For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, I was woken up by the sound of children. Children roaming around a house and asking for help to dress or for something to eat. Even back in the Hidden Horn Village, that wouldn’t happen. Everyone had to be quiet and move with care. But here, the sounds of the river helped drown out the voices, and the houses could muffle more noise. Built with actual bricks, wood, and some sort of foam from the old world that helped suppress the sounds. Either the houses made back then could be surprisingly sturdy. Or people were able to salvage some of those materials before the Eaters destroyed everything. I wasn’t sure.

After helping with the kids’ breakfast, I asked Cindy for some clothes. She was kind enough to give me some pajamas last night, but I would need something else to walk around the city. My old get up, if it could even be called that, was so dirty and beat up that couldn’t even be used as a rag anymore.

She didn’t have anything in my size, so I ended up taking some of Peter’s clothes. His build was similar to mine, even if the shirt looked baggy on me.

I double checked if Pops was ok with all the new stuff about the System. He was still level 1, which made sense, but at the same time felt really strange to me. If I ever found another Eater, I would try to take some of its blood for Rakeen. That way, we could speed up the process a little bit, just like I did. I was also a bit worried about what would happen when he reached level 10. Quick Tier 1 Evolution stored some data related to hunts. Which meant that an Eater would need to hunt animals, or people, in order to tier up. Pops might have to do the same, unless he decided to go the other route of figuring things out himself.

Which actually made me realize something else as I was changing, ‘Hey, Sys. I don’t remember asking, but what’s my max level right now? Like to get to tier 2? I remember you saying that things changed.’

[User needs to reach level 20 in order to reach tier 2. In addition, once user reaches level 10, the amount of SP required to level up will increase. At level 10, user will be considered saturated.]

‘Wait, what? Why? How does that make sense?’

[User’s body can hold a finite amount of SP. That limit is reached once user reaches level 10. The amount of SP required to convert particles into an enhanced version is double what it was required to reach tier 1. However, this creates a problem for user’s body. Since user’s body is only capable of holding enough SP to reach level 10, further increase requires adaptation. The process of expanding the possible storage for SP requires itself, SP, which in turn makes leveling up harder. Future tiers will follow the same pattern. User will need to reach the same maximum level of the previous tier and then double it in order to advance to the next tier.]

‘So… my body is like a house that can only take 10 levels of SP. But since I need 20 to improve the walls, I need to first do some renovations to let more SP get inside. And that renovation costs SP on itself to do?’ it was strange how even the most confusing statement made sense for me. That odd way the System had to share information was still strange. But I had to admit it helped.

[That is an accurate analogy.]

‘I’m not entirely sure I understand just yet, but I guess we will figure things out as we go,’ with a sigh, I finished changing and headed out.

The captain of the guard said he wanted to talk to me in the morning and, by the position of the sun, I had already made him wait for a while. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to find him. Madison Village was much more organized that where I used to live. In fact, it was very different from what I was used to.

There was an eclectic grouping of houses. Some were stone, while others were made out of wood. But for the most part, they were a mix of the two. In fact, most, if not all, the houses had holes and structural breaks that were repaired with whatever was available. To my left, a stone home had a literal tree trunk on the side, working as a support beam. Just after it, was a house made with bricks until about the height of my waist, then it became completely made of wood.

Pretty much every house here only had one floor, plus the basement in some cases, and the floors were almost exclusively made out of stone. It was easier to dull the sounds of footsteps like that. A decent rug or some socks was all it took. But the biggest patchwork of all was in the central building of the village. Several pieces of the wall had broken for some reason or another, with wood, bricks, occasionally steel, and even clay being used for the repairs. According to those who lived here, once upon a time it was a mansion, but now worked as a town hall, infirmary, and guardhouse.

I once asked Pops why decided to stay in the middle of the forest instead of here. He said that made things easier. In a village this size, there were politics, issues with food shortage and less freedom to do what we wanted. Sure, you could argue that there was safety in numbers, but animals were not much of an issue here. And if we were deep enough, humans would rarely be a problem. For Eaters, the number didn’t matter. It was just more for them to feast. Every time we talked about that, Pops also said that living with others was difficult and small communities were easier to deal with. He seemed to have something against large groups, but I could understand where he was coming from. The only interactions I had with bigger groups were the occasional bandits that decided to test their luck in Eater territory, and the people from Madison.

While the people living here were never an issue, the bandits… that was a very different story. I honestly had lost count on how many of them I had killed. Pops always complained about that. How we shouldn’t do that kind of thing. Saying something along the lines of ‘a little piece of your soul dies when you take a life.’ But honestly, that was just something people used to say to cope with the guilt. A guilt that I didn’t have. The world was a mess, and it was all about survival of the fittest. Just as I didn’t hold against those bandits trying to steal from us, I had no qualms about killing them if they crossed a line. Which they always did. Either threatening the kids, saying they would come back and kill us all, or trying to burn down our houses. One girl was even crazy enough to try to call an Eater.

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In those cases, killing someone wasn’t just an option, but the right thing to do. At least for me. What was the point of taking the high ground when you know someone is just going to come back and try to hurt you again? That’s why I didn’t understand most of the super heroes Pops liked so much. It’s one thing to be the good guy and try to save everyone, including the villains. Another to be so shackled by your own moral code that you can’t see it doing more harm than good.

Distracted by my thoughts, I almost didn’t notice the captain of the guard opening the door to the community center when I was about to knock, “Oh? Cassandra? Good to see you, I was about to ask someone to go find you.”

“Sorry for the delay. I really needed the sleep,” I replied with a smile.

“Yeah, that’s why I waited. Figured you need the rest,” he looked me up and down, “We might also have some clothes that fit you a bit better if you would like. And shampoo. We got some from the shipment the supply crew was bringing. We tend to be strict about using that since it’s hard to come by, but you need it.”

I reached out to my hair, it was oily, and there were some knots, but I didn’t think it was far from usual. I had washed it with soap last night, “Is this really that bad?”

“No…” the captain’s voice didn’t give me confidence, “Anyway, do you mind coming with me? I need to inspect the shipment, or what’s left of it. And I would like to hear your story.”

“Sure,” I nodded and turned around, following the captain of the guard. He was a bulky man, with suntanned skin and muscles that you gain from doing heavy physical labor all day. His mostly grey beard was long, but well trimmed. There was a scar on the side of his neck that looked like it was made by a very thick claw. It started near the clavicle, stopping just by the shaved side of his head. He had brown eyes, and his medium hair flowed to the side. But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember his name. He mentioned knowing me, but who the hell was he?

“First things first. Do you mind telling me how did you find them? The supply crew, I mean.”

‘Sys, can you tell me if anything I’m about to say goes against what I told Marco?’

[Affirmative.]

I nodded, “Sure. I came from the west. From where our village was. I saw them first across the river, but I wasn’t entirely sure what happened. So I walked up the bridge, which wasn’t far, crossed to the other side and found them like that. Everything broken and the people dead. I remember seeing some of the blood already dry, but the larger pools still looked wet. I didn’t check if that was true or not.”

[User did not mention seeing the caravan from the other side of the river. However, Marco never asked when user first saw the scene.]

“And why did you stop to scavenge for food?”

“I was starving. I didn’t have a chance to look for food. Well, I did, but I was more worried about reaching the village before sunset. The bag of apples was there, out in the open. And I figured that if I left it there, some animal would come and get it. Everything else could be gathered by the people from the village in the morning.”

The captain nodded as we reached a storehouse. Some of the boxes were broken, and others had some blood spatters, but aside from that, most of the supplies were still intact. The fabrics would definitively need to be washed. Since it rained yesterday, the ground was all mud, and my attacks were a bit too careless, covering them in blood.

“Is there anything missing from what you noticed yesterday? We can’t account for a couple of boxes of what they were supposed to bring, but we don’t know if they had some issues with getting those supplies, or if they fell somewhere and we missed.”

‘Sys, help me out here. If you notice that there is something missing, and where it could be, let me know,’ I asked while I walked forward, trying my best to look confused.

[Acknowledged.]

I had a decision to make here. On one hand, I had scavenged the boxes, so giving more information could be possible, but it could also bring suspicion to me. Of course, people would have a hard time believing a girl like me was able to do all that. Still, I didn’t want people thinking I had murdered their friends. Even if they deserved.

After a while, I did realize there was a single box missing, one that had some clothes. According to the System, that particular crate ended up falling to the side of the road and tumbling down. My cloak wasn’t there, but the captain wouldn’t know about that. Would he?

It was a box of clothes, and considering how Cindy, Pops, Peter, and the kids only had their pajamas and the ones they were wearing during my birthday party, we might need that.

“Yeah, I can see there is one missing. One of the boxes was on the side of the road, hidden by some bushes. There were some clothes there. That’s where I got the cloak,” I turned to the captain.

He nodded, “I’ll ask someone to get that. Where is it? Near the river?”

“No, on the other side of the road. There was a ditch there. I know it was stupid to go searching for something when I could barely see if it was there, but I was so cold, and I didn’t want to risk getting any blood on me in case it would attract any animals,” that was a lie. The cloak was actually resting on top of the crates, and it got stuck in an elevated part of the wagon while I killed those bastards.

The captain stared at me for a while, making me think I messed up somehow. Eventually he let out a long sigh and scratched the back of his head, “Yeah. We know. That one is in a different place. Sorry about that. I just needed to be sure you were on the level.”

“What?” I tilted my head.

“I mean, that you were not lying to us. We did find that crate, and since it was the only box of clothes that was more or less clean, like your cloak, we didn’t know what to think. Maybe you had hidden that box to go back and pick things up later.”

I frowned, they were suspecting me of theft? “How would I even bring those stolen clothes back?”

“I don’t know, but with the supply crew dead, it is hard to know what to expect. Still, sorry for testing you like that. No hard feelings?” the captain put his hand forward.

“It’s fine, as long as you don’t get upset with one question I want to ask,” I shook his hand.

“What question?”

“What’s you name? I can’t remember it,” I admitted.

The captain let out a laugh that was much too loud for my taste, but the sound of the river seemed to be enough to drown it out, “Yeah, it’s been years since we last saw each other. It’s Garreth.”

“Got it, sorry about that,” I smiled.

“No worries. But let me ask you this. Do you know what you are going to do now?”

“Honestly? No. If I can, I would like to rest for another day or two. Make sure my people are doing well, you know,” he nodded, his face turning somber. Losing people wasn’t new to anyone in this world. But losing people to the Eaters always felt worse, “After that. I’ll see what I can do to help the village. And in a week or so, I would like to go back to the Hidden Horn Village. Just to see if anyone survived, or if there is anything left.