The Culling of Man: A litrpg adventure (Peril's Prodigy Book 1) by Craig Kobayashi (ereader android TXT) 📕

talked me out of it. But it came with this shield," he said, lifting his triangular hunk of metal proudly. "... that and they were listed alphabetically."

Garath laughed as he pulled the door open, thinking about the useless staff the Necrologist Class came with. He did get a pretty cool hat that gave him +30 mana and looked like the sorting hat and the staff may be the cause for his poorly aimed spells connecting with his targets though, so he didn't complain (verbally). He looked at the five scared boys in the entrance as they crossed the main hall to join them, then stopped and his face took on a serious expression when something occurred to him.

"Listen, Gary. It's uncomfortable, but I have to ask. What is one grown man doing alone with five kids at a time like this?"

"Excuse me?" Gary asked, one eyebrow raised. His soft features hardening rapidly.

"K. Yeah. Wow. Super uncomfortable. Just think of it this way, if some guy had YOUR kids, wouldn't you want someone to at least ask?"

Gary considered it for a moment, then smiled as the anger and offense melted away from his face. "Maybe," he said, "but any idiot would know to just ask the kids if they were in trouble."

The Necrologist just looked down at his feet feeling like a moron. Gary was right, it would make more sense to ask the kids.

"These two idiots are mine," said the lumberjack. He walked over and put his hands on the red haired noggins of an elementary school aged boy and another that looked to be in his early teens. "The other three are my nephews, they were staying at our place because their mothers were having a girl's retreat for the week. I ran across your thread on the Community panel when I posted a message to them. I just hope they find it..."

"Sorry, man. That’s awful. I’m sure it'll be easier to find them after this Culling shit," said Garath. "Have you tried sending a friend request? It gives you friends’ locations on the map."

"Yeah, I did. It said something like, 'that player does not exist'. You don't think that means..." he didn't finish. His eyes glossed with tears and he turned his face to keep his boys from seeing.

"Not necessarily, did you input her real name on the request?" Garath asked.

"What else would I input?"

"Well, believe it or not, my parents didn't name me Garath. We all had the option to change our 'name'. A lot of us just put in our gamertag," he explained. "Maybe she just picked a different name. Or got assigned a number like Sharon#142 over there."

Gary's face filled with hope and the man who had thought his wife dead steeled his nerves. "Maybe she did, or maybe not. At least I hope that's the case. Either way, my priority right now is to keep these boys safe. The skeletons of that first wave may as well have been zombies from Shawn of the Dead but these Ghouls are different. We were in the house for the whole first wave and nothing happened. I mean we heard them on the roof and saw them through the windows, but that's it. As soon as these things appeared though, they seemed to just sense where we were. They broke the window to get in and we booked it."

"Rough. I wonder if the reason they haven't broken in here is because we're hugging the entrance - there is an obvious path to us, you know?"

"Probably," Gary agreed. "But what about the next wave?"

"I've been thinking that too."

After a few minutes of talking, Garath learned that Gary had spent most of his life as  a carpenter. The bearded man volunteered himself and his boys to fortify the building, boarding up the windows and barricading the stairs to the upper floors. Athios went along in case anything heavy needed to be relocated. As they left the main hall, Garath took over the watch behind the group and finally sat to go over his new prompts.

Chapter 14

Curiosity Killed the Cat, You know.

Congratulations, Garath! For reaching level(s) 7 and 8 you are awarded +6 Attribute Points (3 per level) and +2 Skill Points (1 per level) to distribute at your discretion. As a Necrologist, you receive +3  Wisdom, +3 Vitality, and +1 Regeneration per level. You have one week to distribute the points before they are assigned for you based on your chosen class.

Unused Attribute Points: 6

Unused Skill Points: 4

Garath did a quick perusal of the newly improved stats displayed on his Profile panel.

Garath

Race: Human

Class: Necrologist

Level: 8

Age: 29

Health: 350/350

(base: 300; APs: +50)

Stamina: 97/100

Mana: 390/390

(base:300; APs: +60; items: +30)

Exp to next Level: 18,665/21,000

Attributes

Vitality: 35 - Each point of Vitality provides +10 to maximum Health.

Wisdom: 36 - Each point of Wisdom provides +10 to maximum Mana.

Regeneration: 14 - As a Necrologist, each point of Regeneration increases Mana recovery rate by +1.11 per second; Health recovery rate by +.25 per second; and recovery from injury by +2%.

Strength: 5 - In addition to making one stronger, each point of Strength increases physical attack damage by 1% and reduces damage received from physical attacks by .25%.

Dexterity: 5 - In addition to making one more agile, each point of Dexterity improves the critical strike chance of physical attacks by +.3%; the critical strike damage of physical attacks by +3%; and improves chance to dodge by +.5%.

Unused Attribute Points: 6

Garath was excited to allocate his Attribute Points but, before he did, he had to know more about how 'damage' would actually affect his body. To his recollection, he had yet to sustain any damage at all.

‘But how to test it?’ he wondered.

Simple deduction from the information he had gained so far (specifically that the monsters of the second wave had between 20 and 25 HP, his Death Bolt now had a base damage of between 14 and 15, and the fact that he had 350 Health Points -