Joshua White, also known as Josh Hundredborn, traveled south, his missing fingers aching with every step on broken concrete. In the Old World, there had been a freeway that led through the mountains and all the way to the coast. The freeway was of course collapsed and overgrown, but people had gone to the effort to cut back the Jungle a little bit. It left a path that a truck could drive, which was enough to get materials to and from the coastal villages.

While the road cut through the mountain range, this was a dip in elevation. Rather than being a treacherous, winding mountain path, it was a gentle and simple road through rolling hills. In fact, with everything covered in the endless sea of trees from the Jungle, it was hard to even see the hills. Farther out on either side, they rose into true mountains again, but here it was nothing difficult.

In the Old World, the hills had usually been the yellow of dead and hibernating grass. It wasn't a region known for rainfall, so the hills would only be green for a few weeks out of the year. Now, of course, everything was green trees and green ferns and green life. Josh was hardly an expert, but as he understood it, the Jungle fed on mana, then used that to encourage life to bloom, then fed on the mana produced by that life. This area had once been dry scrub land, but it could have been the middle of a rainforest now. He had no idea what effect that had on the rest of the world. Would that mean that new deserts had appeared elsewhere, in lower-mana zones? Or had the Jungle just magicked water out of nothing?

Darius would have known. At the very least, he would have cared.

He walked for about an hour before he found a clearing that he thought would be a good place to stop. The clearing wasn't something artificial, as far as he could tell. No one had burned out the trees here. It seemed to just be a random spot next to the road where the trees weren't quite as thick as they were elsewhere. Josh sat on a fallen tree, picked up a thick branch, and used [Hands-Free Crafting] to make himself a bowl and some utensils. He had lost most of his tools somewhere underground. Probably when he had jumped into the water to drown the elf, Mizuno.

At least he had managed to find a few packets of rations in the village. The mayor had apparently stockpiled them, and while they had been crushed or scattered in the fighting, Josh found a few. Monsters rarely ate anything besides humans and bloodstones, so there was little danger in just leaving big packets of dried meat around.

When Josh opened one of the paper-wrapped packages, he found jerky, rice, and even a small rind of cheese. He was surprised at that last one. Milk was easy enough to get a hold of, as long as you weren't squeamish about where it came from. Making cheese took time, though, and he hadn't thought that the village existed long enough to properly age cheese.

It probably came from the City. Sending materials back to the City to be processed was pretty common. They might not have the really advanced factories from the Old World, but cheese was easy. In fact, Mary's family was involved in most of the smuggling...

Josh stopped eating.

When he had first met Mary, when she had found him in those stupid ruins, she had offered him cheese. The good stuff, not this survival meal hardtack. He hadn't understood at the time quite how big a deal that had been, but he had appreciated it all the same.

His missing fingers throbbed again. Mary was dead. His oldest friend, besides his sister, was gone. Because of... what? A stupid operative, a dragon, and an elf. It sounded like the set up to a bad joke.

And now she was dead.

He had been trying to pretend that it wasn't true. That he wasn't alone now. He had tried to focus on how this would affect the mission, on how he needed to find new allies. That was why he was traveling south, to San Juan Bautista. It would have everything he needed.

It would still be better with Mary.

Your sister could have saved her, a traitorous bit of his mind whispered. Wouldn't have even been hard.

He pushed that thought away, but all that did was make room for new ones. Thoughts of Darius, smart and capable and too serious. Thoughts of Ruth, kind and gentle and also fierce. Both of them, dead on the ground somewhere, if not in a dragon's stomach.

He put his head in his hands and cried.

He didn't know how long he sat there, on that log. It felt like moments. It felt like hours.

Mary was dead. Mary, who jumped into every situation literally guns blazing, who had once saved a random stranger out in the Jungle for no other reason than because it was the right thing to do.

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Darius was dead. The man who had rolled a [Healer] for most of his life because it was “the most logical way to save lives.” The man who took notes on everything until he found the optimal solution.

Ruth was dead. The girl who had been sheltered her entire life, then jumped at the opportunity to do some real good. Who had abandoned a life of privilege to go on the run with people she barely even knew, because it was the right thing to do.

They were all gone, and his heart felt like it was ripping in four pieces.

He had thought that he was past all this. That after losing everything, he was immune to this pain. He had thought himself experienced, mature. He had thought he had scars on his soul, something that made him tough enough to survive this again.

He had been wrong. Loss always hurt, because every single time was different. Every single time, someone managed to worm their way behind your defenses, and they hurt all that much more when they were ripped away.

He had thought it was like being burned on a hot stove. Do it enough, and there was nothing left to burn. That wasn't how it worked. There was no being immune to this pain. It was, by its very nature, impossible to defend against.

Some part of him whispered that maybe he should just stop having friends. Stop letting people worm their way in. That was a mad thought. No matter how bitter he felt right now, he knew it wouldn't work. It hadn't worked when he was a kid, and his childhood girlfriend had died. It hadn't worked when he was a teenager, and his parents had died. It hadn't worked when he was an adult, and he had discovered that everyone he ever loved had died.

But right here, right now, he just wanted to spend the rest of his life out in the Jungle, never speaking to another human being.

“I say, are you all right?”

Josh looked up to see that, against all odds, there was a wagon on the road. It was a simple four-wheeled wooden wagon, the kind that the smaller villages or poorer residents used. It didn't have any sort of engine, and of course tying an animal to pull it would be insane. Instead, it was pulled by a large man with pale skin and a gentle smile who looked strong enough to pick up the wagon and throw it. Josh scanned him, and identified him as a level 23 Defender.

The man squinted at him, as if he was trying to use Identify on him as well. Josh was still wearing his mask. He always was, these days. He couldn't be scanned, so there wouldn't be any rumors about a [Crafter] on the road.

“Yeah.” He wiped his eyes. “I'm fine,” he said hoarsely. “Just... not a great day.”

The man nodded. “Which way you heading? If you're going up to Gilroy, I'd be happy to give you a ride.”

It took Josh a moment to put his thoughts together there. He had honestly forgotten that Mayor Vashti's village was called Gilroy Crossing.

“It's gone,” he croaked out. He cleared his throat, then continued in a clearer tone. “The Crossing. There was a monster horde, and they got the citystone. There's a dragon squatting on the ruins now.”

The man sagged. “By the Eight,” he muttered. “That's not good.” He sighed, then started to turn his cart around. “Well, there's nothing else up there that's worth the trip. I'll give you a ride back down to San Juan Bautista, if you like.” He gave Josh a weak smile. “You should report the fall soon, anyway.”

Josh nodded and rose from his seat. He took a deep breath. “Does the village have a radio?” He should have searched the ruins for one. Vashti had been a careful woman, she would have had one.

The man smiled. “Yeah. You can give your report to the monster hunters, and they'll pass it along.”

Josh nodded. “Thank you.” He fell into step next to the man. A thought occurred to him. “Sorry, I'm out of it.” He managed a smile. “I'm Josh.”

“Abraham.” He started pulling the cart back down the way he had come, and gave Josh a sideways smile. “You know, you can get in the cart. I've got all my points in Strength and Constitution. I won't even notice the extra weight.”

“Might take you up on that in a bit,” Josh admitted. “Right now I just need to stretch my legs, feel me?”

“Certainly.”

Josh jerked his thumb at the cart. “What are you hauling, anyway? Can't be food.” There were electric trucks that could make the trip in a fraction of the time, and they wouldn't need to take food to another village this side of the Burn Line anyway.

“Tools, mostly,” Abraham said cheerily. “Simple things that we can make out here. We've got a good mine down in Bautista.”

Josh scrunched up his face in confusion. He didn't remember anything about that. Of course, he had never actually traveled down this far before. He had gone north a few times, but he had never really gone past Gilroy.

They walked for an hour or so like that, just talking about simple, unimportant things. Abraham didn't push, though he did manage to tease out a few details about what had happened. He winced when Josh described the dragon.

“At least it's not a flier,” Abraham muttered. “You hear about that Feline Dracobeast that was squatting in Bautista?”

Josh gave him a bewildered look. “No. I thought San Juan Bautista had been around since soon after the Fall. I didn't know it got lost and rebuilt.”

But Abraham shook his head. “No, that's what I mean. Well, it was lost and rebuilt, yes, but not that. When the Eight were first flying around blasting every giant monster they could find, there was this giant cat sitting in the middle of what used to be a city. As I heard it, the Archer was hitting the damn thing with arrows the size of trees when it just spread these wings bigger than ship sails and came after them.”