Chapter 11 - Ark City

After a few moments, the party rested up completely and regenerated their Mana and Stamina. Giving his Wooden Staff to Skye, Rynold clenched and unclenched his fist, testing the new equipment.

Before they left, though, the group decided to test out their spells.

Oliver swung his new dagger, testing out the sharpness of the blade. Meanwhile, Rynold shifted the form of his Mana Gauntlets and tested out the strike.

The Strength-form expanded the gauntlets to a form that's basically a bigger fist. Too bad, though, Rynold noticed that he attacked so much slower than the other form. Speed-type, on the other hand, was the form that he saw in the first place. The gauntlets fit on his hands like a glove.

Skye on the other side tested her new spell, choosing to put most of her attribute points to Intelligence. She shot the Wind Blade from her palm to a tree, leaving a big cut to the tree trunk.

Testing their newfound strength, the group felt confident in leaving the courtyard to go to the parking building for their next move.

As they left to go to the parking building, the group realized that it was near deserted. It was understandable since it was still a Sunday, nobody was around campus as most students and staff were in the city.

Some of the students and staff that were left in school were the ones who managed to get themselves detention for the day.

With gauntlets on hand, Rynold took the lead and the group slowly approached the parking building. The entire building was actually a few stories tall but just going to the first floor of the staff parking was good enough for the group to ride.

Opening the barrier for the parking building, the group tried to find a decently sized car while Rynold held to the control room. Hoping that a key would have been left in the control room, Rynold looked around only to find the person in charge to be asleep.

'Seriously? The end of the world and this guy is asleep?' Rynold sneered, ignoring the guy to find the key instead.

Rynold opened some drawers and found a key with a digital interface. Only expensive cars that are worth millions have keys like these.

He couldn't help but sigh and think what else could he have expected. The school he attended was actually one of the most prestigious ones in Ark City. Rynold only managed to get to the school thanks to a scholarship from the school's marketing of having people in the rural areas attend the school.

Ark Academy, the home of the future leaders — or, to Rynold, is nothing but a gathering of entitled clowns. He hated this place and the people with a burning passion with only a few selected people he actually managed to call friends over the years.

Even if the academy was actually named after the school, with massive sponsors and people of great importance on the school board, the students got to do whatever they want. Only a few were actually responsible enough to not mess around. Being heirs to their respective dynasties and all, it wasn't really something that was unexpected but really rare to come across.

Rynold left to find the group in the parking building and clicked the unlock button on the key a bunch of times.

Deserted as the parking building is, it was still huge. Finding the car took a bit longer than expected but since an idiot managed to leave their key for someone to take, Rynold had to take the opportunity.

A loud click of the lock was heard from a sports car that seated four to five people.

Rynold threw the key to Oliver, telling him to drive. When they got into the car, though, Oliver was a bit confused.

"I can't drive a stick shift," Oliver said, smiling.

"You're kidding me," Rynold sighed. "Move."

This car probably belonged to the headmaster of the academy. Nobody these days actually drove a stick shift these days, especially in a city like Ark City where traffic was practically everywhere.

Now in the driver's seat, Rynold started the car with a large vroom coming from the engine. He kicked the car to gear and drove to leave Ark Academy for good.

Although Rynold hated the school, he acknowledged that his education was actually pretty good. Over the years, he learned a bunch of things that he couldn't otherwise have learned back home. One of which was to drive a stick shift.

As he left the parking building, he drove straight to the city. Ark Academy managed to have its own ground thanks to how much people invested into their kids but it was a few miles apart from the city itself.

Rynold's mind shifted to when he first got to the city. He was completely overwhelmed as to how things were different here than when he was back home.

The world before the end of it wasn't entirely peaceful with random wars from different governments to small skirmishes and civil wars. Ark City was considered a city-state. A city-state basically was a city that had complete sovereignty of itself. It didn't report to anyone but itself.

Thankfully, the city wasn't one that focused on war but business instead. Being considered one of the biggest business city-states, Ark City was relatively peaceful with extremely powerful backers and business partners. How much of that strength managed to transfer to the New World was a different story, though.

As Rynold's train of thought drifted off, Oliver was trying his best to stay awake in the front passenger seat. Meanwhile, Skye managed to completely fall asleep and Elle was just looking out the window.

They soon approached the edge of the city in half an hour or so and came to an abrupt stop. The roads were clear apart from a few cars here and there but it looked more deserted than anything.

Slowing his drive on the edge of the city, Rynold couldn't help but feel danger. It certainly didn't help that he was driving a sports car with one of the loudest engines he had ever heard.

It was silent — way too silent, but the group still needed some supplies for wherever they might eventually go.

'There should be at least some people here,' Rynold thought. People wouldn't easily abandon their homes even if it were the end of the world. He noticed that even Oliver found the place a bit weird for his taste.

Pulling up in front of a convenience store, the group got out of the car and headed in. The glass door was shattered and there was nobody there keeping watch.

"Somebody must've called for a gathering or something, this is way too weird," Oliver stated, while carefully observing their surroundings.

"Maybe they all got chased into the city by the ghouls," Skye replied.

"Either way, let's just grab some stuff here, and let's leave the city for now," Rynold started grabbing some food and drinks here and there and threw all of them into his inventory. Then, a window popped out.

[Slighty Encumbered]

Reduced Agility by 10%.

He stopped gathering things as he suddenly felt heavier than usual.

'That's understandable,' he thought while telling the others not to push themselves too far. It would, after all, be much more of a burden if they slowed down.

Rynold stood out and sat on the hood of the car as he waited for the others to pack up. He kept wondering why people weren't here. Even if it were a Sunday today, the edge of the city shouldn't be this abandoned.

It was a somewhat narrow road they ended up in and there were some smaller houses in the area, making this place more like the suburban part of the city. The cars actually looked abandoned as well with some of them having their doors opened — like they were running away from something.

Rynold kept on looking around, analyzing everything that he could pick up. There were no signs of a fight or a struggle anywhere. Maybe they did really run away, ghouls after all aren't too fast to run away from by foot.

But why didn't they take their cars with them?

"Hey, isn't there like a festival going on in the city today?" Elle suddenly spoke.

The others looked at her with surprised expressions, thinking how could she possibly know that.

"Even if there were a festival, people should still be around. Look, there aren't even any specks of blood or anything. Ghouls don't eat things without spilling some blood on the floor," Rynold replied.

"Maybe it's something else entirely," said Oliver, skeptical of anything good coming out from this nonsense.

Just then, hissing sounds could be heard coming from one of the backyards of the houses that was opposite to the convenience store where the party was currently is.

Four-feet tall spiders were slowly making their way to Rynold and the group, their eight legs creepily making hushed steps toward them.

"Shit."