The Turning: System Reboot: A Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG Read online

  The Turning: System Reboot

  A POST-APOCALYPTIC LITRPG

  KENNY KING

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  22. One week later

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  25. One week later

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  A Message from the Author

  Prologue

  “Where were you the day the Turning happened?”

  It was a phrase that meant nothing… until it did. Because about four weeks ago, the world simply turned. It seems like such a simple word for such a momentous shift, but it was really the only way we could describe it, like something turning off its axis or food turning bad. The shift was so… sudden, but we couldn’t exactly call it The Happening, right? I mean, this wasn’t a shitty Mark Wahlberg movie. This was real life. So real that the iron smell of blood hasn’t been washed away from our streets. So real that literal corpses are an everyday occurrence we’ve been hardened to, and not just human corpses either. Don’t worry, I’ll get to that. I mean, we’re talking one day we had iPhones and GoPros, Mickey Mouse and Hamburgers, yadda yadda, all that happy horseshit, and the next day…

  The next day, we had magic and monsters. And tragedy, very real tragedy.

  Because despite our best efforts, we were woefully unprepared.

  Why?

  Well, the biggest reason was that the creatures that seemed to appear out of thin air all had levels. Yeah, I know. Real life but a video game. It was pretty ironic considering how many times my parents told me to “quit gaming and experience real life” while I was growing up. And then real life grabbed us by the balls, and it was the gamers who were prepared.

  It was made clear immediately that the monsters outranked us. It was a hard pill to swallow, and one that the American government stupidly televised nationally. The whole country watched as a massive squid-like kaiju attacked New York City, praying and hoping against hope that some hoo-rah boys and a nuke were going to save the day. Except we got to watch that level 45 kaiju shrug off that level 4 nuke in real time, and there went all of our hope.

  If we knew then what we knew now, well, we’d have augmented it appropriately.

  Then again, we wouldn’t need a nuke.

  I could probably do it. Alone.

  A lot can happen in a month.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. You probably want to know how it all started. How I, Augustus Octavius Titus Julius Tiberius the Third, managed to get to level thirteen in a single day. How I mastered the art of Eternal Flame and Absolute Zero? It’s a pretty crazy story, especially if you’re a sucker for the hero’s journey. I even managed to summon a gigaclops and tame a tarasque. If legendary weapons are your thing, perhaps I can tempt you with a tale about how I forged the ancient Frostcaliber and used it to slay the lich king. Or, if Leon Kennedy’s your kind of guy, I did save the president’s daughter, but instead of zombies, it was from bloodthirsty super apes.

  But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself again. Let me set the scene.

  Like I said, my name’s Augustus Octavius Titus Julius Tiberius the Third, but you can call me August King, and this story starts with a gas station, a news report, and a Slim Jim.

  Ding Dong.

  “Shush,” Buster yelled, spraying flecks of spittle on the counter.

  The bewildered customer, an old regular aptly named Mad Dog, stood there with a hangjaw look on his face, completely floored that anyone would ever talk to him that way, let alone Buster. Buster was forty-five years old and maybe ninety pounds soaking wet, whereas Mad Dog had done tours in Vietnam and was part of the local Harley gang. However, this was no ordinary day, which was made even more evident by the fact that Mad Dog didn’t snatch up Buster and wipe down the men’s urinal with him.

  “Sorry,” I said, shooting Mad Dog a quick look and then nodding up at the station’s small tube tv. We’d originally installed it for closed circuit security, but since nobody wanted to steal stuff from our crappy, outdated gas station, we’d run cable to it. It gave me and Buster something else to stare at besides the peeling linoleum or flickering fluorescents.

  “I’ll let it slide,” Mad Dog bristled, arching up one salt-and-pepper eyebrow. “You got the game on?”

  I nodded at the television once more, where the newscaster was explaining the type of nuke they were going to use against the NYC kaiju. “Yeah, the game’s on.”

  “Pass me a Slim Jim,” Mad Dog said, reaching his fat sausage fingers over the counter at me with a little beckoning motion.

  “You gonna pay for that,” Buster said, pushing his glasses up his thin nose imperiously.

  “Shush,” Mad Dog and I both said this time, and Buster’s cheeks turned beet red.

  “It’s the end of the world, man,” I scoffed, grabbing two Slim Jims, one for me and one for the old, grizzled biker. “Let a man have a meat stick.”

  “But—” Buster sputtered, always trying to be employee of the month even though no one gave a crap about the old service station to begin with.

  It was about fifteen minutes outside of Fairfax, Virginia, which means most people waited until they got to proper civilization to fuel up and get snacks. The old, rundown Sunoco wasn’t exactly inviting, and we were settled properly outside of even the smaller city, closer to all the parks and forests. Most we ever got were teenagers looking for the Bunny Man Bridge. That, and the biker gang. Buster couldn’t stand them, but those are the sort of people who remain loyal to a place. Plus, we had cheaper beer prices outside the proper, corporated limits.

  “T-Minus ten minutes until nuclear contact,” the news reporter said, holding his earpiece in with a worried look. The media was safely out of range, but it still didn’t exactly seem like a picnic.

  All three of us sucked in a collective nervous breath. Both Mad Dog and I tore the wrappers off our Slim Jims, cutting through the quiet, and Buster took to drumming his fingers on the countertop.

  “Buster,” I said evenly. “Just have a cigarette, buddy.”

  “I quit,” he scoffed, sitting up straighter. “Besides, this is a no smoking area inside.”

  Mad Dog gestured to the tv with his beef stick. “I don’t think it matters much, son.”

  “Rules are rules,” Buster sniffed.

  “I’ve just been informed that the mysterious object identified by NASA just last week is being theorized as a reason for the creature’s appearance,” the newscaster continued on screen, clearly stalling time while the final nuclear preparations were made. “Scientists posit that the object, now known as Morningstar, might have size and pull to affect gravitational pull, resulting in an upset of our seas.”

  “You tellin’ me that ugly sonofabitch been in there the whole time?” Mad Dog groused as he stared at the aerial drone footage of the kaiju.

  “Like Godzilla?” Buster wondered softly.

  Honestly, the whole thing was exactly like Godzilla. Just three days ago, the massive squid-like creature had unearthed itself from beneath the Brooklyn Bridge on the East River, absolutely annihilating every vehicle on the bridge at that time. Since the East River is technically a saltwater estuary connected to the harbor and Long Island Sound, it was pretty clear the thing had swum up into the city from the ocean. It had six long tentacle appendages with two sturdy, bandy legs, as well as a pointed head and a single cyclopean eye. The only thing comparable to it was a squid, and that mixed with its size meant it was labeled as an honest-to-God kaiju pretty quickly. I never thought I’d ever hear the government officially sanction the term, but there we were.

  Also, like Godzilla, the first attempts to subdue the creature were completely fruitless. Most of New York City had been swiftly ordered to evacuate, but most of the city was too stubborn to do it, so the casualties had begun to mount up. The immediate area for the nuclear bomb had at least been cleared, and the whole event was sort of a Hail Mary pass. It seemed very American to be televising it, and all around the country, people were tuning in and throwing nuke parties.

  “Now, it is unclear if the creature is a result of a yet unknown deep-sea species or if it is a result of the smaller, secondary object that crashed into the ocean off Nova Scotia back in April. That object, commonly called a comet, is in fact just a small chunk of porous rock thought to be an asteroid. Experts, however, still debate hotly on the asteroid’s origin,” the newscaster continued in his non-regional dialect, as if this were all very normal news.

  “So, Godzilla or invaders from Mars,” Mad Dog snorted, snapping his stick between his teeth with a loud bite. “Pick your poison.”

  “Five minutes now,” I said, taking my own loud snapping bite. “Do you think this is going to work? I mean, what if we just piss it off? And besides, if it’s like Godzilla, it’ll feed off the nuclear energy.”

  Beside me, Buster gul
ped audibly.

  We sat in silence for the remainder of the five minutes taking in not only shots of the monster shambling through the city streets but also of the pilot as he buckled into his F-18. The guy even did a little practiced wave, like a damn parade princess, while crowds of people cheered and held up signs from different broadcasting locations.

  The television briefly switched from the monster to a grid of parties and cheering from all over the country. I knew it was probably supposed to be inspiring, but something about the moment made my stomach sour. We were too cocky or something. You weren’t supposed to celebrate a win until you actually won.

  The three of us sucked in another collective breath as, moments later, the jet speared across the sky, heading towards Barclays Center. A trail of exhaust plumed out behind it, allowing us to track its arc easily across the sunny, blue sky, which seemed sort of surreal given the day’s events. The pilot banked and turned around his target a few times, and the squid halfheartedly swiped at him. Even though the thing was at least three hundred feet tall with a massive amount of reach, the pilot dodged its strikes easily.

  “Not today, squid!” the newscaster said obnoxiously. As he did, half of the drones flew away to a safe distance and zoomed in, though half of them stated, willing to give us a close-up shot to the end.

  “It’s not trying to get him,” I said firmly. “It’s toying with him. It’s not scared at all.”

  “This ain’t gonna be good,” Mad Dog said gravely, echoing my thoughts.

  There were more cheers from all over the world, piped in tinnily over several streaming broadcasts, as the jet opened up and dropped the literal bomb on the overgrown cephalopod. We waited with bated breath….

  And then it just sorta… shrugged.

  The nuke rolled off its giant back and clattered to the cement below. The creature slapped one giant tentacle over the top of it, and the nuke detonated. There was a flash of light, but then not even a rumble as the creature’s tentacle seemed to smother and absorb what should have been a destructive force. However, even though it seemed to affect the kaiju nil, that couldn’t be said for the surrounding area.

  “Oh… oh my God,” I sputtered as Brooklyn went up in flames. Beside me, both Buster and Mad Dog said words their mothers would have surely disapproved of. On the screen, chaos erupted, and the news reporter who had been announcing from a safe distance was now simply staring with silent, glassy-eyed shock. He was about the only one who was silent, as everyone else in the newsroom or nearby was screaming.

  “I AM SORRY,” a deafening, disembodied voice suddenly boomed, rattling the small television’s speaker. “YOUR WEAPON OFFERS NO DAMAGE.”

  “No damage?” I muttered. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Is that the monster talkin’?” Buster wheezed out, his voice panicky and high. On screen, several other people screamed a variation of the same question. The kaiju had a beak, but it wasn’t moving as the voice spoke, nor did I think a beak capable of such clear, crisp speech.

  “A LEVEL 4 NUKE IS NOT A WORTHY DEFENSE,” the strangely monotone voice continued. “ACCEPT DEFEAT.”

  Level 4? Defeat?

  There was a barrage of automatic fire and booms from somewhere off screen, and the view of the kaiju suddenly tilted sideways as either its flailing tentacles or the blast itself knocked a number of cameras to the side. Brooklyn continued to burn, and I wondered about the poor idiots who hadn’t evacuated.

  “YOU WILL SEE. YOU WILL LEARN, LITTLE THINGS,” the voice said, and a rumble thundered across the sky. I got the distinct impression it wasn’t the squid talking but something… more.

  “What are we gonna learn?” Buster blustered.

  I sucked my teeth and leaned back against the counter. “I don’t know, but I have a feeling we’re going to find out.”

  “H-Hand me another Slim Jim, August,” Mad Dog said, sweat clearly dotting his brow.

  I was too stunned to move, but this time, Buster moved to fulfill the request, even grabbing one for himself. Now I knew the proverbial shit had really hit the fan if Buster was bustin’ the rules.

  Our eyes locked briefly, Buster’s orbs so wide I could see every angry, nervous red vessel as it shot through the white. Fear was evident on his waxy face, and I could have sworn his hands shook a little as he peeled open his illegal treat.

  “What?” he said with painfully fake nonchalance, his tongue darting out nervously to wet his lower lip.

  “Theft, Buster?” I said with a half-smirk, despite the shitty situation.

  “Hey,” he sighed. “You said it.” His eyes turned back towards the television screen, where the kaiju was now ripping through military vehicles like a kid kicking Matchbox cars. “It’s the end of the world, man.”

  Chapter 1

  Let’s fast forward a little to two weeks after the nuke and after Buster’s Slim Jim theft. You know, that was the last time I saw him…

  I hope the little twerp is still stealin’ meat sticks in the sky.

  Anyway, so there I was in my basement, approximately fourteen days since the oh-man-we’re-toast day, and I’d managed as well as any college dropout could.

  As dark as it sounds, I’d been blessed with dead parents before I hit twenty, so I had no immediate family to worry about but myself. I mean that with all sincerity. Taking care of one person is a lot easier than caring for a whole household, and as much as I loved my parents, they weren’t exactly the kind of people to have apocalypse fortitude.

  I did, however, still have one responsibility, and that was Mr. Pantaloons. Pants was a haggard Maine Coon missing half an ear that I’d rescued from the Humane Society right after Mom and Dad passed. A lot of people like to say cheesy things about how animals “rescue us, not the other way around,” but Pants and I simply got along because we were both stubborn, solitary bastards. Unlike my parents, Mr. Pantaloons absolutely had apocalypse fortitude.

  So, it was almost perfect. At least for fourteen sorta predictable days. Actually, after the nuke failure, nothing was predictable, but I could at least control the bubble in my immediate area. My home was secure enough, and I’d boarded the ground level windows and doors save for the front door, which I fortified with a second deadbolt I’d purchased weeks ago. I’d wanted to spruce up the backdoor with a newer lock, but my procrastination paid off in the end. I boarded up the back and double bolted the front. I also had a generator, UPS battery systems, and enough gas to get me through the rest of the week, though we’d been warned during the last official national broadcast that the rest of the week probably wouldn’t happen.

  Apparently, the second body hurtling towards Earth, the one the government had dubbed Morningstar, had been estimated to strike Earth by Wednesday.

  Today was Wednesday, so, you know, a comforting thought.

  Morningstar impact aside, I went about my day with a strange sense of normalcy and boredom that had become commonplace during my self-imposed house arrest. I set out two cans of wet food for Mr. Pantaloons, though I hadn’t seen him in the last couple of hours. My own meals for the day were a veritable white trash buffet, consisting of three bags of Cheetos Puffs, a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon, a 2-liter of Mountain Dew, Doritos, a bag of Oreos, Fruit Loops, two Snickers bars, and a pepperoni DiGiorno Pizza. The beauty of working at the gas station meant that when the doom ball really got rolling, I was able to hoard as many snacks as possible. If I wanted to, I could make it last for days, but like I said… it was Wednesday.

  Like I said, almost perfect.

  Still, I had Wrestlemania 2000 and my Nintendo 64. It was a good thing my mom never threw anything away, especially since streaming services and online gaming were screwed. I’d dragged it out of the attic so I could hook it up to the 77" LG C1 Series OLED TV I’d snagged from Best Buy in exchange for a case of tuna and a twelve pack of Mountain Dew Code Red. Yep, it was already that desperate. Tuna and Code Red was a good enough deal for tech that would become obsolete in a matter of hours. I’d already seen worse deals go down.