Chapter 5: First Night

Kael looked around, the gruffer looking, mean appearing and more calm and steady feeling people around him simply began dispersing. Leaving confused looking and troubled people in the main crossroad.

He was among them, he didn’t know what to do. Sure Kael did read a lot about the content of the tower, how it functioned, the floors, and even the monsters and trials in it. But being here in the flesh was quite the feeling and experience.

Still, not wanting to mingle with the people with less experience or fall victime to others who have more… villainous nature, he opted to move by himself.

After all, sticking with confused, and honestly weak looking people would simply get him in trouble.

Unlike the awakeners which was practically 100% of the people around him, he lived his whole life as a normal person. And he knew well how terrible it was to appear weak. After all that was the reason he died, or almost died.

Kael headed out first not taking any reason or rhyme for which direction, the city itself though looked like a clone of New York was inherently different. A lot of the buildings weren’t where they were supposed to be. So relying on geographical information was useless.

“I need to get some food first,” he thought as he realized that surviving for a full month here, even without the monsters attacking him needed him to be fed and hydrated. The killing of monsters can come later. Not that it was easy, after all, he never killed anything before.

After walking around for a bit, the number of people next to him or those who walked the same path decreased greatly, until he was left alone.

There was no sign of monsters yet, though sticking with the group was bound to be safer, it was only temporary. One person will obviously want to take the lead of the group, and there was nothing he could do to stop that, after all, he had no powers nor abilities, and worse of all, no information learned through climbing the Tower of Trials.

Only the reverse tower could offer such experience and information. From what he remembered, you’ll need to find a skill book or some form of magic or even a special training manual. They’re usually found in chests or lootables from slain monsters.

As for gear, they can be either bought at special merchants or crafted by hand. Both were things he has no ability to do right now.

So how can he get these magic tomes or special abilities? This was his own personal quest to do right now. To find a way to grow stronger.

After moving about dozens of buildings and a couple of blocks, Kael found a building that looked like it was destroyed while it was in mid-construction.

His eyes perked up, the only thing that was ever close to a weapon that he held during his lifetime of construction work was actually a sledgehammer.

Feeling a bit of attachment, he went toward the building.

The first floor had several sheets of plastic drapes all over the place, along with many rusty power tools and some old broken down walls and beams.

But after a quick search, he found a couple things he could use almost immediately.

A large rusty screwdriver, a small hammer, and a crowbar. All looked like they’ve had seen better days.

Deciding to climb up a bit, he found more materials he could grab, among them a bag that seemed to have a bit too many holes but was sturdy enough for him to put his items in for now. And finally after going to the third floor which was the top floor of this construction site, he found a construction helmet that had a torchlight on the front, it looked like it needed new batteries since the ones on it gave off quite the weak light, still he wore the helmet instantly, along with a sledgehammer that was on the ground. Though it had its wooden handle chipped and looked ready to break down in one swing, the hammer head was fine and perfectly usable.

Looking around, there were a few good pieces of wood he could use to replace the hammer handle with, so he began working on prying the old handle and replaced it with a new one that he sawed off a wooden plank that seemed to have almost no rot in it as it had been under on one of the plastic drapes that fell on top of it.

Though he didn’t notice it while he was working on providing himself with the necessary tools for survival, the red skies of the tower began darkening. Eerily so. And just as he was done, he realized that it had dimmed enough that he only had an hour or so of light time.

There was no reason for him not to understand what would happen once everything turned completely dark. The monsters would come out.

So he decided to give up on scavenging for food and water the first day. Though strangely he felt nither, he thought it was probably the rush from the tower that made need for food and thirst simply disappear momentarily.

Still he thought that one day of thirst and hunger wouldn’t affect him, but risking venturing during the dark into the unknown would probably get him killed.

“I need shelter…” Kael looked around, the buildings themselves looked like a good spot to spend the night at, but at the same time that meant that he’ll need to go into them. The mere fact of the buildings being far darker than the outside was a clear indication that they would be a monster-infested area, but he had no choice in the matter. Where he was right now was a place that had almost no walls or hiding spots.

Looking to his left, a taller building was standing proud; it looked like it also had several of its frontal structure completely torn down as if it was struck with a missile or something, but the internal structure seemed to have kept up its integrity and is still standing.

He hurriedly ran down the half-built stairs and ran up the large pile of rubble in front on the building next to him.

Once he got down, he found a doorway entrance that was halfway full of rubble but he could still squeeze himself in. Just as he did, he turned on the light of his helmet and pulled out the hammer, holding it ready for anything that might come out and charge him.

Turning his head slowly and clearing the first few rooms, Kael decided to go up the stairs. The first floor was fine to spend the night in, but at the same time, it felt too risky.

So he decided to go up and find a room with a lockable door instead, which he thankfully found without much issue, a room that overlooked the main road.

The room itself was a complete mess; it looked to be an office room that had all the furniture in it torn apart, but there was a desk that was still standing and a water dispenser that seemed to still have clean water in it.

There were some paintings on the walls that displayed shapes that should look like humans… but even seeing their faces felt like one was looking at something else. Something that looked like a person, but not at the same time. Kael couldn’t put his hand on it, and the mere fact that it was disturbing to stare at made him tear off the paintings for a better purpose.

He immediately picked up and barricaded the broken windows using the paintings. Though they’ll serve nothing to block anyone from entry or anything, they’ll at least stop monsters from getting too curious if they can’t see what he is doing inside.

With the door locked and barricaded with whatever he could find in the office building, Kael simply sat down and waited for the time to pass.

The little light that came out between a small seam of the painting and the window soon disappeared, and the whole place was drowned in darkness.

And just as that happened a soul-shivering howl echoed through the city. And thus the monsters came out.

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