Cain gingerly limped into the house he’d been living in for the past few weeks, Noel supporting him.

Impossibly, she smelled kind of nice. Like dusty flowers or something.

Her eyes scanned the empty streets, and Cain felt better about teaming up with her already.

“...Nice place,” Noel commented dryly, looking at the mess of discarded food wrappers and cans of soda in the corner of the living room.

Well, it had been a nice place, actually. The rooms were pretty spacious, and the furniture spoke of a nice old couple that had settled down after what must have been pretty successful lives. Had been.

It had been a few months since the apocalypse began, and many people had fled to various places or simply become victims to the monsters that infested the cities, leaving many homes empty to collect dust.

It was the literal apocalypse, and Cain wasn’t going to sit around sweeping and mopping the floor - he was busy being… Doing… Well, okay, he never had a stickler for keeping a place clean either.

“Thanks,” he just said, and plopped down on the sofa, and waved towards the kitchen.

“There’re some candy bars and canned tuna in the kitchen. Feel free to help yourself.”

Noel scrunched her nose.

“That sounds… disgusting. But thanks,” Noel said with a sigh of resignation that told Cain that she had not been eating much better.

He wasn’t surprised.

He wasn’t entirely sure whether rifts were still opening up, but they had still been opening periodically the last time he had heard.

The first rifts had been small, small enough that nothing much larger than a human could get through.

So, the child-sized goblins had been the first to come through.

Then, the gray-skinned, muscle-bound humanoid creatures with yellow eyes and tusk fangs - the orcs.

Humanity had been able to deal with the goblins and orcs with modern weaponry to a certain extent, but there were a few big problems.

First, the rifts had never stopped growing. Eventually, they were big enough to let through beasts that shrugged off bullets.

Second, unknownst to the humans, the rifts had been releasing into Earth some sort of miasma that rusted and destroyed most man-made metals.

The miasma, even more than the monsters that had come through the rifts, had spelled the end of humanity.

It had destroyed nearly all human technology and modern infrastructure, and even affected some of the wildlife - turning them larger, more aggressive, and… monstrous. 

By the end of the first month, all of humanity’s advantages and ability to sustain civilization had disappeared along with any hope of defending themselves from the new denizens of Earth.

Now, monsters that previously existed in stories lurked in the ruined skeletons of cities all over the world while humanity’s remnants scraped by in the shadows.

A few sky-scrapers remained visible in the skyline, but with their metal skeletons weakened by the miasma, it was only a matter of time before they crumbled under their own weight or got in the way of another territorial squabble between some of the larger monsters. Rubble and carnage littered the streets.

Cain sighed and dug through a kitchen cabinet, ignoring the sounds of Noel tearing through a chunk of his food supply. She had saved his life after all.

He pulled out a bottle of vodka that was a third empty, and sat down and began to unravel the bandaged leg.

He supposed he should have been thankful.

Cain had been able to make his way to the outskirts of the city when more and more goblins, orcs, and a few creatures that he’d never seen before had started dominating the center of the city. Attracted to… food sources.

Being in California meant that cities like his were surrounded by extremely arid land that produced little to no food.

Besides, the wildlife seemed to be… growing. Perhaps another side-effect of the so-called miasma.

The outskirts of the city, he had found, was the perfect middle ground.

Most of the monsters still roamed the city centers while the wildlife stayed away from the cities.

Unfortunately he’d been running out of the food, even considering the canned goods he’d scavenged from abandoned houses.

After a few close calls with fellow humans in houses he had thought were empty, he had ventured deeper into the city today...

Cain shuddered and pushed away the memory of the goblins lunging at him.

He grit his teeth as he braced himself, then groaned as he poured some of the vodka over his leg wound.

It felt like someone had put a hot torch to his leg or poured acid on the wound, but it quickly subsided.

Cain met eyes with Noel, who was looking at him with some interest while working through an unholy combination of candy bars and canned tuna.

“Nice,” she said, after swallowing a mouthful.

Cain faked a calm chuckle as a bead of sweat rolled down his brow.

Cain wasn’t a warrior or a saint. Just some punk that happened to know some basic martial arts.

He had walked away from people getting mauled by monsters, or even attacked other humans, but had always slunk away instead of helping them.

And so, he had been safe… until now.

Cain wasn’t delusional enough to think that he could continue to survive by himself for much longer.

It was an important reason why he’d decided to team up with Noel.

It'd mean one more person eating the food, but it'd also mean he could rely on someone to prevent situations like the one he’d just been in. Cain decided that she had probably saved his life, palming the hilt of the dagger he had swiped from a goblin.

It was… strangely beautiful, with a crystal blade that seemed to swirl with a red liquid inside. The hilt was wrapped with leather, which felt comfortable in his hand.

“Never seen a monster carry a weapon like that. Think they swiped it from a museum or something?” Noel said. 

Cain considered it.

“The city has a museum that kept some medieval stuff. Maybe they nabbed it from there?” he said after a moment.

It seemed to be made of some sort of crystal, so the miasma wouldn’t have affected it.

“Uh huh,” she answered through a mouthful of chocolate and salty fish.

…Cain wasn’t sure that she had cared in the first place.

Cain opened his mouth to comment on her appetite when a blue screen flickered to life in front of his face.

***System Message****

Congratulations on your survival!

Due to a build-up of sufficient mana,

the Spirit Realm is now able to implement the System.

All humans have been Awakened

and may strengthen themselves through the System.

***Achievement!***

Once is luck, Twice is skill

A survivor that has demonstrated potential by slaying more than one monster.

***Achievement!***

Martial Artist.

Used martial arts (basic) to kill a monster.

***Achievement!***

What’s Yours Is Mine.

Used a goblin Artifact to kill a goblin.

***System Message***

you have gained the attention of two Patrons.

Choose one of their blessings below.

[True Sight]
(Active Skill)

[Dagger of Shadowfire]
(Soulbound Item)

Cain stared at the messages, slack-jawed and possibly drooling.

“Noel, are you… seeing holographic screens in front of you right now?”

“Holo-what? I'm seeing a blue box in front of me,” Noel muttered, having stopped her feast. “What the hell's a Spirit Realm?”

“I-I don’t know…” Cain muttered. “Maybe a realm of spirits or something?”

Noel stared at Cain.

“A-Anyways, if dimensional portals to hell can be real, I can believe in a Spirit Realm.” Cain replied, reading over the message once more.

“These terms… ‘Achievement… Active Skill… Aren’t those from video games?” Cain asked, mostly to himself. 

Noel snorted.

“So, there are a bunch of nerds in the Spirit Realm too?”

Cain just shook his head. He had no idea what was going on, but he wasn’t going to balk at an opportunity to better defend himself against the literal hell around him.

He had almost died today!

His eyes were on the two so-called ‘blessings’ in the window.

Cain hadn’t been much of a gamer, but most of the time, unless an item was overwhelmingly good, he knew that characters had to invest in skills when starting out.

Besides, he’d already snagged a dagger from the goblin he’d killed earlier.

“What blessings did you get, if you don’t mind me asking?”, Cain asked, still considering his options.

“2 achievements. Once is Luck, Twice is Skill and Skullcrusher.” Noel replied.

“…Skullcrusher?”, Cain said, glancing at Noel, who simply shrugged and glanced at her bat.

“Not my first bat,” she said, miming breaking something over her knee.

“Anyways, what about you?” Noel asked.

“3 achievements. First one is the same, but I got Martial Artist and What’s Yours is Mine.”

Noel’s lips began to protrude a bit. Was she pouting? Was it because he had gotten 1 more achievement than her?

“...What do we do now? Choose a blessing and hope it’s not some trick?” Cain wondered aloud, quickly changing the topic.

“Well, I’m going to take it. It’s better than twiddling our thumbs waiting for someone else to show up and tell us, right?” Noel grinned. “Besides, it’s kind of exciting.”

“I’ll choose first. You watch over me?” Noel continued, rolling her shoulders.

Cain considered it, then shrugged.

“...Go for it,”

Hey, not everyone could be as bold and brave. He was an equalist, and this girl had just as much right to become the System’s guinea pig as he did.

Noel frowned, reached out into the air where Cain assumed her own blue screen was, then tapped something.

Out of thin-air, an ember outline began to burn itself into existence in the shape of a giant ax.

The weapon that materialized was mesmerizing.

It had a long handle decorated with brown-red leather, with a long and curved blade that took up almost a third of the length - it looked nothing like any ax that Cain had ever seen.

It looked like a weapon made to cleave living beings in half.

Noel looked the happiest Cain had seen so far as she reached out for it gingerly and took the giant war ax with both hands.

“Holy shit,” Noel said.

They both stared at the ax that had not existed a second ago.

“Ok, my turn.”, Cain said quickly.

Cain reached out to tap the part of the blue screen that said [True Sight].

He had already made up his mind: he wanted to become stronger, and he already had a dagger.

To his surprise, it felt like a solid plane of glass, but before he could mention anything about it to Noel, a splitting head-ache hit him and he passed out.

-------

It was dark outside when Cain woke up to the sound of something heavy swinging through the air.

He let out a groan and sat up to see Noel lifting the giant ax up over her head, then swing it down with a heavy whoosh of air.

She looked like she had been at it for a while, as glistening sweat beaded her face.

“Fucking finally. Are you all right?” Noel asked, wiping her brow.

…Thank god she didn’t just use me as a training dummy and take all my stuff.

It was a dark thought, but a possibility. Cain massaged his temple.

“I have a headache, but other than that, yeah.”

He’d had the strangest dream, he was sure, but all he could remember were flashes of a whiskered face and conspiratorial giggling.

He felt as if his mind had been pried open somehow. A constant anxiety had fogged his thoughts since the apocalypse began, but now he felt that his mind was clearer than ever. Huh.

Noel threw him a water bottle, which he caught and chugged down. There were still water bottles, thankfully.

“What the hell did you choose?” she asked.

Cain responded gingerly as he looked around for his dagger.

“A skill called [True Sight].”

“How long have I been out?”

“About three hours,” Noel replied. “I was starting to get bored.” 

“Three hours? I-”

He trailed off as he spotted the dagger on the ground.

He paused to pick it up, and started when his hand made contact with the hilt, because another blue screen popped up as if prompted by the touch.

[Dagger of Hekamuth]

C grade item.

Made from blood essence, an artifact dedicated to one of the gods of the goblinoids from Heloth.

When it has drunk enough blood, the dagger will produce a Blood Crystal.

Cain quickly skimmed and greedily drank in the information.

“...Heloth?”

“What did you call me?” Noel looked at Cain with a frown. She had been waiting for him to finish his first sentence.

“N-No, nothing! I was reading a blue window.”

“Oh,” Noel said.

“I think that’s the name of their… world. The monsters. Heloth. Apparently they have a god!” Cain said in wonder, staring at the crystal dagger in wonder.

“Huh. Who cares?”

Cain ignored her.

The goblins… had a god?

Did that mean that they had a culture? Civilization?

Implications began to unfold in Cain’s mind.

Of course they had culture and civilization.

Humans had discovered and shared enough information about the monsters that some things were common knowledge, such as the fact that these were very intelligent if strange beings.

Most monsters came through wearing very rudimentary ‘clothes’ if one could call leather rags ‘clothes’.... But maybe that just spoke to the state of their world, Heloth.

The crystal dagger… This ‘artifact’...

Was not a weapon that could be created by mere animals.

He would have to keep using it and just find out what a Blood Crystal was when the time came.

And [True Sight]... How did he use it?

Maybe he had to focus on his eyes and try to… er, see really well?

“I’m going to try something,” Cain said and closed his eyes, trying to feel for something.

Miasma… Mana… Something about his eyes…

It took a bit, during which he could have sworn he could feel Noel’s slightly judging stare, but eventually he did feel something.

A feeling similar to the warmth that he had felt from the dagger when he had been fighting the goblins sat somewhere in his lower abdomen in a small knot.

Almost unconsciously, Cain adjusted his posture into a lotus seating position that he had often practiced with his old man, and noticed a flow of strangely familiar warmth that he had not been aware of.

[True Sight]

He willed the energy in to his eyes, and opened-

“Your eyes are glowing!”

“Huh?”

Noel’s shout snapped him out of his trance, and he felt something slip through his grasp.

That must have been [True Sight].

He turned to Noel.

"My eyes are glowing?" He asked. 

“I mean, they were glowing golden just a second ago. Not now though,” She said, sheepishly.

“It must be the skill,” Cain pumped his fist.

Like the achievement said, Once was Luck, and Twice was Skill.

But in his experience - the first time was also usually the hardest, and if you could do it once, you could do it twice.

He’d get it eventually, Cain thought with a grin creeping onto his face.

This was incredible! Power! Skills! Items!

With these they could-

“Huh. That’s cool, but you should be careful with it at night or when we're sneaking around,” Noel said.

Cain just smiled. 

“These skills and items... We got them because we killed some monsters. Killing more of them might actually give us additional benefits,” Noel said as if thinking to herself.

Cain nodded eagerly.

“Yeah! If the System is set up like a video game like we think it is, then it should give us benefits for killing monsters. Maybe if we had a status page or something-”

Another blue screen popped up in front of him mid-sentence and he flinched.