Nathan wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting when he entered the portal.
He wasn’t expecting to end up in a post-apocalyptic hellscape like the one he’d left ten minutes ago. Abandoned houses and buildings spackled the streets. The roads used to be paved, but time had worn them into nothingness.
“Nathan? No offense, but I think you got screwed in the town department,” Chad said.
“It figures. This looks pretty much how a town from my tutorial would look like.”
“This reminds you of your tutorial?” Chad said. “Jeez, man.”
They walked forward, Mara’s pistols held loosely at her sides, Chad’s katana sheathed and sitting at his hip.
“It’s kinda weird, isn’t it?” Chad said. “Why are there buildings already here?”
“Maybe there were previous residents,” Nathan said.
“But where did they go?”
Good question.
Nathan kept his harpoon at the ready. He moved with familiarity and confidence—this was no different than his sessions on the surface back at the tutorial.
Mara looked back at Nathan and smiled. “Awful confident, aren’t you?”
“This is familiar territory for me,” Nathan said.
A rafter fell from a building to the side, creating a loud crash noise. Chad yelped and almost fell back. Mara whipped her pistols up and fired into the rafter two times.
Nathan threw his harpoon, destroying the house and causing it to cave in.
Mara grinned. “Nice shot!”
Chad blinked.
“I mean, overkill is great, but that’s a bit much,” Chad said.
Nathan’s cheeks turned red from embarrassment. “Sorry, I panicked.” He walked over to the harpoon and picked it up.
Mara walked forward and slipped her pistol into a holster on her side.
“Let’s face it, this place is abandoned—“ Chad stopped.
A figure caught Nathan’s eyes. A brown cloak covered them, preventing any obvious details from being seen.
“Woah, mysterious character encounter!” Chad’s hand tightened around his katana.
Mara pointed her gun at the figure. “Stop right there, cloak person, or I’ll turn you into Swiss cheese!”
The figure stopped.
“Take off your hood,” Nathan said.
Long purple fingers reached out of the cloak and took off its hood, revealing the creature’s face.
Nathan blinked.
It was a… purple mushroom man?
----------------------------------------
The mushroom man had a long fibrous beard. His head was in the shape of a shroom head. His ‘skin’ was wrinkled and scratched and his eyes were so narrow they seemed to be shut.
“Greetings,” he said. “I am Gius. Which of you is the new Ruler?”
Nathan stepped forward after a second. “I think it’s me? This is supposed to be my Soulbound Town.”
Gius bowed low. “My lord. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds before Nathan raised a hand. “Look, you’re gonna have to explain what on earth is happening right now. Like, how are you here? Is it normal for soulbound towns to have people in them already? Where did you come from? Were you just born here? Why is this town like this—”
“Perhaps I should start from the beginning,” Gius said.
Chad lowered his katana. “Yeah, the beginning is usually a really good place to start.”
Gius took a deep sigh.
“A long time ago, our people were nature mages,” he said. “This all changed when—“
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“—the System came, right?” Nathan said.
“Yes, exactly. But our people were weak and peaceful by nature. One of our greatest warriors unlocked the town system and proposed a deal—we would populate the town, providing her with bonuses and workers, and in exchange, we’d receive the safety and protection of the town. It was a good deal. We celebrated the triplicate signing of the deal by having a highly organized sacred dance.”
“But what happened to the warrior?” Nathan said.
Mara hummed. “I’m gonna bet that they died.”
Gius’s lips turned into a deep frown. “She made it far. All the way to the sixth circle. We… don’t know what happened, but the link was severed. Without a master, the town began to shrivel up. Our buildings and tools that we’d spent so much time working on suddenly became unusable.”
Chad looked around at the devastated buildings. “The System wouldn’t let you make repairs?”
“Yes. It all became ‘forbidden property’. Whatever that meant.” Gius folded his hands behind his back. “Then, one day, something changed. If you have any experience with the System, then you know that it prefers to avoid excessive effort, yes? Recycling, it calls it. In the case of towns, this means that when a survivor dies, the town is passed to another. In our case, this town was passed to a lizard man. He… did not incline to be kind to us. We were nothing more than slaves. We couldn’t even escape.”
“Why not?” Nathan said. “You couldn’t have taken him out or figured out some way to make a portal?”
“That is an ability exclusively granted to the Ruler,” Gius said. “Besides, the paperwork would’ve been an utter pain to deal with.”
“Uh-huh…”
Gius bowed his head. “And that brings us to you, Ruler. You have become the next inheritor.” He paused. “I was the… manager of the last two Rulers’s properties, hence why I am the one speaking to you now.”
Mara fiddle with one of her pistols, then looked up at Gius. “I’m surprised you aren’t trying to leave or kill your Ruler. That’s what I would do.” She aimed a finger gun at Nathan. “Bang.”
“Can we not suggest murdering me, please?” Nathan said.
“Leaving would simply leave us adrift in the nine circles, ready to be recycled into the next apocalypse. Killing him would put us right back where we started.” Gius growled. “Besides, our contract was very specific. We are to remain here and serve the Ruler until the ninth circle is reached and we are returned to our homeland.”
“Was it, like, one of those magic contracts?” Chad asked.
“No.”
Nathan blinked. “Then why don’t you just ignore it?”
“Ignore a contract!?” Gius gasped. “Did you not hear me when I said that it was signed? In triplicate!?”
They take contracts pretty seriously…
Nathan staggered back. “Oh. Um, well, if you’re going to stay here, what do we do now?”
“That’s up to you, Ruler.” Gius said. “I am assigned to assist you. What do you wish to be done?”
Nathan tried to cross his arms before realizing he couldn’t do that anymore.
This’ll take a while to get used to.
He shook his head and thought for a few seconds.
“First, I want to see how many people I’m working with. Can you bring out everyone?” he said.
Gius’s eyes darkened. “Of course. A Ruler must know how many resources he has to work with.”
That’s an odd way of putting it.
Gius raised his voice. “Everyone, come out! The Ruler wishes to see us!”
Dozens of footsteps pitter-pattered. Flashes of movement came from the surrounding ‘abandoned’ buildings. Mushroom people of all shapes and sizes poured out into the street. Young and old, big and small. All of them were worn, ragged, and thin.
Nathan looked over the group and tallied them up in his head.
“A hundred, huh?” Nathan said. “That’s not too bad.”
“We will, of course, be pleased to listen to whatever commands you have,” Gius said through gritted teeth. “As is our duty.”
“Uh, yeah, sure. Anyway, what do you guys need the most right now?”
Gius froze.
“What?” he said. “What do you mean?”
“I’m asking what you guys need,” Nathan said. “Like, food, water? I’m not super well-versed on the dietary requirements of mushroom people.”
Gius’s mouth flapped open and shut a few times.
“I suppose that we could use some fruit,” he said. “But you probably don’t have—“
Nathan reached into his inventory and started putting all of the fruit he’d collected in the tutorial onto the ground. With each batch of fruit, the mushroom man’s eyes widened. Chad’s jaw dropped. Mara stared at the food, her head tilted.
Damn, I didn’t realize just how much stuff I planted back in the tutorial.
Nathan paused at the mystery seed. Better to keep that one in his inventory.
When Nathan paused, Gius looked at him with confusion.
“Where did you get all this from?” he said.
“I was farming during my tutorial. It was a part of a quest.”
“Dude, how long were you in the tutorial for?” Chad said.
“Two weeks?”
Gius’s eyebrows raised up. “That’s alarmingly fast.”
Nathan shrunk backward.
“I’m not totally sure why it did this,” he said. “I mean, I ate it, I promise it’s not poisoned or anything. I think it just has to do with the fact that I planted it in the tutorial, maybe? I bet the water had something to do with it, too.”
Chad reached down and picked up a bell pepper. He bit into it, and his eyes widened.
“Holy shit, this is really good!”
At his words, a few of the Mushroom people closest to Nathan reached out and took the food. They bit into it and had similar reactions to Chad. Before long, everyone was rushing forward to take it—
“Halt!” Gius said. “Line up, right now! We’re doing this in order!”
Everyone drew back and nodded in sync. In 30 seconds flat, they were all lined up as if they hadn’t just acted like starving wolves earlier.
“It’s a part of the contract. They have to listen to the Ruler, and since I’m the manager, I speak on behalf of you,” Gius said.
Nathan nodded slowly. “Right…”
Gius bowed his head. “Ruler, what do you wish to do next?”
“The article at the start of this said something about making improvements. Can we fix up these streets and get these buildings fixed?” Nathan said.
Gius’s arms twitched. “You don’t want to look into the potential for resource extraction? Factories?”
“Not really. We need to get everyone here fed, right?”
“…I suppose that if we’re fed, we’ll be able to work better.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Gius said. “Very well, Ruler. I will show you how to operate the town system. Let’s begin by opening up the Strategy View.”
“Strategy View?”
As soon as he said that, a window appeared in front of him, showing a 2D isometric perspective of the town. He could see the mushroom people in a line, approaching the food. The buildings were outlined by a dim white line. To the top right, there were the words ‘Town Points: 10000’. Underneath that, there was a bar labeled ‘Authority’ that was 100% full.
Wait a second…
This was…
This was a real-time strategy game!