Arcane Apocalypse

12 – Coerced or Convinced?

“You alright?” Mark asked, concern creasing his bushy brows.

“No,” Mia said with a mirthless chuckle. Her eyes were still bloodshot, and she still felt awful. “I’m not anywhere close to alright.”

“Huh,” Mark stared awkwardly as she ambled over to the fridge.

“And all my fucking beer is gone too,” Mia grumbled. “Fuck this day.”

“I’d drink to that,” Mark said.

“We only have that pisswater you call a beer, so I’d rather not.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Mia flopped over the couch and hugged her legs to her chest with a sigh. The banter lightened her mood some, but she still felt vile.

“Sooooo,” Mark started after a few seconds of Mia quietly lying face-down on the couch. “I think I might join Jeff's monster killing brigade.”

“Why are you up here then and not down there licking his toes?” Mia mumbled without moving, a second bout of self loathing threatening to punch her in the gut just when she was starting to feel a bit better.

“Ain’t no way I’m fighting monsters without a Class,” he said. “And I’m sure as hell going to get the best possible Spellblade Class I can.”

“Cool,” Mia shrugged, turning her head to face Mark. “Are you going to max out your base stats? That’s going to take forever.”

“Base stats?” Mark frowned. “Like from level ups?”

“No,” Mia blinked, then sat up quickly. “You can get stats just by training them. It has an upper cap beyond which only Free Attribute Points can increase them, but before that it's basically a bunch of free stats if you work for them.”

“Where did you see this?” Mark asked in a hurry, an excited glimmer flashing in his eyes. 

“In the Ancestry tab, under ‘Racial Characteristics’,” Mia said. “I think. Should show up if you focus hard enough on your race.”

“Damn,” Mark said, going cross-eyed. “That Title sure is helpful.”

“What Title? What are you talking about?” 

“You didn’t check your Titles,” Mark stated, his eyes focusing just to give her a disappointed teacher look. “You must have seen the title work a dozen times but never bothered to check what it actually does?”

“It’s not my fault, okay? This damned system has so many windows and different tabs.”

“Well, you should check it out,” he said. “That thing is a godsent. It's the closest thing we have to a dumb isekai cheat.”

***

[Titles]

{Newcomer} — The System’s reach is vast, and yet the world beyond it is even vaster. You come from a world from this great beyond. Let this Title be your guiding light when you feel most lost.

• Increased System assistance.

• Access to an Introductory System Questline.

• Grade 1 System Authority: Viewer access to general System Logs and notifications.

This Title will disappear when the first Realm Event you participate in ends.

***

“I have even more questions now,” Mia grumbled. “Great.”

“It is what it is,” Mark shrugged, his gaze fixed on the air before him. “Say, what are your max base stats?”

“Why?” Mia asked, mostly because she didn’t want to bother dictating it all down.

“To compare?” He asked. “Mine look … suspiciously good.”

“How about you tell me what you have and I tell you how it compares to mine?” Mia asked, then threw her legs over the side of the sofa and flopped on her back.

“Fine,” Mark said. “In Body I have eights for agility and flexibility while strength is at fifteen. In Mind all three are at twelve and every Spirit sub-stat is at ten.”

“Well, suppose that’s good,” Mia said evenly. He trounced her in strength and all three mental stats, but Mia thought having stats that strengthened her magic would be much more beneficial than thinking just a bit faster or something. 

With a shrug, she listed out her own stats.

“That’s bullshit,” Mark said eloquently. “That is total cow shit. Stupid magical genetic lottery, I should have become an elf too. Or maybe a Vampire … damn, that would have been cool. Flying around as a flock of bats and stalking the night for prey.”

“You’d make a lousy Vampire,” Mia chuckled. “Aren’t they supposed to take virgin maidens off their feet with their ethereal charm? Couldn’t be you.”

“Sod off,” Mark huffed, fists on his hips as he glared at her. He was tiny though, even when Mia was sitting down. Was this how people saw me all my life? “Still sucks. All I got was being a midget and being a rock empath.”

“Though luck,” Mia murmured. “Did you get strange instincts, by the way? Like, do you get a sudden urge to dig up a hole and start mining or something?”

“Why?” Mark asked. “Are you having trouble not humping trees or something?”

“One, gross,” Mia said, not even having to fake being scandalised. “Two, no. But I am getting an impulse to smack dwarves in the head with a bat.”

“Crazy treefucker genetics,” Mark nodded sagely. “Must be. Do try to control yourself. I like our potted plants, unmolested as they are.”

Mia threw a pillow at him.

“On a more serious note,” Mark said after chucking the pillow back at her face. “I sometimes get strange feelings when touching metal and stone. Like I almost felt my sledgehammer's sadness as it melted and there was this one pebble I was sure was mocking me behind my back.”

“Uh-uh,” Mia gave him a strange look. “Okay, that’s much weirder than anything I felt. I just sometimes got strange flares of anger or pride, but nothing quite like you described.”

“Have you tried touching plants?” Mark asked with a thoughtful frown. “Elves are supposed to be in tune with nature and stuff. Talk with trees, befriend mushrooms and play with deer, you know?”

“I’m not really an elf, though,” Mia retorted without thinking. “I’m a Halv- Oh, there it is again.”

“You don’t like being called an elf?” Mark raised a brow.

Mia shook her head helplessly. “It somehow feels almost … derogatory? I don’t know.”

“But elves are an actual thing, right?”

“They are,” Mia shrugged. “My racial description mentions them. Where I am a half-fae, elves are the lesser cousins of the Fae. Or lesser descendant? Something like that.”

Mark caressed his beard with a hum. “Well, I guess you have a genetically inherited stick up your ass. Could be worse. Imagine if you couldn’t eat meat anymore, that’d suck a thousand times more.”

Mia froze, her eyes flying wide open. She jumped to her feet and basically launched herself at the fridge. Grabbing the first piece of meat, a dry chicken nugget, she squinted at in suspiciously.

Mia loved meat. Okay, again, that came out wrong. Mia had a taste for meat-based food. There.

Anyway, she didn’t feel anything strange even as she sniffed the nugget. It seemed it had been a false alert. There was one little thing, though. Mia didn’t feel like eating it, and when she thought of eating, her eyes gravitated towards the vegetables.

Nope. Must be something else. Just to make sure, she threw the nugget in her mouth. It was dry, barely tasted like anything, and the spongy texture felt wrong in all sorts of ways.

In short, it tasted like shit. Like sundried cardboard spiced up by some boiled garbage.

But she also remembered eating this very same type of nugget with relish just days before. I knew it was too good to be true. A pink hairdo wouldn’t have been a fair compensation for magic. They had to take meat away from me and force me to eat grass to make it a fair trade. I just knew it. 

“I hate you,” Mia said listlessly as she slumped over the sofa like a dead fish, mourning the loss of her normal taste buds that could enjoy meat. “Magic for meat.”

I’ll live for five centuries. Five centuries that I’m going to spend nibbling on carrots and grass. Fuck.

Mark snorted. She turned and glared at him, which made him break out in laughter. Meanwhile, Mia made a silent prayer. Please, almighty system, make this stupid dwarf have a diet of rocks and stone.

Maybe it was the messenger blindsiding her with his knocking just an hour ago, but Mia perked up seconds before a set of heavy footsteps reached their door.

When they stopped, she tensed up and turned to stare at the door.

“Visitors? Again?” Mark grumbled, as he probably saw her focus on the door like a bloodhound.

Then came a loud set of knocks. Mia tiptoed up to the door and glanced through the tiny peek-hole. She almost jumped away like a cat drenched in water when she saw Jeff standing on the other side.

Mia sent an imploring look to Mark, who got up with a confused look and went to open the door. Mia took the opportunity to scuttle away and sit back on the sofa, out of sight of anyone standing in the door.

“Who is it- Oh,” Mark started as he opened the door, glaring up at whoever stood there. He continued in a much more nervous tone. “Hi, Jeff.”

“Can I come in?” The demonic man asked.

Mark glanced at her and she just returned a nervous shrug. Slamming the door in the face of their up-and-coming warlord while he was being nice didn’t feel like a decision conducive to staying healthy.

“I guess.” Mark made an effort to appear relaxed, but Mia’s ears caught his thundering heartbeat. “Come in.”

The man did, his heavy footsteps rumbling in Mia’s ears. Somehow, she could tell that while she’d gotten lighter with the awakening, Jeff became much heavier than he was before.

“Maria,” Jeff greeted and Mia made eye contact with him for a moment and gave a quick wave before returning to staring out through a tiny gap between the boards nailed against the window frame.

She’d refrained from looking outside too much since the bird incident. For all she knew, the monsters knew when someone watched them and would come knocking.

Or I’m just a coward.

“Well, I have things to do so let’s get this over with quickly,” Jeff said, carefully lowering himself onto one of the intact chairs. It creaked dangerously. “Maria, you mentioned having filled up a bathtub with water. Do I remember that right?”

“That was Mark,” Mia said, glancing over at the dwarf. “But yes. We barely used up any of it.”

“Yeah,” Mark nodded, arms crossed as he stared up at the giant form of Jeff.

“Well, that is probably the second largest store of water in the entire building after mine,” Jeff said. “I think we can set up something to collect the rainwater in a week, but you understand that if we don’t want anyone to die of thirst, we’ll have to share, right?”

“So you came to take our water?” Mark asked, visibly tensing. 

Mia said nothing. Jeff unnerved her, especially in his new form. He was a gigantic mass of muscles, but that wasn’t it. 

There were others who got magical steroids from the awakening, but they didn’t give her the creeps. Was it the mind magic? Did she feel it in him even before he used it? Or was it something else?

Mia closed her eyes for a moment as the two men no doubt had an intense stare-down. The world dimmed around her, sight going first, then smell and taste as she focused on her hearing, her most reliable sense of late.

Mark’s heartbeat was erratic, like the beat of a novice drummer. It was loud and thunderous compared to Mia’s own, but it was nothing compared to Jeff’s.

The larger man’s heart beat like a pendulum, a single beat every second that Mia could feel resonate in the back of her skull. It was slow, calm, and not a single beat was out of rhythm.

Mia gasped as her eyes flew open. She quickly snapped her mouth shut before they noticed her shock. The sounds faded, dimming into distant echoes, but she could still feel the rhythm of Jeff’s heart in her bones.

Whatever that man had become, Mia was right to be terrified of. 

“Yes,” Jeff said. “People know you have water. What do you think will happen when their children start showing signs of dehydration?”

“Why do f-“ Mark stopped halfway through as she glared at him. Even though she agreed with him entirely. The only reason others knew of their water storage was because Jeff let them know. “Fine. But leave us a fifth of it at least, if others didn’t run around like headless chickens and did as I had, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

“I can agree to that,” Jeff said. “With that out of the way, I wanted to ask why neither of you stayed behind. Especially you Maria, I heard you almost killed one of the birds by yourself.”

The giant’s gaze settled on Mia like a physical weight. Her heart sped up as breathing grew harder.

“I almost died,” Mia said, her eyes darting up to glance at Jeff. He was stoic and cold, most statues had more expressive facial expressions than him. 

Mia hugged her knees and clutched her hands to stop them from shaking. 

“I see,” he said, not unkindly. “And you Mark? I heard you finished off the monster.”

“I’m not going out to fight with a subpar class,” the dwarf shrugged, though Mia could tell his heart was racing still despite the calmness he projected. “And I’m certainly not going to wrestle with those things without a Class.”

“I see,” Jeff repeated. “But you will? Once you have a Class?”

“Yes,” Mark said, sounding guarded. “I plan to.”

“Good,” the man said, seemingly not noticing how tense the dwarf was. “I would not force anyone to fight with their lives on the line, but we need everyone who is willing and able. Those things are multiplying by the day.”

“That said,” he continued, and Mia felt his gaze settle on her. “We are in dire need of ranged fighters, especially ones that can down the birds. From the damage that bird’s corpse showed, I am assuming you are one, correct?”

Mia shrugged half-heartedly. 

“First of all, I won’t force you,” he said. “But it would probably save more than one life if you helped. For example the people out in the garden or on the rooftop would need people to protect them from the birds.”

Well, countless people were already monster chow. Even if Mia didn’t pay too much attention to it, some screams made it to her ears, even if she didn’t want them to. The distant echoes of gunshots were also unmistakable to someone who’d been to the firing range. Mia remembered, even if the last time she’d been to one was with her … male biological progenitor — she refused to call him a parent — back when she was just twelve.

He is trying to guilt-trip me into fighting. Mia found it deplorable, especially since it was partially working. Made worse by her knowledge that her mother might very well be among the people who would die because of her inaction. 

“Mhmm, sure looks like you are not trying to force her,” Mark noted. “Maybe beat her up a bit too, just to make sure she understood how free her choice is?”

Idiot. Mia stared at him, eyes wide in shock. The dwarf's heart was beating a thousand miles every second, but he still glared up at Jeff. 

“That was not my intention,” Jeff said with a deep frown on his face. “I truly didn’t want to push … I suppose it doesn’t matter. If you are afraid of getting hurt as a result of fighting, and you truly have ranged attacks, you could operate out of the barred ground and first floor windows.”

Mia bit her lips, forcing herself to hold Jeff’s gaze for a few moments. It was in vain. The man had the eyes of a dead fish. That was new, too. 

Those tiny bars wouldn’t hold against anything too big. Mia considered it deeply. The urge to just nod and go along with the recommendation was strong, to just get out of this stressful situation as quickly as possible. 

Luckily, a handful of job interviews made Mia more than aware that she had a tendency to make bad choices when those bad choices promised to get her out of stressful situations, just like this one.

Calm down and think. Was it a safe option? Not really. Did it her own idea of training stats until she dropped dead? Maybe. It’s safer than any other form of fighting. Maybe I could even farm a bunch of levels just by sniping monsters on the street from first-floor windows. An Arcane Blast should take out anything that doesn’t have damned metal feathers.

“I guess that sounds good?” Mia said, tilting her head at the end. Did it really? No. But knowing that bars of metal as thick as her wrist would stand between her and the monsters did wonders to her terror at facing down another monster.

“So you do have ranged attacks?” Jeff pressed, and Mia saw Mark puffing himself up to tell the man to sod off.

“Yes,” she said, standing up and placing a calming palm on the dwarf’s shoulder. “I have projectiles that explode on contact. Nothing crazy, and I can shoot ten of them at most before needing to wait to recharge.”

Well, she guessed she could do a little over twice that, but she was understandably distrustful. 

“Perfect,” Jeff nodded and stood up. He was at eye level to Mia when he was sitting down, but standing up, he towered over her like a true giant. “I’ll be down on the ground floor. Come down as soon as you can and I’ll find you a nice spot. I want to get a simple garden started as soon as possible, you will be protecting the workers from adventurous birds.”

“Okay,” Mia said.

“Good, I’ll see you later.” With a last nod, he turned and strode out of the apartment, closing the door behind him with a gentle snap.

“What an asshole,” Mark grumbled while Mia paid attention to Jeff’s footsteps fading into the distance. “I don’t know what sort of a goat-fuck he turned into, but he is worse than he was as a human.”

“He is weird,” Mia murmured before slumping back onto the couch. That interaction drained two weeks’ worth of her social energies. “I think the system fucked with his emotions, his heartbeat didn’t as much as stutter once. He was eerily calm throughout the entire meeting.”

“Great,” Mark huffed. “We have a real psychopath for our ‘leader’. Fucking fantastic.”

Mia made a noncommittal sound as her thoughts drifted back to the conversation. She already regretted agreeing. I swear my brain cells take a vacation whenever my blood pressure jumps too high.

Well, there was nothing to it. She agreed. The only thing worse than going and doing it would be to renege on the agreement. Fuck me. 

“Are you sure about this?” Mark asked. “You didn’t look like you wanted to agree with that bastard.”

“I’m not,” Mia shrugged, looking out through the window crack. “But I have to get stronger. This is a good thing. I can farm monsters from relative safety.”

“I’d be less worried if you sounded like you actually believed that.”

Mia glared at him. Stupid dwarf. Her gaze softened after a moment, and she let out a sigh. The silly dwarf stood up to Jeff for her. If she was into men, she was sure she’d be swooning right about now.

Still, she could appreciate the gesture, and she wouldn’t forget it. Especially since she wasn’t sure she would have had the courage to do the same for him.

“I’ll manage,” she said with a fragile smile, trying to smother the sudden flare of guilt. “Hopefully nothing worse crawls out of a Rift than what we saw already.”