The next day they resumed the clearing of the town which went a bit faster with the four extra bodies there to help. It still took them nearly the whole day and the group killed over 600 Mana beasts. Most of the beast here were between lvl 13-18. With Aiden and Victoria now back in their original party of two and with their total kill count at 155 beasts and 3 elites they each earned a total of 8,725 essence earning them each a level.
Amid their fighting, towards the end of the day, their group happened upon two people hiding out in an apartment above a grocery store that was half destroyed. They were a married couple (Laura and Sebastian) in their late 20’s that owned the grocery store and the apartment above. They were trapped inside and though they tried many times they were unable to get out as the number of beasts roaming the area was too much for them to handle.
As it turned out they were both awakened with the husband at lvl 3 and the wife still at lvl 0. Aiden added them both to his party to get them some much needed level’s. He had them wait upstairs till they were finished clearing out the town. They sadly didnt find anymore survivors after that.
Once they were done, Aiden once more gave the new people the spiel about the Guardians and they now had two more members. Quickly checking the Organization tab in the menu he confirmed that they both joined and now there were 13 member other then himself in the Order of the Guardians.
They once again looted anything of value to them, this time focusing more on luxury items like clothes, as well as entertainment items like books comics etc. They got back just before nightfall with two new members to Eden which now had a total population of 129 souls. The residents had been busy while the Guardians were away and had started planting seeds out in the fields with a few people instructing others on how it was done.
Some others had prepared food and so everyone hung around in the small park, ate, and got to know each other. Aiden supposed he would need to construct a building for the community to hang out in for these sorts of activities.
Checking his Credit count both his own and the towns he saw he had just enough. With the town saving’s he currently had just over 72,000 credits and with his own 30,000 he had enough to buy what was called a large Community Hall in the shop for 100,000 credits.
The Hall had a large kitchen connected to a large hall with over 3 dozen tables each meant to seat 8 people. It also had 8 other smaller rooms with chairs and couches and smaller round tables to hang out and talk in if you wanted more privacy. It was a pretty decent setup and could be using for small community gatherings and meetings as well as a general place to hangout during down time, or just a place for the cooks to serve everyone food.
Aiden got the people attention and let them know what he was about to do then accessed the menu and confirmed the purchase placing the Community Hall right next to the Bathhouse. The new residents who hadn’t seen this before were staring dumbfounded as the building constructed itself. It was done in 10 minutes and everyone relocated there for the rest of the evening.
Aiden and the rest of the guardians eventually secluded themselves in one of the side rooms once people started heading to bed, for a bit of a discussion on what was next. Aiden listened to everyone’s opinions on their next move and the consensus was that everyone one would be staying around town for now and going out daily to fight monsters getting stonger and bring in food for the townspeople while Aiden and Victoria would head out to the other protected domes that were seen on the first day to try and find more survivors.
There were two more such places close by as well as other areas in the region they could check, such as secluded homes, if they were still standing. So they would be going out to find these places as well as scouting out the surrounding area for any threats to Eden. Cassandra asked about heading to the mountains to the north so she could possibly make use of her Mining class with Chris seconding the opinion since he also chose mining.
Those that chose balcksmithing and armorsmithing also quickly agreed since they could do nothing without ore or metal to work with. In the short term they would head over in to the town they just cleared of monsters and bring back any workable metals they could use but it was decided that in two or three days they would head north to the closest mountain range which was about 8-10 miles away just inside Fengaria's northern border.
“Alright every one, I guess that concludes tonight’s meeting. Victoria and I will be leaving tomorrow morning heading south. If we want this venture to succeed we won't be able to return here daily. I’m not sure how long this will take but we’ll try and get back within a week. Be careful and take care of yourselves out there while we're gone. Try and limit yourselves to exploring the immediate area and don’t go anywhere alone out there. Good night everybody.”
Once they were both ensconced in bed they spent the rest of the evening learning some more about their pasts and enjoying each others company. When they were well and truly tired they relaxed into their comfortable bed they would be sorely missing in the coming days and drifted off to sleep.
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They spent about an hour in the morning gathering some supplies for their journey, Aiden making sure to take his woodworking tools so he could work on the class when they would stop to rest. Before they set out they both climbed the town walls to get a better vantage point of the surrounding area.
The view was still just as breathtaking and Aiden had to take a moment to just take it all in. Off to the north there was a small mountain chain that was eclipsed by a much larger one even further north. To the west and south there was forest as far as the eye could see with some hills and clearings peppering the area. They headed back down and out the gate and began their journey south.
As they jogged through the forest along the river which was headed south as well they kept an eye out for any signs of monsters or buildings. They sometimes went past a downed power pole overgrown with moss, or over some remaining pavement from a road or a highway. There seemed to be remnants of their civilization everywhere, slowly being consumed by the forest.
As they went further and further away the monsters became more dangerous and more exotic. One such monster being a slime that they quickly learned was highly resistant to physical damage, not having a real way to do enough damage to kill it they moved on since it was too slow to follow them.
They were now about 10 miles south of Eden and were looking for a safe place to camp for the night but coming up empty. There was now a light rain falling and the clouds seemed to be getting darker signalling a heavier rainfall. They were hoping to find a cave or even a large hole in a tree they could take shelter in for the night to stay safe and out of the rain.
Finally they came across what used to be a train tunnel that somehow survived with out too much damage that they could see. They both lit torches and headed inside to see if they could possibly take shelter there. They made it inside just as thunder sounded out in the distance and the rain intensified.
After 5 minutes of walking they came across a dead end, the tunnel was caved in and the way ahead was blocked. They saw no way to go further this way. They could feasibly just stay in the tunnel for the night but it was quite large and open and leaving themselves vulnerable to attack at night was not a smart idea. They would have to take shift's staying awake if they wanted to camp here.
Fortunatly on their way back towards the enterance they noticed a door at the side of the tunnel they had missed before. It was quite small and hard to see in the dark. They were in front of it now with Aiden preparing to kick the locked door in.
Aiden looked back at Victoria who was off to the side preparing to shoot in case something came out. She nodded her readiness and Aiden kicked in the door making a large clanging noise as it swung inward and hit the wall on the other side.
Nothing immediatly attacked them and they didn't hear anything coming so they both went inside and looked around. The door led to hall way that curved right and spanned as far as they could see. From a sign on the wall the learned this was a 'maintenance tunnel' that presumable spanned its entire length. They trekked a bit and eventually found an unlocked door that led to a storage room with tools and replacement parts of all kinds.
Aiden locked the door behind them once they were inside and pulled out a small Mana lamp he purchased before they left, to use as a light source instead of torches or a campfire. They set up their sleeping bags on two work tables they pushed together so they didn’t have to sleep on the cold concrete. They ate some left over cooked meat that stayed fresh in their inventories from the day before while Aiden worked a bit on his woodworking class, carving little figurines of animals.
Victoria meanwhile continued with the book she started to read the day before. Eventually they were both ready to head to bed so they removed most of their gear, keeping their weapons close by just in case. Aiden set the light of the Mana lamp to a lower setting, just enough so they could still see somewhat, and they turned in for the night.
Aiden was startled awake by a scratching noise coming from behind the door. ‘What the hell is that?’ He shook Victoria awake while getting up and checking the time. It was still before sunrise. They quickly donned their gear and got ready to fight. They each drank a night vision potion and Aiden walked up to the door with his sword already drawn. He quickly opened the door and jumped back and he was glad he did as a bunch of ants the size of dogs quickly rushed in.
“Fuck” Aiden cursed and instinctivly slashed against the first one that was coming at him, splitting its face in half and sending it flying back into another one. “Get on the table and fight from there” He took a quick glance and watched as Victoria jumped up on the table into a crouch and shot an arrow at another one of the ant’s. Aiden backed up slightly to give her a better angle and continued to hack away at the things.
A minute later he was getting worried, they had killed maybe two dozen of them already and they kept coming in large numbers, now not only from the ground but on the walls and ceiling as well. He was already down to 60% health not being able to defend or evade the sheer number of them. Most were only level 10 but there were already dozens of corpses littering the floor with more coming, in increasing quantities. ‘Shit, we need to leave now or we'll be trapped in here and eaten alive!’
Making the decision he cast a frost wave at a cluster of them in front of the door while shouting “Switch to the spear and follow me!” He activated both battle and rush aura running head first into the now even larger group of ants cleaving his way through and creating a path out of the room with Victoria right behind him batting away any ants that got too close with her spear.
Once outside he noticed that there were a lot more of them, possibly hundreds more, all coming from the direction they entered yesterday. There was a hole in the wall that wasn’t there before and they were pouring out of it by the dozen, coming their way from the floor, walls, and ceiling, like a wave of insect death coming to swallow them whole.
Aiden swallowed heavily and cursed. There was no way they could leave that way now, meaning they only had one choice. They both turned and ran in the opposite direction, which still had some ants they had to fight through, and headed deeper into the tunnel. They quickly got passed the few ants in that direction and outpaced the slower monsters. Aiden only hoped there was another way out or they were screwed.