[CYA] Chapter 115: A Change in Plans

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<Alex, Real - Endure, High School>

After two days, Alex found that he’d been wrong. He did not like the plan.

It was very difficult to find anything above uncommon surrounding the base within the four hour time-slot they were allowed. This was true even when they went straight away from the base in various directions.

It seems that they were the last ‘important’ thing in the city, and so all the more powerful variants were being held back for the next wave. At least, that’s what it seemed like.

Others were complaining a bit too, as the max level undead they were able to find in the wild was level 15. From their various experiments, that meant that they were, effectively, being gated at level 20. Even at the same rarity tier, once an Initiate outleveled an enemy by five or more levels, the experience gain was all but nothing.

Not that anyone was at level 20 in any race or either class yet, let alone all three of them. It was just frustrating to see that effective cap looming above them.

The lower level, weaker enemies also kept their advancement slower than if they’d been fighting stronger foes.

For Alex? He seemed to get about as much experience as the Common classed Initiates gained when their primary classes were at level eighteen, despite his level being half that.

Thankfully, the rarity penalty wasn’t nearly as large as the increase to experience needed, but combined with that? Their group could effectively level everyone once with the undead he’d have to kill in order to level once by himself.

The comparison wasn’t exactly one to one, but it was near enough that he felt bad killing anything. They were just worth so little to him and helped the others so much.

Finally, after two days, he made a formal complaint. He’d waited until he was alone so if anything odd happened, it would only negatively affect him. After all, he’d already made one recently, and he’d been warned to be more sparing in the attempts.

To his surprise, it actually worked, and his complaint went through.

Formal Complaint Logged:
Level capped and rarity limited adversaries are slowing, even stalling, your advancement in opposition to the spirit of the Apology tutorial.

Contacting a Watcher.

Your inquiry is important to us, please be patient as we connect you to the requisite functionary.

We thank you for waiting.

Alex couldn’t help but snort a laugh at the System yet again. It was so like going through phone trees back before all this that it had a sort of nostalgia to it. Thankfully, unlike back then, the wait was only about thirty seconds.

Watcher Response:
Hello Alex,
You aren’t wrong, but unfortunately, it cannot be helped. Due to the increased difficulty of your particular scenario, you and your companions are out-advancing your fellows in other instances. As the next scenario will include all Apology Tutorial Initiates, you cannot be allowed to skew the curve for the millions of others who would suffer under such a difficulty change. Similarly, you cannot be allowed to grow to be so powerful as to render the scenario moot.

Note: This limit is only for the monsters out and abroad. You can always attempt to end the scenario early by assaulting the undead stronghold.

Regardless, as a result of the general caps, you are granted two benefits, and yes, you would have gotten both even without this complaint. One is that your rewards will be greatly increased when this scenario ends.

The less obvious one is a gift. Time. You have the time and ability to train your skills more extensively than your fellows. Use that, and you will come out better than if you’d been free to level indiscriminately.

That is all that I can say.

Best of luck, Alex. I hope that you survive, if that is your wish.

Alex read through the notification several times before hunting down Kaylee and reading it out to her.

There had been… many revelations in the information, and it took quite a bit to process through them all.

Their scenario was more difficult than seemingly any other. That was… that was frustrating to realize, but it didn’t really change anything.

In the next scenario, they would be with all other Apology Tutorial participants, and there were millions of them. Those two revelations were shocking to say the least, but it did make a sort of sense.

The fact that so many enemies had been available to choose from, and they’d still ended up in a scenario with dozens of other Initiates, had already hinted at a truly staggering number overall.

More was sussed out as well, and that changed their operating procedure greatly. More to the point, it contained an incredible hint as to what they could do.

Alex was practically beaming as they discussed the possibility of taking the fight to the enemy for once.

More than just taking some agency back, his inner loot-gremlin was quite interested to see what they could earn if they ended the undead threat with so much time to spare.

In the end, it was decided that most Initiates needed to keep leveling regardless of this information. As such, Alex and Brianne needed to keep taking the groups out, but the focus otherwise was turned to skill grinding in one form or another.

They’d gone through a few magic shops over the last two days finding every one looted to one extent or other. They’d found a few potions of various kinds, but most of the gear, orbs, and books were either destroyed or taken.

Alex was a bit irritated that despite his map of potential locations, he couldn’t find a single ‘Replenish Blood’ spell.

But back on the plan for the Initiates a whole? They had a deadline now, and they had a plan. The decision was made that they would assault the enemy stronghold two days before the next wave, just six days from now.

In that way, they’d have time to retreat and regroup if things didn’t go well, allowing them to prepare for the next wave and decide how to continue.

Alex decided to prioritize learning to fight with his new shield and continuing to improve his use of Shaped Force Burst during that time.

He also started doing nightly exercises with his Mana Manipulation rings as he really should have been all along, using just enough mana to create the puzzle so that he would refill about when he woke up the next morning each time.

The puzzles were never easy, but he did start improving once more. The rings responded to his growing competence, becoming ever more complex, and beginning to include sections he could move and shift around, even requiring proper manipulation before he could complete the maze.

To his surprise, just like with the clear reward boxes, almost no one else was interested in using the rings.

Pilar took a couple of cracks at them, but she seemed rather annoyed when she returned the set at lunch on the fourth day after the wave.

She did not request them again.

Others used them here and there, but the general consensus was that the whole thing was irritating and a bit of a time waste in the short term.

Alex sort of understood. If he had been able to have a real chance at leveling, he’d likely have been focusing on that rather than working on his skills. Even so, the Watcher’s words kept coming back to him.

She outright said that skill expertise is better than leveling. I cannot forget that. He told others the same, and they heard him, but their attitudes didn’t seem to change much.

The strength gains from leveling were just too enticing in comparison, even with the dearth of strong opponents.

Still, there were a few who gratefully used the rings, and there were enough that the rotation was a bit on the full side. So, he supposed it was good that there weren’t more interested.

I suppose I can’t really blame the others either. I both believed and knew that exercising would help me live a longer and better life back before all this. I even had gym memberships at various points, weights and exercise equipment at home, and friends who encouraged and reminded me. Yet, I still grew heavier every year, only staying strong enough to not have weakness be an inconvenience in my day to day life, which didn’t require much. This was much the same. Tedious work was tedious work, and most people didn’t like doing it, no matter how good it was for them.

As for Alex? He’d always liked puzzles—not jigsaw puzzles, those were just mediocre pictures with extra steps—and figuring out blacksmith puzzles had always brought him quite a bit of enjoyment.

The ring training was much the same from a certain point of view with the added enjoyment of a maze to solve.

He did find it funny that he could train his stats in theory, but that was basically the same as exercise back on Earth had been, and he just couldn’t muster the motivation to do that instead of working on his other tasks. So, in a way, he was the same as those who weren’t interested in the mana training, just about a different avenue of advancement.

We are all hypocrites, every one of us. He shook his head, remembering his philosophy teacher who had drilled that into him. Crazy old man.

Now, their plan required them to actually know where the undead stronghold was, and in that regard—as in many others—the Initiates who had come with Stephen were actually a good source of information. Apparently, the police department they’d stayed in at first had been getting regular updates up to a point, and they could point almost directly at the location on a city map.

The door-buster college.

It made a sort of sense, actually. If any threat of this kind was going to enter the city it would most likely come from a dungeon.

Alex… didn’t really like the implication that dungeons could disgorge their enemies into the regular world, but he supposed that such might actually be part of the lesson they were meant to learn from all this.

Regardless, since they had a location, they began taking their expeditions in that direction, going as fast as they could and cutting down as many undead as possible on the way.

It seemed that the college was some fifteen miles from the high school, meaning that this city was massive in pre-System Earth terms.

There had been a lot of people here. That thought, of course, brought to mind the old question of where all the bodies had gone, but this time, he realized he had the answer.

James—or rather his body—had provided the perfect, morbid demonstration. The undead vermin had completely devoured his flesh, and other undead had been working on his bones before Alex interrupted them.

Thus, the simple answer for where the bodies had gone? Those who hadn’t turned had been consumed.

Regardless, Alex was the first to have gotten a reasonable look at the college, despite it being a bit farther than they could easily run and still make it back within the allotted time.

The campus was surrounded by high walls with regular guard posts around the outside, now all ‘manned’ by the undead.

And goodness, were they manned with inconveniences.

Death Squires were the standard guard with two Plague Guard Flesh Golems flanking the open main gates.

Alex’s mana senses showed massive concentrations of undeath within the grounds, and the milling crowds of high level uncommon and rarer undead visible through those open gates made it quite clear that this was the undead base of power in which the Watcher had stated they could find a way to end the scenario early.

Once it was found and confirmed, they were able to send scouting groups specifically to learn all they could about the place, and a plan was slowly put together.

As such, when the day of the raid dawned, Alex and most of the other Initiates were already well on their way toward the college, proceeding at a sedate pace to maintain their stamina for the fight ahead.

…and with which to flee home if they failed.

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