Chapter 10: Wasted potential

“Unlucky that she picked the summoner class, she seemed promising.”

General stone had left his stack of paperwork and quiet contemplation is his office for his war meeting, then had it interrupted by Sarah’s abrupt entrance.

“She is definitively hiding something. Although all that have chosen the summoner class have been useless thus far, or at least in comparison to our warriors and mages, there is definitely more to her than meets the eye.”

“How can you tell, General?”

“Normally most cannot even meet my eyes when in the presence of my aura, a consequence of my stats, but she seemed far more composed.” The General replied. He neglected to mention the feeling of unease that she gave him when he walked in, some kind of feeling that she was tainted. But who am I to judge.

“Not that the stats are really useful” one of the commanders grumbled under his breath.

The General, while annoyed at the comment, could not refute it. Status, he thought.

Name: General Brandon Stone

Race: Human

Class: Warlord (Rare)

Level: 14

Strength: 39

Agility: 10

Wisdom: 13

Intelligence: 10

Vitality: 81 [+130]

Endurance: 23

Charisma: 6

Unused Stat Points: 0

Perks:

* [Adaptive] - +1 free stat points per level.

* [Blessed] - +130 Vitality

He still felt unhappy at being called a Warlord, but it was a rare class that had good bonuses of +2 str, +1 vit, +1 end, +3 free points per level. Unfortunately, the strength is not as useful to him as vitality is. His curse had made him focus all his free points into vitality.

[Curse of Decay]

* There is undead mana infecting your body. You are unable to use any mana until you are cured.

* The curse is slowly growing stronger as it consumes your mana, fighting against your vitality.

At least his class didn’t give him any points in intelligence or wisdom, seeing as he couldn’t use mana. He could feel the curse slowly eating through his body. Sure, only his hand had any visible signs, as decayed as it looked, but it felt like there was something burning through his veins across his whole body. Thank God, quite literally, that the blessing had come when it did, or the curse would have already killed him.

[Blessed]

* A blessing from Archangel Michael, the general of the armies of Heaven.

* Gain bonus stat points for each person that pledges their allegiance to you.

* Current bonus: +130 Vitality.

There were around 6000 people in his camp, most of those civilians, but only around 2000 had pledged their allegiance. The first 1000 gave 100 stat points, while the next only gave another 30. It made sense that it would scale down, but at this stage he wanted every point he could to stay alive.

The army swore over to him immediately. After getting the bulk of the higher level soldiers that took part in the battle to pledge their allegiance, many of the other military personnel soon followed. He had control of the bulk of the base’s military force, and after realising even that may not be enough he did not hesitate to strong-arm the remaining troops.

It was simple. Swear, or leave. And after the first few survivors started flooding in everyone realised that it was a death trap beyond the compound.

He had tried to conscript many more into his army, but they both needed to be at least level 1 and, as a key factor, willing to pledge under him.

Thousands of civilians came in, and any that had a level swore over to him immediately. He was already organising programs to get those without levels to go hunting in packs with some of his soldiers to get him more stats. The more levelled, the more vitality, the more time he has.

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But how much is enough. Over 200 points in vitality and he still couldn’t beat this curse. Admittedly, it was far worse after the battle, when his vitality was low, but he had acted quick enough to survive.

Which left him in his current position. At least the high vitality makes me a good tank. At this point a bullet wound heals practically instantly, although I can’t help but feel high endurance to make the bullet just bounce off me would be a bit more useful, and slightly less painful.

But he knew that vitality had its own uses. He could cut off his own arm and it would heal back instantly, something he knew from practice in his attempt to destroy the curse, but it still resided in him afterwards, as if locked not onto his arm but onto his soul itself.

Perhaps if I had cut it off the moment I was cursed I would be fine, he thought, thinking that if he had destroyed it before it could dig itself into him he may have had a chance.

Mourning his indecisiveness at the time, his attention was taken back to the war table.

“A half-giant, the girl said, taking over the southern side, let’s hope this doesn’t push the wolves that were reported there up towards us. Any reports regarding their boss monster?” A commander asked the table.

“None, we think it may have been the subject of the explosion. But the only confirmed boss death we have so far is the necromancer. Although its companion is still roaming around.”

The rest of the men around the desk couldn’t help but mutter angrily to themselves, cursing the death knight that had been plaguing their camp with its constant barrage of undead. However, they knew that once they had put some levels under their belt it would be time for them to fight back. Without the necromancer, the undead legion was down a huge portion of their fighting power. It did not take a genius to know they needed the necromancer to grow their forces and create high level undead, and missing this key component meant they could only bring forth some low-level skeletons. A necromancer roaming now would have been a death sentence when considering the sheer number of corpses that lined the streets.

Deciding to take part in the conversation, the General asked some questions himself. “What nationalities have arrived so far? Has it been our city that has moved elsewhere in the world, or other parts that have moved to our city?”

“It seemed we are still predominantly based in what used to be America, but we have had a large influx of Europeans, Australians, and Japanese. Despite the mix, people seem to be putting survival ahead of their own agendas or any racism right now, and considering we have both the number and strength advantage we don’t seem to be in any risk of losing power.”

He didn’t want to be the ruler, he had always been a fan of democracy, despite his commanding nature. But, with the blessing that required him to take charge in order to survive, he found himself thrust into a position of power. He had to be dominant, with some trial and error he found out that people can withdraw their allegiance. The last thing he needed was some group to come in and stir things up when every stat point was important to him.

“Are there any large groups of survivors around us, or is it just stragglers remaining?” The General asked.

“We have identified one group, located at a monastery that seemed to have been transported into the city. They seem to number over a thousand, and are located in the Goblin area. While facing the higher number of Level 5 Goblins has likely given them higher individual strength than our forces, they are also less well trained and face far higher casualties.”

Another commander took this opportunity to speak; “Surely with so much death and fear in their camp we can poach some of their warriors. They would find it easier to level up among a stronger and more organized force.”

While happy to hear that others were surviving, he wouldn’t hesitate for one second to steal members of the group. But with a sigh he addressed the Commanders in the room. “Unfortunately our easy levelling has worked against us, as many of the stronger survivors have reached around level 5 and so find the goblins as better prey than the low level skeletons. Our current location is too weak for us right now if we want to continue levelling our troops. But we may be able to poach more civilians considering the safety of our area.”

“We have too much trash in our camp already. If it were not for having converted over 1000 civilians to earth mages for our walls, I would consider it a waste. As it is, that required us to almost serve hundreds of skeletons on a platter to them so they could kill it with a rock to try and get the class.” One commander rebutted.

And another piped up in support. “What we need is higher level people to lead our forces. The strength that comes with levels means that quality will soon become far more important than quantity. Even if we were to turn 10,000 civilians into earth mages, it would be no more useful against the undead than our current forces are. We need to build up strong fighters that can face the Death Knight, or the Half-Giant, or any number of the greater beasts.”

“We are under-resourced as it is,” another commander stepped in, “we are lucky the base has so many MRI’s in storage and that levelling seems to do much to prevent hunger, because supplies are beginning to run out. Can we really afford more civilians?”

The rest of the table went quiet, knowing that while they were disagreeing with the General by opposing his idea to poach the weaker survivors, they were speaking the truth. However, they did not know about the internal conflict that waged war within the General’s body, as he had yet to tell a single soul about the curse for fear of having them lose faith in him. He himself needed quantity, but it was clear quality would be essential for the survival of his camp in the long run.

“We will expand towards the monastery. Send a forward party offering safety to those that will join us, the civilians should have trust in the military. While finding high levelled soldiers is important, lets focus on saving as many as we can for now. Continue to scout out the surrounding areas, we still have too much of this new world unexplored. Dismissed.”

Their respect for the General all rose at his words, admiring his push towards saving as many people as possible despite the cost.

None of them knew how little General Stone cared for the deadweight. Even glancing around at the table, all he saw was idiots too eager to give their opinion and unwilling to do the work. To kill. If it wasn’t so hard to manage so many troops he’d be rid of them already, but for now he’ll play the hero.

Whatever it takes to survive.

The men at the table had already forgotten their prior meeting with Sarah, and did not realise that the quality they so desperately needed was already slipping through their fingers.