Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 101: First impressions

After another day of travel they finally reached Winterleaf village. Zac slowed down before entering the town though, not wanting to make it look like he charged at them.

“Careful, this is a beastman village! They are usually very strong,” Emily hastily said as she pulled at his cloak.

“I know, I am friends with them,” Zac offhandedly answered as he entered the town. He slightly frowned as he saw that the village was almost completely deserted, with no one in sight. Had something happened?

He quickly calmed down though as he soon saw Selas run toward him.

“Greetings Zac. We didn’t expect to see you for a few more days,”

“My trip was cut short so I’m heading back, I hope you don’t mind. Is everything okay here, it looks a bit… empty?”

“Stupid, they can’t understand English,” the girl softly said by his side, but Zac only rolled his eyes in response. It was a bit cumbersome when only one party had the language skill in these situations.

“Not a problem, I’ll lead you to the teleporter. Most people are just out working for now,” the Ishiate answered with a cough as he ushered them toward the array.

Zac felt that the beastman was lying, but couldn’t be bothered to untangle that. They simply walked back toward the teleportation array making some small talk, while Emily looked on confused. Next to the array a large package was placed.

“The package contains the fur and a few tokens of thanks by the villagers for the help you provided us. Good luck with your endeavors, my friend. I hope to see you again in the treasure hunt,” Selas said with an awkward smile.

Zac nodded, and after placing the crystals needed to teleport the two of them stepped on the array with Emily in tow. He initially had wanted to discuss some matters of trade, such as keeping a channel open for goods between the two. However, it seemed pretty clear that they were worried he’d go berserk, to the point they even evacuated the town to avoid him.

With a flash followed by some darkness he once again materialized. To his surprise he only saw walls, and quickly looked around. With a sigh of relief, he headed through a door, and the familiar sight of Port Atwood came into view.

It seemed that someone had erected a small house to shield the teleportation array while he was gone. Initially, he thought that Ogras had planned some trap for him, but that clearly wasn’t the case.

“Wow that was so cool, were we teleported?” Emily exclaimed next to him.

“Yeah, it’s a teleportation array. It can take us almost anywhere on the planet, as long as there’s another array there,” Zac answered. The way Selas acted was quite suspect, so he brought up the teleportation interface just to make sure of his suspicions.

Just as he opened the window he saw the line with Winterleaf Village wink out of existence, no longer available to choose. Zac only sighed and closed the interface. It looked like the beastmen were careful after all. His plan to visit Fairfield after the next wave would have to be canceled.

“Let’s go,” he said as he headed toward the temporary town.

Zac noticed that the progress was coming along well as they walked toward the center of Port Atwood. The wall was almost completely fixed, and new poles were erected on the outside. Their use had been limited the last time, but it was better to something than nothing. There was however an extremely unsettling smell in the air, and Zac furrowed his brows.

“Wow your town smells like poop,” Emily exclaimed, and Zac was forced to agree with some embarrassment.

As they closed in on the town the shadows flickered and the familiar demon appeared in front of them. Emily shrieked in surprise and jumped back a few steps, her dagger immediately in her hand.

“This one seems a bit better than the last ones, even if she looks a bit feral. I didn’t know you liked them this… young. If that’s your taste you can always pursue Zakarith, your names match and everything,” Ogras said with a half-smile.

“She was in trouble so I picked her up along the way,” Zac answered with a roll of his eyes. “How are the preparations going, and what the hell is this smell?”

“WAIT! Why is there a demon here, and why is it speaking English?” Emily shrilly interjected as she started tracing large crosses in the air to ward off evil.

“What is she doing? Is she brain-damaged?” Ogras skeptically asked as he gave a glance of mock-pity.

Zac only half-grinned and briefly told him about the demons in Christianity and other folk-lore.

“Hmm, very interesting. It might be a coincidence, or perhaps your planet had visitors from the multi-verse a few thousand years ago and the details got jumbled over the years,” Ogras mused.

“Wait, people could come from the multi-verse even before the integration?” Zac asked.

“Well yeah, but it would be like finding a needle in a galaxy so to speak. Your planet would almost be impossible to locate, but nothing is stopping you,” Ogras answered with a shrug.

“This is Ogras, he’s living here along with a few hundred more of his kind. Actually, the town mostly consists of demons. They’re like the beastmen,” Zac explained to the frazzled girl.

That seemed to calm her down somewhat as she curiously glanced at the demon.

“I know I’m handsome, but don’t go falling in love with me. I prefer mature ladies,” Ogras said as he struck a pose.

She only blushed a bit and moved a bit further away.

“Are there no other humans here except you?” she curiously asked Zac.

“Well, there are a few more, but they arrived just recently,” Zac answered.

“Pah, don’t remind me of those wastrels,” Ogras spat. “Pain in the ass every single one of them. Well, the old guy is okay, I guess.”

“What’s going on? And the smell?” Zac reminded the demon.

“Entitled little shits. They keep complaining and don’t want to work. They just hide in their house after seeing one little barghest, crying and demanding to see you. When they found out you weren’t here anymore they flipped out,” Ogras said with disdain. “As for the wretched odor? You try tanning tens of thousands of wolf hides at once without making the area smell like a Devourer’s asshole.”

“How did they come in contact with a barghest? There shouldn’t be any ones alive this close to town right?” Zac asked.

He knew that they would treat the hides, as the non-combat classes had arduously skinned and salvaged anything of value from the monster hordes. He hadn’t expected this level of stench though. Most of the parts of the beasts were useless since the grade was too low to trade with the Mercantile System, but some things might become useful, and with the volumes they were handling they would make a decent profit.

The hides of the more sturdy ones could be made into F-Grade leather armors, which would sell for a decent penny, especially at a newly integrated world like Earth. With their almost infinite stock of leather, they planned on using it as a selling point for visiting the town when they opened the gates for the public in the future.

“They said they wanted to get stronger, and since none of them are cultivators Ilvere took them to hunt a few barghests,” Ogras answered in response to the question about the humans. “If they worked together they shouldn’t have any problems killing such a dumb beast. But apparently it was chaos, people fleeing for their lives, even pushing down each other to escape. Ilvere had to kill the beast before a fight even started,” he snickered.

Zac could only sigh, feeling a bit embarrassed on their behalf.

“What’s a Barghest?” Emily asked curiously.

“It’s a large demon dog that looks like it has been turned inside out,” Zac answered. Ogras looked like he was about correct Zac, but after some thought nodded his head.

Zac turned to Emily after some thought.

“How do most human towns handle people who can’t fight?”

“Eh… Some get jobs doing various things I guess? There are still people needed for all kinds of things. The people who have simply given up are usually ignored or kicked out of town. I heard the most ruthless leaders have even used them as human shields against monster waves” the girl answered after some thought.

“There’s an idea,” Ogras muttered.

“Where are they now?” Zac asked with a sigh.

“We put them in the infirmary since its empty by now”.

“How’s Alea?” Zac quickly asked, reminded of the demoness.

“She’s up now, but still not completely restored. She’s been asking about you,” the demon answered with a devilish grin.

“Whos Alea?” Emily perked up.

“Why do you care, little brat?” Ogras grinned at her.

“Whatever,” she answered with a pout.

Already starting to regret coming back this early Zac sighed as he started walking toward the infirmary.

“More importantly, did you find any?” Ogras asked.

“Any what? Humans? Yeah, I visited a human settlement.” Zac distractedly answered.

“Who cares about that. Movies, human? Did you find any movies?”

Zac stopped and glanced at the demon.

“Are you really that free right now?”

“The wall is essentially rebuilt, and I still can’t buy anything with contribution points. I’m just waiting around,” he answered impatiently.

Zac shook his head but took out the large box containing the TV, and the small mountain of videos. Ogras inspected the things with glee, but he looked a bit confused.

“What are these things?”

“The large box contains a much larger screen to watch the movies. The small packages each contain one movie or a series. That box over there contains the device to play them. Both the Large screen and the player needs a steady stream of electricity through a cable. You can plug them into the camper, but you need to figure out how to keep the battery charged yourself.”

Ogras nodded excitedly and put all the things into his pouch.

“I’m sure you have many things to do, I’ll help this kid get used to the area,” he said, and as he grabbed the shoulder of Emily both of them disappeared, leaving only a startled shriek in the air.

Zac smiled a bit and continued on toward the infirmary. He wasn’t afraid that he’d hurt the teenager, but rather knew he’d need some tech support. Actually, it even looked like he approved of her ferocity. Soon he arrived outside the infirmary, and to his surprise saw Janos sitting outside the door.

“What’s going on?”

“Kept escaping. Put them in illusion,” the demon tersely answered.

“Uh, ok. You can turn it off, I’m going in,” Zac said with some annoyance. He didn’t know if these people really were a handful, or whether the demons were too heavy-handed, but something needed to be done. He didn’t have the resources to baby these people all the time.

With a sigh he entered the infirmary. As he entered the humans saw it was Zac, and rushed toward him with a litany of complaints. Zac simply released some of his aura to silence the group, then stared at them until they had calmed down.

“I hear you have been asking for me?” Zac said.

“You lied to us! We want off this hellhole of an island. Those demons said you have a method to leave the island, we want to go home,” Megan angrily huffed.

“You’re safe, clean, and fed. That’s better compared to most of humanity right now. You have access to a multi-verse town shop that has the herbs needed to evolve your race. You have a forest full of prey that gives a huge amount of Nexus Coins and Cosmic Energy. And you sit here complaining,” Zac retorted as a twinge of anger flared up at these people. Their situation would likely cause envy from most people, even cultivators, yet they only sat here thinking life was unfair.

“You want off this island with your powers? You’d die within a day. And even if you somehow survived and got to a settlement you’d be made slaves or worse since you’re powerless.”

The castaways hesitantly looked at each other, before the girl once again gathered her courage.

“Those hellhounds in the forest? We saw it bite clean through a thick tree, you want us to fight that? We aren’t suicidal. And do you think we’ll just believe you when you say that the world outside is dangerous?” she angrily said, and from the looks of the faces of the other,s they agreed.

“I am sorry we haven’t been able to help out very much young man. Us old folks have some trouble adjusting to this new reality,” the old fisherman suddenly interjected.

“I currently have 46 000 nexus coins from fighting animals on our old island. If possible I would like to borrow 36 000 nexus coins in order to buy the [Water Spear] skill from your Nexus Node for 75 000 coins. The remaining coins I would like to use to buy some of your Crystals at 50 coins per Nexus Crystal,” the old fisherman said.

“Your name is Trang, right?”

“My name is Sap Trang. What do you think of my proposal? I know it is a lot of coins, but with it, I hope to be able to kill the demons you call Barghest, and from there slowly get stronger. The crystals are mainly for my fellow villagers, who plan to become what your… friends… call non-combat classes. They have slowly gotten levels from fishing, but the crystals would speed it up substantially. It looks to me that you are founding an island kingdom, and us old folk have lived on the sea for all our lives. We believe we can be helpful even in this new world”.

Zac was a bit surprised. This old man clearly was no fool like the brats. Sap Trang had learned everything he could from Alyn and Zakarith, and formulated a path for himself and his villagers. He also didn’t mention Megan and her clique either, so he guessed he wasn’t too fond of them either.

And it was true, having a couple of seasoned seamen would be convenient. A goal of his was to explore the neighboring islands when time permitted. Who knew what treasures the system had put there.

Besides, what Sap Trang said was true. He did want to create a sphere of influence, and since he was situated on an island it would pretty much have to be an Island Kingdom.