‘Congratulations, you have successfully collected ninety evolution orbs, and now you can break a limit of your body, what limit do you wish to break: physical limit, mental limit or sensorial limit?’

‘Congratulations, you have successfully collected ninety evolution orbs, and now you can break a limit of your body, what limit do you wish to break: physical limit, mental limit or sensorial limit?’

That damn fucking voice again, you already know it, damn it! I want to break the sensorial limit! A wave of pain crossed my body, and thanks to it, I was now fully awake. However, I was in a strange place, a very luxurious room, it looked quite old-school. All the objects of the room seemed to be from the nineteenth century. But, before I could understand why I was in that place, that damn voice returned.

‘Congratulations, you have successfully collected one hundred and twenty evolution orbs, and now you can break a limit of your body, what limit do you wish to break: physical limit, mental limit or sensorial limit?’

“What? Again?”

That was a pleasant surprise, but that was strange. How I collected so many evolution orbs? Again, I choose to break the sensorial limit, and again, I felt that pain for a few seconds. When that process ended, I felt a sharp pain in my head, and then suddenly, half of my field of vision became red.

“What the fuck… blood?”

Only at that moment, I noticed, I was wounded, and half of my head was covered with bandages. But then it happened again.

‘Congratulations, you have successfully collected one hundred and forty evolution orbs, and now you can break a limit of your body, what limit do you wish to break: physical limit, mental limit or sensorial limit?’

“What the hell happened?”

It was time to calm down; I had to remember what happened. The first image that appeared in my head was that fat rat running towards me; then I stopped to kill it when I was near the bridge, then everything became dark.

“Did I somehow kill it? That would explain why I was able to break my sensorial limit three times in a row.”

One question had been answered, and now I just had to know how I arrived at this place when I thought that the door opened and I saw Harry.

“Holy shit!” Harry said startled. “You are bleeding again! Stop moving you dumbass!”

It seemed that I was worse than I thought, I was bleeding again after all. I killed the fat rat, but I didn’t escape unharmed, Harry wasn't skillful, but he managed to change my bandages and clean my face.

“What happened? What is this place?”

“First of all, try to rest a little,” Harry said after a long sigh. “We can talk later; we have many things to discuss.”

Not only worried, but Harry also looked pretty serious and somewhat sad, which was strange, because he was always joking around even after the most dangerous battles.

“I won’t be able to rest without those answers.”

“I guess so,” Harry said after sighing again. “You are that type of guy.”

Why so many sighs, that was already making me feel depressed.

“After you lured the fat rat,” Harry started. “We safely crossed the bridge. Fortunately, we didn’t find many enemies on the other side. So we decided to wait for you, but you didn’t come. After half an hour we began to look for you, and then we found you inside of a pool of blood and just a few meters away from you we could see the fat rat’s body.

Thanks to his words, I remembered everything, that thing was intelligent, so I had to kill it or else we would be chased until we couldn't run anymore. Thanks to a miracle, all my shots hit the wound, crossed the meat, and possibly hit some vital organs. That was the only explanation.

“You big dumbass!” Harry shouted. “You said that you wouldn’t fight. I never thought that you were a liar.”

“Better not judge a book by its cover next time. But I’m not a liar. I didn’t have any choice.”

Since it was better to share the information, I explained everything that happened to Harry. After all, who can say that we won’t encounter another intelligent monster?

“Are you serious? Intelligent monsters?” Harry said, while showing a sad expression. “Only bad news one after another.”

“What are you talking about? By the way, where are those two?”

“Rose and Sarah are in the next room,” Harry hesitated. “They are… grieving.”

“What do you mean by that? Who died?”

“Their parents,” Harry answered, clenching his fists.” Both of them are dead.”

“How do you know that? For how long I stayed unconscious? Did you guys reached your parents’ home?”

“You only slept a single day, but let’s go to the lobby, it will better if you see for yourself, but try to keep calm,” Harry warned, showing a severe expression. “You may not like what you will see.”

His warning made me feel tense, Harry was depressed, and since that was so different from his usual self, I began to imagine the reason for it. He was also sad, thanks to Rose’s and Sarah’s parents’ death. But I could tell, that was only one of many reasons.

As I thought we were in an old-school hotel, everything looked fancy, well-crafted, and brand new, but I also looked retro, the windows, the carpet, the curtains, the vases, the lamps. Wait a minute. The lights were working!

“Why the lamps here are working? Solar energy?”

“Dunno,” Harry answered uninterestedly. “But we didn’t see any solar panels.”

The lobby of the hotel was like everything else, except for two things: A massive map on the ceiling and a shining silver statue in the middle of the lobby. The statue was weird, it looked to be the statue of a woman, but the curves weren’t exactly feminine, and the face wasn’t all that detailed. On the other hand, the map was quite easy to understand since it had a very familiar blue screen next to it. Besides, the vast map had thousands of red dots, every single dot marking the localization of one thing.

Area 43 Map

Survivor count: 11487/ 25000

I froze, if that blue screen was correct, that means that only eleven thousand people in the entire city was still alive. But something was off about those numbers, the population of the city wasn’t only twenty-five thousand, it was two million and a half.

It looked pretty simple and meaningless, soon the seven became six, but I understood the meaning of that, one person in the same situation as I had died. I searched for my parents’ home on the map, and soon I found it, but not a single red dot was there. My legs began to tremble, and I felt a terrible shiver.

“… Can show where we are on the map?”

“Yes,” Harry answered. “Look at the center of the map; we are on the biggest building half a meter away from the center on the left side.”

I found the building, and to my surprise, I could see four red dots inside the building. No, that couldn’t be it that was just a coincidence. My father was amazing, he was a special agent of the army, and my mom was smart. Even my siblings were too awesome when compared to me. If I managed to stay alive, of course, they would be able to do that as well.

“By your expression, your home is empty, right?” Harry said as a matter of fact. “But don’t lose hope yet, there’s another way to confirm if your folks are alive or not. Just touch the statue, and you will understand how.”

Harry’s indifference was beginning to annoy me, but he just saved my life again, so I didn’t have the right to get angry at him. Besides, I still didn’t know if he lost someone too. Without wasting time, I touched the statue, and another blue screen appeared.

Creation

Search

Transfer

Specials

Those options were strange, but only one interested me: Search. When I touched that option, a list of names appeared in front of me; those were the names of people that I knew, and some people that I barely could remember who they were. I almost fell on the floor when I saw their names.

Jerry: Area 77 - Alive

Naomi: Area 33 – Alive

Ryan: Area 03 – Alive

Elly: Area 82 - Alive

Arthur: Area 22 – KIA

…

They were alive, both my parents and siblings were alive. Just by knowing that, all those hellish days disappeared from my mind. They were alive, and that was what it mattered to me. Arthur was my boss, we didn’t talk much, but knowing about his death made me feel sad. I could probably trust in that screen because the last name of the list was Martin and next to his was Area 43 and KIA.

“Do you know what those areas are?”

“While you were resting we did some tests,” Harry answered, showing a pained expression. “We aren’t one hundred percent sure, but we think each area represents a copy of our city. If you pay one hundred evolution coins, you can see the localization of any person. I did that to find the localization of my mother and sister. And a map of our city appeared showing their localization. But on the map of the ceiling, there are no red dots on the same place.”

“So they are in some alternative universe or something? How’s that even possible?”

“No idea, but if you think about it, it makes sense,” Harry explained. “You can see on the map that this city only had twenty-five thousands of persons when everything started. That explains why we didn’t meet many survivors until now.”

He had a point, considering that, then probably would exist other 99 areas. But why divide the people of this city, to make our odds of survival even more difficult? And exactly, why did this happen? It didn’t look like the work of human beings, was it a natural disaster? It was impossible to answer those questions.

“So your parents and siblings are alive, huh?” Harry said, showing a weak smile. “Your family is a tough one. If they are all alive, then you have four more reasons to keep fighting.”

He was right, but something was off. But I didn’t have to ask.

“You see, you can bring your family to this area,” Harry added. “But it’s a bit pricey. You have to pay ten thousand evolution coins.”

“That’s good to hear, but right now I only have 553 evolution coins. More than I expected actually, to bring all of them to my side. I guess it’ll take a while.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Harry said. “I’ll bring my sister and my mother to my side too, but I can’t leave Rose and Sarah alone, besides I’m sure that they will help me do that. So it’ll be more efficient to stay here for a day or two, to rest our minds. But knowing you, probably you won’t wait for us, right?”

“Yeah, I can’t wait for you guys, I have to bring them to my side as soon as possible.”

“I thought that you would say that I wish you good luck then. “Harry said, and began to walk away, but he stopped. “Ah, make sure to look at the specials section. And when you access the creation section then think about this: Vampire Hunter’s Crossbow.”

I didn’t have any idea about what he was talking about, but he probably suggested me to get a new crossbow, but how? Maybe I could buy one using the statue, I left the search menu and then accessed the menu creation, and two screens appeared: Create and Sell. But what I could sell, my bow and the crossbow? No, I can’t sell Marti’s crossbow, but I could sell my old bow and the quiver. But before that, I had to see if I really could buy another weapon.

“Let’s see... Create.”

‘Welcome to the creation system, what do you wish to create?’

Again that annoying voice and why is this thing asking that? At least show me what I can create, damn it. However, if there were no options, then that means that I can create anything?

“I want to create one liter of lemonade.”

Suddenly, a hologram appeared before me; it was the hologram of a one-liter bottle of lemonade, that bottle even had a blue screen attached to it.

Lemonade (01 liters): A refreshing and bitter beverage, it can recover your MP by 25.

Price: 10 Evolution Coins.

“I thought it would be less pricey, but since it can recover so much MP, then the price is fair enough. I guess I’ll create ten bottles.”

Suddenly, ten bottles of lemonade appeared in front of me, and I lost one hundred evolution coins.

“Now, let’s see I also have to create some food. But before that, I should do what Harry said. What was the name again? Vampire Hunter’s Crossbow? Maybe I will find some vampires; some crazy stuff is happening everywhere, after all.”

Again, a hologram appeared before me. The crossbow looked pretty awesome like a master craftsman had made it. It was gray and black and made of metal, the crossbow had some weird parts, there was a cylinder in front of the trigger, and it didn’t have any part for me to put the bolts.

“This is… a rapid-fire crossbow! Awesome! It’s exactly what I need!”

Vampire Hunter’s Crossbow

Max Range: 250 meters

Effective Range: 150 meters

It can create: wooden bolts x 50 (20 MP), iron bolts x 50 (40 MP), steel bolts x50 (60 MP)

Price: 400 Evolution Coins

“This one here has much more information, probably because it’s a weapon. I don’t even need to think, create!”

The crossbow appeared in midair and then fell on my hands, it was a bit heavy, but I would be able to carry without any problem. After that, I sold my bow and decided to use my remaining evolution coins to buy some packed lunch. Unfortunately, typical food could only recover 02 HP and 05 STA. Well, lemonade it’s great, so it’s only natural that can do that much.

“I can survive with this amount of food for five days I guess, how much evolution coins I should be able to obtain in the meantime?”

While I was wondering about that, I checked the special menu. There I could found the option of transport, with that option I would be able to bring my parents and siblings to this area. I also found the option Countdown.

7946625 seconds

Something would happen in ninety-two days, but what? I felt nervous about that countdown. However, the other option left me speechless.

Revival: you can revive a dead ally.

Cost: 999999 Evolution Coins

I did well in not selling Martin’s crossbow; someday maybe I’ll be able to return it to its rightful owner.