His head ached. It ached like a bitch…

Stanis kept rubbing his temples, hoping that would cause his headache to go away.

About 30 minutes later, he would get exhausted from all the rubbing and collapse back to sleep.

About an hour later after that, he would finally wake up.

The moment he opened his eyes, he knew something was strange. He tried to remember what he had been up to last night, but his memories were beyond muddled and forcing himself to remember only caused his head to hurt even more. So he lay there, wherever he was, for about an hour more.

Stanis did get clues about where he was from the time he lied there. First of all, the roof above him was not that of his apartment's, nor was it off the open skies'. Rather it was a dark, leathery-like roof, although he couldn't be certain due to the fact that the lighting was very bad in here.

The next clue he got was from the occasional people he heard making noises. He had enough of these people interrupting his sleep half-way through his lie-in and was about to give them a piece of his mind, only to turn around and notice that they were all injured. The sounds he heard were groans: groans of pain. How did he know? The blood and bandages were a pretty big give-away.

Furthermore, the smell in the building he was in supported that idea. The smell was pungent, and discomforting on all levels. It smelled exactly like what Stanis imagined the critical section of a Hospital was like, although even that probably smelled better than this.

It was as Stanis's courage to get up was being built up that a ray of light entered his life, literally. He could see a ray of light splitting the room in half, which he followed backwards to discover that a corner of the room was actually a flap! It was bright outside, and so in contrast, it produced dark silhouettes of the people at the doorway.

The ray of light then disappeared and Stanis felt a fear build up inside of him. Wait, what? Stanis couldn't remember the last time he had been scared of the darkness, but his body seemed plenty scared of it right now. It was almost like an inside joke that only his body and the world understood, whereas his mind just stood there confused. The people who had walked in seemed to be checking up on the injured people lying here, as he could hear their voices travelling the room.

He then felt the voices in his ear.

"Are you okay?"

It sounded feminine, most likely a pretty girl. So Stanis cleared his throat before speaking, didn't want to give the wrong first impression.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Do you know where I am? I don't remember what I did last night at all."

The girl then laughed, clearly amused at his response. Stanis felt good inside about her response to his response. She then said,

"I envy you for forgetting what happened. Let me just fill you in, there were the trials that happened, and then t---"

Stanis cut her off half-way through her sentence with a crestfallen voice, "Okay. You can stop there. It's come back."

He now understood why his body had been shivering in the dark. More importantly, he truly understood the profoundness of the phrase, "Ignorance is bliss", at this moment…

The girl then moved on. Stanis, realising he could no longer lie here when the world had gone to shit, eventually got up and walked towards the flap. In truth, the memories he had shocked him a lot, not only was it completely bat-shit crazy, it was also far too much to go through in a single day. But a quick check of the Status brought him back to this insane reality.

Stanis Volkov

Age: 18 years

Mana capacity: 18 (regeneration is capacity/4 per hour)

Level 7 (Progress to the next level is 72%)

Unallocated Stat points: 4

Strength: 17 [14 -> 15]

Dexterity: 17 [13 -> 15]

Constitution: 14[13 -> 14]

Intelligence: 12[11]

Wisdom: 12[10]

Tenacity: 14[13 -> 14].

Skills: Layman's Rush

Please allocate unallocated points!

As much as he wanted to put all his points into Strength or Dexterity so he could pass 20, and then buff his skill, he also knew that that was a bad idea. Instead what he needed was Constitution and Tenacity. He had fainted after a single attack from a Wolf and then had been weakened ever since.

"Increase Constitution and Tenacity by 2 points each."

Constitution has increased from 14 to 16. You are above your species' average.

Tenacity increased from 14 to 16. You are above your species' average.

Sighing at his pathetic performance yesterday, Stanis walked outside through the flap. It was then that the sun fried his eyes, forcing him back into the tent for a little longer as he waited for his eyes to adapt.

A few moments later, Stanis forced himself outside as he shielded his eyes with his arm. The place outside looked completely different than it had yesterday, in both a good and bad way.

It was good because Stanis had only briefly seen a bunch of boxes, which he had assumed to be the System's supplies before he had been forced into battle yesterday. Today, or during the night as he had slept, the boxes had clearly been unpacked. Stanis turned around to look at the tent he had been sleeping in, it was very large and a dull green colour. Around it was 3 others just like it, each able to fit in around 20-30 people. In front of the tents was a supply section with simple foods and water that Stanis could spot. A lot of the people in that area were also wearing single-coloured simple clothes, like shirts and jeans. It was then that Stanis looked down, only to notice he was wearing the same as the others. So where were his Malitsa coat and his knitted jumper?

However, his worries went down quite a bit after he remembered how bloody all his clothing had been after the trials, nevertheless the battle here.

As for the bad changes in the area; it had been pristine clean when they had first arrived at this place. Now you could see blood everywhere, alongside other scraps like bones and flesh that people hadn't cleared up. Worst of all was the musty smell of blood that still dominated the area…

Feeling his stomach's yearning for food overcome the bloody smell, Stanis walked over to the provisioning centre with the supplies. It was as he was walking over that he noticed a certain large Indian man, half muscle- half fat, who had shaggy, greying hair. Or at least used to have hair like that, it seemed Jayesh had sliced off most of his long strands, leaving a very uneven, but short mess behind.

The person at the supplies was very nice, considering that the World they were now living in, as he instantly gave Stanis a pack of dry foods, alongside a few bottles of water and finally a few thicker articles of clothing, alongside a simple leather backpack to carry that all in. Not that clothes mattered much though, as the sun was completely out, but Stanis felt a lot safer with more clothes on than less. He then ambled over to Jayesh as he nibbled on a few crackers.

By the bags under his eyes, Stanis could tell that Jayesh hadn't slept at all through the night. Stanis budged into Jayesh, before offering him some crackers.

"No thank you, I'm qui---. Oh, it's you Stanis! Ha-ha, I'll take some then."

Only God knew what Jayesh thought off Stanis that he was so willing to take his food but not others…

"How was the fight Jayesh?" Stanis asked the burning question inside of his head.

He could feel the temperature go down a few degrees as he heard the response, "It was alright. I thought you had died at one point, but was in no luxury to help you. I then noticed you crawling over to Orena so I had guessed you were okay.

But other than that, it was almost a total disaster. The system said it would be putting down supplies every week, and it seems the monsters were attracted by the supplies themselves. Only the Gods know how we will deal with them next week, considering what happened yesterday. We are now down to 27 able men and women, with 2 who are so severely injured that no one wants to make the decision as to whether we should kill them or hope for a cure in this insane world."

"Oh, are they in the tent over there? I was in that one as well."

"Well, that makes sense, considering how smashed you looked during the fight and how chipper you are right now. That's the designated injured area, where we've basically dumped all the injured and hoped for the best.

One of the other tents is for the men to sleep in, while the other one is for the ladies to lie in. The last tent is currently being used as a headquarters kind of thing, for the new leader."

Stanis was surprised at this, and so he inquired more about this sudden change. "Why is there a leader? How was he chosen? Is he strong?"

Jayesh merely shook his head at Stanis's questions. "Don't be so fast. He was chosen since he was the only one wanting to lead so far. Remember during the start when a guy shouted for all the shield-bearers to make a defensive line? That's him, Juan. As for why we need one, it's because we really need clear goals to meet if we are to survive by next week. Is he strong? I don't know, I was too caught up trying to survive all those fucking Wolves that I didn't have the time to check.

It seems like you don't know anything at all, I might as well tell you everything I know so you stop pestering me with these questions. I know that we do have some strong fighters. They're apparently called the Dead 4 since someone said you would be dead for sure if you fought those guys, and that name just stuck. Those are the four strongest here, and I certainly wouldn't contest that claim. It includes Orena, the sole guy from the other team in our trial who is called Anatoly, and two others called Fedro and Chen"

Stanis had been doubtful about the claim, but he completely shut his mouth after he heard about Orena and Anatoly. He had first hand seen both in action, and so he didn't need any convincing.

Jayesh, seemingly pleased with Stanis's expression carried on, "The other thing is that we apparently had 70 of those Storage Stones after the battle had finished. Juan opened all of them and found 10 cards which allow you to have 1 extra point to one of your attributes when you break them, 5 that give you additional experience and a scroll that gives you a skill.

The general consensus seems to be that these loots will go to the Dead 4. Oh on that note, what level are you currently?"

Stanis replied "Level 7, close to Level 8. I just upgraded my attributes after I woke up."

Jayesh had shock plastered all over his face as he looked at Stanis. "How did you manage that?! The average is currently mid-level 6 with only the Dead 4 reaching level 7."

Stanis exercised his memories a bit, before his rosy, chubby cheeks began to blush further. He then looked Jayesh directly in the eye as he said, "I killed the ones that were on their deathbeds as I crawled over to Orena…"

Jayesh broke off into a fit of coughs, struggling to stop. He no longer looked Stanis in the eye as he spoke. "I guess I really need sleep, I'm clearly too tired for this. Since you already slept as others worked, why don't you go and see Juan? I heard that he wanted some people to scout out the area. You would be a perfect candidate considering how high levelled you are."

He then walked off without waiting for any farewells. Stanis stood there, looking at his feet for a while as he contemplated what had just happened: it wasn't his fault that he had stolen other's kills. He had been delirious!

Deciding to put Jayesh's clear act of thick-headedness behind him, Stanis began walking towards Juan's tent. It was as he was walking he noticed a wide hole in the ground. He tipped his head over the edge to look, only to see numerous human corpses at the bottom. His eyes instantly caught onto the face of the girl who had been next to him in the shield line, the one who had weakly smiled at him. Only her head was there…

Stanis had felt so much more light-hearted after his sleep, but now he once again felt the sombreness of the situation creep up into his mind. This was the apocalypse, anyone could die at any moment…