Limitless Path

The group thanked him and said their goodbyes before continuing. As they walked out around to the main road, Beth looked around. It seemed like the neighborhood was typical as always, other than there being nobody but patrol groups outside. A normal Saturday at the very beginning of fall would have seen a load of people out and about, especially with school having just started back up. A lot of the kids would already be bursting to run around and go crazy outside after the week of classes, homework, after school activities, and chores. This made the absence of most sounds and people all the starker.

The group proceeded on around Mr. Jones' property, heading to the west down one of the three east-west streets that made up the neighborhood. The area had a central road that ran north-south coming in from a highway at the southern end. It then had the three east-west roads, most of which had cul-de-sacs branching off, and ended either in a cul-de-sac or by looping around back on themselves. Beth's house was in the northeastern most part of the neighborhood, meaning their group was headed west along the very top of the neighborhood, checking a section of the northern most houses.

Beth had glanced to her left when they hit the main road to look toward the end before it looped southward. She saw a group at a door speaking to a neighbor on the southern side of the road and assumed they were checking around the loop the end of the eastern part of the road made. Her group walked to the next house west of Mr. Jones' and made their way up to the door.

Before Mr. Smith could knock, they heard a noise coming from behind the house and an exclamation of "What is that?!"

Beth and the three patrolmen rushed around the side of the house, with Mr. Smith calling out, "Hello! Is everyone alright back there? We're here to help!"

The four of them circled around the back corner of the house and saw a woman standing behind a glass patio table, slightly hunched up with her knees bent, like she would leap to the side at any moment. Across from her was one of the level one ants, seemingly stymied by the table for the moment.

Beth wasted no time, pressing her right foot against the ground and pushing with her newly elevated strength, rocketing toward the ant. The group with her had the time to get out "Wai-" and the ant had the time to turn halfway away from the table toward her before her left foot was planted just to the left of the ant's head. With a twist of her torso and a grunt, Beth brought a Crush empowered fist down directly on top of the ant's head. There was the *Crunch* sound that Beth was becoming familiar with as the top of the ant's head caved in like a glass bowl getting hit with a mallet.

Common Ant level 1 slain.

"Only level one still, that's kinda disappointing," Beth muttered as everyone else in the yard just stared at her in surprise.

Mr. Smith was the first to recover, walking over to the woman and asking her "Are you a'ight Lisa?"

The woman had straightened up and turned to Mr. Smith, "No, Jack! What is that? What's happening?!" She seemed almost frantic.

"Come on inside Lisa. Let's sit down for a moment," Mr. Smith led Lisa back into her house. Mr. Scott and Mr. White walked over beside Beth and both looked down at the ant.

"That was some display," Mr. Scott said while patting Beth's shoulder. Mr. White knelt down to examine the ant corpse while Mr. Scott continued. "Are you alright girl? And how'd you do that?"

"Yeah, I'm fine Mr. Scott. I managed to kill an ant this morning right after the change happened. It got me to level one, which gets anybody who gets there a class. My class is Brawler, which makes me stronger when fighting with my body. I can kill these guys in one kick or punch now," Beth stated proudly.

"This is remarkable," Mr. White said while examining the ant. "Its exoskeleton seems to be a little weaker than I would imagine for an ant this size. How were you able to crack it in a single punch?" he asked, glancing up at Beth.

"I would guess because it's level one. If we encountered a higher-level ant, it would probably be stronger," Beth said, tapping her chin.

"What do you mean level one? Can you explain that?" asked Mr. White, lifting the entire ant up to try to gauge its weight.

"Look at me and try to focus on identifying me, on learning who and what I am," Beth said to the two men. They both looked at her and focused for a second.

"What the shit?!" Mr. Scott exclaimed looking at nothing, Beth assuming he was reading the skill acquire screen for Identify.

"This is interesting. It says you are a level two human. It says Bill is a level zero human. I assume it says I'm a level zero human?" Mr. White pondered.

"Yeah Jeff, you're a level zero human. So how did you get to level two?" Mr. Scott asked, turning to Beth. Mr. White was looking at her expectantly as well.

"I just killed ants. It seems like it only takes a very tiny amount of experience to get to level one. But I had to kill like six ants to get to level two. And now this is ant number three and I feel like I've only made a small amount of progress to level three," she explained to the two.

"So, if I can kill an ant, I can get a level?" Mr. White asked to confirm, with Mr. Scott glancing at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, sure. I can even help. It won't really give me anything, but I weakened an ant earlier and let Kim, uh, my sister Kimberly kill it and she got to level one. I'm sure we could find a couple ants and kill them; it seems like there's a spawner or dungeon nearby," Beth continued her explanations, still tapping her chin.

"A what or a who?" asked Mr. Scott with a slight frown, his eyebrows scrunching down slightly.

"Oh, sorry. Everything has become a little like a video game, but more realistic, ya' know? So, in games, you have either, like, items or objects that enemies appear from or near. We say they 'spawn' there, so the item is a 'spawner,'" she elucidated, making air quotes at the appropriate times. "A dungeon is kinda what it sounds like. It's a place full of monsters, and usually treasure, where monsters will often spawn. A lot of games have it as a mechanic that if you kill the monsters in a dungeon, they will reappear after some time. It's usually just when you leave the dungeon and go back in, but I think that's so it's easier to program."

"I see. And you believe there is something like that near here?" Mr. White asked, standing up from the ant corpse and brushing his hands on his jeans.

"Well, could be. Again, going on video game knowledge, a lot of times the world between cities is dangerous and full of monsters. So, it could just be there are monsters around, but with them all being ants it could also be something like a spawner just for them," she answered, staring north while tapping her chin.

"Are we not in a city?" asked Mr. Scott.

"No, not really. I mean, we're in the suburbs sure, but in games cities have walls and magic wards and guards and stuff. We don't really have any of that. This is more like a village or something without even having walls. Dad was talking about building more fencing and walls to help keep the monsters out, which sounds like a good plan to me," she replied.

"We'll have to have a meeting to go over it. Mr. Jones has a large number of connections through his businesses as well. I'm sure he can help with some supplies, if fortifying here is what we decide on," Mr. White responded.

"OK folks," said Mr. Smith, stepping out of the house, "I got Lisa settled down. James is out of town right now, so she was already on edge when that thing showed up." He glanced at the ant.

"James is her husband, by the way," he explained to Beth. "We should keep going."

"We're just gonna leave the ant here?" asked Mr. Scott, looking at the corpse skeptically.

"Not our job right now Bill. We need to make sure people are safe. Cleanup comes later," Mr. Smith replied.

The four of them headed out of the yard and back to the main street. They continued on for several houses, checking to make sure everyone was fine. At the fifth house after their encounter with the first ant, Beth suddenly said, "Stop!"

"What is it?" Mr. Smith asked.

"Ant," Beth responded before taking off around the house they were standing in front of. The three adults looked at each other briefly before hurrying to follow.

Around the back of the house was an open yard with an old swing set slightly to the right of center. In the dead center of the yard was yet another of the now endemic ants. Beth performed the same as against the ants she had farmed through the dirt arch, stepping to the side after running up to it and destroying the top of its head with Crush.

Common Ant level 1 slain.

"Just another common level one," she said as the three men hurried over to her.

Mr. White briefly bent down to examine it before standing back up. "Looks basically identical. Even her killing blow was the same. If you presented me one of the two corpses without saying which it was, I would have trouble telling the difference."

"Alright, well, let's check on the house and keep going," Mr. Smith said.

They returned around to the front of the house and checked as usual. The occupants were home and fine, so they moved on after explaining about the ants. The next few houses all went smoothly, and after another seven houses they stopped.

"We already checked a number before ya' tagged along Beth," Mr. Smith explained. "We're done with this for now. We'll head over to Zack who's runnin' the watch and report in."

"OK," everyone in the group affirmed, and they set out for the center of the neighborhood. There was a small meeting hall type building with a basketball court and a pool area just off the center road. The group headed down the street and stopped at a big, open-sided tent set up on the lawn in front of said meeting hall.

"Jack and company. I see you've gotten a fourth member since setting out," Zack greeted them. He was an older man in his late fifties who was tall and trim, with well-defined muscles. He was a former Marine who had served for over twenty years before retiring and starting his own business. He kept the crew-cut hair and wore a nice-looking button-up shirt over top of a pair of dark, heavy-cut jeans.

"We did, we did. Let me fill ya in," Mr. Smith responded. He proceeded to explain about the ants while also highlighting Beth's fight prowess. "Bill's got the details on the people."

Bill quickly pulled out his small notebook and went over who was home and who wasn't. Zack wrote everything down in one of several binders he had on the table in front of him.

"Alright, good work. The three of you can head into the building and get some drinks and snacks. You, young miss," he said, pinning Beth with a no-nonsense look, "are going to go over your combat and a breakdown of these enemies with me."

"Sir, yes sir," Beth called out.

"Girl, if we were in the service right now, I'd make you drop and give me 100 for a call like that," Zack harrumphed. "Now, explain these ants and your fighting to me."

Beth gave him a recap of her fights with the ants, as well as explaining her levels and stats. She finished by showing him her Crush skill screen.

Zack read through her skill quickly and then said, "I see. So, what you are saying is there are now going to be monsters, and if we fight the monsters, we can get stronger?"

"Yep," Beth replied. "Pretty simple, at least so far."

"And if we had people kill ants, they would get a level?"

"Again, yep. But I kill the ants pretty easily because I not only have decent STR now, but I also have that Crush skill. The ants can't block that at all. Somebody just punching or kicking an ant would need at least a couple hits."

"What about knives or even guns?" Zack asked.

"I don't really know. I helped my sister kill an ant by weakening it and having her smash it with a sharp rock. I'm sure a good knife would probably work even better," she replied, starting to tap her chin. "As for guns, I mean, uh, sure? I can't see how they would be so tough at this level that a gun wouldn't just make them go splat."

"You think they'll be tougher at higher levels?" Zack continued with his notes while questioning Beth.

"Uh, sure. I mean, if it's based off a game, there'll be higher level enemies. Higher level enemies are usually a lot tougher, like weapons that aren't made of rare materials or specially modified won't affect them. But all the ants are level one, I can just punch them once to take care of them."

Zack asked a few more questions about stats and her fighting against the ants. When he seemed satisfied for now, he told her, "Go ahead and get some chow. I'll want to talk to you again in a little bit," he gave her a nod and motioned into the hall before turning to a new group walking up to the tent.

Beth headed into the building where there were pitchers of water and juice as well as bottled sports drinks. There was also a spread of finger foods, and she grabbed a white colored sports drink and some vegetables, cheese, and small pastry-like things. She sat on one of the several chairs that were lined up on one side of the room and ate what amounted to her lunch.

After finishing what she had grabbed, she snagged another sports drink and went out front to where Zack was still manning the tent. She walked over to him and stood a little off to the side as he was finishing with his notes and dismissing another of the groups. Zack motioned her to wait as he continued writing for a moment.