Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 95: Winterleaf Village

Selas sighed as he stood in front of the teleporter, waiting alongside the rest of the village leaders. His nerves were fraying, as he didn’t know what would step through the magical inscriptions. As Leader of the Hunt he had always been in charge of protection of the village, even before the Great Fall, but it was different now.

Everything kept changing, and as an old huntsman it was getting increasingly difficult to keep up. Gone were the paths that he and his ancestors had walked through the mountains, the songs detailing the hunting grounds all but irrelevant by now. In just a few years he should have retired to teaching the art of the hunt to the next generation, but now he was stuck as some castellan of the town.

When the fall arrived he found himself transported to a fantastical world with some of his village members. Determined to keep the youths safe against the twisted challenges of the System he pushed himself beyond what he knew was possible, and from his struggle he was rewarded with a Nexus Node. But even with all his effort he couldn’t keep everyone safe, as many of his villagers perished, one of them his son Winterleaf.

Not even allowed to properly mourn the death of his progeny he was instantly pushed into one desperate situation after another since he was returned to his village. Even now the village was teetering on the brink of ruin despite everyone’s efforts.

It was their tree whisperer who came up with their current gambit after using his Soothsayer class’ limited skill. He said that salvation would come through the light, and urged the town to pool their Nexus Coins to build this teleporter. But as the days passed and nothing happened anger and unrest started to build against the elder.

There were even rumblings about putting the elder in house arrest for the time being. Ten Million Nexus Coins was a huge amount, and could have bought weapons, armor, and precious herbs at the store. Many felt that they should have made a last stand before the beast using everything at their disposal instead.

That all changed when the teleporter blazed into life, its inscriptions lighting up by themselves. Selas had barely managed to gather the elders when he got the notification that a new teleportation point was added before it blazed to life, indicating that someone was already coming over.

Selas stood with his spear at the ready, staring at the light that shone with increasing intensity. Behind him stood his hunting party at the ready to protect the villagers against whatever came through that gate.

Whether it would be salvation or damnation was still to be determined.

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Zac only felt darkness for a bit over a minute before he once again gained his sight back. The first thing he noticed was that the climate was clearly different, with an autumn chill in the air. Next he glanced around and found himself placed in the middle of a village square. The buildings were foreign to him though, being medieval but not of some style that he recognized.

Soon he understood why, as a group of people approached. Zac’s heartbeat sped up in alarm when he saw that it wasn’t actually humans that greeted him. Did he teleport himself into an incursion? Ogras and the crystal both said that invading forces couldn’t build teleporters since the System wanted to limit their expansion, but perhaps they were wrong.

The humanoids that closed in on him made him think that they were a mix of humans and animals. They seemed to have normal hands and feet, but they also possessed clear animalistic features.

They wore simple but seemingly high-quality gear, and carried various weapons, mostly spears and bows. Most of their exposed skin was covered in a brown or white fur, sometimes mottled with spots. They had large black eyes, and a normal face and a mouth. Their ears somewhat resembled those of an elf’s though. His assessment was that these beings were a seventy-thirty mix of a human and a fawn.

They didn’t look frail though, as even the fur couldn’t hide their sturdy frames and muscles. They also carried themselves with the grace of warriors, and these people were clearly different from the hapless humans he encountered earlier. The group stopped some distance from him, and they simply stood staring at each other for a few seconds.

“It’s one of the hairless monkeys, what do we do?” Zac heard one of the fawnmen mutter.

“Onyx, you learned some of their words in the tutorial, right? Greet him,” another one said as he prodded one of the females in the group.

That made Zac relax somewhat. If these people had been in the tutorial together with humans then they shouldn’t be invaders. It looked like when Earth got mashed together with other planets new civilizations were added after all.

She hesitantly looked at the leader of the group, a middle-aged man holding an intricately carved spear with a long line of leather bands attached, and took a step forward after an encouraging nod from him.

“H-Hello human,” she stuttered, but before she continued Zac smiled and spoke back. At least he thought he smiled since it almost felt like he had forgotten how to do it by now.

“Hello. No need for a translator, I understand your words,” he said.

The group looked a bit surprised, but not overly so.

“Welcome to Winterleaf village human, I am Selas, castellan of this town,” the middle-aged warrior said. “May I ask what brings you here?”

“Our town is located in an extremely isolated area, and we couldn’t find a single person nearby. So we bought a teleportation array in hopes of finding other humans,” Zac answered.

It wasn’t exactly his reason as he bought the teleporter in order to start looking for his hometown during the downtime of the quest. He finally had the resources and the time to put his plan into motion, and even though the expense was high he felt it worth it. If he ran out of Nexus Coins he would simply extort some of the demons, as they all made a fortune from his monster horde quest.

“I am sorry, but what… are you people?” Zac tentatively followed up, unsure how to properly frame such a question.

“You must really have been isolated if you haven’t met any of the Ishiate so far. We might be the most populous species apart from you humans on this new world of ours,” Selas answered with some surprise. “Please join us in our town hall. Meeting of new friends is always a joyous occasion. I can fill you in on the area as we walk.”

Zac nodded after some hesitation and followed them. His guard was up though, ready to bring out [Verun’s Bite] at moment’s notice. These people were real cultivators who had done the so-called tutorial. Even Ogras didn’t know exactly what benefits you could get in there, but from all accounts they were substantial. He knew his level likely was far above everyone here, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t pose a threat. They might have received bonus attributes, titles or extraordinary skills in the tutorial, things that could even out the odds.

“Winterleaf village is built upon the remnants of our ancestral home before the fall. We were lucky at least to retain most of our structures. Many towns in the area were pushed together into a confusing mess by the System, which severely harmed their cooperation. It’s thanks to our unity that so many of our clan members are still alive, even with the changes constantly testing us.”

Zac’s heartbeat sped up as he finally was starting to get some information about the world. His words painted a somber picture, but he was mentally prepared that there would be widespread death and tragedy. Even if no incursion was nearby he knew that just the wildlife would create problems.

“Are there any human settlements in the area?” Zac asked. That was the priority. He still didn’t have a picture of just how the reshuffling of the world worked, but perhaps humans had already started to map the locations of their old towns. They still should have technology such as aircrafts that they could use to scout, even though such tools didn’t provide experience when killing monsters.

“The closest one is a four-day journey from here. We don’t have any contact with them though as that place is chaotic and dangerous. No offense,” the hunter answered.

“What do you mean?” Zac asked with a sinking feeling.

“The settlement is run by a man named Roger. He has set himself up as a warlord and rules with an iron fist. Mutilated corpses adorn his walls at all times, and he is known to have kidnapped many women. He even tried to kidnap a few female Ishiate, but stopped after furious revenge from us.

“Still, he is very strong with a few powerful followers, so no one in the area dares to escalate the conflict with them. We keep our distance and put patrols to make sure that they don’t approach, and luckily they keep to themselves mostly,” the beastkin answered solemnly.

Zac was disappointed when he heard the news. He would have to check things out himself to make sure, but he leaned toward believing the humanoid. Since the beginning of the apocalypse he knew that some people would use the fall of order as an excuse to live out their twisted fantasies. That someone wanted to play emperor sounded not only believable, but expected.

He asked a few more questions as he walked alongside the beastmen toward a large structure. As he looked around he didn’t see many structures that stood out. The only building he recognized was the [F-Grade General Store] that the system provided. He didn’t sense any arrays gathering energy in the area either, and the ambient cosmic energy was actually far lower here compared to how it was on his island.

He hadn’t realized how large the difference was from living on top of a so-called Nexus Vein, but his island must seem like a paradise to cultivators. Even better were the mountains, which finally were starting to become habitable again as the poison was mostly cleared out. He reaffirmed his decision to keep his portal closed until at least his beast horde quest was completed and his position as lord was solidified.

As he walked he got more and more confused as to how they could afford the huge expense of the Teleportation Array. Zac only was able to afford it due to the nexus mine and monster horde gave him an absurd amount of Nexus Coins.

But from what he had seen so far nothing really made these people stand out. Certainly, the village were decent sized, and quite a few of these fawn-people he looked like adept warriors. But unless they recently found some extremely valuable treasure they must have collected much of their wealth to construct it.

It didn’t take long after they sat down at a round table that he found out the reason behind its construction.

“I am not used to small talk, so I will immediately get to the point Zac. The reason we spent most of our resources on the Teleportation Array was that we’re in desperate need of assistance.”