The staircase leading down was very deep, if Ruminas remembered correctly, this place used to be a very large subway station, almost the largest in this area. Every day, hundreds to thousands of people would come and go here, but now it was nothing more than a ruined ruin.
Just a quick glance was enough to see its dilapidation and desolation, Ruminas didn't expect much but seeing this extent still made her sigh in regret.
Ruminas' footsteps echoed in the dark and silent space. There was no light except for a few rays of light shining down from above through the cracks in the ground. She walked slowly, taking care to avoid making too much noise. The place was too quiet—a suspicious silence.
She scanned her surroundings. The collapsed walls, the rusty rails, the train doors that had been warped by some long-ago impact… everything was stained with time and destruction. But what caught her attention the most was the familiar red carpet that clung to the walls and spread across the floor.
"This thing again… It has spread all the way here?"
Ruminas frowned. This wasn't just an abandoned station, it had probably turned into a monster nest.
Click!
A small noise came from somewhere ahead, Ruminas immediately held her breath, taking a defensive stance. Her gaze nervously scanned every dark corner of the tunnel.
Then from the darkness, a dark shadow slowly crept out.
It was taller than a human, with a thin build, but the details of its body were distorted and monstrous. Its skin was pale, with black veins running along its limbs, its eyes were lifeless white… and most notably, its grin was wide open, full of sharp teeth.
Ruminas clenched the weapon in his hand.
"Is this… a transformed human?"
She didn't know the origin of the thing before her, but from its appearance and the way it moved, she could guess that this was a creature that was once human but had been deformed by something.
The creature did not attack immediately, but simply stood still, its head tilted slightly to the side as if observing Ruminas.
The atmosphere was tense, both of them stared at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move.
She felt her body tense like a bowstring—full of alertness.
Then, the creature moved.
So fast that almost instantly, it charged towards Ruminas with terrifying speed, claws extended, aiming straight for her throat!
Ruminas leaned over, perfectly dodging and returning a stab to the heart that killed the monster on the spot.
"Not too strong but weird enough…"
Ruminas looked up, judging from the distance, the room in front of her was the first gathering place she needed to go to. Ruminas quickly walked over and opened the door, surprisingly the door was still completely new and the inside of the room was also very clean, there were no signs of dilapidation or corrosion from the outside and especially inside this room there was actually a light on, completely different from the gloomy atmosphere outside.
The moment Ruminas stepped inside, a system announcement rang out.
[Scene One Mission – Part One Completed]
[Reward: 500 EXP, 1 Skill Point, 5 Random Stat Points, 1 special item]
[Receive: +2 Luck, +1 Intelligence, +2 Defense]
[Enough EXP to level up]
[Level Up Reward: 5 Optional Stat Points]
"Put it all on defense!"
"But, the mission is complete, so this is the meeting point?? It doesn't look much different from normal…"
Ruminas looked around the room again, perhaps the only difference was that it was very clean.
"So what now…"
As if in response to her, another quest notification appeared.
[Mission Act One – Part Two]
[ A spectacular escape: Survivors from all over the world accidentally gathered at this station in hopes of survival. However, the monsters suddenly appeared, forcing them to retreat quickly. Meanwhile, they discovered that there was still a subway train that could be started, but it needed some more necessary components, so they had to fight and find a way to start this subway train to escape]
[Completion conditions]
+Kill 10 random monsters (0/10)
+Found three required components (0/3)
+Reach level 5 (Completed)
+Leaving the station by subway (Not completed)
[Reward: 1000 EXP, 10 Random Stat Points, 1 Skill Point, 1 B-Rank Weapon]
"Oh, that sounds interesting. So, shall I get started now?"
[Reminder: This stage requires at least ten players to start, so please wait patiently for other players]
"Have to wait longer…?"
"Well, consider it a time to rest."
Ruminas found a place and sat down, she read through the quest again and found that its conditions weren't too difficult, even if it was killing ten monsters she could do it quickly but it was fine to take it slow.
"It seems like there was another special item in the reward just now.."
Ruminas opened the item space and saw something that looked like a gift box. She took it out and held it in her hand. The gift box was designed quite normally, and its weight was balanced, making it impossible for her to guess what was inside.
"Test inspection"
[ Random gift box: quest reward, open it and there will be a random item inside, it could be a weapon, it could be a quest prop or it could be nothing at all]
"Can there be nothing at all…?"
Ruminas felt a little nervous, she took a breath and then resolutely opened the box.
"What the hell is this!?"
Ruminas took the object in her hand, it was a medium sized metal gear, it still looked quite new but that wasn't what Ruminas cared about.
"What's so special about this…?"
"Appraisal!"
[Common Gear: A necessary item for the quest]
"Quest props? But what kind of quest would need something so common… Wait!"
Ruminas quickly checked the information of the second quest and saw that the "Find the three required components" section was marked as (1/3), so what she had just received was one of the three required components.
"Looks like I was pretty lucky…"
Ruminas put the gear away and then looked outside again to check, she wanted to make sure there weren't any other monsters.
"Maybe monsters won't be able to get in here?"
[Reminder: Before the mission starts, this will be a safe area for players, but after the mission starts, all monsters will quickly come here]
"Oh, if it's a safe zone then that's good."
Ruminas said then took a blanket and lay down on the floor, after she finished taking care of other things she realized that she hadn't slept for two days so she was extremely sleepy right now.
"Fighting all day yesterday, fighting until morning, and today playing tag with the parasitic snake all day… How tiring."
Ruminas put Beru on the ground and said, "I need to sleep a bit, you play by yourself."
Although Beru didn't understand what he was hearing, he knew that Ruminas was tired, so he just curled up in place with a serious expression like a bodyguard watqing over her while she slept.
"That's fine, thank you…" Ruminas said and then her eyes started to close, quickly falling asleep.
…
Ruminas didn't know how much time had passed, but when she woke up, she saw Beru still standing guard very seriously. She chuckled softly and sat up, stretqing to wake up her body.
"I don't know how long I slept, but now my body has completely recovered…"
Ruminas stood up and did some simple warm-up exercises before taking out some food to eat. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't eaten anything all day yesterday. As soon as she got here, she had to deal with a bunch of notifications and then went to sleep.
"Since leaving the mall, I have been eating occasionally, sometimes not, and sometimes not at all, so there is still a lot of food left…"
Ruminas took out some food and water boxes and started eating and drinking.
"I wonder who the other players will be? Since the apocalypse, I've only come into contact with humans once, but unfortunately they've all passed away. I haven't seen anyone since then…"
Ruminas didn't really care who her next teammate would be, but she hoped they would be someone decent.