Dark Fate: Book 1 – A New Fate
: Chapter 8

After we were very thoroughly cleaned, Talia and I went to get dressed. The only issue I had with replaceing clothes to wear was the fact that I was quite a bit more fit than I had been before. Fortunately, my clothes still fit me well enough, if they were tighter in certain places and looser in others. Eventually, I would need to look into armor.

Hmm. Maybe I wouldn’t have to look at armor too soon. Sure, any armor I wore would be helpful, but this ability was going to be a massive boon, I could already see. Simply put, it grew with the user, meaning it would be very effective even as I rose in levels. The Knight class I’d had last time also had a couple abilities that were designed to be just as useful in later levels as they were in the early ones.

Looking at the spell, I decided to go ahead and spend my initial ability points, putting two in STR and two in INT. INT, obviously, gave me the ability to cast spells longer, while STR would affect my melee damage, which would likely be one of my primary means of fighting, at least until I got the hang of casting spells and using magic.

With a thought, I activated my Shadow Armor, and my available MP dropped by 540. As I cast the spell, I found that I could set the form of the shadows when casting the spell. This was mostly cosmetic, it seemed, but it did allow me to not look completely out of place, which was probably the idea. Passive defenses that screamed out “Hey, look at me!” were not very effective.

Black shadows formed about me, taking the shape of a long, black trench coat that looked like leather. Not bad, not bad at all. Sure, I might have looked like a character in a cyberpunk game, or an isekai anime, but that wasn’t entirely bad. Plus, since this wasn’t an actual coat, it would shift with me, if I needed to take on my true form, and wouldn’t be damaged by wings suddenly sprouting from my back. Yeah, I didn’t mind this at all.

Talia, however, was not so lucky when it came to fashion. While, yes, her class compensated her quite graciously for the inability to wear armor (Battledancers, like monks, were considered ‘dodge tanks’ because it was nigh impossible to hit them if they were unencumbered), her class had a focus on performance and enticement, which the monk did not have. Going through her clothes, we quickly discovered that some of them (like jeans) she was prevented by the System itself from wearing, while anything that was too conservative imposed penalties on her abilities.

Which was why Talia, blushing furiously, was now wearing a tube top and an airy skirt, with only a thong on underneath it. I didn’t mind in the slightest, given the fact that she was in excellent shape, but it was clear we were going to have to replace a clothing store and loot it to see what she could wear without penalty, if we were going to be around people, much. Not to mention the fact that I would rather not have people being able to easily see her slave brand, not until after the government fell.

With the immediate concern of not being naked settled, I turned my thoughts to something a bit more long-term. At my command, Talia and I began packing clothing and supplies into our inventories. It was very hard to steal something from someone’s inventory, at least until you got to be a Rogue-type class in the second tier, or if you had a specialized evolution that was geared for things like that. Some space mages could manage it, as well, actually, but they were rare, and targeting the pocket dimension of an individual’s inventory was difficult as all hell.

Of course, that didn’t mean thieves were out of business, not by a long shot. If that was true, then the Rogue classes would never exist, to begin with. No, if you were intent on that path, then there were several reasons why you could still be a thief under the System.

The first reason thieves still existed, obviously, was that you could always just simply kill someone and take things from their corpse. For a brief window after someone died, anyone who approached them could reach into their inventory and loot to their heart’s content. This meant that, unless they had some moral, ethical, or strategic reason to keep a target alive, most rogues simply went straight for the kill, and then plundered the spoils.

Second, the size of someone’s inventory was related to the size of the individual’s mana pool. Each point of INT an individual had generated 11 points of mana to their pool, and regenned 1.1 points of mana per minute. However, on your Status, it clearly showed that you generated 10 points of mana to the pool, and regenned 1 point per minute. Where did the rest go? It went to building and sustaining your Inventory.

In the last timeline, mages and priests were often seen as the workhorses of a party, often using their prodigious mana pools to carry around a party’s emergency supplies. Of course, that didn’t mean that fighting types were simply meat shields and decorations. The Inventory had its uses, but it was slow to access, especially during combat. Many warriors and other types carried bags with enchantments that made the contents weigh less, or made the bags bigger on the inside, which allowed them to greatly increase what they could bring with them.

Of course, this led to the third reason thieves were still viable. Simply put, people still carried bags and wore items on their person, because it was more convenient to use that way. Few people carried cash on their person once they figured out the inventory, naturally, but potions, backup weapons, and all sorts of other, very important items were obviously not shoved in the inventory all the time. Hell, there were even some items that reacted… explosively if you tried to put them in an inventory. You did not want to be anywhere close when someone tried to put a Portable Hole in their inventory, trust me.

So, once we were both dressed and had plenty of supplies stowed away, I took a moment to look at the clock. It was still only 6:30 PM. Only a little more than two hours had passed since the end of the world had started. If things held true to last time, Rachel and Bill wouldn’t get here for another three hours, well after dark.

They had been lucky, of course, since the really dangerous creatures, the ones that ruled the night, wouldn’t start spawning for another couple days. Tonight, it would just be goblins, or zombies, or slimes, or other types of low-level monsters, with little difference from during the day. They’d managed to get to level two by the time they returned, as I recalled.

I looked over to Talia, and said, “All right, Talia, you and I are going to go and replace some monsters to kill. I want to clear out this apartment building, and secure it as a base of operations, if we need to. At the very least, we need to identify spawn points so we can lock them down.”

Talia looked confused for a second. “Spawn points, Master? Like in some kind of game?”

I had to remind myself that Talia hadn’t lived through this before, and her gaming experience before the apocalypse had mostly consisted of things like Animal Crossing and Angry Birds. Not exactly useful in the current situation. Still, she was at least familiar enough with the way games worked that she understood that it was a game reference. I sighed softly, resigned to educating my pet so she could serve me better.

“Yes, the System that just turned on is like one of those RPGs people played before the Apocalypse. We all have stats, levels, skills, and stuff like that. However, we don’t have the luxury of respawning if we get killed, and it will be a while before anyone starts getting the ability to raise the dead.”

Talia frowned. “But, then, doesn’t that mean we should wait, until it is safer, to do any of those things? If dying means actual death, then we should try to keep safe, right?”

I shook my head. It wasn’t an entirely unreasonable concept, to be sure. In fact, one could say it was only natural to fear the idea of going into combat if it meant that dying was permanent. That meant this wasn’t a game, but real life, and that was scary, especially to people who had been living a nice, safe existence before the System came.

But that was a trap, and I knew it all too well. “No, this is the time when we need to strike hardest. Yes, there is a risk of dying in combat, especially for those who are unused to fighting, but the monsters are weaker now, and disorganized. Give them time, and they’ll start to form tribes, and they’ll start spawning in stronger monsters in places. If you don’t work to level up, you’re just going to be prey for the monsters and the other players who do. And I won’t let that happen. You’re my prey, and no one else’s!”

Talia’s face grew flushed at this declaration that only I was allowed to claim her, and nodded. “Yes, Master! Where will we go, first?”

I grinned, and said, “There are twelve apartments on a floor, and five floors in this building. We’re on the third floor. We start by clearing this floor, and then work our way up. Once that’s done, we clear down to the bottom, and seal the building as best we can. Fortunately, most of the people living here are students, so there should only be about a dozen people actually in the building.”

“Not to disagree with you, Master, but why up, instead of down, first?”

I smiled at her. Good, she was starting to actually think. “Because the strongest monsters are going to concentrate on the ground floor, or in the basement. It isn’t until you get the more intelligent monsters, or some avian or insectoid ones, where you worry about what is lurking in the top floors. But I don’t want to get caught with enemies behind us when we go to take on the goblins. That would seriously ruin our day, no?”

Talia took a deep breath, and nodded. “Yes, Master, that would be bad. How do you wish us to proceed?”

I smiled at her. Good. She was scared of dying, and that was perfectly normal, but she’d put it out of her head. Well, for the moment, anyway. That was fine. If she could focus on a task at a time, instead of the big picture, then she would be quicker to acclimate to the new world. I just needed to guide her along the proper path, and I’d have a reliable subordinate. After all, I’ve already been through this once, so I could afford to look at the big picture, and plan for the future, since I knew what to do in the short term.

“We go together, and start breaking open these other apartments, looking for monsters. Any room with a monster will be marked, so we can keep an eye on it, at least until someone is able to create wards to prevent spawns inside the building. You lead, and I’ll follow. Anything that looks too dangerous, I’ll step in, but first we need to get you some combat experience.”