The Sanctuary (2)

"Welcome to the sanctuary! A bastion of hope in a hopeless world!" Samuel triumphantly said.

"Let me give you a quick tour of our main base." Pride was oozing out of his every word.

"As you can see, we are currently building a wall as a second line of defense against the Blessed ones and the monsters."

A guard approached us and looked at Samuel.

"Hey Sam, you got new people?" He asked.

"Yeah John, we need everyone we can get!" Samuel said enthusiastically.

"All right you guys can go inside, don't make any trouble though."

"Don't worry I'm showing them around and explaining the rules for a reason." Samuel rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, you said that before, I'm just making sure."

After that ominous comment, Samuel led us inside where we got a tour of the base.

The bottom floor was mainly used as a massive fortress with some makeshift weapon shops.

There were barricades and guards at every corner.

'There have to be at least 400 guards here alone...'

'Samuel said that the league has 3000 people, which means most of their firepower is probably concentrated here.'

There were also guards on the upper floors looking down, the guards on the floor mostly didn't have guns but the ones higher did.

We got stopped on the way to the first floor.

"Halt!" a guard said

"You must drop all of your weapons here." He ordered.

"What? We weren't told about this before!" Jack said, clearly outraged.

"You didn't tell them?" He questioned Sam. "I... Forgot..." Sam responded

"Is there any way we can keep our weapons?" I asked

"You would have to join the guards or explorers, but just warning you, we already lost some people so it's very dangerous, you would also have to take a test to prove you know what you are doing."

I looked at the others and gave them a nod

"Alright we will join, the girls will hand over their weapons."

"What? no! I'm not just going to sit still while you risk your life!" Amanda said

"Dear, I'm going to be painfully honest. You would only slow us down, so please."

"...Alright..." She accepted clearly hurt.

Patiently waiting, the guard pipped up.

"Alright be romantic or whatever somewhere else, I have a job so fuck off, Sam you lead them to the recruiting station, and do NOT mess up again."

'A bit rude but fair.'

"Don't worry I'm not a moron."

So we headed up to the first floor also known as the Bastion, Just another defense floor this time however there are also more shops.

Food and water are all being sold.

"Sam, how does currency work here?"

"We use the exchange system, you want something? Give me something else, like in caveman days."

I nod at that.

At this point, I noticed everyone was eyeing us warily like they thought we were up to something bad.

"The people here have trust issues huh?" I said loud enough for Sam to hear.

"And can you blame them? You said it yourself, it's only been a week, the people you have seen so far are the strong ones who have accepted the reality of the situation, where we are about to go... you will see why we don't let people keep their weapons."

The third floor is also known as the 'living' zone.

When we went up what we saw was just sad.

People crying or just sitting in a corner somewhere swaying back and forth mumbling to themselves about some nonsense.

some were better off and everyone else noticed that they lived away from the completely broken ones.

there were also almost none of them with only a few women and even fever men taking care of the children left behind in the world, probably because most of the men immediately enlisted to get revenge and protect what they have left.

"Poor souls, They will probably never recover from this..."

"This is horrible..." Jessie said.

There were some caretakers walking around feeding them and talking to them, doing their best to help them work through their trauma.

"Mommy..."*sob* *sob*

A child completely broke down.

Another detail was that most of the people here were children and women.

"Samuel, where are the men?" I asked

"Well, most of them recovered faster and went over there; after that, they enlisted." He points at the other group of people. "But also a lot of them sacrificed themselves to protect their family or at least that's what we gathered from them." He gestures to the sad sight in front of us.

"Let's keep moving."

"Oh, you can leave the women here." Seeing our horrified faces he clarifies. "Like, on this floor in the sane camp not literally here."

"Jesus Christ I almost had a heart attack..." Jessie and Amanda sighed with relief.

So we headed past the moaning and crying people into the fourth floor.

The administration.

There were few guards here and most of them were around two buildings.

'The League Administration' and the 'Anti Monster Headquarters' the rest of the buildings were just shops selling amenities and necessities.

"We are headed over there" Sam points at the AMH" (Anti Monster Headquarters)

We make our way forward and are stopped at the originally moving staircase again.

"I have new recruits."

The guard nods and lets us in.

There were two movie theaters on this floor one on the left and one on the right, both are now used probably as meeting rooms.

We headed inside one of them and had our weapons taken from us before meeting the 'commander'.

A muscular man walked in, Blue eyes and short black hair on his face, a strange combination that made him easy to remember, he is 5,8 feet tall with white skin.

"So you guys want to be guards?" We all nod "Come with me."

"100 push-ups! 100 sit-ups! 100 crunches! 100 squats! and a 2-kilometer run!" We all stare dumbfounded.

"WELL?! MOVE!" we snapped out of it and start doing the exercise.

I did very well at the beginning which was not surprising, but when I had to do the crunches my body started failing, but I kept pushing it.

Dave collapsed at the crunches, his supper strength could only carry him so far...

Jack stopped at 100 sit-ups after seeing Dave collapse, he knew better.

The squats were a pain, my entire body was screaming at me to stop, which could be seen from the outside as my legs shook every time I went up and down, but I kept pushing, if I don't succeed we would be helpless and at the mercy of others, that will not happen.

not as long as I live.

Barely finishing the 2-kilometer run around the mall I blacked out.

This time I didn't dream of anything surprisingly, just a peaceful sleep with no mind-shattering bs.

When I woke up I was bombarded by system notifications.

RIFT RESISTANCE ((PASSIVE)) (7) DREAMER (4) ((PASSIVE)) REALITY BENDER (23)

THE SANE LVL UP (LVL8) CLOAK (PASSIVE)

INTIMIDATION (PASSIVE) ((CONNECTED TO CHARM))

CHARM (PASSIVE) ((CONNECTED DO INTIMIDATION))

MONSTER SLAYER ((PASSIVE)) (3) KNIFE/DAGGER EXPERT ((PASSIVE))

VETERAN ((PASSIVE))

WILL OF STEEL (NEW!) ((PASSIVE))

Nothing can break your mind, for you have and shall endure much worse

UNBREAKABLE BODY (NEW) ((PASSIVE))

Your body has seen hell that you willingly put it through, and when it sees that hell again, hell shall know fear.

AVERAGE HUMAN:

STRENGTH: 5

AGILITY: 5

ENDURANCE: 7

WILLPOWER: 5

HOST'S STATS:

STRENGTH: 6.4 (INCREASE!)

AGILITY: 6 (INCREASE!)

ENDURANCE: 8.1 (INCREASE!)

WILLPOWER: 10 (INCREASE!)

10 WILLPOWER ACHIEVED.

THE HOST HAS GROWN STRONGER. ALL SKILLS +1.

RIFT RESISTANCE (LVL UP) ((PASSIVE)) (8) DREAMER (5) (LVL UP) ((PASSIVE)) REALITY BENDER (LVL UP) (24) THE SANE LVL UP (LVL UP) (LVL9) CLOAK (PASSIVE) INTIMIDATION (PASSIVE) ((CONNECTED TO CHARM)) CHARM (PASSIVE) ((CONNECTED DO INTIMIDATION)) MONSTER SLAYER (LVL UP) ((PASSIVE)) (4) KNIFE/DAGGER EXPERT ((PASSIVE)) VETERAN ((PASSIVE)) WILL OF STEEL (NEW!) ((PASSIVE)) UNBREAKABLE BODY (NEW) ((PASSIVE))

HOST'S STATS:

STRENGTH: 6.5 (INCREASE!)

AGILITY: 6.1 (INCREASE!)

ENDURANCE: 8.2 (INCREASE!)

WILLPOWER: 10.1 (INCREASE!)

'Au I want to die... I can barely move...' I struggle to get up

"Adam!" Amanda hugs me "You always do this!"

"Sorry sorry, I just wanted to be able to protect you."

"...glib tongue..." She said.

We stayed like that for a while... Which I was very happy with.

Unfortunately, my arms refused to move to my will, wasting the opportunity before me to enjoy myself.

'So sad.'

after around 10 minutes Amanda kissed me and got up to get the general whose name was apparently Dus.

'Weird name for a weird guy huh.' I smirked to myself.

After a 4-minute wait, the general returned along with Amanda who sat down next to me.

"Listen, boy, you madman, I made that thing to break any new recruits and humble them, and then to accept them anyways."

"How in the goddamn hell, did you actually do that."

*Sigh*

"Well you are obviously accepted, we need strong-willed people like you now more than ever."

"Yaay!" Amanda celebrated.

"Now since you are a guard you will get some benefits."

"You can meet me whenever you want, don't waste my time though, you can also now rise in the ranks and lead other people if you are good at it."

"You can keep the weapons you brought from the outside world and finally, if you suspect someone is a traitor you have every right to disarm them and take them to me, if they resist you can give them a warning, if they still refuse you can use lethal force to subdue them."

"Understood?"

"Yes sir!"

"That's the spirit!" He laughed. "Anyways don't be too loud." he winked "See you later newbie."

Amanda has gone full red at the comment.

"Let's go to bed it's getting dark..." She muttered, "Alright kitten love."

She nuzzled her back to me and pressed against me.

"Oh, I see what you are doing..." I whispered into her ear

"I'm not doing anything..." She said while grinding her ass against my excited soldier.

"I can't move a lot right now..." I whisper

"Then I will move." She said.

'Oh boy this is going to be wild.' I thought excitedly.