Hector fit nine of the youths in his transit sphere on the first trip. He took them to the bunker he had identified as safe and then insisted on providing a safety orientation for them. They did not take kindly to his concern.
The woman with the pronounced jaw placed a fist on one hip and gestured with the free hand as she explained things to him. “Listen, you’re just the transportation. Our builds are designed to handle monsters and miasma. We’re better at level five than you are at level seven.”
“I cannot find the words to express just how ignorant you are,” Hector said.
One of the n laughed. “Watch and see, Xian. Users are going to dominate the entire multiverse in a few years.”
The jaw woman led her comrades out of the bunker in search of monsters to slay. anwhile, Hector muttered to himself as he tagged along behind them. “If you were able to see this, System, I think you might have to rethink your selection process. These idiots are going to get themselves killed.”
He struggled to understand why they would assu they were perfect monster slaying machines. None of them could have ever seen a monster, let alone killed one. They had utter faith in untested abilities. Beyond that, it bugged Hector that they assud their abilities – regardless of their effectiveness – were all that mattered in a fight. The disregard for experience was a huge red flag.
The first monster encountered was a regular sized coyote. The first guy to spot it punched the air and a silver line erged to skewer the target. Hector didn’t fail to notice that the aim of the punch was only roughly in the right direction. The attack had automatically corrected for the guy’s misalignnt. That was certainly helpful, though not enough to relieve Hector’s anxiousness.
“Go fetch our friends, Xian,” the guy who got the first kill commanded.
Hector folded his arms to demonstrate his unwillingness to take orders. It felt like he was acting out the role of ‘imperious adult who thinks he knows better’ in a cheesy kids’ movie. Yet he didn’t know how else he was supposed to behave. These idiots were not prepared for the reality of the situation they found themselves in.
“Tell this. What do you do when you suck in a lung full of miasma?”
The jaw woman spat on the ground. “Shrug it off. We all invested our body points equally into Durability and Vitality. We’re about as hard to kill as you can get.”
“Forgive if I don’t take your word for that. You have zero experience.”
The youngest one there, soone so androgynous Hector hesitated to assu a gender, stepped forward to explain in very reasonable tones. “Durability and Vitality makes our bodies hard to damage and quick to heal. Wisdom and Intellect makes our minds resistant to outside influence and able to recharge our energy fast. We have Skills designed for these exact conditions. Plus powerful Spells. We don’t need a babysitter.”
Hector stared at the young adult. “What are Skills and Spells?”
“Skills are aura based. The System offers them to us based on its assessnts. Then we choose how many points to invest. One Skill Point at level one, two at level two, four at level three, eight at level four, and sixteen at level five. I have all thirty-one points invested into Force Lance. Spells… well, those are a little like Arahant rituals. Except less flexible. They just do what they do. Most of us took the Bomb Spell. It can be joint cast, so a bunch of us can work together if we want to make a serious explosion.”
The straightforward discussion did much to ease Hector’s concerns. “What about aiming? I noticed that guy didn’t do a great job of pointing at the coyote monster.”
The young man who had killed the monster grabbed his crotch and shook it in Hector’s direction. “Screw off, old man. The Skill does the aiming. I just need to get my hand in position so an unobstructed straight line exists between it and my target.”
Hector considered the kids around him. Kids… at least all of them looked old enough to have graduated from high school on Earth. He’d been involved with Evelyn when she wasn’t much older – twenty-five at the ti they got together, he recalled. “I will fetch your friends if you promise one thing. You have to respect the threat of the monsters. No more strutting around like you are invincible. Take this seriously.”
The jaw woman took him in head to toe and back up again. “What is your story? How are you an associate of the System? You ever do any real fighting?”
“My story? I’m a drear who got a good insight. I have done a lot of fighting. In the dungeon, with the Reconquest, and as part of the Coalition Army. On occasion I’ve also been put in unfortunate situations where I had to kill other people. I won’t tell you the exact details about how I beca friends with the System, but it was before you were selected as Users.”
The coyote killer held out his fist to Hector. “Respect, man. Dungeon, Reconquest, and Coalition. That’s the hat trick.”
Against his better judgnt, Hector returned the kid's fist bump. “So you guys are going to ease into the monster hunting instead of running towards danger?”
“We’ll stay inside the wall for now,” the coyote killer said.
Hector looked around the group. “Will the rest of you abide by what Coyote Killer agreed to?”
“Whoa. I just got a fucking sobriquet from a Xian! Fucking Coyote Killer!” The kid began to yip and howl, which his friends echoed. It was all Hector could do not to face palm. The other kids were soon demanding nicknas from him.
“I’ll be back. Anyone killed before then will not receive a sobriquet.” He left Aes with the unusual threat hanging in the air. Then arrived on Union Central outside the old manor. “System, your Users are overconfident.”
I assure you that their abilities are quite potent.
“And what of their judgnt?”
These particular Users are the ones who volunteered to fight monsters. To generalize from the average, they grew up in poverty watching war movies before being offered a shortcut to power.
“For so reason they think they are more competent against monsters than .”
That is a cause for concern.
“Yes. It really is. Tell these idiots that they aren’t as special as they think.”
A woman with her hair in a pony tail standing a single body length from Hector cleared her throat. “Mister Xian? We can hear everything you’re saying to the System.”
“Good. Your friends are overconfident idiots. Don’t be like them.”
I inford everyone present that you are an expert who they should respect.
A boy nodded at Hector. “So you’re like a bad ass? I thought you were just a porter.”
Another kid frowned. “The hell is a porter?”
“It’s what the Xian call the noncombatants who move the armies around in spheres.”
“Noncombatants? Doesn’t the Lord General have a sphere?”
“Yes, but he’s special.”
“Yeah, only one porter ever got to Lord.”
Hector’s eyes bounced from one kid to the next as their rapid fire conversation progressed. He stopped any further speculation by interjecting. “There at least two Lords with transit spheres. And many porters are at level nine. Oh, right. Your friends seed impressed to know I’m a veteran of the Coalition Army, the Reconquest, and the dungeon.”
One of the guys snapped his fingers and pointed at Hector. “The hat trick.”
“Yes,” Hector agreed.
“System? Can you confirm? Wow. Right on. You’re the real deal, man.”
Hector looked around at the gathered Users. “Does everyone agree that I know what I’m doing when it cos to monsters? Yeah? Good. Cause it’s dangerous. I don’t care what Skills you have or your… body and mind stuff.”
“Attributes,” a girl supplied.
“Right. This isn’t a risk free activity. You’re putting your lives on the line by going to Aes.”
One of the guys shrugged. “That’s what we signed up for, man. Any one of us will give our lives for the cause. Didn’t the System tell you? The entire multiverse is at stake. Every single human in all of existence. Fuck , but even if you told I was gonna die two seconds after you dropped off, I’m still in. ‘Humanity stands’ and all that.”
A nearby kid smirked. “What about if you only last one second?”
The guy returned a quip so fast it seed like their banter was planned. “Then at least I lasted one second longer than you, idiot.”
Hearing their reasoning, he found it hard to object. They might be young, they might be overestimating their capabilities, but they certainly were doing this for the right reasons. How many tis had Hector himself lanted that not enough people cared about the plight of humanity? The sheer number of people sitting out this war for existence drove Hector mad. Even worse were the people who claid they cared but weren’t in a position to do sothing about it – if they cared, they would find a way to participate. These kids signed up with the knowledge that they might not co back ho. They might be overconfident fools, but their priorities were right.
So he took the next batch over. Then a third. After that, he didn’t have the energy for another transit. Hector climbed to the top of one of the towers and cultivated while he watched the Users investigate their new ho and clear out the low level monsters lurking nearby.
The tower had once held so heavy equipnt, he could tell. There were clamps and dangling cables all over the place. From his ti on Gamma, Hector knew that most of these towers hosted laser. However, so held schism beams. He was busy trying to ascertain which type of tower he was on when one of the kids called him down for dinner.
“Hey,” the kid said, “I was wondering if it was okay for to abbreviate my na to Coyote. The guys said that ‘Killer’ by itself would be too bad ass. Soone is trying to make ‘CK’ a thing, but I don’t want initials.”
“Coyote is fine,” Hector said.
“Fucking aweso. Do you have a sobriquet?”
Hector shrugged. “Hector is my given na. During a monster surge they nad the Stalwart Xian.”
“Stalwart. Nice.”
It was as if the kids shared a communal brain. One mont he was the annoying old guy obsessed with safety first. The next he was Stalwart, revered ntor figure. They ate sausage on bread with sauerkraut and mustard. It took Hector a few minutes to discover where the food was coming from. A few of their number were pulling food out of thin air.
“Storage skill,” Coyote explained.
One of the kids spun about upon hearing that. “Not mine. I’m using Duplicate on a morized template of a sandwich.”
Several of the other kids offered congratulatory fist bumps upon learning that information.
Hector studied the half consud sandwich in his hands with his ntal sense. It didn’t have any cosmic energy, but otherwise he saw nothing unusual about it. “You just made a sandwich out of nothing?”
“I turned dirt into a sandwich. It costs informational energy,” the kid said.
“Informational energy. Where does that co from? The System?”
The sandwich kid laughed. “From reality. It’s like where illusory energy and legal energy overlap. I just suck it in to fill my reserves.”
Hector ran his ntal sense over the kids. It wasn’t incredibly accurate at fine detail, at least when directed at anything other than cosmic energy, so he didn’t see much in their souls. “How does your restoration work? How fast is it?”
“That depends on your Intellect.”
Hector considered that. They could invest in an ‘Attribute’ that directly impacted their restoration rate. “So you could invest all your points into Intellect to restore incredibly fast?”
“I an, only if you’re an idiot,” Coyote said. “We need Wisdom to stop miasma from influencing our minds. Stop Arahant influence too, I guess. Once I advance again I’m going to invest so points into Dexterity and Charisma.”
“Charisma for the ladies,” one of the guys shouted.
Coyote shook his head as he made eye contact with Hector. “Not for that reason. Just… like, you know, sway people a little. Make things easier. Mostly I want the Dexterity so I can react faster. I’m going to be focused on offensive Skills, so I don’t need to put any points into Strength or Stamina on the body side.”
Hector nodded as if everything they said made perfect sense. anwhile he couldn’t square the fact that they just seed to choose what they wanted to be from a nu. He cultivated endlessly and exercised his externalities to a ridiculous degree. These Users were not the sa at all.
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