Chapter 4: Chapter 004: Skills

"We should take care of this first..." Adam spoke up, not feeling like it was the time to be speaking about their classes as an increasing number of hooks were beginning to poke through the floor. In the hall and in the bedrooms the gurglings broke their way through one limb at a time. 

"Kill them as they come! If they get too much we jump down from the room behind me ok?" Adam asked while simultaneously going around and wiping the floor with his staff as he knocked tens of hooks down with every motion. 

"You know what?" Adel finished plunging her hatchet into one newly ascended gurgling and turned to Adam who was busy wiping the floor.
"I think you should rethink that!" She walked up to him and said looking straight in his eyes. They were bloodshot, just like hers. 

We can't fight any more than this, you looked at your status! Our stamina is almost zero!" Adel yelled at her brother, who for whatever reason thought that after he barely got up from the ground which he had just collapsed on that he was ready for a fight. 

"Ok, then you go and get everything ready, I'll hold them off... I have more range." Adam added after seeing his sister's very questioning look. 

He waved her off when she didn't seem entirely convinced and went to stand in front of the bedroom door. Adel gave in and run into the room, she opened the window and began dropping things on the ground. Pillows, clothes, towels, and sheets. Everything soft she could find she threw down the window and onto the backyard.  The fall may not be more than 5 meters but that didn't mean that they couldn't possibly get injured. They weren't stuntmen nor did they ever have the hobby of parkouring, they didn't know how to fall. 

Three loud thumps sounded in the time it took Adel to ready the falling platform before she turned around and called Adam over, who had embedded three more gurglings into the walls and floor of the building. 

"Adam get over here!" She ordered and Adam obeyed, not that he had any real choice since from just those three strikes his arms felt as if they were failing him. He could barely close his fingers to form a fist and could not lift his shoulders even one inch. No matter what the stamina meter showed, his day had been labor-intensive even before the world ended as he knew it and he had to run 20 kilometers back home only to begin a failed saving expedition, where he had to fight tens of disgusting little monsters. In short, he was dead... Tired.

"Well...Jump." Adel said after experiencing the awkward silence, during which Adam looked at her as if he was waiting for something. 

"What? You want me to jump first?" Adam questioned, completely unable to process the information. 

"Exactly! I am not letting you do something stupid like cover for me while I run away. And in order to avoid such a scenario, I'll make sure you get down to that fucking dirt before me or else." 

"Or else? You would go that far? I'm not stupid, there is no way I could possibly do that, and I don't even have to!" Adam said, turning slightly terrified at the prospect of facing Adel's 'Or else'.

"..." 

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"Okay, whatever." Adam shrugged, or at least he tried and shook his head in resignation. He grabbed the windowsill and vaulted himself over it. He looked down and let himself drop onto the surprisingly soft landing mattress Adel had created. He crawled to the side and waited for Adel to drop down as well. 

And he waited. 

And he waited some more.

He was already hurriedly standing up when Adel finally fell down and landed with a cute yelp. She got up and dusted herself off while opening her mouth to say something.

"No. I ain't hearing none of that. You were afraid to jump and too embarrassed to have me looking at you while you delayed the jump. Say it." 

"Yeah right. Dream on." She said with a puff and a huff as she twirled a lock of her dark brown hair. She turned around and began walking away from the house. "What are you standing there for? Do you think we are safe? I'll have you know th-!" 

"Sure thing." Adam said as he patted her head, slightly aggressively, and jumped over the fence separating the yard they were on to the neighbors. 

"That hurt!" Adel whispered, while yelling, in protest at Adam's rough treatment. 

"Did it really? I'll have to keep myself in check then, this 10 Strength is really messing things up... Though I guess it is kind of cool to squash man-eating monsters like flies." Adam looked at his right hand holding his weapon in contemplation, before attempting to shrug once more. 

I seem to be shrugging a lot today. What a crazy fucking day...

The pair entered the house yard of the next house and then a few more in quick succession as they were in no mood to fight anymore and sat down to recuperate a little. They were in the kitchen of another abandoned house, one that thankfully didn't have human parts spread all over its floors and walls. 

They grabbed something to eat, they didn't steal. And decided to check the skill tree, they had both leveled up and it was important that they decided what to do with the one singular thing that leveling up provides, for all they know. Skill points. 

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