Chapter 27: Hunting

  Figuring out what to do with Kate and the rest of her squad was harder than Alex had anticipated. Despite the obvious issues with just letting them go versus keeping them as perpetual prisoners, there were additional concerns.

  Feeding them for one, since nobody was willing to let them starve. The bathroom situation was another. Constant guard of tied-up people was more difficult than Alex had realized. Logistics wasn't his area, he was best when working alone and only having to worry about his own... bodily needs.

  "We can't even run away right now if we wanted to," Peter said. Right now, he was the one Alex was negotiating with. Kate wasn't in a very talkative mood, given her broken ass face.

  "With all of your injuries, yeah I have to agree," Alex said.

  Given Kate's bruised up face, her knee still healing, as well as her broken nose, she wasn't going anywhere. Zach and Cole, the other two members of the ambush squad -as Alex thought of them in his head- were also still recovering from a combination of broken ribs, broken limbs, and a concussion. The three of them were pretty well and truly beaten up.

  "Then untie us. We won't run away and we can work on starting to help you all," Peter continued his pitch.

  Having to babysit was certainly a task no one on Alex's squad wanted. Even Holly and Lance were averse to having to watch their former teammates all day. Letting them perform the menial tasks around the camp while they waited to heal was what Peter was shooting for right now. This was the current ask, brought down from Peter wanting them all just set free whole sale.

  Alex had to explain the situation with the town of Vrung’s Quarry, the Terraxum kingdom, Worldstriders, and everything else Garret and he had figured out while they were gone. Peter was smart enough to understand that they couldn't just be set loose only to later bring danger to them from the other citizens of this new and strange world.

  "Listen, we are all soldiers here," Alex squatted down to Peter's height on the ground. He winced from the pain of his still-healing arm injury. Team ambush-squad wasn't the only one still healing from the fight yesterday.

  "But I'm not a killer.” Alex continued. “I'm not just going to murder you four to be rid of your threat. You will be released, to leave if you wish, or join us. That's your choice."

  Kate scoffed at this, then coughed, and then spat out a glob of blood. It looked like she had something to say, but all the blood in her sinuses protested for her instead. Alex ignored her.

  "I believe you would understand our point of view as well," Peter said. "Unknown land, unknown threats. You appear to have hidden inside knowledge that could affect our survival, about this system and its workings. We arrive to talk and find you have left to a village that only you know about?"

  "You saw us maneuvering to get an upper hand then take you out?" Eric added. Alex looked over his shoulder to see the captain a couple of feet back, overlooking Alex and Peter.

  "Yes," Peter said.

  "But we weren't. Pierce and Singer were just going to collect more information. Working together from the start was my suggestion, Lieutenant Locke was the one who disagreed." Eric said.

  Kate released another blob of blood in retort.

  "Okay then," Alex said. "Look, we can release you four and let you all stay in the camp and the immediate area. I’ll even draw the glyph to let you guys figure out your elements and let you read the aether gathering tome. But until we figure out more, we can't let any of you just roam free. I'm sorry about that, I am, but it's the way it is."

  "Fair enough, that's a deal I'm willing to take. " Peter finally agreed.

  Alex looked at Cole and Zach, and each of them also nodded. He looked at Kate, who stared back with anger still filling up her swollen face. After a long moment, she too nodded. "Good. We will untie you now then. Later today, we are headed out for a quest I have. We are bringing all the weapons and gear, just in case. You can come along, but if so, tying your hands will be mandatory to ensure our protection."

  Negotiations ended there. They were all cut free of their bindings and allowed to awkwardly stand around for the next hour as everyone else began to get ready.

  It was rather easy a task to prepare for going after the badger den, at least compared to the prisoner situation. Garret, Henry, Allie, Holly, Lance, Devon and Eric were all going with Alex to finally wipe out the over-sized rodents that had some sort of vendetta against Alex. Surprisingly, Cole and Peter both agreed to go with them, even with the hand-tying stipulation. Zach and Kate would stay behind. Kate couldn't walk efficiently still, even if she had wanted to come, and Zach simply refused. After distributing weapons and armor, and packing away what they needed, they set off into the forest.

  Within a couple of hours of hiking the ten of them arrived at the location where Alex had been attacked by the three badgers. It was also the place where Alex first got the quest and he assumed the closest location he knew of to their den.

  "I don't exactly have a map, so I don't know the location," Alex said to the team. "I can only say that I've never gone any farther in that direction since that day." Alex pointed in a direction into the trees roughly east.

  "So then we fan out and explore into the forest," Eric said.

  "Sounds like as good a plan as any," Lance said. "We kill any badgers we come across and signal if we find signs of the den?"

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  "They are aggressive as hell, so be careful," Alex added.

  "Okay, go in pairs then?" Allie asked.

  "Let's do it. Garret, Alex, you two split up? Having you both spread out would allow you to help a group if they run into more than they can handle." Devon suggested this. Alex looked around and found that everyone appeared to agree.

  "I'm with Holly then," Allie looped her arm into Holly's with a smile. "Us girls gotta stick together."

  Alex ended up paired with Lance, which he was happy with, and had Cole following in behind them. It let Alex keep an eye on him. Peter was with Garret and Devon for the same reason.

  The trio went slowly through the brush and trees. Stealth was the name of the game when trying to take out a feral badger den. They had only been traveling east for fifteen minutes when the first badger was chanced upon. Allie and Holly had found it.

  A fight quickly ensued that lasted a bit shorter than Alex was expecting. The two of them took it out with their spears with enthusiastic efficiency. The following experience gain had them smiling at the bloodied corpse by the time Alex and Garret had rushed in for support.

  Once the first badger was killed, they started to run into them with more frequency. Eric and Henry found the next one a couple of minutes later. Then Devon and Garret shortly after. They had only moved a mile into the forest before they began running into the creatures in increasing numbers.

  The ones and twos that they came across weren't a threat at this point, not with the spears they all had. The reach of the weapons gave a huge advantage. Each teamed pair had one person distract a target while the other attacked. Each subsequent kill let them learn the beasts fighting style, their threat zone, how far they could jump. As time went by, they all became ruthlessly capable in killing the animals. It wasn’t until Alex and Lance came across a group of four that things started to be more dangerous. If only because Alex was worried about Lance in the fight.

  “Focus on one,” Alex shouted, “I’ll keep the others distracted.

  He ran forward into the throng of badgers, spear swinging. Alex had fought three of these beasts at once before. While he did survive at the time, it wasn’t at all an easy or clean fight. Now, things had changed.

  Alex dodged a claw from one badger and ducked under a second that lunged at him, narrowly missing the snap of its teeth. The third met Alex’s foot as he kicked it aside. The first one was back on him again at this point and Alex sliced at it’s snout with his spear, forcing it to retreat once again.

  He weaved and wagged, zigged and zagged between the animals. His movement speed and the control over his body he now had made taking on the badgers much easier. He was still starting to get winded as a full minute went by though, and he looked to Lance to see how he was doing.

  The guy had just pulled his spear from a badger’s back, looking rather pleased with himself when Alex yelled out to him, “Hey, little help here? Can’t keep this up all day.”

  “Oh shit, sorry.” Lance said as he ran forward, thrusting his weapon at another target.

  Things were cleaned up rather quickly after that. Lance pulled some pressure off of Alex and let him take advantage of his speed to start laying some attacks into the other two beats instead just dodging the whole time.

  After another minute, all four of the forest badgers were dead. Alex gave Lance a fist bump in celebration and even thought to high-five him, for a second, if only to piss Garret off.

  “Not too shabby right?” Lance asked.

  “Not at all man, not at all.” Alex smiled. “Things keep going like this, we will have everyone powered up in no time.”

  Alex did notice a change in these badgers from the ones he first fought.

  The amount of experience that he gained was much smaller than the other badgers he had killed. Alex didn't know if it was because he was killing them as part of a team now, so the experience from the kills was being shared, or if this was a throttle effect now that he was stronger than he was before.

  Maybe a little bit of both? He thought to himself. This occurrence was both good and bad. It would let the others begin to start catching up with Garret and himself, maybe even push one of their stats to earn their first refinement.

  It also meant Alex's power lead was slowing. He needed to get as strong as possible as quickly as possible. Everyone did. If the system was going to reduce their experience gain as time went on, they would have to start fighting more and more dangerous beasts. They wouldn't be able to just camp in the forest and kill three million badgers over the course of a month and grind into godhood. For two reason.

  One, they didn’t have that kind of time. They would fail their System Trial and all be killed long before that.

  Two, this experience point throttling meant that eventually as they got stronger, they would earn less and less experience from each of these kills. How long until they didn’t earn anything at all? If that is even possible. Alex wasn’t sure.

  Let's cross that bridge once we get to it. Alex wiped his spearhead on the fur of one of the badgers and signaled Lance and Cole to keep pushing forward.

  They all slowly slaughtered their way forward for another mile. The teams took out forest badgers at an increased rate and ruthlessness with every passing fight. Alex was counting them as reports of each fight reached his ears. They had butchered nearly fifty of the damned dog-rodents already.

  He didn't let himself think it would be an easy quest though. The shoe was going to drop at some point. He stayed vigilant, looking out for anything that would signal increased danger. If the whole den was these basic badgers, Alex was sure they could kill them all. If they weren't overrun by sheer numbers, then their combined efforts would mow through the badgers in no time.

  The dropped shoe came only a couple of minutes later. A shoe that took the form of a badger not the size of a dog, but the size of a god damn bear.

  "Alex, Garret, over here!" Allie's worried voice cut through the underbrush.

  He didn't hesitate. Alex took off towards the direction of the voice at a full sprint. They weren't far away, out of sight, but only because of the dense foliage not because of distance. He found Allie and Holly facing off against three badgers when he caught up to them.

  Two were the typical forest badgers that they had been killing for the last thirty minutes. The other one was a new sort altogether. Twice the size of the already overgrown earth animals and packing the appropriate amount of muscle for its girth.

  A badger-bear, or a bear-badger; a bear sized badger rodent. Angry, snarling, and already charging at the two girls as Alex looked on in shock.

  "Oh, holy fuck."

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