Luke let out a groan as his body made clear to him just how much of a beating it had taken recently. Unsurprisingly, the impact after jumping from the window had only made things worse. Looking back up at where he had come from, he could easily understand why.
The window he had jumped from was easy to pick out thanks to the men hanging out searching for him. It was a fair way up from ground level. Luke was more confused about how he was still alive. Considering the height he had fallen from he didn't feel too bad. It seemed nothing was broken that hadn't been broken already.
As he checked the ground around him he immediately discovered what had softened his fall.
"Toilet paper, these must have been some of the bastards who stole all of the toilet paper," Luke swore angrily. At the beginning of the apocalypse, one of the first things to become scarce was toilet paper. Although most who had hoarded the stuff had died out. It turned out that it wasn't worth the effort, especially when things like food started to run out. It mostly just pissed everyone off.
Climbing up from the mound of TP, Luke heard shouts from up in the window. The men who had been after him had evidently realised he was still alive down below. Not wishing to wait for them to get down to him, he moved away from the building. But before that, he made sure to take a roll as he left. He figured it would help form a bandage for some of his injuries, but he also just took it out of spite.
Just a few steps after that a familiar ding rang through Luke's head. He had thought it had just been in his imagination the first time, but this time he was certain. After the fall he heard a sound. A sound he had only heard once before. One that no one who had been around on the day of the Dark Dawn would ever forget. It was the notification that everyone received about the title of their ability. Luke wasn't aware of anyone hearing the sound a second time let alone a third.
With just an instinctive thought he managed to bring up a menu in his head.
*Completion System Acquired*
*Tutorial Mode Active.*
[Through your first Special Achievement you have unlocked the Completion system. You are now on your journey as a Completionist. Before you begin given the scale of your journey, it is required that you first complete a tutorial.]
Luke was completely confused. While something had finally happened with his ability the only change was that there was now one new text box and a blurred-out menu around it. When he tried to tap on the screen he only got another line of text:
[Please Complete the Tutorial Before You Proceed]
"What tutorial?" Luke said getting annoyed quickly after being hopeful only a few moments ago. Making no progress, he decided the only trick he knew when dealing with things not working. He turned it off and on again. But sadly this gave the same result. He then tried to tap on the buttons at the bottom and top but he only got more text boxes. Although these were at least different:
[Locked]
"Great this ability is as useless as ever."
Giving up on the ability he focused on his surroundings. He searched around him to try and get some sort of clue as to where he was. But even though he felt he knew the city pretty well, having lived there most of his life, he wasn't optimistic. Even if he had been in an area before, much of the city was so disfigured it was impossible to make anything out anymore.
The area he was in didn't deviate from the norm, as only about half the buildings were still standing and even fewer looked remotely like they once had. What had caused it in this area was hard to say, whether it had been people or something else.
That was the problem with the Azure World they lived in nowadays. It wasn't just society that had broken down. Everything was now out to kill, no matter how mundane it might have been before the Dark Dawn.
It was for that reason that, while Luke was thrilled to be out of captivity, he wasn't feeling a great deal safer on the streets. There was sadly just as much here that might want him dead. That said, he still didn't fancy sticking around waiting to be thrown back into the cell or at this point probably killed.
Now limping even more after the fall, Luke decided to just put as much distance between himself and his old involuntary residence as possible.
Looking up into the sky Luke was relieved. The blue light was on its weak cycle so the group after him would be hesitant to venture in large numbers too far in the search for him, as the weak cycle was when everything got more hungry and aggressive. A risk Luke would have to face if he was to get away.
Eventually, he hoped that he would run into some sort of landmark to help him figure out where he was and guide him to where he wanted to go. However, just as quickly as this thought crossed his mind he realised he had nowhere to go, no one to go to and most importantly no reason to go anywhere. In fact, there was absolutely nothing connecting him to the world anymore. Unsurprisingly, It made him stop in his tracks.
His family was all dead, what friends he had before the Dark Dawn was gone and the only people he had come to care about since the beginning of the Azure World had betrayed him. He had no idea where to begin, as he had nothing that he ought to do.
He was shocked to find that he didn't feel bad about his lack of reason to live. Instead, he felt free to do anything he wanted. "No responsibilities..." He whispered to himself. He had a new zero and weirdly that excited him. He had felt like a slave to his responsibilities even after society had changed.
"Well, that is if I live, which doesn't seem too likely." He murmured.
Before he could take too long a moment to think it all through, he came face to face with the beady eyes of the most common creature on the streets of Azure London.
"Well I might be weak but even I can take on a stupid rat." Although he described it lightly the rat was nothing like the things that one used to see before the world changed.
It was as big as a dog and its sharpened teeth stretched out of its mouth by a fair few inches. The hair of the giant rat, like the rest of its appearance, had changed. It was now a silver colour but this one was darker as it was covered in all sorts of filth from the streets. "Come on then, I'm not going to be killed by a rat." He shouted at the creature, but it did not move. Luke soon realised why. From multiple directions, more of the giant rats lined up alongside their kin. In no time 6 stood facing him, all their glowing red eyes watching him intensely.
Luke started to kick himself. He had gotten cocky a little too quickly "Fuck, I might actually die to a bunch of rats. Maybe dying to the gang might have been better. That would have been far less embarrassing." Luke let out under his breath while looking at his opponents whom most in the Azure world would consider incredibly weak. Regrettably, it wasn't unfair to say Luke was weak as well so their numbers made his odds of victory extremely low. However, after coming this far Luke was determined not to just accept it.
"I'm at least going to take 4 of you with me. No actually 5, You hear me."
The rats inevitably didn't take any notice of his weird battle cry at all. This made Luke feel even worse, so he decided to just get on with it and just as he was about to throw himself forward.
The bell in his head rang once again.
*Tutorial 1 Start*