Life in the North: An Apocalyptic LitRPG (The System Apocalypse Book 1) Read online

  As cool as punching a dragon in the face would be, I know which way I’m going the moment he called it up. I mentally select the Guard and light fills me. At first, it just forces me to squint but it begins to dig in, pushing into my body and mind, sending electric, hot claws into my cells. The pain is worse than anything I’ve felt and I’ve broken bones, shattered ribs and even managed to electrocute myself before. I know I’m screaming but the pain keeps coming, swarming over me and tearing at my mind, my control. Luckily, darkness claims me before my mind shatters.

  Chapter 2

  “You could have told me that was going to happen!” I shout at Ali who is hovering over my right shoulder as I rush the packing of my tent and gear.

  “How was I supposed to know you’d bitch out and faint like a Goblin on his first date?” Ali smirks, contentedly floating alongside me and watching my back.

  “You, I could, aaarrgggh!!!” I want to scream but I have to keep it contained as I keep packing. I have to push away that emotion and the fear that grips my guts, wanting to take over my control and force me to do nothing. We’ve lost over 2 hours already to my Class change and the System is up and running. The fact was that the System was now in place and had saturated the Park with mana, so much that spontaneous mutations were already cropping up all over the area according to Ali. I needed to get out of here, preferably quietly and fast. On top of it all, the smoke trail down the mountain where the parking lot was located just said a lot of bad things about what happened to my car. All in all, screaming was the least helpful reaction I could have at this point in time. Well, outside of sitting around like a blithering idiot. “You could help you know.”

  “I am,” Ali sighs and waves his hand outwards. “I’m watching your back.”

  I’d argue but at this point, the bag is packed and it’s time to go. I rip open another of my chocolate bars, chewing down on it as I slide the bag on and cinch up.

  I spend a moment to look around the clearing again, a part of me registering the gorgeous view. Kathleen Lake sits in its glacial glory, waters rippling and throwing up waves as the wind howls around the snow-capped mountains that surround it. Pristine wilderness that could have been put on a postcard now shouts danger to me, forests hiding who knows what new monsters. I take a moment to check there isn’t anything else that I can do in my campsite and find nothing. The alpine underbrush around here is sparse, the trees small and stunted from having only a short summer to grow in, so I decide to bushwhack my way down the mountain rather than use the trail. Better to go slow and quietly than head down a trail straight into the waiting arms of whatever creature that decides to stake it out in this new world.

  30 minutes in, I get a notification that I’ve received a skill called “Stealth”. I can’t say I’m surprised, sneaking was part of the plan Ali and I had come up with. Between my medium perk and being seriously under-leveled in a high mana environment, the System is automatically generating additional bonuses to learning rates to help balance the risk/reward ratio. The moment the notification happens, I can a slight tingle go through my body and I feel the knowledge shift the way I move, think and just analyse the surroundings.

  The first sign of trouble that I encounter is the chittering. It’s way too loud. I spot it next, a black shadow the size of a Doberman moving along the ground on six legs with antennae. Ants should not be that big. I freeze, then begin to back up slowly. Thank the gods it hasn’t seen me.

  “Oy, you big black beauty. Over here! Tasty morsel for your Queen. Yoo hooo!” a manically grinning Ali shouts above me, waving his arms to get attention.

  “What the fuck!” I don’t have time to do anything beyond begin berating him since the ant, drawn to the little bugger’s antics, turns to me and after a brief moment’s hesitation charges directly at me. I bring my walking stick up and lunge forwards, hoping to spear it.

  Yeah, not a fencer. Also, not a sword. The point skitters off harmlessly and the ant is on me, bowling me over and attempting to behead me with its mandibles.

  I heave, bucking around before managing to throw it off me. Thank god my backpack helps a little with that, the entire angle all kinds of wrong for lying flat. I even manage to get the ant to flip over underneath me when I throw it off. On top of the ant, I splay my body outwards to help hold it in place before laying the walking pole across its neck, holding it in place with one arm while I desperately hunt for my survival knife. It takes a moment to find on my belt and then it’s just a few minutes of desperate stabbing before the creature stills.

  I’m dirty, smelly and covered in ant guts. I don’t give a shit about all of that as I stand up, absolutely furious. “What in the hundred hells was that?”

  “Training.” Ali shrugs unconcerned, “You needed to level up. That was a Level 1 Ant. No way you’d be able to find easier prey. Now you grabbing your loot?”

  “You, you, you…” I splutter to a stop, turning to the ant instead and kicking it a few times to take out the accumulated frustration and fear. Adrenaline spent, I slump down beside the ant’s body before I finally register what he said. “Loot?”

  “Place your hand on the body and either think or say Loot.”

  I comply and blink at the pop-up that appears. I reach out, grabbing the loot that is displayed before grimacing. A hunk of ant meat.

  “Put in your inventory stupid.”

  I’ve given up even questioning the insane things that are happening by now, forcing myself to just accept. When I think inventory, a grid 5 by 5 appears. Putting my hand into a grid has the meat appear in it, filling a space. I wonder if its stackable?

  “Nice,” I start reaching to undo my bag when I get called up short.

  “Don’t bother, only System generated items can go into the inventory,” Ali comments as he continues to spin around me.

  “Ugh. What a damn scam,” I grumble, keeping my bag on as I stare at the rest of the ant body. I guess this new world doesn’t have a dissolving corpse gimmick.

  Level Up!

  You have reached Level 2 as an Erethran Honor Guard. Stat Points automatically distributed. You have 3 Free Attributes to distribute. Class skills locked.

  Strange that the notification pops up only now. Then I pause, glancing to Ali who gives me a thumbs up. Ah, he’s suppressing them till it makes sense to view them. I had been rather disappointed when I first woke up that the saved experience I had earlier hadn’t leveled me up, even to Level 2 but Ali did explain that Advanced Classes had higher experience requirements. One look at my free stat points and I dump them all into Luck. Yeah, I know there might be smarter things to do with the points, things like maximising my Agility or perhaps my Strength to become all powerful.

  Anyone who thinks that though hasn’t lived my life. If my Luck stat really is that low, it’d explain a hell of a lot of things about my past. I wouldn’t even be in the Yukon if my apartment hadn’t burnt down a week after I lost my job as a programmer which led to me coming up here with my then girlfriend. What a shitshow that had become with her too, once we got up here. The damn insurance company wouldn’t even accept my claims, which left me with nothing to my name beyond some meager savings. Rather than going home in shame to my father, I picked up and moved to a new Territory. I’d rather die than see my father like this. Now that I’ve got a chance to redirect some bad Karma or fate, I’m taking it.

  “You know, it ain’t that kind of lucky right boy-o?”

  I am a bigger man than him. I am a bigger man than him. I am a bigger man than him. I give him the finger and head down, both of us getting serious again.

  The rest of the day sees me climbing down cautiously, scooting around the rather ubiquitous giant creatures when I can and occasionally slaying them when I can’t. The slaying wasn’t my decision but after some hurried negotiation, Ali and I came to an agreement. He’d let me know of any low-level monsters we came across and I’d attack and kill them if I could do it safely. In return, he’d not force my hand – so long as I was actual
ly making a good will effort. If I was in the army, I’d call him a drill sergeant. Since I’m not, I just call him an asshole.

  Things only got really scary once, when I walk under what I thought were a pair of trees and realised it was the legs of what I can only describe as a giant ogre. Thankfully, his first swipe missed and once I had him thinking I was running downhill, I activated the QSM and ran back uphill past him. I spent the next half-hour watching him rampage downhill, knocking down trees and smashing other monsters that got in his way. I’d never been more scared in my life, especially since the ogre’s diet seemed to consist of anything fleshy.

  On the other hand, I had him to thank for my highest level kill so far – a trapped fox whose spine had been shattered by a fallen tree. The loot just consisted of more organ parts and its fur, but I’m not complaining about free experience and loot.

  I’d like to say I spent the rest of the day struggling down the hill, heroically pushing past exhaustion and the fear, but by 3, I was done. Being in a constant adrenaline high, hiding and backing off constantly had worn me down and I knew if I kept this up, I’d make a mistake. I wasn’t making good time at all, barely having covered half the ground I needed to. When I found a small depression that was relatively well hidden I just gave up, pulling out my cellphone and try to boot it up. It doesn’t, just staying dead and I look at Ali.

  “Don’t bother. Electronics are always the first to go once ambient mana reaches this point. If it’s not shielded or made to work with mana, it all shorts out,” Ali explains.

  “Fuck. All electronics?” I prod and he nods. Damn, that probably means most new vehicles are dead along with the Internet, cellphones and most modern conveniences. I rub my temple, putting the cellphone away and curl up, deciding to rest for a few minutes. I must have slept because the next thing I knew, it was 7pm.

  “Why us?” I queried Ali as I made dinner from my camping supplies.

  “Unique snowflakes you humans. Perfectly unique with boundless potential,” Ali who has been keeping watch outside answers without looking back to me.

  “Enough sarcasm. Really, why us? Why now?”

  “Sorry to say, there ain’t no good reason. The ambient mana flow finally reached a point where you could be added to the System.”

  “Alright, let’s back off a second. What’s mana? I keep seeing it on my Status screen and you keep mentioning it but it explains nothing.”

  “I got a thousand explanations and none for you boy-o. Nanites that enter and control your body using quantum strings and ultra-dimensional energy. Or you could call it the ambient force of the universe, the singular force that makes up all the elements. It could be dark matter made flesh or magic. It’s all the same, just people prattling on without a clue,” Ali shrugs. “It’s what surrounds us, what makes the System work.”

  “Okay, then what’s the System?”

  “The blue boxes. The experience points. The loot. The Shop which lets you buy anything from anywhere or from the Shopkeepers who rent the place. It’s the way we upgrade our world and ourselves. It’s what constrains me to working with you and for you. It’s everything. The System’s your world, your universe now,” exclaims Ali fatalistically.

  “I thought the Galactic Council created it, I mean, their announcement…” I waved my hand to where the blue boxes were.

  “The GC make something? About the only thing those bureaucrats could make is a pile of shit. And that’s only because they’d been told where to sit. Those idiots only have the loosest control over the System and the galaxy’s happier that way. Just leave it, kid, the System just is.”

  “Come on, you’re not a little curious about what the System is? It rules our lives and…”

  “Enough. Just stop already,” Ali spins around, floating up to my face and glaring at me.

  “I just want to know damn it!”

  Congratulations! Quest Granted. The System

  Find out what the System is.

  Rewards: Knowledge is power. Or something.

  The moment the quest appears, Ali lets out a groan and just floats away. I read it over and then dismiss it before I speak again. “What’s your problem?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all,” Ali just sits in the sky, floating with his legs crossed and refusing to face me.

  “Ali.”

  “I hate that Quest. It’s the fucking turd-bucket of the galaxy. Everyone gets it, and everyone thinks they’ll be the first one to solve it. And then you end up spending the next 80 years of my life sitting in a fucking library, debating with other fucking researchers over a Kricklik written article first published 2,000 years ago! And then, well, fuck…” as he speaks his voice gets louder and louder.

  “I got it, I got it. You have issues. Can we please not bring the forest down on us?” I gesture with my palms down, trying to shush him.

  Calming down slightly, Ali growls. “I ain’t got issues. You need tissues.”

  Ummm…. Okay, moving along. Quests eh, I guess if the system continues to work the same way, then the Quest tab is under…

  Quests

  Unique

  Get out of Kluane National Park alive

  Party

  None

  System

  Unravel the secrets of the System

  “When did I get that quest?” I mutter to myself, staring at the first quest listed.

  “Oh, I accepted that one for you while you were playing electric eel.”

  “You can accept quests for me!” I stare at Ali, “How much control did I actually give you?”

  “Not enough lucky boy,” Ali smirks before he shrugs. “I’m your Companion. Can’t do anything to hurt you and you were getting out of here anyway. Didn’t matter if I accepted it or not.”

  “Fine, just let me know, will you? I don’t like surprises like that,” I close out the tab then stare at him a bit more. “What exactly is a companion?”

  “About frigging time. I’m a System Companion – Spirit Type to be exact. As a System assigned companion, I get access to your interface and certain aspects of the System that general users don’t. We’re linked so once you man up, I’ll get more abilities too. At Level 2, I got access to information about the monsters that are in the System around us. Later on, I’ll be able to provide you more details and at even higher levels, I’ll be able to share my Elemental Affinity and even gain a body.”

  I nod in thanks to Ali and then fall silent, pondering what he said. Seems like having him as a Linked Companion was more powerful than I thought. Still, there was so much to learn. “There a Help file?”

  A hand waves and in a moment, a giant blue box of text drops in front of me. I grunt and lean further back into the cave to begin reading. Hours later, I have a better understanding of the basics. The base attributes were pretty self-explanatory, though interestingly enough Stamina dictated not only my base Health but how fast I healed. Each point basically healed the same amount per minute. Intelligence dictated how large a mana pool I had while Willpower refreshed that pool on a per minute basis based on its statistical value. Of course, I didn’t really know how useful that was right now since I didn’t have anything that used Mana, but it’s still good information.

  Interestingly enough, Health wasn’t just how physically healthy I was. It was actually a numerical value for how much damage the mana embedded in my body would actually absorb, defraying damage done to me. It wouldn’t stop instant death if I had a pick shoved through my brain, but it would actually reduce the force of the pick as it impacted me if I had a large enough Health pool. Of course, that used up some of the embedded mana, reducing my ‘Health’ at a more drastic rate. Such a strange thing, especially since this embedded mana was completely different from the mana that I could use for spells. As I fight off another yawn, I turn to poking at more information about the things I saw on the Status screen.

  Class skills were special skills, abilities that relied on Mana to produce their effects. They generally broke the law of physics
, the amount dependent upon the skill itself. Some of the common examples make me think of action movies and anime - the ability to generate fire from my hands or get an armor-plated body seemed just cool.

  Spells, on the other hand, were just that, magical spells that used Mana to cast. The distinction between what was considered a skill and what a spell seemed a bit arbitrary to me, but perhaps it would clarify when I actually get either one of them.

  And Perks, well, perks were things you gained for completing special quests or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time it seemed. Small or large advantages over your everyday non-perked person.

  Now we had numbers, points to say who we are, what we are, what we’re good or bad at supposedly. Would it have mattered when I was younger, to be able to point to a screen to say ‘I’m not who you think I am’, or would it have been the same? If my life had been governed before by this System, would I have tried to raise my Charisma or perhaps trained more to be stronger? Would I have failed less because I would have focused on things that I was good at already? Or would it not have mattered?

  I sigh, rubbing at my eyes. There’s so much left to read, so much left to learn about this strange new world. I want to read more but I can’t fight off the exhaustion any longer, my eyes drifting shut.

  Chapter 3

  Congratulations. You survived an entire day! You humans really are an excellent bunch. Only 60% of you died yesterday. We are impressed. Have a cookie. And some experience. Remember, monster spawning will increase over the next week.

  “60%” I shut my eyes as my mind attempt to grasp the meaning of that number. 60% - over 4 billion dead. 60% - 6 in 10 people I’ve ever met are dead. 6 in 10… that means, my family is dead since I’m alive. That last thought makes my breath catch, a yawning chasm of pain opening up. I’ve been avoiding thinking of them, of what this System means for the world but with this announcement, grief and rage and regret building. That chasm of pain and mixed emotions widens for a moment before it gets bunched away and put aside, compartmentalized. I don’t have time to deal with this now, I have things to do, my own life to keep alive.