"You are more than that. You have always been more than what others saw."
Edgar slowly opened his eyes and wondered why everything was so blurry. After wiping his eyes he realized that they were tears. His tears.
He sighed. He had always been overly attached to fictional characters. The one he felt the most connected to was Kratos. That must be the reason why he was crying. He always got emotional thinking of the ending of the Valhalla DLC.
"You have always been more than what others saw."
Edgar's face tightened. He was always more than what others saw. Than what he saw in himself. He had the desire and the intelligence to do what he dreamed of doing but never the confidence to do it. Never taking that leap to see if he would succeed.
Now there was nothing stopping him. Even if it meant he would be a villain to some or a hero to others. He would follow his way and remain unwavering. Whether his way stayed the same or he took in new information and updated his way of thinking he would do what he believed was right.
Getting up Edgar walked to his living room and found his mom and dad looking at the news on the TV.
As he saw them he saw that they looked slightly younger now. Not by much but his mother that was 57 looked almost to be in her late 30s with no more gray hairs anymore. His father looked just as young even though he was 10 years older than his mom.
They looked like your typical 1960s Mexican couple with how they looked but there was a certain strangeness to it as well since his mom was wearing modern clothes and his dad had a jogging outfit with Jordans on.
Looking at them he was reminded of his sister Catherine. She was out with her boyfriend the night that the magic dome happened. Since the system was given to the people that were in the domes he wondered if Catherine was also given a system or if she was outside of them when it happened.
He needed to find her soon but he wasn't sure when he would be able to get out of this dome or if that was even possible yet.
After looking around to see if they had anything the cook or eat he frowned when he didn't find anything. With all the looting and robberies that began happening after the dome appeared their food and water was going to run out at some point.
"I wonder..."
After thinking for a second he made his system store appear and he looked for food. Gaea said it could give me absolutely "anything." Hopefully food counted into that "anything."
His answer was the system screen giving him tabs that said [Snacks], [Meals], [Drinks], [Ingredients], [Recipes], [Utensils], and [Cookware]. He looked around the different tabs and it truly did appear to be endless. There were even things he hadn't seen before like [Dragon Breast] and [Chimeran Blood].
After looking in the [Meals] tab he looked for a steak and rice veggie bowl with soy sauce on the side. He loved Asian food and even though it was pretty simple it was enough to fill him up.
After getting two more meals for his parents he told them that he was going out to talk to the police. Even though they were worried for him after he came back home and explained everything that happened they had to let him continue to go out and fight. They wouldn't be able to do anything to help him. At least not now with how weak they were because of Edgar taking their magic energy to let them live.
As Edgar left his house he locked the door behind him and he saw the familiar golden glow of the house being incapable of being entered without his or his parent's permission. He purchased this from the system store when he got back home last night after finishing Quest 1.
[The Master's Quarter's has been activated. The house will be fully protected from outsiders as long as the door to the house remains locked.]
After making sure his house was protected he did some warm up stretches and began running at a fast pace towards the city where he met Officer Johnson.
His way there was eventful however. The amount of looting and crime happening was absurd. He wanted to help everyone he saw but it would only make the situation temporarily better. He needed to work with the police for a more permanent solution.
He did help some if it looked like people were going to be seriously hurt or killed however. Especially if it had what looked like a group of red hoodie wearing gangsters that seemed to be running around randomly murdering people in the street. They were calling themselves The Reapers.
After getting to Johnson's area he pulled out the walkie and pressed to talk button before saying "Officer Johnson. It's Edgar. It's that guy you almost arrested last night. I'm here to talk to the Chief?"
He waited a second to hear a response and got nothing. He repeated what he said and still nothing. Maybe he wasn't close enough for Johnson to hear him?
He decided to try to find the police station. Maybe he was there? He started moving again before having to immediately stop because of a sharp scream coming from his right. Looking over there Edgar saw a man kneeling over a woman who was trying to scream but had her mouth covered by the guy on top of her.
Without hesitating he moved to pull out the Blades but only on his left arm before throwing it at the man's back.
It reached the man in less than a second and he yanked it back pulling the man off the woman while he screwed in pain. As the man came at him he grabbed the back of his neck and stepped around the corner of the alley so the women wouldn't see this next part.
He put his hand over the man's mouth before he willed the blade in his back to ignite his body and even with the tightest grip he had on the man's mouth his scream of pain was still able to come through his palm as the man's body completely disappeared because of the heat the Blades ignited in him. Not even leaving his clothes.
After getting rid of him Edgar slowly poked his head around the corner to look at the woman on the ground. She was pretty freaked out because she was just assaulted but also saw her assaulted get yanked by something and hearing the most painful scream she'd ever heard around the corner. Made sense that she expected things to get worse since he showed his face right after.
Edgar tried to calm her down. "Hi. Um...he won't be able to hurt you anymore. I know you're probably panicking right now but I'm not going to do anything okay? I'm actually headed to the police station if you're comfortable with me taking you there?"
She didn't seem to be listening to him but when he said police station she looked directly at him and seemed to calm down a bit. She seemed to be in her late 20s with blonde hair and blue eyes. She seemed to be about 5 foot 6 inches so just a little shorter than him. She had on what he assumed was her version of some protective armor which was some foam and wood wrapped around her arms and legs.
"Why do you have foam and stuff around your limbs? Expecting zombies?" He couldn't help but giggle. While he wouldn't be surprised if he saw some as quest monsters there haven't been any at all so far outside of them.
Hearing him laugh the woman was a little embarrassed before saying "Well yeah! It's crazy out here and I didn't know what was happening so in case of zombies I put this stuff around myself like that one movie based in Korea."
Seeing how she was calmer now Edgar asked her for her name and if she wanted to go to the police station with him. Maybe they could help her with whatever she needed. After some hesitation she agreed and said her name was Samantha but she wanted some space between them. While that would slow him down if he was going to help her then he was at least going to make sure that he helped her all the way.
So now Edgar made his way at a walking pace through the city that had some people still living in their houses and most others being abandoned to stay at military outposts set up to try to fix the situation occurring in the city.
After the past night a lot of the naval bases and military outposts set up areas around the city with armed soldiers watching the entrances to them. It seemed to be very fast but that could just be from them realizing they couldn't mess around in an apocalypse level scenario.
The outposts were still quiet bare with not much food but he expected them to get more supplies the more time passed. With most of America's budget going towards it military if they weren't set up by end of this week then there was definitely something sketchy happening.
After what seemed like forever to Edgar now that he was so much faster than a car, they found the police station. "...is the station on fire?"
"...yes."
"Just making sure."
He started forward immediately while pulling out the Leviathan Axe. He burst through the door seeing the lobby covered in flames with smoke blocking his view of the ceiling. Holding his breath he focused ice into the axe blade before holding it above his head and making it burst in frost magic. It expanded to the whole ground floor with how compact he made it snuffing out the fire.
With the station being four stories tall he went up to each floor repeated the process for each one. After making sure that all the fire was out he went back out to see Samantha still outside. As he was about to tell her something his walkie started making noise.
"Edgar! Edgar are you in the area?!"
"Johnson! Yeah I'm at the station! What's going on? I found it on fire!"
"On fire! Godammit! We'll deal with that later! We need your help!"
"Yeah I'll help! Just let me know!"
After being told to head to the town center he immediately apologized to Samantha before picking her up on his back and booking it. She let out a yelp before putting her arms around his neck and tucking into his back in fear of falling off.
After a couple seconds Edgar saw a battle going on between the police and what looked like a huge group of Reapers. He saw how most of the police were using guns or fighting bare handed but so were the Reapers and some of them were actually using magical abilities. What made it even worse was that the police were losing.
Turning to Samantha he says "Hide yourself somewhere and don't come out until this is over."
She didn't hesitate to nod and move towards an empty store and locking the door behind her. Edgar hops into the fight happening and starts taking down people one at a time using the Spear. It was quite gruesome seeing his spears going into people's bodies with enough force to throw them a few feet whenever they landed but he was slowly getting used to it.
Wanting to get rid of more of them faster Edgar started throwing them in the air at a faster rate before making the ten spears he threw split in two turning into twenty. After they landed he slammed his spear down and detonated all the ones that were in the ground and were still in the dead bodies on the ground.
After seeing most of the gun wielding Reapers taken out he ran in with the Chaos Blades to cover a larger area than the Axe or Spear could. As he ran in he didn't see the police looking at him with shocked looks and some fear mixed in as well. Even though Edgar was helping them they weren't sure if he would continue to do so after the fact.
After taking out some more Reapers Edgar felt like he needed to dodge before moving away from a black blob that landed where he was just standing. He looked at where it came from and saw a guy who looked to be in his twenties with a white shirt and red reaper jacket with black pants and shoes. He had dark hair and had a shit eating grin on his face.
"You're pretty good! I haven't seen many others like you that know what they're doing. What kind of skill do you have? Your weapons look like the ones that I've seen in a video game!" He said tilting his head. "My name's Jake by the way. I'll be killing you soon."
Edgar stayed quiet while he talked because he was trying to figure out what that skill was. The material was no longer on the floor so it couldn't be a physical skill. So something more intangible? He'd need more time to study it. "My name's Edgar. You're not wrong. These are from a video game and I don't plan on dying anytime soon."
Jake grinned at that. "Everyone thinks they'll survive. I always prove them wrong."
He started the fight with another dark blob of something. They were the size of a basketball and were pretty fast.
Not fast enough though. With his body being level four and being as fast as a car he could easily outrun whatever those things were. As he moved to dodge them they started to track him. That's how they made up for speed. Thankfully he didn't get tired easily anymore or else they would be problematic.
Edgar threw a Spear at the blob and he saw it disappear and not come out the other side. So this thing ate whatever he threw at it. As he kept avoiding the blobs he threw a Spear at the blob and at Jake. Jake made to move and the blob stopped following for a second before Jake looked at him again and the blob made to follow him again.
Gotcha.
As soon as he figured it out he rushed at Jake with the Axe and purposefully made more attacks that had the Axe hitting the ground and causing frost to blast around and cover him from Jake's view.
It would be awesome if he had something like Mimir on his hip to tell him what was happening around him. Maybe he could find a skill for that?
With one more Axe hit on the ground he made sure this one had a wall of ice that covered him from view. Jake clenched his teeth and started throwing multiple blobs at the wall to make it disappear. After he did he saw Edgar just standing there with his arms crossed.
"Whats the matter? Give up already?"
Jake just saw Edgar smirk before he felt a sting across his whole neck and stood stiff. Jake saw the axe fly back to Edgar's hand before he noticed that the blade had blood on it.
His blood.
Son of a...
Jake's brain stopped working from being cut off at the neck. His body crumpled forward as his head fell backwards. He was the last one of the Reapers fighting the police but he was sure there were more in the city.
[You have killed Jake who was at Level 2! Here are your rewards!]
[Darkness Manipulation skill]
[50 coins]
Darkness Manipulation? Is that the skill that Jake had? That's pretty fucking cool actually. He lifted his hand and made a blob of darkness appear in his hand before trying to shoot it at the wall in front of him.
It was fast but not as fast as he hoped. He put more magic into another shot and it was slowly getting faster. So either Jake didn't have much magic to waste on making them faster or he liked to play with his opponents by making them run around. Not like it mattered since the skill belonged to him now.
[Skills level up the more you use them! They also get stronger the more you understand how a skill works! Use your skills as often as possible and become familiar with them to make yourself stronger!]
Oh? They didn't require exp to level up? Just usage? That made this easier. Since his magic with his weapons was based off his mind then maybe...
Every officer in the area had their attention sucked in towards Edgar but that wasn't the only thing. Every shadow around them seemed to be moving towards him. The sun itself seemed to be getting darker because of all the shadows moving in his direction. As they saw the amount of shadows moving towards him cause wind to blow, his sweater bounced around as in his hand a tennis ball sized blob of darkness had all the shadows condense into it.
And then...it just disappeared. The ball of darkness just vanished. As if it was never there. Then he turned to look at them and they couldn't help but be a little afraid of him. He was still standing in the middle of all the carnage he caused so it was hard not to be scared.
[Congratulations! Darkness Manipulation is now Level 2! It now takes less magic to activate and becomes more intuitive to use!]
Edgar smiled before yelling "Officer Johnson! I'm ready to have that talk now!"