"Oh, dear! It's so good to see that you are fine," Alice's mother gave her a crushing hug, causing a stinging pain in her chest. It was a good reminder that she still had to look for a healer.

"And it's good to see that you are fine as well," Margaret changed her target to Ava. "Your brother..." before she even finished her sentence, she already caught on, "I'm so sorry that this happened. But I'm glad that you came with Alice. Please stay with her and make sure that she doesn't do anything too stupid."

Alice was just about to say something in her defense, when she saw that the little jab put just a hint of a smile on her friend's face. Just the mention of her brother had almost made her cry again.

"Don't worry. The next time she gets stabbed in the chest, I'm going to give her a good scolding in your stead."

"You did WHAT?!" Alice's mother sounded terrified and angry in equal measure.

"I'm gonna go and look for one of the healers!" Alice quickly bade her farewell. If she was lucky and somehow managed to evade her mother for the next hour or two, she might have had time to calm down a little. Then, maybe, the following scolding wouldn't be too bad.

Her mother was a reasonable woman, so Alice knew that she wouldn't get scolded for getting stabbed in the first place. What she would get scolded for, however, was that she lied to her mother about the severity of her injury.

In the first place, her mother scolding someone was a rarity. However, when it did happen, it was all the more terrifying. Once she was done with you, even a demon king would run back in shame and hide in the deepest hell for a century.

Maybe we should take her with us to deal with the dragon, Alice idly joked in her mind.

As soon as she entered the building, she asked the first person she could find for directions, immediately being pointed to the east wing of the building, where they had built an improvised little hospital that was, surprisingly, completely empty, besides the doctors of course. Or rather, magically enhanced nurses in this case.

"Oh, looks like we have a patient," the male nurse said. "Lucy, can you take care of her?"

"Sure," the small woman said as she walked over to Alice. Although, in her defense, it had to be mentioned that most people were small compared to Alice.

"Where did you get injured?" the nurse called Lucy asked, no obvious injuries being visible on Alice.

"Got stabbed in the chest," before adding for clarification, "and the heart."

"How the hell are you even still alive then?" the nurse asked incredulously.

"I can temporarily turn undead and manipulate dead flesh. I patched it up myself, but I don't think it did anything about infections, and it still hurts like a bitch."

"You know, any other day, I would have already sent for the mental ward to come to pick you up. Jenny, we are gonna need you here," the nurse turned away to call another over. "Come here, Jenny has a diagnostic Skill, but she needs skin contact for it," Lucy continued as she led Alice into a medical room.

What followed was a scene of three people struggling to get the body armor off of Alice, making her wonder how she had gotten it on in the first place.

When the nurse called Jenny finally had full access to Alice's chest, it was no more than her placing her palm over the twisted scar where the flesh had been fused back together.

"Okay, this is all kinds of wrong," she remarked after just a few seconds.

"It's going to kill me, and you don't know what to do about it wrong, or it doesn't make any scientific sense kind of wrong?" Alice asked in trepidation.

"The latter. Though it would indeed kill you in a few days if nothing is done about it. It's infected, and you have a splinter dangerously close to the heart. Good thing we have Lucy here, so you won't have to become some kind of botanical Ironman approximation. Honestly, I don't know how you even survived that kind of wound," Jenny explained.

"Strictly speaking, she didn't. At least according to herself," Lucy commented before continuing, "Let's hope I can get this fixed without blowing through all of my Mana. I really don't want to get stuck meditating for hours on end."

"Meditation?" Alice asked curiously.

"It's a Skill most mages get right at the start. It increases Mana regeneration, but it's still slow as heck. Worst of all, you can't do anything else while you meditate. The only upside is that it can offset the amount of time you need to sleep slightly, apparently."

"Oh? You seem to have figured out quite a lot already. Do you also know the basic Mana regeneration? Is it the same for everyone or different from person to person?"

"One Mana per hour. For everyone."

While now Lucy put her hand on Alice's wound, this time causing a rather annoying itching inside her chest, Alice thought back on the not ridiculous, but still astounding feats of magic the old people had shown off when they had arrived. Something didn't quite seem to fit, so she decided to ask.

"The old people that were out the front were doing quite a lot of magic without running out of Mana, though. Why's that then?"

"They don't have much more Mana than you or me, probably. But there have been a few fights already, so some of them have already reached level five. The boy asked the ones who already have a combination of meditation and some kind of manipulation Skill to choose Stat points for the first few levels and put them all into their Magic power. And since Mages completely regain their Mana when they level up, they have a lot to spare since they don't use their magic for fighting.

Anyway, here we have it! Do you want to have it?" Lucy took her hand away from Alice's chest, showing her a small wooden splinter lying on top of it.

"Why would I want to have that thing?"

"Don't know either. But some people like to keep stuff like this as a memento."

"Yeah, no. Don't need it."

"Well, then we are done here. It's gonna itch like nothing else for who knows how long, but the splinter is gone and the infection dealt with."

"Already? That was quick," but it was true. Her chest itched like a swarm of Ants was having a party inside her, but no matter how she moved, it didn’t hurt any more.

"You can only say that because you don't have to meditate now."

Jenny and Alice laughed at the other woman's expression. Then, Alice grabbed her body armor and hesitated. She didn't want to wear it. It was suffocating and annoying.

She sighed and put it back on.

Safety first and all that, I guess.

"Hello, you little snitch," Alice greeted Ava as she left the room. She had noticed the girl's arrival already a while ago, thanks to her Soul sense.

"Kekekek! But seriously, your mom has a right to know if you almost die," Ava sounded strangely sensitive on the matter, though it wasn't much of a surprise.

"I know. I just didn't want her to worry even more than she already has to with Pete. Did you at least tell her properly what happened?"

"Of course."

"Now, who are you?" Alice finally asked the boy waiting next to Ava.

"I'm the Prophet," he answered pompously.

It was really not what Alice had expected. He looked fifteen years old at most and even then was small for his age. He wore spectacles, and you could just barely not call him fat.

"His name is Albert, but he doesn't like it," Ava stage whispered in Alice's direction.

"My mom told me you have something to tell me, Al?"

"Probably. I hope so. The things I see are all pretty vague, and you were only one of three possible people this message could have been for. Though, you are the only one to get it, I guess. By process of elimination."

"Okay, hit me," for a moment, Alice could tell that he wanted to take her words literally, but he managed to suppress the urge. Apparently, looking like a mysterious prophet, no matter how bad he was at it, was more important to him than being a wiseass.

"Okay. You are planning to go to New York to find someone, right?"

"Yes, my little brother," Alice answered, curious where this was going.

"I will just tell you this upfront. I don't know how it will come to this, but you will end up fighting him sometime during fall in front of the empire state building. And he will die in the process."

"What the hell?" Alice didn't know what else to say.

"That isn't all. He can be saved if you get help from a certain group. I don't know who they are, but you should know them as far as I can tell. The only thing I can tell you about them is that one of the two is male."

"And the other person?" Ava couldn't suppress her curiosity.

"No idea. It's weird. It’s not that I don’t know, but that I can't tell whether they are male or female. If that makes any sense at all.”

It didn’t. At least to Alice.

“Also, one last thing. For obvious reasons, I have absolutely no idea how binding my prophecies are. It might be that just because you know about it, it now won't happen anymore, or it could be that it only happens the way it does because you now know about it. but it is a fact that I predicted several monster attacks correctly."

"That's annoying. Do you at least know where we can meet those mystery people?" Alice asked.

"Ah right. They are also going to New York sooner or later, but you HAVE to meet them while they are still in Trenton. Right, could I now also ask a question?"

"Shoot."

"What's up with your Class combination?"

"Why? What's wrong with it? Lots of minions from my Necromancer Class while my Warrior Class prevents me from being unable to defend myself if my minions are busy."

"Are you stupid? The system clearly said Class-primary and Class-secondary, and specifically NOT Primary-Class and Secondary-Class. You don't get two Classes, but one Class in two parts. Basically, the first part defines your theme, while the second defines your fighting style. If I had to guess, as a Warrior, the only undead you are gonna get to command around is yourself."

Looking back on it, she had wondered why it was written so weirdly, but it seemed so obvious as to what a Necromancer is exactly that she didn't even think about the possibilities of a Warrior Necromancer or Ranger Necromancer. "Oh, for fucks sake!"

Then again. Had she chosen the "proper" Necromancer Mage, she would have probably died in her first fight. After all, at that point, they hadn't yet run into any corpses she might have been able to reanimate. So that mistake might have ended up saving her life. Either way, it was too late now.

"Wait, how do you know my Classes?" Alice suddenly realized what she had missed. "Also, I was told that you knew about all this before it happened. How did you do that?"

"My Class is basically an Information Mage. I have one Skill to get information about the future, and one to get information about the present. It's basically an appraisal that tells me some information about people and things," he explained happily, clearly proud of himself. Then, he slumped a little and continued, "How I knew about what was going to happen is actually something I don't remember. I can't even remember choosing my Class. My only guess is that, at some point in the future, I will get a Skill to send information back into the past."

"Even if you don't remember, it's still impressive how you managed to prepare this place. I highly doubt there is going to be another base in the area that is as well-staffed as this one. I mean, this place has healers, water, earth, and even plant mages. If they reach sufficient levels, this place shouldn't have any problems being completely self-sustaining," Ava praised the boy, quickly bringing back his cheer.

"You don't know anything! We even have Metal and Explosion Mages that can make ammunition, and my grandpa is a Gun Mage who can put enchantments on guns to give them magical abilities when they shoot! There is even a Weather Mage and..." Alice soon tuned the boy's excited rambling out.

It was true that this base was better equipped than any other in all probability. They even had so many guns that she wondered where the hell they had found those in a home for the elderly. However, Alice saw one specific problem in the long term. It was simply a fact that this was a home for the elderly. And thus, most of the people here were very old. Only a few years down the line, the base would lose two-thirds of its personnel not to monsters but to old age. They would have to expand and recruit sooner rather than later if this place was supposed to survive in the long run. And it would have to become self-sustaining without the use of magic before that happened, just in case enough utility mages couldn’t be found.

However, there was no doubt that they had the optimal starting conditions to enable human survival. And more than anything, their healers were all young people, meaning that they wouldn't be lost any time soon.

Alice tried to look out of the window, only now realizing that they were blocked off by thick stone slabs, probably created by magic and fused with the surrounding walls. However, the time didn't really matter. She was completely exhausted either way. The few hours it had taken her to get here had been a constant series of intense exercises, fearing for her life, stress, and injuries.

She yawned.

"Who do we have to talk to to get a place to sleep?" She finally caught a break in the boy's monologue to ask her question.

"Just ask the people at the counter. I also need to get back now. I still have to meditate to regain as much Mana as possible to predict the next time monsters attack," the boy immediately left after excusing himself.

A few seconds later, Ava yawned too, "To the counter?"

"Sure."

When they got there, they were quickly pointed towards a room where they could stay. Although, they had to share it since there were now more people than beds here.

However, it wouldn't be the first time for them to sleep together, and Alice definitely wouldn't mind having a human hugging pillow. She had always been the type who would start thinking about all the bad things that happened over the course of a day when her mind started drifting when she tried to sleep. And it was objectively true that this day had been the most horrifying, painful, and just generally worst day of her life.

As she peeled herself out of the body armor for the second time in barely fifteen minutes, she got annoyed at herself for not even thinking that far ahead. It took long enough for her to get out of it that she lost her chance to be the first in the shower, a luxury she was very aware of that it wouldn't be freely available for much longer.

Now that she thought about it, at least for now, the plumbing still worked, so why had the old ladies gathered water using their magic. It was just a waste of Mana. Rather, they should have Earth Mages digging as large of a pool as possible and then fill it up with water as long as it still worked. Alice doubted that there was anyone left to complain about the water bill.

When Ava finally got out, Alice got her chance to take what may be the last hot shower in her life. It may also have been the longest shower in her life, as she scrubbed herself several times, trying to clean off the by now imaginary blood splatters she had pointedly ignored for the last few hours.

When Alice finally got out, she took a short look at the body armor, immediately deciding that anything that would be able to reach her in her current location wouldn't even be bothered by it. Either because they were able to sneak in and could just stab her through one of the far too many gaps, or because they were powerful enough to bring down the wall and a bit of hard plastic wouldn't stop them.

She put on the surprisingly comfortable, beige pajamas they had been given before she tussled with Ava for a moment. The redhead had been hogging an amount of blanket that was in no way proportional to her body size. In the end, she just used Ava as a hugging pillow, making the entire fight moot.

Somewhere between relieving when she got stabbed in the chest, her self-imposed thought experiment on how it would feel to get eaten by a Troll, and thinking about the countless ways on how and why she might end up fighting and killing her own brother, she finally drifted off into a thankfully dreamless sleep.