Chapter 360: Dangers of Technology (1/2)

Both Ilvere and Janos sported a new collection of scars, but it looked like both of them would be fine after some rest.

“Not quick enough to prevent Alea from being wounded,” Zac sighed after hearing what Ilvere said.

“That lass is strong, I believe she will be able to overcome this,” Ilvere said as he thumped down on the ground in front of Zac and Ogras.

Zac only nodded, though he knew that the situation, unfortunately, wasn’t that easy. Being strong-willed wasn’t enough to survive a fractured soul.

“Just what happened here?” Zac asked.

Ilvere grimaced as he recounted what the group had encountered since the teleporters went dark. Zac frowned when he heard how arduous their past days had been, and pangs of guilt once again rose in his heart. He knew that he couldn’t be responsible for all ills of the world, but he still felt that he was somehow to blame.

“I guess we’re lucky we weren’t deemed important enough for one of the true generals to act,” Ilvere said with a depreciating smile. ”Otherwise we would never have made it this far. They have a lot of strong guys in their ranks.”

“It’s still amazing you managed to hold on this long,” Zac said with genuine appreciation.

“The lass was a large factor in our survival, as was the barkeep,” Ilvere said.

“The Barkeep? Ryan?” Zac asked with confusion.

“That boy is a real hero.”

Zac blankly looked at Ilvere for a few seconds, having great trouble reconciling the young man who had been hiding out in his apartment with the epithet ‘Hero’. Did the Barkeep class possess some hidden and amazing attacks against the undead? Or did it allow him to become the fabled drunken fist?

“We have been constantly fighting without stopping for over a week. Some people we had to carry for a while since they were truly out of energy, but we normally would have no way of marching for 9 days without sleep. Luckily his brews helped us stay conscious up till now. Of course, many will be in a weak state for a while,” Ilvere explained.

“That’s okay,” Zac nodded. “We should be fine unless the Lich King himself comes knocking.”

The two demon generals soon excused themselves though, as they desperately needed to sleep as well. They were amongst those who hadn't slept a wink for the whole duration, and they had always stayed in the frontlines to keep their people safe. Zac and Ogras didn't speak much either, instead opting to recuperate in case another wave of attackers arrived.

Thankfully they were completely unaccosted, and the army set out without trouble 8 hours later. A lot of people were sporting various degrees of wounds and traces of exertion on their faces, but they no longer seemed like zombies themselves. Between the healing pills Zac brought and proper rest they were in far better shape compared to before.

The army kept the highest pace they could through the wildlands, but there was no way such a large group could move as quickly as Zac was able to proceed on his own. So he spent his time going back and forth around the army, killing anything that might prove a threat to them. They had already lost so much, so he didn't want to lose a single man on the final stretch of their return.

Thankfully it quickly became clear that the Undead had given up on taking out his army, as Zac couldn’t even find the shadows of a single elite undead in the vicinity. There were still a few zombies and quite a few beasts, but nothing that indicated an army in the area.

Zac could only guess that some of the ghost scouts had seen the final battle, and the generals felt the price was too high to keep targeting them. Besides, the death marsh over the past 10 days had created quite some distance between themselves and the three main hordes.

Since there was no immediate threat he could relax somewhat, and he took the chance to figure out various things. His first idea to save time was to find a town, or at least the ruins of one, to see if he could gain control of it to buy a teleportation array.

Unfortunately there was no response after finding three abandoned towns, and he wasn't able to find a populated one either. This whole area seemed to be made from former tundra, either from eastern Russia or Mongolia, and there were barely any people in these regions even before the integration. Now with strong beasts walking the plains it was no surprise that the few places of civilization he found were long deserted.

After a day's travel it started to become increasingly clear that they might just have to walk the whole way back, but that didn't mean that they couldn't utilize their time efficiently. So Zac took his sister some distance away from the army, and after looking around placed down a few array disks to isolate themselves from prying eyes.

“What’s going on?” Kenzie asked with interest when she saw how careful Zac was.

“Here,” Zac said as he took out a few of the Technocrat items. “Are these of any benefit to Jeeves?”

He had taken out one of the scout drones and one of the laser weapons that had been attached to a battle droid. Kenzie gingerly picked up the two items and curiously looked at them. Zac was about to explain what they were when a red light shot out of Kenzie’s eye and quickly enveloped the two items.

“Wha-“ Zac exclaimed as he took a step back.

“Pretty cool, right?” Kenzie said with a wide smile.

“You looked like a cyborg just now,” Zac said with a stern face. “What’s going on?”

“Well, you told me to avoid showing off my skills yesterday, right?” Kenzie said with a shrug. “So we have been trying to figure out ways to make Jeeves abilities to look more like normal skills.”

His sister was referring to the fact that he warned her of relying on her AI too much. Her performance against the left-over zombies had been a bit too eye-catching, and people had started to talk. Luckily his own power was enough to justify Kenzie's skills for most people, as they assumed he had given her various treasures and help. But he still didn't want to take any risks where the secret about Jeeves would leak.

Using a beam that shot out of her eye to scan items felt pretty damn far away from the goal of staying incognito, so he didn't understand what she meant. She had looked like a robot when the red light exited her pupil. But Zac realized on second thought that he had actually sensed a bit of Cosmic Energy in the ray, something that never was the case with technology.

But Zac didn’t have time to ask how she made that happen, as the drone suddenly started to hover above Kenzie’s hand.

“Wow, so cool,” Kenzie said as the small drone made a few turns around her.