Once they had returned to the hotel, Achilles decided to stay outside, expressing a desire to refine his techniques and possibly create new ones for combat.
The rest of the group went inside, wanting to rest after the annoying dungeon, something Achilles side-eyed them for.
"Alright… two more dungeons left until F-rank. Then we might leave afterwards." Heidi spoke, unsummoning her armor and entering their main room. So far, the group, excluding Achilles, had taken up three rooms: one for the girls of the group, another for the men, and the third as a community area. There were enough rooms in the entire building for this, so nobody contested them for the space.
Keido nodded. Achilles had yet to find a vehicle for them, but it was because, according to him, they'd have better luck taking a car into New Jersey and finding an R.V. for them there. He already had it planned out, so they just had to level up and it'd be fine.
Keido and Heidi were a bit unwilling to leave them, but they had the opportunity to save them once their group returned from Chicago. Sacrifices were meant to be made, and they couldn't save everyone, but they'd prefer to save as many as they can. Maria herself didn't want to do the whole saving the world thing, but she was fine following them, because they were strong enough to protect her.
The next few days passed quietly, with Achilles consistently going out to train his abilities and Kimsung later doing the same, wanting to familiarize himself with his first ability and what would become his second ability. Heidi also now wanted to practice with her ability, 'Combine'.
It was a simple ability, letting her combine various ingredients into something she could use for various purposes. After reading the recipe book she'd been given, it was much easier to raid various hospitals, universities, and colleges with Achilles' help, taking many materials or chemicals to create her first potion, a simple painkiller.
Of course, she could also make it into a pill form, but there was just something nice about it being a potion. Sure, the taste was terrible, but it did its purpose, like all medicines and health items. She cut her arm, something Keido had worried about, and drank the medicine. Some seconds later, she stopped feeling the pain of the cut and patched it up with Achilles' help.
Another thing she found out was that the man was a germaphobe, having an almost obsessive habit of keeping his clothes clean. Any dust that got on it was blocked by his barriers, and once when she had accidentally spat food onto his clothes, he moved faster than she had expected, simply to evade the small bit of mashed food.
Achilles' help in her potion and pill making was very appreciated, with his extreme tendency for safety and equipment made with his barriers, she didn't have to worry about breaking anything.
In fact, it was because of her continuous experiments and failures with various chemicals like Boron, liquid Nitrogen, and various toxic chemicals, that his Tier was raised to High Tier and he was able to shape his barriers far more cost-efficiently than before.
Thankfully, going into October, Kimsung had reached High Tier with 'Future Sight', Heidi had reached Mid Tier with 'Combine', and Maria had surprisingly reached Mid Tier with her 'Tame' ability after hundreds of attempts to better channel it, of course, at the expense of the animals in the Bronx Zoo and Central Park.
Now that the group was at a manageable level, they could finally go out on the last two dungeons, Achilles, Heidi, Kimsung, and Keido, needed to reach F-rank. Needless to say, their pace was extremely fast compared to Novel Kimsung, who only reached it after struggling for half of the first year.
Of course, they did have to find new dungeons, as the ones at 66th Street in the river had already experienced a dungeon break, and Achilles had to deal with the monsters inside.
Luckily, a new dungeon had been found at a place Achilles was greatly reluctant to return to: the 9/11 Memorial Site. Unfortunately for him, Kimsung wasn't going to waste time with him, so he hoisted him up and carried him into the train station, heading straight for Fulton. Once arriving at Fulton, they took the underground tunnel connecting the two and emerged from the 9/11 Mall onto the ground-level.
Achilles was nervous and a bit skittish, too, as they entered the dungeon. However, because the universe simply either doesn't like him or finds his suffering funny (mayhaps), they appear inside a building. To be exact, it was one of the Twin Towers, and an objective was given to the group to prevent as much damage as possible and to save everyone trapped inside the building.
Achilles lay down and began to cry as people, or rather mannequins, spawned all around them, soon taking the forms of many people. Not many of these people had red marks over their heads, and most had green marks. The group, excluding Achilles, who had sat up and began to violently curse out various gods, spirits, evil gods, and pantheons, looked around.
It was as if time was frozen in the building, and there was a timer constantly visible to each member of the group for an inexplicable reason. Kimsung searched the whole building for what must have been a day, and he found out a few things.
First, he was allowed outside of the building; he was not allowed to move those with a green mark above their heads, but was completely allowed to move those with red marks on the lower floors. He didn't understand the point of the red mark or why he was allowed to move them, but he put them back and regrouped with the others.
After explaining their findings, Keido believed perhaps they were supposed to do something with those who had red marks. Perhaps it was related to what had happened to the building? Or perhaps something else? As Koreans, the main trio did not understand it, so they decided to ask the actual Americans.
"I guess it's either the people who are supposed to survive, or maybe it's the people who died in the accident," Maria responded, not really much of a history nerd herself, since her field was more of sports, volleyball to be specific.
"It's gotta be the people who die," Achilles said in a definite tone.
"If there are so few people, it has to be a scenario of sorts we need to intentionally cause. The whole damn building collapsed, but it was structurally built to handle it. So all we gotta do is make sure the building doesn't turn completely to dust." He said, looking down at the ground.
The main trio came to the conclusion that he had to be one of those conspiracy theorists, but ignored it. If anything, a conspiracy theorist was the safest thing to be in an apocalypse, because at least you're paranoid enough to partially prepare for something. It was a bit strange of him, nonetheless, but it made sense in logic.
The Americans, before the disaster, put quite a large emphasis and pride into the building, because of its worth in information and the sheer amount that was spent to make it. So it was natural to want to prevent a simple destruction of it.
Achilles went downstairs, muttering about some foundation and support beams, while the rest of the group began evacuating those who had red marks above their heads downstairs. If the point of the dungeon was an evacuation effort, that would be much simpler and safer than a horde of monsters to kill.
Honestly, Kimsung was suspicious about it. There was rarely a dungeon this peaceful, even for something as low as an F-ranked dungeon. There had to be something else connected to it, or else the dungeon would be too easy. His suspicions were proven partially right, as they also had to evacuate the other tower of all Red-marked people as well, taking well over two days.
The timer that was always in sight didn't make any sense to them, no matter what they tried to get a reaction from it, so it was left alone for now. The time remaining on it was four days, three hours, ten minutes, fifty-two seconds, and forty-seven milliseconds.
Two days later, Achilles had called them outside of the building, but he was nowhere to be seen. So, doing the sensible thing, Kimsung called him. It took a few seconds, but the man responded, speaking in a cheery tone.
"Yes?"
"Achilles, where the hell are you?" Kimsung asked in an annoyed voice. He had a feeling this wouldn't be the last time Achilles would actively attempt to "ragebait" him, or whatever it was called.
"Oh, nowhere. Hey, quick question. You're not near the building right now, are you?" Achilles asked from the other side of the line. Kimsung looked around and put the call on speakerphone before giving a response.
"Yes, why?"
"Oh, great. I'mma need y'all to move back to about… say Chinatown on Canal?" Achilles asked, drawing confusion from the group, until Maria's eyes widened, snatching the phone from Kimsung's hand.
"Liam, you're not doing what I think you're doing, right? Where are you? Tell me right now? You better not fucking do it, Ethan!" Maria spoke frantically while running to the train station nearby.
The group followed her after a few moments, a bit confused by her reaction.
"What, what is he doing?" Keido asks, keeping pace with her as they jump the turnstiles, getting in the train that had been similarly frozen in time.
"School Shootings 101 Keido! Always leave the building or area immediately if the School Shooter kid tells you to!" Maria says, as a loud and powerful rumble spreads through the tunnel, and time resumes. The doors of the train close, and it begins speeding away to the next station as a loud explosion and crashing rings out.
A loud laughter can be heard on the other side of the call as the rest of the group, minus Achilles, scream in terror while cracks form above the train. Once the group reached Canal Street, they left the station and looked towards the towers.
Both of the towers had clearly collapsed, a large dust cloud forming from them. The group stared in shock as the dust cloud spread, but not near enough to reach them at such a distance.
"Y'all like my handiwork? Turns out the buildings were the monsters, weird right?" Achilles spoke next to them. The group slowly turned their heads to him, confused about how he was here when he clearly shouldn't be. He continued to speak, of course, since he wasn't interrupted.
"I thought it was weird, because what did the marks mean? Apparently, it's like a fucking pitcher plant, and we're the ones cleaning out the food that's already been digested. The only reason I noticed is that I caught one of the mannequin's marks changing colors." He spoke as if it wasn't a big deal, like it wasn't actually the weirdest thing yet in Kimsung's current reset.
A whole building as the monsters? It didn't make sense, but the time in the dungeon continued as normal, so clearly there was something they were missing. But now that the buildings were destroyed, that option was gone.
Coincidentally, the dungeon began to close, so whatever Achilles did was partially right. They had completed the dungeon, but it made no sense.
As rewards were given, Achilles actually took a weapon, but it was a… falchion? Meanwhile, the others instead took potions, wanting to prepare for the E-rank dungeons they'd be facing soon after their rank-up.