Although Alice had confidently walked off, the truth was a bit different. She eventually began to carefully go down the building, making sure no monsters would notice her. It wasn’t that she was running away, but she wanted to catch them off-guard.

Her breath was perfectly even as she willed her body to be quiet with Control is Mine, and her eyes scanned the surroundings zealously with Analyst.

Her skill perfectly matched her previous memories to her surroundings and gave her arrowed indicators of likely monster positions. It had leveled up a bit after she added 10 skill points to intelligence, and 10 to wisdom. The other 10 had gone to agility, since she could obtain power from mana, making strength not the highest priority anymore.

Alice avoided the areas with multiple arrows and focused on lone monsters. She could take care of the others once she had leveled up more.

Just around the corner, she followed an arrow and found a particularly grotesque monster. Its mouth was almost always open, acid saliva constantly dripping from between large fangs as if it were starved. The saliva would drip on the ground, sizzling as it burnt it away to leave small holes behind. It was thin and tall, which could trick someone into thinking its power was low, and that it might have higher speed instead. It had both.

Its bony arms dripped acid sweat as it slowly walked and looked around, crashing through some walls when it felt like it. The broken areas revealed hissing steam from being burnt.

I can’t touch it. Alice came to the logical and obvious conclusion.

The monster turned around, and she finally spotted its weakness. Its spine popped out vertebrae by vertebrae on its long dark back, and just at the highest one, right under the neck, was the blue dot.

Alice pulled out a small letter-opener from her pocket. She had found it in one of the more luxurious offices, and thankfully it was quite sharp. She gripped it tightly as she made up her mind. She activated Mana Circulation and embedded 50 mana into the dagger-like letter-opener.

With extreme care, Alice analyzed its movements carefully, paying attention to the air and breeze as well. Eventually, Analyze created a perfect path for her, based on the surroundings and the monster’s expected movements. She was hidden and it had no clue. She had a chance.

Carefully, some mana was added to the necessary muscles for the throw, and the dagger began to follow the path of the blue line perfectly as she quietly threw it. It met the blue dot.

“Kyaaaaaaaaak!” A terrible shriek left the monster’s mouth as the mana in the dagger exploded from within its body, damaging it from the inside. The pale blue of her mana flashed from the wound, and blood began pouring out all over the orifices of its body. With bloodied eyes, the monster used the last of its strength to look for its enemy, only to find a quietly smiling girl standing there like a harmless little animal.

And just like that, the last of its strength left its body, and it fell limply towards the floor. The floor vibrated from its weight, which was a lot higher than its body would indicate.

Alice quickly left towards the next arrow, picking up the “dagger” as she ran past with quiet steps.

<You have leveled up!>

<You are the first to kill five monsters. Reward being calculated>

Hm? Alice wasn’t surprised by getting only one level, as she had already leveled up enough so that she needed more experience each time. F and E-rank monsters could only give so much. She had never received such an accomplishment in her first round/life, so it was quite unexpected. It was true that she was efficiently killing the monsters in her building at a fast pace, so maybe it shouldn’t have been that great a surprise.

<Reward being granted! Monster bones are every tough. Why don’t you try using a sword made by your last monster’s bones?>

Huh? Alice was shocked again as a white light flashed, and something appeared in her hand.

“…”

She couldn’t help but stop and stare at the thing. The last monster had been…quite gross. And so, the sword was no better. Although she really needed a better weapon, this was…

It was sharp and stark white, just like bones. The hilt was a mossy looking black. The real problem was…the disgusting slime sliding down the tip, hitting the floor and hissing as it burnt through. I guess…it’s useful?

“…” Alice stared a bit more helplessly.

Then, shook her head and went on her way. In the same manner, Alice took down the monsters as she went down, and finally exited the building.

The outside world was chaotic.

Monsters were confidently walking the streets, and if she looked closely, trembling people were hiding all around. For example, behind a particular dumpster, a mother was clamping her mouth shut with one hand, and her little son’s with the other. Tears escaped their eyes as they tried their best to not make any noise. Alice’s heart clenched.

She decided to go north temporarily.

Alice carefully approached the hidden people, and told them what she told Jake, “If you want to survive, head north, never east.”

The calm blue eyes of the girl did not show even a speck of fear, which rattled everyone she spoke too. However, it also made them eventually trust her words. In a world now engulfed in fear, the only fearless girl carefully, but confidently walking around, seemed to know what she was doing.

The people began to come out of their hiding places, and as she was headed north, followed loosely behind her. As a monster jumped out, ready to claw away at Alice…

“W-Watch ou-” The mother could not even finish her warning, before Alice disappeared like a blur. Next thing she knew, the girl was behind the confused monster, and a disgusting sword had appeared in her hand. Still mid-air from her jump, Alice sliced down the sword towards the blue dot on the back of the monster’s left shoulder. It seemed its heart was oddly placed there, blood gushing out. The critical hit took out the monster right away.

Without a word, Alice flicked her sword, put it back in her system’s storage, and continued walking North.

“…”

For a moment, no one could move, frozen in shock.

The terrible monsters that were terrorizing them… they could die? Glints appeared in the eyes of a few of them, as hope and determination emerged in their hearts. The mother squeezed the hand of her son as she watched the back of the girl carefully walking forward, no fear in sight.

Eventually, more people joined the procession. They came down from their houses and buildings, and hesitantly began to follow.

The one following the longest was Jake.

He saw the calculated way in which Alice took down monster by monster and gulped. How did she always know where to hit? As someone who had practiced martial arts, he knew that they could not have died so easily if it weren’t a critical strike. It would be different if Alice completely overpowered them, but he sensed that wasn’t the case. After watching thus far, he concluded… she used just enough power, at just the right place. In fact, it seemed that with each monster she took down, she wasted less energy, as if she were learning.

To test this theory, he had tried taking on one monster himself…but it was not easy. After much struggle, he barely took one out, albeit very ineffectively. He hacked away at it with an axe he found – no doubt learning from Alice – but he couldn’t seem to find the right spot to hit. The monster just seemed to get more and more irritated and violent. When he did finally manage to take it down, he was exhausted, hurt and almost lost track of Alice.

He also had gained a “level” and the knowledge that that had been an F-rank. …that was the weakest? He couldn’t help but think.

Just as Jake was lost in his thoughts, multiple monsters appeared. They seemed to have sensed the high concentration of humans here and were ready to attack.

“Hey! Idiots! You scared of me?!”

Alice screamed at the monsters, mocking them as she grabbed their attention. When they saw the taunting smirk on her face, veins began to pop on their grotesque faces as they went towards her instead. Alice snickered, “That’s right. Come and get it, you slow pokes.”

…This is the Alice I know? Jake was truly in shock. However, he soon become worried as all five monsters pounced towards Alice. She had never taken on so many at once! Even for her-!

“Ali-! …huh?”

Even as he began to scream in warning, he couldn’t help but stop in shock.

As if she knew exactly where they would attack from, Alice dodged and ducked their attacks smoothly, taking one down with her sword after each miss. It was like a choreographed dance. In the end, all five monster bodies laid around her.

This happened quite a few times after, the number of monsters sometimes increasing even further. Just what was going on?

Meanwhile, Alice’s lack of stamina was catching up with her. She tried to use minimal movements to conserve energy, but she had already fought a lot. It was also mentally tiring. For example, that first battle against five monsters…

Alice had taunted them, pulling all their aggro towards her. She was smiling, but also sweating. If she hadn’t willed her body to calm down, she had no idea what would have happened…Although after dodging the first monster’s attack, that second monster’s clawed swing had pieced her internal organs and killed her.

But Alice won’t die.

She returned to just before the swing, dodged the diagonal attack of the second monster that was following the light blue line, and also slashed it down its abdomen on its blue dot. Blood gushed, but she had no time to avoid it. Another monster was attempting to hit her vertically and smash her on the ground, but she nimbly moved to the left side, only to get her head smashed in by another monster.

But Alice won’t die.

This time, she moved to the right, and slashed at the monster that had previously caved her head in before it could finish attacking. Her sword hit the light blue dot and hissed as the monster was burned and killed.

The same pattern continued in every battle from then on. She died, learning the monster’s pattern, dodged, died, dodged… It was truly exhausting. She could have simply used the knowledge from Analyze and her deaths to avoid these monster clusters, but… She glanced back at the people following her. That would mean more monsters to attack the innocent. …And less levels.

Alice’s heart was still too soft. She paused, shaking her head. She couldn’t take care of them forever, and not learning to fight would only impede them.

And so, she decided.

Alice’s Character Profile:

Name: Alice

Titles: Analyst, One with a strong will, Regressor, First Five-kill

Level: 13

Health: 170/170

Mana: 250/500

Strength: 20

Agility: 50

Endurance: 15

Vitality: 17

Intelligence: 50

Wisdom: 50

Stat points available: 0

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?