It’s three full days before I’m feeling normal again, even with the help of the healing syringe. The scent of our midday meal drifts beneath the door of my cabin.
I breathe in deeply, smiling at the delicious smell.
Some of the others complain about the constant meat stew or what’s left of the dried rations from the supply box. Not me, though. This is easily the best I’ve ever eaten, and my only complaint is there’s not more to go around.
Miyasha knocks once and then opens the door to my cabin. “Still alive?” she asks.
“And kicking,” I say.
“No kicking. You still look like shit.”
I make a face. “Believe it or not, I was born looking like this.”
Miyasha smiles a little. “James says you’re coming with him to investigate the light later. I told him that’s a terrible idea.”
I’ve been getting to know my fellow survivors a little more each day. The majority of the unmarked seem to be keeping their distance, which leaves Miyasha and James as my only real conversation partners. Halfdan and Kato are learning a word or two each day, but they’re still not much for talking.
“I’m good enough to go,” I say, hopping up from the bed and making an attempt to move normally. I wince a little, gripping my ribs. They’re still sore from getting knocked nearly into orbit by the giant. The healing syringe rapidly improved my healing for about half a day, otherwise I imagine I’d hardly be able to move. After that, things slowed down. A lot.
“Yeah, well, too bad. I told James I saw you shitting blood this morning.”
I can’t help laughing at that. “What? Why would you have seen me shitting?”
She shrugs. “He bought it, though. So he’s going to take Halfdan and Kato instead of you.”
“Wait,” I say, thinking back to what she originally said. “Did you say ‘investigate the light’?”
“Oh, yeah. You wouldn’t know since you’re new. But when marked ones show up, there’s always a beam of light from the sky somewhere out in the forest. Well, we think it always happens. Nobody managed to see yours, but we saw them when James, Halfdan, and Kato came. This morning, Halfdan apparently saw one while he was out hunting.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Another marked person is here?”
“Seems so. We’re going to try to find them before the other outpost does.”
I reach for my coat. “Then I’m going to go with them. They might run into trouble out there.”
“Yeah?” Miyasha asks, darting forward and pulling my coat from the rack before I can reach it. She tucks it behind her back. “And if they run into trouble, how is your currently crippled ass going to help, exactly?”
“I’ll be a distraction. Just give me my coat.”
She takes a deep breath, studies me, and seems to understand I’m not going to relent. “Fine. You’ll be my excuse to tag along, then. They never let me go beyond the walls because I’m ‘too valuable.’ But so is our S+ ranked giant slayer. I’ll be your bodyguard.”
I chuckle. “S+ potential, first of all. Second, I’m more of a giant frightener. And third… great. When do we leave?”
“I was still working on the finishing touches for your gift, but just… wait here a second.”
She chucks my coat in my face and disappears outside, not bothering to close the door. Bugbug floats near me. A barrage of colored lights erupt from his ship, scanning me all over.
“What?” I ask.
“Bugbug is assessing condition of your fragile meat sack.” He presses his lips together after scanning me for a bit, as if displeased. “Condition is poor.”
“Too bad,” I say, moving to the fire and leaning my left arm in. I’ve learned a little more about my power over the past three days since there hasn’t been much else to do with my time.
I now know I can’t keep a power banked forever. It had only been about a day before the attack I still had banked from the horned empty started to itch and burn. I realized I had to let it out or it was going to come out on its own like the giant’s attack did. I’d poked a tree with my transformed finger and blown a chunk the size of a bowling ball out of it.
I also learned I still can only bank three charges, despite my level climbing. Either the number of charges I can hold isn’t directly tied to my level, or it’s a non-linear relationship.
Last, but not least, I’ve timed out what I’m thinking of as the “cooldown” on my blocking ability. Roughly thirty minutes for each block to recharge, and it’s possible to use all three blocks back to back and they’ll all recharge at the same time.
I pull my arm from the fire when I feel the last charge of fire build in my chest.
Bugbug is still watching me like a disapproving grandma.
“Look on the bright side,” I say, grabbing a scarf and wrapping it around the lower half of my face, muffling my voice. “If I die, you probably don’t have to be a concierge anymore, right?”
His mouth moves, but once again, he’s censored. We’ve run into this dozens of times already. I ask a remotely interesting question and the slimy bastard can’t tell me. It’s infuriating.
“You will likely die, yes. S+ classification was wasted on one so devoid of talent and common sense.”
“Yeah?” I ask. “Tell me more, then. What is this rank classification and why is it so important? Please, spare no detail about why I’m so thoroughly failing to meet your expectations.”
I sigh when I see his mouth silently working again but the ship doesn’t translate.
“Okay, how about this. You blink once for ‘yes’ and blink twice for ‘no.’”
“Bugbug will blink as he pleases.”
I sigh, kissing my index and middle finger, then planting them on my poster of Arnold that I’ve pinned above my bed. “Good thing is I don’t need your help. I’ve pretty much got this shit figured out completely now.”
“If the ‘shit’ you have figured out is lying in bed, groaning, and playing with fingers? Then yes. Bugbug is in agreement.”
“You try getting swatted by a fucking giant and flying who-knows-how-far. Oh, and then I shot a kinetic fuck-ton of a shockwave out of my fingertip and nearly ripped my arm off, in case you forgot that part.”
“Bugbug only hears further proof that human is fragile and not worthy of S+ classification.”
“Yeah? Well they assigned you to be my concierge. Sounds a hell of a lot like a glorified butler, to me. So if I’m pathetic, what does that make you?”
“It makes Bugbug unfortunate.” His little craft rotates and he puts his back to me, the slime on his bald head flickering in the firelight. “Unfortunate to be assigned to unworthy meat sack.”
“The cold shoulder? Real mature, Bugbug. Real mature.”
When he says nothing, I decide to head outside instead of waiting for Miyasha. I wouldn’t put it past her to leave without me.
I’ve only been in this place a few days, but I’ve already concluded that cold and the snow were fun to see on my tapes, but they are a lot less fun in real life. My face gets so numb after about thirty minutes that I can’t speak clearly anymore. The only temporary relief is midday, when the sun at least cuts through the cold enough to allow for being outside more than half an hour at a time.
James is scooping his bowl in the stew at the center of camp beside the silver disk. Halfdan and Kato sit near him, already sipping from their bowls. The unmarked all cluster in a group a few feet away from them.
“Hey,” I say, walking over. “Seen Miyasha?”
James points with his chin toward the forge. Sure enough, I see her in there with a hammer, frowning as she hammers carefully on a large slab of stone. “Thought you were shitting blood?”
“The only one full of shit is Miyasha.”
“If full of shit,” Halfdan says, his big brow creased. “Girl should shit.”
Kato narrows his eyes. “No… shit in head, not…” he trails off, then touches his stomach.
Halfdan pulls his head back in surprise. “In head?”
The two continue trying to puzzle it out in broken English, seeming to only get further from any kind of sense the more they talk.
James tries not to smile as he sips at his soup. “Please tell me you’re coming. Don’t leave me alone with these two.”
“Yeah, I’m coming. Miyasha wanted to come as well, though.”
He glances over his shoulder. I follow his eyes and notice Lana, who hasn’t eaten yet because she’s with Frederick discussing something by one of the huts. “Boss isn’t going to like that.”
“If they want to rely on Miyasha’s crafting skills, then they need to let her level up, too. She’s never going to get stronger just staying here.”
James points. “Sure. Go tell Lana that.”
I shrug. “Okay. I will.”
“Hey, just… tread lightly, okay?” James says.
I frown, not fully understanding his worry. Lana is a small woman and the few levels we’ve gained already have me feeling just a touch superhuman, injuries or not.
Frederick sees me coming, taps Lana on the shoulder, and they both stop talking abruptly.
“Hi, Garrick,” Lana says, plastering on a wide smile.
“Hey, just wanted to let you know we’re going to take all the marked ones to investigate the light. Miyasha, too.”
Lana’s smile falters. “That’s… not a good idea.”
“I’ve been experimenting a bit, and I’m confident our powers stagnate if we don’t get some kind of combat experience. She’s useful now, but her potential is wasted if she stays here in the outpost forever.”
“We can’t risk her,” Frederick says. “Right now, Halfdan and Kato break the weapons we can make nearly every hunt. And she’s still helping us build a cache of other supplies we’d have trouble making. We—”
“Yeah,” I say, frustration leaking into my tone. “And she wants to come with us. If we get her some levels, she’ll be able to do more of all that.”
“Frederick is trying to say we’re better off with her doing what she can now. We don’t need to risk her for the potential of more.”
I suck my teeth. “Well, she’s coming.”
“No… she needs to stay,” Lana says.
For a long few moments, neither of us speaks. Deep down, some part of me feels a weird kind of relief. Relief, because I’ve been reluctant to trust the flowers and rainbows this place has to offer. Lana’s cutthroat insistence to use Miyasha like currency? That’s something straight out of my world. This, at least, is something I’ve seen more times than I can count on trading expeditions.
“Well,” I say with a casual shrug. “Feel free to let her know that. I got the impression she was planning to come after lunch.”
Lana’s jaw ticks twice, but she manages to form another smile. It actually looks genuine, which is honestly kind of scary since her eyes are practically burning. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I say, giving a thumbs up and taking two steps back.
Frederick watches me go, expression completely unreadable.
I plop down next to James. “That went well.”
He quirks a brow. “Did it? Lana looks like steam is about to come out of her ears.”
There’s a glow of white light from the forge, and then Miyasha emerges with a metal shield in her hand. She stops in front of me and hands it over. “Ta-da!”
I hesitate, but quickly wipe the suspicion from my face and reach out to take the shield.
A gift. It was always one of the strangest customs I saw in the tapes, and I’ve slowly been learning it wasn’t just movie magic. These people really give things away. And they do it regularly.
“Thank you,” I whisper, turning it over and inspecting her work.
“I carved it out of stone. Pain in the ass,” she says. “But stone is the only thing I can transmute to metal. All the rock around here is so brittle it took me a while to find one I could get to this shape without it breaking first. Then I had to fasten the straps to the back without shattering it. So… yeah, you better appreciate it.”
“I do,” I say, sliding my left arm into the straps. “Fits great.”
“This way you can block when your power runs out,” she says. Miyasha bounces once on her toes. “So… what do you guys think this new marked person will be like?”
James stands with a grunt like he’s sixty instead of in his twenties. He slides the rifle over his shoulder. “Frankly, I don’t give much of a shit. I just hope this one speaks English.”
We form up and leave through the main gate together. Halfdan leads the way.
The snow drift is thick, and my still-healing legs are burning after only a few minutes. Miyasha notices my struggle, laughing a little to herself.
“Thought you were fine?” she asks.
“I am. Just because I’m miserable, doesn’t mean I regret coming.”
“Last time I was out here, I’d just woken up. Frederick was the one who found me. They’ve barely let me out the walls since then. I’m honestly shocked Lana didn’t try to stop me.”
“Garrick told her you were coming,” James says. “Expected her to chew his head off.”
“She understood,” I say. It’s not… entirely true, but the details hardly matter.
Miyasha opens her mouth to speak, but she’s cut off by a terrified scream not far ahead.
Halfdan breaks into a run toward the sound, axe clutched in both hands.