“Get away from us!” came the voice from behind the barricaded door as Beta 1 approached it, her own 4 man team stood with their weapons ready aiming at the entrance, always better to be safe than sorry.

“Beta 1 this is control, voice recognition indicated it is police office Kyle Cooper speaking” “Thanks control, Kyle, can I call you Kyle? This is commander Jessica Smith from the U.S. army, we are here to help” “No way, have you seen those things out there!” “We have exterminated the horned rats Kyle you can open the door now” with a calming voice Beta 1 tried to persuade the cop, a small crack appeared at the door and an eye peered out, surveying the situation, finally a hand holding a gun and his whole head popped out to look around seeing all the dead rats he screamed in terror before finally calming down.

“Oh thank god, thank god!” Beta 1 put her hand over the gun and lowered it slowly, when Kyle walked out another 7 cops followed “Thank god you’re here, we got 31 civilians inside 2 badly wounded, you have to help us.”

2 armed men from team 1 entered the room followed by 3 medics to evacuate the civilians “What the hell is going on?” “Holy shit” “Cool” “I demand an explanation!” The Einherjar awkwardly looked at each other, none of them willing to deal with hysterical civilians despite their training, turning to Eric he smiled “Go ahead, you’re the hero after all… yeah I am talking with you Sieg” “Fine.”

Eric walked closer to the confused civilians and cops “Calm down gentlemen we are here to keep you safe…” losing interest in the weaklings Aaron got up and started walking away, he understood the need to protect non combatants, after all they would need farmers, workers and other support personnel if they wanted to maintain a good way of life but he still disliked such defenseless people, he just hoped they were saving useful people not leaches.

Pulling himself through the air he stepped on top of a buss “Control how is our schedule?” “We are a little behind Loki but it can be completed” he shook his head, this was the problem with heroes, always having to save everyone despite pressing needs, they were gonna be late.

Opening a private channel he started talking “Tell general Iring to execute plan delta” “Aaron you are aware the reason we didn’t drop on top of the undead node is because it is the most likely place for survivors to be gathered, at least until night, it was too risky” “Command look at the streets, the number of deaths, we won’t make it in time with those survivors, night will fall, if we don’t do it we can lose more than just this city, command it is an order execute plan delta” “understood, where will you go?” looking over the city he made up his mind “I am gonna take out the minotaur node, send team Beta to the horned rats and drop some troops over the undead one”

Closing the channel he watched as his helmet’s map updated with a new path directly to the minotaur node, using his strings he soundlessly pulled himself up into a building top and started running in a straight line, manifesting a few thicker strings he laid them over the gaps in the buildings and used his dexterity to run over them quickly leaving team Beta behind.

Truth be told his own situation was not optimal, his early displays of power had wasted too much mana and were not truly his style, to avoid unnecessary losses from Beta team he had to, how was it they said… draw agro by fighting in such stupid way and now that he was alone he could finally do as he was used to.

Soon he started getting closer to the minotaur node by ignoring all distractions be them monsters or survivors, he would save more people by disabling their node than helping every single one of them himself, messing with his status he managed to keep his health, stamina and mana bars visible on the corner of his vision watching his mana very slowly go down.

His power was pretty versatile but he couldn’t help wishing it could do more, it would be pretty convenient to materialize a string inside someone’s brain however he couldn’t do that, his strings may be invisible but they couldn’t became intangible, as a matter of fact his power worked by well defined rules.

His strings always started from his body, their length and width depended on how much power he put into them and, to further control them, he had to spend more power. What all that means is that if he wanted to do anything he had many ways to do it, unfortunately controlling the strings cost far more than materializing them so he always had to find a middle ground, control them just enough to do achieve what he wanted.

As he got within 8 blocks of the node his mana hit 300 hundred, dangerously little to take on a node, especially if there were more enemies of Ulmog’s strength so he sat down and engaged the visual camouflage of his armor, it took on the same pattern as the wall behind him, it wouldn’t make him invisible just extremely hard to see, disengaging the air filter over his mouth he ate an energy bar from his suit as both food and rest drastically increased recovering mana regeneration.

He just watched the area around his target while quietly eating, it had spawned inside a supermarket that had ignored his father mandatory holiday paying dearly for it, using his visor’s zoom he could see it’s door where two minotaur guards waited.

Groups of 5 or 6 level 1 and 2 minotaurs constantly came and went from the supermarket bringing what he guessed were tributes before leaving again but they were mostly searching for prey on the city the problem were the 4 man patrols who walked a perimeter around their base, always 3 of them were out at all times and the minotaurs were around level 4 or 5, he would have very little time to kill all guards and face the boss before he was overwhelmed with monsters.

He was debating if he would try to take out as many of the creatures as possible before they noticed him or try to slip through them and assassinate the boss when he noticed 4 young humans fighting one of the weaker minotaur groups.

Three guys and a girl no more than 20 years old fought 5 minotaurs, 2 of the guys held shields holding the minotaurs back one holding a makeshift spear and the other a baseball bat filled with nails, the girl held a western sword and darted in and out of the fight slowly bleeding the creatures, the last skinny guy hang back and, when Aaron was starting to think he was useless, threw a fireball at one of the cattle blowing it away in an explosion of fire and heat, the girl darted in while the other minotaurs were still startled and disemboweled one with a two handed swing, her face turned white as she jumped back and watched the gruesome sight of his insides spilling on the ground, still holding her sword she tried to ignore what she had just done and looked for another opportunity to strike.

Two fireballs later and a competent performance by the shield bearers the minotaurs were annihilated “Now that’s the kind of people we need not leeches and lazy idiots” glancing at his mana that just hit 530 he watched as the spear shield bearer started to gather some fallen coins, a ring and some leather “What the fuck, why did mine never do that?”

Interested he threw himself down from the roof and used a string to slow down, walking close to the walls he approached and laid back on it relying on his armor’s camouflage to remain unnoticed, Stuffing their items into a backpack they looked around, deciding to rest on a buss.

“Damn that was cool… ouch!” said the mage as the girl hit the back of his head with the handle of her sword “Shut up Nathan” “Damn woman can you be more gentle?” shaking his head in amusement spear guy asked “Ok what do we do now? Your parents were not home Aly and Raphael’s…” “They are dead, you can say it Mica” all four got quiet for a while before that Nathan guy cleared his throat “We have water and food but, if we don’t find help soon…” getting up from his seat Mica tried to give them some incentive “For now we continue hunting, that last fight was perfect guys if we continue that was we can hit level 3 by the end of the day” “And then what?” “Then we continue getting stronger, the world has changed guys even if we are rescued we need power to be safe!”

Having an idea Aaron smiled, he could use this group and perhaps they had even gained some useful things from the monsters, disengaging the camouflage he approached them “Perhaps I can offer another option child” not that he was that much older than them but seniority was useful for establishing control.

All four of them jumped nearly half a meter up before scrambling for their weapons reading themselves to fight him, using his strings he tied them back to their seats holding them in place “Now now no need for all that aggression I just want to make a deal” sitting down on top of a car he waited for their answer.

“What do you want?” “Well Mica for starters I want information so how about we play a game, I will ask you a question and you have to answer truthfully, then you can ask a question and I will answer truthfully” “And if we don’t want to?”

“Well, then I can just go and let you guys continue struggling for survival” seeing their disbelieving looks he laughed out loud “What you though I was gonna kill you guys? No I am actually quite happy you guys survived” “Fine”

Releasing his strings he waited for them to get comfortable, their hands never left their weapons but they didn’t get up.

“I saw that when you killed the minotaurs they gave you guys some items, why don’t that happens always?” With confused faces they looked at each other “But they always do that” fixing them with a look he started to raise his arm but the mage spoke “Wait wait it is true, look in most games if the monster is so weak he doesn’t have a chance of hurting you it won’t drop anything” “And Elite monsters, do they also not ‘drop’ anything?” he shook his head “No, they usually drop more items but sometimes those items are just their own equipment” Hmm, he supposed Ulmog’s hammer and armor would count as his ‘drop’.

“Very well then, your turn” Discussing among themselves they made him slightly curious about what they would ask but in the end it was a very predictable one “Who are you?” “You may call me Aaron codename: Loki from a branch of the U.S. Military, my turn, how are you able to use magic?” “ We killed a horned rat capable of using it and it dropped a fireball skillbook.”

As they processed the fact that he was from the military he waited patiently for the new question, finally Mica asked “If you are from the military them you must know, how can we be safe?” “By growing stronger” he nearly laughed out loud looking at their frustrated and angry faces “Just kidding, relax I just couldn’t resist, there are basically 4 ways you guys can be safe” Lifting one finger he started.

“One, leave the city, monsters spawned depending on the population density the camp has far less people so it has far less monsters, for now at least” lifting a second finger he continued “Two, go to central park, two teams of my companions have secured a perimeter around the place and are accepting refugees, they have a fair amount of firepower”

“Tree, go to the prefecture, although I am not absolutely certain about the situation the police captain and about 250 officers should be there protecting about 3000 survivors making the place safe” lifting his fourth finger he finished “Four, the most dangerous but also most rewarding on the long run, help me complete my objective and cleanse the city

Now for the last question, what are your skills and abilities?” the four hesitated to answer for a while, afraid of revealing all their trump cards but it was clear he could kill them with very little effort anyway “I got spear and shield abilities at level 1 plus a taunt skill” said Mica “Raphael has club and shield abilities as well, Alysha has sword ability and a power strike skill and Nathan has the fireball skill” without discussing anything Raphael asked before Mica could “How long has the government known about this hell?” Aaron smiled, smart kid “More than 50 years”

Letting them digest that he got up from the car and jumped to the ground as anger slowly colored their faces, with an angry voice Mica asked “If we help you, then what?” “This city has three main monster races invading, each one has a spawn point we call node, conquer those nodes and no more monsters will spawn in the city, then we can slowly hunt down the remains and restore order.”

“How do we conquer those nodes?” “The minotaur node is in the S.J. supermarket protected by a minotaur boss, the others are someone else’s problem for now” exchanging another look all 4 of them nodded and Aly spoke “Fine, we are in.”