Chapter 851 (1/2)

After the meeting, Alana volunteered as an escort to take the ogres to their new living quarters. As most everyone else didn’t want to risk going that deep into monster controlled territory, she was the only one that accompanied the ogres.

Randidly figured it would be fine; he feared more for the ogre that tried to take advantage of her while she was surrounded.

Besides, at the first hint of trouble Randidly would move to assist, and this time he would not pull his punches against the ogres. One chance was all that they would get. And it would feel good to fight foes that weren’t fifty Levels higher than him.

Around thirty was much more manageable.

In the meantime, he begged a glowering Annie to wait for Alana to return before they talked, and to his surprise, she agreed with a prim nod. Then she turned and flounced away, sparing a sideways glance for Helen before returning to her tent. Helen followed distantly, looking with sparkling curiosity at the orderly camp of a Donnyton Squad.

For their part, the Donnyton squaders that were here regarded her with the same wide-eyed fascination. Randidly hoped he would get to see some poor fool offer to show her how to hold a spear. But Randidly couldn’t help but notice glances shifting from Helen, to him, and then back.

Sighing inwardly, Randidly turned back to the hulking form of Dozer.

Dozer grunted. “It’s good you returned. The ogres make for poor enemies.”

Randidly grinned at the man. “What, does it feel like facing yourself?”

“Their armies are almost invincible because they are composed entirely of me,” Dozer agreed with a small smile.

Randidly pointed to the few ogre bodies that lay dead on the ground. For whatever reason, the ogres saw no reason to take their dead with them and left the problem to the humans. “They couldn’t have been that tough. Not a scratch on you guys, and then lost 5% of their forces.”

“Killed by drones. Donated to us by Erickson Steel.” Dozer gave Randidly a sympathetic look. “You don’t want to know how much money just was burned to bloody them. My boys will gather the metal scraps to send back, but…”

Randidly looked over the battlefield more closely and could see the piles of gears that had once been his carefully engraved drones. These were obviously not done by him and therefore less efficient, but by the same token, they were even more painstaking to make without his presence. Therefore, what lay before Randidly was likely…

...almost a month’s work of production by the finest workers of Erickson Steel.

It was a somewhat sobering thought. Randidly clapped Dozer on the back and said seriously. “You have a kid, right? So you’ve already started on breeding your own invincible army. Your genetics combined with Annies…”

Again, Dozer’s face cracked into a grin. “Watch your back, Ghosthound.” Then Dozer walked toward his group and urged them into movement. Just because the ogres had left didn’t mean the humans could laze around. Now they would need to prepare to return to Donnyton.

When he finally had some alone time, Randidly asked Helen if she would want to return to his Soulskill with him. She refused, preferring to head out and speak to Randidly’s fellow people. She seemed rather excited, as though there were some deep secrets hidden amongst them. Which was honestly rather cute.

Basically, she wanted to play with the different weapons that Dozer and Alana’s troops had. No doubt she wanted to head out and test her edge against these people, too.

And Randidly saw no reason why not. She deserved to enjoy her power and images. Hopefully, the weird scaling of being moved through Randidly’s Soulskill to Earth wouldn’t affect her actual combat ability too directly.

The process of her System Aether being slowly torn apart was accelerating, which also meant that it was almost entirely done. Although she admitted to being rather short of breath, there weren’t any tangible side-effects, so Randidly didn’t think it would be a problem for her to wander around for a while longer.

Inside of his Soulskill, Randidly quickly found Alicca and checked in on the progress within himself.

Luckily, the changes here were much more predictable than the changes on Earth. They believed they had located two more Lighthouses they could ignite. However, the monsters were by far too high a Level for them to attempt to conquer the one, and another was in a series of caves that were filled with shallow water.

Few people wanted to attempt going deeper until they had some Skills that would help with the wet environment. They had already run into a few strange, glowing monsters in the deeper sections.

“Oh, by the way,” Allica said after they finished discussing the stabilizing food situation. “Those warriors you brought in here… there were some of them that walked into the mist. We’ve clamped down on the news to prevent a panic; we don’t need that fear mongering getting another bump. But I just thought you should know.”

Wincing, Randidly nodded. Maybe he should have thought of that. Bringing more people into his Soulskill likely roused the semi-sentient core of the Alpha Cosmos. When it realized there were new arrivals, it tested them. It was that simple. They must crave the exploration of the great unknown or they would be considered dead weight.