Each entry within this book contains information about where such monsters have been found most recently as of the time of writing. Such data is merely a guide, as monster habitats and territories are known to change over time. This can occur when a new dungeon ruptures or merges, introducing new creatures to the local ecology or altering the very landscape itself.

  However, the most common reason monsters relocate is the ever-changing fluctuations of ambient mana. Monsters are well-known to spend most of their time within regions of mana roughly equivalent to the Level of the creature. When higher-Tier mana drifts into a historically lower-Tier region, it is often followed by higher-Tier monsters, which will kill or drive out the less powerful ones that previously lived there.

  This can cause a ripple effect, in extreme cases even resulting in hordes of monsters ‘invading’ territories previously considered relatively safe. The most popular term for this phenomenon is a ‘monster wave’.

  - Bonnie, Level 41 Beastmaster, Bonnie’s Bestiary, Introduction

  I awoke far earlier than I would have liked the next morning, but Hazel had always gotten us up early and so I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes, wishing I could fall back asleep but knowing my body wouldn’t let me. I carefully climbed down out of the bunk, trying not to wake Elin, but she wasn’t in her bed anyway. My legs and feet were aching and stiff from the marathon march yesterday, so I took a few minutes to stretch and felt a bit of relief.

  Raylan and Zaire were still asleep, so I crept quietly out of the room to use the outhouse, then used the washroom to clean up some of the grime from the road. Not seeing Elin anywhere, I looked into the common room, finding Hassan and Mason eating some breakfast at one of the tables.

  “Have you seen Elin?” I asked them curiously.

  “She left in the middle of the night,” Mason answered casually, like it was no big deal.

  “What?!” I gasped. “Like she just ran off, and you just let her go?”

  “None of you have signed a contract yet, Az, so you’re not officially members of the Guild yet or obligated to the five years of service. She was my responsibility as long as she was going to join the Guild, but I would say it’s evident that she’s decided not to. Hassan and I both woke when she walked past our door, but there was no point in arguing with her. She’s old enough to make that decision on her own.”

  I sat down at their table, my mind churning. A big part of me was relieved that I wasn’t going to have to deal with her bullshit anymore. Honestly, I’m almost surprised she didn’t try to kill me in my sleep. I guess I was lucky that Raylan and Zaire were in the same room too, though if Mason and Hassan heard her walk past their – wait a minute.

  “How did you know it was her, if your doors were closed?” I asked suspiciously.

  “You had the last room in the hall, so the only people walking by us from that direction in the middle of the night would have come from your room. And her steps are noisier than Raylan’s, quieter than Zaire’s, and distinctly not yours regardless of which boots you have on. Besides, of the four of you she was the obvious candidate to sneak out. It would have been a bit of a surprise before what happened in East Bank, but not after that.”

  “Huh. Well, I’m not sure I’m looking forward to having Perception that high, if something like that can wake you up.”

  “It can be a burden in towns, true, but your party had best have at least one, if not two, people with high Perception, otherwise you’ll probably be wiped out by the first stealthy monsters you encounter,” Hassan pointed out with a grim smile.

  That made far too much sense, unfortunately. I just wasn’t sure that I wanted to be one of the people stuck hearing everyone creep about in the middle of the night to use the outhouse, or hearing their conversations from far away.

  “I’m afraid I have more bad news for you, Azure,” Mason said, confusing me for a moment.

  Oh, I guess he’s referring to Elin leaving as bad news, haha. I suppose I shouldn’t say that I’m happy she’s gone…

  “What is it?” I asked when he didn’t continue.

  “I understand that you met PFC Kane in East Bank. Unfortunately, he was killed in the attack on the road, along with two of the recruits. I’m sorry,” Mason added as I stared at him numbly.

  But Kane was so nice! He cut my hair for free, wanted to get a helmet like mine… I know I only met him for a few minutes, but fuck, that’s terrible. He had just recovered from being sick, too… Somehow that last bit made it seem even more unfair. At least that means Madzi and Laier survived…

  Mechanically, without even thinking about it, I cast Create Bread and started nibbling on it. Mason frowned at me.

  “Az, you need to save that for training with your infusion. The Guild will pay for your breakfast.”

  I started. “I’m sorry, it’s just habit after eating it for breakfast every day for years now…”

  “It’s fine, they’re going ahead with the Tutorial this afternoon so we’ll be busy with that today anyways. And we still need to sell off your loot from the dungeon. It’s too bad Elin ended up with the Spell gem, but it can’t be helped. You can practice Fire today, I’d like to see you master that before we reach the Academy.”

  I nodded, and sat there slowly eating my tasteless bread. As Mason rose to leave the table, I suddenly remembered to ask an important question.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Are the rest of the soldiers OK? What exactly happened, anyway? It was the people who escaped from the prison, right?”

  “They’ll be fine, Az. We’ll share the full story when the other kids are here, no need to tell it three times.”

  I sat at the table by myself and practiced casting Fire for the next hour or so. After my first successful attempt, the innkeeper walked up and pointedly left a large pitcher of water on the table. He didn’t say anything though, possibly because he knew I was with Mason and Hassan, so I kept going. It’s not like the fire was going to fall out of the air unless someone touched it, anyway.

  I was improving slowly, succeeding about half the time – though also casting very slowly as I tried to perfect the spellform – when Raylan and Zaire finally appeared. I quickly shared the news about Elin and Kane with them. They were so engrossed by Elin’s departure that I don’t think they registered what I’d said about Kane dying. Shortly thereafter, Hassan came by and explained what they’d learned from talking to the soldiers last night.

  “A group of around twenty-five prisoners escaped the prison a few days ago. No one seems to know the details, but they fled to the north, along with some accomplices that helped them escape. The Army captured a few of them, but none of the ringleaders were taken alive. Apparently, they were planning to go hide out in the hills for a while until any searching died down, but there was a large monster attack that drove them back to the south, which is when they encountered the Army and attacked.

  “My theory is that some high Tier mana, maybe even Tier 4, drifted down out of the mountains. It happens sometimes, and when it does, some of the higher Tier monsters who live in it will usually follow along. Then weaker monsters die or flee, which then pushes out even more monsters. That would also explain the warp cats that ambushed me.”

  I wanted to know more, especially about what a warp cat was, but Mason arrived and dragged us off to the store to sell our loot from the dungeon. The shopkeeper wasn’t too excited about the weapons, given their smaller than normal proportions, but she finally offered us four eagles and six talons for the lot of them.

  “They’ll probably need to be filed down so they can be used as training weapons for older kids. We don’t get many dwarves around here, and most adults would rather use their Class Weapons anyway,” she explained to us.

  We did better with the mana crystals, with the dozen crystals fetching us a half-dozen eagles. As we looked through our Inventories for anything else we might want to sell, I realized that I still had the last mod I’d gotten, the one I was going to use to replace the Level 3 self-repair mod when I removed it and gave it to Elin. Hah, at least she’s not getting away with that!

  Since my mana was high enough, I told PAST to remove the self-repair mod, and my mana rushed out of me and into my armor. Thankfully, Mason reacted quickly enough to catch me before I collapsed to the floor when the room started spinning around me. The shopkeeper just sighed as Mason guided me to lean on Zaire, while he produced his folding chair from his Inventory and then sat me down on it.

  “Give it a couple of minutes, you’ll be fine,” he assured me as I clutched my head. It didn’t hurt, it just felt like I’d spun around in circles for the last five minutes before suddenly stopping.

  “PAST, what the fuck was that?” I asked accusingly.

  [Citizen, you are experiencing normal side effects from using significantly more mana than you have focus! When your focus goes negative, you will feel extremely dizzy! On occasion, people have even been known to be rendered unconscious for a short time, usually with entertaining or fatal results! Take comfort in knowing that it would have been even worse without your Aspect! Aren’t you grateful to have it?!]

  I just groaned and waited it out. After a few minutes, I finally felt like I wasn’t on the edge of throwing up. Raylan had caught the mod when it appeared, and I gestured for him to give it to the shopkeeper.

  “Can you remove the attunement from this so one of my friends can use it?”

  “Sure thing, it’ll cost you three talons. Would you like me to take that out of your sale proceeds?”

  I frowned. “Can’t you just throw it in for free? We’re selling you all of our loot!”

  The plump, gray-haired woman smiled at me. “Are you asking me to bargain, young lady?”

  “She is not!” Raylan exclaimed, clamping a hand over my mouth.

  Indignantly, I pushed him away with a glare. “Hey, I’m not that dumb!”

  Everyone knew you shouldn’t bargain with a Merchant-type Class unless you had similar Skills, or were above their Tier. There was a reason all stores were required to post their prices and follow those numbers unless the customer wanted to try their luck making a deal. Skills with mental effects were scarily effective, especially considering this lady was Tier 3.

  Raylan stepped back and looked me up and down as I sat in the middle of the store in Mason’s folding chair.

  “Are you sure?” he asked wryly, and I flipped him off. Pretending he’d never said anything, I agreed with the Shopkeeper that we’d take the amount out of the sale. She took the mod and held it, concentrating for perhaps a minute, but nothing obvious happened until finally the glow of the mod flickered slightly and then subtly dimmed.

  Both of them threw paper on the first round, but Zaire won on the second when he threw paper again to Raylan’s rock. He took the mod and applied it, happily reporting that it added a slight bonus to the overall protection of his armor. Meanwhile, I attuned the Level 4 mod. Inspect.

  Item: Armor Modification – Attuned

  Level: 4Stolen from RoyalRoad. Support AzureInk by reading the original.

  Effect: Quiet Steps – slightly reduces the sound you make when moving

  Type: Passive

  Not the most exciting, but I suppose my combat boots are pretty noisy. I’ll take it.

  I asked the Shopkeeper if she had any medium-light armor components I could use, but she told me that she only had two sets of medium-light armor, both Level 1.

  “I’m sorry, Miss, but I really need to hang onto them until after the Tutorial. A couple of the townsfolk know what I’ve got in stock, and they’ll be upset if I sell it off to a stranger on the day of the Tutorial. Of course, if anything doesn’t get sold by tonight, I’d be happy to make it available for you tomorrow.”

  I wanted to be annoyed, but I supposed I would do the same in her place. She’d have to deal with the locals all the time, and I’d be gone tomorrow. We split up our payment and headed to the town square. Between the dungeon, the bounty, and the slightly more than three eagles I’d just earned, I was making good progress on being able to repay Block’s loan.

  Jane never planned on surviving the apocalypse, let alone doing it with a nine-year-old kid in tow.

  When over half the population disappears in an instant and magic begins to flood the world left behind in violent surges, Jane finds herself stuck with a stubborn game system in her head and a new title of apocalyptic babysitter.

  The animals are mutating into monsters. The Game changes the rules based on the suggestion of a nine-year-old. Jane’s days are spent chasing after magical surges to give her party a chance to survive. And somehow, despite never wanting to be a leader, Jane finds herself slipping into that role.

  Jane can get used to battling the wildlife, dealing with magic, and even arguing with the Game in her head. The real challenge is learning to trust the people around her, building a community she can count on, and worst of all, finding purpose in the apocalypse.

  Because somehow, that's exactly what she seems to have found.

  A slow-burn progression fantasy/light LitRPG with a unique System, community building elements, and strong supporting cast. Updates posted every M/F.