The Systemic Lands

Chapter 50: Day 113 – Looking Forward

The next morning, I got up feeling less stressed than the night before after the long day and that conversation I had with Ruth. I cleaned up and began putting on my gear. Ruth was sleeping in a corner and woke up as I was moving about.

“Already?” She wasn’t an early morning person apparently.

“Yep, let’s get going. I have five pointers I need to turn in and need to buy supplies.” I sorted out the stuff in the cart as she woke up and stretched out like a cat. I made it a point not to stare or even sneak a peek at the show she was putting on. While looking was fine, I just didn’t want to be tempted in the slightest.

Once everything was set, we left my building. I made sure to lock it up before I left. I could sense Ruth when she was inside, so I should be able to know if anyone broke in while I was away. I tried not to think about how creepy the Almighty System was for injecting information directly into my thoughts. I went to the pillars and the guards of the Red Dawn were there.

“Captain.” There was no way I was remembering all their names. Better to just use their rank. They needed little name badges like the military. Something to bring up, maybe. It wasn’t that important.

“Champion.” My new title was already catching on. I handed over a tip of twenty crystals and cashed in the rest. No need to stop tipping now more than ever. I needed to keep the guards on my side. That and fear of me were the things that had kept Red Dawn from turning on me yesterday. Also, Boss Roger was a weak leader, preferring to avoid confrontation from what I could tell about him.

After purchasing 500 points worth of supplies, I was left with 10,900 points saved up. Ruth purchased supplies as well and loaded them up.

“Let’s go.” I gestured at the cart, and she gave me a look before pulling it.

“Really?”

“Equality, everyone pulls the cart that isn’t me. At least we won’t be dragging it all over once we get set up.” After ten minutes of pulling, I took over since she was getting a bit too tired, and I took pity.

Also, she was going slower. Curse my bleeding heart, but I just didn’t want to go slow. “Thanks. That is a pain in the back to pull.” Why do you think I made you do it?

“It is, but a lot easier than trying to put everything in a pack. Once we reach the gate, you will bang your sword against your shield. The small wolves will rush at you one at a time if we don’t rush. Stab them after they impact your shield. If you are confident enough, you can stab them when they jump at you.”

“Sounds simple enough.” I rolled my eyes at that statement. It is simple when you have someone explain it to you and watch your back in case you screwed up.

“I was also thinking we should practice our sword play every evening.” She let out a small chuckle. “Not like that. I meant with actual swords.”

“I know, I know. I should complain that you are teasing me.”

“Sorry.”

“Idiot, you don’t do well with people informally?”

“Not my strongest skill.”

“I can tell. So, what did you do before all this?”

“Business analyst, spread sheets, and coding,” I said.

“Really? I would have guessed professional survivalist.” I shook my head at that.

“That stuff wouldn’t work in this place even if I knew it. This place is all fake and follows game rules. Also, stuff disappears and reappears. What about you? Who was Ruth before all of this?”

“A mother of three. A housewife. I can sense your surprise from over here.” She looked quite good for a mother of three. A lot better than me to be honest. It was always amazing how some people could look put together no matter what was happening.

“I noticed you aren’t wearing a ring.”

“I take it off for bed. I showed up in my pajamas.” That was unfortunate. I slept in my underwear, so thankfully that didn’t happen to me.

“Husband?”

“I am realistic. I doubt I will see him. I miss my kids the most. Hopefully they aren’t brought to this place.”

“My condolences.”

“Thank you. What about you?”

“I have family or had. I have to think they are dead or beyond my reach. I…I can’t have that type of hope, since I know, it will only lead to disappointment.” It was also too painful to think about all the time. I needed to move forward, not look backwards.

“Hmm.” We walked in silence for a bit towards the edge of Purgatory.

“Dammit,” I muttered.

“What is it?” Ruth asked.

“I didn’t check if there were razor blades in the store.”

“You want to go back?”

“No, just will live with this beard for now.” I let out a sigh and rubbed my scruffy face. My facial hair refused to be oppressed. I wish I had gotten it all lasered off before coming here. “Sometimes this place feels like a death march. Day after day.”

“That is why you need to learn to relax.”

I was quiet for a bit before replying. “Maybe. I can’t lose my edge. It would be too easy to sit around and do nothing. Or do things I would want to keep doing and skew my priorities. All these sacrifices can’t have been for nothing.”

“If you are too hard you become brittle.”

“So, housewife, should I be worried if you get a frying pan?” I said to change the subject. I didn’t want to reflect on my emotional state, it was raw enough as it was after what happened in Purgatory.

“Only if you don’t like my cooking. Which is near impossible due to the lack of everything except raw materials.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sure, there are grains, but they have to be ground to make bread. There are vegetables, but no oil. That has to be extracted. People are looking into it, but it isn’t simple. There is a slowly booming food industry as people try and figure stuff out. Dairy has come out now, just milk no cheese.”

“Can it even ferment into cheese?”

“That is the question. The answer appears to be yes.”

“Huh, figure with the lack of disease, there wasn’t any microbes.”

“They are out there, but maybe no disease once people arrive.”

“Maybe. Another oddity. Yeast?”

“It was cultivated quite quickly. Someone was transported with a bowl of bread mix a couple of arrivals ago.”

“That is lucky. That it was even allowed and the person holding the bread mix was chosen for here at this time. I know guns aren’t carried over, but a bowl of bread mix.” I shook my head at that.

“Lucky or planned?” Ruth asked.

“It doesn’t matter that much. Well maybe it does, but I am not worried right now. That kind of stuff is interesting, but you can go in circles for hours over thinking things. The further we go from the city, the more worried I will be.” What horrors would be hidden in the far reaches of the Systemic Lands?

“A lot of people give into despair, but not you.”

“Trying to figure out what makes me tick?”

“Yes.” That was a far more direct answer than I was expecting. I decided to answer the question directly as well.

“A drive for life. A fear of death. An unrelenting will once I set my mind to something.” Also, a hatred of exercise and a love of food, but I didn’t want to share those things.

“Hmm, that is quite a lot.”

“People are more than one thing.”

“And the killing?”

“Something that is necessary with the path I have chosen. Looking back there were other options, but nothing good. I think I picked the best of a bad lot at the time, but...well I can’t change the past.”

“Really? I thought you chose one of the worst options you could have taken.” The tone was playful, but I could hear the accusation buried within it. The death and destruction I had left in my wake was substantial.

“And you still joined me.”

“Better than what was left in Purgatory. With Carlos dead, I didn’t plan on sticking around. I suspect Roger will be replaced by the time we return. You left a huge mess back there.” Another reason I wanted to get out of the city.

“And you didn’t say anything?” I asked, a bit annoyed at not having been told this.

“The new person will adhere to the charter that was written up. Have no doubt about that. After your last performance, the level of fear is quite high. No one will think about making trouble.” If only that were true. People and trouble were two things that went together like cake and frosting.

“Well, we are going to be out here for quite a while.”

“The next election?” That was in 12 days.

“No, it is something I don’t care about.”

“After all that talking and headache?”

“The trick of the devil was making people believe in him. My trick is making people run things to upgrade the store, manage civilization, and leave me alone.”

“That hasn’t worked out so far. You might want to change strategies.”

“I know. Trust me, I know. Hopefully it has been engrained into peoples’ heads this time around and I am trying this charter thing.”

“I suspect it has, but you probably said the same thing before when wiping out people.”

“Well, the last battle was the only chance they had to really stop me. After this grinding session, my Regeneration and Body will be too high to be easily stopped. Any guess what Absorption does?”

“No. Unless it impacts energy somehow?”

“No, it doesn’t. If it does, I can’t tell,” I replied.

“What do you recommend?”

“Body to start with, Perception for dungeons, Spirit and Regeneration once you have a useful skill. Mind also just to be safe.”

“So, Aura, Endurance, and Absorption are the last?”

“Not enough impact to understand them yet or any information on what they do.” We reached the gate.

“You are on small wolf duty,” I said. “You go in front of me, bang your sword on your shield.”

“Alright.” We left Purgatory into the grasslands. Ruth banged on her shield. The first wolf rushed at her. She blocked it and then stabbed it.

“Good, now get ready to do that over and over. Don’t forget the crystal.”

“This isn’t that hard.” I let out a long sigh and looked over at her. She tilted her head and gave me a look back. I guess I had to spell things out for her.

“Because I explained things and you have the right equipment. The line between success and failure is quite small. Let’s keep moving.”

She did reasonably well after that. I kept my eye on her pace. She was slower than if she had stabbed the small wolves during their leap, but that would come in time with practice and confidence.

It was mid-day by the time we reached the boarder to the shadowlands with the scorpions. I stopped at a nearby hillside facing away from the city and called Ruth over.

“This is our camp spot. We return here when it gets dark, everything in the cart will remain. We come back each night. Don’t go into the shadowlands.”

“I want to see.”

“Up to you. You should be getting at least 400 crystals per day. Or that should be your target. You are at 100, right now?” I began walking and Ruth followed me.

“About,” Ruth replied.

“Well then you need to pick up the pace. I mean it. This is about the grind, efficiency. Got it?”

“I got it. Just…this is what you do all the time when you haven’t been in the city?”

“I used to. Now I do this, watch.” A scorpion was rushing over. “Acid Shot. Right in the center of the head. I have been working on my aim. Plan to rush to the meerkat area and then back to scorpions, until night. Questions?”

“If there are other people?”

“I leave that up to you. If you want to talk, talk, if you want to run, then run. Just don’t die and let me know if you run into someone. I wouldn’t worry too much, I wiped out a lot of the Guild, so it is doubtful anyone is pushing into the small wolf area.”

“The forest is easier. A lot easier.”

“Indeed, but there are other people. At least monsters are predictable. Alright, let’s do this.” I kept walking and Ruth went back to the grasslands. I was hitting about 200 50-point crystals a day before. I wanted to get that up to 300. That meant being able to handle multiple meerkats at once.

The scorpions were no problem with my skill like usual. I wasn’t tempted in the slightest to fight them head on. The annoying part was that I had to slow down my pace slightly to allow my regeneration to catch up with my encounter rate.

I tried pulling two scorpions and hitting them both at once with Acid Shot. It didn’t work out well. They kept a minimum distance from each other, and the skill didn’t splash that much. It just wasn’t worth the risk or the headache to line two of them up to graze one and hit another.

I finally reached the striped meerkat deadlands and began engaging them, willing to risk two at a time. Their ability to blink was as annoying as I remembered. I would stab down on one, then immediately have to dodge the bite of the second, and then stab that one.

It stretched my ability to fight to the limit. That was exactly what I wanted. It would be a long run back to camp though, which was annoying. I kept up the grind until it was time to return.

I started back, slightly offset from my previous route to pick off the occasional scorpion. It was getting dark just as I reached the cart. Ruth was waiting for me. “Have a good day?”

“Too much traveling, where I wanted to go and back. How about you?”

“I got 256 crystals.”

“Decent. Your arm?”

“Sore.”

“No surprise there. Keep it up. I only got 105. Still, you aren’t ready for the meerkats. Will probably leave really early from now on.” I didn’t mention my crystals had a lot higher point value.

“Sorry,” Ruth let out a sigh as she said that. Probably felt guilty about how slow she had been this morning.

“It isn’t a problem. Still…I am tempted to form a horde and try to take them all out at the same time.” I shook my head. “I don’t have the right skill for that. Also, you know yourself best. If you need a break, take a break.”

“Got it.” I got out some vegetables and began munching away. Raw food again. It was tiring, but I would investigate what else was in the store and made by people when I returned.

“Well, my goal is 250 tomorrow. Should be doable.”

“What about at night?” Ruth asked.

“No monsters spawn where we are, and patrols don’t overlap a rest area from what I can tell. Still, I wouldn’t wander off after midnight. Also, this is only true for the monsters I have run across. Can never be too careful.” With my luck a monster would wander into me.

“Makes sense. Anything else?”

“Enjoy the stars. Perfectly static, so a bit weird like everything else.”

“I see. So, who sleeps where, unless we are sharing the cart?” Ruth asked.

"I will sleep leaning against it.” I needed another cold shower. “No teasing.”

“Just asking.” I snorted a bit at that.