It was late in the afternoon by the time Roy’s wounds had recovered. The bleeding slowly gave way to his HP regeneration. From there it only took half an hour for his wounds to completely disappear, scars and all.

Roy was in the kitchen, stuffing canned and high preservative foods into plastic garbage bags. There were white loaves, cans of tuna, bars of chocolate, and bottles of water; otherwise known as the stuff he would have eaten had he been at home.

Dropping the last few bits of stolen goods into his bags, Roy made for the door, conscious of the hours of daylight he had left. His flashlight would not last much longer. Before then he had to light the candles he had found last night and tidy up his appearance.

The fog outside was just as dense as it had been on the first day. It clung to the earth and neither the sun nor the winds could unlatch it. A few dozen steps took him back to the house of the old couple. Its interior, so homey and lived in, was just as lifeless and he had left it. It would probably never be lived in again.

Roy wiped himself down, changed, and ate. It felt weird, struggling against some monster one second and dressing up the next. Like he was living parallel lives, one still rooted in the time of two days ago, and the other in some bizarre dreamlike land.

It was approaching seven and already the darkness began to creep into his surroundings. The first floor was too vast, with too many windows and doors. It felt like he was being surrounded, like he was the eye of a storm. With haste, Roy began to move the candles one by one, soon the master bedroom was awash in candle light. He was retreating, pulling back his lines of candles one layer at a time until the last flicker of flame left the first floor.

Roy sat in the bedroom, door closed and barricaded, window sealed and curtained. He was tempted to light all the candles, but he had to ration them. There in the confines of the bedroom, Roy felt secure. Slowly he nodded off to sleep.

Roy slept through the night and awoke in the morning; there was no panic or debilitating fear. The candles had burnt out, leaving behind small pools of wax in their glass cups. Roy swept open the curtains to let in more of the sunlight. Some bit of him hoped he would be greeted by a radiant glare, as opposed to the dull glow that was now a constant in his life.

There was no running water and no electricity, so the mornings preparations were a snap. A bottle of water and two slices of plain bread made up his breakfast. He had food now, probably enough food for at least a week. He didn’t have that much water, but he could always try drinking the floodwater. His constitution was high and he could always look at his [Conditions] for any abnormal effects.

Thinking so, Roy lounged on the couch, this was it. The end of the world, he was fairly certain of that fact now, three days and still no sign of emergency services or the National Guard. Yet here he was in a quaint little house resting on an antique sofa. There was nothing to do, the idea of going out and hunting monsters for experience occurred to him for a second, then he laughed it off. The pain, the stress, the fear, it was all a bit too real for his taste. He had never taken part in extreme sports; there was a reason for that.

But should he really be sitting here doing nothing. It would be just like his school days, playing video games at home while things happened around him. His father had always said that one should run with the wind, or if they were feeling rebellious, against it. Roy had hugged the ground and let the wind blow by while he counted blades of grass and flower petals, fanciful distractions that no longer existed.

What if he stood up, not because he respected his old man, but because he could only spend so long staring at barren earth. He would be a sailor cruising the wind, off to a new land where the grass grew and the flowers bloomed. Hadn’t he felt something when he met the group at the gymnasium, wasn’t there some satisfaction when he lured away the Vineborn Brute?

He wasn’t going to go out looking for fights; he would avoid the dark alley ways and the bad side of town. It would be okay if he stepped cautiously. He was curious, he was bored, and he was lonely.

It only took him minutes to pack his meagre belongings into his bag. He would bring a change of clothes, some water, and some food. There was also the strange crystal he had obtained from his fight before they were chased out by the Brutes. He had his flashlight, and the lighter he used to light the candles. There was also his empty gun, his dagger, his pitchfork, and the magical rod.

Roy took one last look at his temporary residence and then closed the door. He would head towards the town center, a rather shoddy one street affair lined with two and three story buildings. From where he stood it would be a half kilometer trek through two feet of water.

Hoisting up his bag and rolling up his pants, Roy began to walk, using the pitchfork as a walking stick to steady himself. He headed west, passing the bungalow he had broken into yesterday and then a small bridge built over what used to be a stream. Now he could barely tell the where the bridge started and ended. The water would be over two meters deep on either side of the bridge.

Past the bridge Roy’s right opened up into what used to be a small field, now it was flooded and indistinguishable from the road and any other patch of ground. Then Roy noticed the patches of rocks jutting out from the water surface. They looked oddly familiar laying there half submerged. Familiar, like the back of the Hastaos he had fought yesterday.

Quickly Roy focused on a patch of rock a dozen meters from where he stood, and the familiar blue screen appeared.

Juvenile Swamp Hastaos

LV 3 HP 167 / 167

This one was a level lower than the one he had faced yesterday, it also seemed smaller, but perhaps that was simply due to the distance between them. None of the monsters seemed to be awake, It occurred to Roy that the Hastaos may be nocturnal. Curious about the differences in level Roy examined the rest of monsters that were within his visible range. Anything too far was obstructed by the fog.

Many of the smaller ones had the juvenile tag and fell between level 3 and level 10. Everything past level 10 was termed a “Swamp Hastaos”. The largest he saw tool up as much space as a small van. It was level 25. The creatures seemed to form large packs, with the most senior members at the center. Roy swore he could make out even larger shapes in the distance, peeking out from the stream that was easily two meters deep.

It was horrifying, but interesting. As long as the creatures didn’t awake and attack him he could almost imagine himself as being on a safari, though a magical one with alligators that could dwarf a Civic. For Roy, part of the allure of DTDW and other MMORPGs were the landscapes and the creatures that inhabited it. It would be no fun to grind the level away on a plain filled with nothing but practice dummies.

Roy wasn’t skilled at any of the games he played, probably the reason Lawrence never partied with him. He didn't play for the competition anyways, he was in it for the sights, and levels were a way for him to see the next bit of scenery, to see the next feat of imagination. He could be Darwin, sailing aboard the Beagle, though he didn’t quite understand what Darwin had accomplished. The lessons in Biology flew over his head.

Roy quietly walked past the resting grounds of the Hastaos, the waves he created as he slugged through the water were enough to give him a heart attack. It was a relief when he finally passed the field and reached Scott Street, which would intersect Main Street further north.

Roy turned right and headed north, the field was sandwiched between the stream and the Anamosa Library, which was now to his right. An almost square black roofed building that faced a car dealership. Roy had never visited the library. It dawned on him that it this would be a good time for a first. He could find something on how to filter drinking water; he had considered drinking the floodwater earlier.

The entrance of the library faced a parking lot as large as the building itself. A flagpole outside flew the stars and stripes, the flag dangled from the top of the pole, lifeless in the absence of wind. Roy approached the front door and shone his flashlight through the glass double doors. It was empty inside, and flooded too.

Gently, Roy pushed open the door and the smell of books filled his nostrils. He had smelled books before. But here, congregated together and damp from the humidity, the smell was striking. There was something else mixed in there too, but it had been overpowered by the smell of ageing and wet paper.

“Hello, anyone here?” Roy called out near the entrance way. If there were people it wouldn’t do to sneak up on them, if there were monsters he could make a quick getaway from his position beside the door.

“Anyone?” he called again. It was strange for the library to be so empty. There was the Librarian, and the various elderly that often visited during the day. He could be overthinking it, the guests must have left, evacuated to someplace safer.

Reassuring himself, Roy walked past the alarms and the front desk. He wasn’t familiar with where the books were placed, especially unfortunate now that the library database was offline and there was no librarian to help him. It also meant he wouldn’t be able to check out the book, he would be stealing from the library. Roy Stone, stealing books from the public library, the though amused him.

Roy peered down the aisles looking for anything related to sports, or perhaps camping. It was bound to be there, he justified to himself. As he continued down the aisles he caught the sight of something skittering across the floor.

Roy turned towards the movement; it had come from down the aisle, away from the front where the large vertical windows adorned the walls. That far down he could barely make out the books on the shelves. He should have looked from batteries, but it was too late for that now. If his flashlight ran out, he would have to resort to the lighter.

Was the skittering the product of an overstrung mind, the beam of the flashlight yielded nothing. Roy backed away from the shelves and raised the Fungus Fryer, he had charged it beforehand. Like in the bungalow, he would shoot and then keep whatever it was at bay with the pitchfork. He could be preparing for nothing, but it was better to be cautious.

Roy retraced his way to the front of the library, as he neared the front desk he caught another glimpse of movement, then another. It was no visual specter, there was something in the library, many somethings. Holding his weapon tighter, Roy quickly covered the remaining distance to the door. Roy used his back to push against the door, his sight never leaving the aisles of books. Then the somethings made their appearance.

They looked like mushrooms, with their pallid gray stems and light purple caps. But they moved, instead of roots their stem branched off into tiny appendages. One by one they leaped from the shelves and began to scuttle towards Roy. In the water only their cap was visible and their speed slowed considerably. These were surely fungi. Roy quickly concentrated on one of them.

Orchid Cap Interceptor

LV 1 HP 22 / 22

Individually they were weak, almost pathetic in front of the Fungas Fryer, but more kept jumping from the aisles as the front line approached. There were twenty, then thirty, and still their numbers swelled.

Roy sprayed his Fryer in a sweeping motion, catching the first wave of Interceptors with the barrage of fungicide. The liquid seemed to lock them in place; they were puppets with their strings cut. Some could barely stand upright. Each interceptor had less than a fraction of a liter of liquid on it, even with the 1000% damage increase it would take half a minute for them to expire.

However, the stunning effect kept them in place, allowing the corrosive substance to take maximum effect. The first wave was down; just a few stray drops were enough to send them into shock. Then the last bits of liquid left the barrel. There was row of a spasming mushroom in front of Roy; further behind their comrades continued their charge.

It was like something was directing them. Now that his weapon was empty Roy turned around and dashed out the door. The wave of mushrooms slammed into the closed doorway, they piled atop each other and their momentum carried them forward. Soon the entire front of the library was covered in Orchid Caps, some paralyzed and dying, others surging against the glass frontage.

Roy backed away a few steps and then lowered the tip of the Fungus Fryer into the water. Following the now familiar motions, Roy recharged the weapon with mana and vacuumed up two liters of water. The squirming mass of fungoids pushed against each other and sections of the wall, slowly the door began to open on its hinges.

Roy stepped aside and aimed his weapon into the expanding opening and sent a spritz of flux at the swell of creatures that were forcing themselves into the gap. Droplets sprayed across the bright purple caps, and the pallid flesh of the mushrooms. The mass began to fall apart as the leading orchid caps began to stutter and collapse onto the ground from the crowds behind them.

The creatures struggled in a crowd as they pushed and jostled their way around, their oversized tops and spindly bodies rendering their efforts ineffectual. Seeing this Roy recharged his weapon again and sent another spray, this time over the first row and arcing into the rear. The more he fired the larger the glut grew.

The swarm only seemed to attract more of its kind as others which had been pushing against immovable panes of glass began to direct heir attentions towards the front door. It was like a snowball, soon the mushrooms had formed a ball of writhing root like legs and stems. There were at least two or three dozen piled together, a ghastly piece of cover for the orchid caps that remained standing.

The orchid caps began to climb the pile, bringing their appendages out from the water and restoring the agility they had demonstrated earlier when leaping from the book shelves. They were like ants scuttling atop a hill. Roy backed off quickly as the first monsters rose over the peak, he aimed his Fungus Fryer in the general direction of the door and sent a spray hurtling towards them.

Orchid Caps tumbled from the hill as they were hit, revealing their comrades which followed them over the top. The monsters were stuck in a perpetual bottleneck, unable to bypass the small gap in the door they had opened. The number of living orchid caps had thinned, no longer were they a horde. Only a few stranglers remained, struggling to navigate the maze of corpses their allies had left behind.

Roy dipped the rod into the water for another round, but the familiar whir of water was absent. Had the weapon broken down, there was no longer a tugging sensation from the large symbol engraved on the weapon. Roy examined the weapon and realized that it was out of mana, if that was the case why had it stopped drawing mana from him. A brief glance at his status showed that his MP pool was empty. He needed to charge the weapon with 25 points of mana if he included the 5 required to draw in water.

He had reloaded beforehand, which probably meant he had fired 5 or 6 times. The actions were monotonous, but strangely addicting as he watched the almost cartoonish monsters tumble over each other. Roy backed away until he could just barely make out the details of the front door through the mist. Shooting the little buggers at ranged while they were trapped had been a breeze, but it would be foolish of him to forget his earlier encounters and charge in to mop up the survivors.

He would wait outside for his MP to regenerate and then finish of the stragglers. With his MP regeneration of 0.035 per second it would take around an hour for his mana to fully replenish. He would have lunch and then take a few more shots with the Fungus Fryer, hopefully that would do it.

Convinced that caution would be wise, Roy pulled himself atop a car in the parking lot that offered a good view of the front door. He had been wading through the water for over an hour now and the relatively dry top of the car was a relief. With the humidity as it was drying his clothes would be too much to hope for.

As soon as he sat a down several blue screens appeared in his vision, it appeared that he would only be rewarded after battle.

Level Up!

Level 3 > 4

+3 Stat Points

Skill Up!

Mana Affinity LV 0 > LV 1 (Novice)

He had leveled up after killing several dozen level one monsters while he himself was level 3, compared to when he had killed a frog monster and 3 marsh walkers while he was level 1. He didn’t know the level of the frog monster so his information was lacking. His 2nd level was even more obscure considerimg he had killed the creature with the question marks for level in Madelyn’s house.

Another new skill had also been acquired, Roy focused on it and brought out the in depth description.

Mana Affinity – Novice I

+1% to Max MP

+1% to MP Regeneration

It sounded fairly boring, like all the other skills and abilities he had acquired. However, just maybe, he was one step closer to lobbing around fireballs. Roy brushed the screens away along with his fanciful dreams, for now.

Roy kept his pitchfork at his side as he munched on a few slices of bread served with canned tuna; thankfully the can was the tabbed variety since he had forgotten to pack a can opener. He didn’t bring utensils either, so Roy dumped the can of tuna onto a few slices of bread and did his best balancing the pile of flaked fish. It was a messy affair; it was a small blessing that there was no one there to watch him eat.