It would have been a wonderful little vacation town full of expensive beachfront properties, were it not frozen and full of cannibalistic ghouls.
Sure, the ghouls may not be cannibals because they ate Humans and not each other. That being said, Zoe colloquially thought of cannibals as being ‘man-eaters.’ In any case, the place was deserted—aside from the ghouls of course—and there wasn’t much merchandise left for the taking.
That was a shame, because Zoe would have loved to take it when no one was around to stop her or judge her for it. Shoplifting really isn’t cool, but it’s different when the place is abandoned and you can just grab shit. But there was sadly no shit to be grabbed, so it was a pointless topic either way.
Not that the frost-covered, windswept streets were empty—not exactly. There was plenty of rubble scattered across the ice-over cobblestones, and the wind seemed to pick up a bit of ash and cold dust every so often. As for the dark alleyways—well, those had a lot more… residue. After seeing the first desiccated skins, Zoe was more than happy to oblige Sean’s order that all of them stick to the main streets.
And it still wasn’t safe.
It was tricky, because they needed to sneak in order to avoid drawing attention to themselves. There were ghouls around every corner, and it didn’t take a high perception for Zoe to realize that they wouldn’t survive a full horde. But on the other hand, it was also necessary to stick to the very middle of the widest streets.
Zoe learned the rationale for this the hard way when a ghoul quite nearly succeeded in tackling her from the darkness of an open shop-front doorway. Sticking to the wide-open areas made it extremely difficult to avoid attention—but at least they had enough warning to prepare for things, as well as enough space to properly defend.
Sneaking through the dark corners of the alleys and ruined, faded gray buildings would let them pass right by the vast majority of the monsters. But it could just as easily lead to a quick death when they inevitably did encounter something.
Zoe couldn’t help but sigh as she finished healing Lily’s arm with mending touch. The group already thought she was a healer, and that little fiction her Demagogue class had constructed wasn’t entirely inaccurate. Bloody Devotee certainly did give her a lot of powerful options for healing.
That being said—just about everyone else had been rather surprised by just how effective she was at it. Apparently they’d expected far less potency from a Rank F healer. Naturally, that was something to be wary of. Zoe didn’t think it was a good idea to let everyone know what her class actually was. And that wasn’t to mention how—awkward it would be to explain why she had a different class than the one her system displayed to other people.
“Thanks.” The ice mage’s words were uncharacteristically curt in response to the completion of Zoe’s skill. Hefting her conjured sword—a thick blade of shimmering ice—she fell back into position on the other side of Zoe and Arthur.
Sean led them from the front, a reasonable position for the official leader and enormous, heavily armored earth magic warrior. Zoe and Arthur followed directly behind, guarded on either side by Lily and Millie.
While Zoe didn’t know much about small-unit tactics or whatever it was actually called, it did make quite a bit of sense to her. She was, allegedly, the healer of the group. That obviously meant her main role was to make sure everyone else didn’t die. In return, they needed to make sure that she didn’t die and leave them more vulnerable.
As for Arthur—sure, the Archmage had a wide array of offensive power, at least according to what he himself said. Nevertheless, pretty much everyone clearly agreed he was the second most vulnerable, lacking in static defenses and the ability to just not die if he got hit. Fire from the back lines and all that.
Now all that remained was their rear. Zoe hadn’t followed the whole conversation too closely, but from what she’d gathered, Millie felt that she should have been the one in that position. It was right before they’d entered the ghost-town, while Sean was explaining how they’d approach things.
The bow-wielding enchanter argued that she was best suited to developing her role as a stealthy and perceptive lookout. On the other hand, she was only one rank above Zoe—something Zoe admittedly still didn’t fully understand herself. It was certainly an important mechanic, as she got the feeling everyone treated it as a bigger deal than even total level.
The end result was Andric insisting he fill the role. ‘For the safety of the team,’ he’d said. Zoe caught him looking at Lily as he said that. She was pretty sure everyone else did too—not that they said anything. It was exceedingly obvious that he was only here to protect the noble heiress.
But that did mean he was the strongest, and Sean seemed more than fine with relenting to his request. Honestly, Zoe felt like paladin-candidate was more worried about how to placate Millie than with deciding whether to give the alchemist what he wanted.
They continued like that for some time. Not much changed, aside from the buildings looking maybe a little bit older and fancier. That was hard to discern anyway, given how old and decayed everything was to begin with. The other big changes were that they encountered fewer ghouls and Zoe could hear the sounds of the sea.
Lily relieved a particularly large and fast-moving ghoul of its putrid head just as they stepped out into what looked like it might have been the primary town square. Naturally, the monster had to collapse right at Zoe’s feet—and it splattered her legs with more than a few fat droplets of cold, yellowish gunk.
At least she had pants.
Still, she couldn’t help but glare as the noblewoman casually flicked the gore from her frozen sword. Couldn’t she have at least done it with a little less mess? Maybe it was a little ungrateful for Zoe to think like that. After all, the elemental summoner had put herself between them. It looked like the ghoul had actually been running for Zoe before Lily stopped it.
But Zoe wasn’t in a very good mood. Once could certainly chalk it up to her very second day in this fucked up new world not being very fun, but it was a bit more specific than that. She was running low on her own blood.
_____
Their final destination turned out to be a towering lighthouse closer to the shore and just a bit farther up the coast. The three of them—Zoe, Millie, and Arthur—all craned their heads to look up at it as they approached the tower base. The other three had stayed behind in the town square.
They hadn’t originally intended to split up, but apparently, the main square was supposed to be better defended and better stocked. As in, this ghost-town and its lighthouse were now used as the standard entry point to this entire area. The frozen wastes, they called it. Being a monster-infested wasteland with nothing much of value, it was mainly used as a training ground.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
At least that was the general idea that Zoe had picked up. She hadn’t asked many questions directly. Acting told her that it wouldn’t be a good idea—and she didn’t really need the help, because it was already fairly obvious. But regardless, she got the idea that it was mainly used for either really destructive higher-level testing, or more long-term survival training for the rookies.
The latter was what it looked like this group had been doing. Well, until they found me. Zoe would have laughed a little if she weren’t so exhausted from blood loss. How fortunate that the revelation that she had almost been killed by cultists made them decide to evacuate immediately. It would have been really annoying if I had to tag along on their whole expedition just to get to some kind of civilization.
But as a result, the town square facing the beach was supposed to have big barricades or something that would make it safe from passing monsters. Some basic supplies and tools as well—but Zoe hadn’t seen any of that.
It wasn’t even destroyed. Just gone.
Point was, it was weird, and the group wanted to investigate. But they also needed a competent magic user to operate some—thing up in the lighthouse to call for help. Suffice it to say, Zoe really didn’t understand much of what was going on. At least she might find out soon, because the group sent her and Millie to accompany Arthur to send the signal.
Millie and Zoe because they were weak. Arthur, being an archmage, for the obvious reason.
Ripping her gaze from the crashing surf far below, Zoe turned her attention to the worn wooden stairs spiraling up to the top of the lighthouse. She couldn’t help but sigh—she really didn’t want to have to climb all that. And technically, I could just stay down here.
“I thought you wanted to see the beacon for yourself.”
Ah. Yeah, Lilith was right. ‘Beacon,’ that’s what they’d called it. And Zoe did want to see it. But even if she hadn’t been walking for hours on end, losing over a third of her blood to healing everyone else’s minor injuries was taking its toll. She didn’t have a choice though. She couldn’t explain it without revealing she wasn’t an ordinary healer.
Resigned, she hauled herself to the first step. Voices echoed from above—the other two had clearly gotten a fair bit ahead. “Look, I’m not saying I don’t get it. I’m just saying I need to push myself if I ever want to get stronger.”
That was Millie. Sounds like she’s still salty about getting put on lighthouse duty instead of Lily. From what she’d picked up, Millie’s skills were better suited to the other task of scouting the area and figuring out what might have happened with the town square. That being said, their nominal leader Sean and his de facto co-leader Andric seemed to feel that there might be some foul play involved. With infernal cult activity in the area, it did seem like a reasonable caution.
Lily was the third most powerful, so they brought her.
At the end of the day though, Zoe didn’t really care. She just wanted to make sure they would be able to get her back to their city as quickly and painlessly as possible. Verdanport, it was called. Where these five were from—and the closest major Human settlement.
The second part would have been more encouraging, had everyone not been acting like the only way to actually get there in a reasonable time was to call for help for a ship to come pick them up. Put simply—Zoe interpreted things as ‘If I’m not able to get passage on a ship from here, I’m going to be completely screwed.
By the time Zoe had made it about halfway up the tower, she’d stopped hearing any sounds from above. That was unfortunate, because she still felt like it would be a good idea to listen in on the conversation between the other two. And, more importantly—I really want to see the wizard operate this beacon thingy.
Picking up her pace, Zoe honed in on her perception. It was a rudimentary technique Lilith had been expositing to her on the way here from the square. By concentrating on a specific stat, really feeling out the ways it changed her, and then by honing an intent on how to apply it, she could give a sort of active boost to whatever she was trying to accomplish.
Not that it was anything special—Lilith definitely made sure to emphasize that. It was the sort of common knowledge that everyone was supposed to know before they even got their first class. Zoe wanted to see if she could hear what was happening at the top—so her focus was perception.
Come on, hearing. Make me hear better. The first thing she tried was directing it to her ears, in a way similar to how she might try messing with the activation of a skill. It didn’t really accomplish anything. It’s not a skill, right? It’s just one of my basic stats. So how did she actively apply it to anything?
A glance at her illusory companion quickly proved that the apparition wasn’t going to be any help. The look Lilith gave her was a pretty clear ‘You need to figure this one out yourself.
Zoe furrowed her brow. One step at a time. Keep climbing. Focus on hearing their conversation. Lilith had really emphasized the idea of intent earlier. Come to think of it, she hadn’t used any other words for it. Zoe needed to intend for something to happen—which meant that trying to force something into her ears was the wrong approach—it was completely backwards.
I need to start with what I want. The intent is about the end result, not any particular way I could try accomplishing it.
Due to your insight, Perception has increased by 10.
The unexpected intrusion from the system shattered Zoe’s concentration, but that wasn’t to say it was unwelcome. Hell yeah! Zoe didn’t even know which was more pleasing—getting a free stat increase or just the fact the system itself confirmed she understood it. Awesome. Now let’s keep going.
The increase itself didn’t change things too much for the present challenge, as the relative increase from eighty to eighty-five was good but not exactly staggering. That being said, it did help—in more ways than one. Having the stat increase at the same time she was so focused on it helped Zoe understand what having a higher number was actually doing.
So far, she’d been thinking of it as entirely sensory. But it was a whole lot more than that. When she’d read the basic system information on it while still in the ruins the day before, she concluded that it encompassed things like mental clarity and focus in addition to her physical senses. If perception helps with focus, does focus help with perception?
How could she focus? She was already focused on her intent to hear better and figuring out how the stat worked. Is it even possible to force yourself to focus? Might as well try.
Zoe closed her eyes. Only then did she realize she had already stopped walking—she then focused on blocking out everything else. Only hearing—no, only hearing their conversation. Only perception and hearing them.
Zoe finally realized how much she could actually hear. Without the distractions of climbing, looking at the steps in front of her, by filtering out all the other noises—she could hear the soft shuffling of feet still some distance above her. Multiple people breathing as well. That’s it! Filtering. Part of perception is being able to effectively filter—but you first have to know how to make use of that.
Due to your insight, Perception has increased by 10.
Perception has reached 100.
Due to reaching 100 in Perception while at Rank F, you may now awaken and bind an element and skill to this stat.
Zoe’s eyes shot open as she blinked in surprise. Even Lilith looked somewhat surprised at that. Zoe re-read the message. It raised some important questions—like what does it even mean to awaken an element?