”

And while I was at it, I wanted to monitor Craig. I didn’t know what he was up to, but I knew he’d be in trouble eventually.

<Note>

I'm including stat points at the end of every chapter for a while, since the exact number matters quite a bit right now. Eventually we'll get to the point where individual stat points matter less, but for now each one is key to the story.

Carter Smith (Human, Level 6. Rank F)

Strength: 6

Agility: 4

Perception: 6

Vitality: 11

Intelligence: 15

Willpower: 6

Charisma: 6 (+4)

Luck: 0