Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 66: Helping Them with Everything He Has!
John was in a genuinely tough spot. Thankfully, his friends were too exhausted and grateful to be alive to interrogate him about why his attributes remained so much higher than theirs. Without him, they would have been dead within the first minute of contact.
However, John had a much larger problem to solve, and the clock was ticking. His system quest wasn’t just about killing monsters or surviving for 24 hours with the team. It had a specific, annoying objective that he had initially taken far too lightly: destroying 100 sound devices scattered around their location.
When he first saw the quest, he hadn’t worried at all about this point. This feeling even grew further when seeing how easily he could slice through a Fog Seeker; he assumed the mission was already secured. But the bitter reality was now clear. He couldn’t be in two places at once.
He couldn’t stay here to act as a bodyguard for his weakened friends while also venturing into the darkness to hunt down a hundred hidden devices. Conversely, he couldn’t leave them alone to find the devices, or he would return to find nothing but four corpses and a lost quest.
He needed to find a way for them to survive on their own, or completing this trial would be an impossibility.
He was in a really tough situation, and tough situations required drastic measures.
"I noticed you use short swords quite well," John suddenly said, breaking the heavy silence. His voice was steady, a stark contrast to the chaotic echoes of the fog around them.
He reached toward his wrist as if he was reaching out to his storage device. Then he withdrew a blade from his inventory—the very first goblin sword he had ever coded. He stepped toward Ricky and handed it over.
"Use it," John commanded, his eyes locking onto his friend’s. "It’ll be far better than the rusted scrap you’re carrying right now."
John watched Ricky take the weapon, noting the way the man’s eyes widened at its weight and balance. He could see it clearly now—his friends’ original weapons and gear had suffered the same disastrous decline in stats as their bodies.
They were fighting with toys against monsters. If his goblin club had managed to turn Luke into a viable combatant, this sword would do the same for Ricky, and more.
By John’s mental calculations, the sword was a masterpiece thanks to one advantage. It possessed a base damage of 1.85 per hit. Combined with Ricky’s natural Strength stat, they could easily cross the 2.0 damage threshold.
But the real lethality lay in the hidden extra: the bleeding effect. A successful strike would inflict one additional point of damage per second, thanks to the bleeding caused by the sword.
In their situation, where every point meant the difference between life and death, this combination was a literal godsend. It was enough to turn their desperate struggle into a salvage situation.
"This..." Ricky stammered, his fingers tracing the edge of the blade. He looked uncertain; the weight of the gift felt heavy in more ways than one.
Cissel stepped forward, her sharp eyes scanning the weapon. She was the most perceptive of the group, and she didn’t need a stat sheet to see the quality of the sword. She gave Ricky a curt, firm nod.
"Take it," she urged. "I can tell that sword is far stronger than yours." She paused, her gaze shifting meaningfully between the gleaming short sword and the crude wooden club Luke was currently clutching. She didn’t say a word about the disparity, but the implication was clear: Luke was still their strongest, for now.
John didn’t stop there. He wasn’t just giving them a chance to fight; he was giving them the means to survive.
"Take these," he said, his voice dropping as he reached into his storage again. He pulled out twenty small glass bottles filled with a shimmering pale green liquid. He handed them over to his stupefied friends, the clinking of glass sounding like bells.
"Each bottle can heal your wounds," he explained, distributing five bottles to each person. "Don’t be stingy with them. Make sure to take a sip whenever you are injured. Don’t wait until you’re at death’s door."
As they took the potions, John’s mind raced through the mathematics of their survival. If their attributes had truly been reduced to this pathetic degree, their total HP would have plummeted to a terrifyingly low figure—likely only 3 or 4 points.
Even his lowest-grade HP Regeneration potions were designed to heal 10 HP each. A single sip wouldn’t just heal a scratch; it would essentially refill their entire life force. It was overkill, but in this nightmare, overkill was the only insurance policy he trusted.
’Hopefully, it’ll work the way I envision it,’ he thought, suppressing a sigh of anxiety.
He intentionally withheld the MP Regeneration potions. He knew that Cissel and Ricky could easily drain the Mental Points of their enemies through their own second special abilities. As for the others, trying to explain the complex concept of MP to them right now would be a massive headache he didn’t have time for.
"And here I thought he was just tagging along," Ricky tried to crack a joke, a bit of his old bravado returning as he felt the power of the new sword. He looked at his old sword, feeling the sting of how far he had fallen, but the weight of the new sword gave him hope. "Thanks, man. I have a feeling this is going to save our skins."
"Why are you giving us all this?"
The question came from Elena. She was standing slightly apart, her eyes narrowed in suspicion or perhaps just deep concern. "What do you intend to do, John? This feels like a parting gift."
John paused. The black fog seemed to hold its breath for a second before the answer revealed itself. From the fogline, the low, guttural growls of ten new monsters began to resonate. They were crawling toward the perimeter.
"With the noise erupting around us, we are sitting ducks waiting for slaughter," John said, his voice turning cold and serious.
"The more time these things cause that high-pitched noise, the more of them will come. We can’t just sit here and defend. We need to go out there and destroy the source of these noises. In fact..."
He looked at his hands, then at the approaching horde. "I’m the only one who can do it effectively. So..."
He let the sentence hang. He didn’t need to finish it. The meaning was as sharp as the sword he had given Ricky. It was the first time the despair of their situation truly appeared on their faces.
They didn’t know how John knew these things. They didn’t ask how he understood that the noises were an artificial anomaly, something not natively involved in the ecology of this world.
They simply watched him. As he stepped forward, taking the most dangerous burden onto his own shoulders and thinking several moves ahead of everyone, they realised they had no choice but to entrust their lives to him.
John dashed forward, his silhouette blurring as he intercepted the first wave of newcomers.
"Stay behind!" he shouted over his shoulder. "I’ll leave two monsters for you to kill. Test your new gear. Make sure you can sustain yourselves and find your fighting rhythm!"
*Roar!* *Roar!* *Roar!*
The Fog Seekers lunged forward towards him. John didn’t flinch. With a series of casual, almost bored movements, he cut through the first three Seekers. He moved with calm steps, pivoting to another spot to intercept the bulk of the pack.
He purposefully left two of the creatures unattended, letting them drift toward his team. It was a needed risk—a live-fire exercise.
"Time for the bitter reality," John muttered to himself.
He didn’t toy with the monsters this time. There was no room for playtime. He became a whirlwind of death, rapidly dismantling eight of the monsters in less than thirty seconds. Each strike was a masterclass in precision, one hit, and he cleaved the monsters into two parts, ending the threats instantly.
Once the immediate area was clear of his targets, he skidded to a halt and turned back. He watched intently as his four friends engaged the remaining two Fog Seekers.
He stood there for a heartbeat, a silent prayer echoing in his mind that the items he had provided would be enough to keep them alive while he ventured into the dark to silence the noise.
