74 Con System Returns

Light marvelled at his connection to Aida. After studying it for a while, he began studying the other strands as well. Immersed in this new world that he'd discovered, he lost track of time and forgot that Aida was still awaiting his response.

Noticing that Light had entered a focused state, she shook her head slightly and came out of her meditative state. Looking around, she saw that Ace had somehow gotten over his motion sickness and had taken out his laptop and was mumbling something on the side instead.

Rolling her eyes, she leaned over and slapped him on the head. "Why aren't you meditating? Even the two kids are better than you!"

Ace looked up at Aida with an aggrieved expression, "Master, can you charge my laptop for me?"

"..." Aida smacked him again in annoyance, but still helped him plug his laptop into a battery pack. She was still not able to use her skills.

Driving for a while longer, it was getting darker so they decided to find the nearest building to take shelter in. They would have to clear out the building before it got dark.

As Lucifer pulled into the driveway of a cabin they selected, his entire body was drenched in sweat. He had never attempted to use his skills so often before. Multiple times on the way there, he would have to take over with his arms and push through the dizziness as he almost fainted from the overuse of his mental powers. However, thinking of his dead brothers, he bit his lip and persevered. Aida was also on the side, monitoring everyone's progress and the area to make sure they stayed safe.

The cabin they chose was in the middle of nowhere. It was nice and quiet. They had only found two dead bodies in the cabin which the men quickly disposed of. Since the outbreak, they had all become accustomed to these scenes and handled it with efficiency.

Light immediately volunteered to prepare the food while Lucifer went to acquire some firewood and the twins began cleaning up the area. Aida decided to take a walk around the perimeter to ensure their safety while Ace just sat on the couch, watching the activity.

Exhausted from all the events from the day, they quickly had dinner and decided on sleep shifts. Ace and Light would take the first shift, while Aida and Lucifer would take the second shift for the night.

Prior to sleeping, Aida also began teaching them a new sleep technique. She explained, "Dolphins actually sleep with half their brains while the other half remains awake, and then it trades off after the first half gets enough rest. It's a way for them to remain alert for predators even when they are resting. Humans are also capable of doing this, and many humans do it even when they're just sleeping in a hotel room because they are in a new environment. This phenomena is called unihemispheric slow wave sleep." [1]

"Since we are now living in a much more dangerous world, none of us have the luxury of sleeping soundly anymore. Every one of us needs to be alert at all times in case of an ambush from humans, Variants and Reapers alike. The process for training the mind to do this is a slow and painful one and you may suffer from lack of sleep for a while, but it is absolutely necessary for survival."

"For this reason, as we sleep, I will begin testing each of you and if I find that you aren't maintaining alertness, I will not hesitate to wake you up." Aida said with her trademark glint. Seeing this, there was a collective shudder in the room.

With that, she allowed everyone to go to sleep. She had learned this skill through a painful set of experiences. There was a time where she had a mission to assassinate a world leader while they were on vacation in a cabin. Aida was forced to sleep out in the open during the nights as she tried to conceal her presence and wait for an opportunity. Unluckily for her, one of the guards had found her and snuck up on her while she was sleeping. She had not yet trained up the sleep skill yet and was successfully ambushed. To this day, she still remembered just how close she was to death. Had it not been for a stroke of luck, she would have died then and there.

Recalling this, she shook her head slightly in disapproval of her younger self and then closed her eyes to sleep. However, before she could fall asleep, she was interrupted by the con system.

She was back in a familiar room full of books as a command line terminal floated before her again and began typing [...]

Aida had a bad feeling about this...

[Host has entered the punishment system. Host failed to eliminate a noob Variant level mob.

Punishment: Fight 100 low level Variant mobs and win with no abilities.]

Without waiting for Aida to get a word in as though attempting to prevent her from complaining, the system quickly continued. [Host is ready for the punishment system. Moving Host into low level Variant mob simulation. 5… 4…. 3…. 2…. 1… Start!]

Opening her eyes, she saw that she was back at the base while surrounded by the Variants that attacked her before when she had defended Light. Knowing that complaining would fall to deaf ears, she quickly got into her nothingness state and prepared to fight. The glint appeared in her eyes as she cracked her knuckles and prepared to destroy these pests that kidnapped her and served her to the darn pig before.

Miles away at base, a few Variants shivered as though a cold wind passed while a few others sneezed. Rubbing their noses and hugging their bodies, they wondered whether a ghost had walked past them.

[1] Slow Wave Sleep is the state of sleep where one doesn't move and is hard to arouse. Unihemispheric Slow Wave Sleep is where you keep half a brain awake while the other half sleeps, unlike normal sleep where both brains shut down. It allows half a brain to go through deep sleep and REM cycles while the other half of the brain remains entirely active. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unihemispheric_slow-wave_sleep