When they got back to Clearview, everyone was out of breath and smelled something awful. Hiro hadn’t slowed down the entire run back, zigzagging through the known path they had taken to get to the apartments in the first place. It meant they were safe, and it was fast. Still, Jack didn’t approve. It would be safer if they just killed everything they came across.

He could request information later. Maps, hopefully, otherwise verbal warnings would be a good leaping off point. Jack would go exploring on his own, when there weren’t many eyes on him, or lives on the line.

Sensei waited for them at the gate. His eyes widened at the sight of them.

“The doors opened.”

Everyone nodded. Chad, Ben, and Lee bid Hiro farewell. They were going on ahead to clean up and rest. It would be up to Hiro to consolidate the information gained for Sensei.

Sensei held up a hand, stopping Jack from joining them, which stopped Alice as well. Sensei eyed Jack’s blank expression.

“You. We need to talk. We won’t be long Alice, you’ll get him back.”

“Mind if I stay the night?” Alice asked Hiro. “Y’know. For Jack?”

Hiro smiled, nodding.

Sensei led Jack out of earshot, secluding them in the meeting hall like before. Jack calmly stood before Sensei, trying to soothe his rapid heart rate from the exercise. He didn’t normally get winded while he was in combat, but regular exercise always seemed to take it out of him.

“One of your achievements does that.” Sensei said, crossing his arms.

“Does what?” Jack asked.

“Your tiredness. Your stamina doesn’t drain while in combat.” His eyes flitted. “The achievement’s called ‘You’re Locked in Here with Me’. Odd name, how’d you get it?”

Jack thought back to his first excursion into the hospital. He’d cleared the dungeon after two straight days of fighting zombies, among other abominations.

“I see.” Sensei said thoughtfully. “Impressive.”

I didn’t say anything. Jack thought. Can you read minds too?

Sensei smirked. “No, I can’t read minds.”

Really? Jack thought. He didn’t believe it.

“Really. I’m just good at guessing. This isn’t even a part of my abilities.”

I don’t believe you.

Sensei shrugged. “Believe it or don’t.”

“...” Jack imagined lunging for Sensei. An elbow to the face would down him quick. Between Jack’s speed and the fat otaku’s reaction speed, who was faster? Would Jack have to contend with Sensei’s foresight?

Sensei didn’t react.

Either he really couldn’t read minds, or he was a really good actor.

“Why am I here?” Jack asked.

“Why are any of us?” Sensei muttered. He answered Jack at a normal volume. “I don’t know. I’m figuring it out.”

Jack shifted his feet, intending to leave. “Well then-”

“You’re going to leave the encampment.”

Jack paused. He set back into his neutral stance.

Sensei furrowed his brows. “You’re going back the way you came. Why?”

“For the sewing supplies.” Jack said.

Sensei nodded. “Half truth. You’re going to…” His eyes went wider.

Jack’s own eyes narrowed.

“But then-”

Jack raised an eyebrow in challenge.

“But what if-”

Jack smirked. He was enjoying having a conversation without words.

Sensei set himself in an aggressive stance, intending to scold Jack. Jack’s face fell to neutral, and the otaku stopped before he said a word.

Sensei clenched his fists.

“Don’t.”

Jack lifted his chin. Sensei wasn’t going to stop him.

Sensei’s eyes lowered in submission. “Please.”

Jack leaned in. “Do you know what kind of person I am?”

Sensei swallowed. He nodded.

“Then you know how to use me.”

Sensei grit his teeth, but said nothing. Truthfully, this conversation was over a while ago. But Jack liked clarity. He walked past the man, eyes set on the door.

He spoke in a low voice. “We will survive.”

No matter what.

Sensei half turned to speak over his shoulder, stopping Jack at the door. “We’re not animals.”

Jack thought about it. The comforting lie. “No.” He agreed. “You’re not.”

“All good?” Hiro asked cheerily as Jack walked out.

Jack smiled politely back. “He’s all yours!”

Alice brought Jack back to the Adventurers Guild House. The nice suburban home was cluttered in the best of ways, and Jack’s new teammates took pride in giving him the grand tour. At Jack’s request, a space was cleared in the basement, which was away from everyone else who slept on the upper floors. Apparently the basement got terribly cold in the winter, so nobody wanted it. With the furnace not working, and no fireplace, people resorted to just piling on the blankets, and even that wasn’t enough sometimes. Thankfully, it was summer, and temperature regulation could be achieved by opening windows.

Alice was given a spot on the couch in the living room, since she didn’t live here. Although Jack offered to escort her home, she insisted that they should both stay, at least for today. She wanted to hear his stories, and to tell her own. And so, she forced herself to sit uncomfortably close to Jack while she animatedly chatted with everyone.

While Jack did participate and told stories of his year of survival, his mind was elsewhere. He entirely recognized that he was supposed to feel something now that he was ‘safe’ with family and new friends, but whatever emotion that was supposed to be, Jack didn’t feel it. Outwardly, he smiled, laughed, and frowned when appropriate. But it was all an act. It was always just an act. And as much as he legitimately loved his sister, she drained his energy like no other. Especially when she was being clingy like this.

Night came slowly, and Jack had to retire early to encourage the others to do the same. Tomorrow promised to be just as hectic, with a tour of the whole camp, and potentially another excursion to find more supplies or information, depending on what Sensei asked for. Everyone was worried about the doors, especially now that they were open.

Jack slept for four hours before his internal alarm woke him up, just as intended. He removed himself from his blankets in the complete darkness of the basement. The windows for the basement were boarded up even more than the ones upstairs. No escape but for the one way up the stairs. It wasn’t ideal, and it made Jack mildly uncomfortable, but he supposed the safety of being in civilization again made up for it.

He crept up the stairs on three limbs, holding his mace quiet with his free hand. His Predator Apocrypha had given him night vision, so he could see his sister's large sleeping frame on the couch, rising and falling with slow breaths. Jack placed his feet in the places he knew wouldn’t creak, slowly inching his way to the door. He opened it with as little sound as possible, and stepped out into the midnight sky.

Sensei stood at the foot of the stairs leading to the sidewalk.

“Your eyes glow, did you know that?”

“I guessed.” Jack whispered. He stood in front of the otaku. It would be easy to go around him, but Sensei had placed himself directly along the conventional path on purpose. He was an obstacle. And Jack confronted him as such, silently demanding that he move out of Jack’s way

He tapped his sheathed katana on his shoulder, thinking. No doubt mulling over their earlier conversation.

“What do you hope to discover?”

“I don’t hope for anything.” Jack said.

“What if they’re… not evil?”

Jack raised an eyebrow. He knew that neither of them believed that.

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“I’m just saying…” Sensei sighed, and rubbed the back of his head in exasperation. “I don’t know. I just… don’t think this is right.”

And yet, he stepped aside.

Jack nodded his thanks. Not for getting out of the way, but for what getting out of his way meant. Permission.

“You can’t tell the others.” Sensei warned.

“I’m not planning to.” Jack said. He paused, a smirk forming. “I have a reputation to maintain.”

Sensei grimaced. “I’m supposed to be watching the wall. The way you’re going. Just go. You won’t be seen.”

Jack nodded. He set off at an easy jog, quietly vaulting the various bits that made up the outer wall. He continued in a straight line until he was out of sight of the compound. From there, he beelined for the apartments with the door. Along the way, he encountered a few monsters.

All were crushed before they could make noise.

The only thing Jack avoided was the groups of monsters. He couldn’t ensure quiet kills if they numbered more than three or so.

Jack casually observed a simple fact. The tribal monsters, lizardfolk and goblins, numbered far greater here than they ever did in Jack’s hometown. It wasn’t just a matter of a larger city creating a larger population either, these tribes were far better organized than the ones Jack was used to. Their camps weren’t just piles of rubble or hastily constructed walls. These were proper camps, with pens for livestock, communal buildings, families, and all other facets of civilization.

Jack never allowed his hometown to reach this stage, constantly harassing the populace, even if he couldn’t wipe them out. There were a number of times he lured some large monsters into a goblin tribe and then left them to deal with the aftermath. Clearly, no such method was utilized here. What worried Jack more than the lizardfolk or goblins though, was the lack of ratkin.

From experience, Jack knew that they liked to group up more than the other two. Goblins gathered in small tribes, typically less than a hundred. If they ever reached more than that, they would grow restless and reckless, throwing bodies at problems that didn’t need solving, like Jack or other powerful monsters. If they were comfortable however, the tribe would dissolve and divide in a form of social mitosis, creating two new tribes.

The lizardfolk were sedentary. Once they found a spot they liked, they settled down to stay. Their numbers grew much slower than the goblins, so Jack didn’t know if they had a critical mass before things changed, but from what Jack had seen, they had less tribes, but larger ones. Between four and five hundred on average.

The ratkin though… they were like humans. If they found others of their kind, they would join together, pooling resources without contention. Jack had a near religious obsession with mapping out their territories and scouting routes. When he was just starting out and couldn’t deal with the large numbers of a full civilization, Jack had to ensure that the ratkin groups never found each other. Because if they did, they’d join forces, and be that much harder to deal with in the future.

So the fact that Jack still hadn’t seen a single ratkin meant either something really good, and they were wiped out, or really, really bad, and the tens of thousands of the fuckers that had spawned in the city had formed a super civilization that they would never be able to deal with.

Jack forced it to the back of his mind. An hour and a bit of running later, and he had reached the apartments again.

Now that he wasn’t running from a monster, Jack took his time to observe the door itself. There was no wishy-washy portal effects in it. Just a hard transition between the earth side and the other side. Several centaurs were in the process of bringing materials through and piling them against one another in organized fashion. The vast majority of materials were panels or metal, clearly meant for buildings. However, they were all still loosely laying around.

A huddle of centaurs stood off to the side of the door, surrounding a number of hoses, contraptions, and gadgets, including their high tech guns. An untouched target sat off to the side, away from the construction site. Multiple tables were placed around, filled with mysterious high tech tools that nobody was using. Jack debated stealing some, but there were too many centaurs wandering around.

He observed a number of them entering from the other side without carrying anything. They jumped in place, shaking out their limbs. A few of them punched the air, or swung dull weapons. Jack recognized one particular sword that he had found as loot a few months back. Aside from being durable, it wasn’t anything special.

The centaur with the sword looked up at the huddled group. Without sound, the huddled group looked over as one, and the sword wielder gestured to the sword and the door. A silent discussion was held, and the huddled group followed the swordsman to the door. A number of other curious centaurs watched on, or followed for a closer look.

The swordsman stuck his sword halfway into the door. Slowly, he moved it further in, until the handle passed into the other side.

The blade burst into blue flames.

Jack raised his eyebrows, and continued watching.

The swordsman looked up at one of the huddlers, and some gestures were made. Not enough for a conversation. If Jack was a betting man, he’d say that their armor held radios or something, and he just couldn’t hear them, even with his enhanced hearing.

The swordsman walked through the door and stood on the other side, repeating the experiment. The flames on the sword went out for a second before being turned on again. Slowly, the blade was pushed into the earth side, staying lit the whole time. When the handle just barely touched the border, the flames vanished.

A large centaur gestured angrily behind the swordsman, and everyone hustled to get out of the way. More materials were brought through, including tablets that went dark as soon as they crossed over.

Jack’s attention wandered to the area as a whole. Although materials were being brought through at a steady pace, nobody seemed all too concerned about building things. They milled about the parking lot casually, with most of the wanderers wielding their useless guns. Jack got a feeling of boredom from the wanderers. A few exploratory ones went into the apartment, but nobody strayed too far away from the door. It almost acted like an invisible leash.

Judging by the building materials, it wasn’t the door itself that was holding them back. It was the feeling of safety. As soon as a forward camp was established, these high tech centaurs would begin actually doing stuff.

Jack was of a few minds when he decided to come here. One, with the news of an invasion, he wanted to prepare. Monopolize the health potions before the invaders could get to them, set up traps, backup shelters, the works. On the other hand, he was just one man, and he didn’t know what he was going up against.

So the logical part of his mind decided that getting information was more important than anything else. Know thy enemy and wherever else. And he recognized just how ineffective it’d be if he had to convince the others to go along with his plan.

The normal, compassionate, empathetic humans he now called his friends.

Jack slunk away, rounding the door at a wide berth so he could come up on the back side of the apartments. He chose to come at it by the corner, where there were little windows. He crawled along the wall, out of sight, until he reached an open door. Though, missing was more appropriate.

His dark vision didn’t see anything inside. Jack darted in, racing up the nearest stairs without a sound. His hearing was straining to its limits, listening for the distinct sound of metal on concrete. A few centaurs curiously wandered about the lower floors, and a number of them had decided to climb the stairs. The building had obviously been cleared long ago, so now the only ones wandering about were just the ones curious about the architecture. Jack had seen a number of them through the windows as he rounded the building.

The first, second, and third floors weren’t safe. Centaurs would occasionally wander them before getting bored with the repeating pattern, at which point they’d climb up to the roof to have a look. That meant the fourth and fifth floors would remain permanently empty, save for the lone centaur on the stairs briefly passing through.

Jack left the staircase on the second floor, ducking around a corner to avoid a descending centaur. The mechanized creature was so big, its head nearly brushed the roof. It glided a hand on the bottom of the stairs above it as it descended.

Jack ran around it, ascending to the fourth floor unimpeded.

From there, he just waited. He pulled a knife, one of many he carried about his person, out of his boot. He let the first centaur he saw go. Too big. Besides, he wanted to observe the armor a little closer. Look at the joints. The second centaur ascended. Small. An ideal target. Jack let it go. The third centaur was one descending. Jack let that one go too.

The small one returned many minutes later, heading back down the stairs. Their gun was laying against their side, and their four fingered hands glided on the railing. They turned the corner, walking the short hallway back to the stairs at the far end. Jack bolted from cover, vaulting against the railing to get around the body and reach the neck. His knife jammed up against the bottom of the wide helmet, stuck at first against the metal, but sliding up and under. He felt flesh beneath metal.

The creature’s vocalizations vibrated his knife, but Jack obviously didn’t know if it managed to say anything. He fell with the beast, catching the ‘human’ torso before it clanged against the railing. The rest of the body thudded dully on the carpeted concrete. Jack left the knife in its neck and used both hands to drag the heavy bastard around a corner. He brought it to the fourth door, broken in by the centaurs hours before.

Jack left the centaur in the living room and hurried over to the bedroom. He plucked the mattress off its frame and carried it over to the door, where he propped it nearby, but out of casual view if one looked down the hallway. Soundproofing.

His attention returned to the centaur. It wasn’t moving. But Jack liked to be sure.

He mounted the top half of the creature, gripping the knife. He shoved it in as far as it would go and moved it in a circle. The creature shuddered, but didn’t move after that. Not even when Jack repeated the stab and swish on the other side of the neck. He cleaned his knife on the nearby couch and returned it to his boot. From there, it was time to learn.

The armor, for it was armor, wasn’t easy to remove. Jack had to resort to breaking it in a few places with some pieces of metal he scavenged around the apartment. The main horse body broke off first, splitting in two down the spine. After prying it off the main body, Jack peered inside and saw that the spine of the creature was mechanical, and somehow woven into the body. Jack imagined that taking off the armor as improperly as he did was potentially painful. Thankfully, the dead didn’t scream.

He tried to get the legs to detach from each half of the armor, but he got distracted with the human torso and helmet. Like the main body, it had a seam to split it in half, though this time it went the other direction. The arms were attached to the front half, and the back half was shaped like an upside down U, around the spine. Jack was able to separate the two without breaking it, having learned the mechanism from the back half.

The face plate opened first, hinging away from the torso. Jack got his first look at the creature beneath.

The first thought in his head was ‘hammerhead ewok’. Or maybe ‘ET, but gerbil’. It’s eyes were forward facing mostly, right at the ends of the skull. Its skull was maybe three times larger than Jack’s, with two thirds of it being dedicated to the eyes. When Jack stabbed up under the neck, he had struck in a place below the base of the skull, right into the brain. Its mouth wasn’t a part of the skull itself, but lower down on the neck. Jack couldn’t see a nose of sorts.

The centaur’s fur was well groomed, even considering the ‘helmet hair’ that tangled bits of it. And as Jack removed the torso armor entirely, he could see that was true for the rest of the fur as well. It was hard to tell, even in the moonlight, but Jack described the fur as a nice golden lab blonde. And the skin beneath was pale as shit, bordering on pink along the arms. The hands were furry too, but with shorter, better kept fur. The palms were hairless, and nearly human, if it wasn’t for the missing digit.

The method to remove the leg armor bits was different from the rest of the armor. Jack didn’t manage to figure it out by the time all four were broken. Beneath the armor, the centaur was naked, save for a cloth ‘diaper’ around the privates and chest. Since it went along the seam of the armor, Jack assumed it acted as extra padding to prevent pinch points. Obviously, the spine didn’t need such clothing, as the armor attached directly to it. Jack removed the padding, but found that it wasn’t anything special, so disregarded it. He used it to contain the pooling blood at the top of the corpse.

The centaur’s legs had fur right up until about halfway down, where they transitioned harshly to a scale-calloused flesh feeling thing. Jack had never felt what a chicken’s leg was like, but he imagined this was it. His earlier velociraptor parallel was closer than he thought, except the feet didn’t end in claws like he had imagined. They were more akin to three pronged hooves.

Jack separated the armor into the important bits. He couldn’t carry much, and he wanted to take some stuff with him as loot. The top, front torso bit with the helmet was an easy choice, since the helmet had a large number of intricate apparatuses in it. Aside from an air filter where the mouth was on the neck, Jack couldn’t identify anything. The second piece Jack would take with him was the gun, obviously. Everything else was too heavy for Jack to carry at speed, and not worth the risk, so he left those in a separate pile.

Then he got out his knife. He didn’t know anatomy, and he wasn’t going to pretend. But he was good at memorizing details. All he would have to do would be to show Alice a picture of crude drawings, and she could extrapolate from there. She was a smart girl.

Jack hesitated. Then he shook his head.

No. He couldn’t tell her. This information was useful, yes, but he couldn’t subject her to that. It wasn’t normal.

No. This information was just to sate Jack’s own curiosity.

The knife slid neatly into the centaur’s corpse.