Lothe felt as if he were drifting in a vast, cold void. There was no light, no sound, and no end.
Where am I?
He tried to lift his hand, but his body didn’t answer. He was alive, yet he had no form, floating in the empty dark.
He did what he always did best: he waited.
As his mind settled, the memories of the library, Seana, the strange tremor, and the sudden blackout came rushing back.
What really happened, confusion clouded his mind
A sudden, searing heat flared in his lower belly.
So hot.
The heat intensified, bubbling like molten lead inside his abdomen. It crept upward, heading straight toward his heart.
If he could have moved, he would have clawed at his chest. At this rate, he would burn from the inside out before he even woke up.
How do I get out of here if I can’t even move my limbs?
He tried to force a reaction from his hands. Nothing. He tried again, focusing every shred of his willpower. Still nothing.
Panic finally cracked Lothe’s calm facade. He was only an eighteen-year-old student. He had no grand ambitions, no desire to be popular in his life ; he only wanted to live a quiet life and keep Old B from worrying.
Shit
Old B.
If the library had collapsed, the old man would be frantic. Old B had no other family. He had taken Lothe off the streets when he was just a quiet, stray kid.
Since then, it had always been just the two of them.
The heat reached Lothe’s chest, turning his mind blank for a second.
No. I’m not dying here. I have to look after the library. I have to get back to him.
With a desperate surge of stubbornness, Lothe willed his body to move, pushing against the heavy weight of the void.
Suddenly, dark purple tendrils spread out beneath him. Unlike the hostile darkness that bound him, these purple lines felt alive, slicing through the heavy void and wrapping around his limbs.
Take me out of here, For whatever reason, Lothe felt safe with the purple tendrils, so he commanded it.
The purple tendrils condensed, forming a sharp, thin needle of purple light. It drove straight into his lower abdomen.
"Argh!"
Lothe’s eyes snapped open as he violently jolted upright. A sharp, burning pain radiated from his stomach.
But before he could even draw a breath, a heavy, dark shadow lines rushed past his face, the wind of its movement grazing his cheek.
He threw himself to the side.
What the hell was that?
He turned his head instinctively, his eyes scanning the dim floorboards. A massive creature stood where his head had just been.
Lothe stared, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing.
It was an insect. A wasp.
But wasps were supposed to be tiny, harmless things that buzzed around gardens and hid in hives outdoors.
What was an insect doing inside the library, and why was it the size of a dog? His heart hammered against his ribs.
"Is it some kind of freak evolution? An escaped lab experiment?"
The creature turned mid-air, its wings buzzing with a high, deafening pitch. It was real. The heavy, warm air in the room and the stench of the creature’s damp shell were completely real.
Lothe scrambled to his feet. His back pressed against a heavy wooden bookshelf.
As the wasp lunged, his reflexes took over. He grabbed a thick textbook and hurled it.
The wasp swerved, easily evading the flying book.
What sort of flexibility is this? Lothe cried out in his mind.
He grabbed a long, splintered wooden rung from the broken brass ladder on the floor. As the wasp balanced itself to strike, Lothe swung the heavy wood like a club, catching the insect squarely in its side.
The wasp hit the stone floor, hissing as its legs twitched.
It tried to rise, its pincers snapping. Lothe stepped forward and drove the sharp, broken end of the wooden rung straight through its soft neck joint.
The wasp thrashed violently once, then went completely still.
A cold, mechanical voice echoed directly inside Lothe’s mind.
[You have slain a Tier 1 Mutated Beast: Goliath Wasp.]
[To initiate System Integration, the host must slay 19 more Tier 1 Mutated Beasts.]
Tier 1? A system?
He stared at his hands, then at the green blood pooling on the stone. He felt a sudden urge to laugh.
I’ve finally gone mad, he thought. Wasps don’t grow to the size of wolves, and people don’t hear mechanical voices in their brains.
But the throbbing pain in his abdomen and the raw metallic taste in his throat wouldn’t let him pretend. He closed his eyes, then opened them again.
The dead monster was still there.
Is this... an apocalypse?
The word felt heavy, absurd, and entirely out of place in his normal, quiet life.
No. That’s impossible. How can the world just end? He tried to reject the thought, but the system’s demands were staring him straight in the face: kill nineteen more of these beasts to survive.
If a creature like this had entered the secure upper archives, what was happening to the city outside? What was happening to the lower floors?
Old B.
Lothe stood up, his lazy demeanor entirely gone. He ran toward the heavy oak exit doors, but a ragged, heavy breath behind him made him halt.
He turned.
Seana was leaning against a fallen shelf, clutching a broken brass rod. Her uniform was messy, and her face was pale, but her eyes were alert.
On the floor lay the crushed carcass of another giant wasp.
It seems she had woken up before him, and she had fought.
"The door won’t open," Seana said, her voice shaking slightly as she held up his master keycard. "I tried to swipe it, but it won’t open. I think it’s been more than three hours, the lock has reset."
Lothe took the card and swiped it against the reader.
The panel flashed a cold, solid red: DENIED.
He swiped it again, his knuckles turning white as he pressed the plastic against the scanner.
"Open, please" he muttered.
But the scanner remained dead.
Buzzzzzzzzz.
A heavy, vibrating hum echoed from the high ceiling. Lothe looked up into the shadows of the rafters. Multiple pairs of glowing, compound eyes stared down at them.
[Warning: Tier 1 Goliath Wasp Swarm detected. Defend yourself, survivor.]
Lothe dropped into a low, balanced stance, his grip tightening on the wooden rung.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Seana raise her brass rod, her feet planted firmly on the stone floor. She was terrified, he could hear her breath shivering, but she didn’t run or scream.
She knows how to survive, Lothe thought, his estimation of her shifting.
Three wasps dove from the darkness.
The first one targeted Seana. Instead of backing away, she waited until the last millisecond,
Lothe thought she had given up, not until Seana slid low beneath its diving trajectory, and drove the sharp brass rod straight into the soft underbelly where its torso met its abdomen.
Greenish blood sprayed across her sleeve as the creature collapsed.
The underbelly,Lothe noted. That’s the weak point.
A wasp lunged at him. Lothe threw a textbook to his left. The wasp’s head twitched toward the sudden sound. In that split second of distraction, Lothe slid low across the stone floor, passing directly beneath its shadow, and thrust his splintered wooden rung upward.
The sharp wood tore through the soft joints of its underbelly.
He stood up, pivoted, and swung his stick at a second wasp that was attempting to flank him, crushing its wing and sending it spiraling into the ground.
They fought in silence, using the heavy bookshelves as barriers and textbooks as decoys.
The simple-minded wasps fell for the traps one by one, unable to adapt to their coordinated movements.
With a final, heavy swing of his wooden club, Lothe shattered the shell of the last remaining wasp.
Silence returned to the dark archive. Lothe leaned against the wooden rung, his lungs burning from the metallic air.
Thud.
He whipped his head around.
Seana had dropped her brass rod, her knees buckling as she collapsed onto the cold stone floor, gasping desperately for air.