Apocalypse Redux - Book Three: A LitRPG Time Regression Adventure, page 1
APOCALYPSE REDUX
Book 3
JAKOB H. GREIF
CONTENTS
Summary
Shadow Alley Press Mailing List
1. Jaws?
2. Interlude Wirt
3. The Clock Strikes Thirteen
4. Interlude Amy
5. The Madness Within the Method
6. Once More into the Breach …
7. Someone Call for an Exterminator?
8. Old Acquaintances, New Problems
9. Darkness Revealed
10. The Only Monster of the Deep
11. Family Matters
12. When Normal No Longer Cuts It
13. Strange Beasts and Horrific Combinations
14. A New Kind of Monster
15. Other Worlds
16. Of All the Things to Be Scared of …
17. Some Things Not Even Magic Powers Can Fix
18. Interlude World
19. Culture Difference
20. Seoul
21. The Guild
22. … Should Have Expected That
23. Training Mishaps
24. A Proper Dungeon Crawl
25. Celebration
26. What We Came Here for
27. The Anthill Has Been Kicked
28. Interlude the Ants
29. Departure
30. Confession Time
31. Relaxing Through Combat
32. One More Step
33. Let’s Make a Plan
34. In the Air Once More
35. Auspicious Meetings
36. A Difficult Conversation
37. The Potential for a Cataclysm
38. Interlude Clusterfuck
39. Slow Down and Take a Breath
40. Familiar Surroundings
41. Another Departure
42. An Expected Catastrophe
43. Man vs Beast
44. Interlude Yoo-jin
45. Pyrrhic Spoils
46. Evolution, the Third
47. Long Term Issues
48. Spoils of War
49. Speech
50. Schmoozing
51. Homecoming
52. Interlude the League
The Adventure Continues…
Book Three: Final Stats
Books and Reviews
Books by Shadow Alley Press
LitRPG on Facebook
Even More LitRPG on Facebook
GameLit and Cultivation on Facebook
Dedication
Afterword
About the Author
SUMMARY
The [System] was intended to be humanity’s salvation. But it turned out to be a double-edged sword that could just as easily lead to its destruction.
Following a series of thankfully successful efforts in Europe, Isaac travels overseas to show the world new ways of leveling, gather new allies, and gain power in the Dungeons that have cropped up.
The whole affair would be perfectly doable, if it weren’t for the cult trying to destroy his work, the looming threat of another [System] Event, and the general, ever present danger of humanity’s darkest aspects and the monsters they spawn.
Will humanity stand proud and stop the first demons to emerge in this new timeline, or be swept away in a flood of hellfire?
SHADOW ALLEY PRESS MAILING LIST
Want to keep up with the Apocalypse Redux Series? Visit Shadow Alley Press and subscribe to our mailing list!
JAWS?
Two days ago
Isaac headed deeper into the under-construction building, a slight smile playing on his lips. His first stop was his office to drop off some things, and then he’d head over to the new meeting room. And yes, he did get his own office now, decorated with fanciful weapons and pelts, as well as a couple of little trees made from metal wire and little crystals, making it look like something in between the inside of a hunting shack and some fortune teller’s tent.
That was on purpose, though. He didn’t want to look crazy or as if he were a part of some kind of fringe occult thing, but seeming a little kooky would help cover up any small inconsistencies.
Overall, the team had gotten quite a bit better equipped on the bureaucratical side of things. They’d been borrowing other professors’ secretaries up until now, but Professor Bailey seemed certain he’d narrowed the list down pretty well.
Sadly, they’d gotten a ridiculous number of applicants, owing to the fact that they offered power leveling as one of the job “perks.”
“Good morning, Adam,” he called out. “So, did the rest of the things for the Korea trip get prepared?”
He’d brought up Korea a while ago, as an example of Dungeons actually working, and a place he wanted to visit. Because they were being defined merely as autonomous monster spawners, which made them very much a no-no topic in Germany. Yes, Dungeons were dangerous, but they could also be fantastically rewarding … if properly handled. He was sure of it.
Sadly, “They did it on the other side of the world and it worked, here’s the research” wasn’t enough to convince the bureaucrats that, at least conceptually, Dungeons weren’t a world-ending danger. Temporary spawners like Lairs were fine so long as you broke them when you were done, but Dungeons took time to grow and had to be left alone to do so, and no one felt comfortable with that.
But South Korea had done a pretty good job of using them to level up their people. This was evidence they could point at, but there was only so much you could get out of the currently published works. After all, this entire branch of research was a mere two-and-a-half-month-old and there was a limit as to how many academic papers you could put out in that span of time.
Often, when they were applying to try out new branches of research, they were basically throwing a bunch of research notes at the relevant committee and that was that. But from foreign research groups, all they saw were the complete projects, and there were very few of those.
So, they’d be heading to Korea soon enough. He and Bailey, who had advanced the furthest in analyzing the portal ability of a monster called a Rifthunter. It was the lowest Level monster with a suitable ability to analyze, but it was also a pain in the ass to work with.
That damn monster was pretty strong and damn hard to contain, so they could only analyze it in brief bursts, and it was such a complex ability that it took for-e-ver to actually get. [Portal] would be beyond fantastic … but they had to get it first.
And after they’d explored some Dungeons, gained some good XP and information from that, it’d be just about time for the first big summoner’s convention, which would be taking place in Singapore, just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Korea.
“Well, that depends on if we’ve gotten that damn shark out of the lake, but I think we should be all set to head off to Asia by our original date,” Bailey replied offhandedly and Isaac nearly walked into a wall.
Well, not exactly. He had years of experience on battlefields and solidly superhuman levels of physical ability, so there was no chance of him failing to turn a corner just because he’d heard something surprising. But if it hadn’t been for that, if this had been the him from this point in the other timeline, he probably would have ended up kissing concrete.
“Wait, what?” Isaac frowned. He’d spent most of last night and all of this morning adding to his [Aura] control instruction manual, planning to look up the news once he was in the meeting room, waiting for everyone to arrive, trusting that either automated alerts or the people in his life would tell him about things he needed to deal with now.
“Someone summoned a large shark, we think it’s a Megalodon, into a large lake. Apparently, we were the local coast guard‘s first call once they’d gotten started on the lake evacuation order. Well, I’m not sure if ‘coast guard’ is the right word when they’re on a lake, but that’s beside the point. No boats, no swimmers, no one is supposed to go out onto the water until we can deal with this. Still, the shark can’t get out of the lake, so this is a decent way to check how monsters behave in a natural ecosystem. And someone needs to try something before the Marine and Luftwaffe carpet-bomb the lake with depth charges.
“I think it’s going to go fine, though. Professor Sturm from the aquatic biology faculty knows more than I do. You remember him, right? Anyway, I’d like you to stay here and watch over the experiment. We’ll deal with the shark and hopefully be back in time to watch the monsters start spawning in; otherwise, just take notes on as much as you can handle and kill the rest.
“Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see how the news handles this. As far as I know, there are seventeen people confirmed dead, but now the lake is clear of potential targets, and no one is stupid enough to go out there with that thing in the water. Generally, whether they make an attempt at fearmongering or put out a somewhat optimistic piece about how we can now deal with these monsters, that’ll tell us a lot about the general attitude towards the [System] as a whole.”
Isaac grimaced at that. First, there was another dangerous monster out there. Contained, sure, but still out there in the wild, which sucked.
Also, he’d be staying behind as the team, his closest friends in this timeline, went off to fight their first “wild” monster without him.
Sure, if Bailey’s assessment of it being a Megalodon was correct, they’d be fine. Hell, all of them except Raul had their second Evolution
, and the only reason Raul was lagging behind was that he was still trying to decide on which [Class] to pick, not because he was putting any less effort into advancing.
The [System Researcher] might be a truly fantastic [Class], but it was also quite solidly a [Mage] [Class], which simply didn’t fit him. He was an outdoorsy person, who’d gone to university to get a degree that would later see him spend almost all of his time out in the wilderness as a ranger. Your [Class] needed to be something you liked. Doing something you hated to get stronger was a more difficult route to power. And it wasn’t like Raul hated magic. It was just that he liked nature a hell of a lot more.
Really, they could handle themselves, and the chances of this being a Tier 6 with casualty numbers that small were practically nil. And even it was a weak Tier 6, they’d be able to handle it after all that time spent practicing with them. They weren’t helpless chicks and didn’t need him playing mother hen.
But godsdamnit, it stung. He knew he couldn’t do everything himself; he’d always known. But at the very least, he’d have wanted to be there for the first thing the team dealt with personally.
Yet despite all that, he would stay. Because coming along would only make himself feel better while delaying the experiment about autonomous summoning by the five days the monsters had already spent locked in cages, time that would be wasted if they had to kill them all and start over once they were done with the shark.
Going just for the sake of his own feelings would be, in short, completely unconscionable. But that didn’t mean staying here wouldn’t suck, especially given that he’d inevitably get stuck with some kind of babysitter. He didn’t need one, but it made sense. No one would trust a single person to be able to keep a lid on potentially hundreds of monsters in case things went bad. Hell, if it hadn’t been for his new [Class] and the newly weakened automatic spawning, he wouldn’t have trusted him to deal with that.
Survive? Sure. But kill every single creepy crawly as a literal horde? Yeah, nope.
Still, his Status was looking pretty nice.
[———]
Name: Isaac Thoma
Class: Bladewraith
Species: Human
Level: 31
XP: 7,439 /9,600
Health Status: Healthy
Mana: 600/600
Stats
Fortitude: 50
Perception: 95
Strength: 60
Agility: 95
Magic Power: 60
Magic Regeneration: 80
Free Points: 0 Stat, 9 Skill
Aura
Aura of the Crimson Dawn (short range, combat, blood, regeneration)
Aura of the Desperate Seeker (long range, sensory, mental, projection)
Central Skills
Form of Horror XVIII
The Chosen Weapon XXII
Skills
Hundred Faces XVI
Stealth XVIII
Power Strike XXVI
Piercing Strike XXVII
Sundering Strike XXV
Blades XXVI
Sneak XVIII
Sweeping Strike IX
Far Strike XIX
Manifold Strike XVII
Hunter’s Gaze XXIV
Phantom Step XV
Unknown Fear XIII
Bestial Regeneration XVI
Undying Focus XIV
Tools of Terror XIX
Fleeting Presence VIII
Crippling Blow VI
Absolute Blade Mastery II
General Skills
Gralloch IX
Alchemy X
Aspects
Poltergeist (2 stack)
Hydra (2 stack)
Dunkleosteus
Fata Morgana
Blade Tempest
[Empty Slot]
Aspect Skills
Poltergeist’s Flight
Poltergeist Shift
Hydra’s Regeneration
Redundant Organs
Gills
Improved Basic Illusion
Perception Block
Blade Control
Eternal Blades
[———]
Sadly, legendary [Skills] were damn expensive, so he’d only been able to grab one, the one best suited to dealing with large groups of enemies without wrecking the surrounding area with his AOEs.
[———]
Absolute Blade Mastery (legendary)
All throughout history, countless people have staked their lives on these pieces of metal, living and dying by the blade. Some may have wielded it in anger without any training at all; others spent their entire lives honing their craft without ever having to raise their weapons in a real fight even once.
Yet none of them have ever reached this stage, because they couldn’t. Normally, there is always more to learn. At some point, you will solidly run into the issue of diminishing returns, but your path will never truly end.
And then, there’s this Skill. Might not grant absolute skill with the blade, but it allows the user to truly master it in all of its forms, in two different ways.
Firstly, now any and all skill and experience with any blade carry over to any and all other blades. Never, ever, under any circumstances, will a tiny difference in balance, length, or weight screw you up, never again. You can pick up an entirely new type of sword that you’ve never even conceived of, and as long as you are a master of some manner of sword, you will also be a master of this one.
Secondly, never again will you cut something you did not mean to cut. You have absolute control over your weapons. You could shave a furious cat actively trying to murder you with a gauntlet sword without ever inflicting so much as a single scratch. This is the level of fine control you hold now that you have this Skill. Hell, you could wave a chainsaw around in a crowded disco and unless you wanted to hurt people or destroy objects, the only issue would be the noise.
[———]
The first boon didn’t sound all that great, given that he’d been easily using the many different weapons his soulbound knife, Old Reliable, could turn into. But that was a skill gained over nearly a decade of combat, not an absolute ability. If he switched over to an entirely new weapon, then there was every chance that he wouldn’t be able to use it properly.
And even just focusing on the various forms of Old Reliable, there might still be an issue given that he primarily practiced with certain combat forms and barely used others. Anytime he absorbed a new weapon, anytime he gained a new transformation form by slotting another Aspect, the new form could trip him up.
Until now, this hadn’t been an issue, but those small differences would be a huge problem when extreme precision was required, and taking this [Skill] would ensure that never came to pass. He could be as precise as he was with his favored weapon of the Ka-Bar without being limited to that choice. And he could pick up “new” swords with casual ease now, even if he hadn’t used anything like them before.
Still, if that had been all this [Skill] did, he wouldn’t have picked it. It wouldn’t have been worth the 5 [Skill] points. Well, it would also not have been worthy of the “legendary” title, but that was neither here nor there.
