Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 35: Aftermath

The Slime itself had been splattered by Isaac mere seconds after the warning message had appeared, as had the newly spawned creature, but its mere existence had caused alarm bells to start ringing, well, everywhere. Operations for their research group had been shut down temporarily and they’d gotten sent home while Bailey got dragged into an endless series of meetings. However, they’d managed to achieve a consensus by the next morning, which Bailey was now communicating to the rest of the team.

The real issue had been the aftermath of the warning. Just as Isaac remembered from the other timeline, everyone within range received it and, well, completely and utterly lost their shit. While they’d known that creatures were being summoned under their feet, something going wrong enough to prompt a warning from the [System] was alarming beyond belief.

Given the sheer amount of havoc that had been caused by that experiment and the bollocking they knew was coming, they’d cleaned up the mess, fixed the damage Isaac had caused to the room, and waited for various panicked officials to arrive.

So that was how half a dozen important people, including the dean, found them. Standing there, looking innocent, with a research proposal regarding the potential issues with independently summoned monsters on the table in front of them.

That had certainly helped with the matter, but the whole thing had still caused enough of a mess that summoning operations were suspended for the rest of the day while everyone except Bailey ended up getting sent home.

Now, they were all sitting on benches in front of the cafeteria, watching the mess unfold in the news. And holy shit, everything had gone batshit bonkers. The idea that monsters being left in the world for too long would cause more monsters to appear was communicated to the press quite succinctly, but then the various news media had run wild with it, conjuring up various nightmare scenarios.

And mind you, those weren’t the kinds of things that Isaac had experienced in the other timeline, the ones that had destroyed the world. Just fear mongering for the sake of clicks, newspaper sales, or whatever other metrics of success a given media used.

Mainly, the message was that summoning was bad, always and forever, regardless of circumstances. And while no human ever summoning again might fix the entire issue at hand, that was hardly realistic. The issue was, and had always been, reckless or idiotic summons. But Isaac wasn’t the only one who thought so.

“As if that’s going to stop things!” Patrick scoffed “Even if they pass laws to forbid any and all summons, what do they think will happen? All the rednecks will summon things without giving two fucks what the government think!”

“Just the rednecks?” Amy asked.

“They’re just the most well-known and cliché ‘independent’ group. Anyone who disagrees with big government, even if they don’t take an official embargo as a challenge, they still won’t have a problem with summoning monsters to get stronger, no matter what anyone says.” Patrick shrugged nonchalantly.

“That’s a big fucking problem, and no one can deny that, but do you really think it’s going to be that bad?” Raul asked, reaching up to pet the dinosaur sitting on his shoulder.

“It is.” Isaac said, darkly “Never underestimate what people will do with shit this dangerous.”

“Isn’t that a little over the top?” Amy asked.

“Trust me, the issue isn’t what all of humanity will do, it’s what someone might do.” Isaac shrugged “There’s enough idiots in the world, after all.”

“That’s a little pessimistic, isn’t it?” Amy asked.

“Weren’t you the one who thoroughly explained how anyone can create a lethal bioweapon using just the things found in one of the university’s labs?” Raul chided.

“But despite it being so damn easy, we’re all still here.” she shrugged “Look, I know the danger is there, but I don’t think it’ll actually go that badly.”

“You know what, we need something else to do.” Isaac threw in “Sitting here and wallowing, thinking about what might go wrong, it’s not going to help anyone. We’ve been explicitly told not to go back down there until things are hashed out, so how about we do something useful?”

“You just want to abandon the professor?” Amy yelped.

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“Who said anything about abandoning him?” Isaac grinned, pulling out his phone and waving it around demonstratively “I sent out some emails while we were waiting for the dean to come yell at us. Police, other researchers, everyone I know profited from our research. Us butting in and trying to talk to our ultimate boss despite orders to the contrary won’t help things. The university getting inundated with declarations of support from the outside, however …”

He trailed of suggestively, grinning broadly.

“Still feels wrong to just leave.” Raul insisted.

“We don’t have to go far; we’ll still be around. Well, I have to go pick up some stuff first, but then, we’ll be good to go.” Isaac said, getting to his feet “If Professor Bailey asks, I’ll be back in an hour.”

And with that, he left to head back into the city, going to a rather familiar blacksmith’s shop. The bell above the door jingled happily as he entered and a minute later, the owner popped out of the back in a slightly scorched apron.

“Ah, Mr. Thoma, glad to see you’re back. I finished your order a couple of days ago, let me know what you think or if you’re interested in any modifications or decorations.” Stagmer called out and dipped right back into the storage area, only to come back out with the gigantic Zweihänder a moment later.

Well, gigantic when compared to normal weaponry, at least. It was one of the largest and longest swords in existence, or any handheld weapon that wasn’t an actual polearm. Its hilt was a good deal longer in relation to the overall length of the blade than one might expect from looking at smaller swords while the portion below the hilt wasn’t actually sharp so the wielder could grab it for another point of leverage.

Of course, the primary thing that jumped to mind when looking at this thing was still its size, an almost comically oversized weapon that one could barely even wield with the same movements one would use with a more standard sword.

“No thank you, this is an amazing weapon.” Isaac said, carefully running his hand down the length of the blade “I actually use these weapons, I’d rather not add decorations that end up ruined two minutes in.”

“Ah, I suppose that’s reasonable. I’m mostly used to people asking for movie replicas or decorative set pieces for theater and the like. Someone actually planning to use my weapons is somewhat of a rarity.” Stagmer shrugged.

“What if I told you that could change? Is that something that would interest you?” Isaac asked.

“Of course. What are you thinking?” Stagmer asked, a grin creeping up on his face.

“I’d like to work with you, become a patron of sorts. As a person with a profession for a [Class], you will level incredibly slowly, but that will speed up as you come face to face with greater challenges and surpass them. Like, say, mystical metals retrieved from monsters? I could provide those for you in exchange for weapons made from them. If this ends up working, I could even provide Aspects.” Isaac offered.

“Aspects!? Do you have any idea how expensive those are?” Stagmer exclaimed, but Isaac just shrugged.

“Only if you buy them. If you get them by killing a monster, they’re practically free. You see, I use these weapons against living pillars of flames, rock monsters, humanoid frogs with skin like iron. I have some [Skills] to make sure my weapons last, but pretty soon, mundane weapons won’t last for more than a couple of hours of use. So, I’m coming to you with an offer. Would you be interested in letting me level you up in exchange for you making me powerful and downright supernatural weapons?” Isaac suggested.

“Theoretically, yes. What would I have to do in exchange?” Stagmer asked, the barest hint of suspicion in his voice.

“Like I said, make me the gear I need, in exchange for monetary compensation. Perhaps, a slight priority over other orders without having to pay through the nose for the privilege, but nothing unreasonable. You see, I need someone who can make that quality of gear. That person doesn’t currently exist upon this world, but I can change that. So, interested?”

Left unspoken was the threat Isaac could just go to literally anyone with the right [Class] and make the exact same offer. He wasn’t even particularly attached to Stagmer, he’d picked him for being nearby and having good reviews. He was the best local candidate, but hardly the only one.

Of course, Isaac would have picked one of the legendary [Smiths] of the other timeline, if he’d know any of their names. He knew plenty of titles and pseudonyms, but nothing that would help him find them in this one, at least not yet. There had been an unfortunate trend of kidnapping extraordinary crafters and giving them an ‘offer they couldn’t refuse’. As powerful as they might be, they had nothing on a combat [Class] of the same Level, and crafters were rarely anywhere near the strongest people in those terms, leaving them vulnerable. Hence, hiding.

“Alright, that sounds fundamentally reasonable, but I do have one more question. You’d mostly be paying me with materials, but I will need some money for tools and such, especially if I’m prioritizing your orders. There will have to be some caveats to that end, but fundamentally, it sounds like a good deal.” Stagmer said.

“I’d never expect you to do more than is reasonable. I do have the money to pay you when necessary, but I would greatly prefer to use rare and exotic materials where possible.” Issac said, pulled out his phone and placed it on the table between them “That’s a sample contract I had drawn up. In essence, it covers most of what we talked about, including the fact that I’d be paying you a significant monetary compensation should I need to monopolize your time at any point. Any materials I give you are yours to do with as you wish once the actual order has been fulfilled unless we are talking about something of significant rarity, etc.”

While Stagmer skimmed the contract, Isaac took the time to look around the shop for things that might be useful. A few minutes later, Stagmer put the phone back down and nodded.

“Looks good. I’ll still need to see a proper contract, but there’s nothing in there that I have a problem with. Is there anything else you’d like?”

“I’ll pay for the Zweihänder now, but I’d also buy a few things from your display.” Isaac said, pointing out the things he’d be giving his colleagues.

“Thank you, come back soon.” Stagmer waved after Isaac as he left, something he’d thought would only happen in kid’s cartoons. But clearly, he’d just made the blacksmith very happy. What were some things that could be useful to him?

Aspect of the Fire Elemental, Metal Golem, Forge Golem and the like. If one dropped and Stagmer had proven to be up to snuff, that was where it would probably end up, probably followed by Isaac letting him summon a few things for him to kill, thereby giving out the XP needed to slot them.

As for materials, there were the magically enhanced alloys in the body of The Crusher, a Tier 5 summon from the Earth summoning list, bricks that burned long and hot from several fire type golems, and so on, and so forth. Once Isaac had gotten his hands on the Aspects he needed to upgrade his current ones and grabbed some of the ones he wanted to hand out, he’d be grabbing materials for forging.

He ended up taking the subway back to the uni, with the sword wrapped up tightly in a large cloth. He’d bought a back scabbard as well, but wearing that thing just screamed ‘monster hunter’, which would be a truly awful look in the current situation. Far too many horror stories from past incidents were back on the news, compounded with the constant barrage of new theories, each worse than the last, making someone who was clearly a summoner the target of oh so much anger.

Now, however, people would likely just assume it was a curtain rod or something. After all, what kind of sword was that fucking huge?

As he stood there, mana constantly flowed from his hands and into his weapons, strengthening them. Stagmer did good work but slamming it against creatures as tough as rocks or actually made of the stuff would play merry hell on a mundane blade.

The university campus wasn’t as full as it had been in the morning, but not the depopulated, empty space the [System’s] warning had turned it into.

The largest concentration of people was, surprisingly enough, right near his friends, who were currently being inundated with questions. Also, there was the small issue of Brisa the microraptor sitting on Raul’s shoulder, drawing stares.

Now, trying to push his way through the crowd might be an option, but it was hardly the only one. A trickle of mana flowed into [Sneak], triggering its active ability and making people’s gaze just slide off him. Of course, this trick only really worked when people weren’t actually paying attention to or looking for him, but it was still useful.

Now that people had stopped really paying attention to him, [Phantom Step] should be ever so slightly cheaper. Not by much, and certainly not enough for him to bother in most situations, but he considered it worth doing so just to see if anything unexpected happened.

One moment, he was walking across the open space in front of the cafeteria, the next, he was sitting in the tree above his friends.

“Hey guys.” he said, making Patrick and Amy jump, with the latter glaring at him. Karl just glanced up for a moment, then went back to his conversation. Raul just outright ignored him, moving not even a millimeter. Clearly, he had noticed Isaac from the beginning, just not bothered to say anything.

“Were you sitting up there the entire time, waiting for a good chance to scare the hell out of us?” Amy asked, glaring up at him.

“Nah, just got here and decided to avoid pushing my way through the crowd.” Isaac said and dropped down, startling a few people who hadn’t realized the voice hadn’t come from the crowd.

“Hey, you!” someone in the crowd yelled “Do you work with these people?”

Isaac just raised a questioning eyebrow. He hadn’t been one of the people who could do that, simply pulling up the other one whenever he tried, but now he could bypass the whole problem with [Hundred Faces].

“Ok, look, these people haven’t been telling us what’s going on. They said that there’s no problem, that the Slime has been dealt with, and now it’s just a matter of bureaucracy. So, what’s going on? And don’t you dare just give me the company line!”

“Does this guy realize that there’d be no reason for me to step off the company line if we actually had one?” Isaac said to Patrick, completely ignoring the question “Also, if he’s convinced that we’re sitting on top of a bunch of independently summoned Slimes, why the hell is he still here?”

“Humanity produces geniuses, humanity produces idiots. Some people are sheep and will believe anything they’re told, no matter how stupid, others are uninformed contrarians who will speak against anything that is said in their presence. Guess where this guy falls on that spectrum.” Patrick replied, voice as dry as the Sahara. Isaac just snorted.

“Basically, people think we know about everything that’s going on, so they’ve been asking a bunch of questions. When they didn’t like the answer someone gave, they asked the others. And so on and so forth. We wouldn’t be here anymore if we hadn’t been waiting for you.” Patrick continued.

“In that case, let’s go. I got the goodies, now let’s have some fun.” Isaac said loudly enough for the rest to hear him.

“Ugh, finally.” Amy sighed, stood up, and jumped clear across the heads of the crowd.

Isaac grinned as he saw the rather unnatural arc of her mid-air movement making it very apparent that she was using magic to fly for a brief moment, rather than jumping with raw stats. Clearly, she’d been experimenting with her [Skills] and succeeded.

Triggering [Phantom Step], Isaac suddenly stepped up right next to her and pulled a small bag from his package.

“Here. I thought you could use something to use your [Telekinesis] with.”

“Are those … kunai?” Amy asked, surprised at first, but then she grinned “Weeaboo much?”

“I buy my stuff from a weaponsmith who makes a lot of useable movie replicas. I didn’t think to order some throwing knives, but these were available.” Isaac shrugged “I enhanced them with my [Blades] [Skill] and can make it even stronger with [Piercing Strike] in a bit. But only when we’re away from the crowd, flashing a glowing blade in this situation … bad idea.”

“Yeah.” Amy nodded “So, I’m guessing the plan is to go kill some monsters?”

“Obviously. Our work is good for a few Levels, but all of you should be offered an epic [Class] that lets you copy magic abilities at Level 10. I figured you guys should get that sooner, rather than later.” Isaac nodded.

The others stepped up next to them, having had to push their way through the crowd.

Half an hour later, they were walking through the forest.

“So, is this the part where the slasher movie villain jumps out behind the tree? Or is this a Blair Witch kind of situation?” Karl asked, breathing heavily. Clearly, he wasn’t used to clambering through the wilderness like that.

“Well, the slasher movie villain is right over there.” Amy commented, jerking her head in Isaac’s direction.

“What?” Patrick asked, sounding thoroughly puzzled.

“Impossible to stop, impossible to kill, can get in anywhere, runs around with a giant knife all the time … do I need to go on?” Amy asked with a wink.

“And has a giant collection of bodies in the middle of the woods?” Raul asked, his voice awestruck.

“Wait what? Are you serious?” Amy asked.

“Yep.” Raul replied, pointing straight ahead “Five hundred meters ahead, Brisa just found them. Dead Rock Golems thick enough to cover the ground.”

Turning to Isaac, he asked “Is that what you wanted to show us?”

“Yep. I wanted to wait until we were there to tell you everything, but I suppose now is as good a time as any.” Isaac said, stopping and turning around “Basically, I’m worried. Worried that people will panic, overreact, and ban summoning until the next set of problems arise and it becomes clear that some problems do require high Level [Skills] to be solved. But right now, the consensus is still that everything is alright unless someone gets hurt.”

He walked backwards and casually jumped to the top of a two meter tall boulder, arms spread in a ta-da gesture “This is what I’m offering. We should all have unlocked one of the world’s greatest [Class] Evolutions and this might be your last chance to gain it in a timely fashion, at least legally. So, is anyone interested?”

“So, you’re finally inviting us along on your little power-levelling sprees?” Raul asked.

“Yep. A chance to fight high experience monsters, safely. I won’t judge anyone who decides they’d rather just work in a lab, but this will give you true power, if you want it.”

“Sounds good.” Amy shrugged, trying to act nonchalant, but she was vibrating with excitement. Isaac remembered that she’d picked [Mage] just so she could get magic. Of all his colleagues, she was the one who was the most similar to him.

“It’s getting dark soon and I don’t see any lanterns, I don’t suppose you have a way around that?” Patrick asked.

“Over twenty points in Perception let you see in the dark.” Isaac told him “If you aren’t there by the time night falls, we can just go grab some lanterns or something. We’ll need to go for some snacks and stuff anyway. So, shall we?”

As they walked the last few meters towards his fighting site, a massive grin grew on Isaac’s face. There were a few things he liked to do.

One was fighting interesting foes.

The other was passing on that knowledge to others and watching them grow.

Besides, a [System Researcher] could learn all sorts of awesome [Skills], including a million different incredible utility [Skills]. As for what he could pull off if he knew people who could cast [Portal] … the sky was the limit.