Chapter 27: From Prey to Predator

In truth, Reidar, too, noticed that he only got two quests during his first day and nothing else following that moment.

“Maybe we need to go to the vendors?”

“That actually makes sense,” Reidar said. “I only got two quests until now, and it was during my first day. I wonder, did you get one too?”

The others paused to think.

“If I’m not wrong, we got a quest during the first day, but we were told it failed after night came. I’m actually not sure of it, though,” George said. “As you know, we… we were not in our right state of mind back then…”

“Well, never mind,” Reidar said, nodding. “It didn’t give wonderful rewards either way…”

The group spent several minutes looting the monsters. Reidar explained how to do it. Of course, he already explained how to use the inventory to them. They wouldn’t have been able to bring all the provisions inside the gas station otherwise.

Reidar then re-summoned all the creatures that had died.

“So this is what fighting monsters is like,” Sarah said as she looked at a particularly large monster.

“This was actually a relatively tough fight for those around my level, so it should have been impossible for you to win without me.” Reidar paused. “Keep the level difference between you and the monster as low as possible, because the higher it is, the worse it will be for you.”

That left the others quite scared. “Hopefully, most creatures you’ll face starting out will be weaker, but I still suggest you increase your level. Anyway, did you receive C.L.A.S.P. points?”

Reidar already explained what those things were.

“No,” Everyone said.

“No?”

Reidar opened his menu. He had unlocked the party function when he reached level 5.

<We weren’t at a party… I assumed the system would have put all of us together when we grouped.>

But the system didn’t, and Reidar ended up getting all the C.L.A.S.P. points from the kills.

“Wait a second, I want to try something.”

He opened the menu.

—[GUARDIAN SYSTEM MENU]—

Inventory

Status

Perk Trees

Help

Group Interface

Combat Log

Crafting Log

Party

Map

—[END]—

Reidar opened the party interface and then tried to invite the others.

[UNABLE TO INVITE USERS TO THE PARTY. LEVEL TOO LOW. TARGETS HAVE LOCKED FUNCTION.]

<Ah, crap. I didn’t have time to try this earlier, but if I had known this was going to happen, I would have let them take the last blow. The amount of C.L.A.S.P. is not overwhelming, but they should have been able to get something out of it at least.>

“What?” Mike asked.

“Nothing, I tried to invite you to my party to make you get C.L.A.S.P.S. from my kills, but it looks like until you reach level 5 and unlock the party function, you can’t even get into one.”

“Is it bad?” Margaret asked.

“It is,” Reidar nodded. “Because it means you won’t get stronger by simply staying with me until you reach level 5, and it also means you will need to start actively fighting and getting kills yourselves. Otherwise, you won’t get levels or survival points.”

“Is it a lengthy process?” Frank asked, showing a glimmer of understanding that he needed to take action.

Reidar nodded. “I’ve got some bonuses that boost the C.L.A.S.P. I get from kills, but from what I can tell, each monster around your level gives you a certain percentage of what you need to level up—plus a little extra depending on a few things. I got less than that because I was at a higher level than those monsters, even with my bonuses. If they give about 2% of the C.L.A.S.P. you need per kill—and I’m still figuring that out—then you’d have to take down around fifty monsters at your level. The catch is that hardly ever happens.”

“What?”

“That you fight monsters of the same level.” Reidar paused.

Silence ensued.

“Most of the time, the monsters are too strong or too weak to give you enough points to just kill 50 of them and level up. Sometimes you should be able to get more, but that would mean facing higher-level monsters, which most likely means death, or having to work your way through hordes of weaker monsters, which will make leveling up longer, unless you don’t actually fight against thousands of monsters, which I do not recommend.”

Reidar knew from experience that what he did against the Rift-Sprites shouldn’t have been something that others could replicate easily unless it was planned and the circumstances were favorable.

The reason was simple. The Rift-sprites were strong in one element but weak in others, and having the four basic elemental skills added to the four basic rift-sprite summons, Reidar could actually one-shot the monsters most of the time. And that was just in taking advantage of their weaknesses.

But monsters like the Glimmerfang didn’t seem weak to his elemental spells, from what he’d seen. There had to be some other kind of element or attack out there—something they were vulnerable to.

“You’ll get used to it,” Reidar assured him. “Combat becomes less terrifying once you’ve survived a few encounters.”

Frank was still staring at his weapon. “I hit it. I actually hit it when it mattered.”

“You did a good job, Frank,” Linda said proudly. “You didn’t freeze up or panic.”

“Neither did any of you,” Reidar pointed out. “You stayed calm, you listened to instructions, and you helped when you could. That’s precisely what you need to do to survive out here.”

The group’s confidence lifted after surviving the fight. Their fear had faded, replaced by a new sense of purpose.

“Are there more of them?” Margaret asked.

“Probably.”

“So we need to keep moving,” George said.

Reidar nodded. “Three Lakes is still our destination. But now you’ve had your first taste of what we’ll face getting there.”

The survivors checked their equipment. The fight had been brief, but it had changed their understanding of what survival in this new world required. Fights. Deaths. Determination. Courage.

“Now… let’s try to make you reach level five, shall we?”

They resumed their journey through the forest, but for the first time since leaving the gas station, they looked like survivors rather than victims.

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