Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 242: Vacation from a Vacation

“Ugh, that sucked.” Isaac collapsed into a couch in the Hunter’s Guild’s lobby “If I ever decide to train a thousand people at the same time, please throw me into the sun.”

“Was it really that bad?” Amy asked.

“If I fight alongside people with a similar ideology, they’ll slowly gain weaker versions of my teacheable [Skills], which can eventually upgrade to the full epic version that I can teach directly. Normally, it’s a nice passive boon for when I fight [Raid Bosses] with the Bundeswehr. But this time, I was trying to teach a few thousand people at the same time, so they could form parties with Dungeon divers and learn about trouble as it develops. Never again. Ever. Gods, I need a vacation!” he groaned.

“Wasn’t going to Korea and going into a few Dungeons supposed to be the vacation?” Amy asked.

“Yeah, and now I need a vacation from my vacation,” Isaac sighed, “Let’s get out of here.”

The trip hadn’t even earned them much. Some loot from the Dungeon, including some rare materials from the draconic boss, XP aplenty, and a few [Skill] Levels, but it didn’t really feel worth it, considering how stressful everything had been.

On a slightly happier note, [Absolute Blade Mastery] had finally passed Level twenty during the day spent training. Freely lashing out even in a crowd of allies, taking full advantage of the fact that he could control what got damaged had done wonders for the [Skill].

Absolute Blade Mastery (legendary, Level XX)

All throughout history, countless people have staked their lives onto 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, 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 even so much as inflicting 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 want to hurt people or destroy objects, the only issue would be the noise.

Lastly, this truly legendary level of skill with the blade can now be shared with others. The secondary effects of this Skill will not be imparted, but proper use of the blade can turn even a blunt pair of scissors into a lethal weapon, and this is what your students will learn.

After countless fights where the user has used this Skill to utilize their skill with the blade on such exotic things as even their hands, it has evolved to gain a new effect. The edge of their hands, their elbows, knees, heels, and any other striking surface become sheathed in energy when used to attack, protected, gaining a cutting edge/piercing point, Furthermore, the user becomes permanently able to use their skill with blades while fighting hand-to-hand as well. In addition, the user’s blades and aforementioned body parts are capable of bypassing any resistance to physical attacks an enemy might have.

Finally, now that the user has been forged into a blade, the damage of any of their physical attacks can be controlled or negated entirely, allowing them to perfectly control what is damaged or destroyed.

The new effect wasn’t related to his regular usage, however. Not surprising considering his regular usage wasn’t particularly imaginative. He used the [Skill] that let him avoid damaging stuff or people he wanted intact to keep stuff or people intact.

Instead, it had expanded on just what he could use the [Skill], and it meant that the effect of his third, oft-neglected, [Aura] was perpetually on. Where intangible or transformed enemies were concerned, he was probably the single biggest threat to them in the world.

All in all, a solid upgrade.

“How about I portal us to a tiny town where they barely ever read the news, where no one will look at us twice, we’ll eat a literal ton of feel-good food and don’t leave until they have to roll us out through the return portal,” Amy suggested.

“Have you ever been to Scottland? Specifically, Cairngorm National Park?” Isaac asked, “Gorgeous wilderness, close enough to Ireland to have decent Guinness, a million different local, good, whiskies, and I’m sure we can find good pubs too,” Isaac replied.

“Hm, never been, but that sounds good,” Amy said.

She opened a portal that took her as far as she could reach and Isaac transported them the rest of the way.

“You know, I’m not sure why you’re so deadset on keeping the gods under wraps,” Amy thought out loud.

Isaac turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow.

“Last question, then I’ll leave you alone,” Amy promised “I was just thinking, if people are starting to figure things out on their own, maybe it’s time to start spreading the word?”

“Because the absolute last thing we need is them mucking around. I’m pretty sure that confirming the existence of the divine to the world as a whole would probably be an impactful action, which is why they’re holding back. The more people we tell the whole story to, the easier it’ll probably become for them to start mucking things up again.

“Also, ‘god’ is one hell of a trigger word. People hear that and they’ll drop to their knees in worship, automatically assuming we’re all screwed. No one is going to look at them and see beings that, for all their powers, are so wrapped up in their own rules, their checks and balances, that they basically can’t do anything at all.

“If we don’t define an enemy, and make it look like all we have to do is keep our heads, we’ll win the psychological battle.

“And finally, I might not know exactly how divine worship works, but I can make an educated guess based on what I learned in the other timeline and a divine [Class] I was offered for my second Evolution.

“Best I can tell, if people worship gods, the gods can take at least some actions for free in exchange. But that makes worship transactional, where people just … stop if they aren’t seeing the miracles they’re praying for. I have no idea what the conversion rate is, how it all works, but is it really so unlikely that gods might grant wishes before they’d been ‘paid back’ just to keep the faith flowing?

“By the time the gods started interfering in earnest in the other timeline, the world was already screwed, so I couldn’t tell you if they made it any better or worse overall. But chances are, things would get worse. Hell, they’re the whole reason we’re in this damn mess!

“So no, I don’t want to risk it, I don’t want to take the chance. This is humanity’s fight, and by the go- … you know what, by our ancestors, we’re going to finish this! We’re going to beat them without any more ‘help’ from the people who are responsible for this clusterfuck, we’re going to reach the peak of the [System] without destroying ourselves in the process and eventually, we might even be able to hurt the gods themselves!”

“Shit, I didn’t even think about that,” Amy winced.

“Yep, gods messing around with the mortal world never ends well,” Isaac added.

“But maybe that’s why even the ostensibly ‘good’ gods are such pricks?” Amy suggested, “I mean, think about it: nothing you’ve seen so far hints that non-neutral gods can just do stuff that opposes their nature so they can do stuff that does align with their, uh, alignment. But if they aren’t paragon examples of their alignment, their actions might not impact the balance as much.”

“What are you talking about?” Isaac frowned, hard.

“The old myths, Zeus constantly sleeping around, and mortals were getting turned into stuff for challenging gods, villages destroyed for not offering proper worship. Even the ‘good guys’ do a whole lot of bad, but it’s never seen as something antithetical to their nature, it’s a part of it, pulling them closer to the ‘grey zone’ of morality,” Amy explained “Imagine superheroes as gods, who do you think would disturb the balance more, Captain America or The Punisher?”

“Excuse me while I go bash my head through a tree,” Isaac growled. Any doubts about keeping the gods out of the situation he’d still been harboring vanished like … he was too pissed to think of a proper metaphor right now.

In the end, they were in a national park, and therefore, destroying the plants would be seriously frowned upon, so he instead found a nearby boulder to headbutt a couple of times.

“You’ve got gravel stuck in your hair,” Amy pointed out when he turned around to her.

“I don’t care,” Isaac grumbled, “That’s it, no more talking shop, we’re going to eat, drink, and drink some more until the damn pub is dry.”

Amy just nodded and walked the final hundred meters into Aviemore. A tiny town of three thousand souls, in the middle of a national park, no big cities around for miles.

“The Winking Owl, cute,” Amy observed as Isaac led the way towards their destination, “When’d you find this place?”

“I ate here with a few friends, once,” Isaac said, “It was a lot less peaceful then.”

There wasn’t much more to be said.

“When you started talking about a place in the middle of nowhere to eat, it was the first place I thought of.”

Due to the time difference between here and Seoul, the pub had barely opened even though they’d left late in the evening, so the bartender looked at them in astonishment when they ordered half the menu. But he was obviously happy about the business.

Steak with every possible kind of sauce, fish and chips with several different kinds of fresh-caught fish, a couple of different burgers, every craft beer this place had on tap, multiple bottles of whisky, and more besides.

Under the [System], the only people who needed to eat more than normal were ones with specific [Classes] or [Races]. But just because they didn’t have to didn’t mean they couldn’t. No one at the fourth Evolution needed to worry about their stomach bursting, losing brain cells to alcohol, let alone water intoxication. They could just keep enjoying themselves.

An interesting fact about the Cairngorm National Park was that they had a herd of reindeer, so the pair of them ran off to see them after a couple of hours, did a few hiking trails in record time. And then they were back for an equally sizeable meal after just a few hours, causing the bartender to flash them a brief look of surprise but he didn’t comment.

By the time the bar closed, their bill had grown to truly insane heights, but of course, they had the money to pay. Akashic Industries, the company Isaac had set up, might not need much direct managing due to how well it had been set up, but it was earning him a ludicrous amount of money. As long as he wasn’t planning on buying a small country, he’d basically never need to worry about money again.

As they left the small town of Aviemore, Isaac restored his anti-eavesdropping [Skill] and brought up work once again, breaking the moratorium on serious topics.

“If I die, you know where to find my notes, right?” Isaac asked. He knew he’d told her that, he’d told them all where to find the information he’d stashed in case the worst happened, but suddenly, he’d felt the need to make absolutely sure.

He hadn’t lied to her earlier, he truly had made his peace with dying long ago, but right now, the thing he was afraid of was losing the chance to make a difference.

Of course, “notes” was an utterly inadequate term to describe what he’d left behind. Every piece of information he hadn’t spread far and wide yet. Personal testimonials about what had happened in the other timeline that a competent [Archeologist], [Librarian], or other [Class] that dealt with the written word would be able to authenticate. And anything else that might have been useful.

Initially, they’d been literal USB sticks and printed-out notes, well hidden but in places that could be found using his will.

But once he’d told the others about everything, he’d been able to create something a lot more sophisticated and hide it vastly better.

Karl had synthesized him several sizeable chunks of crystal that were almost as though as diamond and Isaac had inscribed everything on those. In those, to be more precise. He’d phased his blade inside, returned only the very tip to normal existence while activating [Sundering Strike] on it. And with that, he’d scratched his message onto the inside of the crystals in an infinitesimally tiny script.

The only way to read that would be with a sensory [Aura] or a few rather expensive scanners, but it was a compact and extremely durable way to record information.

And then, he’d put those crystals in the bedrock under a few buildings. His home, one of the new university summoning rooms, and the like.

He wasn’t worried about anyone finding them prematurely. They looked just like rocks to most scans, and they were buried deeply enough that they wouldn’t be in regular sensory [Aura] range. Most people with decent control over their [Aura] had it projected out considerably further than its standard range of twenty-five meters, but in order to do so, it lost a lot of resolution. Isaac, for example, had his [Aura of the Desperate Seeker] projected out as a series of incredibly thin strands, each barely more than a millimeter apart, with a further pair of complete shells one hundred and one hundred fifty meters out to detect any long-range attacks that passed through them.

Even he couldn’t spot the inscribed rocks unless he knew where to look.

“Yeah, I know where to find them. One’s under the north corner of your summoning area, fifty-three meters down, another’s under summoning room number seven, under the door, fifty-six meters down, and then there’s one under Stagmer’s smithery, right under the forge, sixty meters down, and under the library, dead center, fifty-one meters down. All distances calculated from where the concrete ends,” Amy told him.

“Thanks,” Isaac said “You’re incredible, you know that, right?”

In the end, she was the very essence of what he’d hoped to accomplish. Powerful, armed to the teeth with knowledge and magic firepower, ready to go to fight to the bitter end for this world.

No single person could fight a monster of biblical proportion such as the high-end [Raid Bosses] or even [World Bosses], nor could he alone go up against the collective ignorance and greed of humanity without help.

That was why he’d taken the approach he had.

And while he was doubtlessly powerful, in the grand scheme of things, if he died tomorrow, he’d already achieved most of what he’d set out to do. Information gathering was out of his hands now, and someone else could kick down the doors and beat the shit out of the bad guys, he wasn’t needed for that personally. Hell, he’d even passed on the duty of protecting the world to others who’d taken to the task with almost the same devotion as him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Amy asked after a long moment.

“I’m just happy that you’re helping me,” Isaac told her.

“Hey, name one better use of my time than literally saving the world,” Amy challenged with a laugh.

Isaac kept a straight face … for all of two seconds before he burst out laughing “Touche. Tou-fucking-che.”

Before he could say anything else, his phone rang. He pulled it out with a roll of his eyes, but when he saw the text, his face lit up like the sun.

“What is it?” Amy asked.

“The stuff finally came,” Isaac told her.

“Stu- … wait, are you talking about the materials for … it?”

“Yep,” Isaac nodded “Give me a sec to call everyone else, we’ll catch hell if we don’t invite them.