Maids VS Apocalypse

"This... this was... a really bad... idea..."

Mark forced the words out between labored breaths. His vision blurred and the world around him swayed. A cold breeze helped him regain some vitality, but it wasn’t enough to get him back into top shape.

"Hahaha... really, Newbie," Alex’s voice came from his right. "How long has it been since you last had some practice?"

"Practice?" Ramsay’s voice came from the left. The only practice he had in the last two years was walking to the train station!"

Though there were no falsehoods in the Sergeant’s statement, it managed to anger Mark nonetheless. Sports were never his thing, and ever since he started living on his own, the only times he went out were either to buy groceries or go to school.

Running away from Malarak and his spawn was the first warning he got about his lack of physical fitness. After learning how the stats in his System worked, Mark knew he would have to undergo some rigorous training soon enough. What he didn’t expect, however, was that he would be forced to begin right away.

"This is...torture..."

The world continued to sway around him and he felt himself falling, but before that happened a hand grasped his right shoulder and helped him regain his balance.

"C’mon, Newbie! Get your act together!" Alex shouted, or maybe not. After listening to him talk through the entire morning it became clear that his tone was almost always raised.

Mark didn’t have the power to reply. Who knew that riding bicycles could be this difficult?

The brilliant idea came from Ramsay. For some reason, he decided that driving around the desolate city would be a wasted opportunity and so they were going to pedal their way to the remaining Dimensional Rifts. Of course, the only one with no say in the matter had been Mark.

After the previous night’s incident, Peace Keepers showed their concern for his lower-than-average physical stats. Apparently, it would take months to raise them to an acceptable range, and with him heading for the training academy right after the Dimensional Collapse what little progress he could cram into the next two weeks would decide whether he survives the hellish training or not.

"Damn...it..." Mark could only grit his teeth and wish he had exercised more in the past.

The problem was that he had given up on life until a few days ago. He never expected the voices to stop or that he might have a chance at living a normal life. With that mindset, the prospect of training his body sounded like a waste of time.

Alex was pedaling beside him the entire time but didn’t look like he would break a sweat any time soon. Ramsay was on his other side, but instead of a bicycle, the hypocrite was riding his own motorcycle.

Things eased up a bit when the road started sloping downward and a couple of minutes later the Rift came into sight and the next break no longer looked too far.

Mark tossed the bike aside the moment they arrived and sprawled on the roadside. As he struggled to catch his breath, someone walked over and kicked his side.

The only one who had the audacity to do such a thing was the squad’s Sergeant. Looking down at him with a cigarette in his mouth, he told him to take out the drones first before sitting down to rest.

"Seriously, how in the world are you a Level 5?"

Opening his eyes, he was graced by the sight of another cutie looking down at him. He wished she was his maid, but unfortunately, Lara was still not in the mood to close the distance between them.

"Maybe if you weren’t such a weak loser you wouldn’t have done what you did," Elya said while pocking his left cheek with her index finger.

"Maybe..." As he began to speak, Mark noticed that his breathing was gradually returning to normal. "Maybe if you stopped punching him through walls-"

Before he could finish, the petite girl started pushing and rotating her finger, forcing him to stop.

"Listen well, Newbie," Her lips were smiling, unlike her eyes. "I’m currently at level 25, and unlike you, I never neglected my training. Do you know what that means?"

She pressed on his cheek again and stopped him from replying.

"It means I have twenty-five times the strength of a normal human. I can literally crack your skull like an egg so-" Before she could finish the rest, a karate chop fell on her head. "Ow!"

"Elya, remember what we talked about?" Alex’s tone sounded a lot more stern than usual. "No bullying the Newbie."

Holding her head, the ginger girl turned around with a terrorizing glare.

"I wasn’t bullying him!"

"That’s what it looked to me." The blonde Peace Keeper shook his head. "And you know he will catch up to us in no time. You sure you want to be on his bad side?"

Elya’s expression fell and her cheeks puffed out.

"I was just messing around."

"Keep it within the limit. It wouldn’t hurt to be a little nice, you know?"

As he spoke the last part, Alex patted the female Peace Keeper’s head. With her cheeks reddening and her lips smiling, Elya turned around to hide her expression. Doing so put her face to face with the young man on the ground, and seeing the knowing grin on his face, something inside her snapped.

"Ooff!!!"

A single punch knocked the air out of his lungs. The pain wasn’t as intense as when Lara kicked him thanks to him having anticipated the blow and raised the output of his Force Field.

He could’ve cranked it all the way up and prevented himself from taking any damage, but something told him that blocking the hit entirely would have angered the violent tsundere even more.

’I hope that one won’t turn out the same...’ He thought to himself, the face of a certain character coming to mind.

Lara’s personality closely resembled her game counterpart, but since she was an entirely different entity there was no way to tell how far that resemblance went.

When he thought about the characters he created and what having them around in real life would be like, shivers rolled over his body and he could only hope that the entities that would take their appearance would have a different personality.

’My maids are all elegant beauties.’ He thought to himself. ’Though some of them can be scary in their own ways.’

Once the pain from the tsundere punch faded, Mark got up and found himself making eye contact with his silver-haired maid. To his surprise, she was back to wearing her usual calm expression and no longer gave him that cold glare.

’Did she... did forgive me?’

The thought brought back the memory of her pinned under him. The startled eyes, the flushed cheeks, the palpable tension. All of a sudden, the maid in front of him looked different. He was sure her cuteness was something he had always been aware of, but looking at her now, it all felt different.

’Ah...’

Catching his heart rate rising, the disgust that had tormented him earlier returned. He averted his gaze and admonished himself for even daring to enjoy looking at her. That did little to ease the guilt tormenting him, however.