Dave and Paul gave it the effort of their lives, covering for Sam.

They fired stone after stone, Mana bullet after Mana bullet, as the hogs closed the distance. Paul managed to blind the previously half-blind hog and shoot out the eye of another one of the creatures. Dave managed to shoot the nearest one to him dead with two bullets to the head.

He knew it wouldn’t be enough. Sam slashed the closest surviving hog in the throat, and it began to bleed like the stuck pig that it was. But it also slammed into him like the last hog had. This time, Sam couldn’t brace himself at all. Dave saw his body fly through the air and heard Sam’s ribs cracking.

Then the half-blind hog and the bleeding hog converged on Sam’s body with their full weight.

“Ahh!” Sam cried out in pain. Dave could hear the sounds of the hogs’ tusks penetrating Sam’s body, and as he fired his gun, tears streamed down his face. He thought his friend was a goner. He didn’t know what else he could do.

“That’s enough of that.”

Robard’s quiet, firm voice somehow carried over the sounds of carnage, the sounds of goring tusks and trampling hooves. He leaped into the space next to Sam, and both hogs seemed to become instantly aware of him as their primary threat. They turned to attack him—and this time, Dave actually saw what he did.

Or he thought he saw. What his eyes told him seemed impossible, even in a world of magic.

Robard swung his right arm, almost casually, and the hogs fell apart, as if some giant sword had dismembered them with a diagonal cut. Dave was so close that he could actually hear the sound of the wind. He stepped closer. Was that it? Was Robard some sort of powerful wind-based Mage? That might explain how he was so fast, as well as this insanely powerful attack.

“Don’t get too close!” Robard barked.

Dave stepped back, startled at the sound. And he felt something like a sharp blade brush past him. He didn’t need to touch his face to know that a thin cut appeared on his cheek. After a long, quiet moment, a trickle of blood flowed from the delicate cut.

Jesus. What is he?

Dave turned his head to the tree nearest to where he’d been about to step. A deep gouge now marred the trunk.

If I’d been standing there… Dave pictured himself, lying disemboweled on the ground, bleeding out. And that was just the collateral damage. The real target was those hogs. The creatures that now lay in bloody pieces on the ground.

A few of the other hogs looked interested in continuing the fight where their dead brethren had left off, but Dave felt a terrifying Mana emanate from Robard then. It felt like a wave of hot anger. The air seemed to become heavier and denser.

The remaining hogs ran away.

Robard’s body glowed with the green aura of a Healer, confusing Dave further. Does he have multiple powers? Whichever powers he wants? Is his Class Swiss Army Warrior or something?

It didn’t matter now. What mattered was that Robard was healing his friend. Dave’s legs carried him forward without his conscious control now. He wanted to know if Sam was going to make it. As he pushed through the bushes, he could hear Robard muttering to himself.

“—pushed this way too far…”

His voice trailed off, and Dave immediately forgot that Robard had been saying anything anyway. Where his hands were, the wounds were knitting back together, which was good. But Dave feared it would be too slow. Sam was bleeding so heavily now. His center of mass had multiple visible punctures, and it was hard to tell where the hogs’ blood ended and Sam’s began.

“Do you need a potion? Would that help?” Dave asked, wringing his hands helplessly.

Robard shrugged his shoulders without changing the position of his body, head, or hands at all.

“I’m healing him as fast as I can,” he said. “I’ve seen worse. I believe he’ll pull through, but I’m not in the business of offering promises and guarantees at times like this. If you want to make it a guaranteed thing, you could pour something in his mouth.”

Dave reached into his Small Bag of Deceptive Dimensions and pulled out his last Health Potion, then advanced closer. But he saw then that the wounds were closing remarkably fast. Robard was able to shift his posture and place a hand on the less critical areas of the body that had also been gored. There were a couple of shallower holes in Sam’s right bicep and left thigh.

“They really did a number on him,” Robard said. “But your friend is going to pull through. Unless something else kills us.” He looked up from his bloody work and offered Dave a grim smile.

“Right,” Dave pronounced slowly.

“It’s okay,” Paul’s voice sounded far away, but it pulled at Dave, yanked him back from the dark place his mind wanted to go.

“Can one of you carry him?” Robard asked. The last of the wounds were closing up under his hands, but Sam was very pale and remained unconscious. “That way, I can keep a lookout for any other threats?”

“Sure,” Dave said. Something to do. Activity to occupy his hands so he didn’t have to use his mind. I almost lost my friend today. The thought came uncontrollably, and he shoved it down into the same dark place where he buried his other regrets.

Robard lifted Sam up, and he and Paul placed him carefully on Dave’s back.

Then Robard used a Skill on several of the hogs’ bodies that were grouped together around them. The bodies began to glow, and parcels of meat and other gear separated themselves from the beasts and floated into Robard’s bag.

He has some kind of group Loot Skill too? It would be exhausting to keep track of all this guy’s powers…

“If the gear isn’t anything special,” Paul said, “could we just throw the rest of the body parts into the bags? The System isn’t as efficient at using an animal carcass as a trained human can be, and Sam got the Job of Butcher in Orientation. I know he’ll want to make himself useful when he wakes up, and carving up the meat is the best way I can imagine for him.”

Robard seemed to consider this for longer than Dave would’ve expected. As if he had some reason why he wanted to keep using his Skill. After a long moment, though, he nodded.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Be quick,” he said. “There might be other things in these woods that aren’t so easily intimidated by me.”

Paul spent the next several minutes scrambling to gather all the bodies and pieces of bodies that he could find and throwing them into his bag.

Thank God those bags have expandable mouths, Dave thought. But as he thought that, his mind was on Sam. That was the big miracle today. And it wasn’t God who was responsible.

Dave looked up at Robard, who was staring down at him with what Dave read as guilt on his face. Why would he be guilty? Dave questioned.

“I shouldn’t have let things get that far,” Robard said softly.

That’s more responsibility than the man who sent us up Elephant Trunk Hill ever took, Dave thought. He knew he was being unfair to his command structure as he had the thought. But the aftermath of the Second Battle of Guilin had left him with scars both physical and mental, and it was hard to be fair in that context.

“You saved him,” Dave replied quickly, firmly, brooking no disagreement. “I wish you had been there with us in our Orientation.”

Robard nodded slowly. “I wish I could have been in several places at once already,” he said. “My wife and sister-in-law were stuck on their own in a pretty violent place.” He shook his head. “They still have a different last name,” he added.

“I hope they came through alright,” Dave said delicately.

“Somehow,” Robard said, smiling thinly. “And we got some pretty good rewards out of the whole experience.”

Dave wanted to ask him more about his Orientation, but suddenly Paul reappeared, breathless.

“I’m done, guys,” he said.

“Excellent,” Robard said. “Time to clear out of here, then.”

“Can we head back via a more direct route?” Dave asked, looking at James. “I’m happy to carry him as far as we need to, but I’m afraid of what might happen if we ran into another enemy right now.”

“I understand,” Robard replied. He looked around and sniffed the air as if monitoring for something Dave was unaware of. “We’ll try it.”

Robard led the way back. Instead of the winding trail they had followed to get here, he made a beeline for the borders of what he’d identified as his territory. As they followed after him, though, he began to slow down.

As they approached a small body of water, Paul took a few steps past Robard, eager to walk through it. Dave saw Paul’s feet beginning to sink into the muddy ground.

“Stop,” Robard said.

Dave had already stopped. He was standing behind Robard. Something felt dangerous about the area, though he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Paul looked set to take another step forward, and Robard clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you meant me,” Paul said, grinning sheepishly.

“Yeah,” Robard replied drily. “You started to move into the lead. Whoever’s advancing is usually going to be the one who needs to halt.” He gestured at the water in front of them. “We need to stop moving in this direction.”

“What? Why?” Paul asked.

“Do neither of you feel this?” Robard replied. He ran his hands through the air in front of him like it was water.

“No. What?” Paul said.

“I feel it,” Dave said. Both Paul and Robard turned to face him.

Robard looked at his face and nodded. “Good that you’re paying attention. What do you feel?”

“A pressure in the air. Something wrong. It reminded me a little of—” He cut himself off, looking sideways at Robard.

“It reminded you of the aura I emitted earlier,” Robard finished for him.

Dave nodded.

“Yep. That’s right,” Robard said.

“Wait, what?” Paul asked. “What does it mean? Someone else like you here?”

“Something like me,” Robard agreed. “It’s not really as far away from our place as I expected. More pressing than the location, though, we should cut around this area. Step out of this thing’s aura as soon as possible. It seems the hogs weren’t just moving randomly. They were probably avoiding running into this thing’s territory. I’d bet it's a predator. If we want to deal with it with confidence, we need to come back in force.”

“Why would we want to deal with it?” Paul asked. “Shouldn’t we just stick to your land when we’re not hunting?”

“Because these things will be killing and eating each other—and humans like us—to get stronger. All the time. If we don’t keep progressing ourselves, it’ll be us on the menu. And this thing is probably our nearest actual predator. Something that would eventually invade my territory and try to challenge me to claim it.”

“So we’ve come back to a world at endless war?” Dave asked, exhausted. “Is that what you’re telling us?”

“Seems like it,” Robard said. “Until we make Hobbes’s Leviathan.”

Both men gave him confused looks, and Robard looked embarrassed.

“I just said something very nerdy,” he said. “It means a force so strong that other powers within the reach of its territory can’t easily challenge it. A strong government or power that forces people—and in this case, beasts—to behave themselves.”

“And that’s you?” Paul asked. Dave detected an undercurrent of excitement in Paul’s voice, and he sighed to himself. “You’re really that strong?”

“I’m almost certainly the strongest or at the least one of the top three strongest in North America right now. Out of the humans anyway. I have no idea how I rank relative to the beasts. You’ve seen a bit of that power now, but far from all of it. You’d better hope I’m strong enough.” His expression hardened. “Someone has to create order. Keep the peace.” He took a last look at the body of water in front of them. It didn’t seem that deep to Dave, but the way Robard examined it, Dave felt as if the man could see something in there that the two of them couldn’t.

“Let’s go, then,” Dave suggested.

Robard nodded. They began withdrawing from the territory of the unseen predator. When they were out of it, Dave felt the difference. The air in the zone occupied by the monster was thicker, heavier, and more humid. Dave mentioned this to Robard.

“You have good senses,” Robard said. “I think whatever lives in that territory might have similar Mana affinities to me. The air in my territory is similar, except it isn’t overtly hostile to humans.” His eyes closed for a moment, then reopened. “Speaking of which, I think we have some guests back home.”

“Guests?” Dave asked.

“Human or beast?” Paul said.

“Well, they’re humanoid-shaped at least,” Robard said. “I doubt anything would be stupid enough to invade my territory right now. None of the local monsters should think I’m an easy mark, and my aura is heavy in the air. But I can’t be sure. I don’t seem to have the same degree of sensory awareness about what’s going on in my territory when I’m not actually there.”

“Let’s hurry, then,” Dave said.

Robard led the way briskly through the remaining sections of woods. It was not difficult to keep up with him, but Dave and Paul gave him some space. They both felt confident in his protection.

Paul touched Dave’s elbow once Robard was a certain distance ahead. “Well, I’m very impressed by him,” Paul said. “Does he seem like the kind of guy you could follow?”

Dave had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Do you assume we’re out of hearing range? We can still see him. I could probably hear this conversation if I was where he was. But no use crying over spilled milk now.

Paul probably did think they were out of hearing range. While Dave had heavily invested in his Perception Stat, Paul had mainly focused on Strength and Agility. By the time he realized that he wanted to focus on a ranged weapon, Paul was well behind Dave.

“I think he passed any test we might have thought to implement with flying colors,” Dave finally said.

Then a sound came to him, carried on the wind. He immediately looked forward and saw Robard’s mouth moving. He was muttering something quietly. It took a moment for Dave to parse what he was saying, from both the noise carried on the wind and some lip-reading.

“You passed my test too.”