Exiling Jacob was a matter of course once it was found out what he did. It can be argued that Spear’s death was an accident, and it most likely was. The majority of the reason why he was exiled was because he instead tried to frame Sebastian as a deserter. Some found this reason to be enough, some simply voted to exile him because they wouldn’t trust such a stupid person to watch their backs. Either way, the group had one less person once more.

Numbers dwindled less than before, and the occasional levelled person would find their way to the supermarket every so often, but the threat of the rat swarm still lingered over everyone’s minds.

Sebastian himself wasn’t worried that much. Rats are mostly active during the night, so they have days to prepare. That’s assuming they’re ever found, but they should still have some time to get ready either way. Hundreds of people versus hundreds of rats? They’ll do fine.

Assuming the swarm doesn’t grow.

He sighed as he picked up his saber from beside him and stood. It had been a few hours since he personally saw Jacob off. He had spent the time since by doing a mix of resting and sensing the substance in the air. He realized he took in some of it with the air he breathed, but exhaled it just the same.

He also found that trying to sense it was exhausting to the mind, which explains the need for mental stats before being able to sense it at all. He had the faint idea that he might be able to manipulate the substance once his wisdom reached ten as well. Right now, he just needed to rest and recover his mind.

The problem was that he couldn’t sleep. He had long lived by a night schedule, so he’d only really sleep during the day. He still had five odd hours to kill before he could really sleep unless he forced himself, but that would just be detrimental to both mind and body.

In the end, it all just led to a meeting with Dallas, considering he had nothing else to do and he'd need to get it over with anyways. He’d have a hard time believing he was the first to feel the substance in the air, so he just had to ask what the boss man knew. Hopefully, it was more than he did.

He made his way into what was once the employee’s lounge. Comfortable couches, a small kitchen, lockers for some of the employees and a small hallway that brought you to the few offices the building had. It looked mostly the same, except for the brand new map right in the middle, along with the candles left from the night. The place was a small piece of comfort.

Dallas and some of the other employees were huddled together over the map, voices loud and honestly filled with what seemed like frustration in most cases. Only the boss remained quiet, listening to the various opinions. He felt like it would be rude to interrupt, so Sebastian just waited for a few minutes until he was finally noticed.

The room fell silent. He received a few nods, some looks of intimidation, and some looks of fear. Very few held a respect towards him, but quite frankly that wasnèt his issue. He motioned Dallas over so they could speak alone.

The man’s brows furrowed as he saw the motion, before he told the rest to get back to discussing. He lumbered his way over to the bladesman.

“Need something, Sebastian?”

“You seemed busy. Didn’t want to interrupt the discussion.” He motioned to the map, explaining why he asked him to come over. “What’s going on?”

“Trying to figure out where we can get medicine. We’re good for now, but assuming we’re holed up here, people will be running out of things like insulin, inhalers, antibiotics. Hell, if their glasses break? They’re fucked. Anyone who has a transplant is at significantly more risk too.” Dallas rubbed gently massaged his temples with a sigh.

“Best bet are the commercial and industrial districts.” Sebastian frowned, before realization dawned on him. “The swarm.”

“It’s blocking the way. To the south, east, and west we have either residential zones, or the park. Only the north leads to an industrial district that’s right beside a commercial district. If we go anywhere else the trip could take hours, and those trips are too long for the group.”

“Too long?”

“If we send our weak groups out, they’ll get slaughtered if they’re out there too long. We send the strong group? The supermarket is defenseless. It’s a lose lose situation.”

“So the swarm really is a fucking issue then.”

“Definitely. We had your group set up the barricade up north because we wanted an area we could rest up before entering the industrial and commercial areas, but the Swarm stays there now.” The man rubbed his neck, looking at the ceiling.

“We’ll work through it. What did you want, Squirrel Guy.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes with a scoff. “I levelled my intelligence up to ten points. Has anyone else reported things happening when they did the same?

“Most could feel something in the air, yeah. We have quite a few people who’ve done it now, actually. Most don’t talk about it.”

“Why not? Wouldn’t it be better to share that information?”

Dallas looked at him, before shaking his head. “Because those who also have a wisdom of ten can use that energy.”

“It’s Magic.”

Rich was always a bit of an anomaly. Having just entered his thirties, life had starting settling down for him, and he had a lot of free time outside of work that he didn’t really do anything with.

He was a welder, and had a rather good grasp over metallurgy, An odd topic to be sure, but he was fascinated by metal ever since he was young. Felt metals were almost like the bones of the world. It wasn’t much of a surprise to his friends and family when he took up blacksmithing outside of work.

He had never been one for exercise much, but he plain didn’t want to spend money on the fancy new setups he’d see on TV or the history channel for their blacksmithing competitions.

He felt it would give him a better feel for the metal if he did it all manually anyways.

Combined, it led to Rich becoming rather physically built, not to mention exercise is just better for you. He got a gym membership, started going every day after work, and then practiced with his hammer and makeshift forge at night.

He loved every second of every day.

This is what led to the anomaly of Rich, because when The Light struck and he was met with the Scorn system, his attributes were by far higher than Sebastians. His build, while not olympic by any means, let him defend himself against the pests that came his way

And he also felt the new substance in the air the second the light faded.

[Rich Manning, no title]

[Lv. 1 Human]

[Class: N/A]

[Profession: N/A]

[Attributes]

Strength: 14

Agility: 5

Constitution: 15

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom:8

Perception: 4

Attribute Points: 5

It was sheer coincidence that he was out for a walk nearby the supermarket that night, and the noises of his fight attracted the group outside the building, before he quickly offered to make them weapons with what they had.

When Sebastian was sent out to barricade the northern area, he had been brought out to patrol. After previously rounding Strength to 15 and increasing Agility, he levelled up to Lv. 2, deciding to round up Agility and Wisdom this time.

The moment he did, he felt the energy he sensed prior in the air warm up to him, as if it would listen to his wishes. Out of instinct, the man snapped his fingers.

And a small flame appeared within.

"You're fucking kidding me."

“I'm not fucking kidding you. The guy who made your weapon was actually the first to do it.” Dallas spoke in a hushed whisper. “Once you reach ten in both wisdom and intelligence, you can manipulate the energy in the air slightly. He created a fire. The few others condensed a drop of water, or created a pebble.”

“How did they do that? We certainly don’t have any fucking spells, magic didn’t exist until fifteen god damn hours ago.” Sebastian scowled, but was inwardly somewhat excited. He just needed one more level up!

“They have no idea how, but they did. We even had a couple people who couldn’t do anything at all with the mana even when they reached ten in both stats. Simply not meant for it, I guess.” As if seeing the fervor in his eyes, Dallas tried to douse the flame of ambition within Sebastian.

“They decide what to call the energy then?” It clearly did not work.

“One of the younger ones decided to call it Mana, the rest just went with it.”

Sebastian chuckled. He should have known. “Does an increase in those stats directly help you better control the mana?”

“No, it seems like ten and ten was just the threshold. The rest seems to just be practice. Otherwise we could just power up those stats and be throwing fire everywhere.” Dallas sighed. It would certainly help with the swarm if they could do just that, unfortunately.

“We’re pretty sure the two stats still effect magic somehow, most have just opted to keep improving physical stats anyways because it helps in the short term.”

“Is that why you’re keeping it quiet then? Don’t want people sending all their stats into getting magic just to not be able to use it?” Sebastian understood somewhat. It would be bad if people got to level five just to not hit any harder than they did at Lv. 0

“For the most part, yeah. We’ll reveal it when we feel we have the safety to experiment with it, but for now, we can hardly protect the supermarket. The monsters level too after all.”

“That’s just for the most part?”

“Yeah. The rest is because we don’t want to cause panic.”

Sebastian was confused. If anything, magic should excite people. Being able to throw fireballs, create walls of stone and freeze ponds over with ice were all cool as fuck, why would that create any panic?

Dallas sighed as he saw the bladesman, confused. He spoke barely any louder than a whisper. “If we can use magic, why can’t the beasts, too?”

Sebastian had taken one of the cushions from a couch and brought it with him as he left the employee’s lounge. His mind felt cloudy, and his body almost felt numb as he made his way to one of the supermarket’s walls.

He almost wanted to thank god for Dallas, but also wanted to curse him. It was great that the man knew how to think ahead, but he also made Sebastian painfully aware of how absolutely fucked the group was as a whole. The most he gathered from the whole conversation was:

We need medicine.

Swarm is in the way.

Magic at 10 and 10

Magic is long-term

And magic fucking beasts.

He groaned inwardly as he covered his face with the cushion, resisting the urge to scream into it. He just wanted to fucking sleep at this point. Especially considering he’d need to go back out for patrol during the night, and he absolutely didn’t want to fight without any proper rest.

As if The Light hadn’t made things bad enough, adding a bus crash, squirrel escape, swarm attack, and a framing situation to his list of life experiences all in one day; The Light also opened him up to potentially having to fight.. Magic squirrels?

Those were going to haunt his fucking dreams.