Chapter 12 - Blocked

[Spider Drone Lvl 3]

A weak spider soldier in a spider nest. Usually moves in swarms.

Rynold scanned one of the spiders that are moving in a huge cluster.

These spiders aren't really strong but they moved together in a swarm, overwhelming most opponents. Thankfully, Rynold was confident beating these things but the same couldn't be said for the rest of the group.

Even if they could beat these drones, it would take an absurd amount of time for them to kill them all. Rynold had only one Area-of-Effect skill while the rest of the skills that they had is mostly single targets.

There were only two ways to go here. Either kill these all or run away.

But this actually explains how the people of this part of the city all disappeared. The red rain mutated the spiders in the area while people managed to go unscathed. Then, these drones must've come out of the forest and dragged the people here to feed it to their Spider Queen.

"Damn," Rynold cursed under his breath while summoning X once again.

"You guys run back while I'll try to stall them. Spiders tend to be territorial, we should be safe when we get away from here," Rynold shifted his gauntlets to Strength-form and slammed his fist together.

Oliver pulled his dagger while the rest stayed at the rear, facing the opposite direction from where the spiders came out.

Rynold ordered X to stall the spiders with the others ran away. Looking around, the spiders ended up surrounding X.

Thankfully, these drones aren't that smart since they didn't chase Rynold who left X behind. The creatures still looked like they had multiple eyes that can monitor their surroundings but they weren't able to distinguish which one of them was actually edible.

X definitely wasn't something that could possibly taste good.

With Rynold and the rest continued running, the spiders were getting farther away and away from sight. He dispelled the Mech Knight's summoning and decidedly kept running away.

Without knowing it, the group kept running further into the city and didn't stop until they reached what looked like a checkpoint.

The checkpoint looked like a small barricade with a few people keeping watch and snipers on the roof of the buildings. It didn't take long for Rynold to realize that the barrel was pointed at them.

"Who goes there?" a voice came from behind the barricade that was crudely built with some sandbags and a metal sheet for a door. It was obvious that the barricade was ready to abandoned as soon as something went wrong.

"We're students from Ark Academy," Oliver said.

"Can you let us in?" Skye added.

"Can't let you in, you guys might be infected," the guard replied, unconcerned.

"Infected? With what exactly?" Oliver asked with determination.

"Poison from the spiders, bitten by ghouls. This part of the city is a safe zone and I can't let you pass unless you're allowed to." The guard's mocking voice could be heard from the opposite side of the metal door.

The sun was starting to set and Elle was starting to get restless. She was about to start a tantrum with her telltale signs that only Rynold noticed.

"Don't," Rynold told Elle in a low voice. "We understand, we'll leave and never come back."

Rynold turned around and started walking through the dark street. The rest were baffled by the attitude that Rynold presented and took a moment to start moving.

Away from earshot, Elle started nagging at Rynold. He didn't say anything in response and decided to keep walking forward.

Annoyed, Elle started to throw a fit, only for Rynold to stare directly at Elle with a cold gaze. She finally shut up when Elle saw Rynold's eyes.

Turning a corner, Rynold stopped moving and turned around a serious gaze on his face.

"You," he pointed to Elle. "You really should stop talking when you have no fucking clue what's going on. They had some snipers pointed directly at us. We could've been shot and had no way to defend ourselves. Luckily, none of those idiot guards don't have trigger fingers or we would've been dead."

Rynold stopped looking serious and shook his head.

"Anyway, let's just stay inside one of those buildings first. Those guards have no idea what they're talking about anyway but we should stay out of sight first."

The group checked which buildings were unlocked. It won't be a good idea to attract any attention, making the group act carefully.

They had no idea how the guards would react if one of the houses were actually broken into if there were patrols going around the area.

Click.

Oliver opened a door into one of the houses that managed to be unlocked. He went in while signaling the others to come in with him.

He opened the door to check what's inside.

There's nothing inside but just a bunch of normal house stuff and, fortunately, there's nobody inside.

The group rested inside the house.

Rynold went straight to the kitchen and boiled some bottled water he pulled out from his inventory.

Electricity managed to still be running but that didn't mean that the water wasn't infected with anything. The house didn't have a water filter making it somewhat dangerous if they drank directly from the tap.

While the water was boiling, Rynold told them his thoughts on what they should do inside the house. It's important to actually know what they needed to do to stay safe.

As soon as they finished discussing, Elle went straight to the bathroom to freshen up. Skye and Oliver are sitting on the couch and giggling while Rynold was just silently waiting for the water to boil.

He was pissed.

Rynold was frustrated because they didn't have any chance to fight back. Guns were pointed at them making him a sitting duck waiting to get picked off. He was annoyed that he still wasn't strong enough.

The kettle started hissing.

Rynold turned the stove off and pulled out some cup ramen from his inventory and poured some hot water into the dried noodles.

He grabbed a fork from one of the cupboards and walked to the couch. Rynold sat beside the flirting couple and shook his head, smiling.

"Glad that you guys haven't changed even with the end of the world. In fact, you guys are flirting even more," Rynold said, stirring his noodles.

"Fine, fine. Shouldn't you be used to it by now, though?" Oliver replied. "Oh, are there any more?" He pointed at the cup of ramen.

"Hot water's on the stove and here."

Rynold handed two cup noodles to Oliver, knowing that he's gonna make some for Skye as well. Some things, after all, don't change.

Rynold slurped some noodles when Skye said something that Rynold was hoping to avoid.

"Why are you letting Elle tag along with us? You know she has a boyfriend, right?" Skye asked.

"Yeah, I didn't think she would tag along with us this long. She should really go back to wherever his boyfriend is. It's no picnic for me, either."

Rynold was chuckling at the thought of them hanging out. It was awkward beyond anything else.

Tired from the whole day, Rynold finished the noodles while they were just chatting on the living room couch. Elle left the bathroom after a few minutes and the sun finally set making the house oddly quiet.

Turning on some lights while closing the blinds, the group decided to rest up for the day after all it was a really long one.

'The end of the world, huh?' Rynold thought to himself, thinking of what could happen in the next few years that's going to come. Rynold was lying on the couch that night, trying to catch some sleep but couldn't.

"Can't sleep?" Rynold opened his eyes and saw Oliver lying on the other couch.

"Yeah."

Oliver sat back up on the couch and thought for a moment before opening his mouth.

"Dude, why did you say that those guards were idiots?" Oliver asked.

"Let's look at the facts here. Ghouls don't really transfer any sort of infection or the spiders have any poison. Just what did they think that happened? These military are way too focused on shooting on sight. I doubt that they actually managed to fight close combat," Rynold explained.

Oliver couldn't help but just nod at the analysis. It made sense, after all.

At least Rynold was actually confident in fighting random creatures in the world because it was a lot less complicated than dealing with people.

Closing his eyes, Rynold tried to get some sleep again. His aching muscles from the fights and the emotional toll from the day were insane. He kept thinking about what he should do next. They could leave the city entirely and Rynold could go back home but that didn't mean that everyone else wanted to go with him.

After getting deeper into thought, Rynold finally was falling asleep. That was until

There was a knock on the door.