Chapter 21: The First Contact

Reidar waved at his Wind Sprite. "Go inside. Scout the building and report back."The creature chittered in acknowledgment and darted toward the entrance, vanishing inside the pitch-black interior of the gas station.

Seconds later, screams broke out from within the building. High-pitched shrieks of terror mixed with deeper shouts of alarm. Then something crashed to the floor with a strong clang.

"Get away from us!"

"How did it enter?!"

"Oh God, oh God, they found us! DO SOMETHING!"

Reidar sighed and shook his head. <People. Exactly as I assumed. It didn’t make sense for the Rift-Sprites to stay around the gas station. They must have noticed these people and tried to enter.>

Luckily for them, Reidar killed the rift-sprites before they could enter and slaughter them all.

<If these guys are so scared of Rift-Sprites, there is just one conclusion I can make about their fate if that happened.>

It was likely that these people had never set foot outside the gas station in the past 10 days, which meant they didn’t fight either.

He sighed.

"Come back."

The Wind Sprite popped from the building with chittering that somehow conveyed confusion.

"Stay here with the others," Reidar ordered his summons. "Keep watch, but don’t enter unless I call for you."

He approached the gas station entrance. The screaming had stopped, but he could hear anxious whispers and shuffling movements from inside.

"Hello?" Reidar said as he reached the doorway. "I’m not here to hurt anyone. That creature was mine. I sent it to Scout."

Silence greeted his words.

"I’m coming in. I’m human, like you."

Reidar was glad he didn’t see monsters that could talk, or that could mimic human voice, because if he was one of such monsters, these people would be screwed. There was no doubt in his mind that such a creature existed.

<After all, if things can go or be bad, they will...>

Reidar stepped through the entrance. The inside of the building was darker than outside, lit only by shafts of sunlight sifting through cracks in the damaged roof.

<The electric system must have been damaged here too. Though, I doubt it survived elsewhere.>

Shelves had been barricaded across the windows. Food containers and water bottles were stacked in organized piles near the back wall.

Six people were huddled behind an overturned counter. Two of them clutched makeshift weapons, a metal pipe and what looked like a large kitchen knife.

Their looks showed the hollow-eyed exhaustion of people who had been living in constant fear for the past ten days.

Reidar couldn’t actually blame them; in fact, he was the odd one for being this calm in this terrible situation. Although he had to be strong for the sake of his family, so it wasn’t like he had a choice.

But it would be a lie if Reidar didn’t see these people as a failure. They likely had families too, and it was absurd they didn’t find the same strength he found for their sake.

<I get people might not like their family as I do, but still... Even for the sake of their own survival, they should at least have tried something.>

The group comprised an older man with graying hair, probably in his fifties. A middle-aged woman with kind eyes stood beside him. Her hands were shaking and gripping a water bottle as if it was some kind of bomb she could throw at any moment. Luckily for Reidar, it wasn’t.

There also was a young man who couldn’t have been older than twenty-two, crouching near them. He was wearing a college t-shirt, already torn and dirty.

<This guy should have come here to visit his family like me and got stuck at the gas station. >

There was also a teenage girl with dark hair pressing herself against the wall, and an elderly woman with silver hair tied in a bun who was currently sitting on a folded cardboard box. The last was another middle-aged man in a ruined business suit.

<They must have been here since the beginning, judging by their condition.>

Reidar turned around. There was plenty of food here, which gave him more reason to think these people never left the gas station.

The older man with the makeshift weapon — a simple pipe — stepped forward. "Who are you? How did you get past those monsters outside?"

"My name is Reidar Miller." He kept his hands visible and moved them slowly. "I’ve been traveling for over a week. Those creatures outside are dead."

"Dead?" The teenage girl’s voice cracked. "All of them?"

"The ones that were here, yes. I killed them."

The business-suited man laughed bitterly. "Right. Sure you did. One person against all those things."

"How?" The middle-aged woman’s voice carried desperate hope. "How did you kill them?"

"I made far too much practice for me to like. But yeah... Practice, experience. Put it as you like. Oh, and my summons, of course." Reidar nodded toward the entrance.

"Those creatures you saw—the one I sent in and the others outside—they’re working for me."

The college student stood up. "Working for you? That’s impossible. Those things are monsters."

"They’re my summons. I can create them using a skill I gained when I killed a bunch of their kind."

The six people exchanged glances. "You’re really saying you can control those creatures?"

Reidar hesitated, uncertain whether to nod or shake his head.

"Not control. Summon and give orders, but not exactly control. There’s a difference." Reidar studied their faces. "You all received the same notifications I did, right? About the Guardian System? About skills and levels?"

The older man with the pipe tightened his grip. "What are you talking about?"

Reidar stared at him. "What do you mean, what I’m talking about? The system messages. The interface. The quest notifications." He paused, studying their blank expressions.

"Those... those must have been some kind of hallucination when we woke up..." the man said.

"You can’t be serious," the other middle age man said. Reidar could do nothing but sigh at that point.

<I get that screens appearing before you in real life, not inside a computer or a phone, would be weird. But damn, they are so persistent it’s impossible to dismiss them as hallucinations! Besides, even if fake, how could one be so stupid as to completely ignore what floating message screens appearing in front of them said?>

"Look," the businessman said, "we don’t know what game you’re playing, but—"

"I’m playing no game." Reidar’s voice sharpened. "None of this is a game. We all have access to a system that tracks our progress, gives us abilities, and helps us survive. Are you seriously claiming you haven’t even tried using the system’s interface? You truly believed all that was just in your head?"

It’s not like Reidar could blame them, though. There were billions of people in the world, and by the law of large numbers, someone with that kind of idea was bound to appear. It was just that he didn’t expect them to be so close to him.

The teenage girl shifted uncomfortably. "Sometimes I think I see things. But that’s just because of the stress of being trapped in here."