The bushes behind them were well and truly on fire. John had made a point of chucking Fireballs behind him as he ran, keeping his body low. The posture style should have felt awkward and unbalanced, but Ninja helped him out there.

Intermittent bursts of Mana Sense told him a good dozen monsters had converged on the mansion, and now they were racing across the garden in pursuit. Hopefully, a wall of fire would slow them down. He didn't dare try and look back with Soul Vision to check out how strong they were.

The trio kept hot on his heels, and they were infuriatingly loud. Ninja told John how to soften his footsteps even at a dead sprint, but even if they'd possessed the same abilities, their armour clunking around would've been attention-grabbing. They were just lucky the snaps and cracks of burning wood surpassed them.

Still, they miraculously made it to the massive house at the end of this new garden without being accosted by monsters. That wouldn't last, though. There were three approaching just on the other side of the building, with three more likely to follow the same route. He had no time to assess their threat level. It was too finnicky to set up.

John slowed their pace to a walk as they rounded the new house. A two-story house of red-brick, it was completely incomparable to the ridiculous bulk of the mansion John had set on fire, but it was still massive compared to anything he'd ever lived in. It had boasted ten equally-spaced windows on the backward face.

You could fit four of my house in there, he thought, a little bitterly. Not that such things mattered anymore.

For some reason, Chester took their slowed pace as a cue to talk. "Dude, who the hell—"

John snapped his head around and glared. "Shut up," he hissed, quickly firing off a Mana Sense to make sure none of the monsters had been alerted. Then, he once again realised that came off way ruder than he intended and kind of wanted to die. "There's monsters ahead," he explained quietly, hoping that would offset it.

Chester's lip wobbled. "Okay," he whispered, barely loud enough to be audible.

+200 Aura

Staring in bewilderment at the text that had just inserted itself into the corner of his vision, John decided to give up trying to understand the particulars of why the system granted him Aura for certain actions and not others, for the moment. Coolness was obviously the main factor, but what was considered cool was way beyond him right now.

They flanked around the side of the house, sneaking through the side alley that linked the front garden to the back. Mana Sense kept pinging out with every heartbeat, and he was able to watch a stuttering image of the monsters approaching. Closer and closer, and then…

There was a crash from within the house. Pressed to one of the side walls as they were, it sounded like a boulder had just rolled through the place. John felt the vibrations of whatever had just passed through in the ground. It barrelled through the house like a stampeding elephant, and gave a roar of triumph as it burst out the other side. Two more presences followed it.

John let out a slow breath. They'd avoided the first three monsters he felt were likely to come this route, but more were on the way. A decision had to be made, here. It would be a few more seconds before the rest of the monsters arrived at the house, but by the same token, it wouldn't be long before the three who'd already rampaged through were clued into the fact that the human prey had already come this way, at which point they'd presumably double back on themselves and pursue.

If they waited for the second wave of the monsters to come through, it was highly likely they'd end up facing all six, in the end. Probably more. Whereas if they rushed out now, they would inevitably have to face the second wave head on. There was a chance they'd be able to force their way past, though, then escape before the first wave could arrive on the scene and overwhelm them with numbers.

They had to make a gamble, essentially. Either way, they were going to end up pursued by monsters. The question was whether to take the risk of trying to cull the herd, counting on their four versus three advantage. John switched to Soul Vision, but again couldn't get a good lock on the approaching monsters. They were moving too fast.

"What's happening? Why have we stopped?" Jade whispered, clutching her machete. It looked way too mundane, compared to her plate armour. He wondered how she'd ended up with that disparity in equipment.

Then again, I'm carrying golf clubs strapped to my backpack, even though I can make a magic sword that extends from my arm.

When neither of her comrades replied, John glanced around and found all three of them staring at him. For some reason, they flinched at his attention. To his mild alarm, they were all tainted a faint blue. It took him a second to realise what was going on, and switched from his Soul Vision back to Mana Pulse.

"The fuck is this guy's deal, man?" Chester breathed, his expression the very picture of distress.

John elected not to reply, figuring he'd just say something dumb anyway. Stoic and mysterious, he told himself as he turned forward once more. Stoic and mysterious.

Easier said than done. Judging by Chester's clear discomfort, he was probably coming off more like quiet and awkward. At this point, John was tempted to run away from the humans as much as the monsters. Maybe the monsters would focus on the more tempting target of three people, in that case?

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

John frowned, realising it was equally likely the monsters would see a lone human as the more tempting target, assuming the trio would be harder to deal with due to numbers.

Damn it.

The end of the world had been so much easier to deal with on his own. If these people heard him use one of those lame one-liners he'd been throwing around, he was sure he'd lose every bit of Aura he'd earned. And the system would probably take away all of his upgrades, too. Then it would send him some mean message like "I can't believe I gave superpowers to such a loser wtf is this" and a bolt of lightning would crash down from the sky and fry him alive.

Fuck this, he thought. Without so much as a warning, he activated Accelerate and charged forward, clearing the house's front driveway in a heartbeat. This house was towards the end of a curved cul-se-sac, and so he got a good view of the three monsters approaching as they careened towards him down the street to the left.

One of them was a giant centipede, because of course. It was bigger than the last one, but not as big as the one with the glowing red eyes which had called all these reinforcements. Its mandibles clacked as it spotted him, and it sped up. Relatively speaking, at least. In the throes of Accelerate, it might as well have been moving in slow motion to John's perspective. The sight of all those little legs sluggishly skittering along was mighty disturbing.

Behind it on either flank were two monsters that contrasted each other severely.

One was a blob of slime similar to the one from the mansion, except it was a deep purple like ribena, and the skeletal creature inside it seemed more mammalian, perhaps a rabbit. It was jumping within its slimy balloon thing, making its host bound along like a space hopper.

The other was an obsidian crystalline quadruped creature that ran on all fours like a cheetah. Stalagmites jutted out from its shoulders to form something like a head, and it made tinkling sounds as its pointed feet spiked the road with every step. Looking at it, he wasn't immediately sure how he'd deal with it.

The blob was pretty easy though. Accelerate ran out, and he wasted no time firing a Soul Arrow at the purple slime monster, popping it like a balloon. It burst as expected, spewing purple gore all over the place. The skeletal creature that had been contained inside flopped to the ground, gaping like a beached fish.

+800 Aura

A flash of Soul Vision told him the creature was a blue, so he wasn't going to pat himself on the back too much. Why he received so much Aura, he had no idea.

That same use of Soul Vision told him the other two enemies weren't going to be so easy. Both were dark green. He launched twin blasts of Shadow Stream right at them, the darkness shooting across the space between them like a fire hose and impacting them directly. It did no damage, but it wasn't meant to. They slowed down immediately, blinded. The crystalline monster skidded along the ground like it was on an ice rink, scratching deep furrows into the pavement with ear-splitting shrieks from all four of its pointed limbs.

This afforded John enough time to dip back into Accelerate and test them with a few Soul Arrows. The projectile barely scratched the crystalline monster. He'd expected that. The centipede didn't shrug them off quite so easily. The arrows were scoring deep gashes in its carapace, but they weren't massively damaging, either.

He switched to Fireball and launched a few while Accelerate still had a handful of heartbeats left, charging forward to follow them. Fire billowed outwards upon impact. The centipede had seen it coming and been able to get somewhat out of the way, taking the brunt of the flames on its side, but the crystalline monster was still trying to get its footing after his Shadow Stream had disoriented it.

The Fireball struck it head on, and it went berserk. It started thrashing around, its limbs flailing wildly. If he'd seen an animal behaving that way, he would've assumed it was having a seizure. It crashed to the floor, chipping its obsidian stalagmite head. Sparks flew.

John kept charging, throwing more fireballs at the monsters, keeping them at bay. The centipede was in retreat, doing its best to protect its head from his fiery attacks, but taking great damage to its body in the process. Accelerate came down off its cooldown, and John knew it was over.

Activating Mana Blade, he dashed the last few metres to his enemies at impossible speed. The centipede was undoubtedly faster than his human reflexes could usually match, but it stood no chance against the supernatural swiftness granted to him by his Skill. It didn't even have time to react when his Mana Blade lashed out and sliced through its neck, separating its mandibled head from the rest of its body. He was already turning away as it started to fall in two pieces in slow motion.

+1000 Aura

More massive Aura gains, he distantly noted. He dismissed it for now.

The crystalline quadruped was still thrashing around, even though the fires that had torched it had gone out. Much of its body seemed melted, and its frantic movements had chipped away at other parts. It had been smooth as glass when he first laid eyes on it. Now, it looked like it had been thrown down a rocky cliff.

Standing a few metres away, John switched back to Fireball and let loose with a look of sheer contempt. With nowhere to run, it was helpless against him. Like a block of black ice, its body visibly melted under the intense heat of repeated Fireballs striking it at point-blank range. In seconds, it was still.

+1200 Aura

"Trash mobs," John muttered, sneering. He wasn't going to complain about the system giving him more Aura for such easy work, but he also didn't like the idea of it treating these monsters as if they were worth anything.

Once it was done, John checked his surroundings with Mana Sense. There were still monsters closing in from a distance, and the monsters from the mansion were now approaching. He also figured the first wave that had rampaged through the house had turned back, and were pursuing once more. If he was going to keep the trio around, he'd better go back for them.

As he had that thought, he looked back at the house and discovered he wouldn't need to go back for the three at all. They were at the end of the place's driveway, standing close together, staring at him.

Oh, he thought dully, they saw all that, huh?

His heart dropped to his stomach. Those massively inflated Aura rewards made sense now, much as he wished they didn't.

At least he knew they'd thought he looked cool. That was new.

John worked to make sure his shoulders didn't visibly hunch. If he wanted to maintain that image in their minds, he was going to have to play this carefully.

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