Life would've been as good as Hwang Sin, if not for the existence of the clock exhaling existential dread on the skies. A good apartment, with a comfy sofa, bed, high-tech fridge, a gaming console, computer…
If anything, this guy's life is of a high pedigree. A very high pedigree. It will make some money, even if he sells it at a lower price than they are worth, it still will sell for a penny. As soon as the money is deposited, it will be spent on express deliveries to get stuff in time.
Three days, with the deadline being on a Saturday, is too short of a time frame but one he has to deal with. With any money left, he brought food, lots of it. Mainly beef jerky, all kinds of canned foods, and water.
People need to pay more attention to how much food they should save for these kinds of situations, and what kind to save. Anything that is not canned or dried meat won't last or be useful. For as tasteless… or downright bad canned food taste is, it has its uses for situations of disaster or that warrant this type of desperate measures.
Right now, he got a loan from a bank, not that he has any pretension of ever paying it back, the apocalypse will make sure it never comes to pass. Sin scoffs, rolling a screen of "his" cellphone, or better, the cellphone of who this person used to be.
No games, contacts, even social media, just the cellphone number and that is it. The guy barely had a life or presence in the modern world, yet could live this comfortably… probably the child of old money.
'It is natural to think the next one got an easy life if you don't know about them.' Sin mocks in his mind, sitting on the ground to stare at the packed and ready-to-be-shipped-off furniture of the house, anything else of value that he could dispatch on the first day has already been dispatched.
Looking over the phone, with a newly installed shopping app, he judges his next course of action, as well as checking where most of his stuff will come. In special, a large and big backpack.
For the exploration sections, there is no such thing as too big, the more you can carry at once, the more you get to help in your survival. Sitting on the ground, Sin looks up. Memories about him "asking out" the teacher.
Surprisingly, or not, she accepted the offer and will come on Saturday. Yet, something pops up in his mind. In the corridors, there was a guy, with black hair, red eyes, very handsome too.
Except for his eyes, he didn't seem too important, if he was, the system would pop a screen at him… or not, given most features are locked away right now. 'Can't even see my stats and traits. Although the latter is not important, I know it is Unfettered and Defiant.'
Honestly, even if didn't acquire any trait, he wouldn't need any more than those two for the rest of his life. If that guy survives, it is good to keep an eye open for him, if he ends up with something special about himself.
If anything, recruiting survivors may be harder than it was in-game, since they are real people and real people have far lower limits than a set of codes, models, and textures in a game, no matter how realistic it is, which is something FERALR wasn't given its fantasy genre.
At least two are guaranteed, Nae and Yeoon, mediocre and bad as they respectively are in these circumstances. Despite being childish and immature, he bites his sleeve, pushing it slightly, frustrated with this situation.
This game is cruel. Lying down on the floor he takes the cellphone to watch some videos about the weather and current big events— the apocalypse will start in three days, and there should be signs of it starting already.
WIldifre skyrocketing in Amazon Forest and Australia, volcanic activities rising above the seas, earthquakes…
You don't need to be intelligent to notice that things are going to shit… "Actually… it can be very worse." Sin sits on the ground again, vision funneling on the screen as he types a very specific topic:
[Cult activities across the world.
Plague of Damnation
Sacrifices of Blood for the salvation at the world's end]
Everything bad can become infinitely worse. While the end of the world is granted at the start of FERALR, there may come many variables with it, the world ending in the flood with pirate monsters, the world ending in brimstone and fire…
People turn on each other as their demonic overlords appear, which also unlocks a unique scenario… and they are not mutually exclusive either, multiple world ending events can happen a the same time, as long as they are not mutually exclusive like brimstone&fire and the flood…
Sin swallows and dries, weighing his current options. Multiple apocalypse situations mean there is more than a Demon Lord at play most of the time, the destroyers of worlds. True World Enders with different tactics and strategies.
Each apocalypse is a preferred tactic of a Demon Lord:
[The World Ending on Fire: Azazel. Bringing hordes of monsters to conquer, slave, and burn the planet to a well-done crisp, direct, blunt, and violent end for the human race. One of the most straightforward World Enders]
If the world has to end, be it by Azazel's hands. She lacks the type of mind to manipulate and bait, forward as a bull seeing red. Fire and brimstone are not cool, but are preferable over their alternatives.
[The Flood of Ending: Leviathan. Harbinger of primordial life washes away the sins and tarnishes the existence of races it deems unworthy and evil. One of the first creatures of the universe considers humanity an existential plague]
Leviathan is one of the worst to deal with, given his preferred style of drowning everything in tidal waves. Going to the latest news, no signs of floods and the sea levels rising exponentially… but volcanic activities are.
It narrows the demon lords in this situation. Azazel, Behemoth… Typhoon. There are some options, but Behemoth and Typhoon do not differ that much from Azazel, Behemoth is a world-destroying existence that eats the planet's cores to keep on living and continuously births and sheds monsters off its skin.
Typhoon is your average "I exist to destroy" demon lord, in a way, a less interesting reskin of Azazel… even the DLCs had not done anything with him… and he is glad for that. Less planning.
It can be a severe case of red herring, and he gets Raphael, Leviathan or God forbid it if he doesn't want to smite humanity: Izanami.
The results pop on the screen:
[Cult activities rising across the globe, but thus far governments and religious authorities claim it is only a minor case of weirdos banding together, but doesn't represent any danger
Cults across the world claim that humanity is doomed, saying our evil has spread like a plague that will condemn us all to an eternity of damnation
Criminal serial killing groups are kidnapping and sacrificing people in satanic rituals to appease deities from beyond, to earn their salvation. Keep safe when exiting your home, don't go alone on dark streets and…]
Sin closes the screen, an exasperated and painful sigh leaving his mouth. The Plague of Madness is here. The workIn the Dantalion, the news used satanic instead of any other word, and there is no such thing as "coincidence" or mislabelling, not in this situation.
A World Ender bringing the power of fire and brimstone, and the Plague of Madness led by Dantalion are here. Two Demon Lords. It can be a third if the evil stars align themselves, the worst case possible? Izanami and the Plague of Death.
A plague that makes people simply die and be revived as undead, not your average skeleton but abyssal… eldritch things capable of wiping out parties even in the tutorial…
[Numbers of death today
Number of deaths in the month
Stillbirths
Natural Abortions
Maternal Death]
He types fast, his heart beating like a speaker of a heavy metal band singing live. The first sign of Izanami, the number of deaths skyrocketing unnaturally and without explanation, the number of stillbirths and maternal deaths becoming dangerously close to 80% worldwide…
If she is there, then everything will change. Dantalion, and preferably, Azazel are problems to deal with, Izanami is a sight to behold, you get out of her way and endure long enough to manage one hundred survivors.
Easier said than done in more ways than one.
[The Mother of Death: Izanami. The World Ending in eternal death, eternal peacefulness as every life joins her family in death, bringing eternal darkness and decay with her in every step]
There was only one player that beat Izanami in FERALR, UltraMantisWarrior himself. One of the most intricate and complex strategies ever executed, and executed only once by that madlad of a man.
If he still is out there, even if it is Izanami that starts the apocalypse, they have a winning chance against it.
[Deaths have been skyrocketing lately, reasons still unknown]
Sin closes the news, resisting the urge to smash the cell phone against a wall. While it has a chance of being Izanami of all things, it can be anything else too. Maybe if he got lucky, it is just a fluke on death fluctuations and has nothing to do with a World Ender.
It is wishful thought, but he wants to believe in such wishes… otherwise life will simply become too bitter to carry on. "In hindsight,m I shouldn't have sold the bed that early… the sleeping bags will only come tomorrow… well, sleeping on the ground that is."
Hindsight is 50/50, selling something as essential as a bad from the get-go is a bad strategy if you want to spend your last three days of peace comfy… but money and near-perfect preparation are needed.
A single bed won't be able to have more than three adults on it, while he can just buy several sleeping backs and use whatever cloth or soft surface remains there as a bed in the apocalypse.
Just thinking about how people will react and whine makes his stomach sick. What makes him sicker is thinking of being in a university, doing absolutely nothing while waiting for the world to crumble to dust.
There are many things to do, sitting for hours for something meaningless won't suit him. 'These final three days… I will spend away from that building, the two companions will come to me anyway, so I will make preparations.'
In a corner of the room, many wooden handles are there. Ready to be sharpened in makeshift spears. It is not the most optimal option but is the best one he can afford. Besides, normal people won't be able to make use of complex melee weapons anyway.
Guns would be better, but he can't afford to buy so many guns, especially in a place like South Korea. His hands are metaphorically tied in this situation UltraMantis Warrior and BD96 must be having a field day if they landed in their home country, stockpile guns.
While it won't be helpful given the system's disposition, he has to try, anyway. "Hey, can you tell what World Ender is the one who will act this world, besides Dantalion?"
[INFORMATION RESTRICTED UNTIL THE START OF THE TUTORIAL, ONLY DANTALION IS KNOWN TO ATTACK THIS WORLD FOR NOW]
Sin clicks his tongue in annoyance. While it can't tell what others will attack Earth because of his indecision on who will attack, it can tell Dantalion will attack because he guessed it right, and is sure of it.
Not exactly helpful, but it can become handy in the future, it won't deny the truth if is sure of it, and guesses the right choice to begin with.