Chapter 5. Abominations

I closed the notification panel and returned to the main panel for one final look of my stats.

Strength (STR) – 18

Agility (AGI) – 29

Intelligence (INT) – 83

Mana – 4

My strength stat still lacked compared to the two dominant stats but I felt it was fairly acceptable for now, since it was enough for me to do damage on an abomination with the help of tools. I couldn't take the chances of a bare-handed fight yet.

As I was looking at my stats, I heard voices from near the entrance to the office.

"I'm telling you we can't go back in there. We should listen to Daniel; he should have a plan. He is not someone who would act recklessly. He must have meant it when he said he had a better chance of survival alone." The female voice of Ms. Willis argued with her brother.

"No. I can't hide alone after having abandoned my friend like that. You saw them didn't you. There wasn't just one of those 'things.' He is in danger even if he could somehow deal with that beast." Mr. Willis shouted back at his sister. Their voices were slowly growing louder which implied they were coming back to the office.

A smile could be seen on my face as I closed my status window and got ready to greet the twins.

Bang!

The door was opened under the influence of a terrifying force, which I assumed to be caused by Mr. Willis's kick.

"Danny we're here to save you. Don't kick the bucket yet!" Mr. Willis shouted.

"You guys are too noisy! Didn't I ask you to wait in the infirmary?" I asked them mixing annoyance into my tone. Honestly, I was glad that they returned. I didn't seem to be in a position to venture alone after that fight and I didn't like the idea of recuperating beside the ash of a defeated abomination. Who could say that a vengeful spirit of the abomination won't appear to take revenge?

"Where are you? Did you become a ghost to haunt me because I left you alone?" He shouted back. I could almost the freaked-out Wilson, flinching in a comical manner after hearing my voice coming from seemingly out of nowhere.

I lifted my left hand above the desk and gave a slight wave to notify my position to them.

"You scared me buddy!", Mr. Wilson came crying to me for a hug which I declined by pointing the bloodied pen towards him. A terrifying scene it must've been, seeing a man completely covered in blood pointing a sharp weapon, which was just used, at you and the Wilson twins confirmed it by jumping as far away from me as they could.

"Where…where's the monster? Did it leave?" Mr. Wilson asked, still eyeing the pen.

"Is that it?" asked Ms. Wilson pointed with her chin, and as I followed where she was pointing, I nodded realising she meant the ash in the chair.

"Blergh…. I am not gonna sit in that chair again." She said, trying to gag.

Mr. Wilson moved closer to the chair to inspect the ashes.

"Don't touch it, Ben." Instructed Ms. Willis, but he didn't seem to have heard it as he continued to move closer to touch the ashes.

Ms. Willis's face scrumped it more the closer he got to touching it and just as she was going to shout once more, Mr. Willis pulled something out of the ashes.

"What are you doing, Ben? I told you not to touch it!" she shouted while stepping away from him.

"Take a look at this, sis. Isn't this the ribbon you tied to Spitz the other day?" He asked, showing a slightly disfigured ribbon to her.

"It's not Spitz! Call it Toto!" she reprimanded her brother.

Taking the ribbon into her hand, she continued to examine it. "Yes, this is the ribbon I tied to one of his legs the other day.", saying that she covered her mouth in a gasp. "Does that mean…."

Though she stopped mid-sentence, we both knew what she stopped from saying. The dog, Toto, turned into an aggressive, mindless monster thirsting for blood.

Toto or Spitz was a pretty docile dog. Being a frequent visitor of our campus, almost all the students of the school are sure to have seen him once or twice either picking food off of girls' hands or leading a race with the janitor in the school grounds.

Toto being the abomination I just faced wasn't something I could wrap my head around.

I stretched my right hand upwards asking for Mr. Willis to help me stand up and then leaned against the desk to stay upright.

Taking the ribbon from Ms. Willis to examine it myself, I asked her, "So, you're saying this is Toto's, right?", and she nodded confirming it for me.

"Then that would mean that abomination was Toto. But how did it turn into that?" I pondered out loud.

"Abomination?" The twins asked me, almost simultaneously.

"That's what the system or the entity behind the system called it in the notification I got for the kill." I informed them of the creature's name. "It said it was a minor abomination."

"Wow, you really did kill a monster!" Mr. Willis exclaimed.

"So," I continued, paying no attention to his word, "that would mean that the mana negatively affected the dog. Though we got a system, it turned into a monster. You guys were talking about there being more of the abominations, right? How did they look? Were all of them bearing resemblance to some beast?"

"No, some of them looked humanoid," Ms. Willis answered and as if understanding what I was enquiring about, she continued, "Does that mean even humans have turned into abominations?" She was shocked, shaking her head fiercely in disbelief. I just looked at her with a grave expression, neither confirming nor denying her proposition.

"WHAT? Those were students that we saw back there? How could this be? I thought mana and system granted us powers." Mr. Willis asked, slowly catching onto the conversation.

"Hmm…. give me a minute to jot down the points to form a theory." I got up and wiping off the blood on my hands, I pulled a sheet of paper to note down everything that I was able to figure out until now. Not like there was much I learnt in this small span of time since the descent of systems into our lives.

After noting down all points like stats, skills, equipment et cetera, I proceeded on to circle two words. Mana and System. Based on these two things I was quickly able to figure a few basic pieces of information.

"Mana. This is what was introduced to us earlier. If what I am thinking is correct, people, animals and most living beings have the capacity to house mana. The system is a connected platform that is visible and available to people, could possibly extend to other living creatures, that contain mana within them." I said trying to summarise my thinking process to the two. "The abominations are creatures that faced an error during the process of introduction in the intake of mana. The abominations express severe aggression and blood thirst. It is like they are built for violence."

"But why?" Came the voice of Mr. Willis, "Do they gain something while fighting? Or is it just an action caused by the loss of thinking capability during their aggression? The abomination we faced just now didn't seem to have lost its mind to rage, so what is it? I could feel it when I was looking at it before we ran away." He said, feeling a little embarrassed and guilty when he mentioned about running away. My eyes then landed on the circled word 'System'.

"Unless, …." I continued, "unless they too grow stronger the with each kill. Just like us. They have a system too!"

My excitement of finding the answer didn't last very long as I realised that this meant that we were going to face stronger abominations in this zone if we don't take care of them sooner.

This also provided us on a clue regarding the barrier. "It might be possible that we would have to take care of all the abominations that were formed inside this zone to be able to dissolve the barrier. The barrier might be to prevent over-crowding of abominations at a particular spot if left open." I said to the twins.

"So, you're saying that we are going to actively search those things?" asked Mr. Willis, "Is there no other way to do this?"

"Not Really. However, don't worry. We're going to get us some skills before starting the hunt." I declared.

I went on to share the details of getting a skill to the twins. While Mr. Willis was rearing to find himself some useful skill, his sister, however, wasn't very welcoming at the idea of having to kill with her own hands.

"I would say that it is better to kill it alone to get the best skill, and it usually depends on the monster, but I know you will not be able to kill one alone, Ms. Willis. I'll subdue the monster while you deal the finishing blow to it, so that we can still expect a higher-grade performance." I said while facing her. Then I turned towards her brother and continued, "You'll try to take it down on your own, but I'll help you if it seems too dangerous."

Both of them nodded, feeling satisfied with the arrangements.

Now, it was time to grab ourselves some skills!