27.

The stone was wrapped up carefully in the shredded remnants of several shirts, then cocooned in a wad of tape. The moment the cursed stone was completely covered everyone received a notice from the system that was a welcome surprise.

Minor Achievement:Twice-Cursed Stone contained.

Curse of Gluttony (Lesser)

Curse of Greed (Lesser)

Reward: Potential (Minor)

“What the fuck is this reward?” Chloe spat as she stared up into empty space. Santi could empathize with her, potential wasn’t something that anyone would know yet. How could they? He wasn’t allowed to tell them how powerful it was, just how much potential they would need to grow further and faster than anyone else.

“It’s better than a poke in the eye. Let’s make sure it stays contained though,” Santi cut off any more complaining before it began. He needed to pick his level five skill as soon as possible and then he’d check to see how much potential he had earned. They just needed to get somewhere safe first.

“Daniel, let’s get out of here. You and Hana lead us out. Everyone else, let’s drag these carts.” Santi did his best to be authoritative, but it didn’t come naturally. Everyone grumbled about for a few moments before gathering their supplies and moving out.

Santi was ready for a nap and it had only been a few hours since he woke up. The tension of the walk over here followed by the fight had left him drained. With just a thought he was able to ascertain that it was exactly 2:17.

The trip back to their base wasn’t as bad as getting to the store had been. Corona and the others hadn’t been in the plaza when they came out. The streets were eerily still, with only a gentle spring breeze pushing around leaves to give any sign of life.

Santi chose speed over discretion, the heavily laden carts impossible to move without causing a ruckus. Santi never took his hand off of the pommel of his sword, his Air Current skill running at full power to give him any sort of warning.

They heard the camp before they saw it. The sounds of metal on metal and cries of hard work. For a split second Santi had thought it was the sounds of fighting, but his worry increased when he realized it wasn’t. They turned the deserted corner and were met by a barricade of abandoned cars.

Stretched out across the entire street, from front yard to front yard was a line of cars. A four foot gap stood in the middle of the street allowing people to walk through, a pair of sentinels standing guard with homemade spears.

“What the actual fuck?” Santi asked himself as he watched dozens of people scurrying about. There were way more than the hundred and fifty people he had left behind. Closer to triple that number if he was forced to guess.

The carts of supplies they were lugging seemed small and pathetic in the face of the masses who had gathered around the hideout. Not a hideout now, but a central base to work out of. Santi wanted to scream in frustration. A vein ticked on his forehead as he realized they weren’t going to be able to slowly build their strength. This was such a cluster of people, of experience and potential, that the local monster population wouldn’t be able to leave them alone.

“Is it just me, or is there a lot more people now?” Trevor asked earnestly, as he looked at everything wide-eyed. Santididn’t want to judge him, but he was judging him.

“Yes, Trevor. There are more people here. Tell me, when you learned numbers, did you stop in the third or the fourth grade?” Chloe asked so sweetly that Santi couldn’t help but feel bad for Trevor. It wasn’t like the boy was dumb.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

“I did struggle a lot with fractions. How can you only have part of a number? Like, I don’t get it. I think that was fourth grade, maybe fifth.” Trevor blundered into it without blanching. Santi revised his previous opinion on Trevor’s intelligence.

“What were you doing at school?” Daniel cut in, emerging from the shadows of a close house.

“Athletic scholarship! They were worried about my grades though, so I had to hire a tutor to get in.”

“Oh, well there’s a lot to be said about taking the responsibility to hire a tutor to advance yourself,” Chloe gave in, face slick with sweat as she hauled her carts.

“Oh yeah, he was super expensive, but he did all my homework for me and got me to a C average, so like, worth it.”

“That’s not a tutor,” Daniel started but trailed off as everyone looked at bland faced Trevor. He was built like an Olympian, muscles bulging as he hauled his carts without a concern.

“Good work Trevor,” Hana chimed in, a smile starting to spread across her face as they walked through the center of the line of cars, the two sentinels not even asking who they were. Santi could feel his blood pressure ratcheting up. If they were going to bring in this many people and have guards standing around, then they should be doing guard things. Like challenging people as they walked through defensive perimeters.

“It’s only been a few days. Only a few days,” Santi muttered to himself as he looked over everything they were doing and wanted to point out where they were wrong. What was the point in having a line of cars on the ground when monsters could scale houses? If you have sentinels, why are they on the ground level? Where are the roaming patrols?

“Head straight for the base. We will store this and then find out what’s going on.” Santi gave his orders and quickly dropped off the shopping carts to the base. They had managed to pry open the front gates, allowing everyone to simply walk straight in. People were flowing in and out and Santi felt a flicker of fear for his valuables.

The rift stone was too valuable to be left alone for some random person to walk off with it. Now with the cursed stone too. They’d have to find a storeroom to place the valuables for guarding. Nobody should know the value of the rift stone or twice cursed stone, aside from his fellow regressors. If they were here, then Santi had a lot more problems than some missing spoils of war.

“Oh, you’re Santi?” a woman asked. She was in her early twenties, dirt streaked across her face and her fine blonde hair was matted. She was wearing an oversized sweater and holding a clipboard as their group walked in.

“Yup. You are?”

“Brandy, like the drink. Dexter told me to stay here and log everything brought in or out. You know, an inventory.” She spoke slowly and carefully, each word precisely pronounced.

“Well then, Brandy, like the drink, this is what we brought back.” Santi waved at the line of carts they had painfully pushed for over a mile.

“Is that all you brought?” Brandy asked while her face fell looking at the carts loaded with supplies. Santi had to bite back from snapping at her as his frayed patience was held together by the finest of threads.

“There were a lot less people here when I left this morning.”

“Ohhh, yeah. That’s Dexter. He had people go and knock on doors to tell people there was a safe place. Some people took him up on it, not everyone but a lot. I did!” Brandy seemed to be one of those perpetually perky people, never staying down for more than a moment.

“I see that. Do you know where Dexter is?”

“Yeah, he’s working with the others out front. They’re trying to build a wall. To keep all those monsters out.”

“I got that. Thanks for counting everything.” Santi spun on his heel and walked away before he exploded. The whiplash of emotions over the week was exhausting. First he had been weepy and sad, lost in the memories of things that he wouldn’t allow to happen. Now, his anger was like a physical thing, brewing in his chest with the force of a storm.

Tank was easy to find, standing head and shoulders over everyone else. He was just a block over and to the side, helping shove cars together. Teams of men and women worked tirelessly, breaking windows and pushing cars to where a team of burly men in neon orange shirts directed them too. It was Tank taking orders that had Santi hesitate. He was doing what they asked him to, pushing and shoving with the strength of two men. He wasn’t supposed to be taking orders, he was supposed to be giving them.

Santi didn’t trust strangers to listen to him when he spoke. That was Tank’s job. He would do all of the minutiae of running a camp, while Santi did the fighting. That had been the agreement. So why was he letting himself be bossed around by a bunch of random strangers?