Chapter 1 - Pathetic death

"Is this some kind of sick joke?!" a young adult yelled as he looked outside his window. One second he was peacefully playing some auto chess games and the next, outside his window, the world was in chaos.

The yellow sun turned bloody red as meteors made of a flesh-like substance rained on Earth.

Screams, pain and people dying left and right...

[The Hope System Is Online!]

As he was about to puke when he saw an older lady get chewed to pieces by some kind of monstrosity, a sudden sense of calmness had overtaken him.

Time seemed to stop, and a bubble of some sort had embraced him. He tried to poke it a few times, but nothing happened. It was quite bouncy though...

A game-like screen appeared before him and his novel instinct took over. Skimming through everything and summoning every command he could think of, he had managed to gain a lot of information.

This System, be it sentient or not, was his only chance of survival, and hell did he take it. After looking at his options, he picked up one of the 'starter packs' which seemed to be available to any human.

[Warrior's parting gift]

[As the last memento of a warrior who never gave up, even in the face of death, you have been blessed!]

[Willpower introduced.] [Strength increased] [Stamina restored and increased] [Removing all congenital problems] [Removing disabilities...]

[1x spear, 1x military grade backpack]

A euphoric feeling had swept through his body. He threw his glasses away and thanked them for their years of service.

He peeked out of the window once again, but this time with a much calmer mindset.

People who were previously running summoned various weapons out of nowhere and began to counterattack. These blessings weren't omnipotent, however, and soon only bright people who grouped up managed to survive.

One second alive and the other dead. This was his brand-new beginning, and he would make sure to seize every opportunity that came his way.

He'd be damned if he, a nerd who somehow legally changed his name to Magnus Fjall, would ever crumble!

His not-so-incredible journey began. During the first few days, he carefully explored his apartment, testing various things out and confirming his theories.

After he 'invested' his precious time in experimenting in a semi-peaceful environment, he ventured out of his apartment complex.

Filled with supplies he guessed would last him a week, he tried to be as low-key as he could. With humans gaining some of their ground back after a couple of days, some parts of the city were much better compared to hellish day one.

There were no longer just fleshy monstrosities on the streets, but also classic zombies. He noted that even an angry turtle was faster, though he had to make sure that mutations or power ups did not happen.

At the very least, right now, they were free sources of potential strength. The fleshy monstrosities weren't so simple, though. Their mass and size varied, but he saw a huge monstrosity in the middle of the city skewering an entire skyscraper like a piece of paper.

On the other hand, from what he saw, other humans could barely beat monstrosities around the height and size of a human.

Unlike those people who were weeping and severely depressed, he didn't know what gave him the desire to keep moving forward without ever looking back.

The first thing he ruled out was the power of friendship, as at most he had 1 friend who he talked with online. After a few days, he came to a simple conclusion.

Because of the System and the environment he grew up in, he somewhat became desensitized to the absolute despair he otherwise might have experienced.

Combined with his mindset, where he felt like he was playing an ultra-realistic game, and with his willpower stat, he was quite prepared.

Honestly, it wasn't impossible to survive in these 'wastelands'. Food and water were abundant thanks to the System. It didn't take long and, except for his longing for a peaceful, hot shower, he fit into the apocalypse quite well.

Days then turned into months and he managed to create a ragtag group of semi-competent people. It was the first time in his life that he had left his back unguarded.

It was quite a freeing feeling when he didn't have to be as paranoid as he was, although he never noticed or admitted that he was.

This group became larger and larger and managed to survive until the first anniversary of the apocalypse. However, good times, be it during an apocalypse or in times of peace, never last.

One of his more capable people had staged a coup because he was too 'passive'. He didn't establish a huge base and didn't rule over hundreds of thousands of people, like other overlords.

Apparently, almost everyone shared the exact same sentiment with them. They were sick of his 'levelling plan' where they had to move across continents in order to find 'super grinding spots'.

"Haha Magnus, how does it feel?"

"Quite boring, actually. I thought you'd do it a month ago. Aren't you a bit slow in there?" He asked as he pointed at his head and tapped it a few times.

'This fool thinks that Murphy's law and my excessive knowledge of novels are greater than his ego?' Magnus thought as he took out a golden grenade.

It greatly reminded him of a certain worm game he used to love back then when he had a social life...

"So long losers!" He threw it at them and then used every ounce of his strength to dash away. A massive heatwave had hit his back and blasted him forward.

His layers of armours and buffs crumbled one by one as he was riding the blast wave. A year's worth of gear, potions, and one-time skills were being used just to survive.

When his last spell was about to run out, he hit a stone and his world turned black.

...

"F*ck, I'll take this as one of the most expensive lessons in the history of mankind." He groaned as he woke up after an unknown amount of time.

His inventory, which was packed with various defensive items, was now desolate. His only saving grace was his measly amount of points, which would help him not starve for around 6 months.

Seeing his tattered body, he blanked out for a minute before finding one of his secret hideouts where he would spend much of his time.

The huge explosion and death of a famous group had become a sensation for a while.

It didn't last long though, as people had worse things to take care of.

Half a year had passed in the blink of an eye. Magnus by all means was combat ready, but half a year of almost inaction had made him quite rusty.

From being near the summit in terms of power, he estimated that he would be around a middle rank level if he was lucky.

This didn't stop him, however, and he resumed his grind.

As he seemed unaffected by this apocalypse, he soon attracted numerous people trying to join him.

His group, however, always stood at 13 people and whenever even a single person started to become dissatisfied, he would simply vanish.

In the end, it didn't matter if they were weaker or stronger in talent. The stronger they were, the more trouble they would have been, since he would ultimately make them unhappy. At least that's what he thought each time he left a group.

He would change his identity, but as he grew and grew, the amount of people he could surround himself with without them being a burden became less and less.

People gradually noticed that he had multiple identities and people that once thought that he was dead suddenly started searching for him.

This prompted him to become a virtual hermit. Unfortunately, even he couldn't remove the inevitable loneliness he would feel if he spent 18 hours grinding alone with only the sounds of beasts and monstrosities growling.

Combined with his fear of mind-attacking monsters using this weakness, he decided to take in one person at a time. If he crossed a newly destroyed city or a base and found a fairly talented youngster, he would pick them up.

With his disguise as a middle-aged uncle with muscles, it wasn't difficult to fool those not much younger than him into thinking he was some kind of guru. Sometimes it's as easy as looking at them with a sincere smile and resonating with them.

He made it seem like it wasn't them helping him, but he was helping them get stronger, so they could take revenge.

He forcefully upgraded their inventory space to a reasonable level and called them his porters, no matter their gender or their previous identity.

Those porters, unknown to him had absorbed his random ramblings while he was beating up monsters.

By the time they started to kill monsters at an 'adequate' level according to his standards, he would leave them with a note and a gift. This would be some kind of junk item he had long outgrown. However, he was too sentimental to just throw it away or sell it for one or two points.

Years passed and at some point, an annoying title inevitably found him. It was simple and yet very frustrating.

'The teacher'

Now he would accept it if the title was just this, as he knew that he had imparted some valuable knowledge to his 'porters' in the past. However, the title was just stupidly long.

The greatest teacher hidden from the world and the founder of the World Grinding Organisation.

Now the prefix greatest wasn't what pissed him off. It was the horrible naming sense of some organisation he never heard about!

Sure, he liked to yell; 'A grind for 1 hour today will give me the power to grind for 2 hours the next day!'

It wasn't on the level of a competent poet, nor did he think it could even be called a slogan. However, it was something his dear 'porters' had to listen to dozens of times a day.

Gradually, it became a hidden code to track other past 'porters' who banded together and created WGO, without his knowledge.

"Not only have they given me such a horrible sounding title, but those brats have the cheek to hunt me down and chain me to a chair where I would have to fill thousands of useless papers!" Screamed Magnus in a place where people would not even dare to breathe as he chopped up monstrosities like tofu.

Somehow the WGO became so powerful that they even dared to call themselves the number 1 organisation and no one dared to challenge them!

With such power, their announcement reverberated throughout the world and reached even his ears.

"I swear if they ever catch me, I'll spank them one by one!" Because of their power, he didn't dare recruit just anyone in case they planted a spy!

"Oh, shut up! Like I want to hear more of your sissy screaming!" He said as he exchanged blows with a pretty tough foe.

Size of a small hill, he had to 'enlarge' his sword to even scratch it.

The fight was filled with his weird and bizarre curse words, and in return it was returned with screaming and screeching that would rip anyone's ears out.

Alas, his speed and a repertoire of self-preserving skills and items had allowed him to beat it with the use of various status debuffs as he liked to call them.

Poison, acid, chemicals everything that had even the slightest effect was thrown at it. Thankfully, it worked to a degree and allowed him to end it with a holy grenade.

An explosion engulfed the monster, its screams growing louder as it howled in agony. Magnus was not far from it, with his various small injuries rupturing.

A green light had engulfed his entire body at some point, a cycle of healing and destruction that resulted in pure agony.

At some point, a sweet voice whispered to his ears that it's okay to sit, it's okay to lie down and rest for a bit.

"HAHAHA I ALWAYS KNEW THAT THIS TYPE OF MAGIC WILL BE USED AGAINST ME!" He said as a trace of clarity appeared in his mind.

Being prepared for anything and everything he knew, of course, included an item against mental magic. Although he had never encountered such magic in his life, the chances of being powerless were too overwhelming for him.

"Tsk, how did you even get such an item? It should have been at least 4 more years before germs like you should have even known about such things!" A voice said.

As the dust slowly settled, no, even before it had settled, Magnus could see a black void slowly moving towards him.

A being made of pure darkness stood out, light passing through it as if it did not exist.

Silence crept towards him, step by step. The silence was shattered by such dark steps.

It wasn't a feeling of powerlessness, a feeling of pain or anything of that sort.

It was the feeling of freedom that terrified him. As if his body wasn't even there, as if it were disconnected from his soul.

"That fool should be worried right about now, heh." Those were the last words Magnus heard.

In a single moment, a million theories and questions were engulfed by infinite darkness...