Alice walked past Jake, exiting the door to enter the hallway. Jake turned back with a flustered expression, “Alice, did you see-”

“I saw. Monsters are attacking. So, keep your voice down if you don’t want to attract them.”

He quickly clamped his mouth shut.

“I don’t need you, so you can leave.”

“What do you mean…? Alice…”

“Character profile.” She whispered under her breath. However, Jake still heard her, looking shocked as the words that he was subconsciously compelled to say easily left her lips.

“…Character profile.” He murmured as well.

In front of them, the game system screen appeared with their information. There were numbers for stats such as strength, agility and intelligence. Also, a level. While Jake was level 1, Alice had gained two levels after defeating an E rank monster, and so was at level 3.

“Just what is this…” He whispered to himself.

Alice’s screen looked as follows:

Name: Alice

Titles: Analyst, One with a strong will, Regressor

Level: 3

Health: 68/70

Mana: 300/300

Strength: 10

Agility: 20

Endurance: 5

Vitality: 7

Intelligence: 30

Wisdom: 30

Stat points available: 20

Skills:

Analyst: A-rank. As an observer, you objectively analyze your surroundings and can obtain detailed information. Weak points and sometimes attack trajectories become visible. Strength directly related to intelligence and wisdom stats.

Control is Mine: SSS-rank. Your will can affect yourself and the world. Control over oneself is at 100%. Control over others is currently weak. You can influence, but not control. Control over time and death currently unlocked. If you want to know more about this skill, why don’t you play around with it?

Analyst was a skill she was familiar with. She had had it in the first round, which she used to try and guide her companions with, although it was never as accurate as her going for the weaknesses herself.

Hm? It seems like my agility is higher than in the first round. Perhaps, is it because I dodged that attack…? …Isn’t this cheating? Her agility had only been 10 in the first round. It was truly an immense increase!

Although she had higher physical stats than a regular girl, since she weight-lifted a bit to help her figure, the stats were still a bit too high. Even strength had increased by 2! It looks like defeating an E-rank monster at Level 1, when even an F-rank should have been a bit hard, affected my stats quite a bit. She even had the 20 stat points from leveling up to distribute!

Her eyes suddenly wondered to her new skill, Control is Mine, and her brows furrowed. Is the skill trying to mess with me? Play with it? …Who wrote this?

Boom!

The wall a bit ahead of her to the right suddenly exploded upon impact with something. Amidst the dust and rubble, the silhouette of a monster appeared. Alice smiled, right on time. Her prey had come to give her experience points and levels!

…I wonder how many times I’ll have to die this time. She couldn’t help but think.

“Monster ahead!” She yelled for Jake to hear, just as her fist crashed with the fire emergency glass box to her left. She had stopped at this particular spot on purpose.

As the glass broke, she took out the axe from inside. Inside her mind, she screamed: 10 stats towards strength, and 10 towards agility! If she couldn’t reach her target, and if she couldn’t deal enough damage, how could she defeat it?

The bull-like monster stomping on the ground and huffing before her was at the top of E-rank, practically D-rank. Its strength was in its intense frontal attack, while its agility was less than the bunny-monster's.

Alice’s eyes zeroed in on the light blue spot at the tip of its snout. Just as she was about to rush towards it, axe in hand…

“Stay behind me! It’s dangerous!”

Jake had placed himself in front of her, arms outstretched. She could see the faint tremor of his body as he tried to hide his fear, and the monster that had begun its rush forward.

…Jake’s character profile. As she said the words in her mind, his info appeared before her thanks to Analyst.

Alice’s face scrunched up, and she pushed him to the side, “Get out of the way.”

She had run to him for help in the past…? How stupid!

“Wah- Alice!”

Feeling rage building up inside her, remembering the figure that had stood next to Raphaela but never looked towards Alice’s dying form…A blurred shadow in her memory. Jake. She couldn’t know his reaction since he never turned towards her.

Still, he had walked away.

She didn’t need him. She was strong enough.

No, she was stronger.

The mana in her body responded to her feelings, coursing through her veins like fire that reached towards the axe. She sprinted towards the beast, axe swinging down and booming towards its snout. The recoil threw her back, and even Jake went flying back a few meters.

The monster laid there, snout caved in, blood spurting and pooling under its prone form.

<You have leveled up!>

<You have leveled up!>

<You have leveled up!>

< New skill unlocked.>

<C-rank skill Mana Circulation activated.>

Jake’s Character Profile:

Name: Jake

Titles: None

Level: 1

Health: 190/200

Mana: 50/50

Strength: 25

Agility: 10

Endurance: 15

Vitality: 20

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 5

Stat points available: 0

Skills:

Basic Martial arts: E-rank. You know the basics of some Martial Arts and can move your body relatively well. You should practice more.

Although he would be far stronger in the future, he seemed quite ordinary at the moment.

Alice’s current mana level: 200/300

She sighed. That took quite a bit of mana. It’s powerful, but I can’t rely on it too much.

Mana Circulation: C-rank. Circulate mana and imbue it either in your body or objects for increased power and defense. The more mana you imbue, the stronger the attack or defense. Why don’t you try going full power?

…Seriously, who comes up with these? Alice shook her head, dusting off her clothes as she got up.

“As you can see, I can take care of myself. You can go look for others if you want to feel like a hero. Don’t follow me.”

“…”

Jake sat there in shock. The Alice he knew seemed to be nowhere in sight. Working on the 5ht floor, they had naturally met many times on the elevator, and gotten to know each other. The gently smiling Alice…where had she gone?

I don’t care how strong he will become. He abandoned me, and… I don’t want to go back to old habits.

In the previous round, she had run to Jake for help, and they had barely managed to escape while only damaging some monsters. She would point at a spot, and he would try to hit it, but it was never accurate enough. While the monsters were distracted from the pain, they would run.

This was actually quite normal, as humanity had been unprepared. It took a while for people to finally start taking the monsters down. However, that was far too inefficient in Alice’s opinion. Only more and more monsters would invade, so it was better to get rid of the first wave of monsters – all only F to E-rank – than to let those interfere once you had stronger monsters to defeat. And how else were you supposed to level up, if not defeating monsters?

She decided to leave him with one very important piece of advice, which she planned to spread around, “If you have to choose between north and east, choose north. Then, bye.”

Alice left Jake behind.

She headed east.