Chapter 474 (1/2)

Mrs. Hamilton looked up at the young man that walked into her field office. It was almost noon, and most of the Southern and Eastern new areas had been examined, at least in a cursory manner. From what she understood, most of it was monster-infested wilderness, so much so that the Squads above 20 were having difficulty rescuing people when they found them. Mostly, they just called for assistance from Numerals, or even the Ghosthound himself, if he was in the area.

But now that they had finished their sweep, it was time to hear what the damage was.

“Report,” Mrs. Hamilton said coolly. The man nodded, then began to speak.

“All told, we found about 3000 people. Most came relatively quietly when evidence of monsters became too obvious to deny. But there were some hard-headed ones, that needed convincing. Most were taken to Franksburg, for a more… gentle transition to System life, but we were able to identify a few dozen highly skilled laborers that were recruited. But some of those… I think are a little shocked by everything they’ve seen, ma’am.”

Mrs. Hamilton leaned back in her chair. “So many had close encounters with a monster? How many do we think died?”

The young man closed his eyes, grief clear on his face. ‘He can’t be older than 24,’ Mrs. Hamilton thought to herself, chiding herself inwardly.

“Probably… probably about twice that much. Most of the people were in a small bit of a city center that was transplanted to the Easternmost boundary. By the time we got word of it, an Alien-style monster had set up shop there. Latched onto the face, suffocated victims, planted eggs in the dead body, etc. It was only the Ghosthound’s arrival that saved the rest. He used his roots, I’ve been led to understand, and his aim was impeccable. All infected and live monsters were impaled within a half hour of his arrival.”

Then the boy hesitated, unsure of what to say. Mrs. Hamilton chuckled dryly. “Go on, say it. Randidly isn’t so petty to take offense at the truth of his methods.”

The boy visibly flinched at the use of Randidly’s name, and Mrs. Hamilton almost said something about it, and the danger of deifying a man, but decided against it. Especially when Randidly was going to be so distant from the day to day running of Donnyton, it didn’t do too much harm; it was just somewhat exasperating to deal with. On the other hand, it had the added benefit of making the men treat the actual leader of their Village, Donny, like a regular guy.

So for that reason alone, it was worth keeping around. Mrs. Hamilton was much more worried about Donny letting the fame go to his head than she was about Randidly.

“Well…” The young man coughed into his hand before speaking. “He didn’t… ah… bother to check if there were witnesses. So many people watched their family members, who had previously been attacked by those strange little monsters, be eviscerated by roots in front of their eyes.”

Mrs. Hamilton remained silent, tapping the table. Sometimes, even she forgot how far they had come. These people had never realized that they were about to die yet. They were still innocent, in that way.

Well, now that they were here, it was only a matter of time.

“Fine, now give me specifics.” Mrs. Hamilton said, putting on her cool mask she used when she was preparing to see the threads of people’s lives through the eyes of a spider. “Tell me about our new haul of recruits.”

Mrs. Hamilton’s sharp eyes picked up on the young man’s almost imperceptible shiver before he began to speak.

****

Fully 32 hours after he had entered the room, Randidly left Donny’s training area. The ground was cracked and soaked with blood. There were portions of the ground and walls that had been warped somewhat, as though reality itself had been bent by the force of what had previously occurred there. Wilting plants dotted the cracked and shattered landscape.

Satisfied, Randidly smiled at Donny, who stumbled out after him, his leather armor almost completely obliterated, his eyes somewhat unfocused. “How many Skill Levels did you get today?”

“You fucking liar, that was so much longer than 24 hours,” Donny muttered, stumbling over to a jug of water by the entrance. He just raised it and dumped it towards his face, some of it going into his mouth, but most of it sluicing off of him and wiping away the caked blood and dirt that built up from so long being pounded into the ground. When he finally finished, however, and looked at his Status screen, his eyes widened.

“Holy shit,” Donny said. “I gained almost 100 Skill Levels.”

Randidly chuckled. Something like that couldn’t be done twice. And the only reason that he had been able to accomplish it was that his Regeneration rates were so much higher than normal. So he could continually push Donny to his limits, never running out of gas.