Free Web NovelChapter 21: So, You’re Batman Now?
The shotgun rested across Kara’s lap while my hand still covered the pistol beneath it.
Outside, someone screamed, and three quick shots followed by another scream that cut off halfway through.
Tikki rested his chin on Kara’s knee and watched both of us like a judge who had already reached his verdict.
Nobody spoke for a bit.
Kara stared at the shotgun, then at the corpse, then at her own hands. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
"Do you really think this helps?" she finally asked.
There was no accusation in it. Just honest exhaustion, and maybe genuine curiosity about how my brain apparently worked.
And I actually thought about it before answering. "No clue. Never had enough ammo for stuff like that."
"Now that I do, thought I’d offer." I ended with a small shrug.
She turned to look at me, then at the corpse, then at the shotgun, then back at me.
"So this is your version of emotional support?"
"I also offered that leather jacket."
Something crossed her face, almost laughter and almost another breakdown, pretty sure it was almost both at the same time, but slowly, she lowered the pistol and left it in my hand.
[Wait...] The thought floated up as I threw it in the dustbin. [What about the bonus reward?]
"System, where’s the bonus reward?"
-Ding!
{Available in the crafting menu.}
"Right, forgot..." I said, mostly to myself. "I have a crafting menu."
Kara stared at me.
"You say that like normal people have one."
"... Do normal people not?" freēwebnovel.com
"...Nikki."
"Kidding."
Which, judging by Kara’s expression, probably looked horrifying considering I was still covered in blood.
Standing up, I walked toward the window while Kara followed slowly, right behind Tikki, who hopped onto the window frame.
Mentally opening the crafting menu, I found the Enhanced Grappling Hook pulsing faintly.
[Huh... interesting...]
{
Craft Enhanced Grappling Hook?
}
[Sure.]
-Ding!
{Insufficient space in the inventory.}
"Right..." I pulled the shotgun out and hit Sure again, watching humanity choke right out the window.
Smoke rose from several directions while small fires burned between apartment blocks while sirens wailed somewhere in the distance.
Somewhere farther away, something exploded hard enough to rattle the window glass.
And directly below, packed against the front courtyard gate, infected slammed themselves into the metal bars over and over, faces bloody, fingers split and torn, utterly unfazed in the pain of it.
[Heh, looks like my little tantrum got the neighbours’ attention....]
-Ding!
{Item crafted and stored in inventory.}
I reached in and pulled it out, and the grip filled my hand immediately.
Rubberized, deeply textured, with the base flared outward to stop your hand slipping. The oversized grip hook practically demanded you hold on for dear life.
While at front, a three-clawed hook sat at the front of the muzzle, large and serrated inward, mounted externally; roughly 6 inches of hook assembly attached to a launch rod seated inside the barrel.
Below the muzzle, a circular cable spool sat against the frame.
The whole thing was matte black throughout, no decoration, nothing on it that was not there to keep someone alive.
Kara watched me as I turned it over in my hands.
"So what? You’re Batman now?"
"Might as well be."
She looked back out at the city, and for the first time since I had found her, she actually looked at it, really looked, taking in the fires and the smoke and the bodies against the gate and the street below that was empty of ’people’.
"What is going on?" She breathed.
"The world’s ended..." I said. "Remember all those post-apocalypse novels we’d argue about? That."
"Are they monsters?" She watched the infected below. "Like dungeon stuff?"
"Airborne pathogen, actually. Only 10% of the population has immunity to it, us included.... The unlucky ones are currently trying to bend that gate."
"So... will the virus give us mutations? Like... Superpowers?"
"Pure biology." I chuckled. "We’re not heading toward some post-apocalypse magic civilization."
She immediately pointed at the empty air where the jacket had appeared earlier. "But you’re pulling things out of thin air!"
"I got a system."
Kara squinted at me.
"So what..." she said slowly. "You’re also going to tell me you’re a regressor who died a few years into this, and that’s how you knew where I’d be, and you came to the rescue like the protagonist in his cliché first arc of an apocalypse regression web..."
Her words trailed off.
I had not managed to keep my face under any kind of control.
"You cannot be serious," she breathed.
"Last time I found you six months in..." I said, keeping my eyes on the street below. "Around this very area. You had turned... Had to put you down."
Kara froze, and out of the corner of my eye, I caught genuine fear flash across her face.
"That means he..."
"Hey." I looked at her directly. "I regressed, alright? I literally travelled back in time.... That never happened and it never will. No point thinking about it."
She breathed out, shaky and slow. "Yeah... No point."
"But seriously? A system. And nobody else gets any of that."
"Uh-huh."
"You regressed with all the experience and knowledge. Basically new game plus and-"
"I got telekinesis too."
"Nikki."
"What?"
"You’re just rubbing it in now..."
"Whatever gave you that idea?" I chuckled, turning toward the center of the room. "Kara, keep watching outside."
"Why?"
"The infected. I want you to look at them closely... Look at the blood, the gate, all of it." I raised the grappling gun as I moved. "Point is, get comfortable with it, because once we’re outside, there won’t be time for adjustments. One bite and it’s over. You need to be ready to move in an instant."
She tilted her head toward me, then back toward the window, and nodded.
"You do that," I said, raising the hook toward the ceiling, "... while I figure this thing out."
"I want a system too," she muttered behind me.
I did not dignify that.
I took the Batman stance. One hand. Hook angled forward and up toward the ceiling, not directly overhead because I wanted to travel forward when it pulled me, and I squeezed the trigger with a massive grin on my face.
-Disssh-!-Thunk-!
The hook shot upward and buried itself in the ceiling with a solid thunk. I gave it a solid pull, and it held absolutely.
"This is so cool... Right. Okay. Now what? System?"
-Ding!
{Enhanced Grappling Hook Operating Parameters:
Host determines destination and desired movement.
The System manages cable deployment, retraction, tension regulation, braking assistance, retrieval procedures, anchor release timing, force distribution calculations, and emergency protocols.
Host remains responsible for grip integrity, anchor selection, body orientation, and personal physiological limitations.
Host injury remains possible.
Advisory: Use responsibly.
}
"Cool. Pull, I guess?" I looked at the circular spool below the muzzle.
-Ding!
{Advisory: Host does not require verbal commands. Intent is sufficient.}
"That’s even cooler," I said, and I thought about going fast.
And the system obeyed immediately.
My feet left the floor the very next moment, and the world lurched forward and upward simultaneously.
And my one-handed grip lasted approximately half a second before the launcher spun out of my hand. I continued traveling in the direction I had been intending to go, which was forward and up, and then gravity made its counterargument, crashing me face-first into the hardwood floor with a sound that probably traveled through the floor.
-Thad-!
Silence...
Then, Kara snorted, and immediately covered her mouth before completely losing the fight and bursting out laughing behind me. A full, actual, uncontrolled laughter.
Slowly I pushed myself up, face probably red beneath the blood, fingers pressed against my nose.
"Happens to the best of us."
The grappling hook dangled from the ceiling above, well outside my reach, while Kara kept laughing.
"I...um, System. How do I get it back?"
[I can feel it judging me...]
The hook disengaged, and the gun dropped from the ceiling, clattering onto the floor.
Kara laughed harder.
While outside, the fires kept burning, the infected kept slamming into the gate, and the gunfire kept running from two neighborhoods simultaneously.
But inside this room, Kara was laughing like herself for the first time since I had found her.
And that was enough for me.
