"Hye… What exactly are you doing?"
"And where did you get that sword?"
The questions pelted me, but I didn't stop. It was crucial for me to secure over five thousand coins if I wanted even a shadow of a chance at surviving the next quest. In essence, the upcoming stage was a grim echo of the first: a brutal assault where we would be tasked to survive a relentless wave of monsters.
However, the sheer scaling of their strength, coupled with several hidden variables, made it an impossible hurdle for someone at my current level. If I didn't optimise now, I would already be dead bt then.
"I'm harvesting the cores," I said, my voice flat. I didn't bother looking back at the small circle of survivors gathered behind me. "And the sword? You can get one from the market, provided you have the capital."
"The market?" one of the younger boys asked, his voice cracking with a mix of confusion and hope.
"How did you even know these cores existed?" Isabella asked. Her instincts were as sharp as ever, a trait that had clearly served her well before the world fell apart. I paused, the blade of my sword dripping with dark, viscous ichor, and finally turned to face them.
"This is just like the games I told you about," I said, eyeing the group. "We have a system, we have skills, and we have stats. Is it really so strange to find gear and weapons in a marketplace? Don't tell me you expected to fight an apocalypse with your bare hands..."
I let a flicker of fake surprise cross my face. It was the perfect lure, and the gamers in the group took the bait instantly.
"It really is… It's just like the RPGs," one youth muttered, a spark of recognition lighting his eyes. The others nodded fervently, desperate for any logic that connected this nightmare to something familiar.
"So, do we get starter gear for free? Like a newbie gift?" asked a girl with short, cropped blue hair. She had a unique style, her ears adorned with seven thin bundles of hair that ended in metallic, earring-like weights that clinked when she moved. She looked at me with an optimism that felt dangerously out of place in the apocalypse.
"Nothing in this world is free," I countered, my voice cold. I held up the blade so the firelight danced off its edge. "I bought this sword for one hundred coins. Hard-earned currency."
"Wow! A hundred already?" John whistled, leaning in to inspect the steel. Nearby, Allen threw his makeshift metallic club to the dirt with a heavy thud.
"Finally," Allen grunted. "A chance to get a decent weapon instead of a piece of scrap metal."
I didn't offer any more explanations. I stepped back and watched as they began to frantically interact with their invisible interfaces, exploring the market functions they had previously ignored, likely mistaking the icons for useless system clutter.
In these early hours, survival instinct usually directed people toward food or exits, not digital storefronts. But according to the historical records I'd studied, the realisation of the market's importance was always the first major turning point for survivors, yet it came late for most.
"Holy sh*t! These prices are through the roof!" a girl screamed, her face pale as she scrolled through the listings. Panic began to ripple through the group, but John didn't hesitate. He tapped the air, and in a flash of light, a replica of my own sword appeared in his grip.
"This is enough for me," he said, giving the air a practice swing.
The others, however, weren't so lucky. "We don't have enough coins for even a dagger!" one complained. Another pointed an accusing finger toward Isabella. "How come? Even Isabella, who literally did nothing in that last fight, has a sword too!"
I glanced around as I knelt back down to pry another glowing core from a carcass. I could feel the envious, bitter gazes of those whose pockets were empty. Don't hate me, hate the system, I thought, a dark amusement bubbling in my chest. Still, I needed them to be functional if they were going to be of any use to me.
"You can grind for coins," I said, pointing my sword at the fallen beasts. "The system buys more than just cores. Look at the tusks, the claws, even the reinforced fur. Harvest the remnants of the monsters, and you can sell them to the market for a fair price."
"So that's why you're collecting them?" Isabella's eyes shone with a sudden, predatory intelligence. "I need body armour. The defence rating is the only way to survive a hit, but the set I want is over three hundred coins."
"I'll show you how to maximise the harvest," I said, standing up. "On one condition: all the cores you find must be given to me."
The silence that followed was heavy. The group that had originally followed me out of the chaos numbered over forty. Now, only nineteen remained.
Despite the clear objection written across their tired, blood-streaked faces, no one dared to speak up. I was the only one who seemed to know the rules of this new world. I was their leader by default, held in place by the fragile glue of their fear.
The only light came from the fires still raging around the clearing, casting long, dancing shadows against the trees.
I looked at the flames and felt a momentary pang of regret for burning so many of the monster carcasses earlier to create a defensive perimeter. I had used them as literal cordwood, wasting potential resources. But I pushed the thought aside; I couldn't have survived that initial wave without the fire.
I turned back to the grisly work of extraction. The group stood in a semi-circle behind me, watching in a trance as I cut into the flesh.
There was a profound irony in my actions. Back in my own time, reading the historical records of the early "system" days, I used to feel a deep sense of disgust.
The monsters we fought ninety-nine years in the future were fierce, transcendent horrors—nothing like these "useless" creatures of the first wave. I used to despise the records of the first survivors, mocking how pathetically they scavenged for every tiny core and scrap of hide just to stay alive. I thought they were scavengers, vultures of a dead world.
And yet, here I was, knee-deep in the same filth, doing exactly what they did. The irony tasted like ash in my mouth. I was becoming the very thing I had spent my life looking down upon.
To reach the five-thousand-coin goal, I had to be willing to do anything. Morality, pride, and disgust—these were luxuries I had discarded the moment the world broke.
"How do you know all of this? Are you some kind of prophet?" Isabella had been hovering near me, her shadow stretching long over the carcass I was currently gutting. She had been circling that question for five minutes before finally letting it slip.
Time was bleeding away, and I couldn't afford to waste a second of it. I kept my hands busy, my fingers slick with monster blood, as I answered without looking up. "You just need to have played enough games to understand the logic of this place. Systems have rules. If you find the rules, you find the exit."
It wasn't the truth, but it was a lie wrapped in enough logic to satisfy her for now. As the minutes ticked by, my coin balance began a slow, rhythmic climb. Each core was pulled from the gore and sold instantly for twenty coins.
It was a daylight robbery, a pittance compared to the value these cores would hold in a year's time. I couldn't help but curse the intervention of those bastards—the architects of this "game." They were lowballing us, squeezing the survivors before the real trial even began.
However, it didn't matter. No matter how much they rigged the economy, I would reach my goal.
"Yes! I finally hit one hundred coins!"
The girl with the short blue hair let out a piercing shriek of joy, leaping into the air. Her unique hair-bundles clattered together, the metallic weights chiming like a celebratory bell. "Finally! I can buy the sword!"
"I'm so jealous," another youth muttered, his face tight with envy. He wiped sweat from his brow, his eyes fixed on his glowing interface. "I only need twenty more. Just one more kill or a few more scraps, and I'll hit the hundred-coin milestone. I'm getting that blade."
I felt a twinge of pity for them, but it was buried deep under layers of cynicism. What would they think if they knew how many thousands I was sitting on? But as I watched them prepare to spend their meagre savings, I noticed a disturbing trend.
In the absence of an honest guide, humans have a natural tendency to make catastrophic decisions based on mimicry. They were all trying to be like me.
If my own survival in the next round weren't tied to having a functional group of meat-shields—I mean, allies—I wouldn't have bothered to speak. But their ignorance was becoming a liability.
"Stop. You shouldn't think like that," I said, my voice cutting through the girl's excitement. I looked at her just as she was about to confirm her purchase. "Just like in a game, everyone has unique stats. Don't blindly copy my build. Check your attributes before you throw away your life savings."
"What do you mean by that?" Isabella's face darkened, her eyes narrowing. She already had a sword, and I knew from the old man's tales of the past that the blade suited her better than any other weapon ever would. She was a natural. But the others? They were lost.
"Open your status windows," I commanded, grunting as I reached into a ribcage to extract another core. I tossed it carelessly into the air, where it dissolved into a shower of golden pixels as the system claimed it.
"Look at your highest numbers. Your gear should complement your strengths, not your fantasies. If you're built for magic or speed, a heavy sword is just a shiny anchor that will get you killed."
Before they could pepper me with more questions, I cut them off. "Anyone who's spent a few hundred hours on a console can explain the math to you. I'm busy."
The task of extraction was becoming increasingly gruelling. It wasn't as simple as slicing a fruit; I had to navigate through layers of dense, foul-smelling muscle and bypass organs that still twitched with residual electricity.
The cores weren't just sitting in the stomach; they were nestled deep against the spinal column, housed in a specialised bone cavity that protected the creature's mana source.
To get them out, I had to use the pommel of my sword to crack the vertebrae—applying just enough force to shatter the bone without bruising the delicate crystal of the core.
As I worked, the "gamers" in the group took charge, explaining the concepts of 'scaling' and 'stat-alignment' to the bewildered survivors. I listened to them, making sure they weren't feeding the group total garbage. This mistake seemed trivial now, but I knew the stakes.
A natural healer who tried to play the hero with a broadsword was a corpse waiting to happen. Their mana would go to waste, their stamina would bottom out in minutes, and the entire team would collapse because they lacked a support pillar.
"Wow... my highest stat is actually Strength!" Isabella whispered, her relief palpable as she closed her menu.
But the others weren't so fortunate.
"Oh, man," Allen groaned, his shoulders slumping. "My highest stat is Speed. This club is useless."
"You think that's bad?" John chimed in, his voice dripping with bitterness. "My highest stat is Defence. I'm built to be a human wall, and I just bought a slashing weapon."
I suppressed a smile. You two... don't tell me you only walked away with a hundred coins from the first quest? I knew better. They were hoarding, just like me, but they were doing it poorly.
"Speed is wasted on a heavy club," I offered, trying to keep my tone neutral. "You'd be better off with dual daggers or twin short-swords. Increase your hit-rate. As for you, John—sell the sword back to the market and buy a tower shield. Be the wall you were meant to be."
"I'll do it," John sighed. He tapped his screen for a moment, and then his eyes nearly popped out of his head. "What the hell?! I literally just bought this for a hundred coins! Why is the buy-back price only fifty?!"
"What?"
"Fifty percent depreciation in two minutes?"
"Poor John, the system just scammed you!"
I kept my face like stone, refusing to let the ridicule show. Welcome to the apocalypse, John. I was fairly certain he had at least five hundred coins hidden in his balance, but watching him mourn fifty coins was the first bit of entertainment I'd had all day.
"Screw this!" John barked, his face flushing a deep, angry crimson as he stared at his interface. The blatant scam of the system's resale value clearly stung more than the actual monsters had.
Despite his grumbling, he tapped the screen and purchased the only basic shield available in the market's current tier. "This will have to do... but damn it, I shouldn't have sold that sword. I could have fought like one of those Spartans from the old legends. Sword in one hand, shield in the other. I'd have been a god on the battlefield."
He stood there, looking slightly pathetic as he clutched the heavy wooden-and-iron disc, but I knew he'd made the right call. John, like most of the others, was suffering from the "hero complex."
They forgot that stamina was a finite, brutal stat. Trying to swing a heavy blade while hauling a massive shield would have drained his reserves in minutes, leaving him a panting, stationary target. In this world, specialisation wasn't just a strategy—it was a survival mandate.
"Excuse me, I have something to ask," the girl with the short blue hair said. Her voice was small, but it cut through the sound of the crackling fires. "I have this... weird entry in my menu called an 'Attribute.' It says I have Earth Grade Mana Affection. Does anyone have any idea what that actually means?"
The jagged bone-saw I was using to crack a monster's spine froze in mid-air. My entire body stiffened, a cold shiver racing down my back that had nothing to do with the night air. I slowly stood up, wiping a smear of dark gore from my cheek, and turned to get a proper look at her.
So, Isabella isn't the only anomaly here, I realised, my heart hammering against my ribcage.
It was a staggering revelation. It seemed that humanity possessed depths of talent that had never been recorded in the archives I'd studied, or perhaps the old man had only given me a curated version of history.
No matter how powerful or legendary that man's sources had been, he couldn't have known every soul who drew breath during the Great Collapse. He had focused on the "Brightest Stars"—the heroes who survived long enough to become household names. He had overlooked the sparks that were snuffed out too early.
"Tell me," I said, my voice dropping into a low, deadly serious register that silenced the rest of the group. "Everyone. Tell me exactly what your attributes are. Right now."
I couldn't help the intensity in my eyes. I knew I was tipping my hand, showing them that I knew far more than a "gamer" should, but I didn't care. If they started to doubt me now, so be it. I needed to know who in this circle was a hidden titan and who was merely fodder. I needed to know where to invest my limited focus.
"Immortal Grade," one boy whispered, looking confused. "Unique," another said. "Earth." "Mine says Unique, too." "I... I have a Unique one as well," a third voice chimed in.
One by one, they stated their grades. As the words filled the air, my mind began to reel. The names of the attributes were like a vast, chaotic encyclopedia of esoteric terms—words I had never seen in any record. In my time, attributes were rare, often diluted through generations of struggle. But here? In this ragtag group of nineteen survivors?
What the hell was this group? Were they monsters in human skin?
I hadn't expected to find a single "Earth" grade, which was the topline for decent generals in the future. But to find that the weakest looking member of this randomly assembled group held an Earth-grade attribute, while the rest possessed Unique and even an Immortal grade... it was statistically impossible.
At that moment, my eyes must have been glowing with a predatory light. I had to bite my tongue to keep from audibly laughing—or drooling. You are mine, I thought, a fierce, possessive greed bubbling up in my chest. Every single one of you. You are the foundation of my empire.
"Listen up," I said, forcing my voice to remain steady as I pivoted from scavenger to mentor. I needed to secure their loyalty with "generous" advice before they realised their own worth.
"If you have an attribute, you must link it to your primary stats immediately. For example, Sara—the blue-haired girl—your attribute makes you a natural vessel for magic. Buying a sword or a shield is a waste of your potential. You need a magic staff or a wand to channel that mana."
I turned my gaze toward a lanky boy in the back. "Gerry, your attribute is geared toward cellular regeneration—healing. You shouldn't be on the front lines. You need a focus tool, a staff to project that energy."
"But I don't know any spells!" Gerry objected, throwing his hands up. Many others nodded in frantic agreement. "The market doesn't even list skills yet! How can I be a healer with no magic?"
It was the classic naive mistake of the First Wave. It wasn't entirely their fault; the system's interface was intentionally vague to force "evolution" through trial and error. But that error usually resulted in a high body count.
"You don't need a system-generated skill yet," I said slowly, letting the weight of the information sink in. "The system isn't giving you power; it's unlocking what's already there. If you have ever felt a spark of intuition or a specific talent in your life, try to manifest it through your gear. The system will recognise the intent."
"How can you be so sure about that?" Isabella asked. She was watching me closely, her eyes narrowed. She had noticed the shift in my behaviour—the way I had gone from cold indifference to intense interest the moment "Attributes" were mentioned.
I didn't blink. If saving their lives meant they viewed me as a suspicious enigma, that was a price I was more than willing to pay.
"Just try it," I said firmly, gesturing with my gore-stained sword. "But remember: without the 'Holy Triad,' you will fail. A suitable weapon, the correct stats to wield it, and a supporting attribute to empower it. It's a sacred triangle. If one side is weak, the whole structure collapses."
In the future, it would take humanity nearly a month of bloody trials, catastrophic failures, and thousands of deaths to realise the link between these three pillars. I was handing them a month's worth of wisdom on a silver platter. They should be grovelling at my feet in gratitude, though they were too ignorant to know it yet.
And I wasn't done.