Mathew was led to a small dormitory room. Two normal beds along with a single cot were set up. Leo had one of the beds, while Mathew took the other. The cot remained unclaimed until someone else was assigned to their room.

“Fucking hell. This is not going how I wanted it to.” Mathew said as he sat down on the bed. His bags were in a pile between him and Leo.

“No it’s not.” Leo said laying down. He had his eyes closed and had an angry expression on his face.

“What’s wrong with you Leo?” Mathew asked.

“I don’t know, maybe the fact you killed my sister, we are forced to do work for the military, and I have no fucking clue what is going to happen next!” Leo half yelled still not looking at Mat.

Mathew winced slightly. He didn’t say anything, looking down at his hands. He didn’t want to talk about what happened. Just wanted to pretend it never did happen, if he was being truthful with himself. It’s not that he didn’t care, just didn’t see any other option at the moment.

“Leo, I-”

“Don’t Mathew. Not now. Just get some sleep and let me think it over, please. I don’t want to lose you too. You are all I have left.” Leo threw his shirt and shoes off, and rolled over to try and get some sleep.

Mathew looked at him and shook his head. “Great, how am I going to convince him that I didn’t mean to kill his sister? Obviously I did, but not with vileness. I just didn’t want to die myself.”

Sleep soon came over Mathew. He had a dreamless sleep. When he woke up, Leo was gone. He checked the time on his phone to see it was half an hour till noon. “Great, I slept in, and Leo left me alone. I guess I did need the sleep though.”

Mathew saw Leo had rummaged through the clothes bag for a fresh outfit. He did the same and walked outside to find some food, and where he was supposed to go for his new special duty.

Outside plenty of both military and civilians were walking around. Mathew could see a large group of the newest arrival of refugees. Mathew shook his head in disbelief. “Leave it to my shitty luck to be at a place where I can’t use my years of money, social connections, or even my job. At least I have my life, so I can’t complain too much.”

Mathew leaned against the wall in thought. “I need to get ahead of the game here. Zack said I can obtain power, but I need to find out how. The obvious answer is Levels, which gives me stats, which equals power.”

He opened his menu and looked it over briefly. “How do I do this safely? I can’t just run without a plan. Zack said spell casting should be possible, I just need a profession or class, or some sort of teacher. The latter I can eliminate until someone here learns a damned spell. So what if I don’t become a spell caster?”

Mathew quickly threw out the idea of becoming a muscle bound idiot running around killing things left and right. “I’ll kill things, but only if it seems easy, like those zombies.” That made him remember that he needed to talk to Leo about his sister, or risk their relationship going sour.

“Can’t allow myself to lose connections. If Leo does well, he can be my ticket to a safe life here.”

Mathew then went off to find where he needed to go. After asking a few of the Airmen wandering around the base to where the scouts were meeting up, or where Captain Henderson would be, Mathew found himself in a seemingly old building.

Majority of the people inside were those in the military. The classic camouflage pattern of their uniforms were everywhere on the gear they wore. Mathew was escorted to a large storage room where he saw Henderson and a few others.

“Good to see you didn’t chicken out Mathew. Wish you were a bit earlier, since the others have already been briefed and equipped.” She gestured to a group that were already leaving.

“I apologize, last night was a bit long for myself, along with everyone else, as I am sure you realize. I won’t lie, I didn’t expect everything to be handled this quickly. It’s almost as if it was expected.” Mathew said.

“I agree, but it turns out we just adapted previous contingency plans. Primarily one involving natural disasters and World War 3. More so the latter in our case.”

Mathew understood. He had his own plans for such a thing after all. “I see. Well, then, what will you have with me?

“Do you have any skills with scouting, combat, field work, or anything you think would be useful?”

“I’ve practiced with guns but only for self defense not for combat. I was a boy scout for two years, so if you need a knot tied in the only one I remember, I can handle that. Outside that, I have nothing for you.”

Henderson didn’t make any facial cues to show she was impressed nor disappointed. “Alrighty, so you will have to go through a crude and quick class. Our goal is to find other survivors, but with magic and monsters also being real, we are looking for anything different or important related to that. You will be part of my team. You have the [Knives] skill, so we will give you two combat knives, along with a handgun, and rifle. I understand you have your own, but ours might be better.”

She started to pile gear on a table for Mathew. “We have plenty of ammo, so don’t be shy with it. As I’ve always told those who are with me, bullets are cents each. Life is priceless.”

Mathew looked at everything and noticed it was less than he expected. “Is this all the military will provide?”

“We are scouts not a convoy heading to smash doors in. Would you rather carry fifty pounds of equipment, or just the twenty pounds of it in front of you?”

Mathew chose the lighter option. “What of the others who are with us? All military as well, or special volunteers like myself?”

“Two others like you, one of which I picked out for my team, like I did you. Plus my Sergeant.” Henderson said, as she started to disassemble a rifle to check it before giving it to Mathew.

“You picked me yourself? I hate to say this, but you really aren't my type.” Mathew said jokingly.

“Ha, neither are you slim jim. But, you are sleazy. You obviously are going to try and do things the easy way. I’m keeping you in my sight at all times so you can’t wiggle out of responsibility.”

Mathew had a face of betrayal. “I would never.”

Henderson didn’t by his lie. “Sure, and you didn’t try to bribe me yesterday?”

“As I said, I rather work where my skills can be used to its maximum efficiency.”

“Mathew, cut the bullshit please. I deal with that every other day with officers who are supposed to be doing the work, not civilians. Just do me a favor and at least pretend you are putting a decent amount of effort into this? I promise people like you will be in a cushy office chair in a week or two when more logistics are needed, okay?”

Mathew pursed his lips. “Deal, but don’t expect me to fight.”

“If things go my way, the scariest thing we will encounter are the MRE’s we eat while out scouting.” Henderson laughed at her own joke.

“I like that. When and where are we meeting up? I'd rather get this over with quickly.”

“Tomorrow morning, at 0600 by the north gate. Bring your gear, and if you bring extra supplies, that’s on you to carry. Do you have a good pair of boots or shoes?”

Mathew shook his head. “Not really, I’m a size 10 ½.”

She fished for a pair of boots and three pairs of socks. “There you go. Rest this evening Mathew. Tomorrow we are going to be out for the entire day, possibly longer if needed. Thank you for understanding as well.”

Mathew nodded, “Of course.”

After a day of rest including searching for a decent place to eat. Mathew was laying down in bed, waiting for when Leo would return. He thought over how to talk to him, after his outburst the night before.

“Going to have to sacrifice my pride aren't I? Or at least pretend to. In the end, I can’t let Leo bail on me. Only person I trust in this damn new world.” Several times Mathew had to open his menu just to remind himself it was still there and real.

Once Mathew heard the door open, he closed his menu and saw Leo walk in looking tired, but still in a good mood. “Hey Mathew, how was your day?”

“Talked to Captain Henderson, acquired some additional gear. We leave at the butt crack of dawn to go play explorer in the new magical world of monsters and nightmares. How was your day playing Doctor?”

Leo sat on his bed, taking off his shoes. “Not bad. Turns out [First Aid] is a skill. Along with several other medical techniques. I didn’t have any medical background, so I didn’t get the skill yet.”

“What does it do? Make you better at preventing people from dying? The opposite of my [Knives] skill?”

“Kinda, the ‘flavor text’ or rather the description comments it just improves overall skill with first aid.”

“Ah, well that seems useful. I wonder if there is a skill for other things outside of combat. Like a bike riding skill, or reading.” Mathew said, half in thought of the idea of how such a skill would be useful.

“One thing is for sure, Mat,” Leo said as he gestured to an empty cup on the nightstand. “If there is a tea making skill, I imagine it will reach Master 100 in no time.”

“No, I have much larger goals for tea making. If I find out magic tea exists, I will be the first to try it.”

“I don’t doubt it, Mathew.”

The conversation ended and the silence became awkward. “Listen, Leo.” Mathew started. “About your sister.”

Leo held up a hand. “Listen dude, no bullshit between us right now. I know you did what you did without ill intent.” He looked down at his hands. “I keep playing that moment over and over again in my head. Like a shitty song you can’t get out of your head, no matter how many times you hum or sing along to it. I do plan to get my revenge on the bastard who did that to her. You didn’t do that Mathew. I wish you didn’t. I really really wish I could have tied her up, maybe cured her infection. But I can’t change the past, only ensure she lives on in memory.”

“Well now I look like an asshole” Mathew thought to himself, his own little speech ruined.

“Thank you Leo. If it means anything, I’ll go with you when you go back. I imagine a zombie apocalypse is not a very good thing to have back where we used to live.”

Leo smiled. “I appreciate that Mat. If anything, once you and I learn magic, it will be a cake walk. Turns out there is a whole type of magic for fighting off undead.”

“How did you learn about that?” Mathew asked, curiously.

“The nerd groups. A few of them were with us applying how medical skills should work via video game mechanics. I spent an hour wrapping random cloth around a guy's leg before someone realized it had to be a real injury or someone with real world experience.”

“How does magic fit into that?”

“Oh, so we were talking about healing magic. Then we talked about the different kinds. Then that sparked a huge debate on the difference between ‘divine’ and ‘holy’ magic. If there is one, or if it even applies to our new way of life.”

“And what do you think?”

“Those guys need to leave their rooms more often and speak to girls.”