On the Road

Even after a day, the majority of the town was uncertain. But they had no other option besides following Naos's suggestion.

The plan was simple.

Naos would travel to a larger city with half of the valuable gems and find a good price for them. The city he would go to was dictated by where Grant ended up.

Unbeknownst to the poor man who had antagonized Naos, a tracker was placed on his person. Using that, Naos would find his base and uproot the organization that was behind him.

Fortunately, a side effect was being able to find a wealthy city to sell the gems to and get enough money to get Calico in a position where he could leave it alone while he dealt with the rats.

"Naos, are you sure you will be fine on your own?" The mayor questioned, "None of us have been to a city in years so I'm sure it's changed a lot since we last saw one."

"Mayor, I am the last person that you should be worrying about, as you know." Naos shrugged off the old man's concerns and pressed for the plan to be carried out.

There were many that he had created a bond with that didn't want to see him go, Logan and Martha being amongst them. But to their dismay, Naos was a stalwart man who refused to let this opportunity go.

Yes, there was a major benefit to Calico in someone selling the valuable gems, but Naos had another plan. This was a perfect opportunity to look into the origin of the superpowers that had become widespread even in an isolated town like this one.

Naos thought that the city which housed a powerful gang like the Goblin Gang was able to supply a low-level grunt with something so expensive was a foreign concept to Naos.

After all, Grant had been one of the most pathetic people he had the displeasure of meeting.

Naos turned his attention away from the weapons that he would be bringing and onto the console in his hand. It showed a red dot on a topographic grid that displayed the surroundings flawlessly.

If he had remembered correctly, Naos speculated that Grant was heading towards Las Vegas. Unsurprisingly, such a large and wealthy city would still be popular even in these times when a human could do what used to be thought impossible.

Naos looked at the locations that he would stop by on his journey and was relieved to see that there were no towns on the way. He didn't think that warming up to another town would be very fun in such quick succession.

He sheathed his weapons and left his house for the last time in a while. The trip was estimated to take about 2 weeks, and Calico wouldn't be left alone for too long.

Trying his best to ignore all of the loud goodbyes from the residents, Naos started his trek on the desert-like plains. 

Naos walked for a few hours and the daylight was falling into the mountains. The darkness of night had arrived behind him and he decided that now was a good spot to stay for the night.

Camping had always been fun for Naos. He enjoyed the solitary nature of staying out in the open air for days on end with no one bothering you or pestering you for a history lesson.

He checked his surroundings for vegetation and only found dust bunnies and ravines-to-be in all directions. The land had been suffering from a drought for a while now. It seems that the well was a lifesaver.

A tent was not amongst the things that Naos had packed for himself. However, that did not matter when it came to his style of camping.

Naos tended to search for food simply because he liked eating, not because he needed to eat. Water and shelter were generally an afterthought due to the nature of Naos's peculiarity.

The night chased after the day until their cycle started once again and Naos started with them.

Only after traveling for many miles did Naos find terrain that wasn't lifeless and broken. Even if it was a messy and golden grassy plain,

If one looked close enough, you could see the swaying grass that seemed to be dancing on its own, independent from the wind that controlled the rest of it.

The slithering wave of defiance alluded to an animal that was hiding in the tall grass. Naos wondered what it was and prepared to hunt it.

Sneaking around inconspicuously, Naos crept closer and closer to the unidentified creature. For a while, it stood in place. That only lasted a few minutes before it suddenly moved,

Naos stopped dead in his tracks as he waited for an opportunity to approach even further. When it stopped again, he continued.

Quietly wading his way through the grass as he kept an eye on where he thought that the critter had stopped, he finally saw it.

His prey was a rabbit of white fur and beady brown eyes that looked at everything, but not enough. Naos stopped where he could see it clearly and waited for it.

The rabbit hopped around for a bit before settling on a short berry bush that it had been next to. Naos waited for it to start eating before he even thought of striking.

The rabbit scanned side to side behind it and decided that the coast was clear. It brought its snout down and started nibbling on the small fruit, quickly consuming one before moving on to another.

After 3 berries had disappeared, Naos struck. His knife flew out of its sheath and into his hand where he made a downward slash on the rabbit. The kill was quick and clean, leaving the rabbit feeling no pain in the end.

Naos grabbed the corpse before putting it on a rocky platform where he could see it. Although this increased the risk of birds or other animals trying to steal what was his, a simple shot from his gun was enough.

Naos simply wanted to make a fire to cook his meal. Before long, smoke was billowing into the sky, and the smell of cooking meat spread throughout the plains.

Naos loved this part of camping the most.