Chapter 118: Recruitment
Zac was stumped, even forgetting his pain for a second as he saw the heaving girl standing over the mangled corpse of the Mayor. It looked like turning him over wasnt an option anymore. The other girls in the room were also staring blankly at their companion and the man who likely had been the source of no small amount of grief.
Not sure what else to do Zac sighed and walked over to the government worker and put the mangled corpse into his Cosmos Sack. The girl warily looked at him, her eyes widening a bit at the magical display of the pouch.
When these cultivators returned from the Tutorial they killed a group of townspeople who defended Greenworth after the integration. Do you know what happened with the bodies? Zac asked as he looked up at the girl still wielding a piece of shrapnel.
She appeared to be somewhere around her twenties and was quite beautiful. In fact, all of the girls in the room were, and their skimpy clothing did nothing to hide their curvaceous bodies. However, their eyes quickly told anyone that they were not willingly standing in this house, as they were hard as stone, marred by whatever they had experienced the past months. No one said anything for a while, until a small voice from the back row of women could be heard.
They They were buried to the north side of the inner wall. There was a park there before, but it has turned into a cemetery for those the council had killed, a young girl finally answered.
Zac nodded and turned to leave.
Wait! the woman with the makeshift weapon suddenly shouted after him.
Zac didnt really want to deal with these girls, as his mind still was on his fathers remains.
You can all leave. I will talk to the leaders of New Washington and have them send a proper Mayor here, he said.
Thats not it. Take us with you, she said with a somber expression.
That made Zac stop and turn around with a serious face. His once again looked over the group, this time using [Eye of Discernment]. As he suspected none of the girls were strong, the highest being level 14. If they were powerful they would not have been in their current situation, dressed as belly-dancers or courtesans of a harem.
I am sorry, but you are of no use to me. I need warriors, not more refugees, Zac immediately shot her down.
But you can train us! You must be a high ranker from your aura and what you did in here. Thom was over level 30, but he was helpless against you, she refuted.
Train you? You are all barely level ten. Helping you attain a power that could contend against the forces of the world would take an immense amount of resources, why should I do that?
[Joanna wishes to enter a Contract of Binding. Time: Indefinite. Accept?]
Zacs brows rose as he saw the prompt appear in front of him. He knew about the Contracts of Binding from Calrin. None of the demons actually mentioned it to him, even though they usually were his main sources of information. Zac assumed that they were afraid he would try to impose it on them in the future.
There are over a thousand boars heading our way from the north. The council usually gather outside the town to fight in order to avoid the destruction of property, he simply said.
I will join you in an hour, Zac said as he disappeared, once again moving with [Loamwalker].
He kept speeding away and soon reached the park that one of the former slave girls mentioned. The area was filled with mounds of overturned earth, some graves old and some clearly made within the last week. All in all there had to be hundreds of bodies buried across the area, giving it a gloomy atmosphere.
Zac had no idea which one of the mounds contained his father so he could only walk along aimlessly. He noticed a large boulder lying some distance away and walked over to it. With six quick swings a towering monolith was created that Zac lifted up with a grunt.
He walked over to the center of the park and placed it by an intersection of two somewhat overgrown paths. Using his inhuman power he pushed it some ways into the ground, securing it in place. Seeing it was stable he carved two simple lines in the monument.
Gone but not Forgotten
Rest in Peace
Afterward he simply sat down, reminiscing about the past. The park was empty except for himself and his thoughts, and there was a heaviness in the silence. It was as though it blended with the heaviness in Zacs heart, and became a palpable thing around him. If a human walked close to Zac at this moment it wouldnt be surprising if they would be physically impacted by the mood.
Zac didnt move as one memory after another flitted through his mind. Finally he opened up his eyes after roughly an hour. He sighed and got to his feet, and took one last glance around.
I promise Ill find Kenzie, if its the last thing I do, he said as he lightly touched the monolith.
With that he pushed north, to help out his hometown one last time. With neither his father nor sister around, he honestly didnt care too much about Greenworth. He didnt really have any close friends anymore, rather co-workers and acquaintances. His closest friend died 4 years ago, long before the integration, and he never really looked for new ones after that.
Still, it was the town he grew up in, and where most of his childhood memories were. Even if it wasnt really the same town any more he didnt want to see it fall to some boars. He knew that the soldiers likely could take care of it, but it cost bullets. By now it should take quite a few munitions to destroy a horde of wild animals, as their endurance kept increasing. He didnt know how much reserves the army still possessed, and he didnt want the townspeople to suffer due to his actions earlier.
After running for about ten minutes, he saw the battlefield ahead. There were simple defenses erected, but from experience he saw that it wasnt really enough to impede a beast wave. He walked up toward the man who spoke to him back by the mansion, who nodded at him.
The beasts should arrive in five minutes, were making our stance here. Theres luckily is no high-level beast amongst their kind, the largest boar is roughly four meters high and level 43. We will likely have to use grenades on it, as bullets seldom work against the ones that size, the soldier reported
No need for all that. Just stay here and Ill be back in a bit, Zac said.
With that he pushed out toward the forest in the distance, using [Loamwalker] to increase his speed even further. After one minute of rushing he saw the horde approach, and he relished the chance for some no-holds-barred unthinking carnage.