Chapter 525 (2/2)

Very quickly, a figure swayed through the crowd and arrived at his side.

“Hey, Viking,” Tatiana said as if this were the most natural name in the world.

Randidly blushed. It was one thing for people to call him Randidly, and for that to be weird. After all, he could blame the weirdness of that name on his parents. Specifically, on his coo-coo mother. But Viking was a name that Randidly blurted out when he couldn’t think of anything else; it was a moniker of his who foolish making. And explaining that it was just a joke or something now was a bit…

“So,” Randidly said, coughing into his hand. “You are here too. I wondered. They don’t… they don’t seem to be very worried about establishing a working relationship with us.”

“No.” Tatiana’s smile remained bright, but her voice was chilly. “They know what this is, just like we do.”

It was a sobering thought. Around them, the crowd parted again and Gregory and Sonya came forward to stand with them. It was a party reunion, just short Griffith, Randidly thought idly. Around them, the other steelworkers began to cluster. Not joining them, per se, but listening intently.

“It seems we were designated as the leaders of this group,” Tatiana said with an eye roll.

“Must be our stunning good looks,” Gregory said, revealing a gap tooth smile.

Sonya gave Tatiana a long look. “Or our… palpable charisma.”

Just then, a man who appeared to be a higher rank than most of the soldiers strode out of a nearby tent and came to greet the gathered steelworkers. To his credit, when he glanced around at the surrounding soldiers he made a small gesture with his hand. The soldiers that were standing around the group let go of their plasma rifles, so they hung by their straps.

It was a small reduction of an implied threat, but it wasn’t something that the man had to do. Randidly appreciated it.

“Good, you are all here. I’m Sergeant Phillip, I’ll be acting as a liaison between you volunteers and the UHF military- wait,” Sergeant Philip pulled up short as a skinny man opened his mouth to speak. “I have one rule for this; do not say you didn’t volunteer. It will go a lot easier for all of us if you embrace this charade, and we don’t have to enforce the reality of the situation.”

The skinny man faltered. Gregory folded his arms and gave the man a look. “Let’s hear what the Sergeant has to say.”

Either a bigger trp, or this man is more interested in saving people than in being the instrument of the punishment for you, Lucretia mused. If he treats you all as volunteers, you’ll have more autonomy, and both you and he can ignore the ugliness that led you all here. If you force the issue…

‘A waste of effort.’ Randidly stayed still, content to let Gregory take the lead here, especially since he agreed with playing along with Sergeant Phillip’s game.

Sergeant Philip turned to Gregory with a small smile. Sergeant Phillip was an olive-skinned man with short curly hair. “-as I was saying, I am your liaison. Myself and five of my men will accompany you during the mission. We have a 20-mile stretch to cover, and based on our predictions, the border is going to jump anywhere between a half mile and a mile backward. That’s a lot of ground to cover, and it's all residential. At least 10,000 people will need to be located and brought safely back into our Zone. That’s our job.

“You might not know this, but the real danger to the new arrivals to the System is monsters from other parts of the borderlands; because time was frozen somehow prior to the System, there are no monsters in this area. That’s why we will have a detachment of 200 soldiers sweeping the surrounding area, eliminating nearby monsters. Now, as soon as the time is unfrozen, monsters will begin to spawn, but they will start weak. We need to get as many people out before the average Level of the monster reaches Level 30. That’s about the point where the detachment will start to feel pressured by the monster spawns. That’s when we pull out.”

Inwardly, Randidly felt disgusted that Level 30 monsters would be enough to force the detachment on their back foot, but he supposed he couldn’t be that upset. That’s the point where the thick outer skin of monsters meant that it took a lot more plasma to burn through. In addition, that was when monsters began having significant Levels in the Skills. Now, that was probably only about 50 Skill Levels, but that did a lot to slow the burn of the plasma.