20 Into The Abandoned City
“This it…?” His emerald eyes almost sparkled behind his glasses at the finished result.
Retrieving the dual daggers, his sheath naturally replaced itself with two, much smaller ones that sat at both of his hips.
“Those look pretty strong,” Myung-Hee commented, looking over his shoulder.
“You can give those a try at the subway,” Kamou smiled.
He nodded, sliding the daggers into their new sheathes before adjusting his azure scarf a bit, picking his bag of groceries back up, “That’s right, I forgot we were going into the city today!”
Kamou stocked up on Mana Restoration potions, while Myung-Hee paid for some upgraded, metallic armor that covered up most of her sleeveless, white uniform.
“I wonder…should I upgrade?” He mumbled.
Looking at what they had in stock, something caught his eye, and another thing–before long, he found himself spending two-hundred angel coins.
“Equip!”
As he invoked the system call again, he swapped out his current, standard all-white uniform with one that was instead primarily black, with silver stripes along its length. He kept his azure scarf around his neck, looking down as he adjusted his long, black sleeves, tapping his new, clean boots of a black shade against the flooring.
“How’s it look?” He asked.
“You actually look like an assassin now, I’d say,” Myung-Hee replied.
“It looks nice!” Kamou complimented.
He blushed a bit, laughing, “Alright…Let’s head back to drop off these groceries, then let’s head into the city!”
It was only a few blocks down to return to the apartment complex, only storing the ingredients into the fridge before leaving once again, this time aiming for the center of the sector.
As they left the quiet neighborhood, they began to traverse the streets which were cracked, filled with holes, and stained with blood and various other things. The towering buildings weren’t much different from the state of the streets, which were filled with abandoned cars, some toppled and destroyed.
“We’ve got to be careful…” Kamou said, keeping her staff held in her hands tightly.
He nodded, “Right, the cities are a lot more dense with Defects, aren’t they?”
“Not just more populated, but they’re also stronger here. There are probably other players around here, too,” Myung-Hee added.
As the prospect of other players was set in his mind, he felt a bit unnerved at that idea. He had only seen it sparsely from the relatively quiet suburbs, and heard it more often, but player-on-player violence wasn’t an uncommon concept in the Armageddon Game.
“It’s really been torn apart, hasn’t it?” He commented on the state of the city.
The buildings of European architecture and Korean style were left dirtied; windows shattered, blood staining the walls, and moss clinging to the metal, brick, and stone materials of the various, sky-reaching buildings of the abandoned city.
Even the sidewalks they traversed were laden in nature’s overtaking; foliage seeping through the various cracks and seams of the concrete.
“In just two months, too…” Kamou muttered sadly.
Myung-Hee, who marched at the very front, held her boisterous smile, “Listen, I’m sure we can find something like this once we reach the Tower!” ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
“The “Tower”, huh?” He let out, “We don’t have any clue what is in it.”
“It’s better than being left in a dying world, isn’t it?” Myung-Hee asked him.
“Yeah, but that’s not exactly a fair question, is it?” He sighed out.
“…I hope whatever is waiting for us…if we make it…is nice,” Kamou added.
At least her words were something they could all agree on.
As they continued walking on the sidewalk, as the streets were littered with abandoned vehicles, moving towards the subway entrance that was guided by their vague memory, noises suddenly filled their ears.
Footsteps–a lot of them.
“…Defects?” Kamou asked in a whisper as they stopped.
“Well, we’ve reached the center of the city, so it’s expected…” He replied.
Myung-Hee put her hand on the handle of her claymore that was strapped to her back, but was stopped by him as he put his hand on her shoulder.
“What is it?” She asked, glancing back at him.
He pointed to the alleyway that inhabited the space between the chain of abandoned restaurants and shops they were passing by, “Let’s just take the quiet path.”
Myung-Hee looked at him for a moment, then at Kamou, before nodding as they moved together into the shadow-filled alleyway that was untouched by the sunlight.
It smelled of rancid trash in the alleyways, not having been moved since the inception of the Armageddon, but it was better than facing whatever number of Defects roamed the streets.
“What makes the Defects so much stronger in the city, anyway?” He asked, adjusting his glasses.
Kamou answered, “From what I’ve heard…Defects also grow when hunting players, similar to how we grow when hunting them. During the first wave, the Defects wiped out most of the players in the cities, so…”
“I see,” he nodded, “that’s pretty bad, isn’t it?”
Myung-Hee laughed out, “Hah, they’re not any different. It just means more experience points for us.”
“Yeah, I don’t know how well that logic holds up,” he scratched his head.
Pushing through the alleys, it was surprisingly cramped with trash and laden with shadows, finding it an obstacle to push through.
“I guess nobody has been around to pick anything up since the start, but still…” He mumbled.
“Just keep walking,” Myung-Hee told him.
As they traversed forth, an ear-piercing, inhuman screech caused all of them to freeze and look up, finding the banshee-like cry to come from a lanky, bug-like Defect positioned between the two building sides making up the alleyway.
[Enemy Class: End Shrieker | Level 12]
“A level twelve basic mob? The city really is more stacked,” he muttered, drawing both of his daggers.
“Can you reach it, Jeong-Hui? I’m shit out of luck in this cramped alley!” Myung-Hee called out.
It was true; in the narrow width of the secretive path through the city, her claymore was unable to be swung properly, besides that, the shrieker seemed intent on maintaining its higher ground between the walls.
“No problem!” He assured them, not wasting any time.