“Good. Next, that tattoo. The others might not have noticed it, but don’t think that I didn’t see you apply it. Where’d you get it? And why didn’t you tell me about it? From what I saw on the mountain, it looks like it helps you move stupid amounts of rock?”
“Not exactly.” This was something the system already knew about, so Matt felt like he could talk about it without giving much up it didn’t already know. “It’s more like an enhancement for Survivor’s Reflexes. It extends the kinds of things that the skill can find weak spots in, stuff like my environment. And seems to do a pretty good job of it.”
“So you can’t just throw mountains at all your problems? Bummer. Still, good get.” Matt saw Lucy reference some invisible screen, as if she was checking on her accumulated notes of things to talk about when they got the chance. As she scrolled through everything, she audibly commented out her thought process, “This one I know about already, this one I don’t think is important right now. That just leaves one thing. Why do they look confused every time you talk to me, Matt?”
“No idea. I think I sort of assumed that every reincarnator would have a guardian. After Leel knew about them, it seemed universal.”
“As far as I knew, it is. Every reincarnator needs a guardian to guide them when they enter a new world. But my information about other planets is pretty spotty, and it’s possible that it’s just not a thing here. The Church seems to fill most of the guidance function, in a different way. And they mentioned this thing called plinths, whatever their deal is. I don’t think these plinths are like the ones that Barry has at the end of each dungeon.” As she said the last word, she winced. “They talk about the plinths like they are class specific helpers, and they seem to be located centrally with the Church, so I’m really really hoping that’s all they are and there’s nothing more to it.”
“Me too. And honestly, from what I know of Brennan and Derek, they don’t seem like the slavery type to me. I don’t think they’d tolerate it, honestly.”
“That’s why I’m hopeful it’s nothing, Matt. But if it is that kind of situation… what are we going to do?”
Matt stopped walking for a second, then leaned down close to Lucy. “You are asking me what I’ll do if I find out these people, the Church, are enslaving guardians? Thousands of guardians? I can’t imagine why they’d even do that, but…” He looked her directly in the eye. “If it came to that, and there wasn’t a good enough explanation for everything? We’d burn it all down, Lucy. All of it.”
“Oh, Matt.” Lucy mocked, looking shy for a moment. “You always know what to say to make me feel better. You charmer.”
“Oh, shush. We actually do have a job to do right now, you know.”
“A gentleman never lets an important conversation get in the way of bashing things with a shovel.” Lucy said, smiling. “The first thing they teach you in finishing school.”
—
After 20 minutes, they had swept enough of the surrounding area to be pretty sure they had got the majority of demons that the bomb left behind. There was always a chance they had missed some, but Artemis explained that the capital would likely send out another squad after them. And the new heroes would be equipped with skills to make it easier to chase down the few remaining enemies and guarantee they didn’t get up to mischief.
“Right now, the most important thing is to get home. They still don’t know what happened to Espilon, or us for that matter. They must be in a panic by now,” Artemis said. Stragglers and panic aside, she seemed more than content with the outcome of the day. A day of heavy fighting did wonders for her mental state. “Matt, I’m officially not telling you what to do anymore. If you have some kind of stupid idea, just go for it. They seem to work out for you a surprising amount of the time.”
“I’m liking this girl better and better, Matt,” Lucy said, grinning.
“Seriously, though. How did you know that would work?” Brennan asked. “My whole build is about finding weak spots and building precise plans. I didn’t see anything from that crack.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
As Matt and Lucy had chased down their last few demons, they discussed a plausible explanation for what had happened. He held his shovel up a bit higher into the air, displaying it for everyone. “You see this thing? It’s not just for show. It’s been with me for a while, and some of my class skills synergize with it pretty well. Without going into the details, I’m especially good at digging.”
They accepted that explanation with a couple of nods. The discussion was surprisingly easy. It seemed odd until Matt considered how few people stumbled into using a shovel as their primary weapon. They didn’t even know what his class was. For all he knew, they had assumed it was something like Combat Miner from the very beginning.
“Well, I’m glad, anyway. You saved three cities today, Matt,” Brennan said, looking relieved for about the tenth time that day.
“Oh, oh no.” Artemis said, struck by some kind of sudden terror. “Oh, noooo.”
“Shit, Artemis, what is it?” Derek looked alarmed too now. Artemis was normally pretty steady, and seeing her panic easily unsettled him.
“It’s the kills. Remember how he had twenty or thirty of them, before? That was already going to be a paperwork nightmare to claim the kills.”
Brennan considered this for a moment before a light went on in his eyes and he realized what he meant. “Ooooh, ha, yeah. Shit. Matt, you just took out an entire army, mostly by yourself. Hundreds or thousands of confirmed kills, presumably several high-ranking demons among them, with partial credit on a leader and full credit on four devastating siege weapons of mass destruction and who knows how much in terms of equipment and supplies.”
Off to the side, Derek’s eyes went wide. He appeared to try to do some quick mental math on his fingers before giving up.
Matt glanced back and forth between them, his forehead furrowed with confusion. “And that’s… a lot?”
“Oh, yes. It’s a lot.” Artemis looked genuinely upset.
“Well, I’ll just get some good armor, then. No big deal,” Matt said. He did need to upgrade his wardrobe given that he was still wearing the starter tunic he had landed on Ra’Zor with.
Brennan grinned again, barely containing his laughter for Artemis’ sake. “No, I don’t think you get it, Matt. It’s hard to put it into words, but a battle this size almost never happens, and when it does, it’s split a hundred or a thousand ways between whole armies of people. Some heroes have made their fortunes on stuff much smaller than this.”
“So…”
“So, you are now officially probably the richest private citizen on Ra’Zor. To put it in Earth terms, and Earth buying power, you could probably just about afford to buy the entire state of Utah.”
—
The rest of the walk back was less relaxed, mostly because Artemis would occasionally break down into mini-panics as she tried to calculate the size and scope of Matt’s new hypothetical wealth. She eventually calmed down just a little when he managed to reassure her that, without the desire to buy property on Ra’Zor or the ability to keep it if he did, he’d be more than happy to accept a much smaller, more reasonable fraction of the funds. In fact, he’d even be willing to gift what he didn’t use when it came time for him to return home. She was still stressed, but it at least got things under control.
They skipped all the other colonies, making a beeline for the capitol. It would take longer, given that the nearest colony wasn’t that far away, but it was worth the extra time by being able to explain everything to the people who needed to know it directly. So, the rest of their travel time was spent sprinting, and with a blessed, demon-free uneventfulness so completely devoid of ambushes and attacks it left Matt feeling jumpy.
When they made it to the gates of the capitol, the head of the gate guards was so surprised to see the three alive that it took a full five seconds for him to remember himself and salute. “Good day, General Brennan!” He shouted, drawing the rest of the guards’ attention and causing a chain-reaction of salutes and greetings that took a few seconds to die down.
“General Brennan?” Matt asked, his eyebrow cocked.
“Oh, Yeah,” Derek grinned as he took in the sight. “He’s kind of a big deal. He doesn’t talk about it much. I keep quiet about it for his sake.”
“What do you have to do to be a general around here?” Matt asked, suddenly upping his estimation of Brennan a few more notches.
“I’m not sure on the details,” Derek said, scratching his face. “They’ve never talked to me about it before, really. Not that I want to be one, anyway. But I think being the strongest guy on the planet helps.”
With Brennan vouching for Matt’s trustworthy guest status, it didn’t take long for the doors to be thrown open. The group stepped through, and for the first time in years, Matt laid his eyes on a normal, honest-to-god human place of living. The buildings were brick and stone, the streets were cobbled, and smoke from stoves came out of iron chimneys over countless taverns, restaurants, and homes.
“Holy shit. It’s a manga town,” Matt said to no one in particular.
Derek smiled. “I know, right? And I’m gonna show you around. Brennan and Artemis will be tied up with reports for a while. And you know what we are going to do first?”
“Eat?” The aroma of food was filling the air from a dozen gate-adjacent food stands.
“Yup, as much as you want. And then, my friend, we are going to go get a bath.”