Reborn: Apocalypse

The speaker's voice echoed as he finished speaking, glaring at the two of them.

'Y'all? Is he from Texas?' Micheal washed the stray thought from his mind as he focused.

He didn't recognize the attacker. They were likely part of some small team, attacking people to gather Artifacts and Points. They probably were hoping that the man and woman were carrying Artifacts of some sort since today was the day of the Open Market.

As Micheal glanced down, he saw that the duo did indeed look rather vulnerable. Neither one had the experienced air of a human that had lived in the 7 Layers, they were both likely 4th Wavers.

Micheal's entire body tensed up as his hand rested on his Spatial Ring, mentally lining everything up in case the man took a shot. His heart began to pound with adrenaline, his eyes tightening.

'They're Vampires. That means they will react faster than regular fighters. Even if they can't aim well, their shots will be far better placed than a normal human would be capable of. I'll need to adapt and-'

Just as he was about to act, he paused, interrupted.

WHOOSH

A blast of cool air swept across the skyscraper as a pink aura appeared around Sophia's masked face. In a literal split second, all three of the armed men stumbled to their knees, guns dropping from their hands.

Whatever Abilities the three men had, as Vampires or not, were instantly nullified due to their average Soul stat and carelessness as they looked over at Micheal and Sophia. Her Fairy Eyes were incredibly potent to low-level humans, even Adapted Humans.

Unless you had a very powerful strength of will, it was almost impossible for someone with a low Soul stat to resist her Ability without the use of an Artifact. Even then, you would still suffer from at least minor effects of it.

"It's okay, you two. They can't harm you." Sophia's voice echoed out as she rushed forward, righteous anger filling her tone.

Micheal watched her go, his eyes placid as his heart returned back to its normal pace, adrenaline fading.

'Well. I guess her Ability is so expensive for a reason. She did reign as an S Ranker partly because of it here in the First.' He shrugged. The Limited Fairy Eyes Ability cost well more than 100,000 Points, it wasn't weird for it to be so useful. His thoughts continued,

'She's still emotional, revealing her Fairy Eyes and rushing forward like that.' He sighed and then shrugged.

'Well, it is what it is. I suppose she wanted to avoid any chance of those two getting shot.' He looked over at the previously fearstruck pair of humans as Sophia helped them up. He began to walk towards them, remaining silent.

"Oh my gosh, thank you so much!"

"Yes, thank you!! Without you, Sarah and I would've died!" The duo was quite grateful, tears streaming down their face.

Micheal narrowed his eyes as he saw this, staring at the faces of the duo. He went over his memories, trying to see if he recognized them.


'Oh!' He blinked, coming to a realization.

'I have no idea who they are.' They seemed to just be random people that had been attacked. He nodded as he thought that. It wasn't as if everyone he met would be someone important in the future, there were far too many people here for that to be reasonable.

Sophia took it all in, calming them down as she told them it was fine.

"Do you two not have any weapons at all?" Sophia asked, staring between them. They shook their heads.

"We only just arrived here a few days ago. Even surviving this long has been horrifying." The man, apparently named Patrick as he introduced himself, quietly sobbed while the woman remained stalwart, though she teared up slightly.

"Here." Sophia paused for a moment as she tapped on the air. A pair of basic handguns appeared, bought from the Shop, as did a pair of matching magazines.

"Lure the Morenkai onto the bridges and then shoot them from the sides, making them fall off. If you do this, you should be able to earn enough Points to survive and improve yourselves."

The two stared at Sophia, overwhelmed by her kindness. They thanked her profusely again for a solid minute before they ran off, promising to do as she said.

Micheal watched all of this, not revealing any emotion beneath his mask as he walked up next to her.

She looked at him, biting her lip slightly under her mask.

"So now what?" She said, nodding at him.

"Hmm?" He blinked, staring back.

"What do we do about them?" She motioned at the three men that had tried to rob the duo they'd rescued,

"I could set my Fairy Eyes to transport them to a living Hell. After they've spent an hour in something like that, they will definitely think again befo-" She cut herself off, abruptly, as she let out a faint scream.

While she was talking, Micheal had walked up to the main perpetrator, the chubby speaker. He then tapped on his Spatial Ring, bringing out one of his practice swords. He coated it in a layer of Sword Energy and then, without hesitating…

Plunged the sword directly into the man's heart.

.

—- Points Obtained —-

Points: 144

.

Bright red blood spurted out as the man collapsed to the floor, killed almost instantly. Micheal stepped out of range of the body as it fell over, flicking his sword to the side.

"You- you killed him?!" Sophia's eyes widened in horror as she saw this, turning to look at Michael as if he was a monster.

He sighed,

"Sophia. Using your Fairy Eyes on them for an hour would force us to remain here for that hour. After you did that, there is no guarantee that they wouldn't go rob and murder more people." He looked at her, his eyes calm,

"In fact, if we were on Earth, this trio would almost certainly be considered mass murderers. You saw how they acted, they've clearly killed and robbed many people before. They likely would've killed those two for the Points they could gain after finding out if they had hid any Artifacts." He motioned with the practice blade at the now dead gunman.

"Anytime you kill another human, you get a small portion of the Points that human had, from either Abilities they'd purchased or excess Points they had leftover." Micheal began to explain,

"Humans lose around 95% to 99.99% of the Points they have had, not counting those spent on Artifacts, dropping only the remaining 5% if you're very lucky, but usually closer to or less than 1%." He sighed again.

The inefficiency really was quite great, but it didn't stop groups like the Black Flag Pirates from murdering others to gain Points.

"He would've shot the both of us if we didn't obey him." He nodded at the corpse,

"Would you want to let people like that go free?"

"But… you just, you killed him!?" Sophia took several deep breaths as she tried to force herself to get over her shock.

'She's still pretty innocent. She doesn't fully understand the horrors of this world yet.' He frowned.

"Sophia… your little sister is still lost. Imagine if we let men like this back into the world, what do you think they would do if they found her?" His words went off like thunder in Sophia's ears.

Her eyes shook as she stared at the body, not speaking.

"We aren't on Earth anymore, Sophia. Playing nice with people like that will get innocent people killed." He tried to make his voice less harsh, hoping to convey his sincerity.

Reality was not nice. Reality was not fair. The strong preyed on the weak. Micheal hated this fact, but that was how life was currently.

'I hope to change that, and change that soon.' His eyes flashed with determination.

'But that will take time.'

He finished his thoughts as he stepped forward, walking up to one of the two other robbers.

His practice blade blurred as he flicked his arm, stabbing the mugger in the heart and killing him instantly.

.

—- Points Obtained —-

Points: 121

.

As he walked up to the third man, wiping the blood from his sword once more, he paused.

Sophia had walked forward, overcoming her shock as she stared at the man. Her eyes were cool, visible through her mask, as she stood before the man.

In her hands was her Burning Steel Knife.

"I-I will do it." She held the magical blade in front of her, her breathing steady.

'What a versatile mental state.' Micheal was impressed. Despite knowing her fierce reputation in the future, he still found himself surprised by how quickly she could overcome mental hurdles and adapt with so little experience. If it had been him on his first time here, he highly doubted he would've been able to move so quickly.

Micheal simply nodded, watching on.

She raised the sword in her hands, her hands not shaking a whit as she looked at the stupefied robber. She took one last deep breath and then stabbed forward.

SHKK

"…"

"Good job, Sophia." Micheal walked up and patted her on the back.

She stood in front of the dead body as it fell over, her red knife sizzling as the blood on it melted into the air, dissipating. No blood had spattered onto her, but the morning sunlight had stained her hands inescapably red. She looked down at them, her face expressionless.

"I know it's not easy. This entire reality is not easy. But it's the one we're stuck with." He nodded again.

She turned around and nodded back, her mood somber. He could see a fire in her eyes, however, one that refused to dampen.

They were quiet for a few moments before Micheal broke the silence.

"Now, let's look on the bright side! We took out some scumbags and saved some innocents, right?" He smiled, washing away the somber mood,

"Let's see if these thieves have anything we can use to sell!"

.