=====Vol 2 Chap 12=====

“Hey Archillies, bring that box over here.”

“Yes yes.”

Carrying a rough, handmade wooden box filled with junk to Norman, I walked through the mall towards his workshop.

Fortunately, in this single week I was able to get to know the other survivors and make them comfortable with me.

On the other hand, ever since the King Slime was killed, monsters started coming closer by the day, but thankfully, none has reached us yet.

As of now, we have been keeping ourselves fed and healthy due to our surplus of medicine and a Power.

Food has been solved with this Power that is a Physical one, which makes holding an empty water can get filled with a special liquid that speeds up plant growth tremendously, much like the ‘Farming’ ability, except limited.

Only a liter’s worth of liquid is inside the can and gets refilled daily, and of course, the Watering Can cannot be replaced.

Thanks to that Power, the seeds inside some shops in here make for good food, other are just flowers, but I never told them that I can easily differentiate with or without ‘Inspect’; the library was useful after all.

“Here you go.” I said while putting down the box.

“Mhm.”

Norman is a Psychic type, allowing him to learn how to make any machine or technological piece as long as he has the materials, and right now he is in the process of making a walkie talkie.

How are we going to use them, you ask? Well, we have batteries, not to mention the fact that we can recharge them with another person with a convenient Power.

Once a day, she is able to fully charge a battery no matter its size, hence we can use electricity normally. But what is worrying me is the fact that no one knows the health of the water and gas pipes, alas, we are mostly using electric cookers.

“Archillies, go check on Roland, he told me to send you to him after we are done.”

“Alright..”

At the moment I’m feeling somewhat dejected since I want to go outside and take on the role of the scavenger, nevertheless, only a very select few are allowed to go out.

Walking through the mall to another shop; a bookstore, I quietly opened the door to find Roland sitting on his usual spot, the shopkeeper’s seat.

“I heard you called for me.”

He raised one finger from the book and put it at his mouth without glancing at me, so I went inside and picked a book until he is finished.

Only after half an hour did he finish his book and closed it with a thud that echoed through the silent store.

“Now then, I’ll get to the point, you can go out to scavenge with the others on the next trip.”

“Sweet-”

“But,” He interrupted, “Only after you are able to run 20 laps on the roof will you be fully accepted.”

“When do I start?” I said eagerly, even though I can go outside and they can’t say anything, but leaving them alone seems like a terrible idea.

“Now, if you can.”

“By the way, why 20?”

“Who knows if a monster saw you as its prey, wouldn’t you need to run away? Only stamina and speed will help you in that case.” He answered, making me nod in acceptance.

No more words were said, and we both went towards the stairs and climbed up to the wide roof which is filled with blooming flowers and immature plants here and there.

Obviously there is enough space in-between for when the time to pick comes, but I’m not going to weave through those paths, I’ll run around the whole roof while doing the ‘parkour’.

In the case of ‘Apocalypse Survival’, every scavenger needs to know how to maneuver through buildings and climb effortlessly for when there are enemies chasing after you, be it human or monster.

Thanks to my abilities and stats, no sweat was dropped while running at a somewhat fast speed that has yet to break olympic records due to me holding back, and also jumping and climbing many obstacles scattered on the ‘training’ side of the roof.

Finally having 20 laps over, I glanced at Roland who was staring at me in disbelief, but he retained his usual expression when he noticed that I stopped running.

“Done already?” He asked.

“..Weren’t you observing me so that I wouldn’t skip?”

“Cough cough. Anyways, I guess you are ready to go on the next trip, which is… tomorrow. Lucky you, if I may say.”

“Why don’t you go as well?” I asked, curiously.

“Who will lead them and be their spokesman while I’m not here?”

“Good point..”

“Now go rest, tomorrow you will be out for a couple of hours.”

Without replying, I followed behind him as we left the roof, and split up to do our own things..

…

In the mall, everyone has their own place, or so called ‘Shop’.

An example is Norman’s tech store, and Roland’s bookstore. Mine is a Video Game store, which I used some of my free time to try the games in, after all, not all games could have been bought, right?

Borrowing a computer from the tech store and assembling it, I had made myself the strongest one possible, that is only if we don’t count the enchantments I had added on it.

Fear of overheating is non-existent, destruction due to falling down or getting bashed by someone will not happen, and best of all…

After making some ‘modifications’, I was able to create a revolutionary wireless connector which allows me to access government-only networks and the like without any problems, and even if I had ‘any’ problems, I could hack my way through.

Anyways, enough of that and time to continue monitoring the news. Humans couldn’t have died in only a month or so, could they?

Thankfully, many parts of the world were in better shape, some of them nearly being untouched due to their luck, however, others were not the same.

Unfortunately for me, my city was one of the parts where the first monsters appeared, and this city wasn’t in any way close to military or have a large police force; it was a very unnoticable place with nothing special about.

Anyhow, after accessing the real-time GPS, I started looking around town and in the nearby places for any signs of huge monsters and such. But suddenly, a large amount of vehicles seemed to be moving towards the city and will reach it in less than an hour.

Sadly, due to the limitations of up-top view, I was unable to discern what those things were, but I could safely tell that they are not monsters.

Even so, a human could be as dangerous, or even more so than a monster, thus I had to report that to Roland.

Once that was done, he issued higher alert in case they are invaders, since it isn’t uncommon for violent groups to emerge in an apocalypse.

For the rest of the day, I kept monitoring while training my abilities with a few hands around me spamming the same skill in a very quick manner that makes the abilities level up tremendously in very short amounts of time.

One ability after another were LvMAX in just a few days, and I was able to evolve them into higher abilities, just like how Magic Hands evolved into Magic Bodies.

Surely I was getting stronger as well, since making abilities stronger also gives bonus effects, stacking onto each other and in turn making me stronger while being at the same level.

So you ask, could a level 1 train one ability forever and become stronger than a level 100?

Yes, definitely, however, leveling up also has its advantages, so for example, let's say a level 1 has 100 MP, level 100 has 100000, and the ability costs 10, with the regeneration set for each person to be at 10% per minute.

Obviously the level 100 would be able to train the same ability much faster than the level 1, thus making the option of ‘Leveling up abilities only’ not being efficient.

Anyhow, the night has passed with no incidents, so the time for scavenging has come.

I was given a dufflebag and a travelling bag at the same time, and the other 3 had the same items worn over them, so we all stood near the gate.

“Archillies, Al, Oscar, you all ready?” Said Wayne.

Silently, we all nodded, and opened the door with a clear destination in mind.

In the previous scavenging, we had found an electronics store that was miraculously unharmed, so we were assigned to go and bring back the most amount of usable junk possible; who knows, we might find ‘treasure’.

Walking carefully, we traversed the ruined road filled with debris and trash, and fungi protruding out of the buildings in the background.

“So Archillies, I heard you are looking for your parents?” Oscar asked for confirmation.

“Yeah, I’m worried about them.”

“Good thing you came here first, who knows what would have happened if you encountered the King Slime.” Said Al.

“I agree.” Commented Wayne.

Oscar is a bald man with an athletic build, his story was that he came to the mall for a date with his girlfriend, alas, the apocalypse started and he was never able to meet her at the end.

As for Al, he seems to have come from an Asian country and worked as a shopkeeper for a clothing store here as a part-time job, and had a bit of history with playing sports.

Lastly, Wayne, he is both a body builder and a professional swimmer, winning many medals in the recent past.

The team would look perfect if not for me, a teenager that is not even as tall as any of them.

…

It wasn’t even 10 minutes till we reached the electronics store and started salvaging everything that could be stored in the bags, but while we were at it, I felt many presences moving a fair bit away from here.

Raising my guard, I kept scavenging until suddenly, a loud explosion was heard, with the ground shaking and dust falling off from the ceiling due to it.

Wanting to avoid any accidental deaths, Wayne instructed us to get outside of the building as quick as possible, and once we were out, another explosion resounded, shaking the ground and the building once again.

Oh boy, what could be happening?

....

=====Vol 2 Chap 12 end=====