10

I switched hands once my left arm started to get too tired. It didn't take long considering I had nearly a hundred pounds of random junk in a crappy backpack on my back. Stopping once I was healed to go somewhere people knew I frequented. My little lie made it seem as if I was a frontline fighter. That, and the fact that I'd practically shouted I wanted to go outside of the walls meant that they would probably pick me as one of the people that would go out. 

I didn't have to wait around for very long. Boss man came to me about the time I was finishing up my rabbits, and just had to bed down the female cages with some hay. They'd kindle within a week, and the kits would die from cold if they didn't have enough hay. I finished up right quick before heading to the main entrance like the boss man asked. There were ten people by the gate. 

A few of them were obviously not fighters. That kind of bugged me. 

"This isn't a field trip," I snapped my attention to the boss man, "Why are you sending people that can't fight?"

"Their job is to carry the supplies you gather," Boss man replied, "Nothing else. They are supposed to run if anything happens."

He was throwing baggage at us. The pale complexion of the people here told me that they were voluntold to be here. They didn't have a choice in the matter. I didn't want them to come along either, but this asshole was in charge. One of these baggage carriers even had an obvious disability. 

He only had one leg. The other one was a fake. I frowned to myself. I wasn't against people with disabilities. However, sending out a guy with only one leg to carry a bunch of extra weight when there was no one to fix the leg if something went wrong seemed like a bad plan to me. 

One bad encounter with a monster, and we'd be carrying him. It didn't matter how tough the guy was or what he had been though. If he lost his fake leg then we wouldn't be able to fix or replace it. The other two non fighters probably had similar issues. He was sending them out to get killed. 

Trimming off the people he didn't think were useful. I ground my teeth, but stayed quiet as the wall slowly came down. Making an opening for us to leave the settlement. It took some time for the wall to open up, and close. They needed a proper gate, and so far they didn't have one. 

They were relying on one guy's magic to open, and close the wall. I imagine that he was probably being treated like a king. This wall was raised up in a hurry. It seemed as if he'd invested quite a bit in increasing his magic power since this all began. Mage was only a two star class after all. 

He got quite a few stat points from leveling up. He also had a rifle, and two people guarding him. This guy was getting enough kills from inside the walls to slowly raise his level, and he was probably being helped along through the process. I understood why. His magic was what was maintaining the walls after all. 

I frowned to myself. I didn't like the idea of sacrificial lambs. My muscles tensed up slowly. I wanted to go out. I really did. 

I just didn't want them to die out there. It was a waste of good people. I wanted to punch boss man, but the looks of admiration that they gave the man in charge disturbed me. They were under his spell, and it didn't seem as if there was anything I could do about it now. Boss man's son was coming with us on our little journey. Boss man had put the little brat in charge.

I watched him lead the way. I raised my bow, and nocked an arrow. I'd grown to like having my quiver attached to my belt. Reaching down to draw an arrow instead of up was a bit of an adjustment. I could handle it though. 

It wasn't enough to cause me trouble in a fight. What I lost in draw speed I made up for in mobility. Well, in theory. I'd find out soon enough. It was surprisingly quiet as we moved along the road towards the nearest houses. 

I was kind of surprised we weren't driving a vehicle of some sort, but this seemed more like a test run then an actual run. For now the plan was to hit all the nearby houses, and then come back with everything we could find. Darington was a small, and spread out town. There weren't many houses on the main stretch, but pretty much every single one would have at least one gun stowed away somewhere. We'd probably slowly branch out as we worked our way through all the local housing. 

There were a few farmsteads nearby, and since the power hadn't been shut off yet that meant any medicines nearby would still be good as well. The grace period for that was shrinking daily. There were multiple announcements of what towns were going to lose electricity, and when shared all over social media now. Thankfully radio equipment was fairly common around here as well. One of the semi trucks that had been driven into Darington actually had a full setup that could broadcast for miles. 

There also seemed to be plans in the works to secure one of the local radio stations so we could boost our signal even further. I wasn't really interested in helping with all that nonsense though. I was planning on leaving as soon as I could after all. My line of thought was derailed as the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. There was more then one of them.