A group of humanoid spider monsters were sniffing and searching everywhere as they roamed the streets.
Through two small holes in a wall, a young lady was observing what was happening outside. She had a long thick brown braid that reached all the way below her bum. “These spider monsters are everywhere. They are in dozens,” she looked at the people behind her, most of whom were injured.
“Can’t we escape without being seen?” an elderly man asked. “If we leave this city, then maybe, we’ll get to a safe place. There’s a mountain in the west. The monsters probably won’t get there.”
“Unfortunately… these monsters are not that easy to fool,” she said. “They are leaving tiny threads everywhere. Those threads will probably send them signals if we touch them. Even I will have a difficult time crossing these roads without alerting them. Once I get spotted, I’m done for.”
Her words didn’t help them at all. “You’re level 34, aren’t you? Even you can’t do anything, Sesi?”
The brown-haired woman Sesi frowned. She was only able to reach level 34 because she selectively targeted higher level monsters that were already dying from in-fighting. Normally, she wouldn’t have cared to lead a group of weaklings in this turbulent time, but after her own family members turned into trees in her own house, she didn’t know what else to live for.
There were twelve people in that building, including her. They had been stuck in this building for more than eight hours now. And they didn’t eat, bath, or do anything other than perhaps get a little bit of sleep every other hour.
Two of them were children who lost their parents. Four of them were elders past sixties and seventies. The remaining five were all males in their thirties and forties, and all they had been doing was trying to stick to Sesi so they could survive. Sesi hated these men for their shamelessness.
“I just received a warning from the system. My sense-reduction skill will disappear in a few minutes,” Sesi told everyone. “So, prepare yourselves.”
Sesi had the skill to block off all sounds, smells, or any signals from coming in or going out around her up to a certain distance. This was the reason why the monsters didn’t enter the building Sesi and others were in.
One of the men called Sesi to the side and talked with her, “Let’s leave the others and escape together. If we stick with those people, we both will also die.” He was level 4, the highest after her in that house. The humanoid spider monsters roaming outside were all leveled over twenty, so he had no hope of escaping even alone.
“If your family was among them, would you have said the same thing?” Sesi asked, making him frown. “I know you have seen death, but there’s no point in clinging to life when you can’t even live like a human.” She then came to the center of the room and told everyone. “I’m going to attract the attention of the spiders, so you all should split up and take different routes. That’s the only way to survive. Don’t roam in a large group anymore, or you’re not going to survive!”
Her words made everyone chatter among themselves.
Sesi looked at the children who were siblings. The brother and sisters were both six and seven years old. “You two should stay in this house’s basement. Shut yourselves in for the time being. Come out when you think the time is right.” There was food in the basement, so she believed that they could survive in the basement for a while if it was just the two of them.
Nobody could refuse her words because they didn’t know any better.
“Then… I wish everyone good luck. Be careful,” saying that, Sesi rushed out of the house through the back door.
“Is she really going to be the decoy?” an elder wondered.
“She abandoned us with sweet talk. Don’t you see that?” another elder responded. “We’re on our own now. The spiders are going to come here soon. We’ll all die.”
The words of the elders made the children sad because they believed what Sesi said.
Soon, the spiders all began to run toward east in groups as if they had seen a prize. This surprised everyone in the house.
“S-She really got the attention of the spiders!”
“W-We must hurry!”
Meanwhile, Sesi, the young girl in her early twenties, was walking alone on the street, and her long, flaming braid kept the spiders away. Some spiders jumped at her, but her braid whipped at the spider and sent it crashing down.
One of her skills was Angry Braid. The more she moved the braid, the stronger its attack power got, and the braid would even get caught on flames. She attained this skill after defeating a hairy rabbit monster. As handy as the skill might be, the spiders kept shooting webs from their mouths and managed to completely wrap the braid with the web and erase the flames in the process.
Sesi used the strongest skill she got. “Siren’s Scream!” A loud scream saw multiple spiders get their heads split. It affected the other spiders as well, but not as much. It was a strong attack, but it wasn’t omni directional, so the spiders jumped at her from the rear, ready to tear her body to shreds and feast on her.
She closed her eyes because she had nothing else to offer. This was her end, or so she believed.
Just then, she felt something come down from the sky and pick her up.
“Kya!” she screamed at once, but when she opened her eyes, she was held by a man who jumped onto the nearest rooftop. After dropping her, both of them kept looking at each other. He was tall and handsome, so Sesi was mesmerized by him. No male had ever grabbed her waist, and this was the first time this happened. Naturally, her heart was racing for different reasons.
The man was none other than Gary who was also looking at the young lady happily because this was the first living human he met after the heavenly gate opened. As cute and charming Sesi maybe, Gary did not think about her beauty at all right now.
“How can a level 34 easily give up like that?” he asked her.
She was startled. “H-How did you know?”
The spider monsters climbed up the building from every direction.
“We should run away!” she yelled in fright.
More than thirty monsters with upper bodies of humans and lower bodies of spiders came climbing the building from every direction.Naturally, Sesi screamed in fright. “We should go!” Though she said that she had no way of escaping them because even though she was at a higher level than the spiders, the spiders were faster than her!However, Gary didn’t look the least bit interested in running away.He grabbed Sesi’s hand and picked her up into his arms, startling her.“W-What are you…” Sesi’s face flustered.He threw her up high into the air. “Kyaa!” Sesi let out a cute scream because she really wasn’t expecting that. She thought he was going to run while carrying her in his arms, but not this!The spider monsters did not care about Sesi right now because Gary was right in front of them, and they shot webs from every direction. But none of their webs hit Gary, for he turned into a blur and utterly destroyed the bodies of the spider monsters with his punches. One punch was all it took
Gary was walking in the street, with his eyes closed. He was searching for Leah’s presence.Sesi was fighting the monsters in front of him. (He said he wants to save the world, but he’s looking for his lost lover? Can I really believe his words?)She mostly used her braid to get the job done. As long as she wasn’t outnumbered, she managed to beat the monsters and level up.Gary didn’t step in unless it was necessary as this would help her level up fast.In a matter of an hour, Sesi reached level 40, and she was thrilled about it.“I’ve played a few games in the past, but this is much more exciting,” Sesi told him. “I don’t even have to punch or kick, and I can still kill monsters without getting my clothes dirty. This is a really cool ability. If I hadn’t encountered that long-tailed rabbit, I wouldn’t have acquired this skill.”What Sesi noticed was that she got new skills only after defeating monsters that were leveled higher than her. No matter how many low-leveled monsters she ski
A few days later.In the western half of the city, a group of humanoid dogs had dragged living humans over to the neighborhood full of trees.They dropped the humans at their boss’ feet. Their boss was a twelve-foot-tall black werewolf, who was dripping poisonous saliva from his mouth. He was not a person from this world.“Is this all you could get?” he growled as he saw the four people. “They wouldn’t even be enough for a snack!” He was sitting on top of a throne made from cutting big trees. “If you don’t bring me at least ten people next time, I’ll add you all into the soup.”“We will bring you the people, Boss Boggy! So, please don’t kill us!” The dogs begged for their lives as they left the scene.The werewolf, Boggy, picked up the wounded people and went to the nearby garden where there was a lot of boiling pot. Next to it were piles of leftover bones. He tossed the humans into the pot, added some herbs and leaves before closing the pot with a big lid and then sat upon the hot li
“I asked you a simple question, mud bloods,” Boggy had his hands behind his back. His amused expression was slowly glowing darker. “Why do you have that black sword that belongs to the Dark Witch!”Leah didn’t answer, or rather she couldn’t. (Dark Witch?) She had no clue who that was.“Leah!” Rowan yelled. “I’ll buy time, so run!” He charged the tall werewolf, which was even more intimidating than the minotaur.“No!” Leah shouted. “Stop!”But Rowan swung the mace with all he got. “Bubble Blast!”However, nothing happened. Boggy stopped the mace with two fingers by holding one of the spikes.Rowan’s eyes widened to the max as he realized just how much of a power difference was there between him and his opponent.“Rats that don’t know their place tend to die early!” Boggy kicked Rowan in the gut, sending him flying. He coughed out blood. His ribs broke, and he crashed into a tree. Ninety percent of his HP was drained with that kick. He was bleeding from the nose, mouth, and ears but sti
Boggy brought Leah and Rowan to his throne and tossed them on the side. He then kept staring at the pristine black sword. “The Dark Witch’s sword… It’s possible that she died.” He frowned. “I heard that she used to be the favorite concubine of the Immortal King. For her to lose her sword, it probably means that she’s lost her life. Last I saw her, she was battling the Cosmic Cultivator Chun Fu! Even the First Key couldn’t defeat him! I can only hope that she managed to gravely injure that monstrous man before dying.”Boggy felt like rushing to his boss Yves straight away, but he couldn’t just leave his soup that was in the middle of being cooked. There was also Leah and Rowan that he needed to deal with.“What should I do with these two?” he wondered, squatting down next to those two. “Should I wake them up and make them fight each other to death? They look like friends, but I bet they’re going to slit each other’s throat the moment you tell them only one of them can live. No matter w
A swift thrust from behind with the full intent to pierce through the opponent’s heart made Boggy believe that he was definitely going to win.It was really a life-or-death situation for Gary.In that fraction of a second, Gary’s toe touched the ground. He put 10,000 stat points to his speed, and another 10,000 points to his agility.Using just the support of his toe, he swiveled in an instant and managed to catch Boggy’s hand, widening his eyes.Boggy’s heart shook for a second.Gary now put 10,000 points into his strength stat and lifted Boggy’s big and heavy body and smashed him to the ground left and right as if he was washing clothes.Boggy’s bones ached, and he bled from many places by the time Gary stopped. Boggy coughed blood and was getting back up. Gary spun and crafted a spinning kick that saw Boggy crash back to the ground head-first.Still, Boggy was growing madly. Even though he was bleeding badly from his head, he looked more angry than afraid.[This is one tough bastar
Rowan slowly opened his eyes and saw a beautiful brown-haired beauty staring at him. (Who is she? An angel? Am I in heaven?) He smiled, but a second later, he realized something. (Wait, angels are men, aren’t they?) His body responded quickly, and his eyes fully opened. He quickly sat up.“Whoa, took you so long to wake up,” Sesi seemed tired from shouting at him. She could have easily pushed him, but she didn’t want to touch a stranger, so she only shouted. Rowan still didn’t wake up from all her shouting, so she had to splash water on his face. Now that Rowan woke up, he had a bit of a confused look on his face. “Who are you?” He looked around and realized that he was inside an old building.He could see Leah still resting on the floor not far from him, but there was a man next to her. “W-Who are you? Why are you sitting next to Leah?”“Where would he sit if not next to his lover?” Sesi responded.Rowan was surprised. “H-He’s Leah’s lover?”“Why? Do you perhaps have feelings for her
“So, where are we going now?” Rowan asked Sesi. He was sitting in the back of a car, next to Leah, whereas Sesi and Gary were in the front.Gary was driving the car through the national highway, which was pretty free to travel on, except at places where clusters of trees grew.Sesi explained to them about the Seven Keys that Gary had told her. “We’re going to have to defeat those seven otherworldly beings. So, to find them, we’ll have to travel around the world.”“That means, we’re going to be adventurers?” Rowan excitedly asked.“Well, I don’t know if we can call it an adventure in this doomsday time or not, but yes, it’s going to be a challenging and exciting experience,” Sesi said. “The seven keys are going to be stronger than the werewolf you fought, so you have to level up fast if you want to help me and Gary.”“Sure, sure,” Rowan smiled. “By the way, you said you defeated the werewolf, right? What’s your level?”“U-Uh,” Sesi laughed without answering. (What the hell should I tel