Chapter 8: The Highway Horde

Reidar used the sun to figure out which way to go and started moving through the forest. The trees and bushes hid him well, but he had to get to the road that leads to Creamont, which meant he was most likely not going to stay hidden forever.<I hope they are alive...>

A quick look at the sky also confirmed to Reidar that he had been really unconscious for 5 hours.

The others were still sleeping, though, or so he assumed. The problem was that he had no references since the only people near him were dead.

He pushed through clusters of ferns and young saplings. Everything felt more alive than it should have been, more intelligent even, as if the world’s transformation had turned everything into a supernatural monster.

<Maybe I’m not far in my guess... Maybe that is exactly what happened.>

After twenty weird minutes of walking, Reidar heard something in the distance. As he got closer, the sound resolved into something he didn’t quite expect.

Chittering. Hundreds, if not more, of voices chittering at once.

Reidar’s blood ran cold. He slowed and approached the forest edge with extreme caution. The trees thinned ahead, revealing glimpses of the highway beyond it.

He crouched behind a massive oak tree and peered through the branches. What he saw made his back freeze in fear.

The highway was filled with thousands of Rift-Sprites that were swarming the area. They moved in groups or solo. Cars lay overturned and crushed. Some had been torn apart entirely, as if their metal frames were mere toys for those beasts.

But it wasn’t the destroyed vehicles that made Reidar want to vomit. It was the bodies.

People who had been caught in their cars when the system forced them to sleep. Drivers who had crashed when unconsciousness overtook them. Passengers who had never woken up from the system’s induced slumber because something had killed them in the process.

The sprites were feeding on them.

Reidar watched in horror as the creatures tore at human remains. The feeding itself was almost ritualistic, but no doubt brutal.

Thousands of creatures feeding created the sound Reidar heard in the distance.

Reidar counted at least four different types of sprites in the swarm. Ember types with their orange eyes. Stone types with gray glazes. Aqua types with their deep blues and wind types with their sharp greens. Many of them were feeding on the humans, but most were consuming each other.

<At least they are not too strong.>


Reidar scanned the chaotic scene, his mind automatically assessing the floating identifiers above each Rift-Sprite. The highest level he spotted was five, with clusters of level threes moving through the carnage. A cold dread settled in his stomach.

Whatever this thing was, this apocalypse, it had started hours earlier, but the monsters were already several levels past the 0, which was scary.

The implication was that if these creatures were leveling at such a ferocious rate, while survivors were still reeling, still lost, still at level zero, then the future wasn’t just grim. It was hopeless.

Humanity wouldn’t be overrun; it would be systematically erased by an enemy that grew exponentially stronger every single day, or even less than that. No ordinary person stood a chance against that kind of progression.

What was worse was that such monsters were in the thousands. There were far too many to fight.

At the same time, they also represented an opportunity.

<If I could somehow kill large numbers of them, maybe my First Killer title would trigger, and I might be able to gain their skills.>

Finding his family would be tough. There was no doubt about that. But getting new skills might just be the key to making it easier. Right now, he only knew one way to get them—through his First Killer title, although he assumed there had to be more ways to do that.

<How can I kill thousands of creatures at once?>

The only answer that came to mind was bombs.

<Right. The gas station. If I could lure the sprites back there and make the fuel tanks explode, the blast might take out thousands of them.>

It looked like a feasible idea. The only problem was that he needed to deal with the sprites that were already at the gas station, as he would need to prepare the place in order for the plan to work.

He paused for a second. Seeing all those creatures made him recall something from his status screen. A trait. Something he noticed but did not investigate.

<Skill Sharing. I think it’s easy to figure out what it does, but... It’s actually more important to understand what traits are rather than what mine does since it’s pretty obvious.>

Reidar focused on the Guardian System menu and navigated to the Help function. The writing space appeared.

"What are traits?"

—[«TRAIT SYSTEM EXPLANATION»]—

Traits are rare, innate talents that let individuals bend the rules of the Guardian System. Unlike skills or proficiencies, traits reflect a person’s core personality, deepest desires, and fundamental nature. They manifest based on an individual’s psychological makeup and life experiences, although is also possible to get other traits.

These unique abilities are exceedingly rare. Most survivors never develop one. Those who do will gain significant advantages in survival and progression.

—[«END»]—

Reidar read the information again. Based on what the system itself said, his trait was tied to his personality and desires.

<Skill Sharing, uh? I wonder what kind of personality trait or desire made me get such a power so heavily relying on other people.>

Though the more he thought about himself, and the more the trait started to make sense.

He had always been the type to help others without hesitation, ever since his school days when he’d patiently explain math problems to struggling classmates.

He shared knowledge and resources freely, believing that lifting others up only strengthened the community as a whole.

Even in his business, he treated partnerships as true partnerships rather than transactions, ensuring everyone benefited fairly.

At home, he considered all that was his as if it also belonged to Martha and Marcus—his successes were their successes, his comforts their comforts.

He extended this same open-handed philosophy to his parents, always making sure they had whatever they needed, whether it was help with household repairs or simply his time and attention.

The trait made perfect sense from this point of view.

<Having a power like this in a world where probably I will be taken advantage of is really strange. I get that I used to help people a lot, and that the system probably picked up on that and turned it into this Skill Sharing thing. It makes sense. But isn’t it a little bit dangerous now?>

But what did Skill Sharing actually do? The name gave a hint, but it was always better to be certain of something rather than trust only vague names that might be betraying. He needed more specific information.

"Show me details for the Skill Sharing trait."

—[« Skill Sharing »]—

Origin: [Innate]

Type: Active

Duration: 30 minutes per skill per target.

[Mana Mechanism ]

Upkeep: 10 Mana per target per shared skill.

[ Description ]

Allows the bearer to share learned skills with willing allies and, under specific conditions, with enemies. While active, you can lend an ally a skill he or she can use as if it were their own, with its effectiveness determined by their own Mana. You pay a set amount of mana for each skill shared with each target.

Effects:

Can temporarily grant known skills to allies. Proficiency will start at 0%. If the borrower reaches 100% proficiency, the skill can be learned permanently.

The caster can share skills at his or her same proficiency, but there is no chance of getting the skill permanently in this case.

Shared skills use the borrower’s mana pool.

Limitations:

The bearer must have learned the skill before sharing it and have reached at least 50% proficiency in it.

Recipients must be willing to receive shared skills.

Sharing skills consumes mana per target and per skill.

—[« END »]—

Reidar stared at the information. The trait was powerful, but it required him to have skills first and, most importantly, to not be alone; otherwise, the trait would be useless.

<Right now I’m actually alone.>

He paused. <Now, my First Killer title would give me a chance to learn skills from defeated enemies, but with only a 0.5% chance per kill. Albeit it is still better than nothing. I also have a way to speed up my proficiency gain, but I don’t know how fast that would be, and it needs testing.>

He looked back at the highway. Thousands of sprites meant thousands of opportunities to trigger his First Killer title.

The scene of so much death made his choice clearer. He had to act. Not only for the rewards but also because watching this senseless killing was too much to bear.

Besides, if there was a town nearby, all those monsters would inevitably go there. The best thing would be to get rid of at least a portion of them.

The plan was risky. He would have to kill the sprites at the gas station, set up some kind of inflammable liquid, and then set everything on fire.

The explosion of the smaller tank would make the big one go kaboom, and that would kill the monsters. Hopefully. The problem was that he needed to figure out how to lure thousands of creatures into the blast radius.

Reidar gripped his mop handle tighter and began moving back through the forest toward the gas station.