Chương 75: Actually, isn’t that, like, a global crisis?

Having a gun pointed at him was somewhat irritating. Not to mention awkward. Dennis and the survivor guy stood in the alley, not moving or saying anything. He was still holding his sword, which was now covered in blood. Small droplets were slowly dripping to the ground one by one from the blade, the only movement in an otherwise uneventful standoff. He forgot how much of a mess monsters left behind after being killed. The Arms were way more sanitary. The man looked almost paralyzed. Tense.

His gun was still pointed at Dennis, a thing that he–hopefully–had just forgotten to stop doing. Some people were a bit slow like that. Or maybe it was just how people treated each other now? Depending on how hard humanity was hit by the end of the world, there was a good chance that things like governments were a thing of the past. The world could be an anarchy, with little kingdom-communities scattered here and there, all with their own rules and morals.

Maybe pointing the gun at strangers was just a common greeting now? Especially if the stranger in question appeared out of nowhere, splattered a monster all over walls, and had a fear aura of questionable intensity. After all, the guy didn't know that Dennis had lost his buff, and was far less dangerous than he appeared. Actually, that was a problem.

In an ideal world, Dennis would have liked to save the dude with his awesome superspeed, do a cheesy heroic one-liner, and disappear to fix some other disaster in a blink. The problem was the absence of other disasters. That left him standing in an alley with a random dude who was either very rude, or just flat out silently shitting his pants to the degree that he had forgotten how to talk.

"So… You're gonna shoot, or what?" Dennis tried diplomacy. Killing the guy right after saving him would be extremely counterproductive, not to mention that it was probably another misunderstanding, again. Honestly, half the damn time someone threatened him with violence, it was usually a misunderstanding of some kind and not villainy. Just the wrong side of a fight-or-flight response or something. Dennis had enough pattern recognition to understand that.

"Would that even do anything?" the guy asked quietly, almost as if to himself.

"Nah." Dennis shrugged. Objectively, that was the opposite of truth, but Dennis had a hard time believing it. Sure, he didn't have the buff, and the discount danger sense from Kriya Shakti wasn't working since his max mana was at zero again, but he still just couldn't see himself losing, gun or not. The reason wasn't even his fighting talent. According to that one, dealing with a gun could be quite a problem. It was more of a… general feeling of superiority? Arrogance? But, magical arrogance.

Dennis' level was so much higher than the guy's, that he couldn't even tell the man's level at a glance. The man could be level one, or five, and it felt the same. Beneath him. Unimportant. Considering him a threat felt the same as being scared of a random ant. Damn, the world would be screwed if all high-level people felt the same. Magically induced arrogance surely wasn't healthy for society. Chances were the guy felt the same about Dennis, but in reverse, and with the fear thing from his Soul on top.

He had a gun, but probably felt like the gun was pointed at him. Sucked to suck. Dennis wanted to sheathe his sword, but the thing was gross and covered in blood. He could wipe it off his clothes, but those were ruined enough that he didn't want to add even more nastiness, especially considering that blood and pieces of stuff would rot and make him smell like garbage. Everything was so fucking messy outside the mirror world.

He was still quite hungry, and a bit thirsty, and a bit sweaty, and there was dirt everywhere around him that didn't disintegrate into nothingness, and things smelled and could rot and–"Do you have, like, a towel or something?" he asked the guy.

"A handkerchief? Wet wipes?" The man slowly lowered his gun.

"You're–" he tried to say before a breath caught in his throat. Dennis was getting slightly concerned with how strong the fear thing was. Mary was tolerating it just fine, wasn't she? And Lily didn't even seem to notice. Surely it wasn't that strong.

"Friend or foe?"

"Dude, I literally saved your life a moment ago."

"Yes," the man was muttering to himself.

"Right. You did. Ehm…"

"Towels?" Dennis gently guided his train of thought.

"Right, towels," he nodded shakily, holstering the weapon and reaching for his fanny pack.

"I have… I have wet wipes, is that okay?"

"Sure." He handed Dennis the pack of wipes like they were a live bomb, but gradually, as time went by and Dennis did nothing but furiously scrub his sword, he seemed to relax.

"I'm Naithan," he said carefully.

"Thanks for the save. You're… not from the city, right? I don't think I heard of you." The man seemed to remember something before hastily adding.

"Sorry." Did he think that it was offensive or something to not recognize Dennis? Maybe it was. Who knew how overpowered people tended to act nowadays? A healthy dose of caution when dealing with them sounded wise, especially considering the instinctual arrogance they probably had. There would be nothing to stop them from beating you up for perceived disrespect or something along those lines. Dennis' eyes narrowed. There was something in that thought that he instinctively disliked.

It wasn't nice to treat people like ants just because you were 'strong' or something. Some might say that it was even… villainous. Naithan tensed, seeing Dennis' reaction. Honestly, the guy was watching him like a hawk, visibly reacting to everything Dennis did. He was calming down when Dennis seemed distracted or non-threatening, and he was getting more nervous when Dennis showed any kind of displeasure. It could be the fear aura, or healthy caution. But it could also be learned behavior.

A smell of a villainous activity. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"Naithan, buddy, tell me honestly, you're not abused by people with a higher level than you on a regular basis, are you?" he asked.

"Actually, why the hell is no one watching your back? If there's monsters jumping out of the shadows, you really shouldn't be walking around the city alone. It feels more like a party activity unless you're hella strong, and I have to be honest, you don't feel hella strong." The man looked like he had eaten a lemon.

"N-no," he managed to answer.

"I'm not– I'm not abused by high-levels or anything. We can report that shit and the police actually do something about that. It's just– Have you seen yourself? I've never felt a level-diff effect that strong. Just give me a few minutes to adjust." He sat down tiredly and closed his eyes.

"Fuck, this is wild. I've almost shot you. S-sorry. C-can you turn off the skill that makes you feel like I'm about to be stabbed? You're n-not supposed to use that shit on people. Ehm… s-sorry. Please? It's fucking with my head." Dennis sat down near the opposite wall.

"Well, we do have some time until someone on the beach gets attacked and I can run back, so… Take your time, I guess," Dennis said.

"The fear aura is a new thing though, no idea how to turn that off."

"It's not a skill?" the man grumbled quietly.

"One of my stats is fucked up in a weird way, as far as I understand." Dennis shrugged.

"You'll just have to deal with that."

"Fucking fantastic," Naithan muttered. After a few tense seconds, he left out a shaky breath.

"Okay, this is manageable, the more you talk, the more I can convince myself that you're just some kid. To be on the same terms, you're not violent or going to kill me if I say the wrong thing, right? It's just the skill effect? Or, well, the stat effect? How does that even work?"

"Killing you after saving you wouldn't make much sense. Chill out."

"Right. You did save my life," the man said to himself.

"That helps. Okay. G-give me a minute. Actually, talk more, hearing you talk helps… I fucking hate mind-affecting skills."

"Still not a skill."

"And you still didn't explain how that works."

"Fuck if I know. Mutant stats."

"Well, that sucks." The longer they talked, the more confident Naithan became. Dennis didn't mind helping the guy out. For one, it was somewhat interesting to see how someone was overcoming the effect he now had on people. But also, he didn't exactly have much else to do, walking back to the floating people's spawn point would take him an hour or two, and he was kinda hoping to circumvent that by waiting until someone there got attacked and activated his buff.

Monsters apparently were still a thing, surely some level-one scrub would find themselves in trouble sooner than later. Did he even need to go back? Now that he was back in the real world, and Lily was safe, there was technically nothing stopping him from just… going somewhere else and being a hero. With Heroic Senses, it was a simple thing to do. Secure yourself a place to sleep and eat and stuff, wait for the skill to trigger, and save everyone it points him at. It would be a simple and fulfilling life.

The only things holding him back were the elf, who still had some magic to teach him and maybe a quest or two for stopping the apocalypse globally, if for some reason it hadn't been stopped yet, and Lily, who… Why did he want to go back for Lily? It felt somehow wrong to leave her alone. Even though the girl was alive and fine, and therefore not his problem anymore. He still felt… Huh. It was weird. He couldn't explain why he wanted to go back. It just didn't feel right, to leave.

Dennis frowned, realizing that his depleted Soul wouldn't stay depleted for long. How much time did he have? Why was he scared?

"You said something about the police," Dennis distracted himself.

"How the fuck is the police still around?"

"It's not exactly the police." Naithan frowned.

"Did you crawl out from under a rock or what? With that level? Wait–" His eyes narrowed.

"Are you one of those people?" Dennis blinked in confusion.

"Those people?"

"The crazies who lost contact with civilization and crawl out of the woods after surviving and grinding solo for months," Naithan said as if in accusation. Something seemed to almost visibly click in his eyes." You are."

"I'm not!" Dennis denied it on instinct. It was always a good idea to deny any and all accusations coming your way, just on principle.

"Which city are we in right now?"

"LA!" Hah! It was child's play.

"It's Old LA," Naithan said tiredly.

"No one lives here, as you might've noticed. You don't know a fucking thing. God damn it, it's just my luck to stumble on a puppy." He noticed Dennis' confused look.

"A 'puppy' is what we call people like… Well, like you. Those who were stuck in the woods, or a particularly nasty remote area."

"Aren't they usually strong like hell?" Dennis had to ask.

"With the whole solo-surviving thing? Kinda weird to call them–" The man snorted.

"That's the point," he said with a small smile.

"It's either that or 'a potentially unstable psycho who has more levels than everyone in a room combined'. You're not that, are you?"

"Nope," Dennis shook his head.

"Totally stable. Ish." The Soul thing was making him somewhat nervous, after all. Naithan glanced at the pile of gore nearby.

"I sure hope so," he muttered quietly.

"Anyway, since you didn't stab me yet, I'd say you're stable enough. The mind-affecting skill–stat, yes–will be a problem, but I'm sure we'll figure something out. You should come to the city with me. I'll introduce you to the higher-ups, they'll sort out a place to live for you and things like that. The bonus for finding a high-level like you is gonna be sweet. But, you really need a change of clothes.

Seriously, it wouldn't have killed you to loot one of the houses for a new shirt, it's not like anyone's using them. You hungry?"

"The only food I had for the last month was a cup of tea." The man gave him a weird look.

"Constitution focus?" he asked.

"Different metaphysics in the woods I came from."

"Ah," Naithan nodded in understanding. Wait, was that something that happened to other people?

"You were stuck in a skill space?"

"You mean, like, 'this place is a sentient church' kind of thing? People get stuck in those?"

"Exactly like that. Sometimes, yeah. Not a good time."

"Then, kind of." It was, in a way, somewhat reassuring that humanity survived enough to still have something they called a 'city'. Maybe civilization wasn't as doomed as he thought? The goblin horde had killed pretty much anyone where it passed, so he kind of assumed that everywhere was just as bad, but… It would make sense that some places would be worse off than others.

"So, this 'city'," Dennis said as they stood up.

"How big is it?"

"Pretty big, I'd say."

"Big enough to take in a few low level refugees?"

"Sure. You met a group like that?"

"Yeah," he nodded.

"There's a few thousands of them about an hour's walk from here. Probably more scattered across the city, dunno how many spawn points El'el used. But most of them were splattered, so… I'd say, probably fewer than a hundred thousand total?" Naithan froze.

"Say what now?"