Omicron Zone

Roger watched as Lila paced back and forth. 

Her movements were erratic, and she was breathing heavily. 

Every couple of steps she would pause, think of a possible explanation, then abandon it. 

Roger didn't know how to stop her, or if he even wanted to.

'She knows more about Avar than I do. Maybe it's better to let her think about what our situation is.'

After a while of nothing changing, he decided to try a different approach.

"So, what exactly is the issue?"

Her head snapped to him like he had attacked her.

"The issue? The issue is we have been thrown into the deep end before we ever learned to swim! How can you not understand how bad this is?"

She grabbed the sides of her head and groaned.

"Of every person I could get stuck here with, I get a defective one!"

Rogers' jaw dropped.

"Defective!? Who are you calling defective? I just saved your life! And if I wasn't here, that tiger would've had you for lunch! You should be thanking me!"

Lila jabbed a finger in his direction.

"Thanking you for what? Getting stuck here with me and waving around a sword like a moron? Hard pass! Our only hope now is for me to be given a strong ability so we can escape this forest and find a lower-tier zone!"

His eyebrow twitched at her words.

"Our only hope is for you to have a strong ability? I already have a strong one! I can copy the powers of anything we kill!"

She scoffed.

"If we can kill it, then its powers must not be very strong in the first place! What use is an ability that only helps you be as strong as things weaker than you? It makes no sense!"

Roger stumbled for a good explanation, as her words made a lot of sense. What really is the use of an ability that only works if you can kill something already?

"Well, if things I can kill are no threat, then what about the Mind Wraiths? Why are you so scared of them despite me being able to kill them?"

The question caught her off guard and her cheeks turned red.

"It's… uh… well because it means the zone is Omicron! The Mind Wraiths will be the least of our worries!"

Roger knew she was hiding something as she spoke, something very personal. She wouldn't have reacted like that if it wasn't something so serious. Or that's what Roger hoped, at least.

'Women will never make sense to me!'

Sighing, he decided to try and defuse the situation.

"What does Omicron even mean? What are these zone tiers you keep mentioning."

His words seemed to calm her down a little, making Roger even more positive she was hiding something about Mind Wraiths.

'She must be happy about changing topics.'

"Omicron is one of the many zone tiers, fifteen to be precise. All zones have a ranking, with Alpha being the weakest and Omega being the strongest. It's the same ranking for our abilities, and everything else the System uses."

She waved her hand around, emphasizing the area they were in.

"A zone like this is considered to be challenging for the vast majority of magi. Only someone who has spent years growing their power could thrive in a place like this, and we are far off from accomplishing that! Creatures here could have multiple unique and powerful elemental abilities, and we are just barely Alpha rank!"

Roger listened to her tirade silently, happy to receive any tidbit of information he could.

'So we are in a zone that's supposedly very deadly, but that means we are very far from any civilizations! This could be a good thing in disguise! The creatures here have been tough, but manageable, and so long as we don't run into anything too dangerous we should be fine!'

Inwardly happy, Roger frowned to try and convince Lila he was equally worried.

"Surely this has to have happened before. Have you heard about anything like this?"

Lila looked at him incredulously.

"Sure it's possible, but everyone who was sent to one of these zones probably died! The only situation where someone has survived an Omicron zone as an Alpha Ranker was a fire mage, and he just burned the area around him till a local group noticed the smoke and found him. So unless I happen to get a uniquely powerful ability, we might as well stay here and die!"

'What's with this woman? We aren't dead, yet she keeps saying we are! Hasn't she heard about struggling against fate? Or is that something the rich aren't taught?'

Truth be told, Roger didn't feel very scared at the prospect of being out of his depth. His whole life he had been tested by forces beyond his reach. How was this any different?

On top of that, he had powers this time. Sure, copying the abilities of things he killed wasn't all that good, but it would get better over time. At least he hoped. The System wouldn't tell him he was making progress to Beta otherwise, right?

Lila, however, seemed entirely beside herself.

She had continued pacing, seemingly giving up on trying to explain to Roger how bad their situation was.

Hoping to gain more information, he decided to ask a question.

"How do we even grow our elements rank?"

She groaned before responding, clearly thinking the question was beneath her.

"By killing other creatures or accomplishing actions the System deems worthy of rewarding."

'Just as I thought.'

"So we could theoretically keep fighting our way through the zone, and either grow strong enough to survive the zone as long as possible, or find our way into an easier zone by sheer luck?"

She paused mid-step at his words, her eyes going wide. She turned to him and squinted.

"Theoretically, sure. The odds of that working, however, are near zero."

Despite her words, Roger could see that her mind was already playing the odds over.

Wanting to press the advantage, he smiled confidently and spoke with as much willpower as he could muster.

"Near zero is still better than zero. You said it yourself, we are already dead. Might as well try and fight our way out of here, and if we fail along the way then we lose nothing. If we succeed, though, then we gain everything."

Lila mulled over his words for a few seconds, occasionally muttering some thoughts under her breath.

Realizing she had no better alternative, she sighed. Her whole body deflated as the adrenaline left her system. She rubbed the slime off her arm onto her clothes, cringing at getting them dirty.

"Well, I guess if we have nothing better to do, we might as well fight. It will all still depend on if I manage to gain a good element. If it's something useless, there is little point in trying anymore."

Roger nodded at her words but was ecstatic inside.

'Yes! This is all good news! I don't have to worry about the government finding me here or about Lila trying to find civilization and revealing me to them! Now all I need to do is grow strong enough on our journey to be able to defend myself from other magi!'

He hid his excitement well, trying to portray solemn acceptance of the situation and anger towards the System for cursing them like this.

Roger looked around the clearing and gestured at the fresh corpses.

"We will probably want to stay here for a while at first. We can try and fortify the edges of the glade and make some shelter so we can fight off any creatures that attack us. We can also grow the plants. Having a large amount of food will help us on our journey. Do you know how long it will be till you gain your element, or how long it will take for me to hit Beta?"

She tilted her head and her eyes went vacant.

"I should have it sometime in the evening. As for reaching Beta, I couldn't tell you. It's different for everyone. Doing more impressive actions helps make it faster, though. There is a bit of a legend of an Alpha-rank mage killing a Sigma-rank creature and instantly going to Iota, but that was a one-off."

Roger cocked an eyebrow.

"If that's the case, why didn't I rank up from the Mind Wraiths?"

Lila's eye twitched.

"Isn't it obvious? Just because they only appear in Omicron level zones does not mean they are Omicron rank themselves. They are barely Beta, and their biggest threat is their mental attacks. The fact you could escape it proves they were weak ones. If it had been a full-strength Mind Wraith, you would've never escaped the nightmare and died there."

She paused as she realized something, sheepishly rubbing her arm.

"I would've died too if you hadn't killed them."

She turned away and walked back to her shallow bed. 

'It's not a thank you, but it's close enough. I'll take what I can get.'