Chapter 968 - >99%

[The Shackled - Choice confirmed]

[Please select a care package]

‘Please note: all items available in the care packages may be found organically elsewhere.’

‘The available care packages for ‘The Shackled’ are as follow:

[Eviscerated Scientist]:

- 5 Truesight pills

- 1Truesight pill condensator

- Deployable EFR Detector

[Mangled Soldier]:

-10 Truesight pills

- 1 Anti-EFR Combat Shield

- Deployable Wireless Power Supply

[Volatilized Administrator]:

- 20 Truesight pills

- 1 ECA Administrator Access Card’

Sofia scratched her head looking at the options and their slightly worrying names.

“I hardly understand what any of this is… Any explanations?”

The system was silent, so Sofia could only pick based on some basic logic.

Clearly the truesight pills are going to be important somehow, but since they can be found elsewhere and the three starting ‘packages’ all have them, maybe the condensator thing is a bit unneeded. I don’t think I need the Access Card, whatever it gives access to, after all accessing things I am not meant to is not anything new to me… The Soldier pack seems fine. Plus if I have to choose between detecting EFR or protecting myself against it, then isn’t protection better?

It would have been easier to choose if I had any idea what EFR meant, but…

“Yeah soldier, I think soldier.”

Everyone else had no objections, but Sofia did not pick right away. Instead she gave Bookie another hug.

“So much time apart and we have to be separated again… We’ll come get you and Pestle as fast as we can, alright?”

“Don’t worry Sofia, me and Pestle are a super good team!”

“Alright alright. I trust you both, since we have to be separated, take this,” Sofia said, handing Bookie a storage ring, “There are potions and a few useful enchanted items inside, hopefully that helps on your side. Plus a bit of extra storage space is always nice, right?”

“Whaaaa, thank you, Sofia!” Bookie jumped in joy holding his new ring with both hands.

After everyone said a last goodbye and made sure everything was ready, Sofia picked the Soldier care package.

[Mangled Soldier Care Package - Choice confirmed]

[Trial - SUPER HOSTILE APOCALYPSE - now beginning. Please stand still.]

A blinding light erupted in the waiting room, and when it died down, Sofia was in complete darkness, unable to move, like buried alive, and could no longer feel her connection to Bookie.

Pareth is still nearby.

Looking through Pareth’s eyes, she also saw complete darkness.

Weird. My mana senses are scrambled as well, I can’t see shit.

Sofia silently summoned the graveyard Nymphs, the spirit plane looked white and blurry as usual, but the ‘wall’ Sofia was in looked quite thin. The Nymps pulled her out, and she shifted back to the physical plane.

She was in a large rectangular room with white steel walls, no windows and a heavy-looking door. In the center were two metallic shackled sarcophagus suspended mid-air by hundreds of chains, one for her and one for Pareth.

Just as she wanted to send the Nymphs to Pareth, his sarcophagus started to creak and bend, before shattering like a broken vase. Pareth summoned his armor and sword mid-air, landing heavily next to Sofia.

“An interesting way to start a trial. Does everything seem normal on your side? Check your spells.”

Sofia did the same thing, first and foremost they had to know what worked and what didn’t. It seemed to be exactly the same as it was in the training grounds before. The ring to Zangdar did not work, and the painted halls were annoyingly empty, but aside from that, equipment and spells, everything was there.

Now that she was out of the sarcophagus, Sofia could spread her mana senses, looking outside of the room they were in.

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More rooms like ours… Some kind of underground prison?

It seems like we are the only ones around, though.

Ah shit, I think I’m breaking things.

There was little to no mana in the air, so Sofia had to spread out her own mana for her senses to work, but almost immediately as she started looking around, she could hear loud crackling sounds coming from outside.

A world that runs on electricity, then?

Since this was supposed to be an extreme difficulty start, Sofia immediately took her precautions, starting to engrave her six false immortality runes, and taking her demon form, which now also transformed Pareth.

“You really are massive like that. Even more with the armor.”

Pareth shrugged, and since Sofia was ready, he walked toward the door. It seemed that it was some kind of automatic sliding door, but there was no obvious way to open it. Pareth kicked it in. The thick steel door bent like crumpled paper and was sent flying to the opposite side of the corridor, almost breaking the wall on the opposite side.

“I was thinking of phasing through, but that works,” Sofia commented, exiting the room, looking back, above the missing door their sarcophagus room was labelled ‘ECA - S109 - The necromancer’.

Using the common language? Nice, I was worried for a second considering the ambient mana is so poor.

As Sofia thought, the place was running on electricity, the yellow lights above her flickering from their mere presence.

Sighing, she quietly stored her [Bend Reality Infinite Bloom Charm] for the moment, as the magic flower petals it created passively around her could easily destroy electrical machinery.

“Stairs up this way,” Sofia noted, looking to the left.

She checked the other cells on the way.

‘ECA - S105 - The impersonator’.

‘ECA - S102 - Skinless bear’.

‘ECA - S98 - Little girls’.

They were all open, and most importantly, all empty.

‘Little girls’ in particular was a room full with plushes and kid toys, swimming in a pool of blood that seeped out into the corridor through the half-open door.

Sofia crouched down, plunged a finger into the blood and gave it a taste.

“Huh. It’s just human blood.”

Pareth gave her a strange look but continued walking ahead. The underground facility they were in was smaller than Sofia had first thought, there were fifteen cells including hers, and no trace of anyone else anywhere. The upper level was full of offices featuring many devices Sofia did not understand, but she did recognise the computers as they looked a lot like the one Jin had left in his penthouse, though they were even more bulky. That being said the screens were all showing the same blue light, and she couldn’t figure out how to do anything with them.

“It looks like the people here left in a hurry, if I had to guess.”

Not wanting to spend too long in this unsettling place, Sofia and Pareth kept taking every stairs up they could find, and soon found the exit. Two doors at least a meter thick were already open toward the outside, something powerful had kicked them in just like Pareth had kicked their cell’s door, and sitting in a pool of blood against the wall next to the exit was a mangled soldier holding some kind of broken weapon.

I guess whatever did this to the door slapped this guy aside, and he just died on the spot… No trace of a mana heart… That’s just a low level human.

Talk about a care package…

Looting the corpse, Sofia found the starting things, which were the first items [Identify] responded to. The first was a glass flask with ten small blue pills.

[Truesight pill]:

Helps broaden one’s senses, and allows one to see some things invisible to the mortal eyes.

EXTRA HOSTILITY RULE: To ensure this trial’s success, it is very important for each trialee to consume exactly one a day starting from day 1.

Missing days comes with incremental penalties.

Beware, as the consumption of a truesight pill will knock you out for forty minutes to an hour, and not even death could wake you up during that time.

“So the pills are the extra rule Skelmie mentioned. I’d almost forgotten it’s been so long… We will have to spend two hours a day guarding each other while we take the pills. That’s an interesting constraint, I guess? Hopefully they are not too hard to find but at least we have a five day supply.”

The second item was a small black box strapped to the Soldier’s waist.

[Anti-EFR Combat Shield]:

Automatic energy shield protecting against EFR attacks.

The batteries are depleted but it is still in good condition, be on the lookout for spare batteries!

“Are the batteries depleted because of the blow the guy took? I guess that could explain how there is anything left of him, considering the state the steel doors are in. Not bad.”

Lastly a rectangular block with handles strapped to the man’s back was the only other thing still intact, and the last item of the care package. It was engraved with the ECA logo on the side. ‘Esoterism Containment Agency’.

[Deployable Wireless Power Supply]:

Once deployed, it can supply appliances nearby with electricity for about six hours.

Can be recharged using three truesight pills or one combat battery.

“Nice to have, I suppose? Now let’s grab the fourth item.”

Thrusting her hand into the corpse's bloody chest, Sofia fixed its shattered skeleton. Under the influence of her aura, it soon pulled itself out of its mangled flesh.

Sofia smiled, sent the skeletal thrall to the halls, and joined Pareth outside. It was night, and they were in a forest, a simple dirt road being the only thing leading to the doors at the bottom of a hill they just came out of.

A few system windows appeared in the corner of Sofia’s vision.

[Main quest: Save the world before humanity becomes extinct.]

[Sub quests: - Progress further to unlock - ]

[Day 0 - Humans remaining: >99%]

Now that she was outside, Sofia finally noticed that the forest was oddly silent.

Heh, I knew that things seemed a bit too smooth for an ‘extreme’ difficulty start.

Since we are the last to get out… All the other things that were ‘contained’ are already outside. Let’s see what this trial has to offer.