Curses rang out right away, guns were raised, swords were held, and bolts of fire and electricity appeared on all the mages' hands.
Two from Rissa's team had Glock 19s, then there was the pyromancer and the electromancer.
Meanwhile, Angel's team had a full group of blade users, not counting their classes and the fact that Vincent and Daniel each had guns as well.
If a fight were truly to break out, it was easy to see who would win.
Angel knew Rissa could see that, so she was very confident as she took a step forward and planted the barrel under Rissa's nose, unbothered by the two guns aimed directly at her.
"Would you like to bet on what is faster? Your nose or my brains exploding?"
Angel's eyes curved in sinister delight, grinning with laughter.
Jolts of chills traveled all over Rissa's body, and she understood that if this woman was insane, what about the leader?
Angel noticed Rissa's eyes flickering toward Vincent, and her smile instantly vanished.
"I'm not a patient person. That man is the only reason I haven't pulled the trigger, so you best take your slutty eyes away."
Angel's voice had deepened, and the danger Rissa felt increased tenfold. She reflexively stepped back. Internally, she was thankful that Angel stayed where she was.
"You're insane! Who would like a crazy bitch like you?? Let's go!"
Rissa sharply turned, briskly walking away as she struggled to maintain her composure, but her shaking hands holding her wounded ear betrayed her fears.
Her companions were confused for a moment, but after looking at each other, they ultimately turned around to follow her.
"Well, I only want one guy anyway. It can't be too hard…" Angel murmured, pouting as she resisted the urge to shoot at their feet.
When she turned back to the party, she had a cheeky smile plastered on her face. "All done~"
Vincent chuckled, giving her head a pat. "Good. Let's leave right away, but someone should keep an eye on our backs just in case. I don't trust those people."
Daniel and Jackson took that role, taking the rear.
Being extra careful when they were already cautious didn't prove to be difficult, so their journey continued as usual.
It would take them two more days to reach the university as they hunted and rested, the routine gradually becoming part of their lives.
Over the course of their journey, they would encounter:
x9 [Frost Rabbit lvl 1]
x8 [Frost Rabbit lvl 2]
x2 [Snow Fox lvl 1]
x3 [Numb Rats lvl 1]
x1 [Revenant Chihuahua lvl 2]
It totaled 410 experience points for those who didn't take the last hit.
The Snow Fox was mischievous. It had the ability to disappear into the snow without leaving any tracks, using it to ambush. Twice they had inevitably encountered it, and Vincent chose to riddle it with bullets right away.
There was a Snow Fox lvl 2 as well, but Vincent chose to avoid it.
There were still people in the party with single-digit HP. Considering how all games gave stealth attacks increased damage, he wasn't about to give it the chance to one-shot any of them.
Meanwhile, the Revenant Chihuahua had the same features as the bulldog they had first encountered—multiple limbs and insane regeneration.
But seeing it die from Theo's fire, Vincent gathered that the spider must have sacrificed its regeneration to be resistant to fire. Unfortunately, there was no way for him to confirm it.
Everyone leveled up by the end of their journey, and the [+100 mana] was the popular choice.
The clerics were now able to heal 10 times. The paladins could reduce large damage 6 times, and Theo was starting to act like a proper pyromancer—dishing out fire bolt after fire bolt.
Even though he continued to mimic a kung fu stance clumsily, for some reason, it was helping his accuracy.
Vincent was the one to discover that his mana regeneration was 20 per minute, a trait of being a mage worthy of envy.
Before he could feel bitter about it, however, the system spammed him with announcements.
[Player Level Up +1]
[Hellfire Rounds Level Up +1]
[Player Mutation in progress...]
[Searching for compatible skills…]
[Congratulations! You have survived the tutorial!]
[Zeroth's Reckoning: Prologue Completed.]
[Installing full game… Please do not resist.]
Instantly, Vincent's vision turned black.
He didn't even get the chance to feel his body falling or hear how the people around him descended into panic, frantically catching his limp body.
His consciousness seemed to have been transported into the void, and no matter how much he screamed, nothing bounced back—not even an echo.
But he wasn't asleep.
He wasn't dreaming either.
Existing and the feeling of time flowing were the only two things he was aware of.
That was why it felt like an eternity had passed before the warmth of the blanket and the howling of the blizzard came to him with a flick of the light.
Vincent groaned, and Angel froze by the door. Her finger was on the switch, eyes widened in disbelief.
"Cents…?" She dearly hoped this wasn't another of her delusions.
"Urgh, it feels like I went for a hockey session."
Angel instantly beamed. She skipped toward him and practically tackled Vincent back to bed. She had an iron grip around his waist, refusing to raise her head.
When Vincent felt her warm tears, the hand that was about to push her landed on her head instead, gently petting her.
"I'm alright. Where are the others—oh."
As soon as his blurry vision was restored, the game's HUD was in full display before him.
A front-view picture of himself, his health, mana, and experience bars were on the top left, while icons that looked very familiar to MMORPGs lined up in a row on his bottom right.
Vincent had sunk hundreds of hours into Kal Online, World of Warcraft, and Tera that he didn't need the system to tell him what they were.
They were tabs for Profile, Skills, Quests, Inventory, Map, Social, Guild, and Settings.
Vincent's breath hitched.
In his mind, he locked onto settings, and the system instantly registered his thoughts.
-----------------------------------
-Game UI-
HUD Visibility: [Enabled]
Damage Indicators: [Disabled]
Player Health Bars: [Disabled]
Enemy Health Bars: [Disabled]
Environmental Hazards: [Enabled]
Loot Indicator: [Disabled]
-Social-
Friend Requests: [Disabled]
Whispers: [Disabled]
-Game Info-
Server: Canada
Version: 5.55.55
[Quit]
-----------------------------------
Vincent's head throbbed from all the disabled settings. 'Is this the default setting…? Why is this the default setting?! Which psycho made it a standard to disable all the features?!'
The mind to question what [Quit] meant was overwhelmed by his rant. He was so angry that Angel immediately noticed his state—his chest was heaving.
"Cents?? What's going on? Wait, I'll go call Palya—"
"It's fine."
Vincent caught Angel's wrist before she could leave the bed and absentmindedly pulled her back into his embrace. He sighed in defeat as he explained what he was seeing.
"As usual, I get to blame the game developer for a bug they might not have known about. What happened after I passed out?"
Angel almost didn't hear him over the sound of her loud heartbeat. She struggled to gather her thoughts, freezing in his embrace.
"Well. You passed out." Angel nodded, the action helping her focus on her words. "The party wasn't confident enough to enter the university, so we found a place to stay for the night. We're currently in a care home."
"You guys did great. But you should be able to take care of yourselves if I'm not around. How long was I out?"
"About 21 hours."
A few hours were enough for things to go wrong, so Vincent was thankful that nothing had happened during that time.
In the large living room of the building, where residents would gather to pass the time, the party huddled around Angel's campfire.
Vincent was warned not to open the doors marked with an "X" as at the time of the outbreak, when chaos took hold over morality, the elders who needed assistance were left behind—possibly forgotten.
Whatever was behind the doors, was best avoided.
His guts twisted at the thought, even more when he found himself understanding why it had happened.
Shaking off his thoughts, he tried to recall all the notifications he saw before he passed out, and a chat box appeared on his bottom left.
He took a full breath to calm his nerves before checking what it was.
It practically had the history of all the system's notifications, and all the chat channels—local, world, guild, and party.
He managed to resist commenting on it and simply continued his inspection.
[Player Level Up +1]
-----------------------------------
Please choose a level up reward:
[+1 Chosen Attribute]
[+100 mana]
[Rejuvenation]
[+ 5% to mutation]
-----------------------------------
Vincent had so many questions.
First of all, he looked at his right hand, opened and closed it, waved it around, and confirmed that it was working properly.
'I'll accept this free Rejuvenation. You are forgiven.'
Then, his eyes landed on the last option.