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Chapter 3: Day 1

Added 2024-12-31 00:44:21 +0000 UTC

The sight of Irina Kristoff standing there, dripping with gore and the greatsword in one hand conjured up a series of words from a time long gone. A time when women were the protectors of their family, the matriarchal guardians of their tribe and clan, chilling the battlefield with war shrieks that stabbed haunting fears into men's hearts.

Amazoness. Valkyrie. Shieldmaiden.

But in the last half an hour, all of my rather rich and vibrant vocabulary was washed away by the imminent threat of losing my life. You can tell by how most of my sentences have been ‘Ahhh!’ or ‘Gahk!’. Yet, even all that was blotted out by the sight of this Warrior Goddess Incarnate in front of me who swung the great sword with two hands as if it was nothing more than a plastic bat.

And I was the pinata.

“W-Wait! I’m-” I raised my hands defensively, trying to show her that I meant no harm. But still, the blade showed no sign of stopping and I closed my eyes shut out of fear.

Managing to escaped from monsters just to be killed by a Russian Metallica Fan. Gauche, to say the least.

Ssssshhhhhk

When I peeked at the scene in front of me, my body was whole; safe and sound. The russian woman hadn’t cut through me. On the contrary, her greatsword had cleaved straight through a Tsutsugamushi that had been clinging to my pants.

Irina Kristoff fixed me with a look. “Welcome.” She said in that thick russian accent again.

She walked over and I belatedly noticed some things about her, my old habits as a psychic kicking in.

Irina walked like a model, tall and straight-backed with none of the stiffness of military personnel. It was more of a confidence thing, that when she walked, she looked good and that was a fact like how water is wet and fire is hot. Her clothes were a dead giveaway too. The leather boots and jacket were of definite good quality; plus her perfume had to be expensive –it was overpowering even through all the ichor on her.

“Again,” She said, “Irina Kristoff.” She held out her hand for me to grab.

I could all but see my reflection in her icy-blue eyes. The dirty blonde hair that was more charcoal gray; like cat’s fur, someone once told me. Grayish eyes that bordered on brown; my features neither european or asian. Everything about me screams to the world that I came from two different backgrounds.

And the cheap clothing that I bought from Goodwill just for today’s interview.

Suddenly feeling extremely self-conscious, I wiped my hands on my shirt before taking hers. Impending apocalypse doom or not, it seemed like the right thing to do. “Jane. Jane Serynak.”

“Jane Jane Serynak,” She held me to my feet, “Strange name.”

“It’s just Jane.” I flushed despite myself, “Jane Serynak.”

“Strange name for a boy.” She eyed me up and down, her gaze lingering on a certain place. “Unless?...”

I could feel myself blushing and my hands moved defensively. “Boy. Er, I mean Man. Jane is a men’s name in Kor-,” Awareness hit me like a truck and I narrowed my eyes on her. “You’re playing me.”

She laughed and it was all ice crystals dancing on a frozen lake. “Dah,” She said, “You look too nervous. Not good. It is pleasure to meet you, Jane Serynak.”

But my attention was elsewhere.

Irina Kristoff was awash in bluish-green light.

It’s hard to describe exactly what I saw. But she was covered in this mist-like aura –which is the only way to describe what I saw– from head to toe. It roiled around her like a living thing, something shifting towards blue and sometimes shifting more towards green.

And right above her head was what looked like a videogame icon in the shape of a treasure chest, half-open with gold coins showing.

“You look distracted.” Irina shook me on the shoulder, bringing me back to the moment.

“Uh, huh? What?” I cleared my throat.

“You must’ve been looking at your Sheet. Dah?”

Sheet? What was she talking about?

Seeing the confused look on my face, she explained. “You have not seen your Sheet? The-” She struggled for the word. “Puppies. The Puppies explain, no?”

“Puppies?”

“Chick. Baby. Infant.” She shrugged. “The two small reptile.”

“The two children.” I said.

In light of all that’s happened, I had completely forgotten what had set this entire thing into motion. It had started with those strange texts, talking about the tower integration. Then it had been followed by the two children which I thought was a hallucinogen; the two had explained everything. Then it had been followed by seeing the Tsutsugamushi and the receptionist girl who had been-

I turned away from Irina and threw up all over the floor.

“Ah. You begin to understand.” She said dryly from behind me.

I heaved a couple of times more but nothing came out except water. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, not really. But even if I had, I doubt anything more would come out. This wasn’t some stomach flu or food poisoning. I knew in the back of my mind that it was due to severe shock, my mind being overloaded with too much information and my body responding in kind. Some of my old clients used to react like this when I summoned their dead relative; or pretended to anyway.

I threw up some more and the more I did, the more I realized my drug theory wasn’t holding up. No one in this building had drunk the ‘Kool-aid’ so to speak. It felt too real, my senses hyped up from adrenaline following the near-death experience I had. Nothing was hazed out by the drug-induced fever-like quality. Everything was in razor sharp focus and I knew without a doubt in my mind that everything that was happening was as real as every other disaster I saw on the news.

That’s the thing about disasters. You see them on the news, you dismiss it. Your mind simply can’t comprehend the sheer scope of the damage that things happen at; it’s only when you’re in the middle of it that you begin to feel the emotional effects of it. And as addled as my mind had been, I was regaining my faculties at a rapid pace; for survival.

I’d been lucky. Real lucky. I heard a statistic somewhere, that in natural disasters; if you can survive past the initial ‘surprise’, your chances of survival skyrockets. That’s because us humans are survivors. Sure, hit us from the side, from behind and we might be weak. But give us time to analyze, to group and get our bearings and we can punch back, hard and fast as the best of them.

I just didn’t think I’d be punching back monsters from Feudal Japan or creepy Alien Children that can broadcast into my mind.

And all that just reiterated how lucky I’d been.

How many people died in the first five minutes? Hell, I was in the MET. If the background noise –sirens, explosions and just the sound of things breaking outside was any indication, it was worse there. I was in a relatively unpopulated part of the city. What if I had been in a mall? Or gods forbid, the subway?

How the hell was I supposed to live through this?

“Shit.” I cursed.

“Dah,” Irina agreed passively. “Shit.”

I peered at Irina through my tear-stained eyes, trying to get a read on her.

She was calm. Much too calm. Not just that, she was tapping away in mid-air, seemingly at some kind of touchscreen that was invisible to everyone but her. She looked crazy like that, covered in greenish ichor and doing something no one else could see. But I knew better.

Looking around, I saw the corpses strewn all around us.

I swallowed the urge to throw up and kicked my brain into gear.

There was no one else in here but us. Which meant that she had killed everything in here by herself. Without even breaking a sweat, judging by how great she looked. Hell, she could model for some kind of sci-fi movie ad right now and not look an inch out of place.

A Mark. That’s what she was.

That’s what my father used to call them. People who have something you need; whether it’s money, connections or something else.

And to earn a Mark’s trust…

You have to have something they want.

I pointed at one of the corpses. “Tengus.”

“Hmm?” Irina turned away from the invisible screen, looking at me questioningly.

“Tengus.” I repeated. “A yokai from Japanese folklore. The mask, the wings. It’s a dead giveaway. Although they’re shorter than I imagined.” I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “Tengus.”

“Ah… the flying nose mask men. Yes.” The blonde beauty looked at the fallen yokai then back at me. “You are familiar with these… creatures?”

She wasn’t just talking about the Tengu. “Yeah.” I hooked a thumb at the door behind me. “Those things that were chasing me. Tsutsugamushi. Another Japanese Yokai. It makes sense, since we’re in the East Asian section.” I took a breath. “There’s a lot of them there. But as long as we avoid sunlight, they shouldn’t be able to follow us.”

Irina walked closer to me, poking the dead Tsutsugamushi with her sword. “I can cut them.”

“Well, there were thousands of them.” I looked her in the eyes, “Hey, what were you doing before? You were tapping on something?”

She gave me a cold gaze which softened into a sly smile. “Dah. The Sheet.”

“Mind showing me how?”

She studied me for a moment longer, bordering on indecision. She shrugged, much in the same way I did. “Dah.” Then she explained, “You remember the blue screen? Yes? Simply imagine it.”

Her explanation left a lot to be desired but it was the best one I had all day. I concentrated, trying to summon the blue screen out of sheer will.

What appeared in front of me wasn’t the blue screen of a computer; nor something I’d seen before. Of course, it looked like a computer window but infinitely more advanced. Futuristic, almost. The black inked letters looked like they were raised on a translucent gray rectangular screen.

Name: Jane Serynak

Race: Human (Base)

Level: 1

—

Stats
Skills
Help

“That’s it?” I said, looking at the sparse options before me.

“Dah.”

Remembering the few times my Uncle –the Head Monk– took pity on me and allowed me to visit the local PC Cafe, I pressed [Stats].

Name: Jane Serynak

Race: Human (Base)

Level: 1

—

Body: 2

Mind: 3

Spirit: 5

I’m not a gamer, but I knew enough to groan at the pathetically low stat for Body. If I had to guess, anything related to running (which a certain movie told me was the number one important thing during a zombie apocalypse) would rely on it. As for the other two stats, they looked useless to me. I’d be lucky if I could win against a single Tsutsugamushi –a glorified Flea– with these pathetic numbers.

“You look sad.”

“I’m not sad.” I dragged a hand over my face. “I... uh…” Would it be rude to ask what her stats her? It seemed awfully intrusive, like I was asking for her age, weight or measurements.

“I’m thinking about finding inner peace.” I finished lamely, looking at the Mind and Spirit stat. “Or trying for Jeopardy.”

She stared at me like she didn’t get it.

Ignoring her I pressed on [Skills].

Name: Jane Serynak

Race: Human (Base)

Level: 1

[Passive]

Sajoo(사주) (UQ)

[Active]

Identify (R)

Saju (사주).

During my upbringing in the temple, one of the future reading techniques I learned was Saju. Namely, reading a person’s fate. Oh it’s nothing like reading the future but it’s very close. It’s all centered around reading the flow of someone’s life. Bad luck, good luck, death in the family, sudden unexpected wealth. Closely related to Astrology, Tarot Cards, Gwansang (관상) and all that nonsense.

Except all of them were fake. That’s what they had in common. They’re just tricks used by con artists to squeeze money out of their marks.

And yet…

The red aura and skull around Mr. Erste moments before he died. The bluish-green aura around Irina and the treasure chest around her.

Could it be?

“Hey, where are you going?”

I don’t know when but Irina had found a backpack. She was stuffing water bottles in there and picking at the dead Tengus, obviously looking for something of use. At my question, she turned and looked at me.

“My siblings are in this Museum. I must find them.” The moment she said that, she looked up and frowned.

I understood why she did that a moment later.

Ding!

Another screen.

—

Quest: Three’s a Crowd

Description: Help Irina Kristoff find and rescue her Siblings.

Success: Rescue Irina Kristoff’s Siblings from within the Museum

Failure: Fail to rescue Irina’s Siblings or Irina’s Death

Reward: ???

Penalty: Enemy of the Kristoff Mob

(Y/N)?