The rest of the day is spent hunting and putting up messages. Turning from killing to severely maiming Husks for Sheep and Winter, I started to aim for legs, waists or necks depending on the type. It took some time to adjust as my shots tended to do severe damage, killing Husks even though I aimed at non-fatal spots.

While we hunted we also put messages up, and by the end of the day we had roughly thirty six messages placed down. Keeping a headcount, I also knew that Winter would’ve been done with getting enough Class Points, with Sheep just behind her. The two had been working together with Sheep purposefully giving Winter more kills to get her the Lvl 2 quicker, though Sheep would’ve only been just shy by the end of the day.

My thoughts ran wild while waiting for them to put messages up, thinking about the positives and negatives of what I had received. Outdoors like this I am overpowered, if I have distance on any enemy then I can easily decimate them and as long as I had ammo there would be no problems with us hunting like this against the Husks currently showing up. There were downsides though, which limited me heavily.

Close quarters is now a severe weakness that would continue to grow if I keep going down this path. Under the assumption that an enemy will appear that can survive my sniping, if I were to encounter said enemy in close combat then I wouldn’t be of any help since I wouldn’t have any bonuses. Indoors also became a severe weakness for the same reason, though snipers being inside made no sense in this world we couldn’t always have the same battlefield or choose it, so we may end up fighting in a building.

The next problem is line of sight. I can’t see through buildings, meaning if any of our party members are under attack and I can’t see them due to line of sight then I can’t assist. Of course I trust Sheep to lead us during combat to never allow such a situation to occur, but without long distance communication this could become a huge problem. I had tested to see if the talent worked on buildings or inanimate objects but they didn’t, which meant only living or organic targets would be affected by the increase in damage.

Seeing Sheep signal towards me, I stood up and jumped to the next roof. I had found that I could easily jump upwards of forty metres with no problems. I didn’t even get that slight shock of jumping from a bit too high to the ground, and as I run and jump between the buildings, I arrive at the roof of a house just in front of the other two.

“Mid we’re heading back, how’s the surroundings?”

Looking around, I saw a patrol some distance away but otherwise the only sightings of Husks were corpses.

“Clear.”

“Got it. We’ll move as we did before with Mid watching our backs. Winter you’ll take lead and I’ll follow, keep an eye out in case any Husks are hiding themselves out of Mid’s line of sight.”

“Roger.”

“Got it.”

Winter and I nod to Sheep and standing up I take one more glance around before my eyes backtrack and look at a certain spoke about a kilometre away. A place where we had left a message before and using Hawkeye, I tried to figure out why I felt something was wrong and quickly found out.

“Mid, what do your elf eyes see?”

“A message is gone.” The spot I’m looking at has a nail in a post, a piece of torn paper still under it but the message is clearly gone. Zooming out a bit, I look around the surroundings and see nothing else. Looking towards where our base is, I don’t see any movement.

“Gone? Did it get blown away?”

“No idea, but it’s gone and I don’t see any movement.”

“Got it, we’ll head back but this time we’ll be on the defensive. While I do want to believe others won’t harm us, there is always the possibility, let’s move.”

Keeping my awareness up while we moved, my eyes kept flickering between the pair on the ground and our surroundings. As we approached the little house, we stopped and hid in the shadows as I scoped and looked.

“No movement nor has the place been disturbed.”

“Got it, come down here Mid, we’ll breach together.”

Doing as instructed, I get down, unload my sniper and pull out my handgun. With Winter leading, we breach the house and clear each room, finding nothing out of the ordinary. After checking every corner including cupboards, we secured the house and breathed a sigh of relief.

“If it has been taken by others perhaps they don’t want to move till morning?”

“Or they think it’s a trap?”

“No point speculating, you two. Mid, you’re on the first watch tonight.”

“Got it.” Turning to Winter, I smile at her as she sits down where I had when I advanced. Her Class is Gunner, the description stating it’s suited for those who want to fight in close range with weaponry like shotguns or automatic weapons. “Good luck babe.”

“You too.” As Winter winks at me, we both giggle at the joke before she makes a motion like she’s pressing a button in front of her. For a moment her face twists into pain before she collapses on the ground. Sitting right before her, I lift her head and place a pillow underneath it. Both of them had warned me that this would happen, it matched exactly what had happened to me, but I felt worry creeping up on me.

Hearing a sigh, I turned to Sheep. “I’ll take first watch. Get changed, a ghillie suit inside looks far too funny.” With a smile, Sheep moved upstairs as I quickly got changed. Sweat caused the thin clothing to stick to me and closing the door to the room I decided to stay in my underwear for the time being, wishing I could have a hot shower at that moment.

Oddly I didn’t feel tired in the slightest, in fact my mind and body were both still wide awake, fully aware like I had already slept. Putting it down to the fact I had indeed slept for two days, I stayed by Winter’s side until I heard a knock at the door. Quickly getting dressed into the clothing I had worn before putting the ghillie suit on, I open the door and see Sheep entering a room on the opposite side. Heading upstairs, I sat by the window overlooking the street and kept my sniper ready.

My thoughts wondered as I stared at the streets, filled with all types of Husks. Heavys, Crawlers, normal types and possibly Runners and Acidmancers. As usual there are hundreds of Husks crammed into the streets, all stumbling about. Unlike during the daytime, they didn’t seem to be patrolling and instead were just aimlessly stumbling around. I started to think of Machinery, about the roadblocks I had been hitting in trying to gain knowledge on building machines that I didn’t have blueprints for.

The gap of knowledge had been proving far harder to overcome than I had originally thought. While I hadn’t had time or the parts to experiment recently, I already knew that making a machine without a blueprint would be near impossible without that knowledge first, but I had no idea how to obtain it. I wasn’t the only one this affected either. Winter and Aerith are in similar positions where they depended on blueprints to build or create, so building anything without the assistance of a blueprint is difficult.

Being able to create what we want without relying on the System would catapult us so far ahead, allowing us access to machinery, weapons or even buildings that we needed. While we can learn blueprints from reassembling machines or guns that Sheep disassembled we weren’t learning anything new and there is a limit to what will be useful since we can’t just hope to stumble upon any type of machine. For example we needed a chainsaw, woodcutting machine and much more now that we’re building houses of our own.

As the night passes peacefully with my mind filled with various thoughts on our situation, I notice the sun start to rise and feel a bit surprised at how fast the time has passed. I still felt full of energy, as if I didn’t need to sleep more.

Deciding against waking Sheep yet, I watched as the Husks did as they always had done and started to stumble towards the centre of the town. This action has always been a mystery to us, why do they always walk towards the town, is there a magic that attracts them? Why isn’t the town overflooded with Husks? Looking at my rifle, my mind sets itself onto a decision. Once Sheep has advanced we will go to the centre of the town and find out why.

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It would be dangerous, even if I can lift cars or explode a Heavy’s head we can still very easily be surrounded and killed, but we need to know just why the Husks acted like this. I had a feeling that we would have some of our questions answered if we were to go and investigate. Or at least find a spot for me to look towards there.

Deciding to get fresh air, I opened the window and climbed to the roof with my sniper strapped behind me. Sitting on the edge of the roof I looked around and saw nothing of concern nearby before sighing and laying on my back. Hoping that Winter would wake up quickly, I let the silence of the town envelope me as I cleared my mind of thoughts, but after an hour that silence is rudely interrupted by the roars of Husks.

Sitting up and looking towards the source, I couldn’t see anything at the end of the street for a moment before suddenly four figures came running around the corner. Using Hawkeye, I saw the four figures were not Husks but actual people! Turning my attention quickly to behind them, I saw a group of Husks emerge from the corner.

Four Runners, two Heavies, a Crawler and what seemed to be a normal Husk but might be an Acidmancer. Sitting up quickly, I scope onto the Runners, who were relentlessly chasing the four humans and I could tell immediately that they would be caught within seconds at this rate. Steadying my breathing, I squeeze the trigger and fire at a Runner. Without bothering to confirm the kill, I flick to the next Runner, fire and repeat this action on the next two Runners.

Without stopping, I kept going, finishing off the Crawler then the normal Husk who had opened its mouth. The Heavies fell easily and as I unscoped and breathed out, I looked at the aftermath. It had only been seconds yet I had killed the entire pack easily without stopping. The only pause had been to reload the chamber. Using Hawkeye, I saw the party look at the aftermath, their faces all in shock.

Two guys and two girls, all looking around their young twenties, though I knew their ages wouldn’t match that. Aerith had the body of a teen around 17 or 18 yet is only 14. Taking their features in, I saw that the two girls had blonde and green hair and the two boys both had white and black hair. A strange sight in our world, but seemingly normal in this world. Slowly one of the girls looked in my direction, squinting their eyes before pointing in my general location, excitement filling her face.

The other three looked towards where she was pointing, squinting their eyes. Raising a hand, I waved at them and all four looked excited. One of them pulled out a piece of paper with a tear at the top and I instantly recognized it as a message Ghost had written. They looked at the paper before looking towards me then at each other, all of them nodding.

“Mid?!” Hearing Sheep, I chuckled and made my way through the window where Sheep had his weapon out. “Are we good?”

“Yes, and we’re about to have company. Four survivors are heading here.”

“Four? So that’s why you were shooting? Gods and here I thought you’d just gotten bored. Why didn’t you wake me?”

Shrugging, I explained how I still felt wide awake. “That’s why. I don’t feel any fatigue.”

“Interesting. Alright, post up here and make sure these survivors disarm themselves. I’ll make contact and bring them to the kitchen.”

“Got it. Make sure none of them go near Winter.”

“I’m planning to leave her as a secret for now, just in case.”

Understanding what Sheep intended, I nodded and watched the window as the four approached the house. Unloading my weapon, I pointed it out and shouted as the four stepped onto the grass.

“Halt. Drop your weapons on the ground in front of you.” The four look up in surprise before meeting my eyes. In their hands were weapons of various types. One of the girls had a pistol in terrible condition, the other girl had a wooden hammer that had cracks and blood covering it. The boys both had a bow in one hand and on their waist a sword, all of them looking like they would break apart any moment. They carefully place their weapons down.

“Backpacks too. Then take five steps to your left and stop. My friend will be out to pat you all down. If you make any suspicious movements I won’t hesitate to shoot.”

As they took their bags off and stepped to the side, I felt a bit relieved. I didn’t intend to shoot them but if Sheep’s life is endangered by them then I would…wouldn’t I?

One of the girls opened their mouth for a moment, as if they wanted to say something but the door then opened as Sheep walked out. Without hesitation, Sheep made it obvious that he held a glock before patting down one of the boys thoroughly before moving to the next boy. Upon reaching the girls though, Sheep hesitated, stepped forward before hesitating again. I sigh as Sheep looks up.

“Mid, switch.”

Ignoring the irony of Sheep asking a lesbian to pat down the girls, I wait till Sheep unholsters his own weapon before slinging mine behind me and jumping down from the wind. Thoroughly patting both girls down quickly, I give Sheep a nod as he steps forward.

“Follow me, you four, I’m sure you have all sorts of questions.” The four nervously but excitedly follow him as I gather their belongings and head inside, storing everything in a separate room. Checking the weapons over, I knew straight away that one of them must be a Weaponsmith, similar to Winter. Checking the System, I saw they were all the upgraded versions, Durable, meaning it had indeed been made by a Weaponsmith. Everyone could make wooden tools and weapons, but they were fragile. I wondered why they hadn’t just made new weapons to replace these.

Looking towards their bags, I decide to ignore them. Not wanting to dig into their belongings, I grab four cans of food and grimace a bit. We were running short of food, and while we had the rice it wouldn’t last long nor is it really filling. Grabbing four bottles of water as well, I head out of the room and head towards the kitchen as I hear a curious voice ask a question.

“Is the girl who saved us coming?”

Stepping into the room as she said that, they all turn around and look at me with a bit of surprise. Putting the food on the table along with the bottles of water, I noticed that they didn’t stare at the food but rather the water.

“It’s safe to drink, we’ve run it through a purifier.” Walking over to the wall, I leaned against it before glancing at Sheep, giving him a small nod. In moments like this we would switch roles, he would appear to be the leader of our group while I would pretend to be a member under him. In games where killing the leader is important, sticking your neck out as a leader would lead to a quick death. It’s similar here, while we wanted to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, we never knew if a bigger group would kidnap or kill the leader of the group, me, and take the rest.

I wouldn’t actually let anything happen to Sheep. I kept my handgun close by in case anything happened and by the time we have a level of certainty towards the new people in front of us I’d reveal myself as the leader. Though, thanks to our popularity…

“It’s nice to see other survivors out here, I’m Sheep, the previous leader of a team within the Dark Reapers and now the lea-”

“Um, e-excuse me?” The girl with green hair raised her hand slightly. “I-I thought the leader of your team was Midnight?”

Silence fell upon the room before I shook my head and spoke. “That’s right. I take it you’re a fan?”

“N-no. S-sorry, I just knew about you guys when you won against the main team of the Dark Reapers.” The girl blushed and waved her hands, an embarrassed tone coming from her voice.

“There is nothing to apologise for. I’m Midnight, the leader of Unity, the clan we’ve formed in this world. This is Sheep, as you know, my second in command. Before we get into stories, I’d like to know who you guys are.” Giving a smile to the group which seemed to have an effect, I turned to one of the guys first who quickly introduced himself.

“I-I’m Jupiter. I guess I’m the leader of these guys, under the name Lost Heralds which is what we went by before being brought to this world.” Jupiter is the man that had white hair, average build and looked exhausted. Nodding to him I turned to the next guy.

“Silver. My Job that I chose is Miner while my Class is Swordsman.” Raising an eyebrow, I looked at the sword on his waist. Same as Jupiter, he had an average build but black hair which didn’t match his name. Jupiter quickly spoke up.

“Oh, my Job is Smelter. I can forge metals of all types into blades, building frames and more. My Class is Fire Mage.”

“Fire Mage? So you know magic?”

“O-only a fireball…it’s the size of my palm at full strength. I can show it later when we’re not surrounded by wood.”

Appreciating his thoughtfulness, I turned to the girl with green hair.

“Melody. My Job is Alchemist, I can mix various plants or materials to create various helpful potions or pills that provide increased healing, energy, cure illness and even boost one's magic and mana for a short time. My Class is Shielder, specialised in shields and barriers. I can cast magic that shields an ally from several blows or a barrier around an area the size of this room.” Looking over Melody, she had a petite build. Turning to the last girl, who is a bit shorter than the rest of us with blonde hair, she bowed slightly.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Midnight and Sheep. I am Dawn, my Job is Chef. As the name indicates it allows me to gain knowledge on foods I can cook, though our circumstances have not allowed me to progress at all and it is our group's biggest regret along with Miner. We had thought it would allow me to make lasting meals from the questionable and tasteless canned food, alas the recipes I have are for plant based foods like Bread or Damper.

“My Class is Warrior. With a shield and sword I can force Husks nearby to focus entirely on me while our Swordsman and Fire Mage deal damage with our Shielder protectings me.”

Looking over the group, my thoughts were echoed by Sheep's statement. “You guys sound like a Dungeons and Dragons party.”

“Oh, we joke about that a lot.” Melody quips up as the other three chuckle, the atmosphere becoming brighter.

“I take it you have more at your base? From your weapons you have a Weaponsmith, no?”

As soon as those words left my lips, I regretted it. Each of their faces became downcast as the atmosphere turned dark as my stomach dropped.

Melody recovered first and gave me a small smile. “We had two others but they died during the Nexus event.”