The longer she stood there with Jean Paul and Louis awkwardly standing around her, the stronger her headache became. Nobody in the infirmary had a headache attached to them other than Jean Paul, and thankfully he was nothing compared to Arthur. But the longer she stayed the more she could feel the surroundings soak into her. Gritting her teeth and trying to disguise it, she asked, “do you mind if we go outside?”

Not waiting for a response, knowing that she wouldn’t follow through if it was negative, James opened the infirmary’s wooden door with a big push. Immediately she could breathe more easily, letting out a big breath she had unknowingly been holding in. Jean Paul and Louis quickly followed her, but not before exchanging a glance to see if one of them should stay in the infirmary and deciding otherwise.

“You don’t think it’s another attack, right?” Jean Paul spoke up as she leaned against the somehow cool stone wall. The contrast between it and the sunny area was deeply satisfying and she felt herself calm down further as she closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was by herself. Granted, it was a weird thing to imagine given she was holding a conversation with two other people, but she tried anyway.

“Don’t tell me you believe it too?” She kept her eyes closed so she didn’t see Louis shrug while Jean Paul answered aloud for both of them.

“It was pretty convincing.”

“No, this one is pretty directly caused by Christian leaving, the other one was random.” She answered both their question as well as her own. She opened her eyes, disappointed she had to leave her own private meadow, and looked at her two bodyguards.

“One of you should probably stay in the infirmary in case anyone suddenly needs help and can’t call out. I’ll come over; I can handle it for a few minutes until Christian comes.” Jean Paul shook his head.

“No can-do, Miss,” he gave her a grin, this time she was sure about it. She scowled at the new nickname. It wasn’t cute. “We’re your bodyguards, not their’s. Arthur would break our necks if we disobeyed him.”

“Really?” She could see it, though she was surprised it took him such a short amount of time to adapt to this new System reality where the strong ruled. And it was clear Arthur was the strongest around. She wondered if that was the case before the System too, or if he was just able to best take advantage of it when it came along.

It was especially impressive since it didn’t seem that people in the clearing were overly scared of him. He was clearly more skilled in leadership than she’d given him credit for if he’d managed to foster this type of loyalty within a week of the Tutorial starting.

“No, no! No way Arthur would reduce our numbers. There are enough monsters doing that for us anyway.” Jean Paul looked horrified, “Arthur is honestly the only reason we’ve been doing so well. He’s active military, some type of special forces. Thankfully, he had his leave when the System initiation happened, so he’s been able to take charge of everything.”

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The thought was sobering. Jean Paul, and Louis too, she could tell from his nodding, really believed that. They truly believed that the only reason they hadn’t seen more deaths was because Arthur was in the area. Maybe she’d wait to form her opinion on him.

“He hasn't sent anyone specific to the front lines?” She still couldn’t help but ask, feeling a bit salty after how she was treated. Logically she knew she should probably drop it, everyone seemed to respect Arthur and she continued to prod at his authority. But she couldn’t help it. She was new to the Tutorial. Wasn’t it her responsibility to question everything? Especially now that she apparently wasn’t a lowly foot soldier. At least until Arthur figured out that she really couldn’t predict anything. Thankfully, neither seemed offended by her continued questioning of Arthur, though Jean Paul did scoff slightly.

“What front line? Everything is front lines when an attack comes. It’s a complete call to arms, at least unless you’re declared too injured by Christian and are in the infirmary.” James quickly revised her opinion of the good doctor. Obviously, he was much higher on the totem poll than she had previously thought. She really should have expected it, though, he was the single doctor in the whole Tutorial. Of course he would have some authority. Besides, he had gone off to Arthur the second he realized they had missed something. He clearly had his ear at least on some subjects.

She nodded her understanding, quickly glancing back into the infirmary to make sure nobody was somehow silently choking without her knowing about it and raising the alarm. Returning her gaze to the clearing, she registered that people weren’t training like before, instead clearing up the meadow from the monster attack.

It was the first time she saw one of the monsters, not having encountered them on her hike over. They were weird little creatures, resembling apes to a disturbing degree, except that their faces were also covered with fur. On average about three feet tall, at least if they were standing on two feet, their legs were shorter than their arms and they had opposable thumbs on their hands.

The monsters had spiky looking muted orange fur, which was freckled with tiny splatters of black and white. Looking at the edge of the forest, she supposed this gave them a surprisingly good disguise. In spots, the fur was matted with their purple tinged blood. Their mouths were large and stretched back further than she was comfortable with. In that they resembled a snake and she wondered what they could fit. From the injuries on the men in the infirmary whole hands were apparently on the menu. Full of spiky teeth, she shuddered as she continued to observe them.

Their eyes were closed, but she could tell they were very small, and she wondered how good their eyesight was. It couldn’t possibly be very good with eyes like that. Their nose was presumably covered in fur, because she couldn’t spot it. Overall, one of the weirdest animals she had ever seen, at least when you really started to look at their specific features.

“Do you just call them monsters?” She couldn’t help but ask.

“Well, most do, but that’s just because nobody wants to call them goblins. That’s what Identify has been saying.” Christian replied, his tone a bit annoyed, startled she looked away from the goblins to see that he’d come back. “Now, why aren’t you minding the infirmary?”