The staircase up to the surface was as absurdly long as the one they'd descended back at Reaper's Gate, and the ad campaigns lining the walls were equally incomprehensible. John stopped paying attention to them, though he heard the others quietly conversing amongst themselves, pointing out the absurdities in the text. Apparently, one of the ads quoted a mixture of Dante's Inferno and Shakespeare's Tempest, alternating line by line.

Even though he felt like a wet towel that had been wrung out, John took the lead. Despite his exhaustion, he was undoubtedly in the best condition between them. Those levels in Vitality were doing work. It felt a little wrong, like cheating. Lily had complimented him on his fitness, and had wondered how much exercise he'd done before the apocalypse. It would have felt too awkward to tell her he hadn't set foot in a gym in years, so he'd kept to his taciturn persona, fighting with all his will to keep the discomfort off his face.

They'd barely dared to rest long enough to catch their breath. John could feel nothing on Mana Sense, but if another train arrived carrying more monsters… Well, the tunnel would've made for a very effective choke point any enemies would be forced to funnel through, but it would've been an immense risk in their position. Better to get the hell out of here, they decided. John didn't disagree.

The sky was still shrouded by a curtain of slight darkness when they reached the surface. John stared up at it for a long moment, wishing with all his heart that he could just see the real, blue sky for a single second. As a born and bred Englishman, he was no stranger to overcast days. Weeks often passed without a peep of sunlight in the winter, and it said something that a bit of sunlight in the first week of March had been so abnormal that it had inspired a shut-in like him out of the house.

But there was a difference between an overcast day and a sky alight with roiling flames. It was a constant reminder of their situation. An inescapable omen. The world you knew is over, it told anyone who stood beneath it, and your life will never be the same.

A familiar blue sheen rippled the air over the exit. It looked like one of those flat lasers he saw in videos of raves and EDM concerts, except the colour was too uniform. They were able to walk through it without issue, which he'd been momentarily worried about. The possibility that they'd only be able to leave through a higher ranked door than the one they'd entered through seemed all too appropriate.

John already had Mana Sense at the ready, and it radiated outwards to its full range the moment they were out of the Underworld. Plenty of signatures came back, but nothing nearby.

The exit itself was placed in a completely inappropriate location in the middle of a residential street, nestled between two houses. If this had been the one they'd approached in their desperate escape, he would have noticed something was wrong immediately, even through the fog of panic he'd been under. They still probably would've had to go in, though.

All four of them stared at it for a long time, silence filling the space between them. In truth, they'd barely been down there for half an hour. It had felt like much longer. In a way, it was just an extension of the pursuit they'd been evading since back at that mansion. Even longer, for the other three, John imagined.

"What now?" Lily asked. Her voice was subdued, lacking that typical boisterousness that so often distinguished Americans from Brits. Mum said it was because they saw the sun more than two weeks a year over there.

"Rest. Heal up what we can," Jade said, her Scottish accent coming through strong. "We cannae keep on like this, ya ken?"

Chester nodded in agreement, his eyes half-shut. He was drooping like gravity had doubled for him personally. His body armour rested askew, with one of the shoulder straps having broken at some point.

All of them were covered in soot, looking like Victorian coal miners. What wasn't sooty was bloody. They undoubtedly sported a patchwork of bruises and an elaborate lattice of scrapes and cats beneath all the grime, and John had to hold back a wince of guilt. He'd healed his wounds with but a thought, directing Aura into upgrades. Mental fatigue was the only thing affecting him at this point.

Maybe I'll get a healing spell at some point. He was hopeful. Most of the abilities he'd been offered so far seemed conducive to awesomeness in some manner. Arriving at the last moment, defeating the enemies, healing everyone, and ultimately saving the day sounded like a pretty badass thing to do.

John eyed his Aura. He had 6000 in the bank right now, most earned in one go. Was it worth levelling up his Arcane and Talent to see what he could get at the next stage? He was going to have to reassess the situation anyway, decide on new priorities.

I'll have to think it through properly. Spending Aura in the heat of battle is one thing, but there's no need to be reckless with it in less hectic moments.

"Let's find a place to stop," John said. The others agreed with wordless nods.

He took the lead once more, letting Mana Sense guide him away from monsters. The layout of the neighbourhood was unfamiliar to him, but signage told him they were in Harrow. That earned a grimace.

Feel like we were somewhere around Southall before. We've crossed to the other side of Wembley, somehow. It didn't feel like the train took us that far north, but I was pretty turned around. I can work with this, though. North of us will be Watford, then beyond that the M25, which will let me circle around the city if I follow it, just in the other direction than I'd been intending.

That was still the closest thing to a long-term material goal he had. A small part of his heart he was keeping carefully sequestered away still held out a slither of hope that the few people he cared for in this world might still be alive. He didn't know what he'd do without that.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

In the short term, though, they needed to find a place to rest and recuperate after the bullshit ordeal they'd just endured. The others looked ready to collapse, so he didn't dare take them far. Just enough that the Underworld entrance was at the very edge of Mana Sense's range, so he'd have a heads-up if rat monsters came pouring out of it. Then he picked out one of the modest houses that looked like it wasn't in too bad condition, and lead the group inside.

The door had been smashed off its hinges, of course. And there were blood stains, as usual. Floral wallpaper and carpets implied this place had been owned by some old folks, likely having bought it for a chocolate bar and a packet of crisps in 1956. He consoled himself that they'd probably lived long and happy lives before the monsters had hastened them to an ignoble end.

There was no TV or any kind of electronics to be found in the living room, but there were old sofas aplenty, and his companions flopped onto them without hesitation. Chester threw himself face-first onto a three-seater and was out like a light before he'd even settled. Lily practically collapsed onto a single recliner. Even Jade, who seemed to be made of sterner stuff than the other two from what John had seen, let out a long sigh as she thumped down onto a sofa. She at least had enough wits about her to unclasp her breastplate. It hit the floor with a muted thud. Her eyes were closed a second later, her breaths evening out.

These guys were really exhausted, huh?

He couldn't blame them. He'd felt like this multiple times throughout the bitch of a day he'd had. Only reality-breaking cheats kept him on his feet right now: it wasn't through any strength of his own that his body was fitter than it had ever been. The two hours of sleep back at the mansion weren't even his own power.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. He'd taken risks to earn these abilities as rewards. He had to give himself that. No use being too self-deprecating about it all. Cheat superpowers or not, he'd achieved plenty. It wasn't like he'd had superpowers against that first eyeball monster, when all this had started. Back then, his only weapon had been a gold club and his skinny body.

John settled into the final couch and closed his eyes.

The short-term goal of finding a place to rest was done. Good.

His long-term goals… Weren't really worth devoting too much detailed thought to, right now. Not when so many details were unknown. Best to keep it vague: gather Aura, get stronger, get some idea of what was really going on with all this, then figure out how to deal with it.

The medium term presented more of a problem. Bridging the gap between this moment and the nebulous idea of the Stronger John that existed in his hypothetical long term future wasn't an easy thing. Countless variables. So many questions, so few answers.

But there was at least one question about his medium term future he could answer for himself: would he be sticking with these three?

The benefits had already been laid out, as had the costs. It all came down to Aura, really. Having people to witness his highs and lows.

How do I feel about hanging around three strangers, though?

That was the conundrum.

He opened his eyes and took them in. Ironically, this was the most in-person contact with humans who weren't members of his family he'd had in months. They were… he didn't know what to think about them.

The posh coward with his absurd physique, the Florida girl on the world's most poorly timed holiday—seriously, why the hell would someone from that area of the world want to come to England in March?—and a Scottish uni student. Was there a joke in there? John shook his head to dispel the thought.

They seemed okay. Nothing about them screamed bad people. Helping them out was something he could be proud of, and he certainly wasn't going to turn his nose up at the crazy amount of Aura he'd managed to accumulate just by being around them.

It was obvious that their presence gave him a multiplier of some sort. Quite apart from whether he would've even survived the Underworld alone without anyone watching his back, there was a decent chance he would've received much less Aura for it. People being there to witness his deeds was important.

The problem was the vice that seemed to refuse to let go of his chest every moment he was around them. It had loosened its grip a little now that they were asleep. Paranoid thoughts still swirled around his mind, though. Possible humiliations. Potentially embarrassing scenarios. Past mingled with present, and he found himself pondering how they would have treated him under different circumstances.

If they had been there to see Luke Farnell "happy slap" him for no reason, would they have been among those who laughed? Would they have been part of the crowd who wouldn't make eye contact when someone stole his clothes when he was in PE? Would they have gone along with the lie that he'd cheated on his Biology exam?

John sighed. Those were stupid thoughts. His brain really did stray to useless places, sometimes.

He did have to consider things along those lines, though. He knew himself, and therefore he knew it was inevitable that he'd mess up. Saying and doing the wrong thing were both part of his nature. Hell, he'd already shown that a few times already, the wrong words spilling out of his mouth in the heat of the moment. It was only through the persona he'd miraculously managed to make them believe in that they hadn't made too much fuss of his blunders, and even then Chester had snapped at him once over that D-rank comment—which he still didn't understand.

That was the problem. It was a fundamental truth of the world that other people saw it all differently to how he did. There were things he didn't get, but he desperately needed to if he was going to survive.

Sure, he could maybe get away with grinding alone on weaker monsters for a while. He'd probably be able to get his stats up quite a few levels that way, and purchase all the Spells and Skills currently available. But what happened when things started costing 10,000 Aura each?

Such higher tiers of power had to be there for a reason. Arbitrary as this whole Aura bullshit occasionally seemed, there was evidently a purpose to it. It wanted him to act cool. It wanted him to do badass shit. There was only a certain degree to which he could bluff his way through impressive feats. Eventually, he'd have to actually be badass. The kind of super-ultra-gigachad that faced off against red-souled monsters without even flinching.

And he couldn't deny he wanted that. The thought of being some kind of awesome magical superhero with a hundred different ultra-powerful abilities in his belt made his heart burn with desire, with need.

Because there was another element to that, beyond the heady thought of power.

If he could actually be that kind of badass, maybe people would actually like him.

That was all he'd ever wanted. To be liked. Maybe if he really was that cool, he wouldn't need to understand the way people worked.

John sighed. That was all far off. For now, he had decisions to make.

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