Amazon Apocalypse: Chapter 14 (Patreon)

The glowing eyes in the alley soon resolved themselves into hundreds of scurrying cockroaches. I turned to Marcus and the other gunners. This would be their best chance to gain levels.

"Open fire!" I shouted.

Marcus was the first to pull the trigger, but the others soon followed suit. Ben had been fairly meticulous about who was armed and who wasn't and everyone who'd gotten a weapon was someone who at least had a passing familiarity with how to use it.

But that still meant a the armed people at my side were at a variety of skill levels, some better and some worse. Of the first volley, only Marcus' shot hit a cockroach. I winced and nodded to Sakura, Caleb, and Bridget who fanned out near all the gaps in the barricades. It looked like we'd be finishing off most of these bugs the hard way.

Despite my initial impression, my troops got a lot better over the next few minutes. Maybe they'd just been a little rusty or needed to adjust to the unfamiliar guns in their hands. Whatever the explanation, I was pleased to see them start hitting their targets and thinning the herd heading our way.

You have slain [Cockroach - Level 1]x37

You have slain [Cockroach Scavenger - Level 2]x12

Unlike normal cockroaches, these had no fear of me. They charged me completely heedless of their own safety, just like all the others. Given my level, their deaths were assured. And yet they ran at me anyway. Looking left and right, the same was true for all my allies.

I alternated between using Mana Bolt and stabbing or stomping on the cockroaches. I didn't want to drain my mana too much, despite the depths of my reserves. We had hours to go, after all, and our enemies strength would only increase from here.

The few times cockroaches actually broke through our line by crawling under or over a barricade, I finished them off with Mana Bolt and kept our line strong. I even kept an eye on the left and right flank to lend a few bolts to help them whenever they were having trouble. People were gaining levels left and right, including Bridget. Unfortunately, my next level eluded me. When the time came to make our move against Craig, I was hoping to be the same level as him.

The cockroach wave slowly faded, and by the time the first hour was up there was nothing but a trickle.

"Ha, I gained another level! This isn't so tough!" Marcus laughed as he held his hand up and high fived some of the other riflemen.

"Hold that celebration! There's a lot more coming out way!" I shouted.

Out gunners swapped out every hour or so, usually when they leveled up. We were a bit short staffed, despite the number of survivors. There hadn’t been enough time to train everyone on how to safely use a gun, and Ben didn’t want anyone to be a danger to their allies.

So, the only people handling a firearm were those who knew how to use them. But we had no shortage of support staff, and a dozen people stood by ready to repair the barricade, bring water, or reload guns for those who knew how to fire them. As a result, we made the best use of the forces we had, though I still encouraged everyone to do a little more.

“Clear the left kill zone. You four, you look tough enough to smash a cockroach with a stick. Here.” I snatched a piece of scrap wood from the pile intended for barricade repairs. I shoved it into the arms of a young women who stood near the back and trembled with fear.

The woman who I shoved the scrap wood at paled. “B-but… those are monsters.”

“Monsters that die to one good bash. And more importantly, monsters that give you levels when you smash them,” I replied. “You kill these things, and you’ll gain levels. You gain levels and surviving is going to be easier.”

“B-but... when if they pull us down and bite us?”

“Then I’ll deal with them. Ben said you all had been hand-selected because you’d follow my orders and had a good head on your shoulders. I want to keep you and all the children and non-combatants in the shelter up there safe. If I have to throw you over the walls and make you squash bugs so you’re strong enough to help, that’s just what I’ll do.”

Ben hadn’t hand-selected anyone, truthfully. There just wasn’t time for him to get to know everyone in the shelter. But making them think they’d Ben thought they were capable of what I wanted them to do would boost their confidence.

The woman still looked hesitant, though the expressions of the others were starting to firm. I turned to them.

“If she goes down and giant cockroaches start attacking her, will you help protect her?” The other men and women nodded.

I picked the woman up and tossed her over the barricade. She screamed in fright but landed directly on top of a cockroach. Her ass squished the bug into paste, and green blood sprayed up her dress.

“Ahhh! Wait, I leveled up?” She stared into the distance in surprise. I took out the other two bugs approaching her while she stared at her System screen.

I turned to the others. “Well? You guys said you’d help protect her.”

I was done playing nice. Shielding these people from the harsh reality of our new world would only hurt them in the long run. It was time to throw them in the deep end of the pool and see who would sink and who would swim.

At first, having people fighting with makeshift weapons like we were hurt the rate we were killing things at. But these were only cockroaches, and our enemies would get stronger from here. These level ones would grow powerful far faster than I would for killing these cockroaches and having a couple extra level threes or fours when things got hard might make the difference between being overrun and weathering the quest successfully.

I was surprised to find just how thirsty and hungry fighting waves of monsters for hours on end made me. But the moment I brought that up, a runner from inside the office came out with water bottles and handed them to everyone on the front lines. Shortly thereafter, it was followed by waves of snacks. We took shifts between eating and shooting

I was pretty sure you didn’t normally take a break for lunch in the middle of a battle, and some of the former military guys refused the food as they kept their eyes locked on the shadowed alleys. But so far, the attacks hadn’t been all that bad, and we had six hours to go. This was no normal battle, either. As far as I was concerned, these early waves of monsters served only to level us up so we were strong enough to fight the real foes that would be headed our way later.

"What are those things!?" Marcus shouted.

I looked where he was pointing and saw those giant squirrels I'd fought before. It looked like we were going to be fighting more than just giant cockroaches now.

The first of them came into sight not long after.

Fire Squirrel - Level 4

Dozens of Fire Squirrels appeared, all of them spitting fireballs. The first one hit one of the gunners and he collapsed backward screaming in pain. His entire face was blistered and swollen. He'd heal, but he was out of the fight. Perhaps those fireballs weren't so harmless after all. I must have underestimated just how much my high vitality had protected us when we encountered these things on the street.

Marcus dropped his gun to drag our wounded to safety, and I pointed my hand to fire a Mana Bolt at the Fire Squirrel's open jaw, snapping bone and teeth. That disrupted the second fireball it was trying to throw our way.

"Take cover behind the barricades! That's what they're there for!" We'd gotten soft fighting those cockroaches that just blindly charged us without being able to attack until they actually reached us.

Fortunately, once we adjusted, we started making short work of the Fire Squirrels.

I especially was largely immune to their attacks. I could dodge most of them, and any time I messed up my Deflect spell saved me from getting struck. Besides that brief period before I could refresh the spell, I could stand in front of the barricades without fear.

They also had to stand in place for quite a while to generate a fireball, which meant they were vulnerable to return fire. The fireballs also traveled slow enough that our people could duck in time to dodge them, while the fire squirrels couldn't do the same to the bullets shot in reply.

Though the squirrels outnumbered us ten to one, they trickled in just a few at a time, and we had the superior position. Between superior weaponry and superior positioning, we slaughtered the enemy as they came.

As the quest reached its halfway mark, I must’ve killed hundreds of cockroaches and dozens of squirrels. It seemed like everyone had leveled up except for me, with most of the people who started at level one hitting the next level multiple times. I received plenty of proficiency improvements, but my levels continued to elude me.

Your Caster proficiency has reached level 6!

Your Neutral Mana proficiency has reached 5!

Your Rifle proficiency has reached level 3!

Your Improvised Weapons proficiency has reached level 4!

We passed the four-hour mark again, granting everyone another boost of one stat across the board. While it didn’t do much for Bridget, Caleb, Sakura, or me, it helped everyone else considerably, especially since it pushed my Strength, Charisma, and Willpower just one point away from ten, leaving only agility lagging behind.

Even the woman I’d quite literally thrown into battle had reached level three, and her new stats gave her renewed confidence. Her limbs no longer shook when she stared at the cockroaches, and she now had the look of a survivor behind her eyes.

I was pretty sure she was still nursing a little grudge against me, but I was willing to have her hate me if it meant she could better help us protect the shelter.

Just when I was starting to wonder if I was getting any points at all from killing low-level creatures, my level up finally came to me.

Congratulations! You have reached level 9!

You have four new stat points to distribute.

Sakura turned and saw the look on my face as I dismissed the System notification. After watching others level up, we all started recognizing the happy look followed by a distant stare as someone stepped back from the fighting to go through System messages. “Did you finally get your level?”

I grinned back at her. Insect and squirrel blood splattered across her clothes, but somehow not a drop of it landed on her smiling face.

“Yep! You’re looking at a level 9.”

A cheer went up from our entire force. Everyone was happy that I’d gotten stronger, since I was the highest-level person there. Even those I’d thrown into battle seemed happy. They were probably just happy that I had more power to cover their asses if they screwed up, but they were still happy for me.

I was pleased for another reason though. Now, I was the same level as Craig. When we fought, I wouldn’t be at a disadvantage.

“Congratulations, Carter!” Sakura said. Bridget echoed her praise a moment later.

I stepped back from the fighting to assign those skill points. It was time to invest in my other abilities and push some of those stats over ten to secure some new abilities.

Choose a Strength ability!

Power Jump (Common)

• Momentarily enhances leg strength to allow greater      leaps and jumps.

Sturdy Footing (Common)

• Strengthens the ground beneath the user's feet,      ensuring it is stable and is less likely to give way beneath them when      increased force is exerted on it.

Power Stomp (Common)

• An enhanced crushing attack that is particularly      effective against small to medium size insect monsters.

I didn't seen Sakura's weapon-enhancing ability anywhere. She must have unlocked that by destroying the table leg she'd been using as a weapon before switching to her baseball bat.

Power Stomp might have been useful to me when I was still fighting cockroaches, but at this point Mana Bolt could take them out without me even needing to touch the bugs, so I had little interest in it. Sturdy Footing seemed more like a required secondary power for people who used a lot of strength skills. It might not matter much now, but if Strength stats could get someone to the point where they could lift a bus, they would need a power like this to prevent their feet from sinking into the ground when they did so.

No, the best choice for me was Power Jump. It would let me leap out of danger, which was just the sort of thing I needed as a primarily ranged magical combatant. I didn't want to be up close and personal with my enemies. This ability would let me jump out of the way if I was ever put in that sort of situation.

So I selected Power Jump. Next, I looked at the Willpower offerings.

Choose a Willpower ability!

Iron Will (Common)

• Allows the user to exert stats all the way to their      minimum thresholds.

Intimidate (Common)

• Provides a chance to force others to comply with your      demands, even if they are against their own interest. Effective only      against those appreciably lower in level.

Resist Seduction (Common)

• Allows the user to be dramatically less suceptible to      seduction or seduction-related mind control and persuasion abilities.

Intimidate sounded like the kind of ability Craig would pick, and for that reason I dismissed it. The real surprise came when I saw the Resist Seduction skill. Just how had I unlocked that ability? And what was that about seduction-related mind control? Was that something I had to worry about?

I knew of a lot of games that had a spell like Charm or Seduce, but I hadn't been thinking they were the sort of thing I'd need to deal with in the real world. Perhaps that had been naive. I would have to think about raising my Willpower more.

Ultimately, I ended up going with Iron Will. I remembered what that headache had felt like when I'd gotten close to exhausting my mana pool. And I remembered being nearly helpless when my health points got too low after that rat bite. Being wounded, weakened, or depelted sucked, and I wanted something to mitigate the effects. From the looks of things, that's just what Iron Will provided.

Chose a Charisma ability!

Hope's Herald (Common)

• Enhances the positive feelings of those around the      user.

Persuasion (Common)

• Makes other people more open minded when hearing your      opinions.

Fabulous Phallus (Common)

• All sexual activities the user participates in are far      more pleasurable for partners. Warning: After experiencing this skill,      women may find it impossible to be satisfied by ordinary men.

Aphrodisiac Pheromones (Common)

• Arouses the opposite sex, making them more compliant      and less resistant to the user's demands.

My eyes skipped straight to the bottom of the list. Aphrodisiac Pheromones. Like with Resist Seduction, how had I unlocked that ability?

It seemed like this was exactly the type of power that Resist Seduction was meant to block. I would have to be on my guard for anything like this from anyone else. In the future I would have to remember to watch out for anyone who looked like they had a lot of points in Charisma and constantly monitor my feelings around them to make sure I wasn't being manipulated.

As for Fabulous Phallus, that would either be useless or a less morally dubious version of the same thing, depending on how good I was in bet. The temptation was there, but it would be crazy to waste something as valuable as a skill on something like this.

The other two abilities were both useful. Hope's Herald sounded excellent for the leader of a settlement, like Ben or Margaret. I wasn't too interested in it though, since its combat abilities didn't seem all that apparent.

Between the two, Persuasion was the logical choice. I'd probably unlocked it by sitting through those meetings with Ben and the others. Out of all my skills, it was probably the one most applicable to my old life.

Still, I didn't expect to be doing that kind of thing very often anymore. So how much use would I really get out of a Persuasion skill that I couldn't get with my own natural abilities.

I sighed. Oh well. Charisma was usually a dump stat anyway. I guess I might as well. I flicked my hand toward the screen with my attention already wandering.

You have selected Fabulous Phallus.

Wait, no!

Had I really just wasted my skill slot on something completely useless like this? I growled at myself in frustration. I suppose I would just have to put up with it, since there was no going back.

You have chosen not to undo your skill selection. Fabulous Phallus skill now downloading...

Ah crap. I'd just have to make sure not to share my skill screen with anyone. I already planned on hiding it because of that Deflect spell I was counting on to save my ass in a time of need, but now I had a reason to be too embarrassed to share it too.

I closed my menus and felt a sharp pain in my head and thighs as the skills took hold. It was a good pain though. These new skills would make surviving this apocalypse a lot easier.

That was when I had a moment of sudden dread. The parts of my body that hurt were the parts that were affected by the skills I just got. Which meant...

"God damn it!" I yelled, stumbling behind the nearest barricade and crouching in the mud.

"What's wrong?" Sakura ran over, worry written plain on her face.

"I'm fine..." I grunted through clenched teeth.

Caleb must have recognized the look on my face, because he put a hand on Sakura's shoulder and shook his head.

I stood a moment later. Like with the other skills, this one was gone as quickly as it had come. It was just the place that pain had come from that made the experience uncomfortable.

I had to reassure everyone I was fine, especially Sakura. "It's okay, everyone. Getting three new skills at once hurt a bit more than I expected. I'm fine now."

"...Good. You're standing a little funny though..." Sakura said as she looked me up and down.

"I... uh... got a jumping skill. Power Jump," I said. I had just promised not to share my skills with anyone, but Power Jump would be revealed as soon as I started using it. Besides, I had to throw Sakura off the trail.

"I see..." Sakura said in a way that bore a bucket-load of suspicion. But she dropped the subject, and we continued fighting cockroaches and squirrels.

A knot of worry needled at me as the quest ticked on. We were getting closer to sunset, and the enemies were getting stronger. I had reached level nine, which meant Craig had to be getting closer to level 10.

We’d agreed to deal with him before he reached level ten because we didn’t know what powers gaining a class title held. We were pretty sure of one thing though; it would make him a lot harder to kill.

So why hadn’t Ben given the signal yet?

+++

<Note>

Carter 100% didn't intend to choose that skill. Absolutely not.

Carter Smith (Human, Level 9. Rank F)

Strength: 10 [+1 this chapter]

Agility: 8 [+1 this chapter]

Perception: 11

Vitality: 14

Intelligence: 24

Willpower: 10 [+1 this chapter]

Charisma: 10 [+1 this chapter] (+4)

Luck: 3

Proficiency:

Caster: 6

Neutral Mana: 5

Improvised Weapons: 4

Rifle: 3

Pistol: 1

Regeneration: 1

Titles:

Forerunner of Earth, Integration Survivor, Chivalrous Pervert, Mechanical Master

Temporary Titles:

Blessed of the System, Hero of Sakura Miyamoto,

Skills and Spells:

Mind over Flesh (Uncommon)

Mana Bolt (Common)

Power Jump (Common)

Iron Will (Common)

Fabulous Phallus (Common)