He had three lodestones left, that meant three destinations. Although [Threshold Shift] let him travel anywhere he could envision, there were limited areas he could fix in his mind. What place could he picture, a location where Logan could envision a snapshot, a solid photograph, that also had a high population? After all, the more populated the area, the more opportunity to sell his items.

For this next location, Logan decided to stay in the same time zone.

New York.

In his mind, he thought of neon billboards so big they were the size of buildings, of wide streets packed full of people, of skyscrapers on either side. Logan deployed [Threshold Shift], his stomach sloshing with vertigo, feeling like he'd just stepped off the edge of a cliff. He'd used [Threshold Shift] in rapid succession before during the fight against the plastic blob, but he'd never used it to travel thousands of miles repeatedly in such a short time. Although the skill only cost 500 Karma, he had to imagine that travelling so far so quickly had to be taxing on his body.

Materializing in the street, Logan swallowed, acid surging, and then peered around.

He'd envisioned Times Square full of people swarming the street. Each time he'd seen it on the news, it had been packed with people. But back in Jack's cabin on the first day of Integration, Logan had seen a shot of New York on the news, with the streets empty of cars and people, paper fluttering in the breeze.

In reality, the situation was even worse.

The sun was rising and basking the area in morning light, illuminating an empty square. The billboards towered over Logan, but they were blank, black screens. The power was off. Underneath the unlit billboards, regular white signs with 'I love NY' decorated the square. Mini statues of green Lady Liberty, some up to Logan's shoulders, others waist height, were knocked over and covered in dirt and what looked like dried blood.

Empty e-bike stands were on one side, with the occasional bike left in random areas on the street.

Off to the sides, piles of garbage were so high they went up to his shoulders, the black garbage bags torn open and spilling sludge and trash onto the street. A noxious reek like rotten eggs and rotting meat made his already upset stomach slosh. Even underneath his facemask, it smelled like nothing else, even worse than the stinky snail.

There were the odd signs of life, a hint that this had been a place for celebration and fun. From discarded life-sized Disney costumes—Mickey and Minnie Mouse—to massive fur costumes that reminded him of the Cookie Monster. They'd been left on the sidewalk, as if someone had been wearing them while walking down the street, only to be vaporized, leaving nothing but the costumes.

Crap.

He'd decided on Times Square since he'd assumed it would have people.

So far, he'd traveled to each place, crafted and ran. It was still early in the morning, but it was New York, a city that housed millions. How could the whole square be empty?

Should he craft his lodestone and run?

Or look for an area in New York that showed signs of human life?

Logan furrowed his brow, turning his gaze down the street and peering into the distance. He could use his Pink Sock to jump blocks until he found—

Wait.

Logan stilled, his shoulders knotting in tension.

He may not need to look after all.

At first, he heard footsteps, of rustling, of numerous shoes on asphalt. Logan retreated until he'd crept closer to the piles of garbage and used them as cover as he peered down the street. Although his exoskeleton covered him from his feet to his head and he'd deployed the camouflage effect of [Mimicry Armour], there was no reason to make himself a target. He was supposed to be 'Lord Logan,' a level 75 user. If he were a level 75 user, he'd be cautious, wary. He wouldn't rush forward as if he were invincible.

Logan had to think like a weak user.

A head of rotting lettuce fell down the pile of trash, landing in front of his feet. His nose scrunched and he pressed his lips together in disgust as the reek became even worse.

Logan peered around the trash and down the street.

People.

Ten soldiers led a stream of people down the street. The soldiers looked official. Army-like, with khaki pants and green shirts, and they held huge guns. Logan had never been a gun guy, but even he recognized serious firepower, firepower that regular, government soldiers in America wouldn't normally be holding. They were young, no one older than what had to be thirty, their faces grim and alert.

To the sides, other soldiers surrounded the civilians, keeping wary eyes on the buildings. The civilians inside the escort looked normal, every day, and most dragged wheeled luggage behind them, their faces worn and scared.

There were hundreds of them.

So, either the US government had gotten their act together or someone local had taken charge.

Logan scanned the soldiers in the front of the group. They were a range of levels, all the way from level 20 to level 50. But the civilians were pathetic… half the group hadn't leveled! A dozen or more were level 3 to 10, but not one of them was over level 20. Well, in a place like New York, with a population in the millions, it made sense that there were a ton of people that hadn't yet killed their first monster.

The group streamed past him, the nearest soldiers scanning where Logan was standing, their eyes passing over the stacked trash, and then looking right through him.

Logan smothered a smile, a feeling of satisfaction making him feel like preening. He was starting to realize just how versatile and valuable [Mimicry Armour] had ended up being. Not one person in what had to be hundreds in this group was wearing armour like Logan's, armour that was skill based. Not to mention that his armour also allowed him to effectively become invisible.

The skill had come from Ernie, and Logan suspected that he might have lucked out by bonding with him. Although he hadn't had many encounters with other people yet, so far, not once had he seen another person who'd bonded with a sapient animal. Was that one of the other reasons that skill rings were so valuable? After all, to bond with an animal, they had to accept you in the first place.

Logan let the group stream past and then considered a way forward. There was no point in crafting his lodestone in Times Square. Although this group was surging past, who's to say another would? Crafting it here would defeat the purpose of being accessible to a large swath of the population. No, better to follow them and find out where they were heading. Just like back in Damsel's complex, they might be travelling to a fortified area.

Logan eyed the back of the group, hesitating. Everyone was surprisingly lower leveled, even the soldiers. He'd thought picking level 75 had been smart, that it would allow him to come across as someone who wasn't a pushover but also someone who wasn't an XP harvester, but now he was questioning whether he'd overestimated.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Making a snap decision, Logan turned on his System Mainframe settings and toggled through until he activated the Gem of Subterfuge options.

[The user's level: ___.]

Logan downgraded his level to 45 but kept the same characteristics. He hesitated over his hidden name, but then decided, fuck it, he was all in on 'Lord Logan.' Besides, half the soldiers weren't high leveled enough to view a hidden name through [Identify] yet anyway.

The group was marching through the middle of the street, darting around the concrete crowd barriers erected by the city. Logan trailed them, following, trying to be as quiet as possible. Eventually, once he had an idea where they were going, he could use his Pink Sock to…

There were rats up ahead.

Logan curled his lip in disgust, half at the fact that he hated rats, and half at the fact that anything rat-like reminded him of Pied and what he'd done to the people of Hope's End. But unlike Pied's army, these rats didn't have multiple heads or tails with spikes. And they were unlike the Pied Piper rats who had sniffed out people hiding in buildings.

They were the size of racoons, with beady red eyes, and twitching noses. But not just that. They were… well, overweight. Their torsos were swollen at least three times the size of a normal animal, as if each had swallowed a massive blueberry. They were so swollen that their bellies trailed on the ground, their ankles bulging and their skin wrinkled with rolls of skin that waddled around their paws.

There had to be twenty of them at least, swarming the mountain of garbage up the road, their eyes eager and greedy, their back legs kicking as they dug through the pile of rotting refuse.

Half of them were missing limbs and chunks out of their sides, as if an animal had gnawed through them.

Logan scanned one with [Idiot's Inspect]:

[Tapeworm Rat. Level 5. A rat infected with Rodentolepis nana. With a veracious appetite, this rat will eat everything in sight, including its own flesh.]

[Highest stat: Dexterity. Characteristics: Hunger that will never cease. Hidden name: N/A.]

Huh, for a monster, it sounded remarkably tame. For that matter, it had been forever since Logan had encountered something that low leveled. These things had to be newly born.

They were no threat to him, but to the civilians who hadn't leveled yet, they'd be a real danger.

"Hold!" shouted a soldier up at the front, raising his arm and clenching his fist in the air. One by one, the other soldiers came to a pause, the civilians in the group murmuring and shifting nervously.

"What is it, private?" barked a woman with black hair pulled into a tight bun. She had two streaks of red running through her bangs which she'd parted on either side. The woman was shapely and lithe, and had a commanding aura and a no-nonsense expression, her eyes analyzing everything around them as she glanced from the soldier who'd raised his hand to the others.

"A rat swarm, ma'am," said the soldier, nodding his head at the pile of garbage.

Logan scanned the two soldiers with [Idiot's Inspect]:

[Emily Bastione: Level 41. A human being.]

[Highest Stat: Dexterity. Characteristics: A natural leader. Hidden name: Red.]

[David Gold: Level 23. A human being.]

[Highest Stat: Perception. Characteristics: Always alert. Hidden name: Davie.]

The woman, Emily, narrowed her eyes at the pile of garbage and then gestured with her chin. "You know what to do. You're up, private," she said to another soldier on her left.

He wore the same green khaki clothes, but he had a buzzcut, showing his large ears that flushed red as the civilians looked at him and shifted nervously.

"Ma'am," he said obediently as he swung a large green duffel bag over his shoulder and dropped it to the road with a thud. Opening the zipper, he took out four weapons. Long, narrow rifles. Something about them looked off, as if they were lower quality than normal weapons. They were nowhere close to the larger ones the soldiers carried.

The private raised his voice and directed it over the crowd. "I need four people who haven't leveled up yet, come to the front!"

There was shuffling from the crowd, but no one moved.

Emily sneered. "Either you come forward on your own initiative, or we pick people at random."

A bald man with a protruding belly shuffled forward, apologizing as he stepped on a woman's foot, his bald head looking sunburned and sweaty. From the back, another man, this one short and skinny with a narrow, long nose and a mustache, inched his way forward, his head down and his shoulders drooping. His shirt looked filthy, a rip running through one sleeve.

"I'm level 0," he mumbled to the ground.

To the side, a woman with a weathered face and gray, curly short hair limped forward, one of the heels of her shoes broken, giving her an uneven gate. She looked in her late 60s or early 70s, someone who reminded him of his grandmother, not someone who should be struggling through the Apocalypse.

Logan couldn't help feeling a pang of tightness in his chest as he thought of Eleanor.

Lastly, a teenager who looked barely older than Hunter surged forward, his face red and his eyes eager. "I need to level still!" he exclaimed, beaming.

"Good enough," murmured Emily as she nodded her head at the private.

He handed each person a rifle. They held them with tentative hands, the bald man seeming steadier than the others.

"You know the drill," said the private. "Keep shooting until you hit one. Your goal isn't to kill them, it's to make sure the System counts your shot as an attempt."

Logan shifted in place, raising his eyebrows. He had a sense of what they were trying to do, and unlike with Damsel's group, this might be a workable method of leveling up people without putting them in danger.

The four inched closer to the pile of trash. So far, the rats hadn't taken any notice of the large group, focused on eating to the exclusion of anything else. And with twenty of the overweight things with their faces stuck inside trash bags, their swollen bellies and backsides sticking out, rat tails swaying in excitement, Logan couldn't see how they could miss.

And yet they did.

Logan held back a snort. The bald man managed to hit a rat on his first try, the bullet smacking into the monster's back, sending a bloom of red spraying. The rat squealed before it went right back to digging through the trash as if the injury was a minor inconvenience.

Oh. That's why the rifles looked odd.

They were BB guns.

The bald man lowered his weapon after he'd landed a shot, but the others kept trying, shooting everything—the garbage bags, the street—everything but the rats.

With a scowl of annoyance, the private blew out a breath and finally resorted to sidling up to each of them and helping them aim their guns.

Once everyone had landed a shot, the private returned the BB guns back to the bag, and Emily handed him a…

Logan swallowed.

An RPG.

The other soldiers urged everyone back until they were far enough away that they were no longer in the blast radius.

The private aimed the weapon, his mouth in a constant sneer, and then let it fly, slamming the rocket launcher directly into the trash. With a boom, the pile exploded into a fireball, the rats screaming, body parts flying while the trash turned into flaming mush. An even worse stench of rotting eggs mixed with barbeque made Logan scrunch his nose in disgust, the feeling only further emphasized as he watched one of the rats who'd managed to survive scurry back over to the pile of flaming trash, its severed torso streaming a trail of blood and intestines as it franticly tried to swallow the remains of another rat's foot.

Ugh.

Once the dust cleared, Emily examined each of the four with that faraway look everyone had as they looked at their System messages.

"Good," she said, her voice short.

The teenager whooped, beaming, bouncing on the balls of his feet, while the others looked dazed and half disbelieving. "If you continue to behave, we'll help you level up more once the others have had a chance."

"Thank you, sergeant," said the bald man, while the others nodded their heads.

The soldiers formed up again until they'd surrounded the group, and as one, they resumed pouring down the street.

Logan considered.

This is the first time he'd encountered an organized group that was led by competent, sane people. It might be worthwhile to make connections for reasons other than his hidden market. After all, he had his work cut out for him with his Save Humanity Quest. Logan doubted that he could complete the quest without help.

There was something hinky going on with it. Each time he checked, the progress grew worse and worse:

[Quest: Save Humanity! Save 5.9 billion people in less than one year by catching and storing 930 billion tons of carbon. This is a running Quest, and your progress can fluctuate up and down.]

[Reward for completing the Quest: You will save 5.9 billion people.]

[Penalty for not completing the Quest: You will kill 5.9 billion people.]

[Quest Progress: -8% complete. 354 days remaining.]

That did it. Using [Threshold Shift], Logan jumped half a block in front of the group and then deactivated his armour's camouflage effect. Standing in the middle of the street, he stood motionless and waited for the group to approach.

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