"Did anyone hear that?" Timon asked. We had just gotten off the bus in the small town, and as I had hoped, it had appeared deserted from a distance. His sudden words made me think otherwise, though.

"I didn't hear anything," Maud said. Maud, Elody, Mel, and Karlinovo had decided to come on this trip. The last three had in order to look for anything they thought would be useful. Maud came because she was hoping to find some soda.

"Neither did I," I said. That didn't mean anything, though. From what I had learned about Timon, I suspected his senses were much better than the rest of ours. How did one train their perceptions anyway?

"I heard it. Sounded like a door closing in the distance," Mel said.

"Who the hell are you?!" a kid's voice suddenly yelled. I spun my head and spotted him yelling from an open window, a shotgun pointing through it.

"Hey, it's okay, we're just here to see what's going on with the town, and if we can borrow anything. Are there any adults we can talk to?" Maud asked gently, trying to calm the kid.

"No! Ain't had any of my family here since those monsters attacked," he replied.

"I promise we aren't with them. Why don't you put the gun down and come outside, and we can talk more?" Maud continued.

"Fine, but only because some of you look human, and I ain't afraid of clouds, but keep the bug away, I don't like them!" he yelled back.

Moments later, a kid no older than twelve emerged from the building. He had, in fact, not left his gun behind, not that it entirely worried me anymore. I doubted a shotgun could do much to me these days. I added that to a list of things I should determine. Just how resistant was my body to conventional weapons?

"Hey, I'm Dave, and the lady you've been talking to is Maud. Have you really been alone here for a while?" I asked, starting to wish I had considered searching the nearby cities for people who needed help sooner. That was something I was going to put Grant in charge of the moment we got back.

"…the monsters killed them all. Dad made me hide in the woods, when I got back there was no one." The kid dropped the gun, and everything seemed to hit him at once. He dropped to his knees, crying. Dammit, why hadn't I thought to send people out to the check on as much of the area as I could?

"I'm so sorry," Maud called, running to hug him. "Come on, let's talk about it on the bus, okay?"

"Okay," he said through sniffles as Maud started to lead him back to where we had just come.

"I should have considered the devastation of everywhere around me, with how hard the orcs had come at my house, of course, they had gone through the towns on the way," I said, angry at myself for not even considering it.

"When? Dave, ya ran yerself ragged doing literally everything ya could. This ain't yer fault. We'll do what we can for the kid, but remember he's likely only alive because of what ya did," Mel replied. His words didn't help. I knew they were correct, but at the moment, they did absolutely nothing.

"Let's just focus on getting the cabling. Mel, see those lines up there. I'm guessing they are dead, but in the off chance they are live, you might want to send a drone. Get as much of it as you can, wound up," I said. To Mel's credit, he just went straight to work, not trying to talk me out of my mood anymore.

There wasn't a lot else of value in the city. Without power, most of the food had gone bad, and I guessed the kid had been living on what little canned goods he could scavenge since then. I did manage to find some computers and a few laptops scattered about a few of the houses. I was careful to avoid where we had met him. I wasn't willing to touch anything that belonged to him. He had every right to take whatever he wanted, and hopefully willingly come back with us. We couldn't leave him here.

Alongside the computers, I was able to find several types of cabling, ranging from Ethernet to speaker wire. I took it all. I had no idea which would be the most useful for what, but it would be important for testing purposes. I spotted Karlinovo going about various houses as well, constantly passing things to Elody to add to her own storage. It seemed he hadn't unlocked his again yet.

After a couple of hours of this, I headed back to the bus to see how our new friend was holding up. "I'm sorry, Mr. Dave," he said the moment he spotted me, still looking incredibly upset.

"It's okay. You did the right thing trying to defend yourself there. You had no idea we weren't your enemies," I replied. There were several snacks on the table in front of them and some leftovers from last night's dinner, which Maud had apparently managed to dig up. "What's your name?"

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"Dean," he replied, some of the tears were drying up now.

"Nice to meet you, Dean. I'm sorry about the circumstances it's under. Maud may have already told you this, but it's probably safest if you come back with us. Are you okay doing that?" I asked, hoping I didn't have to force the issue.

"Yeah, but can I pack up my stuff before we go? And I need to get Bitey. He's the only other one who's still alive. He's just a pet rat, but he saw his parents die too, and I can't leave him behind," Dean said, some of his tears coming back, and his words spilled out of his mouth.

"Of course. Maud, can you help him get everything he wants to bring?" I asked.

"Yep, on it. Come on, Dean, let's get Mr. Bitey ready for his trip," Maud said, standing up and coaxing Dean to come with her as she did. While they did that, I pulled up a chat window.

Dave: Gamma, we found a single survivor here, and he's just a kid. Can you tell Glorp to try and get space for him with the rest of them? He's going to need friends badly.

Gamma: Yes, I will do that immediately.

Dave: Thank you, and tell Grant I want to talk to him when I get back about a new mission for him.

Gamma: I will do that as well. Oh, and Grant said the council is coming for a meeting tomorrow. Almost forgot to tell you.

Dave: Dammit, tell him I want more notice in the future, then tell Pryte.

Gamma: Okay.

Glorp couldn't believe how fast some of these projects were starting to come along. The Reltleons had only been here a day, and already they likely had enough lumber felled for two of the long houses. He was glad they were so capable, because this would have taken just him, Grant, and Trolke ages to do otherwise.

He hoped Cecile was having just as much luck in the greenhouses as he was. He pictured some of the amazing crops they could end up with if he were. He pulled a small packet out of his pocket. It was a few seeds his brother had managed to bring with them when Pryte found them. Once they were done here, he was going to ask Cecile to help him plant them. He wanted it to be a surprise for everyone, though. The way the vegetable from his home planet made people remember the bliss of their happiest memories was something best experienced as a gift.

Speaking of gifts, thanks to the Arena and all of Dave's help, his core was now sitting at a B-tier. Then were was his affinity. The thing that scared him enough that even though he had invested ranks into it, he had refused to use it. Unless there was a life or death situation, he planned to do his best to keep it that way.

-\Core Grade {B} -\Affinity\Speed {C} -\Affinity\Speed\Gotta Go Faster {25}

You've begun to move in ways most people can only imagine. Gotta Go Faster allows your core to begin to channel energy directly from the source of all speed itself. This can be extremely dangerous, as mortal bodies are not made for channeling such energies. Further ranks increase the amount of speed you can draw, they do not however make it safer to do so. Furthermore, the more you draw on this, the more you risk your body breaking down as you use it.

The idea that he had access to something beyond what mortal people normally did scared him even more. He had heard of people called gods before, but he had always just assumed they were just very powerful mana channelers with giant egos. After he had first read that affinity skill, he was no longer quite so sure.

"Trolke, how did you decide what you wanted to do with your life?" Glorp asked the big man the next time he spotted him. He was quickly considering the giant to be one of his close friends and a great mentor.

"Dad mostly. He taught me a lot of this when I was a kid, back before our homeworld was free. Sure, I could have changed my path then, a lot of giants did, but I kind of like what I do. Makes me remember the big guy every time I make a mistake, and how he'd gently show me what I needed to do to fix it, or to scrap it and start over," he replied with a booming, yet warm voice.

"Interesting, sadly, I don't think I can follow in my family footsteps. I think they're all dead, except maybe uncle Glarppp, but I haven't seen him since I was a toddler, barely remember his face," Glorp replied. He fought off the sadness that came with the words. Despite his unpleasant past, he was happy here.

"Then it's up to you to find your own path. You're a smart and incredibly capable kid, so I think you will manage it. Now get back to getting that lumber laid out. We need to get those kids into rooms," Trolke said with a smile that was the opposite of his new demanding tone.

Air is generally the least chosen of the elemental paths for a mana orb. People see the benefits as far weaker than its counterparts, and while that is entirely true for most of its early growth, this quickly becomes a nonsense belief as the orb matures. At its highest tiers, only aether can truly stand against it after all, those who can dance in the clouds can move with the speed of lightning.

Air, Far More Dangerous Than Understood by Henjen Klank

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