[Wave 2 cleared]
Adam let out a big sigh of relief.
And so did every other soldier from the squad, especially the commander.
But even more relieved were non-combatants. Cafe owner and workers who locked and barricaded the shop when the gate appeared.
The old lady on the balcony who only peeked out when she heard others.
Some guy who climbed a lamp post and could finally go down and rest.
And every other civilians could let out a relived noise, maybe a small gasp of safe air, maybe a group hug and a loud shout for the whole street to share.
Or.
You could be looking at one of the soldiers who just fought for them, and instead of cheering you would see tired men, grouping up over their dead comrades, walking over piles of goblin flesh and blood slowly turning into smoke.
"Squad" Said Marcus watching the armor on his fallen soldiers slowly disappear "Good job"
"You`re free to go now"
But no one left.
They just...stood there. In silence.
Until another pop-up showed up
[3rd Tutorial Gate completed]
[Goals : monster extermination 80/80]
[Civilians survived: 40/40]
[Rewards will be distributed after a short delay]
No one paid attention to it really and closed them quickly.
[Do not mourn humans]
A small window opened over the corpse, visible to all and with it a gentle high pitched voice was heard.
'Who said that' basically every one thought the same thing
A beam of light shined down between them and an armored figure slowly descended
[Your fallen shall be risen. Your dead will live once more]
4 bright wings came closer, enveloping the squad in a bright light which melted off any dirt and blood their armor had.
*Ding* the staff the figure held touched the ground and it was the only thing that did, since the feet just dangled above it gracefully.
[Hail you valiant souls. Come forth]
The angelic figure reached out it`s hand to the bodies and it set the aflame.
After they burned, nothing but 4 small embers flew out of the smoke towards the angel`s staff and settled in the bigger flame on top of it
[And you ,who remained, do not mourn them]
[For as they ascend to our home they will find glorious purpose among`st the flames]
[You who stay on the ground must protect it from evil coming]
[And thus go]
[Kindle your own flame and make it large and bright]
And the figure ascended back into the sky taking but their dead as well as the light it came in with.
After a short while of starring into the clouds Ben said
"I`m not even surprised"
"This is like the third time I heard someone say this in the last week" and someone responded.
Marcus chimed it "Yea it would be hard to surprise me at this point too"
Adam joined with "Please don`t jinx it"
After a short conversation half joking , half traumatized the squad started to wander away.
Whenever a soldier was leaving, the people around cheered him as he went back home, leaving them in much better mood than a second before.
However , when they got home and looked at themselves, the slight smile from their faces faded away.
Sweat on their faces, cuts on their bodies, bruises and even broken bones.
Overall tiredness came too.
Then they remembered what happened just before. The monsters. And the dead.
Adam too was saddened by the situation. But he wasn`t in mourning.
How could he. He didn`t know them or even their names, he only briefly saw their faces before the fight and just before they got taken away.
Adam was just....sad. and tired and injured.
Again.
And since it was the same situation again, he started to get over it.
Cooked a lunch, cracked open a beer and turned on the TV.
After usual news of the apocalypse, or as the internet given it a name Angelpocalypse, Adam found some random romance and just laid on the couch for a while
[3rd Tutorial Gate rewards have been calculated]
[Your contribution 15/80]
[Points awarded for gate completion : 100]
[Additional points for monster kills : 150]
[Additional points for most monster kills in squad : 50]
[Total rewards : 300 points]
[Total points : 525]
Finally the reward window showed up, which was a nice change of pace
"Finally" Adam read it quickly and closed "Thank you System. Good to know I was the best. And that I get paid"
And another one appeared shortly after
[The tutorial period has ended]
[System will now be re-structure the human classes and amount of the class-assigned people]
[To all that survived and can see this message]
[Well done]
[Await further instruction and]
[Good luck]
The second message stayed for a while and closed on its own.
It was rather mediocare and Adam shrugged it off.
But as the romance ended, Adam was forced to watch something else and of course, the 24h news report instantly switched the topic to the "Tutorial End".
And they were not happy about it.
"WAS ALL OF THIS JUST A TUTORIAL???? PEOPLE DIED"
"You care about what happened. THINK OF WHAT NEXT."
The news anchors started shouting and throwing things around the studio, and sadly other channels weren`t better.
One, and only one, was trying to be calm about the situation.
"We have learned now. We can kill them and so. We will"
"Soldiers have weapons, we have information. Others have medicine and mobile health care, and others could barricade an entire city in a week"
Then the camera closed on to the man,
"YOU can help. You survived until today, you can survive another day. And if you do *chuckles* we can f***ing win this"
Adam chuckled to himself and downed another beer.