"Sophia," Tobias called out.

  Her name being screamed by the priest didn't do her temper much good; she had to resist the urge to snap at the practically useless man; instead, she decided to take a deep breath, filling up her lungs with the frigid air of the atmosphere.

  She exhaled, the hot breath that exited her lips turning white the further away it got from her until it ultimately dissipated into nothingness. The sight caused Sophia to relax; with a calm mind, she turned around to look at her surroundings.

  Ice filled up around eighty percent of her vision; they were in an igloo which was in a tundra. Whatever sick entity was behind the apocalypse had transported them into this freaking tundra and left them to play survival mode. It certainly hadn't been something she was proud of, but out of the twelve persons that had also been transported alongside her to the freezing tundra, only six remained; well, six and a half.

  The half meant that the seventh person was afoot away from death's door, one of the monsters in the tundra had clawed the man in the left arm, infecting him with something that Sophia had no idea about. Blue veins lined up the sides of the dying man, and Tobias had been trying to heal him, but Sophia knew that the man was dead; all Tobias did was give the man some more time.

  "Sophia!!!" Tobias cried out.

  "What?" She growled.

  "A little bit of help here, just to freeze his left arm," the priest begged.

  Sophia resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the priest. For someone who'd adamantly refused to let her help before, he was now very interested in having her help him out by all means necessary. To Sophia, this was a little irritating, but a life was involved, so she stood up from her little spot of solace in their roughly built igloo.

  At the center of the igloo were two men, one in his late thirties who had dark blue veins covering every exposed part of his skin, and the second was the priest Tobias; the man was in his early twenties from the snippets of conversation she'd bothered to listen to when they'd been in the tower together. He had nerd glasses on, the kind that made Sophia believe that Tobias was presumably an A-plus student.

  "I thought you said you didn't need my help," Sophia said.

  "That was then," Tobias said. "I need you to freeze his left arm; that should slow the venom."

  Venom?

  Well, Sophia believed that made a lot of sense, especially since she'd been watching how the veins had spread throughout the dying Ranger's body. Huffing audibly, she crouched beside the Ranger's left arm; blue veins crisscrossed the skin; the skin surrounding the claw marks there was worse off; the entire area looked dead, and she had to resist the urge to throw up just from looking at it. The ranger in question was in a fever dream and had since lost consciousness about three hours ago; no doubt the venom was behind that, and while Sophia was loath to say it, Tobias's healing spell wasn't doing shit for the ranger.

  Six and a half.

  "Do you think that's going to make a difference? His skin is already covered with blue veins, and while I'm not a doctor, I can tell that the venom has spread to every part of his body," Sphoia said. "You should have let me freeze his arm earlier.

  "Just do it."

  "Wouldn't it be better to put him out of his misery? You're only prolonging his suffering by doing this?." Sophia asked.

  "Just. Do. It.” Tobias said, the priest gritting his teeth as he used a finger to push his glasses up.

  Sophia wanted to protest the course of action once again but refrained from doing so; if Tobias wanted her to free the Rangers right then, that was what she was going to do. With a deep breath, she focused on the arm; it was going to take precision to stop the iceball she was about to cast from spreading past the left arm, but Sophia had gotten used to the skill, so she exhaled, an iceball forming in her palm. In a smooth motion, she chucked it at the Ranger's left arm, just at the right angle.

  She watched as the ice crawled up the ranger's skin, the ice creeping up stealthily. Within a couple of heartbeats, the ice had crept up the ranger's left arm, stopping just shy of his shoulder. An outcome that brought a smile to Sophia's face, she wasn't smiling at the ranger's condition; no, she was smiling at the fact that her finesse with her ice attacks was getting better.

  "Thanks," Tobias said.

  The priest hadn't even glanced at her when he'd said it; the man focused on the ranger, his hands glowing with soft white light as he ran them around the veins on other surrounding areas of the ranger's skin still afflicted with dark blue veins. To his credit, the dark blue veins seemed to become lighter, but deep down they all knew that the ranger was doomed, but Tobias refused to give up.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The other four in the group huddled up in one spot of the igloo for warmth, each preferring to keep to themselves. Sophia didn't blame them one bit; after all, they'd all gotten off to a rocky start back at the tower tutorial. They'd banded together more to increase their chances of survival than to form a friendship.

  The initial group of fourteen had been reduced to twelve after the tutorial and then to six—or six and a half . They were all scared, which was very understandable. The apocalypse had tossed together people of different ages, stages of life, ethnicities, and personalities together in what was basically a free-for-all.

  Well, not right now.

  At the moment it was humans against the monsters dropped in their world, but Sophia knew human nature; the moment the monsters stopped being an issue, it'd turn into a human-versus-human affair, and she'd be ready. The suspicion was one of the few reasons she'd held back from the others, preferring not to divulge too much information about herself or try to form bonds with these people to increase her likelihood of survival. After all, information was power, and the one who wielded it properly would be invincible.

  Or close to that.

  "His breathing is taking too long between intervals," Sophia pointed out.

  The ranger was taking too long between breaths, surely a sign that the man was closer to death's door than a partial recovery. The priest seemed to have heard her, but he made a show of ignoring her, and all Sophia could do was huff irritatedly before heading back to her little spot in the igloo.

  She watched as the priest frantically ran his glowing hands over the exposed chest of the ranger, the dark blue veins crisscrossing the area he ran his hands over becoming lighter in color or, in a few cases, receding, but it wasn't going to be he enough. That wasn't enough to deter Tobias; the priest was sweating even in the frigid atmosphere.

  Balls of sweat dripped off his forehead even as he continued to mumble and run his glowing hands over the chest of the dying man. His brows were furrowed in concentration, not interested in anything other thing than the human before him. The glow of his hands began to dim, and soon enough it sputtered out, the priest's shoulders sagging as he breathed out in frustration.

  "I can't save him," Tobias said.

  "Mmmhmm," Sophia responded.

  "I don't understand why. My spells might be basic, but still, it shouldn't have spread this fast or have gotten this bad."

  Maybe if you'd picked a combat archetype, then he'd be in better shape.

  Sophia kept the thought to herself, the priest class wasn't all that useful. Sure Tobias had come up clutch by healing them up when they didn't level up after killing monsters or sometimes buffing them up. That was all nice and good until they'd realized that the priest was dead weight in a fight — he needed to be protected whenever they were under attack or were attacking monsters.

  Of course, she'd started to piece together what the system had in store for priests and priestesses; they'd probably become the most important members in groups by the time they people started getting past level fifty. The higher the level the harder it became to level up to the next. Sure it was easy to level up right now at the early levels, and the full healing that came with leveling up made it difficult to think about the usefulness of priests and priestesses.

  That was where the system played them, by the time most people realized how useful priests and priestesses were, most of the people who'd chosen the class would've died. Sophia didn't doubt that those who'd picked the archetype priest or priestess would be the highest percentage of humans to have died.

  Well them and Berserkers.

  Being a frontliner like a Berserker was literally like playing the Russian roulette. Always at the front fighting, What were the odds of escaping each fight with their lives, it definitely wasn't much. Each time a Berserker leads a battle and survives, their probability of survival drops until they die. The reasoning made Sophia pause.

  All roads lead to death.

  It didn't matter which Archetype anyone had chosen, their class didn't matter too, in the end, everyone was going to die, either in battle or of old age. The thought of growing old in an apocalypse made the mage snort, she'd be lucky to make survive the next year and make it to nineteen, as it was she'd crossed the eighteen-year milestone months ago, and while she'd half prepared for the World to change and new responsibility to fall on her shoulders at her emergence into adulthood she'd never, not even in her wildest dreams imagined that a fucking apocalypse would turn her life upside down.

  "It doesn't matter, all roads lead to death," she muttered.

  "It does, doesn't it?" Tobias said soberly.

  The priest losing his spark hadn't been something she'd expected, but at the end of the day, all the losses and the death would take their toll on anyone. The young man, probably two or three years older than her, had been the most delusional of them. Maybe it was because it was the only weapon the priest could wield and the man clung onto that delusion like his life depended on it, or most likely, his sanity.

  "Given up?" Sophia asked, brows raised.

  "… Yes," the priest admitted reluctantly.

  At least you tried.

  "You did your best," she said.

  "It doesn't matter; he's still going to die."

  Sophia didn't know how to respond to that, and so she didn't; she kept her eyes trained on the dying Ranger. Tobias had done everything he could have, but at the end of the day, this twisted system had screwed them over once again.

  Tobias wasn't even their leader; the ranger was, and the man's death would cause disorder in their little group, or maybe it wouldn't. She might've been overthinking it, but there was a part of her that believed that Tobias didn't want to let the ranger die because the reins of leadership would fall to him… or her. But she had no interest in leading their little ragtag group of misfits.

  Hopefully, he'll grow a pair and realize that leadership isn't such a bad thing.

  "Hey, Did you get a chance to analyze what those monsters were? I couldn't because I was busy chucking ice balls," she asked.

  They looked different… wrong even"

  "Same feeling I got." Tobias sighed. "Tartans, They are called tartans, and they were levelless."

  Hell, Tartans… Those aren't part of the system.