Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 120: The Return

Zac kept the lead as he pushed through the woods, his battalion of hapless recruits behind him. Altogether 80 of the women signed up, and were now walking behind him through the wilderness. The last 30 or so decided to stay behind in Greenworth, and Zac wouldn’t waste any more energy on them.

Luckily the gear he pilfered from Rydel and the dead warriors was enough to fit everyone to look essentially the same, with leather armor and a spear. Some of the gear was bloodied or had some scratches, but there was nothing to do about that at the moment.

He was quite surprised to hear that 9 of the recruits actually were cultivators who possessed experience from the tutorial. However, they had been in the bottom-tier and emerged with even lower levels compared to Ryan. Being a cultivator didn’t guarantee safety, and they’d been captured soon after they were returned. Apparently there were safety measures against that in the tutorial, but it disappeared immediately after it was over.

The fledgling soldiers had the willingness but lacked the skill as they stumbled along. Many were already panting from the trek while carrying their weapon. Zac could have put them all in a pouch, but he saw it as an opportunity for them to train and learn to struggle. They should be able to get a few stat points on the way to New Washington this way.

He was also accompanied by Ryan, who for some reason looked the most wretched of the bunch, even though having both the highest level and a Cosmos Sack to carry his things.

“This is torture, why don’t we take a break?” he coughed out between pants.

“Just how have you survived until now?” Zac asked, part despising, part curious. The man truly seemed to have no survival skills apart from some quick wits.

“I mean I loved reading and watching Zombie stories before the world turned crazy. So I treated the merge like that, you know? Gather cans of food, scavenge while making no sound, things like that,” he answered with some pride.

“The world will keep getting more dangerous. We got upgraded to a D-grade world. Sooner or later a bunch of E-Grade monsters will roam about, perhaps even D-Grade behemoths. How are you going to survive if you run around at level 18?” Zac asked.

“Well, I’ve got people like you for protection, right?” he answered without hesitation.

Zac was about to refute, but with a start he actually realized Ryan made some sense. It was the job of people like him to protect the town so that the non-combat classes could work and make the area thrive. He also realized that he had developed somewhat of a harsh attitude to those who couldn’t battle lately, and it was something he needed to work on if he was going to lead a Force that likely would consist of more non-combat personnel than warriors.

He glanced back at the troop and saw that they should be able to keep going some more. He’d gotten pretty good at understanding the limit of endurance after battling the hordes. If people were sweating and panting they had more to give, but if they were glassy-eyed and robotic in their movements they were at their limit.

He was also happy to see that they seemed to be quite united. When one stumbled someone close by would help her up. Unity in a troop was extremely important. It was true before the fall, and perhaps even more so now. A soldier needed to be able to rely on their squadmates. Now with the system there also were the issue of war-arrays.

Alyn had explained the reason there were armies in the multi-verse. Zac had some problem understanding before since he felt that a D-Grade old monster was enough to decimate an endless amount of F-Grade soldiers, making them worthless. But there was such a thing called War Arrays. They were part array and part skill. A troop would combine their power, and exhibit a strength far above their individual power, even eclipsing ranks sometimes.

He didn’t possess such a thing at the moment, but the simpler ones shouldn’t be too hard to get hold of, especially with his cash infusion from the pouches on the mountain.

With such a large group moving they were almost constantly beset with attacks. Zac kept using [Eye of Discernment], and if the beasts were low-leveled he let the girls fight them. He only put his finger on the scale to make sure there were no deaths.

However, after half a day of walking most of the new recruits had bleeding gashes and bites hastily wrapped with some cloth or even leaves. There were even quite a few who leveled up during the day. The first levels were quite quick, and thanks to Zac maintaining vigil they could keep fighting without worrying that some high-level beast would arrive.

There were a few of those huge beasts that attacked the group, thinking they were easy pickings. Zac simply crippled them with a swing or two, and let someone from the army finish it off. Zac still got over 95% of the cosmic energy, but even 5% of a high leveled beasts gave quite a boost to the women who were barely level 10.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity for everyone except Zac, they stopped for dinner. Zac threw out two of the huge carcasses of the higher leveled beasts and bisected them with a few quick swings.

“Everyone gather up,” he said.

The women were tired but moved up to him.

“There’s 80 of you so we’ll create eight squads for now, ten per group. One squad will take care of the camp every time we stop, such as cooking, and the group will rotate. The rest of you will use these,” Zac said as he took out a small mountain of Nexus Crystals.

“What the HELL! Just how rich are you?” Ryan couldn’t help shouting as he saw the pile of wealth.

Zac ignored him as he looked over his new soldiers.

“My goal is for you all to gain one level every day during our march, it shouldn’t be too hard since you’re all so low leveled. For those who don’t know, these are Nexus Crystals. You can absorb the energy inside to gain levels. I want everyone except the squad in charge of the chores to use these every time we rest as a supplement to the battles while we walk,” he said.

“What about me?” Ryan said with some greed in his eyes.

“You want crystals? Join the army,” Zac simply said. Honestly, he had more than enough crystals to hand out a few, but he wouldn’t do it right after the 80 women in front of him essentially got drafted to get this chance.

“Uhm… Nevermind then. I’ll just have something to eat,” Ryan muttered and slunk away.

Zac let the women divide themselves into groups since he knew it was all temporary in any case. He was pretty sure Alyn would rearrange it when they came back to the island.

He helped the chore group clean the large carcasses, as they generally still were too weak to cut through the tough hide of the high leveled beasts. They could do it on low leveled ones, but it was better if they all ate stronger beasts. It gave no cosmic energy, but it was far more nutritious compared to the normal animals.

As he was cleaning everything Joanna walked up to him.

“Um… Sir?” she tentatively asked Zac who looked up at her.

“Yeah?”

“Well, some of us were wondering… Who you are,” she asked with some embarrassment.

Zac simply stared blankly at her for some time, realizing he still hadn’t introduced himself.

“It’s not really important, really,” Joanna said a bit flustered from Zac’s blank stare.

“No, it’s ok. Wait a second,” Zac said as he flashed next to Ryan. “Sorry about this.”

Ryan barely had time to register his words and let out a screech as a chop on his neck knocked him out cold. The sound woke up the people who focused on absorbing energy.

“My identity is a bit sensitive, so I had to knock this guy out. Since you all have signed a contract with me there’s no point in me hiding it. My name is Zachary Atwood, and I’m originally from Greenworth. My other nickname is… Super Brother-Man,” he said.

If Zac had to be honest he expected some shock and awe, but was pretty disappointed. Some looked skeptical, some were surprised, and some looked like it was an obvious thing.

“Cough… well. That’s about it,” he said with some embarrassment. “Keep both my identities secret, I’m known as Monk to the government. We’re leaving in an hour, rest up.”

“Wait, why do you have that weird name?” one of the girls suddenly asked.

Zac told them the story of the origin of Super Brother-Man, and got many looks of approvals. He still felt a bit embarrassed about the lackluster reaction earlier, so he sat down and closed his eyes as he took out another Nexus Crystal for himself.

He wasn’t really focusing on the crystal, rather the feeling he had earlier at the grave-site. The hour he sat reminiscing gave him an insight into another facet of heaviness. He would treasure the insight, even though he didn’t love the way he gained it. He wasn’t sure, but he felt it was the first clue to take the next step to upgrade his Dao Seed.

He knew that his seeds needed to improve quite a bit if he wanted an Epic class. Some low or medium ranked seeds wouldn’t be enough according to Alyn. He had already asked Calrin to be on a lookout for treasures that helped with the Dao, but those were among the most sought after treasures in the multi-verse. They were always in low supply but high demand and the huge consortiums snatched them up long before people like Calrin had a chance to even see the listing.

As he was meditating he sensed some light steps moving his way, and he was just about to open his eyes when he sensed more movement. Three of his new guards moved to intercept the person. He sneakily opened one of his eyes and saw one of the younger girls trying to approach him with a water bottle. Her efforts were foiled by Joanna and two of the girls who were cultivators though.

Zac felt the whole thing worked out pretty great. He was in no mood for some girl trying to woo him for benefits. Besides, he knew he wouldn’t get too close to these people. They would become soldiers, and many of them might be dead in a year or two. To defy fate and grasp for power was to dance with death, there was no getting around that.

Soon the hour was up, and Zac opened his eyes and got up. The recruits still weren’t rested, but they got up to their feet with no complaint. Ryan was still knocked out where Zac left him, so he splashed some water on his face to wake him up.

“Wha- whu? What the hell, man?” he groggily spluttered.

“You must have passed out, it’s time to go,” Zac said, hiding some embarrassment, as he started walking again.

The days passed as the girls went through a baptism of fire and blood in the forest. Some even managed to attain a few of the solo kill Titles while fighting some of the weaker beasts. When they followed Zac out through Greenworth the only thing strong about them was the determination in their eyes. But now they exuded an aura of warriors. Zac knew that they still were only paper tigers, and not someone who would be useful in the third wave, but their progress was impressive.

After roughly a week on the road they reached the area of New Washington, and Zac sighed as he saw a group waiting for him by the gate. He wasn’t surprised as he spotted a few scouts in hiding earlier. He didn’t do anything to intercept them, as this wasn’t avoidable.

This was going to be a pain in the ass.