48-Protection

The rest of the evening was spent in celebration.

The family gathered as a group to eat together, tell stories, sing, and dance. A couple of them even had instruments, a guitar and a harmonica. There was a festive atmosphere at dinner.

While Cliff and James sat and ate, Alan and Mitzi danced with a surprising spryness and energy. James found himself thinking that perhaps the System would bring a second springtime for many old-timers. It brought a smile to his face. He’d often thought about growing old with Mina, but perhaps they would remain forever young together instead, like elves in some fantasy world.

Even the more subdued Sierra looked to be cheered up by the music and the mood in the air, though she refused requests to dance from a couple of young men.

Ramon pulled James into a conversation with some of the other Rodriguezes gathered around the big central campfire, and they prevailed upon him to tell the story of the spiders’ extermination. James tried to tell it almost exactly as it had happened, without going into too much detail about his specific abilities. There were cheers at dramatic moments, and the men tried to press beer into James’s hands, but he preferred to keep his pre-System habit of sobriety, so he politely declined.

Whenever James felt people out as to their mood about the travel plans that Chava and Camila had announced, they were almost uniformly positive. Only a few cast sidelong glances at the campfires, where words again appeared that night, imploring the reader to follow the smoke to safety.

James felt his first twinge of real apprehension about the planned course of action as he saw those words again. Someone was using powerful magic to communicate that message. Is it really benevolent? Safety in numbers would be a good enough reason for me to do it if I had that magic, but can we really trust that safety is all that’s on this person’s mind?

But he put away those doubts for now. He had already decided what they were doing, and there would be time to consider precautions when they actually made the journey. He wouldn’t lead his group into danger the way Chava had.

After a festive evening of reunion spent celebrating the group’s continued survival and James’s successful return, the camp slept soundly.

The migration began promptly at the break of dawn the following morning. Happily, the universal possession of Small Bags of Deceptive Dimensions made the move significantly easier than any trip James had ever taken in the pre-System world. People just took down their tents and packed away all of their worldly goods in a matter of minutes.

James worked with Cliff to organize the formation the group moved in. Cliff took the vanguard position as planned, while Ramon and Jaime Rodriguez trailed at the back to protect the slowest moving among their family. As elders, Chava, Camila, Alan, and Mitzi were positioned more towards the center, to ensure their safety from ambush. Sierra took a position close to the vanguard, alongside Felicia, the archer, so they could act in a backup role. And James positioned himself somewhat removed from the front, but close enough that he could jump in if there was any real trouble.

Only if there’s trouble the actual vanguard can’t handle, though. Can’t make them completely dependent on me.

This was a test for Cliff; it wasn’t James’s intention to steal his thunder. He needed to make sure he established that his whole party was competent in the Rodriguezes’ eyes, or the power dynamics of the situation could become tumultuous at any moment if James was taken out of commission.

And hopefully Cliff would get some experience for a change. James was happy with whatever reflected glory he got from the migration’s overall success. He had ensured that everyone was armed with spider weapons before the camp picked up roots, so even the teenagers had Small Exoshields and Spiderknives at the ready in case of trouble. The Medium Exoshields looted from the Command Spiders, James had saved for the people at the rear or the front, all of whom had been selected as being stronger or more competent fighters than the average for the group.

James himself wore the Royal Exoarmor, which had better stats than any other piece of equipment he possessed besides the Ego Antler Spear.

[Royal Exoarmor: Rigid armor that once protected the matriarch of an arthropod species, before James killed her with fire. Now twisted to fit the human form, a species the matriarch despised. Contains a powerful vitality-enhancing energy. Boosts Agility and Fortitude by 20 each when worn. Grants access to the skills Deep Forest Movement and Mild Passive Regeneration.]

James was also armed with the Ego Antler Spear and a Wolfbone Dagger at each hip. He had finally stowed his Common Wolfskin Pelt, because when worn with the Royal Exoarmor, it made him too hot for comfort. He felt ready for just about anything while equipped like this. At first, he was almost eager for a fight.

Yet the journey was fairly quiet for the first few hours or so.

James was able to spend time developing ideas for future experimentation with his Skills.

He was particularly interested in Monster Generation, Monster Control, and Venom Fangs, which seemed to have a lot of potential to make fighting easier. With Monster Generation and Monster Control, he might be able to create minions to do much of his fighting for him. With Venom Fangs, he could put his enemies on a timer, where death would grow closer every passing moment without further effort, allowing James to just focus on dodging attacks.

James confirmed that he could use Monster Generation with even small pieces of his own biomass. He bit his thumb, spilling a single drop of blood, and used Monster Generation to transform it into a spider form. Unfortunately, when he crushed it, just to see what would happen, he noted that it did not give experience, and it died much more easily than the spiders he’d met in the forest.

After spending a significant block of time going through his Status sheet and conducting similar experiments with his blood, James was a little surprised that he hadn’t been interrupted.

He estimated that a few hours had passed with no random encounters. When he’d been walking through the forest by himself, before, he’d experienced a rate of fights much higher than this while making much less noise, and that was before he started actively hunting. Why wasn’t the noise of the group summoning any beasts?

James initially wondered whether the size of the traveling group had kept the monsters at bay. But when he asked Chava about it, the old man explained that they had been attacked much more frequently when moving as a group before.

“I wouldn’t credit the number of people moving with having any deterrent effect. Maybe it’s your presence that’s scaring the creatures away,” Chava suggested with a smile, looking up at James. “You do seem to have a certain aura about you since wiping out the spiders. I think you might give off a red flag signal to most creatures thinking about an attack. At least, I wouldn’t want to fight you.”

I’m not even using that combination Skill that had Sierra so freaked out the other day, James thought. But maybe the monsters could somehow sense his Xenocide Title. He wondered how intimidating he would have been if he’d chosen the other Evolution option. I probably wouldn’t be able to do any hunting for the rest of Orientation.

Finally, though, when the sun was at its zenith, some creatures emerged from the forest and attacked the group from the front. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the group entered a species’ territory, and that species defended its territory aggressively. A half dozen beetles the size of Rottweilers flew down from the trees, and Cliff, alongside the other two vanguard fighters, met them head-on.

James thought about interfering briefly, when one beetle flew at a Rodriguez family member’s head behind the front lines, but one of the vanguard disengaged from the fight with the other five beetles, jumped back, and managed to draw its aggro to him.

James was most impressed by Cliff’s performance. The first swing of his sword felled a beetle. The Spider Egosword chopped right through the beetle’s horn and into its head. The next swing penetrated deep into another beetle’s center of mass, and James saw a black rot quickly take root there and spread to devour the rest of the beetle’s flesh.

That must be the Necrotic Strike from the Spider Egosword, James recognized. Good thing I never let the Queen bite me! With those two beetles down, the fight became much more manageable for the vanguard fighters.

James didn’t need to intervene after all. He was quite pleased with the vanguard’s performance, and he wasn’t the only one. The family had begun hooting and hollering encouragement at the start of the fight, and they let out a big collective cheer when it was over, before the group returned to moving forward in relative quiet.

This was the beginning of a pattern. There were several more of these brief engagements over the next few hours. The vanguard was triumphant every time, and the cheers only grew more confident and enthusiastic. Aside from James mentioning to Cliff that he probably shouldn’t use Necrotic Strike on any monster that was likely to drop edible meat—a tip that Cliff promised to take on board—James had no involvement.

It freed him up, so he could spend his mental energy on viewing the forest as a tourist, without concern about potential threats. The woods were rather beautiful, when one didn’t have to think about being ambushed by monsters. The trees were a beautiful tapestry of earth tones, as one would expect from what James imagined was virgin forest, essentially untouched by human hand or axe.

He couldn’t recognize any of the trees they passed in particular, and couldn’t help wondering if he had always been this bad at identifying flora, or if he only would have known them if they were palm trees. Or maybe there are new species here entirely. It would make sense, given the many new and large species of animals that now made these trees part of their habitat.

Fortunately, whatever they were, the trees were well spaced out for unimpeded human and giant monster movement.

He found it charming. Maybe part of it was that he was accustomed to seeing forests intercut by roads. This one felt unconstrained and boundless, although surely there was an end to it somewhere.

Ultimately, Cliff did secure some meat for the group, as James had hoped. They were lucky enough, near the end of the day, to be attacked by three boars with what James judged to be very poor survival instincts. In a brief, well-coordinated defense, the vanguard engaged the three beasts, and the group as a whole quickly bled all three dry with attacks from multiple directions. Cliff didn’t use Necrotic Strike even once, so they gathered enough meat to keep everyone well fed for another night.

Finally, with the sun drawing near the horizon, the group camped.

“Good work keeping us safe, man,” James said to Cliff, clapping him jovially on the back. By the end of the day, Cliff had seemed quite dangerous with the Ego Spidersword. James thought it might be a worthwhile investment to leave the weapon in his hands permanently. James was particularly pleased about the rate of their day’s progress.

He estimated that they would reach the source of the column of smoke by early afternoon the next day, if the pace of their progress continued.

As he ate and then prepared to sleep, James thought the biggest hurdle he would face at this rate might be a boring forest. Traveling with a group is just that much less dangerous.

The next day started out as much of the same.

The forest was as beautiful as it had been when he tried to look at it through tourist eyes the previous day, there were no monsters apparent in the immediate vicinity, and the column of smoke was tantalizingly close now. He sat slowly looking at the nature all around while others packed up their camping gear, appreciating his improved vision.

This apocalypse is really pretty alright so far, he thought carelessly for a moment. The trees are gorgeous, the weather has been pretty consistently good, and the rate of wild monster attack is super manageable.

Then his thoughts darkened. That’s easy for me to say right now. I hope Mina and Yulia are in a position to appreciate the beauty of—wherever they are. He frowned.

The caprice of the System to separate people by something as arbitrary as surnames did not bode well for the heavily pregnant woman and the petite teenager. He tried to remind himself that the only thing he could do for Mina or Yulia now was survive. But that was a hard pill to swallow.

A tall shadow loomed over James and distracted him from his train of thought, and he welcomed the distraction. He looked up, and even though the old man was standing with the sun almost directly at his back, James recognized his facial features.

“What’s new, Alan?”

“Just thought you and I should discuss objectives, James.” He gestured at the column of smoke they’d been migrating towards. “We’ll almost certainly reach those people today, I expect.”

“I expect the same,” James replied. He would let Alan spell out exactly what he was asking rather than volunteering a long explanation. Surely some people could hear them in this setting, and there was no need to give the Rodriguezes any reason to worry about how first contact would go with the new group.

“Well,” Alan continued after a moment, “I’m wondering what the, er, strategy is. You are a bit of a leader for the group right now—”

“And you are a trusted advisor, Alan,” James interrupted. “If you’re trying to gauge how I intend to interact with the new group, I will first reassure you that we’re not going in willy-nilly without a plan. I will take a couple of our people, and we’ll go and see the other camp up close. If we can establish that they’re friendly, we’ll go in with everyone else. If not, we’re still not going to fight with them. We’ll just leave.”

“I see,” Alan said, looking visibly relieved. “You have thought this through.”

“I always have a plan.” James smiled. “And I just told you yesterday that next time I went somewhere dangerous, you were going with me, didn’t I?” James made firm eye contact with Alan and held it, despite the sun shining behind Alan and being incredibly bright in James’s face, until Alan looked away.

The old man was smiling, too, James saw. I finally fixed that little bit of friction between us.

Alan would, if James had his way, continue to be a key advisor and asset for long after the Orientation was done. Alan had been to war once, and he had much life experience James lacked. James imagined Alan being something like the Merlin to his King Arthur.

For that to happen, though, James would have to show that he was not only one of the most powerful people in this Orientation but also the most trustworthy and reliable. Alan seemed to James a very prudent man, not one to entrust his fate to just anyone.

“That you did,” Alan said.

“Count on me, sir.” James flashed his most confident smile.

The group arrived within what James gauged to be two miles or so of the column of smoke within a couple of hours of setting out, and James called a halt.

He directed that the group stay where they were for now, only sending out a hunting party, led by Cliff and Ramon, and a scouting party that would hopefully make first contact with the originators of the smoke.