Suddenly a window popped up, “Calculating Tutorial Prize…” It didn’t change for a few minutes and then suddenly a pop-up appeared, “30,983 Civilians saved! One month and five days until completion! 8852 exp rewarded to all survivors!” Don smiled, “So even the kids will be strong enough to get away on their own now. That’s like 5 levels of xp at the start.” Neither Bradley nor Don leveled up from this award, and Bradley was pissed, seeing as his reward was ruined by those Corpo bastards, until another window appeared for just him, “Congratulations to Bradley Terrey for the Largest Contribution of the Tutorial! Your Reward will be a Title Befitting your Actions and a Silver Loot Crate.”
Bradley checked his inventory first, pulling the loot box out of his inventory, and cracking it open, “Rewarded: 10x Tier 4 Spell Crystals, +5 Mana Stat, Emergency Shelter + Blueprint.” Bradley then quickly checked his title, “Scheming Commander: +5 Intelligence, Increase in chance someone trusts you by +20%” Bradley couldn’t help but be happy at his rewards. “Don, it’s about time for us to gather everyone up, the citizens and the soldiers.”
With those words another window popped up, “In 24 hours, transport to Earth will commence. Please maintain position within the barrier when the timer ends or you won’t return.” Suddenly a blue bubble surrounded the city and only the city. No one outside of the walls would be allowed back in 24 hours. Bradley smirked, “I had a feeling it would be something like this. Just didn’t expect the wall to be so closed in.” Bradley and Don ran down to the main encampment, and they opened the gates for the returning squads.
“Everyone, gather around! I want to inform you of where we go from here! I do not believe that when we get out, where we end up will be safe. I think it might be more forest. I received, as a bonus gift from the system, an emergency shelter. Also it is very clear what warped in with us replaced the forest that used to be here. I want us to gather up the civilians, give out as much food and water bottles as we can manage per person, and escort the civilians the few miles it will take to hopefully reach regular land. The numbers don’t look great for protecting civilians, so we must attempt to teach as many as possible how to use their systems so they can at least flee.”
Bradley sighed, “I know many of you are horrendously low on ammo, so I will be delegating some melee weapons to as many people as I can make from monster corpses. If anyone received a message about a special gift please stay here, otherwise begin gathering the civilians for further instruction. Thank you for all your hard work!”
Bradley stepped back from the podium, and most of the members dispersed except for Squad 0. One of the cooks whose job was to cook and delegate monster meat approached him from a distance, “Hello sir, I got a message about a special reward, and my class even changed from classless. I received a bronze prize box which held High Grade Cooking Tools, and an Emergency Shelter. My class changed to chef, which allows me to create meals with stamina and mana regeneration, and I can see where monsters' critical points are.”
Bradley nodded along, “Good work, you may stay with Squad 0 along with any people close to you for better protection. Discuss with Ben your strategic value.” The cook ran up to Ben, and Joel approached Bradley, “I also got a bronze box, and discussing it with the rest of Squad 0, we all did. Something class specific, and then an emergency shelter. I got smoke bombs that erase my presence within the cloud.” Bradley put his hand out, “Give me one.”
Joel looked a bit confused but handed one over, “Deconstruct! Withdraw 10!” Bradley went to work using his kit to put back together the smoke bomb. It took a few minutes due to the precision of the job, but he finished it and got the blueprint. “Here, I just wanted to know what ingredients it needed to craft. The system lets me use generic items that fulfill certain purposes. Like a spell crystal full of mana, A black powdery substance that works as an incendiary. Stuff like that. I think we’ll be able to find stuff like this out in the world to make more instead of relying entirely on the system.”
Joel nodded in agreement, and pocketed the bomb, “What do we do about the Corpo fucks who killed everyone?” Bradley smiled, “I have the head manager of USDC covering up what happened to the other companies, shhh.” Joel smiled a little, “Thank you. It’s so hard to see you as just another citizen when you’re all geared up and leading. Trisha was falsely accused of assault and shipped off here, and I joined her hoping to keep her safe. Before the siege we were promised by many reps, and threatened by others, to get outside the walls, fight, and then we’d be free. No one knew what would happen, but it was a slaughter. Trisha wasn’t the only one I was trying to protect.” Joel’s hands began to shake, and he put them in his pocket to hide it, “Anyways, thanks for training us up and saving us. Means a lot coming from someone who knows what it's like to live here.”
Bradley sat down, and leaned back against the podium, “I was the first person to figure out we weren’t on Earth anymore, and once that happened I just accepted everything that happened and what was yet to come. I was almost happy the real world wasn’t on the outside of the walls anymore. I finally had a way to stand on my own, and raise up those I saw fit. Luckily Ben was here too, that guy burned through my savings to start a career as an RPG UTuber. He knew stuff I didn’t, and helped me organize everyone to minimize casualties, but after the huge death toll at the start, that didn’t exactly feel great.”
Bradley picked himself up, after seeing the soldiers begin returning with the leftover civilians, “It’s about time to start prepping for our return. I don’t know how we’ll be treated, but it’ll be best for us in Squads to pretend to be USDC soldiers for as long as possible. Since otherwise we don’t know what the government will do with us returning. Anyways, let’s get ready.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
With that Bradley started shouting orders through the intercoms and from the podium. Delegating work between the squads, ordering any carcasses to be brought to him, and general information for the children and their guardians to go work with.
After he finished, he delegated Devin to go grab those who were leftover in the USDC building, and he began deconstructing the bodies. “Fuck, it’s hard to sharpen bone.” Bradley grunted as he crafted his first monster bone blade. “Blueprint received: Goblin Blade!” Bradley took a deep breath, and began repeatedly shouting Goblin Blade until he went red in the head. A pile of usable weapons lay next to him, a mishmash of tendons, flesh, skin, and bone. Apparently more useful than real weapons since it's made from system-provided ingredients.
He had them passed out to anyone who was willing to take them, a total of around 14,000 blades across an entire night. He had to repeatedly recharge, but after he did it for a while, he became able to create 10 blades at a time, then 100 at a time. His skill grew to a new level. Bradley passed out at 4am after experiencing another bout of mana exhaustion.
When he woke up, he saw the timer was down to about 4 hours left before transmission. He took a stroll around the camp, monitoring the newly healed injured, the new trainees, and the organization created by those who were quickly depositing all their belongings before the time came. Kids didn’t run and play, instead they mourned and prepared. There were about 15,000 children, 10,000 caregivers, and 5,000 cowards among the normal citizenry. The children old enough trained with their caregivers, while the cowards maintained a closeness with Bradley’s personnel.
The time gradually came closer, and at two hours till everyone was ordered to rest until transport. They were to maintain in clusters of around 30, with a trained awakened next to them. If the awakened was classless, they had less than 30, and depending on the class, clusters were bigger. Those with stronger protectors were positioned closer to the edge of the formation, while less experienced were held in the center. It was a large mass of people who had to march a few miles in treacherous woods. It wouldn’t be easy.
If they’re rushed by a horde of goblins, there would be tons of problems, luckily everyone was leveled up at the end of the tutorial, so they should be able to maintain a good pace with ease. The timer ticked down, closer and closer until it happened.
The sky lit up, filled once again with the streaking falling stars, and then everyone was dropped within the forest. Their positions were maintained, except ensuring no one was teleported inside of a tree or rock. “Okay everyone, we will be moving out now! Maintain formation, and if in danger run in the general direction that we are heading. March!” Bradley screamed as loud as he could to make sure everyone heard, even if it meant alerting the enemy.
HM was being drug along by Devin, “You all did amazing work, I’ll be sure to award you handsomely once we get out of here. There’s about a thousand of you so $20,000 a piece?” Bradley laughed, “That’s a pitiful amount for putting your life on the line, and besides I have a feeling the world is going to be different.” HM seemed confused, “What do you mean the world is going to be different?” Bradley asked a simple question, “Do you think this only happened to us?”
HM’s look of shock was written across his face, “Ohh, so what’s going to happen to us now?” Bradley sighed, “Those who have awakened strong abilities will either be treated as heroes, and companies will want to find uses for the monster by-products to make money, or we’ll be government dogs who have to risk our lives. Those are our two options. But I have another deal for you.”
Hm perked up, “Ohh, another one of your deals, I’m probably in, let me hear it.” Bradley smiled, “I’ve already figured out several uses for the bodies of monsters. What if you formed a new branch of USDC where you sold these by-products using your USDC connections, and maybe even training services for novice awakened. I can think of a few other things, but in general it would be a company entirely focused on awakened, mobilizing awakened, doing jobs for the government etc.”
HM thought for a moment, “You want to use a private business to manage contracts between you and the government then? I’m guessing because it’s harder to force a company as big as USDC than individuals. What’s my cut?” Bradley thought for a moment, “I’ll give you 15% profits solely to you.” Hm thought for a moment, “It’s hard to know if that’s good without knowing what’s going on out there, and it isn’t like it's easy to just start a new branch of USDC.”
“It is when you were the one who managed to maintain the lives of your workers, saved the criminal citizens, and even managed to bring back valuable assets such as armored vehicles and water trucks.” HM laughed, “You make a good point, I’ll support it as long as I profit from it. Sound fair?” Bradley nodded, and with that agreement, almost like the goblins were waiting for the conversation to end, began rushing in. At least they were about to, until they saw the numbers. They had maybe a squad of 200, but were faced with a wall of powerful people.
Bradley laughed, “Don! Move to the right and shock the bastards!” Don quickly rotated position, “Chain Lightning! Chain Lightning! Chain Lightning!” Don took a deep breath, and looked at the torched corpses. “Got them sir!” Bradley nodded, “Everyone, it seems like our numbers and levels are frightening to the creatures, maintain calm, and any members near the corpses, begin extraction of the corpses!” Bradley smiled, ‘This is going easier than I expected. Just another hour or two of forest walking and we’re done.’
They continued marching, each time a large squad of goblins appeared, they froze in fear and the same thing repeated. Ben detected wolves but they didn’t dare approach a group so big. There were no signs of Orcs or Ogres. It was strange, but they didn’t mind the peace. With the edge of the forest in sight, a growl from the back startled the group. A large Ogre began slowly stumbling towards the group, unafraid of the numbers.
“Don, cast auto-aim on me!” Don ran over, “Target’s Heart!” “Greaseball! Greaseball! Greaseball!” Bradley launched several waterballs modified with the grease spell to make the liquid cause anything it touches to lose friction. That liquid dripped down the body of the Ogre, causing it to topple over. “Alright everyone, we had a close call but we are safe now. Maintain formation and exit the forest.”