The Fool's Freedom

The walk proved more boring than he expected and Alan caught himself watching the light of the candle stone play with the shadows and hoping they hid some not-too-strong monster. At least he had the deep groove his body had left in the sandy floor, along with the traces of the horde of homunculi to follow.

The tunnel was simple enough, he had passed a few narrower branching paths, but nothing confusing. Xil’Garoth was silent in the bag, and Alan didn’t feel like chatting the demon up right now.

His new boots were amazing and reminded him of what [Efficient Basic Movement] had done. Alan felt like he could walk for days, and not only due to his physical stats but because his whole body felt better with his feet as comfortable as they were. He wondered if there was underwear or pants with the same enchantment. How would that feel?

The wonders of the System never seemed to cease.

You have received a new quest: Join a Sanctuary!

The world is born anew, and you stand at the forefront of that rebirth. Join those from your species who were deemed too young or too weak to be thrown into the harsh world, and help the Sanctuary prosper.

Reward: Access to the Sanctuary trading system.

The fuck is a Sanctuary? Oh no, is that where all the children and elderly were sent off to? It was good that they were safe, but how long would that last? Alan didn’t believe there would be a high survival rate in this new world. He had gotten lucky more times than he could count and each time there was a chance his luck would fail.

There was a flash of memory of that first time, on the small clearing, staring at the stars. There had been many people there, more than eventually became their small group of survivors. Alan didn’t want to think what had become of them either. Ashlyn was hopefully fine unless Florence had gone off to the deep end of villainy and made things worse.

Hopefully, they would find a Sanctuary. He didn’t know how he would manage to track them down, but he would think about that once he got to the surface.

The tunnel seemed endless and it was hard to keep track of time without a phone or a watch. Alan hummed as he walked until finally, he saw an old friend.

The beady eyes reflected the flickering light of the candlestone around his neck, and Alan grinned. This was a big one. A few more rats appeared behind.

“Come on, you little bastards. Give me my levels.”

It was a slaughter; the rats screeched and charged him at once. Not giving them a chance to reach his new boots Alan swung his spear and sent a [Shadow Slash] at them. The blade soundlessly met the charge and gored the rats without slowing down, before dissipating.

He had missed one, but he skewered it without difficulties.

You have slain Rat (5)

You have slain Rat (4)

You have slain Rat (4)

You have slain Rat (4)

He waited for the level-up message. He was level one so he was giddy with excitement at how many levels he would get.

The System was silent.

What? Oh, come on.

It didn’t make sense. Was it because he had a proper class now and the rats didn’t? That was not fair. The shit System could at least explain the rules so he wouldn’t get his hopes up.

With a few curses, Alan carefully avoided the rat remains, trying to keep his amazing boots clean for as long as possible and continued down the tunnel

He met a few more groups of rats, which posed absolutely no problem for him. Alan estimated he had killed about twenty or so, and there were no levels coming.

Finally, he reached the hall where he vaguely remembered he held his last stand against the rats. The earth and sand beneath his feet were red with gore, and there were pieces of what he assumed was rat everywhere. Probably his fault. There was nowhere clean to step so he grit his teeth, apologized to his new boots, and walked on towards the stone staircase.

The stone steps were narrow and dusty, with no traces of any passage. Carefully he walked up into the darkness, finally exiting on what was apparently a second floor.

The room, if he could call it that, he found himself in was wide, familiar, and strange. There were various objects thrown around in disrepair. It was hard to tell what everything was, but a particular object grabbed his attention. He carefully used the tip of his spear to push it.

The handset of the office phone fell to one side. Alan stared at it in horror. This was unmistakably a phone like the one he had on his desk and he had ignored it so many times. It was old, and dusty, some parts of it were broken. It was a piece of garbage, but it was a phone.

Alan carefully examined everything. Remains of a desk. A metal pen. Various little objects that seemed to have spent millennia untouched by anyone. Yes, this was someone's office… and it had a staircase leading to a tunnel system.

Memories flashed in his mind of when he had awoken and walked in the tunnels. Some of the rooms looked exactly like this one. He wasn’t in a condition to look into the details or even think about his surroundings back then.

Were those ruins remains of an office building? No, there was more to it. It was as if a kid had mashed various pieces of a Lego set, creating a thing that made no structural sense and went against what the designer had intended.

Alan walked around, poking with his spear tip, examining. He was not mistaken. There were two doors he chose the one that was unobstructed. It led to a wide-open hall. Various panels lay fallen on the ground, creating an uneven sea of square platforms laid haphazardly one over the other. There were fallen desks, more phones, computers, and monitors. Some of the panels still stood, outlining the stuff of nightmares – a cubicle.

Alan shuddered at the strange satisfaction he felt seeing this place in ruin. He was ill-suited to regular work with his mindset, but he had done it. He hated it, but money was all that mattered back on Earth. The ability to pay bills and to afford medicine food and luxuries was what defined a person.

The System had taken care of that, it seems. It probably wouldn’t make things any better, considering all the death and destruction Alan had seen and would see, but at least it was different.

With a half-shocked half-mocking grin Alan slowly walked around, looking at the destruction. A few rats jumped out of crevices and died to his spear. He missed a few with [Shadow Slash] but he was still practicing and rats were hard targets to hit.

Alan put the spear in his left hand and took out the feline dagger. He slashed the air with it and watched as a blade of shadows shot out from the path of his dagger’s blade. The range was lower, as the dagger lacked the length of the spear.

Slowly, Alan traversed the abandoned office building, looking for the stairwell. When he found it, he had to stop again as it was located in a cave. A natural cave. It threw him off a bit, but he shrugged and didn’t dwell on it. The System did what the System did.

He walked up the stairs sticking close to the wall, holding his spear in front of him. He turned the corner and continued up. There was a doorway but he ignored it and opted to keep climbing. The natural rock once again gave way to smooth ancient man-made walls. The eerie silence was getting to him and he was reminded of the ritual and the mana-sucking creatures that had come through the hole.

There was a shriek in the distance that carried for some time, and Alan felt himself smile. The stairs came to an end to what he assumed had once been a door leading to the roof of the building. Instead, he entered another large cave, which was missing any traces of civilization.

He walked carefully through the darkness and took out a second candlestone to carry in his left hand. Walking slowly Alan started hearing sounds that were strangely familiar. He couldn’t put where he had heard them before.

As silently as he could, he moved towards the sounds. The cave was narrowing down and he entered a small passage. He had to duck and walk like that, sometimes turning sideways to make it through. The sounds grew stronger. It took him a few minutes but finally, the passage widened and he reached the source of the noise. He tucked away the candlestone on his neck into his shirt, then covered the other fully with his palm. Then he peeked, carefully.

He saw two kobolds, eating and talking to themselves. At least he assumed they were talking. [Tongues of the four corners] once again did nothing to translate what was being said. The two were eating something akin to meat and cheese, spears propped against them. A small ball of light hung on each spear – a woven round cage filled with moon beetles.

Alan gulped at the sight of food, as crude as it was. There was a sudden tightness in his stomach and it rumbled noisily. In the dark narrow passage, the sound seemed to amplify and travel far. The two kobolds froze mid-snack and stood up.

There was no time to hesitate as Alan boosted his legs with mana and shot out of the corner. He dropped the spear on the ground, as the weapon was too long for the narrow cave, and drew his daggers, slashing in the direction of each kobold as fast as he could.

Two blades of darkness shot, one after the other.

The first reached the frozen kobold and sliced straight into its neck, sending its head flying.

You have slain lesser Kobold (13)

The second came a moment too late and the kobold rose its jagged blade to meet it while simultaneously ducking out of the way. Alan cursed as the [Shadow Slash] became much thinner and dissipated shortly after meeting the kobold’s blade. Something to remember.

He saw the creature’s mouth open, probably to scream for help.

[Synaptic Failure] went out just in time and the kobold seemed to choke and fumble, as it dropped on one knee.

Then, Alan was upon it. He stabbed the two daggers into the creature as one, aiming for the throat and the head. Both found their mark, one slit the throat, the other went straight into the side of the head and despite the resistance, Alan’s strength was enough to drive the dagger deep enough – where the brain should have been.

You have slain lesser Kobold (15)

He pulled his blades out of the dead creature and wiped them clean on the furs it wore. Then he stood waiting, afraid to move.

Were there more? Had they heard the commotion? A third of his mana had evaporated, mostly due to [Synaptic Failure]. The physical boost from [Warlock’s Body Mastery] had taken a decent chunk too. The two [Shadow Slash] casts were not even worth mentioning in comparison.

He heard nothing. Carefully, he went back and picked up his dropped spear, then checked his spoils.

Two pieces of unidentified meat, thankfully cooked, and something akin to cheese. It smelled awful, but Alan still cut a piece of it and put it in his mouth. It was surprisingly sweet in comparison to the smell. He cut away the parts of meat where the kobolds had taken bites and quickly devoured both pieces of meat and the cheese if that’s what it was. The meat was burned and dry, but still heavenly in his mouth.

There was a basket of dead rats next to one of the kobolds, and for a moment Alan almost puked. It couldn’t have been the rats. The pieces of meat were bigger than the rats themselves and tasted similar to the boar Salla had cooked, although they were much darker. No, it couldn’t have been the rats.

Alan also drank half the jar of water he was carrying. The food made him feel like a new man.

There was a bit of pain in his starved stomach as he suddenly stuffed it full of food, and he decided to sit and route some mana to help his digestion. He felt the trickle and it was almost negligible.

After a short rest, Alan stood up and looked towards the passage the kobolds seemed to be guarding. It was leading up and there was a sharp turn so he couldn’t see where it led, even if he had sufficient light. He took one of the spears with moon beetles, opting to use the soft purple light instead of the candlestones so that if there were other kobolds they would think one of theirs was coming up.

He had to walk up, bent at the waist. His new stats or skill didn’t seem to have fully removed the pain, although it was considerably better. He cursed as his back started burning from the strange angle. There were a few sharp turns before he saw light, and heard many more sounds like the ones the kobolds made.

He reached a small opening just enough for a human of his size to barely squeeze through. Thankfully, there were also furs and unfinished woven baskets and all sorts of other things piled next to the exit, almost obscuring it from vision.

Beyond that, there were a bunch of kobolds, just like the ones below. Alan estimated there were more than twenty of them. They sat in groups, bickering and eating, a few were making arrows, and another bunch was sleeping.

A fire pit burned softly close to what seemed to be the exit of the cave, with a small pig roasting over it.

There was also a cage next to one of the cave walls, thinly woven like the balls on the spears, filled with a swarm of moon beetles.

And even further past the Kobolds and the fire, was something he didn’t know how much he had missed. Daylight.

Alan carefully went down on his stomach and crawled forward covered in his cape. There were too many. He could take a lot, but kobolds were not rats and they would fight back fiercely. They had bows too and knew how to use them.

There were also two kobolds holding staves. If they were capable of a barrier skill that could stop an arrow like the one Ashlyn had tried to shoot, that would be more trouble.

Alan decided to pull back.

He couldn’t charge, but he had an advantage in the tight tunnel. They could simply barricade the exit and starve him if he alerted them, so he opted to go for a different approach.

There was bound to be a shift change at some point, and he would take as many as he could in the tight tunnel, where he had the advantage.

Alan sat next to the two fresh corpses and waited.