Chapter 24

The Protectors of Treehouse Village

I woke up, and I learned that the second hit of dagger it took had probably been super fucking stupid, but I hadn’t exactly been in the best mindset in my defense. I had been out for sixteen hours, and it was now morning of the next day. The signs of corruption on my body were almost entirely gone. Well, at least the black lines were gone. My hands were still oozing some shit out, but the pain was gone. That was awesome. It was time to see if my insane theory to try and gain more resistance would pay off.

Part of me didn’t want it to have done anything. That way, I could say, Well, that didn’t work. Not worth trying again. If it did work, that meant that I was going to do it again, and I would have to put myself through that pain over and over again. I popped open my stat sheet, and fuck, yep. I now had a 6% resistance to corruption rather than the 5% before I started the stabby-stabby thing.

Yeah, Fuck this sucked, but I did manage to increase my resistance, so that was sweet. So that was proof you could train a resistance. About twenty minutes after I woke up, Frank walked into my room, and I greeted him with a sparkling,

“Hey there, Frank, how’s it going?” he had been looking at his clipboard when he walked in, so he jumped when I spoke. That got me laughing. Frank collected some papers he dropped and then just said,

“Stop doing that! Your gonna give an old man like me a heart attack. Then you’ll feel terrible that you scared an old man to death.”

“Oh, come on, Frank, my bad. I’m sorry I scared you. So, how long was I out this time?” Falling unconscious was something that was happening far too regularly to me. I would have to work on that.

“You passed out for a whole 24 hours, Travis, well 26 to be precise,” Frank told me. I was a little shocked. I would have to find a way to train my resistance without losing so much time if I was going to keep doing this kind of training.

“Hey, Travis.”

“What’s up, Frank?”

“Well, I know that Janet, Beth, and you have put a lot on yourselves to protect Treehouse Village, but I think you’re going too far. Just remember that you need to be around to protect the people here and dying from some training. Well, just be careful. Maybe just take it easy for a week or two. It would be good for people to see you around the village. Instead of being told that you’re lying down and might be close to death, you know? Take it or leave it, but I think you should think about it.”

As we left the infirmary, I thought about what Frank had said. Before Frank and I separated, I stopped him. “Hey Frank, thanks for helping me out. I will take it easy for a while, so don’t worry. I’ll chill out with the whole death wish thing.” I told him. Then I gave Frank a sincere smile and patted him on the shoulder. He gave me a smile back and said,

“that’s all I can ask, Travis. Thanks for considering it.” At that, we went our separate ways. As soon as I was left to Frank, I thought a bit more as I walked, and I was going to have to apologize to Frank again at some point. Maybe get him a present? There was no way I was stopping anything that would make me stronger. Improve yourself or die. That was the rule of this new world, and that was my bible. “Sorry, Frank,” I said under my breath, then smiled at the challenges ahead.

The next time I tried to do some resistance training, I used the light cut less that had given me fire resistance. The pain from the light cutlass hadn’t been as intense as the dagger of minor corruption. That was the actual name of the blade, by the way. It was hard to remember the exact pain level of the light cutlass, but I would be finding out soon enough. I was sitting in the Treehouse that Beth, Janet, and I had built and spent so much time in. We had kind of abandoned it, but groups that got out of the dungeon late in the day would sometimes stay there instead of trekking back to Treehouse Village. So, in some capacity, it was like an outpost or forward camp for our forces.

I was sitting on the roof, and I was by myself this time. I knew it might be a dangerous idea, with me being the only one here. I also hadn’t told anyone where I was going. I was just tired of people reporting me to Beth whenever they found me tucked away somewhere, trying to poison myself in peace. Honestly, it felt like I was trying to find a place to get high pre-integration, and everyone was all up in my business. I was here now, and no one would stop me from indulging.

I had my smoothie of Senzuketa Beans, and Mana kissed water, so I was ready. I picked up the light cutlass and turned it on. It wooshed to life, and the sword’s glow lit up my face. It was a cool weapon. It was too bad it wasn’t a real lightsaber that would have been so cool. I guess I would also be dead, so maybe it was a good thing it wasn’t. After a few more seconds of just admiring the glowing blade, I remembered why I was here and why I was fucking around with the light cutlass in the first place. It was resistance training time.

The first thing I would try was a strike across the leg. I braised myself, and before I could stop myself or think too hard about what I was about to do, I swung down and let the blade pass through my left leg. It felt like passing my arm through an extremely powerful flashlight. Just like last time, it didn’t hurt right afterward. It just felt a bit warm. I sat there on the roof for five minutes, and then I started to feel a tingling sensation coming from my leg. It was only a minute later the real pain hit me.

“Wow, that fucking sucks!” I said to no one through gritted teeth. It was just the same as last time. It felt like someone poured boiling water onto my leg. This time, however, it wasn’t as bad as I remembered. Maybe it was the stat points I had now, or maybe my resistance was helping. Whatever it was, it was going to fuck with my training. I was sure of it. I’d probably have to hurt myself with this thing a bunch of times to get a single point added to my resistance. I guess I better get to it.

I spent the next two days passing the beam of the light cutlass over different parts of my body. I had been training with the dagger of minor corruption as well, but every time I used it, it put me down. I hadn’t passed out again like the last time I used it, but I would fall into that half-awake state to deal with the pain till it passed every time. It just took my everything to resist the pain the weapon caused. I had switched from stabbing myself with the dagger to giving myself deep lacerations on different parts of my body.

The light cutlass, however, must have been a weaker weapon. It still felt like I was pouring boiling water on myself wherever I hit with the blade. Even If I could have survived this torture per integration, I’m pretty sure I still would have been driven crazy from the pain alone. It was probably my stats, but I was able to push through the pain and endure every strike. I was exhausted by the end of those two days. The pain was wearing me down, but not at a pace I was concerned about.

At the end of my resistance training “vacation,” I gained two points in fire resistance and three points in corruption resistance. I only had the energy to check my stat sheet before I fell asleep on the roof. I was woken up by one of our scouting units. They had decided to stay at the treehouse for the night and woke me up when they arrived. I thanked them for waking me up, hopped down from the roof to the ground, and then took off at speed towards Village.

Once back, I ate some food I had in my fridge. The communal cafeteria was already closed, so I didn’t really have a choice. I managed to throw something together. Then I passed out in my nice big bed. The following day, Janet was waiting in my living room when I woke up.

“Hey, morning, sleepyhead. Janet said.

“Morning,” I got out before I let out a big yawn.

“So, just gonna get right to it then. Where the fuck have you been the last couple of days? You know what, never mind. Don’t answer that. I know you were off trying to do some resistance training in secret, and I know you don’t want to hear it but fuck Travis, you have to tell someone where you’re going. If you…” Janet’s voice cracked, and she looked down at the floor. Then I saw a tear fall from her face. I stepped forward to give her a hug, but she stepped back.

“No, I’m not done. If you, if you went off to do some fucking training and it killed you. What the fuck. If I have to go looking for you. Suppose I found you dead somewhere. I just… If I find you dead somewhere. I’d find a way to bring you back to life, then I’d fucking kill you again myself.” When Janet was done talking, she looked up at me with hurt in her eyes. I opened my mouth to speak, but Janet cut me off before I could talk.

“Just don’t. If you’re gonna keep doing this kind of shit, then just let me be there. Please?” She finished. I just looked at her for a few seconds, then I stepped forward again to hug her, and this time, she let me. We stayed that way for a little while, just holding each other. After a little while, I put my hands on her shoulders, then held her at arm’s length and met her eyes.

“I promise you, Janet, from now on, if I want to do any resistance training, I’ll come find you, and we can go together. That sound okay?” She just nodded like a kid. I smiled at that and pulled her back into a hug. After my talk with Janet, I decided to take a few days off of resistance training for real this time. I had been sparring with Janet and the council more often.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was a nice day around two o’clock, three days after I got back from my solo training trip. Janet and I had just kicked off an afternoon training session. We were only a few strikes into our match when we heard feet pounding the ground towards us. It was a scout, and Janet and I disengaged to listen to what the man had to say. We let him catch his breath for a second, and he started speaking when he had composed himself a bit.

“There back, it’s a smaller group, but they don’t look like they’re playing around this time. It looks like they sent more elites. There are about 40 of them. They’re about twenty minutes out if they hold their speed. What would you like us to do?” The man was looking at Beth, clearly hoping for guidance. Beth looked like she was thinking, and then she spoke.

“Okay, thank you for the warning, Eric. You might have just saved many lives. Tell the fighters to take up their post on the wall. I want archers on the walls, and foot soldiers should get ready to engage if needed. Looks like they’ll see action sooner than we thought.” Beth finished speaking to the scout, and the man took off. Beth then turned to Janet and me.

“You ready?” She asked us, and we both just nodded in the affirmative. Janet and I headed towards the wall. We had to stop at the smithy first, oh yeah, we bought one of those. It came with a smith that wouldn’t teach anyone anything about his class or how to obtain it, which was a bummer. He did offer some good starter gear that I was almost about to outgrow, but there was an upgrade we could buy in the future. We’d have to meet some requirements, but that was getting ahead of ourselves. The other thing he did was repair gear like armor and weapons, which was a big help. With people able to regrow limbs, we all trained pretty full out. So fucked up gear was a common occurrence for sure. The repair aspect of the smithy is what Janet and I were stopping by for. Her axe was there for a touch-up after one of our more aggressive training matches. I lost a foot in that fight, but Janet lost a hand.

The structure also had a block of rooms for on-duty fighters to catch some sleep between shifts, and fighters were spilling out and flowing toward the walls. Janet and I got our gear on, then joined the fighters on the walls. As we all looked out from atop the walls, we saw… nothing. Yeah, it was kind of anticlimactic, actually. Yep, we just fucking stood there for almost twenty fucking minutes. I’m sure everyone was thinking that if they looked away, that would be the moment the enemies would come into view.

Pretty close to twenty minutes passed, dam that scout was dead on, and we started to see a small group of humanoid-looking creatures come into view. The group definitely saw us, and instead of slowing down or hesitating, they began to charge. Some turned to all fours to gain speed, while a couple even seemed to cast a spell or something to increase their movement speed. They were closing the distance at a noticeable rate.

“Fuck, there fast,” I said just loud enough for Janet to hear, and I saw her nod.

“Yeah, this might get wild.” She said, and I looked over at her, a little concerned. She was absolutely focused on the enemies that were headed right at us. I turned my attention back to the force now barreling towards us and ready myself for battle. Then, the moment came. Janet and I leaped from the wall simultaneously, hit the ground, and jumped straight into the enemy.

I collided midair with a mutated beetle of some kind that had adapted to walking upright. It had a hard exoskeleton and four arms, and they were ready to swing at me. It held a blade in two of its hands, and it tried to impale me with them as we collided. I managed to push its arms aside and slam a knee into its chest. We went crashing to the ground, and when we landed, my knee punched through its chest. Then quick as I could, I brought my Teremnocal up, then slammed the butt of the weapon down into the creature’s head, ending its life.

Janet had dealt with her opponent quicker than I had, just taking its head off, and was on to her next target. A whistle sounded over the battlefield, and with a swipe of Janet’s weapon, she ended the life of the creature she was fighting. Then, we both retreated. The second we were clear of the creature, a volley of arrows tore into the group, then a second and a third in quick succession.

After that, two short whistles sounded, and the rest of our elites dropped down to join Janet and me. Another whistle, and we all charged the enemy. We were in the middle of it now, and the chaos of battle was fully upon us. Every second seemed like a fight for survival, which I guess it was. I would dodge a sword only to have to block a strike coming at my head. Only to take a blow on my chest plate.

It was like they were all over me. There were only about forty members of the enemy force. How were they taxing us this much? The real issue was that they were working together better than we were. If we survived this, we would definitely need to work on that. I blocked a blow with a bracer, and my arm went numb for a few seconds. I swung out horizontally with my Teremnocal and removed my opponent’s head. I then leaped back and free from the group of enemies I was engaged with to get a better perspective on the fight.

We were doing better than I thought. Most people were fighting two on one against their opponent, and it looked like we were out-matching them in most encounters. Only Janet and I were fighting at least five enemies each, but any that we weren’t taking care of were using their numbers to tip engagements in their favor. The six I was fighting had started charging me after I had retreated, so I guess it was time to get back into it.

I dove back into the fight with abandon. I was getting cut up left and right, but every blow or cut I took cost my opponents too much. Before I knew it, there were no more enemies to kill, and we had won the day. I was yet again drenched in fresh, warm. Blood and my left hand was missing. When did that happen? I thought as I looked myself over and found wounds all over my body. Nothing too serious, but I had definitely seen better days. Janet was in better shape than me, but we had lost half a dozen fighters. If we kept losing people, we would start running out of elites to throw at them.

Maybe that was the Master plan, just Wilde us down one fight after the next till we ran out of fighters. We needed recruits, plain and simple. I looked around at the mess that was the battlefield and saw a few large scorch marks on the ground. I also noticed as we were gathering our dead that one guy. I think his name was, fuck I think it was Neil. Had half his body burned horribly. In some places, it was down to the bone. He must have fought a magic user, shit.

The council had been looking into fortifications we could add to the village but hadn’t decided what to choose. That ended today. We had to be better prepared for shit like this. When we had gathered the bodies of the fallen behind our walls. We ensured guards were on the walls, watching for anything coming our way, and then gathered the council. We were all in the council room above the town hall, and every member was covered in bandages. We all looked spent.

“Well fuck, that sucked,” Brianna said.

“Yeah, we need to pick some defensive upgrades today, he’ll right now. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep till I know there’s something in place. “Devin said. I was slightly surprised to hear that from Devin, but I guess I didn’t know him that well. I saw Beth squeeze his leg, so it might have to do with their newly blossoming relationship.

“Yeah, I agree. I think we should go with two. We have the points, and I think it’s our best chance. The first gives us more time to respond, and the second gives us an offensive option other than throwing ourselves at the enemy. I think we get the force shield and the plasma turrets.

It says the force shield will cover the area of the entire village, but every moment it’s active will cost us build points, so we will have to use it sparingly. So, it’s good that we can turn it on and off at will, or I can at least. It looks like I can add all of you as administrators, and that will allow you to have the same control over both the force shield and the plasma turrets. Speaking of, the plasma turrets will stay on and alert at the cost of zero build points, but firing will cost build points with every blast. Are we all agreed?” Beth finished.

Everyone was so exhausted from the fight that we all just agreed. Everyone trusted that Beth would do what was best for Treehouse Village. After the meeting, everyone went their separate ways. Beth and Devin disappeared together with little Tilly in toe, held tight to by Beth. Brianna pulled a bottle from her bag of holding and headed off with Tess. They had started drinking before they left the room. Janet and I found our way to my room. We took a shower, laid down in the bed, and passed out.

I had a hand to regrow, and Janet didn’t look like she was doing much better. We slept for a long fucking time. I mean, I was pretty sure it was a whole twenty-four hours. When we finally did get up, I asked Janet about the idea of going out to try and find more survivors in the nearby area. She finished chewing the piece of bacon in her mouth before responding.

“Look, I think it’s a great idea, but it might get tricky in practice. Who goes? How many people? What’s your search diameter? Have you thought about any of that?” Janet asked, then bit into another piece of bacon.

“Well, no, I hadn’t gotten that far yet. I feel like, at first, maybe just me or me and you. I don’t know. Not too far at first, just but we go see what the fucks around us. More than just the immediate area that we’ve been scavenging.”

“Well, if that’s it, then yeah, I’m in. Do you want to go tomorrow? I mean, it took The Master guy about two weeks to send an attack against us. So, we’re probably cool to dip out for a few days. I don’t know about you, but a break from the norm sounds good to me. So, we going?” Janet asked me.

I looked at her for a second, then agreed this would at least let us get our feet wet and see what’s out there in this new world. Doing it alone with Janet was a plus as well. Even if I only had one hand, we would most likely be okay if I had Janet with me.

The following day, with a heavy, somber atmosphere hanging over us, we buried our dead in a simple ceremony where brief words about honor and bravery were said, and then we all ate together. After everyone was full and liquor was starting to get passed around, Janet and I broke away from the crowd. We would use today to gather everything we’d need for a couple of days outside in the wild. We already had most of what we’d need in our bags of holding, but we had to grab some essentials we were missing.

We needed some sleeping bags and other small shit. It didn’t take very long to gather everything, so we took our time. When we were done, we spent the rest of the day talking to people and drinking with them. We were trying to do our part to help Beth keep morale up. She had asked us to help her out, saying that she was worried after two consecutive attacks that the members of Treehouse Village would start losing their will to keep fighting.

It turned out to be the complete opposite. People were, of course, sad about losing friends or loved ones, but they blamed The Master with gusto. Everyone wanted a piece of the asshole and to keep Treehouse Village safe. They saw Treehouse Village as representing their rebirth in this new world. They saw themselves as rising from the ashes of their old lives and reforging themselves anew on the anvil of battle.

It was inspiring talking to the people about Treehouse Village. They didn’t have all the advantages Beth, Janet, and I had, but they still put themselves in harm’s way to protect their new home. Janet and I called it an early night and got up early the next morning. It was a nice day. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the monsters were howling in the distance. It was just another beautiful morning on the new earth.

We had said goodbye to Beth, Devin, Tess, Brianna, and Tilly the night before. So we headed out early while most were still asleep after last night's festivities. We passed through one of the gates and headed into the destroyed city that stretched out before us.