Extra's Survival: Raising SSS-Rank Characters Is My Only Option

The Lord Commander of the Wall lived in a modest residence three rooms above the eastern stair. It was the place closest to the Wall and built by someone who was specially instructed to keep it crude and simple.

The most valuable thing in there was a map.

Everything else was a soldier’s fortune. A cot. A table scarred by forty years of dragging cups. A rack holding a sword that probably had not been drawn in years and the iron stove that fought the wind and lost.

Men who met Ulrich Vance for the first time usually thought the small rooms were for a show and the commander was being humble on purpose.

But they were wrong.

It was a coldly calculated move. Every candle that burned in the quarters was a candle not burned in the watchtower, and Ulrich had spent more than thirty years learning the cost of everything.

He stood at the map with his hands behind his back.

The map was huge, a whole twelve feet, containing the two hundred kilometers drawn in fading ink.

As he looked over the map, his vice-commander read the week’s contact report by the lamplight.

”Fourth watch had two contacts. Both were Reevers of level two. They were killed at the stakes. Sixth watch - nothing. Sevent - nothing. The Drain watch pulled a dead sumper out of the eastern gates on Thursday, but the frost had already taken it, so it’s an old kill. I’ve logged it against last month.”

Coris Danel turned the page only to frown at the empty page.

”That’s the whole report for the month, Commander.”

”What are our losses?”

”One man - to a fall on the western stair - men say he was drunk. Two to fever.” He paused. ”None to the forest. I had the clerks check back the last ten years of report. We have never had a month without a forest death.”

The stove ticked, and wind leaned on the shutters.

Ulrich crossed to the table. The sheet hung there on its nail - every officer on the wall could recite it because it was the sheet that told a captain what he was facing when he came across them.

It was a Roamer Classification chart.

It was not something complicated. ROamers gre cores.

One core to start, and if a roamer lived long enough and ate enough, it grew another. Seven was the most anyone had ever heard of, and nobody Ulrich or his ancestors knew - had ever seen a roamer with seven cores.

But that wasn’t the point now.

All captains and officers were taught a single thing.

More cores mean more strength.

But that wasn’t all. Levels also mattered.

The level was something they used to measure how deep the power ran, and there were seven of those too.

The Sheet had seven arrows.

Level one.

A roamer that can utilize its core. Normally, a levy man with a spear could face one.

Level two required a trained watchman or two or three levy men - Roamers like Reevers, Rackhors belonged here.

Level three was where things started getting hard - It would require a well-coordinated squad with at least a man with a star open to face them.

Greenhorns, Stoopers, and more.

Level four would require an Apex realm warrior or people who could utilize star abilities, but such roamers rarely visited near the walls.

There were around eleven roamers mentioned in that row.

The next three rows were empty.

Level Five.

Level Six.

Level Seven.

Ulrich stared intently at those rows.

Roamer cores were definitely important, but it was the level that defined the true power of it - so the Wall had a tradition of recording all the sighted roamers and their power level.

The three rows being empty just meant that nobody ever wrote in them. It simply meant that no one had seen them or...

’No one who comes across them survives.’

So the official protocol if they ever came across such roamers was ti withdraw and report.

”The men are calling this quite a blessing,” Coris said. ”The watch officers want extra hands moved onto the winter works. Steward Vess wants to extend the timber work while there is no interference. If we do that now, we could finish about a month earlier-”

”No”

Coris looked up.

”Commander, it would be helpful-”

”Coris. How long have you stood this stone?”

Coris went quiet for a second before answering.

”Fourteen years.”

”Then you have seen the forest go quiet before. Tell me what it was like.”

Coris thought about it. He was careful- that was one of the reasons why Ulrich had kept him as the vice commander.

”There were quiet seasons. The pressure eased, and we saw fewer of them. But it was never completely quiet. There were still Level Twos near the stakes, Sumpers getting into the drains, Stoopers coming close to test the lamps. Even during the quietest season, something always came out of the forest.”

”The forest stays active because it’s full,” Ulrich said.

He tapped the sheet in front of him.

”Look at what these numbers are actually telling us, Coris. They don’t tell us how much the roamers hate us. They tell us how many of them are out there.”

He looked up.

”Roamers are not the problem we are facing. They’re everywhere. There are Level Ones in the woods behind almost every village in the Empire. Farmers kill them with billhooks and collect the bounty from their cores.”

He paused.

”My own mother killed two.”

He turned back to the sheet.

”What we have here isn’t a different kind of roamer. It’s mostly the same.”

His finger tapped the paper again.

”There are just more of them here. They’re packed together, and they’ve had years to grow.”

”And that makes them bigger,” Coris said.

”And far stronger,” Ulrich replied and looked up the map.

”That drip is the most honest report I get. As long as something keeps coming out of that forest, I know what’s happening in there.”

Coris Danel had stood alone on the eastern stair during numerous surges of roamers. He was a three-star Apex then and even a master now. Fear was not something that came easily to him.

But the look on the old man’s face made him take half a step back.

”Twenty-two days without a single sighting doesn’t mean the forest is empty,” Ulrich said. ”It means something has changed.”

He pointed at the map.

”Two hundred kilometers of Wall facing the great green forest and not one roamer? Not one attack? Not even a single creature near the Wall?”

Coris frowned.

”Roamers are not social creatures who agree with each other and make a pact.”

”...”

Ulrich sat down and pulled the first duty ledger toward him. He looked like an old man sitting beside a broken stove, yet he was running the largest fortress in the world with nothing but a pen and a stack of papers.

”That’s what worries me,” he said. ”If there is no attack, then something has made them stop.”

Coris looked at the sheet hanging from the nail.

Three rows had never been filled in.

He understood.

”The reason would probably be among one of the empty lines.”

”Or something worse,” Ulrich said.

He was quiet for a moment.

”This isn’t a blessing, Coris. It’s the tide going out.”

He dipped his pen into the ink.

”And anyone who has seen the sea knows what comes after that.”

Coris straightened.

”What do you want done?”

”Cancel the timber details. Double the far-watch.”

Ulrich began writing.

”I want every horn, every lamp, and every beacon on this Wall checked by Friday. Count everything. If we’re short on anything, I want the numbers on this table. Don’t waste time on drafting reports - send a word immediately.”

”Yes, Commander.”

”And Coris.”

Coris stopped at the door.

”Do it quietly.”

Ulrich didn’t look up from the ledger.

”Storms come whether we’re ready or not.”

He turned the page.

”But let’s not choose to panic.”

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