Chương 5: Chapter 4: restocking

We could go back to one of our apartments and rest there. That seems like the obvious answer. Get to spend another night in our own beds, maybe a chance to get some other equipment that we didn't think we'd need. I could maybe grab another sword for Vinny, or we could get some food that isn't just trail mix. And I could sleep on my bed, with my pillow. Maybe I could make a pack of comfort items.

The only problem is that there is the smell of blood everywhere, and I can't exactly shower unless the water is still running. Is the water still running? The electricity is out, so I'm assuming that it's not, but what if it is? What if I can go sleep in my own bed and take a hot shower? There's no one else in the apartment building to use the hot water. The problem is that we'd have to separate to do it, and we'd be sleeping unprotected. I'm not sure that's the best idea.

"We could pick one building and just break into another apartment," Vinny says.

"Neither one of us gets to sleep at home, but we both get the comfort of a bed, and maybe we get lucky and find someone else or something else of value that we can use." It seems like a good compromise. As much as I'd like to go back to where my swords and knives are, he makes a good point. We can camp out in someone else's apartment, and maybe get lucky and find someone who collects authentic weaponry. Then we could both luck out.

"I do have weapons in my apartment," I point out.

"We might be able to get you something more easy to use than your axe or your hammers."

"All I've got going for my apartment is video games and shit," he says.

"A big TV and a huge sound system, all of which are just junk now. All right, fine. Let's go back to your place, see if we can find anything of use." We go back to my apartment, back up to the fifth floor. There aren't any lynxith in the building now, because there's nothing here for them to hunt. We go back to my apartment and work together to heave the fridge away from the wall and in front of the door. That gives us a pretty good feeling of safety.

I take the bed, because it's my fucking bed, and Vinny agrees to take the recliner. I have a couch too, but the recliner is way more comfortable. While he raids my pantry for anything worth eating, I start collecting all my weapons together. I have a few sets of throwing daggers, which I mostly used for letter opening and for promising myself that some day I'd learn how to throw them and get really good at them for some reason, and a bunch of swords that are just replicas.

But again, there are a few swords that are functional, or that at least seem like they would be. Swords that identify as dealing damage and not just as junk. There's a cavalry saber, a small katana (I think it's called a wakazashi or something like that), and there's an Atlantean sword. That's the sword from Conan the Barbarian, and is of course the one that Vinny decides he likes. I can't say I blame him. It deals 2-12 damage and is a two handed weapon, much like the axe, but it's designed for combat.

I might have picked that sword out myself if I hadn't had the scimitar that just feels like it slices through the air more easily. I let Vinny pick out anything else he wants, and I end up giving him a pair of the fire hose pants. They're worth one armor, they're cut resistant, and they fit him almost as well as they fit me. I change into a clean pair myself and do my best to get the blood off me. The water is on, but the heat is not. So we can shower, but it'll be a cold affair.

I take a whore's bath in the sink, wiping lynxith blood off my face and my own blood off my arm. I use the mirror and the water to shave, not having any idea when the next time I'll be able to do that will be, and I put together my shaving kit along with other toiletries, including shampoo, into a small bag. I have a fair collection of bags, so I pack up everything I can think of needing in a new world.

No room for things that just have sentimental value, but room for things like bars of soap, salt, water bottles, and cans of tuna. The fish will survive for just about ever, and as long as I remember to bring a can opener – and I do – I can eat them whenever I want. They aren't that heavy, but they do come in metal tins, which maybe I can use to make armor or something like that. I take a few energy drinks as well. Vinny raids my stock of them, only leaving a few left over for me.

They give buffs, apparently, increasing our stamina regeneration for four hours when we drink one. That alone is worth carrying the rest with us. Especially because Vinny is carrying the bulk of them in his bag. I have to think of it as his bag, and not as one of mine that he stole. He didn't steal them; I told him he could help himself to whatever he wants. We're probably not coming back here tonight, which means we're probably not coming back here ever, so we might as well take whatever we can carry.

He decided he wants to carry a big old back pack full of energy drinks; I guess that's his choice. I have a few energy drinks, some beef jerky, and my two satchels full of water and trail mix. Any time we see an enemy, I'm going to drop pretty much everything so that I can fight, but that isn't really a problem. We leave my apartment building and head into town, looking for other survivors, right around when dawn strikes. Neither one of us slept all that well, or all that long.

It's hard to get a good night's sleep when the world has ended. And however I try to look at it, that's what happened. I hope that it only ended for some of us. Like, I hope this tutorial is for a select group of people in the area, and not that everyone else was killed by the lynxith and giant mantises.

I don't know if it was some kind of reverse rapture, or if there was a special selection process of some kind, but I know that there were at least a hundred people who lived in my building, and if I'm the only one to survive, that means that a lot of people died unnecessarily. So I hope that there was a criteria to the change, and not just a ninety nine percent mortality rate. It doesn't take us more than a few hours before we run into more people. This time, it's a group of three fighting giant mantises.

They seem to be working as a pretty solid team, having already taken out two of the creatures and maneuvering the third to die in the same pile as the first two. They're armed with long swords, and one of them even has a kite shield. And from the look of it, she's wearing armor, too. At least a chain shirt. That's pretty awesome.

There's no way for us to interfere with the fight without getting in their way, and it doesn't look like the three girls need our help anyway, so we just wait for them to finish the last giant mantis. They look over at us and don't lower their weapons or break their fighting formation. I see that the one girl is in a chain shirt, while another one has armored sleeves on and the third is wearing a breast plate. They are all better armed and armored than we are. Enjoying the story?

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"Hi," I say. I feel like I should be saying something like 'hail' but it feels weird.

"Hail," the girl in the chain shirt says. She doesn't seem weird to say it. I guess it's just me.

"You guys need something?"

"Friends," Vinny says. I don't know if he means he needs friends or if he is just trying to assure them that we are, in fact, friends. I guess it doesn't matter. One word covers both possible meanings.

"Seems like you guys are better prepared than we are," I say. Chain shirt girl nods.

"You've got some nice swords, though," she says.

"I don't know how much we can offer, other than increased numbers," I say.

"I'm Caleb. This is Vinny."

"I'm Ashley," chain shirt girl says. She gestures to armored sleeves.

"That's Gigi, and over there is Elaine."

"Call me El," Elaine says, bending down and picking up a rounded shield from where she apparently dropped it during the battle. She frowns at it, picking at the handle that seems to have broken off.

"I might be able to help with that," I say, pulling out some of the wire I took from the store yesterday.

"May I?" It takes a bit of fiddling, but I manage to resecure the strap of the shield, which she takes back and puts on her arm with a nod of appreciation.

"Thanks," she says. Simultaneously, I get a notification that I just received the secondary skill of Armorer.

"So are you guys larpers or re-enactors?" I ask, looking at their pretty authentic looking armor.

"Larpers," El says, still playing with the way the shield sits on her arm.

"Wish now I'd invested more money into my armor."

"Yeah, me too," says Ashley, gesturing to her chain shirt. There are a few scratches on it, but it seems to be holding together well.

"I wish I had more."

"It's more than we have," Vinny points out.

"My defense is only 17."

"Mine is 21," I say.

"35," El says.

"I guess I'm the tank." Ashley and Gigi have armor ratings of 26 and 24, respectively. They are definitely better prepared than we are.

"All we need now is someone to fight at range and someone who can cast spells. Preferably a healer," Gigi says.

"Then we'll have a good, solid party."

"I'm not agreeing to party up with anyone just yet," Ashley says.

"How do we know we can trust you guys?"

"You three are the only other people I've met since this started other than him," I say, gesturing to Vinny.

"And you aren't running around scared, you seem like you know what you're doing in a fight, and I'm betting you're all level four or five, right?"

"Four," Ashley says, nodding.

"We've been fighting through most of the night."

"Aren't you tired?" Vinny asks. Ashley shrugs. Maybe we don't need to sleep. Did we sleep out of habit? No, I definitely felt tired. But then again, the sleep we did get was short but effective. Maybe we need less sleep? Maybe it's based on something like vigor. I should put more points into that and see.

"We don't have to party up," I say.

"And we don't have to stay partied up. But it makes more sense for us to fight with five of us together than to keep going our separate ways. Strength in numbers and all that."

"Fine," Ashley says.

"But you two aren't in charge, got that?"

"No one's in charge," I say. I look around the group.

"So where should we go next?"

"We've been going through buildings one by one, looking for treasure," Gigi says.

"Find any?" Vinny asks.

"Not yet," she says.

"Just monsters."

"Well, that's as good a plan as any, I suppose." I look at the building behind them.

"Did you guys just go in there or just come out?"

"Just came out." El says, wiping the black blood of the mantis from her sword.

"Then let's move on?" The next building we come to is a tattoo shop. I doubt we're going to find much of use in there, but the girls outnumber us, and they want to go building to building, so I don't say anything. Besides, if the tattoo shop also does piercings, they probably have a bunch of stainless steel or sterling silver around in there. All of which can either be used in crafting or in theory as money. People like silver. And there might be fourteen karat gold in there too.

There could be actual treasure in the tattoo shop. It turns out, there is, but not the way I was thinking. There's a safe in the back, a chance for me to use my lock picks and see if I can figure anything out. All that I know about lock picking I learned from either TikTok or movies. I know you're supposed to put tension on the lock and then try to make the tumblers move or something like that, but I'm working almost entirely from theory.

Unfortunately, no one else has any better ideas, and no one else has lock picks, so I'm left alone to work while they scour the rest of the shop, scrounging for silver, gold, and steel. I end up breaking the lock picks a few times, making me glad the set came with a bunch of them. I have about a dozen sets, and I hope I can get this safe open before I run out of them. I try to listen in to the ticking, feeling the tumblers move and lock into place.

I don't know exactly what I'm doing, but eventually my fiddling around with the pick and the the tension spring thingee leads to a loud click, and the door of the safe opens up. Congratulations! You have unlocked an iron chest. You gain 250 XP. You find Lockpick (crafting recipe), 25 silver pieces, bar of brass (crafting material), 1 magical crystal. You have gained and improved a skill. Pick Lock 2. That's cool. I'm getting close to qualifying for the rogue class.

Another level each of pick lock and sneak, another two levels of throwing and I'll be there. I'm also only twenty five experience away from another level. I didn't get any experience for the giant mantis that the girls killed, since we didn't get involved in the combat, but opening this safe gave me almost enough to level up. I need to open any other safes we find. I wonder if I can figure out how to open a combination safe. I also wonder if electronic safes are just open.

I bring the loot out to share with everyone. There are five of us, so we each get 5 silver. No one seems to care about the rest of it, so I shove it all into my bag. If I'm going to keep it, I have to carry it. But I deserve to keep it, since I found it. Makes sense; everyone else is keeping whatever they find. They appreciate me sharing the money out among them, which does buy me some good will. Honestly, though, I don't care about money. Like, in general.

I cared about it in my regular life because it makes the world go round, but I never had all that much of it. And now I don't know how much five silver is worth, so it doesn't really have any value to me. What if the silver is worth a dollar? Then having five dollars versus twenty five dollars doesn't mean much. And if a silver is worth a thousand dollars, then same thing. Either way, it's money that I didn't have before, and I have no idea what it's worth.

I just know that sharing it out bought me some good will, which is probably worth more than the silver anyway. Next to the tattoo shop is a restaurant that serves, among other things, gourmet pizza. I've eaten there many times. It's always been a pleasant experience. But today, when we get there, there is a monster there waiting for us. Minor giant. Uncommon Advanced monster, level 8. HP: 400/400. That's a big old sack of hit points, but there are five of us.