The Manaless King Of Sigma

Chapter 5: The First Mission

Mateo Álvarez woke to the sound of someone screaming.

His eyes opened instantly.

For a few seconds, he forgot where he was. The concrete ceiling above him, the unfamiliar smell of disinfectant, and the distant murmur of frightened survivors brought back memories of the first weeks after the Awakening.

Then he remembered.

The underground parking structure. Gabriel and Sofía. Lucía. The Rift Stalker.

He sat up too quickly and winced as pain shot through his left shoulder.

"You're awake."

Lucía sat a short distance away, holding a paper cup of water. She looked tired. Dark circles had formed beneath her eyes, and her hair was tied back carelessly.

"How long was I asleep?" Mateo asked.

"About four hours."

"That's too long."

"For someone who nearly got himself killed yesterday, I would say it was barely enough."

Mateo accepted the water.

"Did something happen?"

"Several things. Most of them unpleasant."

She pointed toward the entrance.

A group of people had gathered around a large floating display that everyone could see, even without their phones. The display showed a list of system notifications, some of which had appeared during the night.

Mateo read the largest message.

INITIAL SURVIVAL PHASE: DAY ONE

Survivors must establish secure zones, gather resources, and respond to emerging threats.

Regional mission availability: ACTIVE

His expression tightened.

He remembered this stage.

In his previous life, the system had introduced regional missions on the second day of the Awakening. Most people had assumed they were optional quests, similar to those found in Omega.

They had not understood that the missions were connected to real conditions in the world.

Completing one could improve a shelter's safety, provide resources, or reveal information about nearby threats.

Ignoring one did not always lead to immediate punishment.

Sometimes, it simply meant losing the opportunity to make survival easier.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Eight fifteen in the morning."

Mateo stared at the display again.

The timeline had already changed.

In his first life, the regional mission system had appeared later. This time, it had activated less than twenty-four hours after the First Awakening.

The system was moving faster.

Or something was causing it to behave differently.

Lucía watched his face.

"You recognize this announcement."

"I've seen something similar in Omega."

"Was it part of the tutorial?"

"No. It appeared in the early stages of the real system."

She studied him.

"Mateo, you keep saying things that suggest you know what comes next."

He looked at her.

She had not accused him of lying. She had simply noticed a pattern.

He needed to be careful.

"I played Omega for years," he said. "I know how its systems tend to work."

"That's not the same as predicting an announcement that hasn't happened yet."

"No, it isn't."

Lucía waited, but he did not elaborate.

Finally, she nodded.

"All right. You don't have to tell me everything. But if you know something that could save lives, don't keep it to yourself just because you're afraid of being questioned."

The words struck a nerve.

Mateo remembered how often he had withheld information in his first life, convinced that he could handle every problem alone. He had believed that sharing uncertainty would weaken people's confidence in him.

Instead, he had isolated himself.

"I'll keep that in mind," he said.

Lucía stood.

"Good. Then start by reading the mission."

The display changed.

REGIONAL MISSION: SECURE THE EASTERN ACCESS ROAD

Threat Level: Low

Objective: Remove the immediate threat preventing safe passage between the municipal sports center and the surrounding residential district.

Requirements:

* Identify the source of the threat.

* Clear or contain the immediate danger.

* Establish a safe route for civilian movement.

Reward: Regional supply allocation and system contribution points.

Time Limit: Six hours.

Failure Consequence: Mission expires. Threat conditions may worsen.

A murmur spread through the crowd.

"Six hours?" someone complained. "How are we supposed to do that?"

"Where's the eastern access road?" another asked.

"What's a system contribution point?"

Marcos, the broad-shouldered man who had argued over supplies the previous afternoon, pushed through the gathering.

"This is exactly what we need," he declared. "A mission. A clear objective. We organize a team, complete it, and secure the rewards."

Several people nodded.

Marcos seemed to have recovered his confidence overnight. He wore a makeshift shoulder guard assembled from a piece of metal and a thick jacket, and he carried a heavy wrench.

Mateo recognized the type.

Marcos was frightened, but he had decided that the best way to control his fear was to control everyone around him.

That did not make him useless.

It made him unpredictable.

"We need volunteers," Marcos continued. "People who can fight, people who can carry supplies, and people who can follow orders."

He pointed toward Mateo.

"You. You fought one of those creatures yesterday, didn't you?"

Mateo did not answer immediately.

"People saw what happened," Marcos continued. "You know how to hurt them. We need you on the team."

"I know how to hurt one creature under specific circumstances. That doesn't mean I know how to fight every creature."

"Then you'll learn."

"Not by pretending I know more than I do."

Marcos frowned.

"Are you refusing to help?"

"No. I'm refusing to walk into danger without a plan."

The crowd grew quieter.

Mateo looked at the mission display again.

The wording mattered.

The objective was not to kill a monster. It was to identify the threat, clear or contain it, and establish a safe route.

There was a difference.

A group that charged into the street looking for a fight could easily make the situation worse. If the threat was a creature guarding a rift, provoking it might draw more monsters toward the shelter.

He needed information first.

"Who knows the eastern access road?" Mateo asked.

A middle-aged man raised his hand.

"I work at the municipal sports center. The road runs behind the transport station. It connects the residential district to the service entrance."

"Have you seen anything unusual there?"

The man hesitated.

"There was a crash last night. A delivery truck overturned near the intersection. I heard something moving around the wreckage afterward."

Mateo felt a chill.

The transit station.

That was where the first Rift Stalker had appeared.

In his previous life, he remembered the creature moving through the area before disappearing into a nearby maintenance tunnel. It had attacked anyone who came too close.

But he also remembered something else.

The creature had not been the only danger near the station.

A damaged rift had remained open beneath the road, releasing unstable mana into the surrounding area. People who entered the zone without protection became sick, and several early awakeners had suffered severe injuries trying to investigate it.

The system's threat classification might say Low.

That did not mean the mission was safe.

"Did the system identify the threat?" Mateo asked.

"No," Lucía replied. "It only gives us the mission description. We won't know what we're dealing with until someone investigates."

Mateo turned toward her.

"Can you help identify the source without approaching it?"

"I can try. If we can recover public sensor records or get a clear view of the road, we might find something."

"Then we start there."

Marcos crossed his arms.

"And what exactly makes you the leader?"

"Nothing."

Mateo's answer surprised him.

"I'm not asking anyone to follow me blindly. We need people with different skills. Someone who knows the road. Someone who can examine the system records. Someone with emergency training. And someone who can keep the team organized."

He looked at Marcos.

"You have experience with emergencies. If you're willing to coordinate the volunteers without forcing everyone to surrender their supplies, we could use your help."

Marcos appeared caught off guard.

He had expected an argument.

Instead, Mateo had given him a role without handing him control over everything.

After a moment, Marcos nodded reluctantly.

"Fine. But if we're going out there, we do it properly."

"Agreed."

For the first time since the Awakening, the shelter began to organize itself around a shared objective rather than fear.

Mateo hoped it would last.

Twenty minutes later, the team was ready.

Marcos selected six volunteers. Two had experience in emergency response, one worked as a maintenance technician, and another had spent several years training in martial arts.

Mateo insisted that they bring only essential supplies and avoid carrying anything that might slow them down.

Gabriel appeared just as the team prepared to leave.

"I'm coming."

Mateo shook his head.

"No."

Gabriel's jaw tightened.

"You're going out there to fight monsters, and you expect me to sit here doing nothing?"

"I'm expecting you to help keep this shelter running."

"That's not what I want to do."

Mateo studied him.

There it was again.

The need to prove himself.

In the future Mateo remembered, Gabriel had grown stronger partly because he refused to remain helpless. That determination had saved lives, but it had also pushed him into situations he was not ready to handle.

Mateo could not simply crush that ambition.

He needed to direct it.

"Tell me what you did this morning," Mateo said.

Gabriel frowned. "What?"

"What have you done since waking up?"

"I helped move supplies. I checked the entrances. I carried water to the medical station."

"And did that help people?"

"Of course it did."

"Then why do you think it means nothing?"

Gabriel fell silent.

Mateo continued, keeping his voice calm.

"Fighting is not the only way to be useful. If everyone leaves this shelter to prove they can fight, who protects the people who cannot?"

Gabriel looked toward the crowded parking area.

A child was sitting beside his mother near the medical station. An elderly man leaned against a car while a volunteer checked his pulse. Several injured survivors lay on blankets, waiting for help.

His expression softened, though frustration remained.

"So I'm supposed to stay here while you get stronger?"

"No. You're supposed to take responsibility for something important."

Mateo reached into his bag and handed Gabriel a folded sheet of paper.

It contained the shelter's basic supply inventory, the names of volunteers, and a list of people who needed regular medication.

"Work with Sofía to organize the supplies. Keep track of what we use, what we need, and who is responsible for each task. If something goes wrong while we're away, I want you to help people respond instead of waiting for me to return."

Gabriel stared at the paper.

"You trust me with all that?"

"I wouldn't ask you if I didn't."

For several seconds, Gabriel said nothing.

Then he folded the paper carefully and put it in his pocket.

"Fine. But when I get my first ability, you're teaching me how to fight."

Mateo smiled.

"When you're ready, I'll help you train."

Gabriel held out his hand.

"Promise?"

Mateo shook it.

"Promise."

He had made another decision.

Instead of keeping Gabriel safe by excluding him from every challenge, he would give him responsibilities that helped him grow.

It was a small step.

But it was the right one.

As Mateo turned to leave, Sofía approached with her tablet.

"I found something."

The maintenance technician led them through a side exit and along a narrow road behind the sports center.

The city looked worse in daylight.

Abandoned vehicles blocked several intersections. Broken glass covered the pavements, and strange blue marks glimmered on the walls of buildings near the transit station.

People had begun marking safe routes with strips of cloth and handwritten signs.

Others had barricaded themselves inside shops.

The world had not become a battlefield all at once.

It had become a collection of small places where people were trying to decide whether they could survive another hour.

Mateo kept his eyes moving.

He checked rooftops, alleyways, windows, and the gaps between abandoned vehicles. He listened for scraping sounds or the heavy impacts that often preceded a monster's appearance.

He also tried not to focus on the strange sensation inside his chest.

Every time they passed a blue mark, the pressure returned.

The marks were not identical. Some were faint and irregular, while others formed thin lines that seemed to converge toward the transit station.

Sofía had noticed the same pattern in the recovered sensor records.

"These readings don't look like random mana fluctuations," she said quietly. "They're strongest near the station and become weaker as we move away."

"Could it be a rift?" Mateo asked.

"Possibly. But the data is incomplete. The public sensors weren't designed to measure this kind of energy."

Lucía walked beside them, listening.

"If the readings are accurate, the station may be acting as a focal point. We should avoid approaching the strongest concentration until we know what's there."

Marcos glanced toward the road ahead.

"Then why are we going there?"

"Because that's where the mission says the threat is," Mateo replied. "But we don't have to walk straight into it."

He pointed toward a low commercial building across the road.

"We'll use that building to observe the intersection. The windows on the upper floor should give us a clear view."

The team moved carefully.

Inside the building, they found overturned furniture and a broken service robot. The upper floor was accessible by a narrow staircase.

Mateo climbed first, followed by Lucía and the others.

From the windows, they could see the overturned delivery truck near the transit station.

Something had torn through its cargo compartment.

Metal panels lay scattered across the road. Several crates had been crushed, and a dark stain marked the pavement beneath the truck.

A creature moved near the wreckage.

It was smaller than the Stalker they had encountered the previous day, but its body was covered in sharp, dark plates. It moved on four limbs, stopping every few seconds to scrape at the truck's exposed cargo.

A second creature emerged from beneath the vehicle.

Then a third.

Marcos swore under his breath.

"How many are there?"

Mateo counted four.

Four creatures in the open.

And he remembered the area well enough to know that the maintenance tunnel lay just beyond the truck.

If the rift was still open beneath the road, there could be more creatures underground.

"We don't engage yet," Mateo said.

Marcos turned toward him.

"The mission says clear the threat."

"It also says identify it. We've identified a group of creatures, but we don't know whether they're the only threat."

"We have six people. They have four monsters."

"And we don't know how strong they are."

Marcos's expression hardened.

"You fought one yesterday. You found its weakness. If we attack together, we can handle these."

Mateo looked at the creatures again.

The system had classified the Stalker as a low threat, but that classification had not accounted for his lack of cultivation, the narrow road, or the possibility of additional monsters.

Four creatures were not simply four times as dangerous.

They could surround the team. They could force the humans into the open. One mistake could turn a coordinated group into frightened individuals running in different directions.

"We need to learn how they react before we attack," Mateo said.

The maintenance technician pointed toward a narrow service passage beside the transit station.

"There's a manual gate down there. If we can close it, we might block access to the road."

"Can it be operated from outside?" Lucía asked.

"Yes, but the control mechanism is old. It might need to be reset manually."

Mateo studied the passage.

The gate could provide a way to contain the creatures without killing them. But if the monsters were guarding the rift, closing the passage might trap them on the wrong side or drive them toward the shelter.

He needed to know which.

"Can you see the tunnel entrance from here?" he asked.

The technician shook his head.

"Not from this window."

Mateo considered the mission wording.

Clear or contain the immediate danger.

The system had not demanded extermination.

Containment was acceptable.

That meant the objective might be achievable without a direct fight, provided they understood the terrain.

"Let's get closer to the service passage," he said. "Quietly. If the creatures notice us, we retreat."

Marcos looked unhappy, but he did not object.

For now, the team followed Mateo's plan.

They reached the service passage without attracting attention.

The entrance was partly blocked by fallen debris, but the maintenance technician managed to squeeze through and inspect the control panel.

"The gate still has power," he whispered. "But the mechanism is jammed."

"Can you fix it?" Mateo asked.

"Maybe. I need a few minutes."

Mateo nodded.

"Do it. The rest of us will watch the road."

Lucía crouched beside the wall and examined a cluster of blue marks.

"These lines are different from the others," she said.

Mateo looked down.

The markings formed a rough pattern around a crack in the concrete. Blue light pulsed through it at irregular intervals.

His chest tightened.

The three silver rings flashed through his mind.

He blinked.

The image vanished.

"Don't touch it," he warned.

Lucía immediately withdrew her hand.

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. But it looks connected to the energy readings."

She studied him.

"Did you recognize the pattern?"

"Something about it looks familiar."

He did not mention the symbol inside his chest.

Not yet.

Lucía pulled out her notebook and recorded the location.

"If this is connected to the rift, it might explain why the creatures are gathering here."

A scraping sound echoed from the road.

Everyone froze.

One of the creatures had moved away from the truck.

Its head turned toward the service passage.

Mateo raised a hand, signaling the others to remain still.

The creature sniffed the air.

Its blue markings brightened.

Then it began moving toward them.

"How much longer?" Mateo whispered.

The technician continued working at the control panel.

"Two minutes!"

They did not have two minutes.

Mateo looked around.

The passage was too narrow for the team to spread out. If the creature entered, they would have little room to dodge.

He needed to redirect it.

A loose metal pipe lay near the wall.

Mateo picked it up and gestured toward the others.

"Stay behind the corner. Don't come out unless I call."

Lucía grabbed his wrist.

"Don't try to fight it alone."

"I'm not planning to."

"Then what are you planning?"

He glanced toward a pile of empty metal containers near the passage entrance.

"To make it look somewhere else."

Before she could argue, he threw the pipe across the road.

It struck the containers with a loud crash.

The creature's head snapped toward the sound.

Mateo retreated behind the wall.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then the creature rushed toward the containers, its claws scraping against the pavement.

Mateo exhaled.

The distraction had worked.

"Now," he whispered.

The maintenance technician pulled a lever on the control panel.

A heavy metallic groan echoed through the passage.

The gate began to descend.

The sound immediately attracted the attention of the other creatures.

One abandoned the truck and charged toward the service entrance.

"Move!" Mateo shouted.

The team retreated.