Chapter 16: New Danger Approaches

I knew this wouldn't be enough to get them where I wanted. So I threw another piece that could transform anyone's life from the earliest moments of this apocalypse.

"You can also learn something or two from the monsters we are fighting," I threw this bomb over their heads. Their faces told me beside shock, there was confusion as well.

"Open your market," I slowly said while opening mine as well.

The market was a treasure trove for those who knew how to use it best. Aside from the basic gears and weapons sold, there was a tab in the top with many options there.

"See the packages the system is offering you at the top of the marker interface?" I asked while pointing towards one option and added, "select the additional custom package."

They didn't get it at first. In fact the packages being viewed there were in small icons with smaller font underneath them.

After a few whispers they finally reached there.

"We in," Isabella acted the vice leader of my little group here.

"Look for something called a copy gadget," I said while not selecting it.

It held zero benefit for me. However, for them, it might be a game changer.

"What? It said it costs one hundred coins!" John again complained. That stingy little brat! He got a lot of coins and was afraid to even spend some.

"Just buy it," I said before adding, "it's worth every penny."

Reluctantly he complied. However he was the only one acting this way in the group fortunately. The others instantly bought it even when John was complaining.

A small tattoo appeared in their hands. It was placed in the middle of two transparent plastic-like layers. "What shall we do with them now?" Isabella asked.

"Place it over your body," I said before explaining the way to do that. "Rub it first to generate enough heat for it to stick. Then separate on layer and put the tattoo over the part you want. Then you rub again for a minute before the second layer will be melted out of heat."

"This simple?" Sara, the one with blue hair, said, "it's like the fast tattoos being sold at any shop."

I smiled and didn't say anything until everyone placed their tattoos on their bodies. Sara selected one side of her chest for that, looking sexy for brief moments.

As for Isabella, she selected the back of her hand. The tattoo was in the shape of a snake, looking hideous and dangerous.

However I lived long enough in this apocalypse to realize that appearances didn't matter. In fact things with alluring peaceful looks were usually the deadliest things in the apocalypse.

"Now place your hands, both hands over the monsters around," I said before adding, "select only the monsters who didn't die out of fire and still have most of their limbs intact."

"Then what?" John was still bitter about losing one hundred coins in this way.

"Then think about any attack you wanted to learn," I said, `` what made this useless looking tattoo god-like, "any attack or skill used by these monsters will be passed down to you for free. If you were the one to kill them, then you'll get a higher proficiency in the skill."

"H… How do you know all that?!!" Everyone gazed at me with shock and doubt. I simply turned around and didn't answer while leaning over a new monster.

"Hurry up, I won't delay myself for you to learn the skills here," I said in a teasing tone but I wasn't joking. I had less than five minutes here before the new quest began. And I needed to reach that damn five thousand threshold before that.

The team was stupefied until I cleared two monsters out of their cores. Then everyone sprung at one monster and tried to learn a skill.

Unfortunate for them, the monsters here weren't that strong. After all, the main skills they used were few, but they were handy.

For example the night vision skill, it was such a mandatory skill to survive the next part of the quest. Also the strength dash skill they used was beneficial for those with stats high in strength.

But they lacked any good magical skill. That was something I couldn't help them with for now. So I had to stop five members of the team after getting showered with faint white light, with Sara and Gerry on top of the list.

"You won't get anything else from these monsters," I said before adding, "only strength based skills would be there. It won't help you a lot."

"We can buy swords for that," Sara looked reluctant as she already listened to my words and bought herself a short staff.

"It's better to purchase magic skills," I said before adding, "long range magic skills are pretty expensive there. But you can purchase a basic fireball skill for two hundred coins. Also…"

I turned to Gerry as I added, "you can purchase a single person healing skill for three hundred coins."

"This…" Sara's face didn't change as it seemed to get many coins from the last quest. However Gerry and others had such unsightly expressions.

"That's why you don't need to waste any time doing like them," I motioned my head to a group of monsters around, "start salvaging anything useful out of these monsters and sell them for coins."

My words were enlightening to them as they all showed bright expressions before running after the lying dead monsters all around. I cleared more than half of the monsters' cores by now, but the group didn't clear more than one third of the monsters' other items.

"Where are you going?" Unlike others, I saw Sara leaning on one monster and preparing to use the copying tattoo.

"I don't need coins like them," she belatedly said before adding with a chuckle, "I got enough to buy myself a sword and full body armor."

'Crazy!' I couldn't help but feel surprised, 'she must have over one thousand coins from the past quest.'

For me it was nothing, but compared to others I doubted anyone could compete with her. I watched her for a second as she closed her eyes and started to think about the offensive skill she would use.

'A magician using strength skills? That's unheard of even for me!' I shook my head and started to realize I knew nothing about this world.

Humans seemed to have unlimited potential after all. And that made me wonder about what really happened here to end us all in such a lousy situation decades from now.

As I did what I could for them, I returned to salvage the rest of the cores. Just after four minutes passed, I finally reached my goal.

"Phew, five thousand at last," I said in a tired tone out of my stress.

"Five thousand what?" However, my comment attracted the attention of everyone.

"Nothing," I shrugged before hurriedly opening the market. There, just as the place where I told them to buy packages, I selected one without hesitation.

[Do you want to purchase and activate the beginner's package?] the system message appeared and I instantly thought of the answer.

'Bring that damn package to me!'

The next moment my five thousand balance miniscule to only two hundred coins. In fact if anyone opened these packages out of curiosity, he would instantly drop any thought of purchasing them.

The cost of them was really crazy! In addition to that, they only gave one benefit, not more.

[The beginner's package is active. Now you'll gain additional rise in stats after accumulating enough coins. The current exchange rate is two thousand coins for one point of stat]

In fact it might seem crazy to select such a thing, however it wasn't. Coins were the main way of doing things here in the apocalypse.

Humans fell into a dilemma at the early stages of this disaster. To get coins one must be strong enough to kill many monsters. After all, killing monsters would bring in coins, gears, and also we can salvage materials from their dead bodies and skills. But to be strong one must increase his stats for that.

And to increase stats one had to spend coins. It was a closed loop where nothing good would come if one acted stingy like John.

'Now it's time for me to get that skill,' I purchased the tattoo with the remaining coins before I hurriedly used it over one corpse I left for that purpose near me. I put the tattoo over the pack of my hand, as I noticed how cool it was.

Also I knew after the upcoming quest, a new trap would be laid for humans to make them lose their ability to get stronger no matter what!

I felt nothing special about it however I knew it would show up its magic when the quest started.

[Quest 1 part 2: Survive the night.

Details: You will face recurrent attacks from monsters during the next twenty-two hours. Stay alive with any means possible.

Rewards: Getting a slot for blessing opened.

Failure: Death]

The quest didn't delay and appeared just after I used my package. One of the main adversaries of the quests with many parts was the fact one couldn't use such a package during it.

The packages would be a game changer for humans. However, according to my understanding, each quest would be designed based on the base levels and strength of humans in the selected area. So quests with parts would be determined before the entire quest would start.

That meant this quest was based on our strength assessed before the first part started. It might look good if we acted to level our strength up the way we did in the one hour break. But I doubted this was the real reason behind this limitation.

"Looking forward to the next quest, that's good."

Just as I was thinking about those bastards, the dark night was lightened by the bright light of the three guides. "I can see you worked a lot to level up your strengths…"

I could notice that despite the warm words he said, that angel in the middle had a serious look at our visible tattoos. He noticed them, but I didn't bother with that.

After all, I believed they didn't leave us alone and kept watching, looking for any strong human to plan to kill later on. Unlucky for you bastard, my entire group could be considered special. And I wouldn't let you harm them no matter what.

"To make things more equal for you, we brought gifts," that angel said while showing such a relieved smile over his face. sh*t! What the hell was he bringing to us? Debuffs or what?

I knew that angel wouldn't be this glad without a reason. And in the next minutes I realized what dirty hole he dug for us for this quest.

"Reinforcements?" Allen muttered while he held a medium sized shield on one arm and a basic sword in the other.

'This is… going to be interesting,' I looked up like others at the various groups of humans walking in haste towards us.

"We decided to gather up all the survivors in the central park here. That will be our limit in helping you out this time," the angel said and I couldn't help but look up at him in disdain.

That bastard! He meant this was the limit he could do to harm us!

"Isabella," I approached her before whispering, "be sure to make everyone stand in one group. Don't scatter around or you'll die."

"..."

Isabella turned to me with a shocked expression over her face. She didn't know but there were hardly any survivors in the central park according to the old records. Even the old man said that not many survived to form a hundred man group.

But those coming at us were in hundreds! I doubted they were brought up from the central park, but from other places around us.

'How many dirty traitors did you bring here this time?' I thought while raising my head towards the central angel. He seemed to notice my gaze as he turned his eyes and I could see an expression of ridicule on his face.

Like he was telling me, 'Now show me how you'll survive this, idiot!'