The stench of rain soaked concrete pulled Arthur out of his unconsciousness. His head throbbed violently, ' My stamina really needs to be upgraded. Till then I would have to keep up with this headache.'
Fully regaining his consciousness, he stared at the concrete ceiling above which served as a floor for the room above. ' Where am i.' He rose to a sitting position.
'I am a class.' The desks were all pushed to a corner or used to blockade the door and windows. And maybe that was what contributed to the darkness as it was still early evening.
A bonfire burnt few paces away from him and was surrounded by a ten silhouettes. The light casted long twisting shadows, he studied everyone silently slitted around the flame.
He didn't know who were before him as they were all cladded in strange habiliment. ' Is this another trial.' He observed carefully, however it wasn't long before someone noticed his awareness.
"Arthur your awake." Tamsin said crawling up to him. He nodded, his attention was far from her but on the person who spoke next. "Long time no see, Art. Am so happy you're alive." David said closing the distance to embracing him.
' Now officially the limelight.' The coldness of the metal David wore sunk into Arthur's skin. After David the remaining eight people in the class greeted him.
Nodding to his squad, he turned to the people who might have probably been with David the entire time. ' Eli, Simon, Mark, and Jonah, four boys and two girls, Mary and Blessed.'
Then he opened his mouth to speak, "Why are you all dressed like medieval knight cosplays and cyberpunk mechs."
The group exchanged glances with each other, then Caleb spoke up. "This aren't cosplay materials, these are kill drops from zombies and monsters."
"It turns out we have been leaving OP tools of survival when ever we kill creatures." Noah said massaging his bandaged ribs. Arthur was momentarily dazed, ' What the fuck are they talking about.'
Silence hung on the atmosphere as Arthur failed to understand what his squad had just blurted out. David smiled warmly at his ignorance, "It seems you don't know much about the current world. Mary, explain what we know."
"Everything?" Mary asked causing David to nod in response, then she began. " After we killed a level 12 zombie, Jonah found a glowing orb besides the dead corpse."
" Crushing it he got a silver dagger and that's when we found out about kill drops." She explained. " Why kill drops, does the system have an official name for it."
This time it was Blessed who answered the question, "The system identifies it after you have claimed the object. It could be a weapon, armour, potions, skills, techs, etc.
It just depends on luck and the strength of what you killed. This also branches into another functionality most of use have unlocked."
"The inventory." Arthur predicted and Mary nodded. "We also figured out the monster tiering system with the help of Eli's ability."
Continuing she elaborated, "Monsters and zombies are classified as tier one to tier twelve. Humans do not have a tiering system, what we do have is an ascension system."
Inquisitive Arthur asked, " And what is it." A short pause was noticed, then Mary answered, "We don't know. We only know the first rank which is Awakened."
"However take not that the monsters also have a ranking system, it's only zombies which don't ranks." She concluded.
" Their tiers can also be thier rankings, as far as they grow stronger the higher they get. " Caleb added gaining everyone's attention. " That could be the case." Noah added.
" Whether it is the case, we are sure if being almost correct. Although we are still at base level, I am sure we would learn more as we grow." David said sitting in-between Arthur and the fire.
"Anyway let's cut to the main objective, what was the current state of the hall before you were cast out." David asked, his expression stern.
"Cast out, ptff, we rule it now." Noah said and the cohort went silent. "What of the principal, what happened to her." David asked almost immediately and was replied with. "She's dead."
After Noah said those words, the entire class became still. Arthur noticed the tension and asked. "She sent you all out when you were awakening and left you to die?"
David said nothing, none of them did but Blessed slowly nodded her head when Arthur's gaze fell on her. "We woke up from out walkthrough and were met face to face with zombies." She said.
"That witch decided to use us as zombie food." Eli added with a snare. Jonah followed his companion, " Out of a hundred plus awakeners, only seven of us survived."
Arthur bowed his head, "I figured as she was the only awakened by the time I got there. So I figured something was going on behind the scenes."
"After all the phenomenons of the apocalypse, some people in the hall started falling unconscious. Some were twitched and convulsed, others remained still.
It went for the principal first but we thought she was just sleeping from all the stress. By the time she woke, something had changed. She ordered everyone who slept and couldn't be awoken to be thrown into the middle school.
At first people disagreed but something suddenly happened, she took the minds of the strongest seniors. Made them her thralls and force fully did as she pleased.
Some fell into the awakening later than others, and those were the few who survived. So my question and the question of everyone with David is, how did she die. "
Arthur kept quiet at Blessed question but acknowledged her story, most of the questions troubling him had been answered." Arthur shot her and all the teachers. " Tamsin said noticing Arthur's silence.
"Their zombifying bodies were dumped just before we came to scout this place." Caleb added. The cohort turned their gazes to Arthur, " I don't know what yout reason to kill her was Arthur. But I thank you specially for our classmates and juniors who could have been alive. " David said.
" So this means you are now the leader of the entire hall and its remaining survivors?" Mark, a usually quiet guy asked in awe.
This time Arthur answered for himself, "I lead only a small group, Peter and two other people from different schools now merged with ours lead the rest."
David tilted his head slowly understand the possibility of his former acquaintance words. "So the hall has now merged with two other schools and is already divided in four parts?" He inquired.
Arthur nodded as he rose."To avoid a greater conflict, I decided to forfeit the leadership in the hands of the survivors. They followed who they thought was best and that's what matters. "
No one said anything else for the next few minutes, then David asked." When do we return. "