Alex and his group all took separate paths through the floor, each scooping up everything they could lay a hand on, including cubicle walls and stuff from the break room.
There were some questioning noises, but for the most part, their coworkers weren’t back and settled in quite yet.
Instead, they were in various meeting rooms eating and chatting.
It was helpful that their work had provided lunch that day, and there were most of the remains of a twenty foot sandwich and bags of various kinds of chips and other foods to add to Alex’s inventory.
He seemed to have an easier time adding stuff to his inventory than the others, which he attributed to his higher mental stats, even if he didn’t say so.
That would be insensitive and insulting.
It seemed like most of the others had put more into physical traits. Though Lenka had spent some stat points on mental attributes, too, and she was the quickest at storing items after him, thus supporting his unspoken assumption.
As they all ran down the stairs in their designated pairs, there were already lots of confused noises coming from their erstwhile coworkers.
I hope that some of you survive. And he found that he actually did hope that and not just for his side quest. If they managed to survive elsewhere, that was fine by him.
Thanks to the system, he now had memories with many of these people, but he couldn’t let that cloud what he had to do. Still, the fact left him uncomfortable.
He wanted to save them, but he wouldn’t even save himself if he got mired down here.
As they went down floor after floor, Alex started drawing his dadao out of his inventory and putting it back in.
The first few times, it came out with the sheath, which made him incredibly concerned, but he bent his mind to the task, even as he mindlessly took the stairs two at a time in a quick scramble to descend the seventeen floors worth of stairs.
As they descended and he played with his Inventory, he decided to get some basic info from Natasha. “You’re speaking Russian?”
“Yes, English?”
“Yes.”
“American?”
“Yes.”
“Figures.” Alex could hear the smile in her voice. “Glad to have you, but I’m surprised you don’t have a gun. Isn’t that thing an asian weapon?” She glanced back and saw the weapon appear in his hand for a moment before he put it back into his inventory.
“The dadao? Yes. I didn’t want to have to worry about ammo.”
He could hear the mirth at the confirmed stereotype in her voice even as she spoke again, “Ahh, so you would have taken one if you could have justified it?”
He laughed. “I almost did even without justification. Can you imagine mowing down zombies with a minigun?”
“Like Terminator 2?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking, yeah… but actually killing what I’m shooting at.”
She chuckled at that. “Right, right. Then, I agree. That would be useful… for about two minutes.”
“Ahh, but what a glorious two minutes it would be.” Alex did not consider the possible innuendos.
She hesitated, glancing back once more. “That’s not an attitude that tends toward survival.”
He shrugged. “Exactly why I didn’t choose it.”
She huffed a laugh before turning her face back to their mad scramble. “True enough.”
They had briefly considered taking the elevator, but no one liked the idea of putting themselves in that situation. It was just too easy for something to go wrong, and they were on a tight timeline.
It would have been just perfect for the elevator to break and steal their entire window to work in.
By the time they reached the ground floor, Alex knew a bit more about Natasha—she had a husband and a son, neither of which seemed to have made it into the ‘Apology Tutorial’, for one—and he could call out his dadao without its sheath, but he was still having trouble putting it back into the sheath within the inventory.
That was irritating.
It was a bit silly, because the dadao was obviously safe in his inventory and didn’t need to be in a sheath, but it was the principle of the thing that bothered him.
Still, he didn’t want to have a sword appearing and vanishing from his hand in public. So he simply devoted a part of his mind to trying to move the sword around within his inventory, aiming to get it into its sheath.
And then he started doing the practice with a pen and its cap.
Another part of him took a moment to marvel that he was able to split his concentration so thoroughly, but it made sense.
His Mental Agility was undeniably superhuman… at least non-System human.
The three groups briefly waved as they came out of differing stairwells before they exited the front of the building, Lenka and Grant crossing the street to get to the hardware store more quickly.
James and Kaylee gave them an odd look but didn’t slow as Alex pulled Natasha into the coffee shop.
Natasha gave him an odd look too, “What are we—”
Alex held up a finger. “One moment.”
He walked up to the pick-up counter.
“Excuse me, I’m here for a to-go order for Alex Johnson?”
The barista smiled. “Oh! You have great timing, Mister Johnson, I’ll have it right to you.”
Alex grinned, glancing toward Natasha. She did not look pleased. Her arms were crossed and she was tapping one foot. “Did you really take the time to get a coffee right before an—” She cut herself off, glancing around. “Right now? At a time like this?”
Natasha might have made an error in judgment.
This ridiculous American was wasting their time, getting a latte or some such nonsense.
It made no sense.
He was like her husband in so many ways, and like her son in others. Across the board, he was a contradiction.
By his speech and stance—not to mention how often he seemed to sigh at the antics of others—he didn’t like talking in front of people, but he seemed to do it with little hesitation.
She would have bet that he had a good head on his shoulders, but then he did things like run down the stairs with a sword in his hands for a good portion of the descent.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
And now? Now he was buying a coffee. What, did he need a pick-me-up before the apocalypse?
Alex cleared his throat before answering her. “No.” He smiled as the barista began placing large, gallon-sized totes of coffee on the counter along with bags of bagels and other food. “I took this time to get all the coffee.”
Natasha blinked a few times.
Oh… well, that was actually rather clever.
Alex grinned at his new partner in the apocalypse even as Natasha’s attitude changed instantly at the realization.
It took both of them to carry everything out the coffee shop, and they were struggling because of the awkward load.
Even so, as they stepped out, they both put all the items into their inventories, taking off at a brisk walk.
Alex had also managed to snag a couple of city maps from the tourist kiosk beside the door.
So much of this world was like earth, it was eerie.
They had their phones, but a paper map wouldn’t run out of batteries and wasn’t dependent on any network, so it was preferable in this type of situation.
Lenka and Grant were still in the hardware store across the street, according to his Team Sense.
That was good. The only reason they’d be done already was if something was very wrong. The other two seemed to have gotten out of easy range for the skill. While he didn’t know what that range was, exactly, it had to mean that they were moving at least somewhat quickly, which he appreciated.
Once Alex and Natasha were moving again, he grinned toward her once more, and she gave a small smile back before conceding, “Very well. That was likely worth it, assuming that we have to endure past this initial quest.”
“Undoubtedly.” He nodded. “I think we will get the best results if we pretend that all of this is real.”
She only hesitated a bare moment before she nodded as well. “I concur.”
As they quickly walked, Alex continued to try to get his weapon into its sheath within his inventory. It felt like trying to thread a needle while wearing oven mittens… in the dark while watching his actions on an infrared monitor with a randomly changing delay and angle of perspective.
That might seem impossible, but Alex was nothing if not stubborn, and it wasn’t like quick-walking actually took any of his now greatly increased mental focus.
Alex almost cheered when he finally succeeded, but before he could celebrate Natasha caught his attention. “This is my building.”
He moved to his pen practice, drawing it out into his hand and trying to put it back into its cap within the Inventory. He found it now worked with almost contemptible ease.
Huh, so once I accomplish something, the skill or System helps facilitate it going forward? That was incredibly good to know.
He had these thoughts even as they jogged inside and then sprinted up the stairs once they were out of the public eye. They only passed a few startled people on the way up.
There was an elevator, but they avoided it for the same reason they had before. Thankfully, Natasha’s apartment was only on the second floor.
She opened the door, and they immediately went about grabbing what they could.
Alex focused on the kitchen while Natasha swept the rest of the place.
“Grab your mattress if you can!” Alex called out.
“Already done. We sleep in Russia too.”
“What? I heard that in Russia, you gave up sleep for more time to make and drink vodka.” It was then that he opened the liquor cabinet. “Mother Toledo. The System seems to agree with me.”
Natasha didn’t respond, but he could hear her laughing as he grabbed the truly insane amount of high-proof alcohol. If nothing else, it might be useful for burning zombies.
Grant said he likes fire. Maybe he can make use of this?
They couldn’t grab everything; their inventories simply weren’t big enough, and they still had Alex's apartment as well.
Partially because of that, Alex was incredibly meticulous as he added things, ensuring that the cans of food he grabbed went into the drawers in his filing cabinet, and things like that.
All told, they only took about ten minutes from when they entered Natasha’s building to when they came out.
Thankfully, nothing seemed to really have changed in the city. Though they thought they could hear some distant sirens, and more people were heading in the direction of the bridges out of the city than in the other directions. Though, that could have just been a fluke of the streets they happened to be near.
Even the sirens weren’t that unusual in a big city.
Alex checked the quest timer.
Group Quest [Prepare]:
Create a base of operations from which you can survive the end of the world.
Outbreak will begin within:
05 hrs 14 mins
All things considered, they had made incredible time so far.
Alex and Natasha wove through side streets and even one alley. Though they did so with extreme attentiveness to their surroundings. It would be ridiculous to be jumped in an alley by normal people or undead.
The next place they were heading for was the Martial Arts studio.
The two of them talked as they moved quickly.
Alex wasn’t winded in the slightest, and Natasha seemed to be weathering the exercise quite well. He couldn’t tell if that was due to her being in good shape before the Tutorial or if she’d put one or more stats toward… Physical Fortitude?
Was that the stat that would make talking and jogging easier?
He wasn’t sure but probably. That did make sense after all.
Of course, the first thing Natasha asked was a reciprocal question. “Do you have any family, Alex?”
“Not immediate family. My folks are still around, but we didn’t live near each other. I get along with some cousins well enough when we’re in the same area, but that doesn’t happen too often.”
“Not married? No kids?”
“Not anymore.”
“Oh… I’m so sorry.” She patted his shoulder as they continued on. “What happened?”
“Died.” He sped up then, doing his best to project just how much he did not want to have this conversation. At the same time, his thumb played over his wedding ring, still firmly on his left ring finger.
Natasha picked up on the sentiment, and they finished this leg of their trek in silence.
When they arrived at the studio, the advanced martial arts class was in session, just as expected.
Alex took a feel of his memories and sighed. He had come into the studio as a black belt from another discipline, but he was still a white belt in this art. He was liked well-enough, but he wasn’t an authority here. Overall, it was a pretty vanilla experience for him, no outright negatives or positives.
The instructor came over as they entered, “Mister Johnson, good to see you.” He noticed Natasha and held out his hand. “I’m Matt, but my students call me Master Adams.”
Natasha took his hand. “Natasha.”
“Good to meet you.” He then turned back to Alex. “What can I do for you, Mister Johnson?”
Alex sighed, steeling himself for what he had to say. “This is going to sound crazy, but some of my sources have told me that there is an honest to goodness zombie apocalypse starting in this city. I expect it to reach this area within hours.”
Matt didn’t laugh. Instead, his face became a mask of concern, his voice hushed, “Are you serious?”
“Deadly, yes.”
The martial arts instructor grimaced slightly. “You hear about all the crazy magical experiments the adventurers are doing in their college, but I never believed any would go so far or escape into the city proper.”
Alex blinked, and after a moment's internal searching, he almost smacked himself in the face.
This wasn’t earth.
This was a world with roughly modern technology and magic, where magic was less common but hardly rare.
His proclamation would likely be akin to him telling a friend back on earth that there’d been an ebola outbreak in town.
Not remotely expected, but not something to laugh off as impossible.
All those thoughts whipped through his head, and he actually closed his eyes in a wave of revelation as one more piece clicked into place.
He knew that this was a magical plague. He’d had it, and it hadn’t immediately gone away with his attribute. He’d had to combat it, and he’d gotten experience for doing so.
The attribute had made it clear what that meant: ‘Innate ability to combat magical plagues.’
I’m an idiot.
Matt was nodding as he continued to consider. “Do you have a plan, or are you looking for a place to hole up?”
“We’re turning the old southeast side highschool gym into a safehouse.”
He looked up in consideration. “That’s as good a place as any. Strong structural magics in the walls.” He huffed a laugh. “The only reason it’s still standing is how expensive it’s going to be to get an adventurer to come to decommission it.”
Alex smiled. “So…?”
“So, I’ll send a message to all my students. I’ll close up the studio and head that way. Unless it’s an extremely unusual outbreak, the studio should be safe so long as there isn’t anyone inside.”
And Alex knew he was right from his own memories. Another country had had a zombie outbreak a few years earlier.
It had depopulated a few cities, and it had taken months, but in the end, it had been contained. There was definite precedence for this. Buildings that hadn’t had anyone inside had been largely ignored.
I should have looked deeper into the provided information, the provided memories.
The knowledge also implied that zombies in this world could sense people in some manner.
Likely magic.
“Do you need anything from us?” Natasha asked, speaking to the instructor.
Matt shook his head. “Thank you for letting me know in person. I probably wouldn’t have seen any message until it was too late.”
Alex smiled and shook Matt’s hand. “Of course.”
They left quickly, then, hearing the beginnings of Matt Adams explaining the situation to his students.
Things are actually going relatively well.
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