Too Stubborn to Die

Book 3: Chapter 41

Somehow, giving their little settlement a name had invigorated people with a new sense of purpose, and Dober felt more alive with activity than it had ever before.

There were even a couple of camp members with art-related professions who had taken to designing a flag and color scheme for the United Front.

They settled on a light blue and white, much to the dismay of Talia. Not that adopting the colors was a necessity forced upon anybody.

But it did come with benefits. Just like everything else in the multiverse empowered by the System, colors and flags could grant their own powers, especially if powerful people crafted them.

For example, Julius’ leadership bonus was amplified by uniforms, and the color scheme, when applied by a Profession to one’s armor, gave a few minor additional bonuses, which were increased when in a team wearing the same colors.

Of course, Julius was a leader, and his powers were amplified when applied to the people he led. And as Aaron was above him in the settlement hierarchy, he didn’t receive the bonus. Not that the difficult-to-kill man really needed it.

Leaning back in his chair as his plans were falling into place with surprising precision, Julius flicked through the options on the mayor management window.

There was something in particular that interested him. At ten thousand inhabitants, a settlement could elect itself to compete for world dominance, and by doing so unlock a global control map.

He wasn’t sure yet whether or not it was a good idea to attempt to conquer the world. But with how things were moving, it didn’t seem such an impossible thought anymore. What with two of the top ten rankers in the world being members of their faction?

Either way, regardless of what decision they made, he knew this was an important unlock to get. He wanted to be able to see how much territory had been claimed by other settlements already. He also wanted to know how many settlements there were and how big they had gotten.

But then his gaze drifted over to their population ticker. 1484. It was a decent population, but it was far from the target.

Both he and Talia had saved a decent number of the people in their respective Tutorials, and a decent number of people had wandered into the settlement on their own. Not to mention Aaron, who had brought in close to a hundred new settlers himself, between the people of New Haven and the goblins that served him.

But still, despite this, they were some way off from getting on the board. His first step to achieving this goal had been the lights of the old casino. With them working, he had turned the Bellagio into a shining beacon at night, a beacon that was greatly aided by the fact that the surrounding terrain was very flat and stretched on for some distance in most directions.

However, this new world of theirs was absolutely gigantic. There was a real possibility that they had already absorbed all of the surviving people within the immediate region.

And if that were true, some lights wouldn’t do much to attract new settlers.

After all, the combined population of the three intelligent species was now less than Earth’s population had been pre-integration, and this world was many times larger.

He strummed his fingers against the table. Just because the problem was hard didn’t mean that he could just wait around and hope that it solved itself.

If other settlements were able to unlock the global control map before they did, it would grant them a significant strategic edge. Being able to see where all the settlements were in the entire world was quite something.

Of course, the map didn’t reveal everything. The explanation made it clear that the world’s details would be shrouded by the fog of war until revealed. The map would simply reveal the borders and settlement locations. But that was more than enough, and Julius was already considering the ways he could use such information to expand their strength.

“We need to attract more people,” he said absently, swirling on his chair to look out his window. Below, he could see many people going about their business, looking like ants in the distance as they worked tirelessly.

“Attract more people? Are they orders, sir?” One of his guards said, but Julius just waved dismissively, not answering with words or breaking from his thought.

Talia, Aaron, and his wolf pet were needed to deal with the ants whenever Aaron was capable of doing so. That much was obvious, and he had to consider their strengths out of reach for now. And the rest of his most elite warriors were busy hunting, getting stronger, and just generally keeping Dober safe from threats.

That put him in a difficult position. If he sent weaker parties out to search for survivors, they themselves might need rescuing.

If only everyone had a travel Skill that allowed them to fly, he mused. That would make such predicaments far easier to resolve. Not that there weren’t dangerous predators in the skies, but there certainly seemed to be fewer of them, at least for now.

Following that thought, he went over the resources and System credits available in the settlement’s coffers. Just about everything was being poured into the purchase of more mana cores and defensive equipment, as they were seen as the most important assets for now.

He didn’t want to change this. He wasn’t going to be happy until the settlement could defend itself against a low D-grade beast without any of the powerhouses helping.

But they were well on their way toward achieving this goal, and perhaps some of their resources could be diverted.

What he had in mind was fabulously expensive. To purchase a float stone. The float stones had limited availability in the System Store, with just three available for their entire world, and it was set to restock in one year.

And to make matters worse, one had already been purchased, making Julius a little anxious about making a decision.

To gain more System credits, one could sell all kinds of loot back into the System, but it was clear even at a cursory glance that the exchange rate was horrendous.

They could only sell items for about ten percent of what it cost to buy the very same items back. But he saw little choice until more complex markets appeared on their world. Or any markets for that matter.

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And the float stone could solve his problem. Its description said it could float up to a hundred tons, and could be used to create a flying device, if something to propel it was added. And obviously, some kind of platform.

After a moment of deliberation, he added the float stone to his purchase queue and closed the windows.

It wasn’t an easy decision. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have a lot of needs. But those needs were quickly being seen to, and the camp was looking safer and more productive than ever. And so, Julius made his decision. He would focus on the goal of increasing their population as the others worked to secure their borders and defeat the threats nearer to home.

And the only way he could do that without diverting powerful assets was the float stone.

*Joseph Lefiti*

Tenderly, the huge man massaged a healing salve into the wounds that cut across his body. It was a bit of a pain doing so underwater, but salves were a thick substance and clung to his skin when applied.

As his wounds healed, he sighed and leaned back against sharp rock. Life had been beyond difficult ever since he left the trials, but he wasn’t about to give up.

Somehow, he had been cursed to a section of the ocean absolutely teeming with thal’kesh. They were even worse than the beasts around him in most cases, and had set up a quickly expanding settlement nearby.

Worst of all, the settlement was ruled by Raksha Tiksus Vakmal, the second-highest ranker in the entire world.

As he waited for his wounds from his last engagement with the thal’kesh to heal, he pulled out a token from his spatial storage and thumbed it eagerly. He had gained it back in the trials, and the dungeon it held the key to would be opening soon, and soon couldn’t come soon enough.

He had killed dozens of thal’kesh since arriving, and two more in their last engagement. But it was clear that his roguish avoidance and preying on their scouts was getting to them, and the hunting parties out searching for him had grown both in size and strength.

The reality was, he couldn’t keep this up forever, not unless something changed.

Even if he could handle all of the hunting parties searching for him alone, all they needed to do was to keep him busy for long enough that Raksha Tiksus Vakmal could arrive, and then it would likely all be over.

Of course, there was a good chance the dungeon wasn’t going to be a salvation for him. But what alternative did he have? It felt like a noose was being slowly tightened around his neck, and any reprieve would be welcome.

Besides, he was dropping in the rankings as he was unable to hunt and grow stronger. The problem was, he was always on the run, and the thal’kesh he did kill weren’t enough to keep up with the other top rankers.

If things weren’t bad enough as they were, he knew they would get worse if he continued to grow weaker relative to the other powerhouses, particularly Raksha Tiksus Vakmal.

And that couldn’t be allowed to happen.

“Come on already,” he grunted softly. “Give me something to work with.”

*Erdek Foulbreath*

The goblin hordes under the self-proclaimed queen of the goblins were growing every day, their makeshift tents and crooked timber shanties stretching across the land.

Erdek Foulbreath had gotten extraordinarily lucky when leaving the trials. She and her followers, bound by the Waypointed, had arrived on an incredibly defensible mountain top with views for miles. And she had easily been able to send her goblins out in all directions to search for prey and loot. Not to mention more survivors.

Now, she even had a small force of human slaves doing manual jobs for the settlement, much to the delight of the goblins that worked them.

But despite all of this good fortune, climbing higher in the ranks seemed to constantly elude her, frustrating her beyond belief.

Between her main camp and the outposts around it, she had well over a hundred thousand followers already and had long since unlocked the territory control map, confirming that she was only outmatched by the necromancer. With the third largest settlement nowhere in sight.

In her mind, it was clear that they were the two front-runners of this world. The two strongest empires that would duke it out for supremacy against one another. And everyone else was a distant third.

But why then was she stuck at fourth place? It was beyond frustrating, and couldn’t be due to a lack of leadership, as she was clearly ahead on that front.

The only thing that made any sense was that her own achievements were lacking, and that was perhaps more infuriating to admit than anything else could be.

Sure, she had seen powerful people in the trials and knew not to take them lightly. In fact, she was surprised that it had taken that human who died all the time so long to reach the top ten. But that wasn’t what frustrated her.

If she were third to him, then maybe she could accept it. He had proven himself, after all. She knew better than anybody that completing three trials was no easy task. But she wasn’t. She wasn’t behind him at all. She was stuck behind people of little significance, in her mind, and that simply wasn’t good enough.

This had led her into an almost manic state of hunting and fighting beasts near constantly. And she was about to leave her camp once more in search of something to kill, but before she did, she walked over to a table within the main room of her sprawling tent.

On that table was a small token, and she reached for it tenderly, stroking it with a greedy affection.

She had been planning on giving the token to one of her elites, thinking that such an event was beneath the soon-to-be queen of this world. But now? Well, she found herself questioning that thought.

After all, she needed that ranking. She demanded it. And maybe, just maybe, this dungeon would provide her with the points needed to grasp those last few ranks and push her up to the second slot.

Because anything else simply wasn’t good enough. And after she took that, her plans for dealing with the necromancer could unfold.

“I suppose I’ve no choice.”

*Ernest Sheridan*

His arm hadn’t quite finished growing back yet, but even with one arm, Ernest was more than enough to take care of anything that got in their way. His advancement to D grade had made most encounters trivial, so despite the harrowing way they had escaped from Darius, they were doing much better than they had been.

Escaping the undead horde hadn’t been easy, and Ernest worried it would have dire consequences for the world, but if he could go back in time, he would make the same decision all over again, even if it meant losing both arms or even his life.

Near the battlefield where Johan’s and Darius’ forces battled, there had been a slumbering D grade. It was not just a normal D grade, though. It had eaten something incredible, and even though it was still digesting it, it had already reached level 180, making it easily the most powerful being they had encountered in the new world. And to escape Darius, Ernest simply woke it up.

The beast clashed with the undead horde while Ernest and the others fled. It had bought them plenty of time, but since Darius was still ranked first, Ernest could only assume that in the end, he defeated it. That meant that not only did Darius now have the corpse of a level 180 behemoth, but he also had whatever treasure it had swallowed to grow so powerful. Even before that, he was a dire threat, but with such a powerful undead under his command, and the potential to make more, he was now by far the most dangerous being on the entire planet. And although Ernest and his people had escaped, there were still regular reports from the scouts of undead trackers on their heels.

Fortunately, Ernest had a plan. He wasn’t a leader like Johan, but he knew his way around a bar, and he had learned quite a bit in the Shadow Trials. From the people he shared drinks with, he learned that anyone who passed a Trial in the final two weeks of the Shadow Trials received the same thing: A Dungeon entry token. That meant that all the powerhouses in his world would be in the same Dungeon at the same time very soon. He would be able to meet with them, talk to them, and ideally, form an alliance with them to kill Darius.

Five more weeks, he thought. We just need to make it five more weeks…