"Huh?" Is all that Aaron was able to say.
Cecilia stared at him, waiting for his reply.
"You can't be serious, right? You want me to check every room in 30 four storey buildings for people and bring them back here by the end of today?" He asked to clarify.
"Yes, that's right. Can you do it?" She asked again.
"Are you insane? That's over 10,000 rooms total. And are you forgetting that I'd have to convince them to leave their rooms in the first place? Tha alone would take over a day. And if almost everyone in there didn't turn into a zombie, I'd have to protect thousands of students on the way here.
Even if it were only a few hundred, protecting that many non combatants would be impossible on my own." He said, looking at her with a serious face.
"That's only if everyone was still in their dorms, which isn't possible considering everything happened at noon, most of the rooms will be empty. With the speed you displayed before, it'd be possible, and that was before you went on your hunting spree. But you're right, protecting them would be an issue." Cecilia said with a contemplative face.
"Can't we just go get them tonight? Or first thing tomorrow morning? It'd be much easier to protect them with more people." Alex said
" Alright we'll go there tonight." Cecilia said with a sigh.
'That'll be almost 2 days without proper meals, let's hope they're okay." She thought.
"Can I talk to you in private?" She asked Aaron.
"Uh...sure" He replied.
Cecilia started walking towards the door. Aaron put his things back into the system and follows her.
Outside, they walked a bit further from the gymnasium building and finally stopped near another building.
"There aren't any zombies infront of the gymnasium?" Aaron asked.
"We assigned a team for clearing them out before too many of them gather." Cecilia replied.
They sat on a staircase leading to a building.
"I see. Alright here we are, what'd you wanna talk about?" Aaron asked
She turned to stare at him and asked.
"How do I get stronger?".
"Huh? Isn't that a given? You kill monsters" He replied.
"I know that, but I mean how to get really strong. I can kill monsters at my own level no problem, but fighting higher leveled ones would be a problem, let alone killing them.
I need to get stronger. Especially if we're going to venture outside the campus grounds, my current level isn't enough." She said, still staring at him.
"I see. Honestly the only things I can do to help you is weaken a monster with a higher level than you and let you kill it. I could fight at a higher level from the start." Aaron said.
'The only reason I'm capable of doing that is my tittle, without that, I'd probably be in the same situation. I guess it's not as average as I assumed.' He thought.
'Sigh'
Aaron brought all the orbs he'd yet to open out.
"Well in return, how about helping me sort these item out." He said.
"Sure" Cecilia replied.
"What's your level?" Aaron asked Cecilia while they each grabbed an orb and crushed them
"Level 3." She said while grabbing a the light that turned into a simple black hoop earring.
"And your only offensive skill is level 2?" He asked again while putting down the dagger in his hand and grabbed the last orb.
"Yes. It's a skill that makes the blade ot the weapon I'm holding sharper." Cecilia explained.
"Do you want to go down the path of a warrior or would you like to become a mage?" Aaron asked.
Cecilia tightened her grip on her spear.
"I'm staying a warrior." She said with resolve.
"I see." Aaron said while grabbing the light from the orb.
"Well would look at that, looks like fate agrees with you." He said while looking at the basic spear in his hand with a smile.
__
ITEM: Swift Spear
LEVEL: (Classless) level 4
DURABILITY: 10/10
[A simple heavy spear that boosts its weilders SPEED stat by 10.]
REQUIREMENTS: None
__
"Here." Cecilia tossed the earring in her hand towards him.
Aaron caught it, and seemed to stare off into space. A few seconds later, he smiled seemingly satisfied.
He tossed the spear towards Cecilia and punctured a hole in his ear using the earring ignoring the blood that dripped from it.
"Why are you giving this to me? It's a good weapon?" Cecilia asked.
"I'm not a spearman, plus you need a better weapon than that if you want to fight level 4 monsters." He said while turning to walk back to the gymnasium.
"What's your other skill?" Aaron asked while walking.
"Teleportation within a 10 metre radius" Cecilia said while following him back.
'Just as I thought. Probably drains a lot of MANA though, it'll be a nightmare to fight her once her stats increase.' Aaron thought.
When they finally returned to the gymnasium, Cecilia ordered every member of the search party to gather outside in the same format as before. With a bit more people of course.
"There are 2 places to raid today, but time is on our side. Don't let your guards down and don't panic. Keep your eyes peeled. Move out!" She ordered.
Within the formation Aaron walked towards Dave who was in the middle.
"Turns out I do have something for you." He said while giving him the green dagger he got earlier.
Dave took the dagger and his eyes almost popped out of his head when he held it.
__
ITEM: Wolf's Tooth
LEVEL: (Classless) level 4
DURABILITY: 10/10
[A simple dagger that boosts its weilders SPEED stat by 8]
REQUIREMENTS: None
__
"Its not as good as the spear I gave to Cecilia, but its better than being an assassin with a knife" Aaron said while looking at the knife in Dave's hand.
"That's fine. It's a good weapon, but are you sure you want to give it to me? I'm not giving it back you know." Dave asked with a smile.
Aaron just shrugged and clenched his fists.
"These babies are all I need." He said.
'Since it looks like using weapons will only reduce my power output due to not being affected by Child Of Fire, I'll just use my hands.' Aaron thought.
"I see. Then thanks." Dave said.
Aaron nodded.
'None of the skills I got earlier suit me, but I can still make due with my current skills.' He thought.
The group kept moving, encountering a few groups of zombies along the way but nothing major.
They reached their first destination withing am hour, record time considering it was further away than the Café was.
They had discovered 2 people with collection abilities from those who joined last night. Allowing the to carry more supplies with them so they didn't need to head back, thus they immediately moved to the next location as soon as they finished loading the supplies.
On their way there suddenly stopped. And looked towards their left where there was nothing but an open field and squinted his eyes.
Seeing this, Cecilia ordered everyone to stop.
"What is it?" She asked following his line of sight.
"There's something there" He said.
Cecilia focused more on where he was looking, and thats when she saw it. There in the field, the grass had a long depression that seemed to stretch for over twenty metres and about four meters in width.
"A serpentine monster." Cecilia said in realization.
Aaron nodded, still keeping his eyes fixed on the depression in the grass.
"During our journey to the gymnasium on the day all this happened. We encountered a level 2 snake like monster that could turn invisible, this allowed it to escape back then. This is probably the same snake, and it got a lot bigger since then." Aaron said without moving his eyes.
Seeing that it had been discovered, the monster deactivated its ability. It had planned to slowly make its way towards their group unnoticed and attack once it got within rage, but stopped once one of the humans turned in its direction.
The people in the group, finally saw the monser when it undid its invisibility and were at a loos for words, some even dropping to their knees.
Twenty five metres in length, five metres in width, red colored scales with a few green in between. The serpent's tongue continuously flickered in and out of its mouth.
HISSSS!!
The beast released a loud hiss that seemed to have a fear inducing effect on those who hear it, as almost everyone was frozen stiff, too afraid to even breathe when they heard it.
Only a few were able to withstand it. Namely Aaron, Cecilia, Alex, Dave and a few others. But even they were having a hard time.
"That thing is definitely not a level 4." Aaron said with cold sweat running down his spine.
And everyone who could still move nodded.
"Expect a few deaths, Cecilia. All those with defensive abilities, use them now." He said while walking towards the serpent.
"IGNITION!"