“I apologise…”
Melody shakes her head. “No, it’s okay. For the most part we’ve moved on but it’s still fresh in our minds after all…”
“May I ask what their names were?” Relaxing myself upon seeing their reactions, I knew they wouldn’t be bad people, especially as they had all become teary eyed. Guilt ate my stomach as I looked at them.
“O-oh, the Weaponsmith you spoke of, his name was Marcus ‘Clown’ Ellen. He died when the Heavy appeared, catching us all unaware. The Heavy crushed him and before we could react in time it hit Colin ‘Ashby’ Mancy with a side swipe, crushing him completely…” Tears ran down Melody’s face before she shook her head. “I’m sorry, it seems I haven’t really gotten over it.” She buries her head in her hands as Dawn pulls her into a hug, patting her head.
“I do apologise, Melody can be a bit sensitive when this topic comes up.”
“No, I’m the one who should apologise for bringing it up.”
“Don’t apologise, you didn’t know.”
“Does she need a moment?”
“I’m fine, sorry.” Melody pulls herself away from Dawn and slaps her cheeks with both hands. “This is more important.”
Jupiter steps forward and looks at Sheep and I before nodding. “We hadn’t thought there would be people here still alive. The note said you both had escaped to a new location, safer than here?”
“Ah, let me explain everything.” Sheep steps forward before explaining our situation to the new group. As he spoke, their expressions turned from grim to excitement mixed with hope as they looked at each other. After about an hour of speaking, Sheep turned to me. “Did I forget anything?”
“Yeah, the fact we need to go get another car.”
“Ah, right. We ran into a new type, Acidmancer, the other day that melted half of the car we had intended to leave here, so we’re looking to grab one we know that works.”
“Oh, if it’s about that we know where a semi that turns over is.” Casually dropping that bomb on us, I turn to look at Jupiter with a raised brow. “It has a trailer on it too. It’s our temporary base.”
“So you’ve been driving it around?”
“No, it has no fuel. While we’ve found a petrol station we simply didn’t know where to go until we found your message yesterday and decided to risk heading here. I’m glad we did.” Jupiter grins as he looks at the others who looked happier than before, especially Melody.
“We do have business here. As you know, I have Machinery while my wife has Weaponsmithing so we’re in desperate need for anything we can dismantle and turn into parts. We won’t be leaving for a while, about a week and a half so in the meantime we may need your help if that’s okay.”
Jupiter nodes strongly. “Sure! We’ll be able to show you where the semi is, though it may get dangerous leading it out.”
“We’ll worry about that when it gets to it. If anything I can set up a nest along the route and take care of anything that may come along. We do want to stop by a few places that we’ll scout out first, one stop we know about and contains food, specifically rice.”
“We have a good amount of canned food in the semi, we purchased the two packages from the Shop after the Nexus event, about forty cans of the crap.” Chuckling at Jupiter’s comment, I looked at the four before us and felt a bit thankful that we had found more people. Though I felt a bit worried about them backstabbing us, for now I felt that we could trust them a bit.
“We still have about half a day left, but we can’t go out at the moment for various reasons. For now, there are a few rooms upstairs if you guys want to rest.” Pointing my chin upwards slightly to indicate the second floor, I looked at them as they seemed a bit confused.
“Why can’t you go out?” Looking at Melody before looking at Sheep, meeting his glance, I pondered on what to say. Right now there is little trust between the two groups. We had yet to mention Lvl 2 Classes to them, Sheep and purposefully left it out and I played along. If we told them a half truth and they find out later it would damage our relationship with these four.
If we lie or ignore it it’ll also cause problems later. If we told them the truth about Lvl 2 and Winter’s current situation we could stand to gain a lot of trust with them, especially after they just told us about the semi-truck. Perhaps I might be a bit too paranoid about being backstabbed and after a bit more consideration I looked at the group.
“What do you guys know about Class Lvl 2?”
They looked confused with Melody tilting her head before Dawn slapped a fist on an open palm. “Is it what happens when you get 100 Class Points?”
“Correct.” Nodding at Dawn, I explain to all of them about Lvl 2, about what changed, including Spells and Talents, and the weapon I had received from it. “Currently my wife, Winter Rose, is advancing at the moment. Because you need to slumber for a few days, we can't just leave until she’s woken up.”
Again the group looked excited as they called out to the System to check their Class Points. Jupiter had thirty eight to go, Melody had forty four, Silver thirty seven and Dawn twenty six.
“A strange spread.” Looking at them as they pursed their lips, Jupiter met my eyes and explained.
“We haven’t exactly had any weapons since the Nexus event and during the Nexus event we only survived because we managed to find a well fortified bunker to hide in after…after the incident happened.”
“I see. Well, we plan to organise for our guys to obtain Lvl 2 once we get back to our base, so we’ll include you four into that plan. For now, you guys should rest. Don’t worry about the watch, Sheep and I can handle it while you guys rest. Jupiter.” Turning to him as his face turned serious, I spoke in a serious tone. “I want to have a chat with you once you’ve rested. Can you tell Sheep to grab me in about five hours?”
“Sure. I wanted to talk to you as well.” With that, Jupiter led the others upstairs to find a room to rest in. Telling him to avoid the room where we kept watch, I turned to Sheep.
“I’m going to go sit down for a bit with Winter. I’m still full of energy so if you need me come and knock on the door.”
“Sure, try and get a cat nap in Mid.” Patting me on the shoulder, Sheep headed upstairs to start his round of watch while I went to the room that Winter rested in. Seeing her still sleeping, I smiled and laid next to her, hugging her gently and closing my eyes.
After a few hours I heard a knock at the door and opening my eyes, I moved towards the door. I hadn’t slept at all, my mind and body still full of vigour. Opening the door I saw Sheep waiting for me.
“Juptier is ready to talk, I will switch with you.” Thanking him as he sat in the corridor of the room, I went to the kitchen where Jupiter was waiting for me.
“Come, we’ll go for a walk.” Tilting my head towards the front door, we both went outside with me leading the way. Arriving at the end of the street, where I had sniped the Husks following Jupiter’s group I turned and looked at him. “It’s nice to meet you, Jupiter. I wanted to get to know you a bit more since we might be working together from now on.”
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“Might?” Jupiter tilts his head a bit as I nod.
“It’s not decided until we both agree, right? There are complications to two groups joining. Clash of personalities, fights about leadership, refusal to listen to another group and so on, I figured it would be best to discuss everything between us.” Climbing up to a roof while Jupiter followed, a bit unsteadily, I glanced around us before turning my attention to him and leaning against the chimney.
“Ah, is that so?” Jupiter stood a few metres from me, looking over the town. “I’m not really the leader of the group. They listen to me but honestly…I don’t even know what I’m doing most of the time. I’m happy to let you lead, it seems you have things figured out.”
“It may seem like we do, but in reality we have so many problems that we’re still figuring out ourselves. Don’t consider yourself as not a leader for not knowing what to do, I’m the same after all. It’s like walking around in a dark room trying to find the light switch that is just out of arm's reach.” Jupiter chuckles at my words.
“Fuck does that not describe it perfectly. I had told Silver and Dawn to select Miner and Chef, I was thinking of the long term.”
“Oh, we have similar. One of my guys went Farming at my insistence cause I thought we could grow some fruit plants but as it turns out that was a mistake.”
Both of us share a chuckle as Jupiter’s mood seems to improve. He turns to me and sighs. “My experience mostly revolves around casual games. The six of us played for fun mainly and intended to do the same with full dive. Being brought to this world and having to lead them out of danger…” He sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “My mistakes have gotten two of my friends killed, can I really call myself a leader?”
I stayed silent for a moment, mulling over my words very carefully. “Don’t let their deaths be the cause of your downfall, it’s the last thing they would want to see. Even if your mistake led to their deaths, learn from it so you can keep the others alive.” Jupiter stayed silent with pursed lips, like he’s thinking. “Acknowledging your mistakes and learning from them makes you far more of a leader than you might think. The pain you show is more than enough for me to believe you wouldn’t let the same thing happen to Silver, Melody or Dawn.”
Jupiter stayed silent for a moment before turning to me with a slight smile. “Thanks. I’ve been blaming myself since the Nexus event happened. Honestly I’ve been terrified to even leave the truck but I’ve been forcing myself to do so.”
“Mm, I understand that. Being dragged into this world and facing death has put a new level of mental strain on us. I’ve had times where I just wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and cry myself to sleep.” We both shared a knowing smile before I switched the subject. “About leadership, I don’t want to force you guys into following what I say.”
Jupiter nods and crosses his arms. “I share a similar feeling. They would listen to you, but it would cause problems later on.”
“In that case, we should have a shared leadership and turn it into a council of sorts later on.” Proposing this idea to Jupiter, he nods slowly.
“It’s the best way, but a council also has various problems. For example too many people and we start having problems with factions under certain leaders.”
“That’s true. I had been worried about too many cooks in the kitchen. We’d also need to start implementing rules that others won’t be happy about.”
“Leading is hard.” Both of us laugh as I smile. “We can organise it slowly. The other idea is to scrap leadership altogether and have everyone on the same level.”
“That works great for smaller groups but once we get more people we absolutely need leadership. In a world like this people will only follow the strong too. With everyone walking around with weapons and having the ability to shoot at any time makes it rather difficult to regulate.” I sigh as I talk. “Alright, we’ll go with your idea for now. We’ll have soft leadership between you and me but treat everyone equally.”
“Basically we make the final call but everyone in our groups can bring up ideas and suggestions?”
“Exactly, I already run things like that. I’m not sure about your guys.”
“We do things in a similar way except they leave everything to me.” Jupiter sighed with a strained and tired face. “Oh, we do intend to join you guys regardless of what happens with leadership. We’ve been alone for far too long, in fact we had thought we were hallucinating when we found your message. We didn’t even need to discuss it, if it turned out to be true you were actual living people we would’ve joined up.”
Grinning, I reach out my hand. “In that case, I hope to work well with you guys.” Jupiter took my hand and after a handshake we started to chat, getting to know each other as I caught Jupiter up on our current situation.
“So for tomorrow if Winter wakes up I want to get that semi and head to the stores we have marked.”
“Ah, we have a few locations of interest as well. We found a warehouse connected to a large hardware store but we haven’t gone near it.”
“Then we’ll equip you guys as best we can and check those places out. If we can fill out a semi worth of stuff and get Sheep his Lvl 2 it’ll be worthwhile. For you guys and your Lvl 2 I’d like to leave that for when we bring the other three, are you okay with that?”
“Sure, is it due to a lack of weaponry?”
“To a degree yes, but I’d like to plan it out with everyone as opposed to rushing it now. I’d also like to discover what is in the centre of this town. Have you noticed the Husks stumbling towards the centre every morning?”
“I noticed it and have been wondering the same. We’ve gone close to the centre before but there were a lot of strong Husks around there. It gets denser the closer you go, it got to a point where there were tens of Heavys, Crawlers and Screamers.”
“Screamers?”
“Haven’t run into one yet? Their screams are enough to call more to their location and leave you nearly deaf. We encountered one before and had to run. We nearly didn’t make it out, Husks swarmed to our locations so quickly. We think the Screamers can emit a tone not hearable to us that lures Husks to them.”
Grimacing a bit, I asked more about the Screamers and they were like the Runners and Acidmancers, indistinguishable from regular Husks until they screamed. The biggest hint is that they had no ears or eyes, but at a glance you would fail to realise what they were.
“So how do they know when to scream?”
“We’re not sure. We thought of echolocation but that got dismissed once we saw it had no ears. The next theory is magic sense, like in anime or video games.”
“Ah, you watched anime as well?”
“A bit, Dawn is a huge consumer of it though.”
“I feel more determined to explore the centre of the town. From the maps it’s a large square surrounded by walls, presumably for ceremonies or something. If the Husks are indeed patrolling and protecting the centre there has to be something of importance.”
“Mindless Husks that rely on instincts protecting an area means either a source of food or what they consider home.”
“Either way, we’ll figure it out. Let’s head back before the sun sets.” With that, Jupiter heads back onto the street while I stay on the roof, watching over the streets while we make our way back. Since we were only up the street we arrived back at the base rather quickly. Parting with Jupiter I made my way back to Winter’s room and swapped with Sheep once more. Lighting a candle, I organise my belongings and work into the night, not leaving her side.
As I’m packing the box that contained the bullets and arranging them neatly I heard a groan and dropped everything looking at Winter as she rubbed her eyes and sat up slowly, looking at me.
“Rubes?”
“Mm, morning, beautiful.” Leaning in, we shared a rather deep kiss before I pulled away. “How are you feeling?”
Winter stares at me blankly before leaning in once again and complying with her wordless request to give her a kiss on her forehead. Her actions reminded me of how she’d wake up after me and act all lovey dovey. Dragging herself a bit and burying her head into my chest, she fell asleep once again. Wrapping an arm around her waist and moving her onto my lap, I stroked her hair while listening to her soft breathing. She hadn’t acted like this since we arrived in this world and I wanted nothing more than to enjoy it.
After another two hours, she stirred once more and looking down I saw her looking at me with a small smile. “Can I stay like this for a bit longer?”
“Mm, you don’t need to ask. I’m sure Sheep and the others can handle keeping watch.”
Winter snuggled into my chest and closed her eyes, but a moment later pulled away and gave me a strange look. “Others?”
“Ah, I’ll explain later.” Seeing Winter look at my face then my chest with a troubled expression, she finally caved into whatever mental fight she was having and snuggled back into my chest and closed her eyes once more.
“Rubes, who are the others?” Her muffled voice sounded out after an hour as she lifted her head and leaned it against my shoulder.
Filling her in on Jupiter and the rest, she nodded tiredly before sighing lightly. “I have to get up, don’t I?”
“Mm, you don’t have to.” Hugging her a bit closer while certain thoughts ran through my mind, I heard her giggle before pushing me down.
“Well, we can’t be loud, can’t scare the newbies after all.” Her lips met mine as we started to undress, giggling while keeping our voices low.