Unsurprisingly, there were dozens more creatures waiting for the hunters at every step of the way. However, with each successful kill, the hunters grew in confidence and power. Most didn’t have Occupations, but each one obviously had a Class and each of the lower-levelled hunters gained at least one level while coyote corpses were thrown into backpacks. With the hunters showing themselves capable of succeeding without being babysat, TJ stepped further and further back. He was, according to Zig, two levels higher than her, and she was the only hunter who’d reached level 5. While he stood in the back, keeping an eye out on anything that could potentially pose any threat to the hunters, something that hadn’t been noticed by the rest, he asked Zig what her additional Skill was.

“Arrow Shower. I can spend an exponentially increasing amount of MP and Stamina to duplicate the arrows I shoot. I can do up to 20, but that bottoms me out. If I, instead, just do a couple pairs or triples, I can do a bit more than twenty. Haven’t needed to use it today, since I want to make sure these kids are growing.”

TJ nodded, not looking at her.

“You’re not ex-military or anything?” Zig asked out of nowhere.

“Hell no. I don’t know anything about leading an operation or whatever. Stanton served in ‘Nam, but he wasn’t a career soldier after that, so he’s fifty years out of date.”

“Were you like, a guild leader or anything like that? You seem to be pretty progress oriented, more than we were.”

“Nope. I have a solid goal, that’s all. I don’t know anything about the rest of you. Honestly, I don’t need to. My only focus right now is Junior. If I can get to him, that’s all that matters to me. Making sure you all pull your weight and get stronger will just help me to get back to my son. I don’t think any of you here have kids, right?”

Zig shook her head. “Not as far as I know.”

“If you did, I’d imagine you’d be a bit more driven to get to them. I bet a lot of these kids still kinda think of this as a scarier video game, and that’s fine if it keeps you all sane and alive because God knows we all need that. I don’t need to think of this as a game. Just something standing between me and him. So, I’m sorry if I’m an ass or difficult to be around or whatever, but frankly, your safety isn’t my end goal.”

Zig nodded, though she couldn’t hide the slight frown. “Are you trying to be unlikeable with all this talk like this? Just like, deliberately tearing us down?”

TJ scowled. “No. I just don’t want you to be disappointed that I’m not really a hero or a guide to safety. I’m going to be up front about my long-term goals, because you need your own. There’s gotta be something that’ll pull you through this, and it can’t be me.”

“Sounds kinda like my dad, honestly.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s always on my back about deciding what to make of myself. Hell if I know what I want to do, though. Guess that doesn’t matter…” Zig trailed off, her eyes looking not at the trees but something far beyond them.

“Maybe you should try to see him after the Tutorial. Could be something to work towards.”

“Maybe.” Zig pulled herself from her thoughts and kept an eye peeled on our surroundings. As the time passed, they had walked past several streets where more cabins were sure to be, but under Zig’s instructions, they hadn’t turned onto any of them. Instead, the pack of hunters continued on the well-paved path for another half mile or so. Every so often, a pack of pukwudgies or coyotes would attempt another ambush, the pukwudgies focused on lightning-quick assaults without warning, the coyotes determined to tear into whatever human they could reach. The coyotes continued to demonstrate the monstrous, unthinking rage that drove them to violence, even when they were guaranteed to die. On the other hand, the pukwudgies remained a much more insidious foe.

The little goblins didn’t care how much damage they did. They just wanted to make them suffer. They’d throw spears from the pine trees overhead, fake engagement, even send a single one of their companions around to hope to get lucky with a thrown spear. With so many hunters ready for them, though, the pukwudgies refused to fully commit the way they had been with TJ and Stanton alone. Though it annoyed him to no end, TJ recognized the wisdom in their approach–only commit when they had a great chance of killing them all. Otherwise, harry and harm as best as they could.

Eventually they’d made it far enough that Zig gestured for the group to follow the next branching road up a steep hill. The gated community of cabins stood seemingly undisturbed. No windows were broken, no monsters roamed the streets, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. TJ glanced through the space between the thick bars. His face didn’t fit, and he activated Divine Transformation to stick his narrower snake head through. He didn’t see or smell or taste anything…

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

When he tried to pull his head back, though, it caught and TJ felt panic begin to rise in his chest. Then, he realized it was just his mane of feathers catching and he slithered through the bars and then under the two foot gap under the fence to return to the rest of the hunters.

“I’m not seeing anything in there, though that doesn’t mean much.” a couple chuckles from the youngest of the hunters answered his stupid joke. “The houses all look untouched, though, so I think that might be a good thing.”

“We’ve never seen pukwudgies to be the first ones in a house.” Charlie answered, also looking around for anything out of place. “They’ll go in after a human has been, but every cabin is left untouched until then.”

TJ grunted. If that was the case, maybe this would be a particularly beneficial expedition. He refused to get his hopes high just yet, though. Instead, he waited for the rest of the hunters to be prepared to go in. Though he couldn’t quite place why, the idea of walking into the community seemed a daunting one, and TJ wasn’t going to press the rest into entering before they were ready. Then, as Zig briefly consulted with the other Acolytes about the current condition of their MP and Stamina, a question occurred to TJ. He turned to Mary, the Zealot who’d been briefly swarmed by coyotes.

“How do you keep your armor up? Does it require your MP constantly? Or is it a purely physical thing? And what’s the name of the Skill?”

“It’s called Holy Vestments. Lets someone get armor or a shield, and doesn’t take MP to maintain. It drains a little Stamina and MP when it takes a hit, and, as you saw, it doesn’t protect anyone perfectly.” The woman, about the same age and height as TJ’s own early thirties and 5’7”, scratched idly at the pink flesh that replaced the wounds on her face. She was rather plain, with dirty blonde hair, narrow eyes, and wearing too-tight exercise clothing. TJ supposed that she, like him, had been on a jog like he was when all this started and felt an unreasonable kinship with her.

“What happens if you run out of Stamina or MP while you’re using the Skill? And why do some people have shields and some armor?”

“I… don’t know what happens. But we all made a choice when we got the Skill on if we wanted armor or shields.”

TJ nodded, then, since he was already asking, figured he’d ask the last question, “What’s your Bloodline?”

“It’s called Dazhbog.” Then, seeing TJ’s followup question, she answered, “Slavic god of the sun and plenty.”

“Thanks. By the way, I don’t know if I’ve said it publicly, but mine is Kukulkan. The Mayan and Aztec feathered serpent god.”

“I kinda already guessed the feathered serpent thing.”

“Fair enough.” TJ nodded and watched as Zig and the rest finally were ready to enter the community that laid before them. He stepped into the front, willing to take the potentially most risky position, and the other zealots on the front nodded their thanks to him as he walked around the gate and into the street that waited before him. Nothing stirred as they approached, only their own steps and the winds overhead seeming to react to their presence. TJ made his way to the first home and, finding the front door unlocked, made his way in. Every other member of the expedition quickly fell in step behind him, all except for Seth, who stood at the door with his crossbow at the ready and his eyes on the street.

Most of the hunters walked directly into the kitchen and ransacked whatever they could find. With a walk-in pantry full of non-perishables, half the backpacks were filled nearly immediately. Seeing the kitchen filled with searching people, TJ and several others poked into the upstairs, where warm blankets and the few changes of clothes there were quickly shoved into whatever backpack they fit in.

“Do we need more blankets?” TJ called down the stairs to where Zig and Charlie were.

“Yeah!” Charlie replied, his voice echoing through the wooden building. “Most people can make it through the day, but keeping sleeping quarters nice and warm has been nearly impossible.”

With an answer received, TJ found another backpack and stuffed it full of a couple quilts as well. There weren’t any other packs upstairs to use, but when they returned to the ground floor, TJ saw that three more backpacks had been added to various arms. Half the hunters were double-stacked with supplies, and it was obvious that many of their number thought the journey was over.

“Are we ready to go to the next one?” Charlie asked, disregarding a couple groans that the younger ones made as they prepared to move along. TJ merely nodded in response and strode right out the building. With his insistent steps, though a couple kids grumbled about aching feet, everyone fell in step quickly enough. The second cabin wasn’t nearly so well-stocked with food, less than a single backpack's worth found inside. There was, however, a five gallon bucket with some useful supplies stored within, so Mary grabbed that bucket and carried it out. The swarm of hunters descended on a third, then fourth home. In the fourth, they found enough supplies to load everyone up nearly to capacity and, with Zig’s instruction, they began to return to the street.

With the end of their expedition in sight, many of the hunters, again, let a certain sense of complacency wash over them. Before TJ could say anything about staying alert and ready, he felt a slight rumble in the ground. As he tried to understand what was happening, Seth shouted while pointing up the street and further into the neighborhood, “Be ready, something’s coming!”

TJ turned and looked just in time to witness a veritable horde of javelinas come charging down the street, squealing with rage and in challenge.