Chapter 7 - “Nominal” Rank

  "At the time of System Integration, there were six corruption levels: Negligible, Minor, Nominal, Major, Severe, and Critical. Each had three tiers, which represented jumps in monster level and ambient corruption, and while anyone could technically go into any zone, those with insufficient levels would begin to take on corruption until they died of corruption poisoning. There were reports in the early days about a level ten entering a Critical zone and expiring immediately."

  - A lecture on the turn of the calender.

  Solis spent his watch more than a little exhausted. Sleep had eluded him the day before, and the mental toll of running for his life through a monster nest had finally caught up to him. He attempted to read the bestiary along with some note-taking of his own, but found his mind completely unwilling to cooperate.

  On the third hour of his watch, Solis found he had to pace to stay awake, and on the fourth, he resorted to pulsing [Resonance] at tenth-second intervals to let its cold shock wake him.

  Halfway through the fourth hour, Ira stood up, grabbed Solis by the shoulder, and dragged him back towards the group before gently pushing him down. She stole the notebook, wrote 'Stop pacing. God, help everyone stop. Noisy. Sleep.'

  Solis didn't need to be told twice. He was out in an instant.

  —

  Mana: 251/1866

  The first thing Solis did when he woke up was check his mana, and he back-calculated how long he had been asleep. A full eight hours. A small seed of worry began to grow, but when the young man looked around and saw everyone else awake, he relaxed.

  To the side of him, drawing in loose dirt, sat Annalise. The drawings were the same as before. Decapitated monsters.

  'Poor girl,' Solis thought.

  He didn't need to be told what had happened to the Russian couple or the two kids. The tale had become common enough. The details, reasonings, and feelings afterwards were all different, but at its core, it boiled down to one thing. Everyone lost someone important to them. The last time Solis had access to the internet, the death toll was estimated at around half a billion people.

  It wasn’t a number he could wrap his head around.

  A dread filled him as he remembered it, and he just stared up at the ceiling. He really hoped the world would survive. That human resilience would win out, and there’d be a world to thrive in, not just remnants and broken cities. He wanted homes and movies and markets and people laughing.

  Solis stared at his [User Sheet]. So many numbers. There was a lot of math involved. Not complex math, usually, but enough that it’d be hard to get by without it. Math was a taught skill; people didn't just know how to do it. There may be instincts and general logic to it, but it wasn't innate to people.

  So, who would teach it now?

  There were no more schools. All of human knowledge, all the engineering, medicine, arts, and complex sciences might be gone in a generation.

  The dread he felt at that was like looking through a monster's teeth to its throat and realizing you were about to become food dissolved in its stomach.

  Best not to dwell on it.

  He decided he could think more about it when he had solutions, but right now, he was just moping.

  Rolling to his side, Solis rumaged through his pack and pulled out some colored pencils. Flipping through to the back of his notebook, he tore out a couple of pages and handed both to the girl. She looked up at him wide-eyed before hesitantly accepting.

  She pressed the paper on the floor, found she didn't like how the rocks pressed into the page, and moved to the side. A frustrated scowl grew on her directed at the ground, as the very earth had insulted her.

  Solis couldn't help but laugh. Shaking his head, he walked over and held out his notebook. He singled out the last couple of pages and did his best to convey that she should draw only from the last three pages. If she understood, Solis didn't know, although he supposed he'd find out later when he went to reclaim it.

  Shortly after, Samir waved Solis over. Ira and Dimitri were already there.

  "Come join us, we wanted to talk about next steps. Dimitri says the only non-dead end was the tunnel you collapsed. We’ve explored the rest, so that leaves us going further down."

  “Is there a reason you haven’t yet?” Solis questioned.

  “The passageways are harder to explore, the corruption level also rises the further we go down. We stopped when it got to Minor Tier II.”

  Dimitri said something to Ira, who wrote it down on a piece of paper and showed both Solis and Samir.

  “What skills or class do you have?” it read.

  Solis began explaining to Samir, while he wrote something down to the same effect on the paper.

  “I’m a kind of control mage. In my old group, before we got separated, I made most the plans. [Simulate] lets me see outcomes I otherwise might not have and [Mana Manipulation] gives me some control of our environment.”

  To demonstrate, Solis created a smooth, flat section of stone to use as a writing surface so that it wasn’t just sharp ground.

  “I’ve made small bridges, supports, and shelters with it too.”

  Dimitri stared at the flat ground, seemingly confused. Ira retrieved the paper, read it, and then translated for her husband, who gave a firm nod.

  “Dimitri has scout skills, “Samir explained. “He was in an accident years ago, and his hip was never the same. It somehow healed after the teleport, so he’s looking to shift his skills to keep monsters' attention. Just needs to get to rank ten so he can turn his current ones into [Personal Skills] and get his [Enhancement Points] back.”

  “So, like a tank?” Solis nodded.

  “Uhh. Yes, I suppose. A tank.” Samir said the words through a frown, the term somewhat foreign in that context.

  Solis didn’t really want to talk through Samir all the time, so he wrote his question for Ira on a sheet of paper.

  “What do you do? Skills wise?”

  She knew the word in English, and she smiled slightly, “Boxer.”

  Solis returned the smile, always having found the expression contagious. “So, what’s the plan?”

  That's how Solis found himself peering through caves with a dim flashlight with Dimitri. They both made for relatively poor conversation due to speaking two entirely different languages.

  Dimitri made an effort. He'd gesture to an object, say its name in Russian, and gesture for Solis to repeat it in English and Russian. So far, he had the word for rock, gun, and either notebook or paper.

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  The notebook Dimitri had referred to wasn't Solis's, but Ira's. Apparently, she had prepared, in written form, some words she thought were important, writing them in both Russian and English on top of each other with phonetic pronunciation. So, their mutual vocabulary expanded to include: danger, help, run, quiet, yes, no, monster, translate, and a few other helpful words.

  Solis, for his part, found himself on familiar footing, in a potentially dangerous situation where, at any moment, something could pop out and eviscerate him.

  He wasn't completely used to it, not yet, but it was a near thing. Still, with all that practice, the longer they didn't see any danger, the more jumpy Solis got. Eventually, he let out a disgruntled growl and flipped through the notebook to remind him of the words.

  "No. Monsters." Solis said, trying to convey as much discontent as possible.

  Dimitri thought for a moment before responding, stumbling over the pronunciation, but Solis didn't think he fared any better with the Russian.

  "Is bad?" The large man asked.

  "No." Solis grumbled. "Just not good."

  Dimitri let out a grumble and a string of words Solis didn't recognize, but sounded like frustrated curses.

  "What. 'Just' word?" he asked.

  Solis looked away towards the walls, his face heating slightly in embarrassment. "Complex. No now."

  Dimitri grunted his acknowledgment, and the pair continued their descent, having to backtrack several times when a cave split terminated in a dead end. Eventually, the pair arrived at a narrow crack in a wall, enough for someone to comfortably squeeze through. Solis's focus didn't reach the shallow passageway, though. He was focused on the System message.

  Nominal. Solis grimaced. Despite what he thought that word meant, the System clearly thought differently. The strongest natural monster he had ever killed was level seven. It had killed three people and leveled an entire street. The group he was in at the time had been prepared to fight it, too. That had been a Minor, Tier 3 zone.

  As a rule, monsters were stronger than humans of the same level. By how much, Solis didn't know, and hadn't tried to quantify, but that reality was self-evident. If he were facing that same level seven monster by himself now, even though he was the same level, he'd die ten times out of ten. Simulate had confirmed it.

  Dimitri's sharp intake of breath let Solis know the Russian man had also seen the notification. "Translate," The man said.

  Solis agreed and activated the ability, "We should investigate," he said right away.

  The other man raised a brow and let out a low grumble, "We go back. I hear something beyond. Bugs. Trees. Maybe water."

  “Trees?” Solis asked incredulously, and Dimitri nodded.

  Solis frowned and stopped to listen. He didn’t hear anything. He deactivated [Translate] and popped [Acuity]. He found the feeling distinctly uncomfortable. Like noticing how your tongue sat in your mouth or that the back of your eyeballs itched.

  Solis closed his eyes and listened, and ever so faintly he found he could hear rustling, like wind.

  “That’s perfect!” Solis exclaimed, smiling, gesturing with much enthusiasm to the entrance to the [Nominal Rank] Zone. “We should pop in and take a look around.”

  Dimitri hesitated. He said something in Russian, and Solis cursed as he reactivated [Translate].

  Dimitri repeated his words. “I do not think that’s smart. I can sense some monsters on the other side. Ira is strong. We get her first.”

  Boot tapping against the floor, Solis thought through the situation, "Yeah, you’re right. I just don’t like having unknowns like this. Let me block the passage off at least."

  Dimitri let out another low grumble and nodded, "Cutting off translation now. Do it fast. We’ll head back after you’re done."

  They hadn't made it more than one step towards the crack when something happened.

  Solis had gone to several concerts, both big and small. Something they all had in common was how they felt. The volume focused on the chest, vibrating at the sternum – especially the drums and bass.

  KRAA-KRAA-KRAA

  He felt that same vibration and volume in waves. The sound was abrasive, with a deep, staccato chitter, like stone getting stuck against itself. If not for his ear protection, the noise would've been physically painful rather than just intensely uncomfortable.

  KRAA-KRAA-KRAA

  The sound continued in rapid pulses, echoing and amplifying in the tunnels, originating from the craig. It paused for a moment, and Dimitri raised slightly shaking arms in a defensive posture.

  "Gun," Solis whispered.

  That surprised the man for a second, but he came to and leveled the pistol towards the crack.

  The noise came closer.

  KRAA-KRAA-KRAA

  Closer still.

  Solis leveled his own rifle and simultaneously put a mental finger on [Resonance] as he put a physical one on the gun's trigger.

  Solis's flashlight barely caught the edge of a sapling-thick, brown leg that raised up to a sharp point about as tall as Solis’s hip. It peeked out through the crack, slamming down into a barbed series of pincers—

  Legs. Darting. Tension and then–

  A blur whipped past, activating Solis’s [Resonance], giving him the precious clarity and processing power to fire his rifle.

  The blur jerked, its momentum still carrying as it slammed into the gun barrel. He panicked and pulled the trigger again, but nothing happened.

  ‘Damn bolt action,’ Solis cursed.

  Solis was falling backwards. He began reaching up to chamber another bullet, but realized there was no time.

  He fell with the creature, letting its mass roll him onto his back, but not letting himself become pinned under a monster. He brought his legs up and kicked out, launching the surprisingly light creature off of him and into the opposite cave wall.

  Six shots, not of Solis' own making, rang out in too-rapid succession before Dimitri’s pistol jammed with a constant clicking noise.

  From his spot on the ground, Solis could see clearly the writhing creature of legs and carapace. Three shots hit before the giant cricket righted itself.

  It looked at the two humans. Hate in its eyes. Solis saw its mouth. It wasn’t quite a cricket. It had pincers like an ant, but these were flat, meant to keep prey in place and bring it closer to its mouth.

  The creature jumped, and Solis flinched, but it wasn’t aiming for him. Instead, it leapt down the nearest passageway and out of sight. Thankful not up towards the camp.

  Solis sat up, scrambling. He almost ran after the monster right then, but his experience in the past month taught him better. "Dimitri, you alright?" he darted over to the man, checking him for injuries. Thankfully, there was none.

  "[Translate]." The Russian man almost yelled, his voice shaking in what seemed to be rage.

  Solis activated the ability.

  "Level nine. No [Shielding], but it’s level nine."

  Solis paled, looking towards the path the creature had taken and then back to camp. “Were there any other keywords?”

  Dimitri continued, "We have to go back up. Warn the others and bring Ira. Then we can hunt it down. Or just block off this entire place."

  “Keywords!” Solis pushed, “did it have any other keywords? I need to know Dimitri.”

  “Swarm twenty. Why does that matter?!”

  Solis strode the rest of the way to the crack and began flooding it with mana. He solidified it, effectively cutting off the path until someone or something broke his construct. Another System prompt appeared for his trouble.

  Too much was happening, and he needed to focus, so he dismissed the prompt and shouted back to Dimitri.

  “It matters because that thing was way too weak for a normal level nine. If it was a normal 9 we'd both be dead. It’s a swarm though. It’s only level nine in the context of twenty of itself.”

  Dimitri nodded, keeping his gun trained on the passage the monster had run down. “Good. That’s good. We still go up. Get Ira. Then come back.”

  Solis was already shaking his head. He didn’t consider himself particularly brilliant, smart, sure, but it wasn’t what he felt was his strongest point, and that was being observant. And in all the other groups that had been trying to level, he had never once met one that had failed to kill a monster threatening their backs.

  No one had a single story of doing so.

  Which meant that either no one he had talked to had tried it, or everyone who had was dead.

  Monsters were not animals, no matter how much they may pretend or behave like them; they weren’t. Their only goal on the planet was to kill people and nothing else. If that cricket ran away, it wasn’t because it was scared. It was doing something, finding something, or waiting for them to drop their guard.

  They hadn’t explored all the pathways down. There may have been another path up. It could circle around, stalk them until they got to camp, and then pounce when they least expected.

  No. He wasn’t going to risk that happening.

  "No. You go up and get Ira, but I’m staying. I’ll leave no monsters at my back."