"Anyways. Is finding what is beyond our zone as you call it the only reason you're here." Liam says shaking off the brief moment of somberness.
"That's the main reason, I didn't even know there was a town here before I came this way. However, I'm always interested in meeting new people considering the distinct lack of them inside the city." I explain.
"Lack of people inside the city?" Liam sat back up, surprised.
"Yeah, there are less people left in the city zone than there are in your town, I haven't searched the entire thing obviously, but I have seen very few people since a few days after the monsters came." I tell him.
"So many people dead? How could this be?" Liam asks dumbfounded.
"First it was the monsters, they hunted through buildings killing anyone they could find. Others tried to flee and were eaten then. Most that survived the normal monsters were killed from the advanced monsters that hunt at night." I tell him what happened to the massive population of people in the city.
"Advanced monsters? What do you mean by this?" He seems confused.
"Well, in the city zone when night falls monsters I call Night Stalkers come out and hunt humans and I suspect other monsters too. They're far stronger and much faster than the monsters out during the day." I explain.
"Stronger monsters, that's just terrible. Why haven't we seen them here though?" He asks.
"The Night Stalkers don't leave the city; I don't think they can." I say.
"That's some good news at least." He sighs in relief.
"Indeed, unless you visit the city you will not have to deal with the Night Stalkers." I smile at him.
"Good. Can I ask what else you know of our new world." Liam asks.
I spend the next fifteen minutes explaining to Liam about the 3x3 area of zones that I've visited and what I've seen. I tell him about seeing Earth animals here and there, and what happened up in the northeast town. He's quite surprised that there has already been human conflict so soon into this disaster as he calls it.
"Thank you for sharing. The only zone you haven't been to then is to the north of us, it is some sort of snow-covered tundra, though much of the snow has melted already." Liam tells me.
"Thank you, now I know all of the zones." I thank him, I finally have a complete picture of our area.
"Do you know how long you're going to be staying with us?" Liam asks.
"Probably a day, maybe two if that's fine with you. Then I'm going to head back to the northeast town if you don't need anything from me, I left some companions there while I explored." I tell him.
"Of course of course, stay as long as you want, as for anything for you to do, I don't think so. We've got pretty much everything under control here." Liam says.
"Indeed, you have an impressive hold on this town for there to be no monsters roaming around at all." I praise his ability to keep the town safe.
"Thank you, it took us several days to get a working guard rotation, but since we did, we haven't had any deaths from noncombatants." Liam says giving me a proud smile.
"Quite impressive Liam. On that note I'll leave you to your business, have a good day." I say as I turn to leave.
"One moment Reaper. I will send my assistant with you to show you around the town." He says before I take more than two steps.
"Sure, I don't mind the company." I tell him, though I'm fairly certain that this is at least partly a way to watch over me without insulting me with guards.
What I was said was true though, I'd much rather someone to show me the town and talk to than guards just meant to keep me out of trouble. Liam stands and walks me out, stopping to speak with the woman I saw open the door earlier.
"Reaper, this is Brielle, my assistant, she will be showing you around the town while you are here." Liam explains.
"Hello Brielle, nice to meet you." I say and shake her hand.
"Nice to meet you, Reaper." She says with a nice but businesslike tone.
After meeting my babysitter, I say a final goodbye to Liam, and we leave his home/office.
"So, ahem, what would you like to do first Mr. Reaper?" Brielle asks as we stand in the open area in front of Liam's home.
"First of all, just Reaper is fine. As for where I want to go, why don't you just show me around.
"Alright Reaper, this way then." She says motioning to the north first.
We start in the north moving east, the tour is almost painfully detailed, Brielle walks us down almost every street in town. During our walk she tells me the story about what happened after the initialization. For them after the first night they could tell something had happened, the city could be seen easily to the east and this was obviously something they couldn't understand along with the words, so they prepared for the worst. That's why when the monsters struck, they didn't lose too many, they were already united and ready for something to happen. From there it took a concerted effort from everyone to push the monsters back and finally a few days ago they were able to set up the perimeter around the town. With the entire town being a safe zone there were no longer any deaths from people without classes.
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I already knew some of this obviously, but I didn't stop her, it was nice getting the full story and it was something to do while we walked through the boring parts of town. Something I did learn was that pretty much everyone had some sort of garden, and now that the snow had melted the gardens were exploding with growth, this was apparently how they were getting new food though apparently, they actually had a few stores of meat and canned goods in a few of these buildings. She didn't point any of them out to me, but I was surprised that they had the storerooms before the initialization.
I told her as much and she explained that sometimes if there was a bad snow, they wouldn't be able to get foods from other towns, so they tried to be self-sufficient on food as much as possible. She did point out however that there weren't any regular animals left to hunt, so the gardens improving was a god send. I asked her if they planned to raid the city for food or if they were going to create plots of land to farm, she said Liam planned to create some farms but looting the city wasn't off the table.
While we were walking around, I was able to get a moderate estimate of their numbers with my Energy Control skill, I think there's probably around five thousand people in the town. Honestly, there wasn't anything I found particularly interesting in the town; the most interesting thing I observed was that the few convenience store locations were under guard to protect their stocks of food, but I really wasn't surprised by this, it made sense. That was until we were on the last leg of our tour, we came upon a building that looked to be a workshop.
"What is that?" I asked Brielle.
"Ah, this is our towns blacksmith." She explained.
"A Blacksmith!" I exclaimed.
"Indeed." She eyed me, I hadn't been this enthusiastic over anything else.
This was an incredible find in my opinion, Blacksmiths in a world like the Prime Material were important. I decided to walk inside, I could hear someone hammering at some metal. What I found inside wasn't quite your stock standard fantasy smith, but the man wasn't too far off. The guy was muscular but without being bulky yet, he also had a beard, but it wasn't very long. If he let that beard grow out and put on some extra muscle, he could be any smith in any game or book ever. He must have been a smith before the initialization who worked on the odds and ends or fixed or made important metal pieces for the town. If I had to guess, he was also the one who made that spear the sentry was holding earlier.
I waited for the smith to finish what they were working on, to me it looked like either a knife or another spear tip. He acknowledged us with a nod before continuing his work, it was easily a half hour before he was done, but I didn't mind waiting, watching him work was quite interesting. It turned out to be a spear tip and he set it down with a sigh as he turned to look at us.
"Thanks for waiting, what can I do ya for." The smith said in a hardy voice that wasn't overly deep.
"My name is Reaper; I came from the city and I'm visiting your town for a day or two. I was being given a tour of the city when we happened upon your shop here, and I wanted to meet you." I explain to the smith.
"I see, Reaper seems like an odd name though, I'm Tristan." Trist said with a chuckle.
"You're quite right, I honestly expected more people to comment on it before now." I laugh with him.
"So, why did you want to meet a humble smith such as myself?" Tristan asks.
"Well, in the new world we're in smiths are incredibly important. I don't want to pry, but I assume you have the Blacksmith class or something like it?" I ask him.
"Yeah, that's right." He says.
"That's incredible, you my smith friend are going to be a very important and very popular man in the coming years. I wanted to be the first to offer you my protection or help with anything you need." I tell Tristan.
"Help and protection? Important and popular? Why in the world would I need protection or be so popular?" He asks with a hefty dose of confusion.
"Well, someday you're going to be able to craft magnificent magical weaponry, and everyone is going to want your products." I explain.
"Magical weapons, really?" He strokes his beard in thought.
"Indeed, your weapons are going to be tremendous boosts to an individual's combat capability." I tell him with a huge smile on my face.
"So, is that why you're willing to help and protect me? You want a magical weapon from me, because I don't thin-" Tristan starts.
"It's not like that, while I may want one of your weapons someday, I really just want to be your friend, someone who you can rely on to keep you safe or help you out here and there, and if someday you are capable of making something impressive you might think to sell your creation to your good friend Reaper first. That's all." I interrupt him.
"You just want to be friends? And maybe someday I'll sell you something I make?" He's back to stroking his beard.
"Exactly, I don't think you quite comprehend how phenomenal your abilities are or will become, or how useful you are to a group of people in this new world. Take for example the spears you've made, I saw one of the sentries wielding one, not many people have proper weapons right now. Most people I've seen use regular tools to kill monsters. For most people an axe is the best you're going to find if you don't want to get up close and personal with monsters using a knife. This isn't even taking into consideration the magical weapons you will be able to create in the future." I try my best to explain.
"I think I'm starting to understand" Tristan says eyes widening.
"I don't expect to get items you create for free or anything like that, I just want to create a relationship with you and make sure you're safe, you're an important force multiplier for humanity against the monsters." I tell him with a serious tone.
"All right, all right, I think I get it." He chuckles.
"So, Tristan, if there is anything you need, or someone is bothering you just let me know." I hold out a hand and shoot him a broad smile.
"Hah, fair enough Reaper." He chuckles and returns the smile as he shakes my proffered hand.
At this point he seems to remember that Brielle is also in the room, he looks over to her and appears sheepish.
"Now Liam will know how valuable you are." I send him a wink.
His cheeks redden a bit, and he chuckles.
"I'm going to be leaving tomorrow, but I'll come by and check on you before I leave, and I'll be sure to come by and see how you're doing as often as I can." I tell the smith.
"Thanks, it was good to meet you Reaper, come on by any time." He smiles and waves as I turn to leave.
I return the gesture before walking with Brielle out of the smith's workshop. I turn to look at the assistant and find a pensive look on her face, I raise a brow.
"I didn't know Tristan was so important." She says.
"He's going to be incredibly important for this group of zones, he should be given everything he needs." I tell Brielle.
"I see, I'll inform Liam about this. She tells me.
I nod and we continue on to the last part of the tour. I don't find anything else particularly interesting unfortunately. At the end of tour, I'm shown to an empty log cabin that was apparently the home of someone who died. It was a bit morbid to hear, but it was the same where I stayed in the northeast, the only difference being that someone knew the people that used to live here. With a cordial goodbye Brielle left, I assume she went to make her report to Liam. It was barely lunchtime, but I was already tired after staying up the night before. I decided to eat an early dinner and go to sleep.
The bed was surprisingly comfortable, though it took me a while to fall asleep, both the revelation there was a blacksmith nearby and the fact that this was the bed of a dead person. I wasn't as creeped out as I sounded it was just, something weird. I could slaughter groups of humans attacking me, or face Night Stalker abominations, but there was a certain wrongness about sleeping in the bed of someone who died recently. Considering the level of destruction the Prime Material already demonstrated, I was probably going to get used to this feeling, might as well start now.
With that I got some much needed sleep.