Mass Release For Wednesday!
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As the group filed into the truck, Dave made the decision to stay at the front with the driver. The others climbed into the back, their weary bodies grateful for the small comfort the vehicle provided.
To his surprise, Silas, the man who had vehently opposed his plan earlier, climbed into the front seat beside him. Dave raised an eyebrow at him, uncertain of what to make of this sudden change of heart. The man had made it clear that he wasn’t willing to follow them before, so to see him now, silently settling into the truck, was unexpected.
Dave could only assu that, after thinking it over, Silas had realized there was no other choice but to go along. There was no sense in staying behind, no sense in trying to survive on their own in the midst of this chaos.
’No one in their right mind would want to stay out here,’ Dave thought. The beasts, the situation, it was all too dangerous.
Silas didn’t say a word as he buckled himself in, and Dave didn’t push the matter. Instead, he turned his attention to the road ahead as the truck rumbled to life. The sound of the engine was a welco distraction from the gnawing thoughts in his head.
It wasn’t long before they were moving, the boulderback beasts now a distant mory, as their grotesque forms were lost in the rearview mirror. The silence in the truck was heavy, each of them lost in their own thoughts.
Dave’s mind kept on drifting back to the events of the day. Though this wasn’t the first ti soone had died on an expedition, death was an ever-present danger at the present state of the world. But no one had expected Gunther’s death to happen like this.
He had been one of the more capable mbers of the group, quick to react and always sharp in the heat of battle. To see him taken so suddenly, without any chance to fight back, shook everyone to their core. It wasn’t just his death; it was the way it had happened. The beasts had acted with an eerie speed, a terrifying unpredictability. They hadn’t been slow, not when it mattered.
Dave pushed those thoughts aside, focusing instead on the journey back to the casino base. It wasn’t far, only about ten to fifteen minutes of driving. Still, the silence stretched between them, thick with the weight of the loss and the fear of what might co next.
The truck’s engine humd as they sped down the dirt road, and Dave felt a sudden pull to check his system. A tab appeared above his vision, glowing softly with an ominous ssage.
[First beast attack will end in 5 minutes]
[All your powers and abilities will be returned back to normal in one hour, after which the next stage of the attack will begin]
Dave read the ssage, his mind racing, and just took the tab away from his face.
His plan was simple, at least in his mind. As soon as they reach the base, he would ensure the rest of the group was safe inside, then without bothering to venture inside, he’ll head out on his own to complete his punishnt quest.
The beasts, and the system’s punishnt, had pushed him into a corner. But it was worth it, he needed this to train himself as an ordinary person. When he was given his overpowered abilities, it felt like he had cheated everyone else struggling as a normal human.
But now that he was just as ordinary as them, he would test out his limits and see how he would fare. If he had to endure more pain, if he had to put himself in harm’s way, then he would do it. He would find a way to deal with the beasts, even if it ant putting himself in a near-death situation to deal with it and end it.
He glanced out the window, the barren landscape blurring past them. He could feel his pulse quicken as mories flooded back. He rembered what he had thought to himself when he first obtained the system, the naive hope that he could simply complete the quests and move on.
He hadn’t realized then just how much the system was capable of doing things in a way that’s so surreal. Who would’ve have thought the beasts that attacked them was from a screen like device called a system. He couldn’t help but smile as he thought of this.
They were almost back to the base. About a few minutes from now, they’ll reach the base. By then, he’d figure out what to do next once they were safe. The first beast attack ca at him with surprise, but the second won’t. With no one to save or cause him any distraction, he would carefully deal with them all, even pushing himself to the very limit.
Yet, Dave couldn’t help but ask himself; ’How had soone like , soone so ordinary, been given such power?’ he wondered, his eyes narrowing slightly. ’Is it a blessing? A curse?’
He still wasn’t sure. He hadn’t unlocked the system’s full potential yet, but he was sure that when he did, he would have an answer to that question.
The question lingered, but it no longer consud him. He didn’t feel anger or hatred toward whoever had given him the system. To be honest, he wasn’t even sure he blad them.
Without it, he would have already been dead. It was the system that had kept him alive this long, a strange, twisted salvation. But his bad luck had made it so those around him would always end up dead, and that includes Gunther. If anything, he should bla his bad luck for Gunther’s death.
And this was why he had always been alone. Back then, and even now. He had chosen to be alone due to the bad luck he was carrying that seem to affect those around him. It had affected even the only people that loved him in this world.
Dave’s gaze grew distant, the weight of his mories heavy on his shoulders. He had always known, deep down, that everyone who got close to him always ended up dead. It wasn’t that he didn’t want relationships or connections, it was just that he had learned the hard way that anyone who cared for him would only suffer because of it.
Both of his parents had died before he even had the chance of rembering them. A bus accident, just days after they had left the hospital. He hadn’t even been old enough to know what it ant to lose soone.
’But I was the reason they died,’ he thought, the guilt never far from his heart. He blad his bad luck to be the cause of their demise. And now after Gunther’s own, he couldn’t find anyone else to bla.
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