Chapter 116 (2/2)

The root avatar gripped the spear with him, and Randidly had the extremely odd sensation of controlling two bodies at once. But, in a way, it was simple, because he wanted them to perform the same action; he used Phantom Thrust.

His main body unleashed a thrust that ripped forward through the air with audible speed. But once more, the root avatar felt clumsy. But this time, Randidly caught why he felt so strange when he used the avatar.

“System assist, huh…?” Randidly muttered to himself. It was small and slight, but minor differences in stance, posture, and source of force that were instinctual for his actual body didn’t occur in the avatar. Or perhaps they couldn’t, because he was using roots. Of course, Randidly shouldn’t have any instincts of the sort. He had never handled anything remotely like a spear before the system, and his training after the system was still quite short, and rather haphazard.

The only explanation was that the skill levels were giving him ‘training wheels’ that let him succeed more easily. He obviously could still improve a lot in his actual technique, but these training wheels were also areas that he could improve on, because he could observe them in the differences between his normal form and the movements of the root avatar.

Randidly wasn’t sure whether it would actually help, but then smothered that thought. Image was important. Of course it would help. He would more fully understand the skill, increasing the skill level.

Which would in turn probably increase the amount of system assistance, which would give him more areas to focus on during his training. The corner of Randidly’s mouth curled upward.

Then he sighed and rubbed his forehead, the root avatar falling to pieces. Another benefit of training like this at night would be that he would train Root Manipulation at the same time, but it was also extremely tiring mentally. He would take a break for now, then continue later.

Chuckling, Randidly gathered his things and began walking back towards Donnyton. It wasn’t quite a break, but Sam was quite insistent that he continue to learn to Engrave. His skill wasn’t even to the point where he could control the leaking mana well enough to form an entire rune, but it was nearing that point. And it was excellent practice in detail orientation, even if it was only marginally less mentally draining than the root avatar.

Randidly supposed he would need an actual hobby soon. But preferably one that would take no time, so he could keep up this training speed.

****

Karen, mother of Kiersty and Nathan, glared daggers at Regina and Daniel. “What do you mean, you don’t know?!?”

The two exchanged helpless glances, and were about to speak, when another figure appeared.

“Karen, I have to take responsibility for this one. In all of the recent excitement, I lost count of the days. It completely slipped my mind.” Mrs. Hamilton said, stepping forward with a smile. Behind her, Decklan’s full squad stood, grimly outfitted in leather and steel rubbed in charcoal to dull its reflective properties. Annie and a few of the more skilled archers stood with them, serious expressions on their faces.

“What…?” Daniel asked, bewildered, but Karen was much more direct.

“What did you forget?” She demanded.

Mrs. Hamilton’s smile turned decidedly vicious, the smile curling upwards. “That we have… new neighbors.”

It took a few seconds, but recognition finally arrived at Daniel’s brain, and he paled immediately. The whole troop quickly moved, heading to the portal to their “sister town”. The air rippled softly, but otherwise it seemed extremely peaceful, like a scenic pond.

“My children…. wandered in there alone…?” Karen asked, her anger giving way to horror, but Decklan shook his head.

“No, from what we can tell Alana and Devan’s squad are also missing, and likely accompanied her. She will be safe.” His voice was low and sure, and Karen visibly calmed down somewhat, nodding towards him thankfully.

“So,” He continued, looking around at his squad. “Let’s go investigate this other village.”

In a fluid motion, they loped forward, low and silent, passing through the rippling doorway to another world.

****

Alana slumped to the ground, covered in blood. Although the sprouting of Arbor, and the aura it provided, did a lot to change the rabbit woman’s opinion of them, it didn’t seem sufficient, in her harsh eyes. Her grandson’s life was very important. A more genuine apology was necessary in order to compensate for allowing such an accident to happen.

Inwardly, Alana was furious at the whole charade. But for whatever reason, the people who knew that the injuries were inflicted by the turtles were desperate to hide that fact from the grey haired rabbit. And for now, Alana was content to fight for this strange animal village, defending it for a small amount of time. Not because she thought it would be particularly beneficial to the village, but it would be very, very difficult for Kiersty and Nathan to be protected on that journey.

Besides, Alana wasn’t a child that cared overmuch for whether something was true enough. Real life wasn’t so simple, and it seemed the group from Donnyton had just gotten caught between the two strange races here. Alana hadn’t forgotten the turtle’s earlier mention of the Class draft they were instituting, which did a lot to demonstrate how badly things were going for the village.

The “compensation” ended up being holding off the swarms of monsters that were constantly besetting this village from every side. It seemed that while Donnyton had waited quite a while to grow in strength before upgrading to the Trainee tier, this village had rushed to that level, due to some general information about the buildings available at that tier, and what they could do to improve the village’s chances at surviving.

Unfortunately, the information obtained by this world was rather general; they didn’t realize that a Trainee village also would have to cope with Raid Bosses. They also didn’t possess someone with the extremely overpowered abilities that Glendel had, so they were unable to really locate Raid Bosses until they had established themselves and spawned Lieutenant monsters. These monsters were just slightly stronger than the normal mob spawned by a nearby Raid Boss, but they also could spawn their own minions, and possessed a fierce intelligence that the Raid Bosses lacked.

Under the constant raids of these Lieutenant monsters, the defenses of this village were slowly being eroded, their powerful Classers driven to exhaustion. They simply didn’t have enough bodies to hold them off. Meanwhile, it seemed the turtles wanted to force some individuals to take classes, but the Rabbits were unwilling to do so. So the turtles needed a way to incite the grandma rabbit to act, and also a scapegoat, so the village wouldn’t destroy itself with infighting...

Which is where Alana and Devan’s squad came into the picture; they were the perfect victim. Luckily they had managed to preserve Razor’s life, or….

Alana shook her head. It was bad enough already. Just today, they had already slaughtered 3 such Lieutenant monsters, ambushing them as they came to attack the spring that served as the village’s water supply.

Forebodingly, they were all of the same type of monster, and they had spotted more such groups, watching from the shadows; those Raid Bosses had already established themselves here and were propagating at an exponential rate.

The village was aware of this, and Alana was able to slowly parse out some things about the situation. Whether it was racial or not, the rabbit and turtle people were firmly divided about what to do on the issue, although Alana couldn’t figure out the details. She also asked Cadence, who was Razor’s sister, about the children, and apparently those little grey people, at a certain age, ‘chose’ whether to become turtles or rabbits.

But as Alana asked more pointed questions, she had clammed up, unwilling to speak further.

Groaning at the aches in her body, Alana slipped off her shoes and began to massage the soles of her feet.

At least the skill leveling was good, she mused to herself, but then looked up to a knock at the door. The “door”, which was just a stone wheel, was rolled to the side, to reveal Cadence. “Come, there is someone you must meet.”

****

Karen glanced fearfully at Mrs. Hamilton, who had turned away from the portal and began to walk away. “Where are you going?”

“Unfortunately, there are other things I must handle.” Mrs. Hamilton said consolingly. “But Decklan is smart, as well as an incredibly talented fighter. He can handle this. Trust in Donnyton. Your children will return safe.”