Chapter 14: The Waiting Is The Worst Part
The students slowly began to return to the front lawn of the Academy a half hour before the expected time ended.
Nobody was speaking, simply waiting.
Kalli moved to the top of the Academy’s back wall so that she could get a better look down the hill at the city, where most of the next stage was likely to happen. She was joined by a few of the soldiers, likely assigned to keep her safe.
But the other students stayed inside the safety of the walls.
Then, the sky started to darken, not with storm clouds, but turning to a deep red, as if they were entering night in some sort of hellscape. Then, the clouds did come, thick black masses.
Kalli frowned as she felt the air shift. It was damp, like it was going to rain, but the air didn’t smell like rain. It smelled like rotten flesh and blood.
She wasn’t the only one that noticed, but nobody had time for that.
The sky split open, with vast shimmering portals revealing a whole other world. It was a charnel house, corpses everywhere, and the skies stained red with magic. The portals spread, like the fabric of reality was being eaten away.
As the portals expanded, the other world began to overtake the real world, leaving only the people and buildings.
"Brace for impact!" The Commander of the military unit shouted as the barrier approached their position.
Kalli considered putting up the barrier she had received as a quest reward. It was 72 hours, not much, but it could keep them secure for some time. The problem was that she didn’t know how large of a building it would protect, and whether it would save the plants on the ground.
Then, she realized that they had bigger problems.
The ground and sky weren’t the only things coming through, and there were monsters appearing everywhere in the city. Monstrosities of every sort, from twisted humanoids to creatures that looked like someone had smashed two animals together and got the most horrific combination possible.
The soldiers raised their rifles when the wave of change reached the bottom of the hill, but Kalli motioned for them to wait.
"Look down the hill, what do you see?"
"Expanding portals, some other world overtaking ours?"
"Once the wave passes over, the plants of our world are pushing through. It’s only overlaying the surface level of that world over the top of our world. The corpses and dead plants are being left behind at first, but they’re fading and only the living monsters and plants are remaining.
It’s also not harming the people in the houses. See that person on the roof? They’re still moving, watching the monsters. They’re not injured or taking action to heal themselves. Unless they start to mutate or something, I think that this might be an unstoppable effect.
Just wait for the monsters to get close enough to be a real threat."
It was the same advice that she had given the Sergeant earlier, but these two just gave her an indulgent look, as if she was a child acting above her age.
The wave passed over the Academy, and everyone prepared for battle. The ground near them was a hilltop in both worlds, and the majority of the battle appeared to have been down in the valleys, not on an exposed position like a hill.
The wave swept over them and a great shout went up in the Academy as a massive boar monster with metal armoured plates appeared in the courtyard.
{Coordinator, do you wish to issue a Quest?} Cost 1 System Point for Easy. 10 Points for Hard. 100 Points for Nightmare. 1000 points for an Epic grade quest.
{Easy Mode selected} Reward 3 System Points if the Quest is completed successfully.
{Quest Issued} Kill the monsters that have appeared inside the Academy Grounds. Reward: 1 Common Grade loot box. All Heroes scoring a final hit or healing a hero by more than 10 percent of their health will be rewarded.
The words appeared to all the other awakened members the moment that Kalli agreed. She had points, it was worth it to spend one to see what happened.
However, she didn’t want to pick the hard mode option and risk everyone’s life for her curiosity.
The warriors moved to surround the armoured boar, and Kalli saw Sergeant Sanchez lining up for a clean kill shot. The boar screamed, a surprisingly human sounding noise, and charged into the warriors, who raised their shields to block its momentum.
From the sides, mages hurled spells, and archers fired arrows.
The spells tore into the beast, but three warriors were trampled, taking heavy damage that the healers were instantly working to recover for them.
More warriors moved to keep the beast from goring their team members, and a few of the fighters simply screamed and ran away when it turned their direction. There was no cure for cowardice, at least not one that worked fast enough for their first battle.
However, the boar wasn’t the only thing in the campus compound.
Shouting and gunshots rang out from all around the Academy as Kalli watched dozens of one metre tall twisted demons with long pink fleshy tails appear. She didn’t know what to call them, but when the first one died, she saw a notification.
{Rat Demon killed} Quest Progress 2 Percent
The soldiers were wasting too much ammunition. Even the ones beside her were firing wildly in three round bursts, missing as often as they hit. Only Sergeant Sanchez appeared to be calm as he squeezed the trigger and put a bullet through the boar’s eye.
He looked pleased by whatever message it gave him, but the boar didn’t drop.
It was bleeding heavily out of its eye socket, but it was still moving. Sanchez fired again, and a small hole appeared between armour plates on its side, causing the boar to spit up blood as its charge at a nearby warrior stumbled.
With that, the others charged, but the notification was already up.
{Armoured Boar Killed} Quest Progress 8 Percent
"Get the rat demons." Kalli shouted, as the students hadn’t noticed anything was wrong yet.
The soldier beside her handed her a pistol, and Kalli fired a round into the forehead of a charging demon.
Those company trips to the range with her old boss were really paying off.
At least she could hit a target.
The Imp dropped and Kalli got a message.
{Coordinator has killed a Quest Target. Coordinator Kallista De Marimgar has been added to the Quest Reward pool.}
