Chapter 52

As lethargically as a mostly frozen snake would be, TJ pulled himself from the corpse of the wendigo. A part of him remembered that he still had 2 Free Points he'd never quite decided what to put in and cursed himself. More importantly, though, were the fates of Connor and the others who'd been injured in the fight. 

"Keep an eye on the surroundings." Zig commanded, her own gaze focused on the forest and whatever lurked there. "We need to get moving as fast as possible. If we run into anything else, there'll probably be casualties."

"Nobody's dead?" TJ shivered out the question, his heart beginning to thaw much faster than his flesh.

"Nobody yet." Angelo muttered as he laid a hand on both Connor and the other Zealot that TJ didn't know the name of. Connor grinned widely, disregarding his blood frozen into icicles down his chest. 

"Got the bastard. Knew that Skill was a good pick." His breaths were wet, and TJ wondered if the man was about to die, but Angelo seemed more concerned with the other one, which seemed promising enough for Connor's survival.

"What was that Skill, then?" He asked, more concerned with keeping the Zealot awake than actually learning the details of the Skill.

"Tortoise Shell. Kept the claws from getting as deep, and it empowers an attack I choose. I, uh, kinda forgot I had it on that first hit. That's why it didn't do as much. That second one, though, that was awesome!"

As he spoke, TJ looked at Connor's wounds. Though ugly and definitely painful, they weren't nearly as deep as he'd feared they were. The Asian man had a wide smile, and though he was obviously embarrassed by forgetting to enhance his first attack, he looked straight into TJ's eyes.

"I'm glad you're alive. When it got you and you went down, I thought you were dead."

"No, I… planned on ambushing it from behind, but it never got past me. Then, I was surprised by how bad it hurt to be stabbed through… and I ended up taking too long to respond to its attack. So I was a meat shield. Shit. I'm sorry."

"I wouldn't worry too much about it." TJ said while reaching a hand down and grasping Connor's wrist. Though the still-wounded Zealot winced and obviously didn't enjoy the movement, he didn't complain. Instead, he held his shield aloft and turned to Zig.

"See anything we need to investigate before we move on?"

"No. Better we move sooner rather than later."

"Got it." The goofy smile and happy-go-lucky demeanor shifts from Connor and he's a businesslike Zealot once more, though he lacks a weapon to brandis. TJ considered passing his Wendigo Blade on, but it wasn't really the kind of weapon that went well with the shield. Instead, he searched for and quickly found a rock that he passed over.

"Not much of a weapon, but I'll see what I can do for you with this wendigo's materials tonight and tomorrow."

Connor squinted for a second, considering, but he took the head-sized stone and hefted it. He nodded, rolled his shoulders, and turned to stand next to Angelo. The twenty something man was slumped over, having obviously exhausted his MP to heal as many people as he could manage. Connor stood beside the recovering Disciple, asking a flurry of quick questions. It was obvious that, though TJ hadn't seen Connor in the hunting party from the day before, they'd worked together in close proximity before. 

Before long, the four people still unable to walk under their own power, every one of them Zealots, were gathered up. TJ carried one, a somewhat petite woman named Valerie, who was one of the three taken out of the fight in the first "phase". She was chatty, asking a variety of questions ranging from inane to invasive.

"Where do you live? How long did you live there? You have a son, right? Where's his mom? How'd she die? What do you think you would say to her right now if you could speak with her?"

He stopped answering after telling her that Marie had died. She jabbered on, but the exhaustion from the day and his unwillingness to entertain stupidity allowed him to easily shut out her words. As it became more and more apparent that she didn't much care about whether or not who she was speaking at actually reciprocated the conversation, TJ happily remained silent as they walked onward. When Zig approached, though, he stopped tuning out the rest of the world. 

"The one you killed last night, was it as strong as that one?"

"No. Two levels lower, but the difference was huge. Almost as much as one of the five level benchmarks, I'd say."

"Ok. Shit. How fast do you think they'll keep growing? If they get two levels a day and there's more than one or two more of these Elites in here, then we're plain fucked."

TJ shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. Asking the System things like this doesn't usually work." Just in case, he wondered aloud, "How fast will the Elites in the Tutorial grow in level?"

That is information that cannot be provided at this time.

"No dice. But, I'll make a guess. Though it's a stupid System and I hate it for putting us in this hell, it has a goal, it has to. I'm going to choose to believe that its stated goal is its real one–to prepare someone to become God or whatever. Someone needs to be alive to have that happen, so the goal can't be total extermination. Therefore–"

"It won't give impossible tests, especially in a Tutorial." Zig cut in, nodding. "Makes a certain kind of twisted sense. So we shouldn't see might higher level any time soon."

"I'm a betting man," Charlie mused as he held another Zealot over his shoulders while dragging the wendigo's corpse behind him, "And I'll bet we see Elites hit the level 10 mark at ten days into the Tutorial. So, basically five days."

"Why would you think that?" Zig demanded. "I hate the idea, but one week makes more sense to me."

"Because that marks one week since the introduction of more enemies. Just feels right."

"I think it's stupid to plan about it." TJ said, pulling both of their attentions to him, though Zig turned back to their surroundings as they continued to trek out of the forest. Charlie's glower nearly glowed in the darkness. "If it is on day ten, then it is. But if we're planning for it to be even a day later than it ends up being, people will die. We might see level 10 monsters tomorrow, and we need to be ready for that if it happens."

Charlie leveled a look at TJ before sighing. "You really need to work on the way you present this information. Every time you open your mouth about this, you say something right but in the worst possible way. How about, instead of calling me stupid next time, you say something like 'I don't think that's the best way to approach this. Here's why.' It'll keep me from wanting to punch you when you're right." 

Though he tried to joke about it, it was apparent that Charlie was bothered by the brusque dismissal that TJ had towards his guess. He raised his hands in surrender. "You're right. I'm not usually like this, but these aren't usual times. I'll try to be better."

Charlie nodded, continuing to carry his charges without any discernible effort. TJ was struck by the utility of having the Divine Transformation being a human body. He'd felt some measure of envy towards Charlie's variation of the Skill before, since it would have benefitted his Wind Manipulation, but TJ saw the value of the natural weapon that was a massive snake. Now, though, opposable thumbs with boosted strength would be amazing.

As the conversation died down, Valerie resumed speaking and TJ nearly dropped her. Instead, before she could ask more invasive questions, he interrupted her flow and asked, "What happened? How did you get hurt so badly you need me to carry you?"

"Oh, you finally ask! You see, I'm a Zealot. Had to kill some of the poor creatures to get the Class, but it was necessary, you know? Plus, the piglets were mean. Like, you wouldn't believe how much they were wanting to hurt everything they saw! And it's such a shame that they got those ugly tusks. Javelinas are so much cuter without them! Anyways, we saw that ugly monster, with the big claws and horns and stuff? The wendigo is soooo ugly. Scary too, I mean, when it touched my shield, it started to freeze! Even I felt cold, and I haven't felt cold ever since I got a level in Zealot. Anyways, my fingers, they were like, wicked cold…"

Victoria continued to jabber, and TJ couldn't handle listening any more. The constant tangents and distractions and whatever else was making him crazy, but he wouldn't leave the still obviously wounded woman to walk. Her meandering tale of how she'd been sliced here, and how she'd gotten cut kinda like that once when she was cooking, but it was on her finger and whatever else kept her from asking him any questions. That was enough for now. TJ watched for whatever happened in their surroundings, fearing any ambush that could be incoming. Once or twice, he thought he heard or felt something, but before anything could materialize, Stanton leveled his pistol and squeezed two shots off. The unseen creature scuttled off before TJ could see it.

Ten excruciatingly tense minutes later, they arrived back at Pine. The town was mostly dark, and there was very little movement now that the sun had fully set. Their expedition lasted less than an hour, which was more than enough for the town without electricity to lose all light. The few homes and buildings that were occupied this far away from the general store and firehouse had a fire flickering inside, visible from outside. Most of the hunters gratefully stumbled into the hunters' lodge, groaning about this pain or that ache. TJ went to drop Valerie there, but she protested.

"No, I don't stay here. Would you please take me to the firehouse? That's closer to the house I'm sharing with Emily. She's an absolute dear, and–"

"Great. I'll take you there. I'm getting dinner." TJ grated out, though he couldn't manage a smile.

"Actually," Zig called out, stopping the hunters from going into the lodge, "you all should come to the firehouse too. Everyone needs some level of healing, and there should be plenty of Disciples there that need the experience anyways. No need to make them walk all the way there when we're already moving."

Though there were plenty of grumbles, nobody disagreed with their leader's command. With more people there, TJ didn't mind Valerie's prattling as much, and it wasn't far to the firehouse anyways, so just a couple of minutes later, they stood at the closed doors of the firehouse. Charlie banged a fist against the door, the sound of the metal echoing through the garage. It slowly rose, and the warm light of candles greeted them. Though the sun had set and night had truly fallen, many of the people who'd been wounded before stood in the communal area, awaiting their return. When they saw that each one of the twelve hunters had returned alive, Laura stepped forward. She, as always, wore a pantsuit and walked with a confident air, the wooden heels of her formal shoes clacking loudly with each step on the concrete floor. 

She rose both hands high and the room went quiet before she spoke, a welcoming smile crossing her face as she did.

"Welcome home, our avengers. Please, eat and rest, and when you're ready, tell us how it went. We're excited to hear from you, and we see the evidence already of your success."