Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 99: Emily

As Zac stepped out of the bar he saw that there was already a small crowd gathering. After a quick glance it was clear that no one was there to help, but rather to watch a show. All the noise came from three grimy looking men who cornered a kid.

The men all had somewhat matching clothes, with a large uneven R-patch sewn to their chest. It looked like the leader of the town truly wanted to set himself up as a medieval lord, already making his underlings wear a crest. Zac shook his head and looked toward the inner part of the town where another wall was erected. That should be the residence of this Roger and his cronies.

One of the men was bleeding freely from his head and the glass shards on the ground around him explained what happened.

“You little BITCH! After Roger gets tired of you I’ll fucking feed you to the dogs!” the bleeding man roared at their cornered prey.

It took Zac a few seconds to realize that the kid was actually a small girl somewhere in her teens. She wore wretched-looking rags for clothes, and her face was caked in dirt apart from a few tear streaks drawing clear lines in her face. Even her hair was in a mess, and it looked like she or someone else had randomly cut most off it of with a knife.

The teenager was holding the remains of a bottle as a weapon, and ferociously stared at the three men. The outlook didn’t look good as all two of them took out daggers as they approached her while the last man stood at the ready. Zac sighed and used [Eye of Discernment] on the group, and saw that the girl was named Emily.

She didn’t even have a level yet, which meant that she was too young to start using the System. The other three were around level 15 to 17, weaklings in Zac’s eyes but perhaps strong according to the level of this town. Certainly, for a young girl without any powers it was a futile struggle.

“WHO IS SPYING ON US?” the third man without a knife roared as he glared in Zac’s direction.

Zac rolled his eyes as he stepped out from the group of people. He really needed to get a better inspection skill. Anyone with Intelligence above 15 points would be able to sense his scan, above 30 and they’d know it was him. Apparently the homeless-looking man actually focused intelligence, which was a bit surprising.

“Wanting to play the hero? Or maybe you just want her for yourself, eh? In either case you better fuck right off,” the bleeding man said.

Zac shook his head as he wondered how people could devolve to this stage after just a few months. Was the laws and fear of punishment the only thing that held some people back before the integration?

“You better turn back right now-“ one of the men said, but threw his dagger at Zac’s head mid-sentence in an attempt to ambush him.

Zac couldn’t even be bothered to respond as he simply caught the dagger mid-air as he released his aura. Screams of panic immediately erupted as the onlookers frenetically tried to back away. He held the knife in his hand, still unsure of how to act.

“Don’t move or I’ll kill the brat!” one of the men said as he grabbed the girl who had lost focus due to Zac’s aura. He was deathly pale and his whole body was shaking in horror as he maniacally stared at Zac.

Zac frowned and threw the dagger with a quick motion. It tore through the air and punched into the head of the man holding the girl hostage. The force of the throw was so great that his head burst like a watermelon, instantly killing him.

Next Zac took out one of his regular axes from his pouch and charged up a [Chop]. The other two ruffians didn’t even have time to react or scream out before two headless corpses fell down on the ground. A large tear was rent through a house as well from Zac’s lightning-quick swings, and it looked like it would collapse at any second.

Zac walked over to the girl who now was drenched in the man’s blood. She still had the bottle in her hand, and though she looked scared at Zac she didn’t flinch. Zac’s impression of this girl was far better compared to the castaways on his island.

“Let’s go,” was the only thing he said to her as he controlled his aura and turned toward the central area of Fort Roger. But he only had time to take three steps before the bartender stopped him.

“Wait, young man! I understand you’re angry, but please don’t do anything drastic. If you kill Roger and his henchmen then most of the people in this town will perish from the animals.”

That made Zac stop in his tracks, and after some hesitation, he turned around and started walking toward the gate instead with some sadness in his eyes.

There wasn’t anything left to do here. Information in a hovel like this was limited, and he’d have to travel to Fairfield in order to find out more. This Roger fellow might know more, but he had a feeling that going to visit him would only result in battle and more death.

He wasn’t sure how to deal with people like Roger. Obviously they were scum, but they were also the ones who kept civilians safe just as the bartender said. There were even level 1 wastrels still surviving to this date in Fort Roger, and that was mostly thanks to Roger.

In his anger he hadn’t thought about the consequences, but he wasn’t ready to support this whole town. He just had no way to migrate a whole town through the forest and through the teleporter in time before the next wave started. And it wasn’t like he could afford it in any case, since each activation cost a bunch of Nexus Crystals.

It wouldn’t help to build his own teleporter here for the same reason, not that he was ready to waste that many crystals on these people even if he could. The wolf waves had tapped almost all his remaining crystals, and he wasn’t about to spend another 10 million nexus coin on a teleporter. He needed that money to ready himself for the second wave.

He learned from Selas during their walk that villages regularly were beset by beasts. It wasn’t to the point of his own beast waves, but there could be hundreds of frenzied animals who heedlessly charged at the villages. Selas believed it was the work of the System, and Zac agreed.

But still, leaving like this gave a bad taste in his mouth and his monstrous aura once again flared out. He turned back around and supercharged another cosmic energy edge, bringing it to over ten meters. With an echoing roar he unleashed the edge right toward the inner wall in the distance.

As it traveled it destroyed the paved road, creating a huge scar that ran right through the village. It smashed through the rudimentary gate, leaving only wood chippings in its wake. Finally when the blade was only twenty meters away from the mansion the blade winked out of existence.

“Deliver this message to Roger. I will return through this area shortly, and if I find him still acting like some wanna-be warlord I will judge him and all his henchmen. Let my strike be the reminder,” Zac said with a loud voice empowered with cosmic energy. His huge aura was still billowing out, forcing people to back away or down on their knees, and the visage of his swing would likely follow these townspeople for the rest of their lives.

All the villagers of Fort Roger quickly got out of the way as he once again retracted his aura and walked away. Their faces were white with terror and they didn’t even dare to look up. Some shuffling from behind told him that the girl decided to follow him.

Soon they were at the gate with Emily’s parents being hung up. And for the first time, he heard the girl speak up.

“Please… please help me take them down,” a weak voice came from behind him, and he turned around to see tears pooling up in her eyes.

Zac worldlessly started to charge [Chop] again, preparing to cut down the two.

“HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” one of the guards shouted and ran toward Zac.

With the bartender’s words echoing in his mind Zac felt no need to keep killing, and only lightly slapped the man to knock him unconscious. The other guards only fearfully stared in the distance, not daring to approach.

He charged up [Chop] to a five-meter edge, and with two lightning-quick swings the whole part of the wall that held the two bodies was cut down. Zac freed the two corpses, simply ripping apart the chains that held them. Then with a nod toward the girl he walked toward the forest with the two bodies under his arms.

The remaining guards mutely stared at Zac’s back and the ruined gate, unsure what to do. Soon one of them ran toward the large mansion on the other side of the town.

After a few minutes of walking Zac felt confident that no one was planning on following them so he placed the two bodies down on the ground then put them into his Cosmos Sack.

“What did you do?!” The girl asked aghast, seeing the bodies of her parents simply vanish.

She pointed the shattered glass bottle she still carried at him.

“I placed them in a magic bag,” Zac answered as he started to take off his shoes.

She hesitated a bit then put down her makeshift weapon.

“Why didn’t you kill Roger as well? He is much worse than the ones you killed,” she asked in an almost accusatory tone.

“I am not sure more good than evil would come from me doing that,” Zac said as he glanced at her. He held the shoes who were now caked in all kinds of things from walking through Fort Roger, and simply chucked them into the woods with some disgust. He’d rather get new ones than put these defiled ones back on.

Emily hesitated a bit before she grit her teeth and started to undress.

“As long as you kill him you can do whatever you want with me,” she said with her eyes reddening.

Zac’s eyebrows rose up and using [Loamwalker] he almost teleported in front of her and flicked her forehead.

“Don’t be stupid, keep your clothes on,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “I’m not interested in little kids.”

“I’m fifteen,” she said defensively, but she still started to put on her clothes while blushing a bit.

“That Roger isn’t very strong, if you want him killed just work hard and kill him yourself,” Zac said. “I am not some mercenary who goes around killing people, I have my own problems to deal with.”

“Then help me get strong! I’ve never heard of anyone being as powerful as you, and I’ve been to multiple cities,” Emily asked, a burning desire in her eyes.

Zac had initially planned on dumping the girl in Winterleaf Village before heading back, but something in her eyes made Zac change his mind. He guessed that Alyn had her first student for the Academy.

“Why have you been to multiple cities? Traveling is pretty dangerous,” he said.

“I have a big brother and a big sister. Both are cultivators, they disappeared right from our home. We looked around but couldn’t find them. After a bit over a month we heard about the tutorial, but the cultivators didn’t return to our city. We guessed that they were dropped off somewhere else,” she explained. “We decided to look for them, so we have traveled looking for them for a few months and arrived at Fort Roger a week ago”

She didn’t continue from there but Zac could guess the rest of the story from her eyes once again reddening. He sighed and wondered how many people had died trying to find their family members or trying to get back home. The world was fraught with danger, and the incursions and monsters might not even be the worst ones. Humanity had always been its own worst enemy.

“I can take you with me to my town. However, that place is extremely far away and you will not be able to look for your siblings if you do. Where I live is very dangerous, but you can get stronger there. It’s up to you to choose your path,” Zac said as he looked at the teenager.

Emily only hesitated a few seconds before she looked at him with determination.

“I’ll go with you”.

“Ok. Then jump up on my back,” Zac said as he turned his back to her.

“What?” she asked with a flabbergasted face.

Zac had already decided to head back to Port Atwood after this small excursion. There were 5 days left until the next part of the beast waves and he wasn’t sure he’d make it to Fairfield and back within that timeframe. He felt it was more worthwhile to go back and increase his power with his remaining E-Grade Crystals.

Besides, Emily seemed to have visited multiple towns, and she might have even more answers compared to the barkeep or Roger. All in all, he was happy with the result of this expedition. He even got a nifty map, and more importantly, the magical token.

“Come on, jump up,” Zac repeated as he hunched down a bit. Walking with an unevolved human in tow would waste far too much time, so he would have to carry her. Since he wanted his arms free in case of an attack she’d have to climb up on his back.

She hesitated a bit before she climbed up with a slight blush on her face. As soon as she put her arms around his neck he walked off with his usual speed.

A shriek echoed through the forest as Zac strolled through with the speed of a runaway train.