Broken Anomaly

Before the sun had risen, Alex was already up, training his skill.

The trees had already crept up on the side of the building and entered the safe zone. Alex chose one and used it as a punching bag.

After half an hour, he looked at the tree trunk, realizing that only the parts he punched regularly were starting to lose their bark.

“Have trees always been this tough?” he asked himself.

He stopped punching the tree as a single barghest approached the safe zone. He took care of it swiftly, much easier than the day before, and returned to the tree, having established a routine.

Stella got up shortly after Alex, causing Marcus to also get up. Marcus went back up to the second floor to continue assembling and disassembling the few electronics he had. Stella, on the other hand, headed outside and opened up her skill window.

Mana Manipulation level 2

Mana Manipulation: Allows you to manipulate mana.

Stella had a hard time deciding what skill to get. She didn’t have a passion for anything like Marcus did, a fantasy to fulfill like Alex, or a glaring flaw to cover like Eric. None of the skills actually called to her in the same way they did to the others.

It wasn’t until she had gone through the entire skill list that she realized that magic wasn’t available. At least not in the way she had always imagined, with fireballs and wind blades.

That’s when she remembered what Eric had said about their actions affecting their skill recommendations. Maybe they did more than that, she thought. Maybe she hadn’t done enough to unlock magical skills, which is why she shifted her focus toward the skills that carried the word “mana,” ultimately choosing Mana Manipulation.

The way she used the skill was awkward. She knew that there was mana around her, but she couldn’t sense it. Eric had told her that when she got a skill, she would be able to feel it within her, but she hadn’t.

At first she thought that she was the problem, so she asked Marcus and Alex, but other than the initial rush, none of them could feel it within themselves either. The initial rush of mana was also brief, and not enough to leave a lasting impression.

Which is why she would activate the skill and move her hands randomly. Luckily, she eventually reached level two, meaning that her dumb idea took her in the right direction. She started to make plans for the future without stopping her awkward training method.

Marcus exited the building, heading toward Stella with a few people following behind, each armed in some way.

“We’re going to the generator room that was behind the gym,” he said, gesturing an arc with his finger, as if jumping the gym.

“Why? What’s there?” Stella asked, looking up at Marcus.

“Tools.”

“That’s it? What about the monsters?”

“Which is why we’re going so early. To avoid them. We’ll be back quick. Just wanted you to know.”

“Be careful,” Stella said as Marcus turned to leave.

----------------

“So, what do you plan to do with the generator?” David asked.

He was one of the people who were actively helping with the monster killing. He was exercising in the gym when the System arrived. Alex had recommended him to Marcus when he asked for help the night before.

“With the generator? I don’t know. I want the tools that are in the room. Maybe I’ll try something with the generator, but I don’t think it’ll be useful,” Marcus answered as he moved around small trees.

“Oh. Ok,” David said, also moving around small trees.

“Don’t get me wrong, I want electricity, but to do it properly, we would need more people. A team to protect it, another to keep it running. We need a shovel so we can hide the cables, and before all that, we need fuel,” Marcus explained to the seemingly dejected David.

The conversation ended with Marcus’s direct but clear response. The group consisted of five people in total, and before David asked a question, nobody was really speaking due to nervousness. And the only reason David spoke was to mask the nervousness he himself was feeling.

But it turned out that they had no reason to be nervous, as they encountered no barghest during their journey. Their journey was pretty silent, the silence only being broken by David’s complaints about the small trees that seemed to have popped out of nowhere.

---------------

Eric slowly opened his eyes. The only thing he saw was a white-tiled floor and his left arm laying on top of it. He blinked repeatedly, trying to get his bearings. He sat up, his back against the door.

“I... got to the building, then I...,” was all Eric could say. He was having difficulty thinking straight.

He just stayed there, waiting to wake up fully. When he finally did so, the first thing he did was check the two system windows before him.

Vitality +1

Vitality +1

It seems that his wounds were bad enough that recovering from them was enough to give him two stat points. He raised both his arms; a simple visual inspection quickly told him that he was not completely healed. He also realized that the pain he felt from reaching twenty total stat points in endurance was gone.

He wanted to see if he could feel any difference, so he tensed the muscles in his arm. It feels like I use less of what I have, somehow. Eric couldn’t completely understand what he felt or accurately describe what he did. He just knew he had crossed a threshold. The next thing he did was pull up his title screen.

Tireless fighter: Fighting in an exhausted state grants you a bonus to strength and constitution. The longer you fight, the greater the benefit.

“So that’s what the extra strength was all about. It didn’t feel like a great bonus, though I didn’t really fight that long,” Eric muttered to himself.

He got up from where he was sitting and took a look around. The cafeteria was being illuminated by the sunlight that entered through the glass windows.

Eric looked through the window and focused on the closest tree. He could see the leaves swaying with what he assumed was a light breeze. I wasn’t in a good condition to check yesterday, but can anyone outside, see inside? Eric asked himself. I thought dungeons would be isolated somehow.

He turned his attention back to the cafeteria itself. Beside him were some round tables with chairs. A few meters in front of him was the counter, still fully stocked. Behind the counter was a door that led to the kitchen and the storage room.

Beside the kitchen door, there was a wall that divided it and the cafeteria’s backdoor, beside that door were some stairs that led to the music room and language center. The right wall had a door in the middle that connected to an adjacent building that was used as a small art gallery.

Eric, having confirmed his surroundings, nodded to himself. He walked to the counter and grabbed some cookies. He then turned to his left and grabbed a drink that was barely cold from a fridge that was near the wall. Having gathered his meal, he walked toward the nearest table and sat, eating his cookies with zero worries.

He knew that there were monsters in the building, the System said so, but he had been passed out for hours on the floor and nothing happened.

As Eric ate, he started to think out loud. “The first floor seems intact. Some chairs are on their side, but nothing major. So, either nobody was here, or they went somewhere else,” he got up and got more cookies.

“But what about the monsters? Why didn’t they come in here?... Maybe they couldn’t,” he said to himself as he took a sip. “Whatever the situation is here, I first need a weapon.”

Eric walked behind the counter and, after some rummaging, found a kitchen knife and three pairs of scissors. He held the kitchen knife with his right hand and the pair of scissors with the longest blades with his left. He then headed to the door on the right wall.

The door led to a small hallway that veered left, extended until hitting a wall, and had an opening to the right. Eric walked carefully, making as little noise as possible.

When he reached the opening, he crouched and stuck his head out, immediately catching sight of the type of monsters that were in the dungeon—it was spiders. Big black spiders the size of an average person’s torso.

Eric had managed to see two spiders on the opposite side of the hallway wall. Both spiders seemed to be facing each other. One was exposing their back to Eric.

He stuck his head out once more, but wasn’t able to see any more spiders, or much at all. Although plenty of sunlight was entering through the glass front, the gallery had permanent exhibition walls inside that were used to display art, and they blocked most of the room.

Before entering the gallery, Eric had put his skill to work on another task out of habit, forgetting that he might need it. “Fuck it,” he whispered. He stood up, took a deep breath, took one step out and, with a half spin, stabbed the thorax of the closest spider with the knife. Then, pulling both the spider and himself closer, he stabbed its head.

Small carnivorous spider +42 experience.

The spider that was now facing Eric jumped at him, pushing him against the nearest exhibition wall. He had just enough time to cover his face, but left the knife inside the spider.

Eric used his right hand to push the spider away, avoiding being bitten by its fangs. He couldn’t fully raise his left arm as the spider’s legs pushed his arm down, but mustering as much strength as he could, he managed to stab its abdomen. It recoiled in pain, giving Eric the chance to push it off of himself.

The spider landed in front of him, and as soon as it did so, Eric stomped on its head, failing to kill on the first try, but succeeding on the fifth.

Two more spiders jumped him from his left side. He managed to dodge one, but not the other. Eric felt a piercing pain shoot through his upper left arm, as one of the spiders managed to bite him.

Eric stepped back and, as if tackling the wall, crushed the spider. The remaining spider jumped at him, only for Eric to kick it midair and then stomp on it.

Eric remained on high alert, ignoring the pain in his arm. After what he felt were a good two minutes, nothing came.

He allowed himself to relax and clutched his injury, wincing from the pain. Not having a solution for his injury, he walked toward the gallery’s main entrance. He tried to push the door open, but what he felt in response was a door that was one with the brick wall that surrounded it. No matter how much he pushed, the door wouldn’t budge. He nodded slightly, having understood more about the dungeon, and turned around.

His sight landed on a wall in the middle of the room, against which were giant egg sacs and a dead spider. “Five total spiders. Like the goblins,” Eric said in a low voice, taking a mental note.

Eric went back into the cafeteria and, with some struggle, brought a table into the gallery. He lifted it with both hands and brought it down repeatedly on the egg sacs. He wasn’t sure there was anything in the eggs, but just in case.

The System gave him an answer.

18 spiderlings +18 experience.

2 spiderlings +2 experience.

3 spiderlings +3 experience.

Having taken care of what required his immediate attention. Eric took a good look around the gallery. He realized that the only webbing he had seen in the entire room was used on the eggs.

“Did they use everything on the eggs? Is that why they didn’t use it on me?” Eric said. “Regardless, toward the next room.”