Aya sat in her gaming chair, sipping her tea as sunlight slowly started to pierce the darkness of her apartment. Yesterday ended in a bust, to put it mildly. The only silver lining was the fact the healing spell had worked wonders and even levelled up. Although she would have a scar for the rest of her life, it was as if the injury never happened.

Harder to digest was the fact that she had killed a human being. She had bawled her eyes out (again) yesterday, but eventually she had calmed down and went on to find some answers. And really, those weren’t that hard to find. One of her notifications gave her a probable answer to the question why someone had shot at her. She pulled the notification up again.

Notice.

You have killed the [Insane human] named Harry, level 1. You receive 50 xp.

Somewhere along the line, poor Harry had lost his marbles. Not that she could blame him for that. His actions on the other hand… Nevertheless, the knowledge soother Aya’s conscience a tiny bit, although she felt bitter resentment towards the System. But she had purposely acknowledged her feelings, letting herself wallow in them for a while before trying to rise above it. Yeah, these last few days were horrible and will haunt me for the rest of my life. Yes, I could and will blame whoever instigated the System Initialization and I will gladly wring their collective necks. Am I going to let these last few days hold me back from going to my family? Hell no! somewhere these past few days, I’ve found my backbone, my desire to push through no matter what. Even if I need to take a day to cry and wallow. I’m a human, not a machine or a monster. And apparently, the System even recognized my valiant attempt. I earned 5 points to Willpower. And I STILL don’t feel any different, damn it. The System felt like a joke sometimes. Or maybe I’m not paying enough attention… Whatever.

Back to the here and now, I’m alive, I’m stronger than I was yesterday, and I still have got to get out of here. I also, maybe, should stop talking to myself.’ she concluded her verbal musing of the past day. ‘Then again, I’m the only one here. As long as it doesn’t become a habit… Anywho. Let’s see what I’ve got.’. Aya finished her tea as she walked to the kitchen, surveying her spoils of war. ‘I have enough water to last me 2 days.’. She put 10 water bottles of 500 millilitres to the side. Since she would be moving a lot, she wanted to take a little extra. She could probably find more water along her route, but she didn’t want to be dependent on it. ‘It’s going to be heavy though, since this is just the start, but I’ll make do. Now on to the food. I have a lot of canned stuff and still some relative fresh vegetables. So I could make me some meals. Also, thank god for gym rats.’. Someone had a ginormous collection of protein bars and shakes. While she wasn’t planning on taking the shakes, the bars were a godsent. They were light but very nutritious, enough to constitute a (meagre) lunch. ‘I’ll think I’ll cook some meals this afternoon. That way, I can eat a little extra before I go.’. Aya was aware she was probably overcompensation. It was a trip of hopefully 2 days, about 70 kilometres for goodness’ sake. Granted, it was under uncertain circumstances, but still. In the end, she merely shrugged and continued her preparations. She would rather be over- than underprepared.

By the end of the day, she had made several meals, gained the cooking skill, earned another level in organization, collected some more sturdy clothing from various apartments, found a clean bedroll, and hoarded more ammunition for her gun. Tomorrow morning, she would take a look around her apartment building, step outside for the first time since the appearance of the System, and assess what kind of danger lurked about. Hopefully, she could go on a trial run in the afternoon. With any luck, I will be back home by the end of the week. She quickly knocked on wood as she had the thought, not wanting to jinx herself.