Chapter 536 (1/2)

Decklan sighed. “This was fun. Do you really have to go so soon.”

The man covered in the strange liquid obsidian chuckled. His right arm was cut to the bone, but he didn’t seem particularly bothered by how useless it was at his side. “Don’t play coy. We both know that an operational sortie from Donnyton can get here within 10 minutes. There isn’t enough time to see which of us is the winner.”

“I would say the judges are unanimously in my favor,” Decklan said, raising his knives. They were crimson now, from drinking this strange man’s blood.”

The man smiled. “In war, the only battle that truly matters is the last one. Let’s save this for that, shall we?”

The damn insectoids surged forward, interposing themselves between Decklan and the man. Moving quickly, Decklan slashed his way through them. But by the time he had broken the encirclement, the man was gone. Decklan clicked his tongue, then cut his way through the monsters towards his squad.

Beneath them, there was a strange rumbling from the ground. Decklan’s smile widened. Reinforcements and that was only… 7 minutes 32 seconds.

Around them, the monsters seemed to notice it too, and they began to gather themselves and slowly retreat. The monsters suffered disastrous casualties, pulling out of the mine, but a core group with a cloaked figure made it away. If Decklan hadn’t fought to a stalemate with the obsidian man, perhaps he could have done something. Now, however…

“Chase?” Someone asked Decklan when most of the monsters were away.

Decklan shook his head because a thin, thorny vine popped up out of the ground and waved at him. “We’ve got that covered. Where is-”

But the vine was waving wildly at Decklan. He could read Thorn’s intentions, it wanted Decklan to head into the vine. Sighing, Thorn walked toward the entrance to the mine. Time to see what was taken.

Still, there was a bit of excitement here, wasn’t there? It had been so long since Donnyton had any foe that they had struggled with directly. There were the weak monsters, but the big threats the Ghosthound handled. If there was a terrorist group raising Raid Bosses….

Decklan allowed his thoughts to run away from him as he quickly walked into the mind. His face was in a bemused grin until the last possible moment.

“....Tera?”

*****

Foreman Davey passed Randidly a thin piece of paper. “Congratulations. You are now a probationary citizen of Zone 1. Basically, as long as you don’t break any laws, you are now eligible for Ghost to raise your citizenship tier, based on your performance.”

Randidly dubiously looked down at the paper, which he had signed. Honestly, the whole thing seemed someone… feeble, especially now. Did he really spend so much money on a piece of paper…?

But he supposed it was just a step he needed to take. The more Randidly established himself as a creator of drones, the less likely it would be for Ghost to assume he was from Zone 32, where there was no technology. Or at least that’s what Randidly was counting on.

In addition, the higher he rose in the area, the more exposure to information he would have. There was something… strange about the Zone, aside from the Creature’s lurking plans. There were some rotten things under the surface. With that information, Randidly could begin to address those threats too.

Because the longer he was here, the more he felt responsible for these people. If he had strength, he couldn’t in good conscience just sit back and allow people to suffer.

“My performance?” Randidly asked. “Are there… tryouts for citizenship?”

“Oh, no, ha. I forget sometimes that you one of the newly free refugees. Ghost watches everything, through cameras and drones in the sky. If you choose to start building drones now, that’s the sort of technology you will be working with. A little theory intensive, especially at the beginning, but there is a demand for drones always.”