[[System notice achievement]]
Your subordinate Lilith killed a level 2 life form. You are the 4th participant to kill a level 2 life form; you have been rewarded with 2 allocation Charges and 200 shop points.
Vorn “…”
‘Isn’t this a little cold-blooded? How many zombies have you killed in the past 2 hours alone? It is over a thousand, you monster.’
Actually, this wasn’t the first notification he received; when Lilith killed over 300 zombies, he was also rewarded.
[[System notice achievement]]
Your subordinate Lilith killed 100 level one life forms. You are the 2rd participant to kill 100 level one life forms; you have been rewarded with 150 shop points.
[[System notice achievement]]
Due to your influence, a level 2 life form killed 100 level one life forms. You are the 1st participant to kill 100 level one life forms through a triggered chain reaction, you have been rewarded with 200 shop points.
[[System notice achievement]]
You are the 1st participant to kill 1000 level one life forms; you have been rewarded with 500 shop points.
‘What the actual fuck is all of this? I did absolutely nothing; it was all this monster’s doing. She killed maybe 300 zombies from the looks of the system notices, and afterward she controlled a level 2 zombie and made a massacre, then she even killed her puppet, what a beast.’
‘The only reason I got some credit is that she decided to follow me, but wouldn’t she just kill me now to take the rewards?’
‘One of the basic rules I read before coming here is that if your subordinate kills any opponent, they keep 100% the rewards, and if their action causes an achievement reward, then it is kept by the summoner; however, if a summoned unit kills the summoner, then they take all his/hers unused rewards.
‘That is why it’s a common rule to be a little generous to your subordinate because the moment they start to get greedy, you’re no longer their summoner. You’re a loot box.’
‘So even though Lilith got all the kill rewards, she still lost the achievement rewards, which is probably even more than her current rewards.’
What Vorn did not know was that Lilith was not controlling the level 2 zombie, but went mad and started to leak mana.
Part duo to her destructive wave and mostly duo to his astonishing luck which influenced his evolution process, this attracted the other zombies, With that the zombie gained even more power, but lost all thinking ability and started a massacre.
_
While Vorn was panicking internally, Lilith was very pleased. She had received many points as rewards and even an allocation point for killing a level 2 zombie this early on, and that reward is still in the ITEMS menu waiting to be used.
So she did not pay attention to the achievement rewards. After all, she knew that this Vorn did something in the dark to make the level 2 zombie go mad, and without that, it was still a question whether they could leave this place alive.
She used her allocation point immediately on MP, and her status was updated to MP: F (36%)
Then she checked the shop.
? SYSTEM PANEL?
PERSONAL/ITEMS/?SHOP?/CHAT/TRADE/GIFTS/RANKING
POINTS: 124.3
[Allocation point]
Each Allocation increases a stat’s percentage within F-tier.
Price: 150
[Magical compendium vol.1]
Contains the basic magical knowledge for mages with F-tier focus
Price: 50
….
Lilith really did not pay attention to anything but the allocation point because all the items are common rank, and even the magical books currently in the shop are useless at her level.
‘Although I can’t buy allocation points now, I’m not far off, with my initial attack and the massacre that followed over a thousand zombies should have died, and the points from them were quite good, restoring my previous strength with Vorn should be quite fast, I just hope he doesn’t disappoint me.’
As she thought of that, she had a strange glint in her eyes. Just as she was about to say something, she heard a system notification.
[Nightworn has transferred 350 points]
Lilith ”…”
‘I know one thing for sure, if I don’t give you anything, you’ll get mad. 350 points should satisfy you for now. It’s not that I don’t want to give you everything, but I need the 700 points and allocation charges. There is an item that I must buy.’
? SYSTEM PANEL?
PERSONAL/ITEMS/?SHOP?/CHAT/TRADE/GIFTS/RANKING
Points: 700
[CAUSALITY MEMENTO (Fortune-Bound Item)]
Displays brief fragments of a possible fatal outcome once per day after a future direction is decided
Higher luck increases clarity and probability accuracy
Price: 700
…
Vorn didn’t sit on the couch so much as collapse into it for the past few hours.
Its been nearly 6 hours since he arrived into this new world and he needed unplug for a while.
The room had once been an expensive office, soft fabrics, low glass tables, abstract painting half-torn from the wall. Now it was a shelter with a skyline view.
He stared at the ceiling for a long time, not because he was calm, but because if he moved too quickly, his stomach threatened to revolt.
A few hours had passed since the stairwell. Since Lilith’s barrier. Since the wave, since the System began raining rewards on him like he’d done anything besides existing in the right place with the right kind of monster.
He forced his breathing to stay even, slow in, slower out, as if he was still wearing a mask of calm and control.
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A costume stretched over panic.
Vorn shut his eyes, and the emergency staircase returned to his view: Concrete walls, the crush of bodies below, Lilith lifting the Nexus Core like a god, and… The doors.
Every fire door on every floor… wide open.
Not cracked. Not forced. Open.
As they descended afterward, the doors weren’t sealed at all. No funnel. No choke point. No “kill-box.” Nothing he’d imagined to justify the plan.
The horde could’ve poured sideways at any landing, could’ve wrapped around them, could’ve climbed out into hallways and rushed them from angles he couldn’t even see.
The humiliation, where was the brilliant strategy? The only safe way out?
My luck was probably working overtime to counter his stupidity.
“I should thank the zombies for finding us before we went down, if we’d dropped a few floors first, only to discover the doors can be opened and closed whenever they want… I wouldn’t have had time to regret my choice. Lilith would’ve killed me before that.”
A distant thud echoed somewhere below, then another, a muffled scream cut short, followed by a quiet.
Lilith was still out “clearing floors,” which was a polite way of saying committing large-scale homicide. She’d taken her “share” of points and left with the same casual tone people used to say they were going to buy groceries.
‘I almost feel bad for the little zombies; they helped me survive, but I can’t repay them. All I can do is let Lilith vent on them and hope she stays too busy to notice I’m still alive.’
After staring at the ceiling for a while, he straightened up. Self-pity time was over, and he was alive, which is very impressive for this kind of day.
He opened the System window, went to the Shop, and bought the one item he had been saving for.
It does not even have a grade. He’d read before entering the End Game that everyone eventually gets a special growth item tied to their affinity and chosen attribute. He still had not expected his to be this… ridiculous.
CAUSALITY MEMENTO.
As far as I know, these things are usually under 200 points. They’re not powerful by themselves, they grow with the user.
Then he saw the price.
He had been pained. But also happy.
If it costs 700, it’s special.
Which was exactly why sorry Lilith, he had kept most of the rewards for it.
He exhaled and opened the system panel.
?SYSTEM PANEL?
?PERSONAL?
STATS: DEF: F (0%)/ MP: F (0%)/ FOCUS: F (0%)/ STR: F (0%)/AGI: F (0%)/ LUCK: F (10%)
ALLOCATION: 2
[Each Allocation increases a stat’s percentage within its current Tier.]
“Survived a skyscraper full of undead, a god of death named Lilith, and my own stupidity that nearly got me killed. And all of this was somehow saved with 10% luck; I cannot even imagine how unstoppable I will be at twelve percent. Maybe Lilith will have a few more brain cells fried; that would be quite impressive.”
Without thinking too much, Vorn spent the two allocations on luck and raised it to F (12%). He was very satisfied until, from somewhere below, a heavy impact shook the building, and Lilith presumably is continuing to solve problems with overwhelming force…
‘Why does it feel like she got stronger? I felt it after she killed the level-2 zombie, but that is ridiculous. I don’t know how many points she got from the massacre, but there is no way it was enough to boost her stats by +10%, and anything less shouldn’t be noticeable, right?’
‘Because if I can tell that her strength is equal to the peak of 9th grade mage or possibly 8th grade at MP (36%), then she would need at least 10% for a jump in power, otherwise wouldn’t every 1% be enough to advance one grade?’
‘From the beginning of the game till now, I spent 12 allocation points, and all I got is 12%, so why do I feel like she is getting stronger?’
‘What am I missing here?’
Vorn pushed the thought away and perked his ears, listening for footsteps. Nothing.
Good.
He opened the System again and focused on the only item that mattered.
“Causality memento, it’s your time to shine now, you may look like a weird star, but you’re going to be my guiding light in this devastated world.”
A tear almost fell from Vorn's eyes as he thought of all the horrible things that happened today.
Then the System interrupted his reverie.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
Bind to Causality Memento (Fortune-Bound Item)?
YES / NO…
‘Right binding makes sense; these kinds of items are so special to the point of only serving one user.’
He selected YES.
Then… Nothing happened.
No item appeared in his hand. No glowing orb. No dramatic “congratulations.”
And the Memento wasn’t in the Items tab either.
It wasn’t physical.
It was… there.
Bound to his soul like a quiet parasite, waiting to be used.
“Alright, I have decided not to care anymore, let’s see what my death looks like; hopefully it will be a while from now, like… A couple of months, as for future direction, is simple: take it easy, follow the crowd, and prioritize safety overall, and preferably get rid of Lilith if possible, without dying. I’ll consider it. If it’s too dangerous, then abandon this road.”
“The reason people keep dying in this game is that they try too hard. I won’t follow in their footsteps; all I need to do is to live long enough to be qualified to return home.”
Then, without further hesitation, he mentally commanded the Causality Memento to activate.
The world blinked, and everything went dark.
The office, the couch, the skyline… all of it dissolved into a dim fog where distance meant nothing, just a gray space that felt infinite and cramped at
the same time.
Shapes began to form inside the fog, two of them, darker than the gray around them. Not bodies exactly, more like Human-shaped shadows with no faces.
I thought to myself, ‘This must be the scene of death, not the gray stuff; it’s probably like that because of my low luck.’
Then I heard a voice, “Vorn.”
‘This must be Lilith, although her voice isn’t too clear, it must be her.’
There was no response, only silence; it felt odd, as if something was missing from this scene.
Just then, another voice came in.
“I detected a mana current on the lower levels; it probably originated from the 40th floor. Something is attracting them. Not just noise.” She said
Then another pause came at this point, I was sure, parts of this conversation are missing because of my low luck value, just as I was thinking that I heard my voice.
“If staircase A is blocked, we should use either B or C; fighting head-on with a horde of this size isn’t useful.”
After more silence, I heard Lilith’s voice; this time, there was something off about it.
“I checked with mana sense that floor 52 contains System Crate was can reach it if we clear stairwell A, are you saying we should abandon it too?”
…
…
“Survival shouldn’t be your only objective, right?”
I swallowed hard listening to all of this ‘Lilith looks angry, why is she angry though, from the looks of it there are some risks that I don’t want to take so she got angry? But wasn’t I doing that from the begging what changed?’
Just then, I heard my voice in response
“Survival is not an objective but a means to an end.”
‘Good job, me; no one is better than me in twisting cowardice into something fancy.’
“And if I decide it is worth the risk?” Lilith asked
Lilith’s voice at this point was icy; even through this mist and darkness, I can feel that there is something seriously wrong with her tone.
Before anything else could happen, the world broke, like fragments of a shattered mirror, and I was again sitting on the couch, back drenched with sweat.
Before I could even gather my thoughts, the door to the office I was sitting in suddenly slammed open, and Lilith walked in.
“I just finished clearing the floors below us,” she said, casual as ever, then her eyes pinned me in place. “So, Vorn… what should we do next?”
Vorn “…”
