It was difficult to weave my way through the camp without advertising the fact I had just come back from battle, but most people were more concerned with the fact breakfast was ready than they were with scrutinizing me and Austin.
We made it to Abigail's tent without notice and found that she wasn't there. I should have expected that given she would be coordinating the different tasks the family was going to be assigned today.
They usually took a break to eat breakfast so I didn't feel bad about interrupting her and gave Anna the task of going to get her. Anna jumped to the task and ran toward the middle of camp without hesitation.
It was a good thing that she was there because if we had to walk through the middle of camp to retrieve Abigail someone would have definitely noticed something.
It didn't take long for Anna to come back with Abigail in tow and she still had a few pieces of bacon from her unfinished breakfast. It didn't take her long to notice us and she immediately frowned when she saw us. She was always too observant. Any time when I was younger and tried to sneak out to a party it was like something whispered in her ear that I was hiding something and she would come to investigate.
It was unfair. It was like she had a sixth sense when I was about to go out. She never told on me though which was a good thing, she would just say to be careful and call her if I needed a ride. It was comforting to know and was also the reason I came to her now.
"What did you two do?" Was the first thing out of her mouth. Not 'good morning' or 'how are you doing' jumping straight to accusations.
I didn't hold back from telling her and as the story progressed her face became more and more angry and by the end of it she was almost vibrating from anger.
"You idiots! Do you know how dangerous that was? What if you got killed or seriously wounded? If an artery was hit you would bleed out by the time it would take to make it back to camp. Were you even using your head?" She very angrily made her points.
I wasn't going to back down though, "It was a calculated risk, Abigail. You know that if nothing changes more people will end up like Derek. I don't want to see that happen and I'm doing something to prevent it. We were careful and were quite successful I might add."
"It doesn't matter if you were successful, it was reckless!" Abigail was nearly yelling now.
"Abby, think this through. Use that giant brain of yours and think about the future. What do you think will happen for the rest of the tutorial? It's only been 11 days and already we lost someone, what do you think will happen in the 80 days to come? Do you think the waves will just stop?" I paused to give her time to think before continuing, "No. The waves will continue to get stronger and we need to get stronger to beat them."
She took a moment to think about what I said and I could see her calming down, the anger leaving. She almost looked defeated when she spoke again.
"I know Christopher, but I don't want to lose anyone else. It's not on your shoulders alone to force yourself to get stronger, all of us can work together."
"I'm one of the only single ones here, I don't have any kids to take care of and no significant other to come back to. If someone were to do this it would be me." It was one of the darker thoughts I had last night, but it was true.
I didn't have any kids that relied on me and there was no girlfriend or wife that I would leave behind if the unfortunate happened. In an ideal world, it would be me who would be next.
*SLAP*
As soon as I said that Abigail slapped me in the face. I was so taken aback I didn't even notice her move. With my increased fortitude and her low strength the slap didn't hurt, but it still surprised me.
"Don't you dare ever say that again. Just because you don't have any kids doesn't mean no one will miss you. I will miss you and I won't let you go off trying to kill yourself." She said.
"I'm not trying to kill myself, everything was planned out and I didn't do anything reckless." I said back before adding, "And Austin was there to have my back if anything went wrong."
From the look on his face, Austin did not appreciate being dragged into this conversation. That was too bad for him because I was losing and needed some backup who just so happened to be standing behind me.
Abigail just shook her head, "You two were always up to no good before, it shouldn't surprise me that you are now. At least promise me that you will be careful and not do anything too reckless."
Austin and I both promised and she finally agreed to heal us. It didn't take long and after casting a spell on the both of us we were as good as new. All of us walked over for breakfast and acted like nothing happened. There was no point in letting the whole family know, they would try to stop me and I couldn't let that happen.
The downside of keeping it a secret from my family was we couldn't bring back the bodies. It wasn't like we were going to run out of food or anything but some parts were useful. The hide could be cured and turned into extra armor or used for building. The tusks could be made into tools along with the bones.
It made me feel like a barbarian when I used them but it was necessary. That was another thing I caught myself thinking a lot. Necessity. It never dictated my actions more than it did now. I fought because it was necessary, I trained because it was necessary, and I used bone tools because it was necessary.
I was scared to think about what I would do in the future because it was necessary. I already knew at some point I would have to take a life, I would have to kill another person and I didn't know how I would feel about it. It's the little steps that lead to senseless murder that frightened me.
It was such a slippery slope to climb. I would have to decide how I wanted to go about it and that was more useful before I was forced to take a life, because it was necessary.
Breakfast was the usual affair but before we could get to work Granddad stopped us.
"Hold on everybody, there's something that we need to talk about before we start the day." He said.
"Now that the wall has been built we need to decide what to buy next. We still have points left over from the last wave to use and it's better to use them now rather than later."
After a quick tally, it was found that we had 1,221 points to decide what to do with. the general consensus was to use it toward more defenses. As we were discussing what would be best, someone asked how much would it cost to upgrade the walls.
We had just gotten the walls and no one thought about upgrading them already but just to get an idea of how much it would cost someone walked over to the pylon to look.
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"It says 'Upgrade to outpost to unlock more options.' The only things we can build are guard towers and some traps. We already know the cost to those." Mark called out over by the pylon.
We had all picked over what was available from the pylon and knew that guard towers cost 1,000 each, and the traps had varying costs depending on function. We could build traps ourselves but after seeing how impressive the wall was, there was the notion that the shop's traps would be significantly better than ours.
The only problem with buying the traps was that they were one-time-use items. If a wave triggered the traps we would have to buy them again for the next wave. They weren't permanent structures and a lot of us thought it wasn't a good idea to rely on those, myself included.
With the knowledge that upgrading the pylon unlocked access to be able to upgrade the walls, we began to speculate what else it unlocked access to. Professions were the big thing that everyone was trying to figure out and most thought that upgrading the pylon was the way to figure it out.
The discussion was... passionate, to put it mildly. No one wanted to talk about what happened last wave and most didn't want to voluntarily cause another, but everyone knew we would have to eventually. We were barely a tenth of the way through the tutorial and we would be forced to upgrade it eventually.
No one wanted to be the advocate for it but we were all thinking it. Eventually, I couldn't take the indecisiveness anymore and said what we were all thinking.
"We are going to have to upgrade it at some point and sooner is better than later. I say we upgrade it now. We are all rested and healthy, we have the walls and are prepared for a wave already. It also leaves tomorrow to rest for the wave on day 13. If we put it off and it unlocks something important we will be kicking ourselves in the future." I said.
People nodded along while I was speaking but I could tell that they had no intention of upgrading it now. It was still too soon and people were scared. It was understandable that they were scared, but it was frustrating. People were too worried to do anything and that same lack of drive was going to be our downfall.
Granddad must have agreed with me but didn't want to be the first to mention it. He advocated hard to upgrade the pylon but eventually had to compromise with the majority of the family. It was decided that we would upgrade the pylon after seeing how effective the walls were this coming wave.
If the walls were extremely effective we would upgrade the pylon then, and if they weren't, we would prepare more before upgrading it. I thought it was stupid to take the wait-and-see approach but it wasn't my decision to make. A blind man could see that the walls were going to be effective, but people needed assurance, and assurance would take time.
It was decided that we would buy a guard tower with our points and after getting one in each of the four directions we would save up for anything that was unlocked after the upgrade.
Buying a guard tower was different than buying the wall in that we had to decide where to place it. The wall automatically built itself at the edge of our claimed territory but the guard tower needed to be placed.
It could go anywhere inside of the walls but it was most effective as close to the wall as possible, so that's where it was placed. No one wanted to risk the possibility of not being able to buy it while a wave was active so it was agreed to place it now where the next wave was predicted to come from, the east.
We couldn't place it on the wall itself but just inside of it. It came into being much the same as the wall had and was just as mesmerizing to watch. It was held up by four posts on the corners reaching a height of 8 feet, where the wall was just barely passed the platform to stand on.
It made it so anyone standing on the wall had some cover to hide behind and could easily shoot over it. None of the waves so far had any ranged options but it was nice to be ready if that proved false. The tower platform was 6-foot square and had enough room for a few people to stand on but not enough for all the rangers and mages together. It would fit 4 comfortably and 5 if you wanted to push it. People needed room in order to shoot arrows or launch spells and packing them in any tighter than that would hinder that ability.
The platform had a roof extending a couple of feet past the platform that would keep the rain off anyone standing in it and looked sturdy enough to defend against any flying monster that would attack. It had the same enchantments as the wall running along its surface and felt just as sturdy.
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While we were going over the wall we had just built, in another place there was an attendant that was nervously pacing back and forth before a massive ornate double door.
Tsurandum Flameborn's POV
I had only been the attendant to my patron for less than a millennium and already I feared him greatly. My patron hated when things weren't as they should be and he hated being questioned even more.
Why does he make me do this in person? It would be a thousand times easier if I could just send it over magically like I did with everything else, but this was special. No magic communication and no telepathy over great distances either. My patron demanded an in-person briefing and wouldn't be swayed from his decision.
Calm down, I told myself. I had already gone over everything hundreds of times and knew the information by heart. Any question he could ask I knew the answer to.
With one final sweep with my spiritual sense to make sure everything was in order and my uniform was without wrinkles, I walked into his office.
Heat was the first thing that hit me, but by now I had long gotten used to it. At first, it was uncomfortable to walk through flames that could harm even me, but over time I got used to it. The last person to request to go over the flames was promptly burnt to death a half second later. That attendant was used as an example to not ask questions, which was what I was about to go do.
It didn't take long to make my way through the heat and flames and reach the heart of my patron's domain where he waited seated upon his throne. His seat of power glowed to my spiritual sense with how powerful it was. I knelt at the foot of his throne and waited until I was acknowledged. Speaking out of turn was another story that didn't have a nice ending.
This not being my first time here made the wait more bearable but it was still unpleasant. It was right when I started to sweat that I was finally given acknowledgment and permission to speak.
I went through my report swiftly and without any errors and the only response was a slight nod of his head. It was normally now that I would turn and leave but I stayed where I was with my head down.
"Do you have something else to report" The words sounded so normal but one look was enough to know to tread carefully with what I was about to say.
"A question, sir, if I may?" I was being as respectful as possible and could only hope that I wouldn't end up dead.
"What is it?" That was good news. If he was in a bad mood I would already be ash.
"Everything is already set up for the next wave and everything is prepared, but I still don't understand the reason behind lowering the difficulty. I plead with you to enlighten me." I said.
This was the first time I was in charge of an integration tutorial and my patron had specific instructions laid out for what was to happen. It was difficult to run something that I didn't understand and that prompted me to ask my question.
These humans were nothing special and their world didn't even have any essence to begin with. They had to all start as lowly H ranks and would never amount to anything before dying so quickly.
Only a limited few reached divinity in each integration and the odds of one coming from some backwater planet, with no essence, and the population starting in the H rank, was minuscule to say the least. Statistically insignificant was more accurate. It was another reason that prompted my question.
"This is not the first time I've done this and through trial and error, this had proved to be the best so far. It's no fun if it gets too difficult too fast, it's the gradual loss of hope that's most satisfying." He said with a grim smile on his face, "Tell me, how many groups have received a casualty so far?"
I knew the numbers by heart and answered him immediately, "92%, sir."
"And the most deaths in a single group?" He asked.
"7, sir," I replied.
"Now that they have realized that this isn't a game and the consequences are quite real, they will put in more effort. They will fight tooth and nail to survive and do everything in their power to get stronger. If we kept increasing the difficulty it wouldn't be as fun to watch. They would continuously lose people until it got too hard and a wave would wipe them out. There would only be despair and people would give up." He said
"That is not the purpose of what I am doing. Now that they know this is serious, I want to watch them struggle, even thrive in some cases. It makes it all the more fun to take it away later. It's not being faced with the sudden realization that you are going to die that makes this so fun, it's making them realize it and that there's nothing they can do about it. They might think they can fight their way through this and some might hold out hope till the end, and those are the people to watch. It makes it so much better watching them fall."
As he was going through his speech it shifted from answering my question to him mostly talking to himself. By the end, there was a wicked look in his eye that sent shivers down my spine.
I feel sorry for those poor souls. They were insects but it was always better to receive a swift end compared to the performance that they were forced into.