Apocalypse Reset: My Crab Can Heal the World!

After crossing the sea for several hours, and right before sunset, Barns and Clancy are surging up to the shoreline of the Dimartino mainland. And it looks like they have company.

The beach in front of them is lined with skeletons, goblins, ghouls, you name it. Hundreds of them, all gathered up, waiting for Barns and the crab.

"How'd they know we were coming!?" Barns shouts to Clancy as they approach dangerously close to the horde.

"EVIL FISH SOMETIMES VISIT ISLAND."

"What the - hey, look out, King!"

A javelin soars through the sky and narrowly misses Clancy's shell. Clancy dodges as another one is hurled at the duo. Barns catches the second javelin out of the air just as it passes by.

"Time to land, King!"

Barns leaps off the crab and lands on a small hill near the beach. Barns impales two goblin archers on the hill and pushes them into the water, dead.

He throws a series of punches at a skeleton standing nearby, breaking several of its ribs with his bare hands and throwing a high kick that punts the skeleton's head into the sea. He rips the club out of the fallen skeleton's hand and turns around to face the rest of the horde.

Meanwhile, Clancy launches a stream of foam into the faces of some zombies. They fall to the ground, screaming in agony as the foam burns out the dark power within them. Clancy sidesteps away from the zombies and scutters up to a lamia. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Clancy reaches his pincer out and slices the lamia's head off in one quick snip. The crab looks back toward his protege, Barnacles. If King Crab was capable of tears, this would move him to it. His little Barnacles was all grown up and was somehow a monster-killing machine.

Clancy raises both claws into the air. If Barnacles was going all-out, so was he. He charges directly into the horde, a frothing, snipping machine. Barns joins him, now holding a rusty sword he'd nicked from an orc, and the two explode into the crowd.

It's a bloody massacre. Foam flies through the air, stained red with monster guts. Barns goes through no fewer than seventeen weapons as he weaves through the horde, hacking and slashing until nothing's moving any longer. Pincers with the strength to shred steel picked at monster heads like they were blueberries on a bush. So. Many. Beheadings.

When they are finally done, the beach is a mess and the water nearby is running red. Barns and Clancy look upon the devastation they caused. It was their first time fighting together, so neither was really certain what the other was capable of. They had their answer now.

"Hey, King...you're kind of scary." The boy peers over to his blue-shelled buddy, who's stained red from all the blood. There's also the arm of something - an imp, perhaps - resting on top of his head.

"BARNACLES IS VIOLENT KILLING MACHINE."

They gather up all the corpses in a central area so that Clancy can get a good foam cover on all of them. Once they're suitably foamed and looking more human than monster, Barns readies his technique.

He never used Secret Arts without a sword in hand before, so he steals one from a skeleton and begins his focus.

"Resurrection!" he shouts, thrusting his sword straight into the sky. Brilliant yellow light begins to bubble up from the pile of corpses and bursts with puffs of angel feathers.

Barns feels his spirits lift as several people begin to stand up, emerging from the husks they once were, born anew. One, two - seven people emerge. Wait.

"Only seven?" Barns questions out loud. The rest of the corpses aren't reviving.

A system message pops up.

[A body cannot be revived if it has suffered permanent injury.

Examples of permanent injuries:

1. Beheading

2. Vaporization

3. Implosion]

Barns bites his lip. They did certainly just go out of their way to behead everyone. Did they really only miss seven?

Another system message:

[Progress: 8/1000000]

As the humans wake up and realize where they are, most of them start panicking and screaming, an event only made worse as King Crab begins to chase after them, clicking his claws rapidly, trying to stop them from leaving the pool of blood they'd been born into.

"Everyone!" Barns shouts so loud his voice cracks, but it's enough to get the people on the beach to pay attention.

"You may remember being eaten and killed by monsters before turning into them yourselves! Sorry about that! But I'm here to save you!"

'This is going well,' Barns thought.

"My name is Barnacles! Uh, but maybe just call me 'Barns'. Yeah! Me and this crab here, oh yeah, that's King Crab, but his name's Clancy, and I - "

One of the women in the crowd screams again.

"The point is, you're free! You're alive! We freed you from the monsters!"

The group starts to get antsy. Most of them are barely clothed or naked, a fact they don't seem to mind as they're all also covered in blood.

"Where are we supposed to go? What's going to happen? I'm hungry!"

Barns claps a hand to his face. "Do I have to do everything?" He might never resurrect a million people if he's expected to babysit them all.

Suddenly, a system message appears in front of Barns.

[To better facilitate the revival of the human race, the System would like to offer you one of the following power-ups:

Option 1: Blessing of Rebirth

All resurrected humans gain at least a C Rank skill to aid in their survival.

Option 2: God-King

All resurrected humans are beholden to you, and you can use their life force as you wish.

Option 3: Community Builder

All resurrected humans will gain the power to create a home for themselves. These homes will be protected from monster attacks.]

Barns thinks about the options. Option 2 seems like the obvious wrong answer. He had no desire to become a 'God-King'. So he only considers Option 1 and 3.

'Option 1 could get messy. That's a lot of potential powers going around. And these people need assistance immediately, and shelter from any future monsters invasions. Option 3 would be the best.'

Barns taps Option 3, and as he does, all of the seven resurrected humans have a window appear in front of them. Their eyes are naturally drawn to it - they have never seen anything like it before.

Barns walks up behind one of the humans to see what's on their screen. It's a single, long message:

[Congratulations on your resurrection! Please designate one acre of land as your 'Property'. While you are on your 'Property', no monsters may enter.

You may create Properties with multiple people. Areas of overlap will be considered 'Towns'.

Once you have designated a Property, the Home Building UI will become available to you.]

"Have fun figuring that out," Barns smiles. He's standing behind a human girl who's wearing rags. He thinks he recognizes her as a goblin he impaled earlier.

"It's a system message," the girl says, her voice too casual. It makes Barns freeze for a moment.

"You know about system messages?"

She nods. "Of course I do. I used to be a Moderator."