Unsurprisingly, there were dozens more creatures waiting for the hunters at every step of the way. However, with each successful kill, the hunters grew in fidend power. Most didn’t have Occupations, but eae obviously had a Css and each of the lower-levelled hunters gai least one level while coyote corpses were thrown into backpacks. With the hunters showing themselves capable of succeeding without being babysat, TJ stepped further and further back. He was, acc to Zig, two levels higher than her, and she was the only hunter who’d reached level 5. While he stood in the back, keeping a on anything that could potentially pose any threat to the hunters, something that hadn’t been noticed by the rest, he asked Zig what her additional Skill was.

  “Arrow Shower. I spend an expoially increasing amount of MP and Stamina to duplicate the arrows I shoot. I do up to 20, but that bottoms me out. If I, instead, just do a couple pairs or triples, I do a bit more thay. Haven’t o use it today, since I want to make sure these kids are growing.”

  TJ nodded, not looking at her.

  “You’re not ex-military or anything?” Zig asked out of nowhere.

  “Hell no. I don’t know anything about leading aion or whatever. Stanton served in ‘Nam, but he wasn’t a career soldier after that, so he’s fifty years out of date.”

  “Were you like, a guild leader or anything like that? You seem to be pretty progress oriented, more than we were.”

  “Nope. I have a solid goal, that’s all. I don’t know anything about the rest of you. Holy, I don’t o. My only focus right now is Junior. If I get to him, that’s all that matters to me. Making sure you all pull your weight aronger will just help me to get bay son. I don’t think any of you here have kids, right?”

  Zig shook her head. “Not as far as I know.”

  “If you did, I’d imagine you’d be a bit more driven to get to them. I bet a lot of these kids still kinda think of this as a scarier video game, and that’s fine if it keeps you all sane and alive because God knows we all hat. I don’t o think of this as a game. Just something standiween me and him. So, I’m sorry if I’m an ass or difficult to be around or whatever, but frankly, your safety isn’t my end goal.”

  Sig hough she couldn’t hide the slight frown. “Are y to be unlikeable with all this talk like this? Just like, deliberately tearing us down?”

  TJ scowled. “No. I just don’t want you to be disappoihat I’m not really a heruide to safety. I’m going to be up front about my long-term goals, because you need your own. There’s gotta be something that’ll pull you through this, and it ’t be me.”

  “Sounds kinda like my dad, holy.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s always on my back about deg what to make of myself. Hell if I know what I want to do, though. Guess that doesn’t matter…” Zig trailed off, her eyes looking not at the trees but something far beyond them.

  “Maybe you should try to see him after the Tutorial. Could be something to work towards.”

  “Maybe.” Zig pulled herself from her thoughts a an eye peeled on our surroundings. As the time passed, they had walked past several streets where more s were sure to be, but under Zig’s instrus, they hadn’t turned onto any of them. Instead, the pack of hunters tinued on the well-paved path for another half mile or so. Every so often, a pack of pukwudgies or coyotes would attempt another ambush, the pukwudgies focused on lightning-quick assaults without warning, the coyotes determio tear into whatever human they could reach. The coyotes tio demonstrate the monstrous, unthinking rage that drove them to violence, evehey were guarao die. Oher hand, the pukwudgies remained a much more insidious foe.

  The little goblins didn’t care how much damage they did. They just wao make them suffer. They’d throw spears from the pirees overhead, fake e, even send a single one of their panions around to hope to get lucky with a thrown spear. With so many hunters ready for them, though, the pukwudgies refused to fully it the way they had been with TJ and Stanton alohough it annoyed him to no end, TJ reized the wisdom in their approaly it when they had a great ce of killing them all. Otherwise, harry and harm as best as they could.

  Eventually they’d made it far enough that Zig gestured for the group to follow the brang road up a steep hill. The gated unity of s stood seemingly undisturbed. No windows were broken, no monsters roamed the streets, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. TJ ghrough the space betweehick bars. His face didn’t fit, aivated Diviransformation to stick his narrower snake head through. He didn’t see or smell or taste anything…

  Wheried to pull his head back, though, it caught and TJ felt panic begin to rise in his chest. Then, he realized it was just his mane of feathers catg and he slithered through the bars and then uhe two foot gap uhe feo return to the rest of the hunters.

  “I’m not seeing anything in there, though that doesn’t mean much.” a couple chuckles from the you of the hunters answered his stupid joke. “The houses all look untouched, though, so I think that might be a good thing.”

  “We’ve never seen pukwudgies to be the first ones in a house.” Charlie answered, also looking around for anything out of pce. “They’ll go in after a human has been, but every is left untouched until then.”

  TJ grunted. If that was the case, maybe this would be a particurly beneficial expedition. He refused to get his hopes high just yet, though. Instead, he waited for the rest of the huo be prepared to go in. Though he couldn’t quite pce why, the idea of walking into the unity seemed a daunting one, and TJ wasn’t going to press the rest iering before they were ready. Then, as Zig briefly sulted with the other Acolytes about the current dition of their MP and Stamina, a question occurred to TJ. He turo Mary, the Zealot who’d been briefly swarmed by coyotes.

  “How do you keep your armor up? Does it require your MP stantly? Or is it a purely physical thing? And what’s the name of the Skill?”

  “It’s called Holy Vestments. Lets someo armor or a shield, and doesn’t take MP to maintain. It drains a little Stamina and MP when it takes a hit, and, as you saw, it doesn’t proteyone perfectly.” The woman, about the same age a as TJ’s own early thirties and 5’7”, scratched idly at the pink flesh that repced the wounds on her face. She was rather pin, with dirty blonde hair, narrow eyes, and wearing too-tight exercise clothing. TJ supposed that she, like him, had been on a jog like he was when all this started a an unreasonable kinship with her.

  “What happens if you run out of Stamina or MP while you’re using the Skill? And why do some people have shields and some armor?”

  “I… don’t know what happens. But we all made a choice whe the Skill on if we wanted armor or shields.”

  TJ hen, since he was already asking, figured he’d ask the st question, “What’s your Bloodline?”

  “It’s called Dazhbog.” Then, seeing TJ’s followup question, she answered, “Svic god of the sun and plenty.”

  “Thanks. By the way, I don’t know if I’ve said it publicly, but mine is Kukulkan. The Mayan and Aztec feathered serpent god.”

  “I kinda already guessed the feathered serpent thing.”

  “Fair enough.” TJ nodded and watched as Zig and the rest finally were ready to ehe unity that id before them. He stepped into the front, willing to take the potentially most risky position, and the other zealots on the front heir thanks to him as he walked around the gate and into the street that waited before him. Nothing stirred as they approached, only their own steps and the winds overhead seeming to react to their preseJ made his way to the first home and, finding the front door unlocked, made his way in. Every other member of the expedition quickly fell in step behind him, all except for Seth, who stood at the door with his crossbow at the ready and his eyes oreet.

  Most of the hunters walked directly into the kit and ransacked whatever they could find. With a walk-in pantry full of non-perishables, half the backpacks were filled nearly immediately. Seeing the kit filled with searg people, TJ and several others poked into the upstairs, where warm bs and the few ges of clothes there were quickly shoved into whatever backpack they fit in.

  “Do we need more bs?” TJ called dowairs to where Zig and Charlie were.

  “Yeah!” Charlie replied, his voice eg through the wooden building. “Most people make it through the day, but keeping sleeping quarters nid warm has been nearly impossible.”

  With an answer received, TJ found another backpad stuffed it full of a couple quilts as well. There weren’t any other packs upstairs to use, but when they returo the ground floor, TJ saw that three more backpacks had been added to various arms. Half the hunters were double-stacked with supplies, and it was obvious that many of their hought the journey was over.

  “Are we ready to go to the one?” Charlie asked, disregarding a couple groans that the younger ones made as they prepared to move along. TJ merely nodded in response and strht out the building. With his insistent steps, though a couple kids grumbled about ag feet, everyone fell in step quickly enough. The sed wasn’t nearly so well-stocked with food, less than a single backpack's worth found ihere was, however, a five gallon bucket with some useful supplies stored within, srabbed that bucket and carried it out. The swarm of hunters desded on a third, then fourth home. In the fourth, they found enough supplies to load everyone up nearly to capacity and, with Zig’s instru, they began to return to the street.

  With the end of their expedition in sight, many of the hunters, agai a certain sense of pcy wash over them. Before TJ could say anything about staying alert and ready, he felt a slight rumble in the ground. As he tried to uand what was happening, Seth shouted while pointing up the street and further into the neighborhood, “Be ready, something’s ing!”

  TJ turned and looked just in time to witness a veritable horde of javelinas e charging dowreet, squealing with rage and in challenge.

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