Conscious Conscience

Today's world was in a constant flux. The people – I mean, challengers, as we would like to call ourselves – are hard-pressed, spending our days fighting against beings we thought did not exist before.

Only that we still do not know that this is just the beginning of our constant trial to survive.  

Five years ago, when a large quake shook the earth, a world-changing phenomenon occurred. Monsters and unimaginable creatures started appearing on the surface of the earth; They just randomly appear here and there. No one really knows the reason, not until recently. 

We wished it could've been a stunt, we really do. But countless had already died, it was like a flash of a bomb. No one sees it coming. 

Before we knew it, almost half of humanity had perished. It was only then, as if a matter of convenience, strong people started to appear, they are equipped with armor and weapons you'll find on a typical RPG game. 

They introduced themselves as players of Evangelion, a popular augmented reality game uploaded randomly a year before the quake arrived. 

With hope humanity has arised and the earth gains the ability to fight back. Now we spend our days holding our swords, trying to live the best out of our remaining days— We all just wanted to survive.

I'm Azriel Iliac, the world's weakest. Yes, not the strongest. 

I’m someone who has to risk his life in the lowest of quest, having no skills whatsoever to boast, my kill record is even hardly commendable. 

I'm alive yet already dead, always escaping it's call by a slight margin. I cannot even remember myself not being wounded. It is just that the world changed too much for me to keep up with my weak body. 

Many things have adjusted since the first rupture occurred, we named those phenomenon "ruptures" as the sky tear apart whenever monsters and demons appear. 

Buildings, shops, and even monetary exchange had a few changes. 

Though buildings still exist, essential ones are the only ones who are still well maintained. 

Moreover, in exchange for human workers, NPCs had replaced most jobs here through Evangelion, while some places who were deemed unneeded were basically abandoned. 

Despite the large number of NPCs doing the trade work, some challengers still do some trades on their own from time to time, but because most of us are busy fending off the demons, mythical creatures, and monsters, the number of human to human trades are dwindling every second. 

Money exchange became an account to account basis. You just talk to the NPC about your purchases and the amount will be automatically deducted on your account, same goes for selling. 

You might think that earth is still the same, and some people can just relax in a resort or sleep on their bed all day and let the others do the killing. 

But it was all just wishful thinking, after all the situation of the earth is not like before, it was like we were returning to a more primitive civilization, everytime and everywhere a rupture may occur, most of us are in danger so we like to mingle with other people for security, it just a natural instinct to survive.

And besides we need to finish quests and hunt to gain money to feed ourselves, the food source is scarce now that there are less NPCs managing the food security, and the system forbids people to monopolize them, even if they have the money. 

The creation of the Challenger's Association had also helped people cope up in the series of changes. 

They manage the distribution of quests and the rewards systems, as well as manufacturing weapons and potions from the loot challengers brought to them in exchange for coins. That is if you have the skill to kill those monsters. 

We are still lucky that we receive crops and seeds from the Challenger's Association as a stipend for finishing lowest-tier quests. You can say that for a world dominated by monsters, humanity is still getting their things together. 

And we owe everything to Evangelion who made it possible. Like how the game became the world's last chance to survive. 

Right now many groups and guilds are forming themselves into an organized battalion. That made hunting and quest subjugations more efficient as mobs with considerable high difficulty were now being managed. 

Though most groups like to form their own guild with a more defined hierarchy, some prefer to form organized parties, it is a relatively small group, with 10 members at most, you can join and leave whenever you want in this type of set up, and there is no visible hierarchy, as the party separate roles based on skill. 

The group I'm currently in was filled with low-tiered professionals, most composed of E-tier and some C-tier along the mix. We usually accept quests varying from F to D tier, but we are more focused on hunting monsters when ruptures occur within our hunting grounds.

All I can say is that being a challenger is never easy. Everyday you are expected to fight, get hurt, have wounds, be bruised, and sometimes decapitated. At the end of the day you're the one who is going to choose if you will continue forward or just remain safe waiting for your end. 

During quests, no one knows what can happen and some things do come about unexpectedly. I know it was already too late, lying here on a grassy plain, pain is screaming at my decapitated arm, my breathing is dwindling.

I'm almost half dead. 

I can see my party members, lying there lifeless. Like frigid corpses slowly turning into dust. 

I grabbed my chipped and slightly bent sword, and tauntingly pointed the tip at the freakishly tall red-skinned demon. 

Despite being scared of it's glowing golden horn, I tried not to get too intimidated. 

I closed my eyes in desperation, in fear, in horror. I don't want to die, that is for sure, but I guess this is the end for me. I'm dead.