Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 168: A Fresh Breeze

Welcome, one and all, to the Spring Equinox EVENT!

As the days grow longer, flowers bloom, animals crawl out of their burrows and life returns to the world. So dance and frolic, enjoy life and be merry, for today you might die.

Murder Bunnies, cute widdle lambs? and all the adorable creatures of spring, new and improved, ready for cuddles and hugs. You know, the kinds you get when you wrap a python around your neck. It’s great fun you should try that sometime. So enjoy all the pleasures of springtime!

This Event offers countless new monsters for you to summon, and maybe grill up for a delicious spring barbecue?

That … was weird. Oddly chipper. More sarcastic than even the Winter Event’s description, with some very weird comments to boot, ones Isaac wasn’t sure how to read. Putting a mundane python around his neck would not put him in danger, nor would it do the same to most adult humans. Had that been meant to suggest suicide, or as a stupid joke?

“You all know how this goes.” Bailey said “We make plans for who summons what, if someone runs into trouble just holler, and deliver your kills to the processing area. Take breaks, don’t take on more than you can handle, and check if the monsters leave behind anything dangerous. Give us five minutes to decide who gets to play with what, and then we can get started.”

As Isaac, Bailey, the rest of the team, Arthur, Elena, Gram and a couple of BAU specialists he hadn’t met before worked to dole out monsters to the people who’d be summoning them, he thought about the future. Or rather, the Event after this. It would be the Summer Solstice Event, and therefore the first Event to have repeated itself.

Would it be the same as the last time, which would mean that there would be a chance to get things one had missed the first time around? It would certainly reduce FOMO if that were the case.

But it was entirely possible that each Event was unique and never repeated. And then … having solid proof that they would never again get the chance to get at certain materials could easily end with a lot of very stupid decisions in the name of “not missing out”.

Yet would the dark gods have created multiple different Events? Could they have? The more changes they made to the [System], the greater the response. Automatic summoning had already been nerfed into the ground. What else could have been done to increase humanity’s chances, given the chance? Or maybe, something had been done, it just hadn’t been discovered yet, who knew.

Either way, one thing was certain, and that was that greater changes had greater costs. In addition, there was the small issue of how adding additional Events would make the whole concept of Events more dangerous and impact humanity’s chances to a greater degree. And that would cause the cost to skyrocket.

On some level, though, Isaac hoped that each Event was unique. Sure, that would make things more difficult for him, but it would also mean that there were equivalent boons for him out there, just waiting to be discovered. And hadn’t they managed to deal with the Events thus far decently well?

Still, the more divine interference there was, the less useful his information was. Deliberately changing things to fuck with him was too expensive by far, but changes made for completely different reasons, possibly even to help him? Those could fuck him up all the same.

But future problems were future problems, and not something Isaac needed to deal with here and now. He got his monster assignments and went off to do those.

He reached his designated area and the first monster appeared. The Spring Patch. It was a basic sounding name, but it was Tier 7, so clearly a threat worthy of caution and wariness.

The summoning circle blazed brightly for a moment, only to wink out with seemingly no effect a moment later. Isaac didn’t move, didn’t let the odd result faze him, ready to swat down whatever had just been called into this world.

It didn’t take long for the monster to become apparent though. The light from the circle hadn’t vanished on a whim, it had been covered by tiny plants too small for Isaac to notice without intense focus and now, those plants were growing with incredible speed, a massive patch of weeds rising to waist height in less than a second, thorny whips and vines erupting from it to lash out at him. Thankfully, the plants didn’t seem to be replicating, it was just that the original ones were increasing in size at a ludicrous size.

Isaac’s blade floated above the patch, transformed into its huge blade form and hammered home like a giant guillotine, splitting the plant cleanly in half.

Spring Patch (Lv. 79) has been slain.

Spring Patch (Lv. 79) has been split into two Lesser Spring Patch (Lv. 64).

No XP awarded.

Oh, come on!

An overhead slash with a [Far Strike] attached cleaved it

Lesser Spring Patch (Lv. 64) has been slain.

Lesser Spring Patch (Lv. 64) has been slain.

Two times Lesser Spring Patch (Lv. 64) has been split into two Even Lesser Spring Patch (Lv. 51), each.

No XP awarded.

Ok, this time, Isaac had gone for the roots, carving those apart under the mistaken assumption those were the important parts. But no, the remaining parts just became their own individual monster. It was noteworthy that the smaller root bits remained dead, so hacking that thing to small pieces would kill it.

But that would be tedious and incredibly expensive, mana wise. Isaac hacked off a few weeds and stored those once it became apparent that they were small enough to remain dead.

[Grand Hellflame]

The black fire washed over the patch of plant matter, greedily devouring anything and everything, growing from a small flame to a burgeoning wildfire in a matter of seconds.

You have slain 4 Even Lesser Spring Patch (Lv. 51) 800 XP (200 base times four) awarded

And there wasn’t even a proper amount of XP, at least not one suitable for a monster of that Tier. But Isaac couldn’t afford to seethe, he needed to intervene before the forest burned down.

[Grand Hellflame: Extinguish]

Extinguishing the flames in case they spread out of control was thankfully a part of the [Skill], but it cost friggin two-hundred points of mana to do that, almost a ninth of his pool. A waste, but at least now he knew how annoying those things were. The findings were logged and that was that. Or rather, it should have been.

“What was that? What did you … get.” Professor Chandler crested the nearest hill, saw the burnt mess that remained of the monstrous plant, and looked as though he’d just seen a kitten get kicked.

“It’s called a Spring Patch, splitting into distinct parts every time it’s cut apart. It’s the absolute wrong enemy for me, I’m afraid.”

“But everyone else on your Level is very busy at the moment.” Chandler begged, demonstrating staggeringly good puppy dog eyes for a man who was nearly seventy “Can you summon just one that I can use for materials, pretty please?”

“Ok, one more. But only if I can figure out a way to kill it without blowing through my entire mana pool. If things go badly, I’ll burn it again.” Isaac sighed and passed over the few small samples he’d saved.

Once more, Chandler showed a level of delight and glee that would have been more suitable on a kindergartner on Christmas morning instead of someone who was well past retirement age. At least he could still get excited about stuff. Isaac sent him to stand a safe distance away, and proceeded with the next summoning.

Another Spring Patch appeared and struck. Isaac dodged and counterattacked, but this time, he cleaved it apart horizontally, leaving the roots stuck in the dirt while removing the top of the plants.

Spring Patch (Lv. 79) has been slain.

Spring Patch (Lv. 79) has been split into Lesser Spring Patch (Lv. 64) and Weed Monster (Lv. 67).

No XP awarded.

The bottom part remained as it had been while the top one knotted together into a mess of tentacles, thorned vines and body parts Isaac couldn’t even begin to describe.

Weed Monster (Lv. 67) has been slain.

Weed Monster (Lv. 67) has been split into two Lesser Weed Monster (Lv. 61).

No XP awarded.

For. Fuck’s. Sake.

“Professor, I’ve invited you to a Party, pick an eight of that mass to keep, I’m burning the rest.” Isaac got out through gritted teeth as he teleported out of the path of a massed tentacle strike too big to normally dodge.

And two seconds later, a storm of flying blades tore through the plant mass, separating a few bits from the rest, which the weapons then knocked clear from the rest.

Two times Lesser Weed Monster (Lv. 61) and Lesser Spring Patch (Lv. 64) have been slain.

Two times Lesser Weed Monster (Lv. 61) and Lesser Spring Patch (Lv. 64) have split into twenty-three entities (see full list?).

No XP awarded

A few of the samples had died, but many of them kept going, kept twitching, and those were carved to pieces by a grim-faced Isaac, then pulled into his storage space.

By the time the dark inferno consumed the remnants of his foe, the small plants had begun scattering to the four corners of the world, running as if the devil himself were chasing them. Good thing he’d gotten them now, tracking those down would have been a nightmare.

“Please tell me you got everything you needed?” Isaac asked, blanching when he saw Chandler put on another pleading expression. Oh hell.

“Some cuttings might allow for the cultivation of these plants without requiring summoning … now I know this is a big ask, but …”

“Fine.” Isaac sighed “I’m getting a botanist to tell me what to get, specifically. And this is the last time.”

***

As it turned out, he’d been wrong about that. Very wrong. So many of the monsters had powerful regenerative capabilities, as well as incredibly useful parts that made Isaac’s methods of dealing with regenerators not be viable.

Intellectually, he knew that no dark god would have created a series of Event monsters just to fuck with him, that would have been beyond expensive for absolutely no gain. But damn if it didn’t feel like it.

But all personal frustrations aside, the Event had gone staggeringly well. Terrifyingly so. Isaac spent the entire time waiting for the other shoe to drop. But if there was one, it stayed right where it was.

There had been a few deaths here or there, somewhere in the quintuple digits or so, but that was less than the regular death rate from illness, accidents and old age, without any [System] fuckery. For an Event, the number of people dying not even doubling was staggeringly good. Unbelievably so.

Sure, people had died and that was sad, but in all honesty, there had been no big breakouts, no civilian casualties, no people dying who hadn’t known what they were getting into. And of those, damn few hadn’t survived the day. It was an end result that Isaac could be happy with, no matter how frustrating the day had been for him, personally.

He bade goodbye to everyone … and then got roped into playing pack mule because the plant samples had to be kept alive and therefore weren’t allowed into the storage spaces.

Fuck. This. Day.

By the time Isaac got back home, the sun was almost back up in the sky. He’d been planning to do some summoning now, but then, his phone rang.

“You know, that was an interesting trick. Well played, sir.”

“Mr. Zambon, I’m afraid you’re going to have to elaborate.” Isaac said, shifting his voice over to that of Mr. Holt.

“The investment banker who somehow thinks that pedophilia is a better look than having an illegitimate child, so he set it up so caring about the kid would look like grooming instead of parental responsibility unless one looked extremely closely. The company that’s keeping its newest drug and everything involved in it secret not so they could profit, but so they could release its formulae to the public for anyone to replicate without the shareholders making a fuss.

“A dozen tasks, a dozen mysteries I only knew were there because you told me there was something. And now I gained thousands of XP and am about to evolve into the [Bane of Secrets], a legendary [Class].”

“Maybe, maybe not. I’m glad it worked out, though. I’m also curious as to what you’ll now be able to figure out about the main case.” Isaac told him, fighting to keep the laugh out of his voice “There’s a bonus available at the usual drop-off place.”

That little trick actually hadn’t been all that hard to set up. Isaac had just checked up on several tabloid stories from the other timeline, written up enough about it to tell Zambon what to look at without granting him any actual hints and sent the man on his merry way.

As far as the [System] was concerned, Zambon had figured out those secrets all on his own, merely knowing that there was a secret in play wasn’t counted against him. Also, Zambon now assumed that Isaac had an information gathering network of stupendous power.

Congratulations, Hildebrand’s Heir, for granting the world another legend!

Under and thanks to your support and tutelage, Gregorio Zambon has claimed the Class of “Bane of Secrets”.

For crafting one of your students into a person of truly exemplary, world-shaking ability, you have gained 15,000 XP!

… and he’d even gained credit for Zambon’s new [Class]. Excellent.

Sure, Isaac’s own secrets wouldn’t last much longer either, but Zambon was [Oath]-bound to keep those to himself. And figuring those out without help should net him a nice boost as well.