Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 103: Are You Sure You Lasted for Five Minutes?!!

[Ding! You secured the water source area!]

[Ding! You secured the food source area!]

[Ding! Congratulations! You completed the quest!]

[Ding! You gained +2 stats - +20 Mental Points cap – Cyborg synchronisation increases by 1% - Ping Route Ability!]

[Ding! Congratulations! You unlocked the Map section!]

[Ding! Congratulations! You now have total dominance over the entire area you are currently in – Area 11!]

[Ping Route Ability: (Basic – Active)]

[Description: Consumes 1 Mental Point and burns it to emit a pulse of energy around, echoing in the surrounding area, before retreating and drawing the findings on a Map. The area covered by the ability is 1 kilometre in radius.]

[Cost: 1 Mental Point per activation.]

[Requirements: Intelligence = 5]

The fight against the Fog Seekers had lasted for four more gruelling hours. John was genuinely surprised by the sheer number of these monsters that had remained even after the brutal, meat-grinder battle against the machines.

For a moment there, standing amidst the fading roars, he couldn’t help but imagine how much harder—and near impossible—this quest would have been if not for the timely help of the D-1000s. The machines had acted as a catalyst, pruning the horde just enough for his team to finish the job.

’At last,’ John thought while checking the many notification windows, his breath coming in ragged hitches.

After the fall of the last monster, everyone, without exception, fell to the ground one after another. Their chests heaved up and down; they were all beyond their limits by miles.

Luke was the first to throw himself on the ground. Elena’s armour was slightly dented, Cissel’s hair was matted with black blood, and Ricky couldn’t hold his blades any longer, throwing them faster than his body to the ground. Yet John couldn’t help but take a long, satisfying look at his quest rewards, a faint, prideful smile drawing across his face.

"That was... Epic!"

The team took half an hour of silence and rest before they finally started to stand up one by one, their joints popping like dry twigs. Luke looked at the grand graveyard around them—piles of monster corpses and shattered white alloy—and shouted in excitement. His voice was weak from exhaustion, but the triumph was unmistakable.

"I’m hungry and thirsty... Wait a minute, we have a river now!"

Elena had started to reach for a pile of the Blue Serpentile fruit per habit, but she suddenly froze in place. The adrenaline was fading, and her brain was finally processing the fruits of their victory. Her words were like a trigger, making everyone turn their heads toward the direction of the river branch that carved through the valley floor.

"Damn! This is so cool and refreshing!" Luke shouted. He reached the bank first, plunging his face into the crystalline flow. He gulped with both hands, drinking the river water with a desperation shared by everyone. Yet when John knelt and drank, he felt something far more profound than just hydration.

[Ding! You consumed Source Water!]

[Ding! Your senses slightly enhanced!]

John didn’t hesitate to activate his Wireframe Sight ability. He turned his gaze toward the distant perimeter of their new territory, checking the fog that lingered at the edges of the valley.

’It’s far away from the reach of my ability to make head or tail of anything specific,’ he mused, ’but the code colours... They changed.’

Where the fog had once been a murky, oppressive grey, it was now an off-white. He squinted, realising the implications. ’Does it mean it’ll be pure white next?’ John was pleasantly surprised by this change. Now he could easily discern the pale grey outlines of any monsters moving inside the off-white fog codes without the constant, pounding stress on his eyes.

"Now... What shall we do?" Cissel came to sit closer to John after the team retreated to the monsters’ den. She looked at him expectantly. "I expect night to fall soon, so..."

"Let’s rest and watch for any sudden attacks for tonight," John said. Even though the system had granted him total dominance over the area—implying that no monsters would wander into this specific zone—he had to act normally. He couldn’t just explain away his system notifications to the others; it was better to let them deduce the safety of the area later on their own.

"Do you think monsters will come after us again?" Elena asked, moving her eyes around the den. "We took out their leader and destroyed the nest. There shouldn’t be any other monsters around, right?"

"Who knows?" Ricky threw a short, unreadable gaze at how closely Cissel had sat next to John before shifting his eyes away toward the horizon. "Let’s do as John said. We need to be vigilant just in case stray monsters decide to return to the den at night. We’re too tired for a surprise attack."

John looked at Ricky. Recalling the terrifying state the youngster had been in. John motioned for him to walk a short distance away so the two could speak privately.

"I want to speak with you about something," John said once they were out of earshot. "What exactly happened to you back there, Ricky? What caused you to lose yourself?"

"Worried about me?" Ricky snorted, shaking his head with a touch of his old bravado, though his eyes remained dark. He sighed, leaning against a smooth rock face before answering.

"The last thing I recall is that I grew curious about your ability to walk inside the fog without losing your mind. You made it look so easy. So, I decided to try it myself... I thought I was strong enough to resist any hazards inside, but..."

"You went inside?!!" John wasn’t that much shocked by hearing this, as this was the only scenario he had imagined for Ricky to end up in that state.

"Well... I recall walking for a while inside," Ricky said, but what he said next made John’s mind freeze. "At least five minutes. Then it’s like something hit my head, made me fall into a deep sleep, until you woke me up..."

Ricky paused there, his eyes casting toward the river.

He was clearly recalling the fragmented stories Luke and Elena had told him about his period of possession—how he had acted like a deranged puppet and how John had saved his life in a way they couldn’t quite explain.

Luke had been brutally honest; he admitted he wanted to leave Ricky behind because he was acting like a real jerk. But John had refused. John had insisted on grabbing him, and even Cissel made the exhausted Luke carry him at one point through the treacherous terrain. Luke believed she did that to follow John’s desire.

"By the way... Thanks," Ricky muttered. He had some deeply rooted hatred for John— for proper reasons, in his mind—but he still couldn’t help but admit the objective truth. "If not for you, I might have been dead long ago. Or worse."

"It’s okay," John dismissed the weird thanks from Ricky. The sudden emotional weight made the air feel eerie, and he wasn’t interested in a sentimental moment. "But are you sure you walked inside for five whole minutes? Five minutes without losing your consciousness?"