A few days passed. Asan felt almost well, since he had recently managed to raise his level to 4th, and was already fully using his improved dark magic along with his spatial magic. The level increase had been completely spontaneous; when the guy with the strike team repelled another wave of Ronnie, he saw the notification, which pleasantly surprised him. When he told Laszlo about it, the other's face took on such an expression that there was no word other than "incredible."
At first, Asan wondered whether he should upgrade his spatial magic to the second level? But after thinking about it, he still came to the conclusion that improving the storage would be the best solution. He already had experience with enhanced darkness and understood that although not significantly, increasing the level of an ability did provide certain bonuses. As soon as he upgraded his spatial magic to the second level, the mana reserves allocated for storage in the spatial storage became much smaller. Overall, the guy was somewhat uncertain if he had made the right choice, but since he had already upgraded the spatial magic, there was no turning back. Besides, he knew that in the future, he would upgrade everything else too. This time, he also decided to postpone distributing skill points for the future, as he believed it wasn't necessary at the moment.
The battles became heavier and longer despite the advancement, as something had changed.
Enemies.
Ronnie became much less frequent, and they no longer posed such a danger to the strike team consisting of six people. Bridgite was officially accepted into the strike team since she demonstrated her skills at the highest level. Alice was a great trainer, to say the least. Every evening, the group gathered and constantly improved their formation, bringing it to new levels. In this short time, Paul gained enough experience to properly distribute duties during battle. During the fights, each member of the strike team carried out any order given by Paul like puppets. Thanks to this, every battle ended successfully, and any injuries could be healed by Bridgite.
The entire strike team had become significantly stronger, but despite this, the battles became harder. As mentioned before, the issue was with the enemies. Wolves, cats, rodents, and bugs. Now in place of Ronnie came animals that were no less formidable than Ronnie, and in some ways even surpassed them. Every fight against a small pack of wolves often ended with light injuries on the body, and sometimes there were deep wounds too. For example, Laszlo got unlucky and was ambushed by a cat that looked more like a two-headed panther, nearly losing his fingers. Fortunately, Bridgite managed to arrive in time and heal the boy.
This didn't slow down the group much, but they lost an entire day. The problem wasn't so much in all this, but rather in food supplies. Asan understood that avoiding cities and settlements every time wouldn't last long for the group, and Geographer understood this as well.
This is why it was decided to enter the next city and stay there for a week in order to obtain enough supplies and then move on. For this purpose, the fortress of Stolpen was chosen, which was right on their path.
He didn't know the exact history of the fortress Geographer, but said that it was located inside a small town and served as something of a landmark and tourist attraction for many visitors. The fortress itself should serve as a defensive point for the entire camp so they could weather the week there, while the small town built around it would provide an excellent source of food and various supplies.
Walking through the fields, Asan constantly looked around, exhaling clouds of vapor from his mouth. The air had become slightly colder, and the bloody sun barely warmed the cooling earth. Many people were starting to get cold in the evenings, which meant that autumn was approaching.
This wasn't the best news, since the group hadn't really thought much about warm clothing before. And what they did have was enough for only a few people. They decided to take a short break, as according to the maps that Geographer created in his palm, they should reach Stolpen in about six hours.
The camp was set up right on the field. People quickly unpacked their things and got busy preparing food and resting. Some immediately lay down on the makeshift beds of blankets and fell asleep, while others preferred to chat with the company and share their inner worries. Asan, as usual, walked away from the camp and sat on the ground. In his palm, there was a small, coal-like flame, which, although still causing him pain, was now much less intense.
He started doing this during every rest break whenever there was free time, trying in some way to manipulate his dark magic, creating small figures out of it. Of course, he was terrible at it, but there was still some response. A tiny flame would awkwardly wriggle in different directions, trying to take on the form of something. He tried making figures of animals, people, weapons, but everything was futile. Although his level of control over darkness still increased, albeit by pitiful percentages.
[Your skill in controlling darkness is progressing].
[3.02%/100%].
After leveling up using the ability point, Asan's previous progress reset, letting him know that it was better to practice manually, and to spend points exclusively on discovering something new.
Although, to further upgrade his Darkness skill, System was not asking for just one point but three, signaling that there would be no more freebies. He already suspected what ability he would take next and was incredibly pleased about it. The gravity ability had piqued his interest because lately he had been increasingly thinking about how he could repel enemies away from himself or at least weigh them down. Well, if his understanding of gravity was correct.
Deciding not to overthink it, the guy summoned a bottle of water from his spatial inventory and drained it almost completely in one go. They were told to conserve water, but since they were close to the settlement, it was allowed to indulge a bit today. Suddenly, the area was filled with the smell of food, which caught the boy's attention and distracted him from his fire training.
He got to his feet and looked towards the people, noticing an old man he knew who was already busily cooking groats. Asan's stomach immediately whined pitifully, commanding him to head toward the food to soothe the growing pain. Asan did not resist this feeling and immediately went to the old man, who had already noticed him and was piling a large portion of food onto a wooden plate, sprinkling it with salt before serving.
Taking the plate, Asan, trying to hide the accumulated saliva in his mouth, nodded at the old man and sat on the ground, proceeding to vacuum up the plate. The old man, seeing this, chuckled slightly and spoke.
"Look at how hungry you are, like you just came out of the woods. Eat up, you'll need your strength, especially in the city" said the old man in his warm voice, throwing a new bag of groats into the pot and pouring water over it.
"Of course, old man!"
"I mean, I'm in the frontline group after all, I need to be at full strength so I don't accidentally die during battle, that's just common sense!" said with a mouth full of food Asan.
He wouldn't have spoken like this earlier, but during his time in the camp, he had gotten quite used to everyone and felt at ease. Perhaps this was also influenced by the campfire conversations, which, whether he liked it or not, changed his worldview, making him less distant from people. Asan didn't really notice this himself, as if everything was just normal, but others paid attention to it. For example, Laszlo told him one evening by the fire that he was changing for the better, becoming more open to people, to which Asan merely shrugged, not knowing how to respond to such a comment.
After finishing his portion, the young man stood up and stretched his arms above his head, loosening the muscles in his back and shoulders.
"Thanks for the food, old man" Asan said, handing him the wooden plate.
The old man nodded silently and took it, putting it aside.
Now Asan had to go to the Geographer, who had asked everyone from the strike team to come to him after resting, since they would be the first to enter the city for preliminary reconnaissance and to understand how safe it was to be inside the city. Although it couldn't be said that if there were only Ronnie there, danger wouldn't exist at all. Thanks to the fact that everyone now had the first level, even a crowd of 20-30 Ronnie could be somewhat defended against.
Approaching the Geographer, Asan met familiar people from the strike team and greeted them with a nod.
"Well, here you are. Since everyone is here, allow me to tell you your next actions" Geographer said in his usual cold manner.
Although Asan started getting strange looks from him with unreadable emotions, he decided to simply ignore it, thinking that it was just hard for him, as it was for everyone.
"Your main task is to get into the city and reach the fort. You won't mistake it for anything else since it's located on a hill in the center of the city. You may have to fight your way through enemies to get there, but you must enter and inspect everything. There's also a possibility that the fort is destroyed, but I doubt it. In any case, all you need to do is get to the fort, and if it's intact, enter it and then return back. We will approach the city as close as possible, so you'll have up to four hours for this, at most eight. If you're not back by then, we'll move to this position and wait for you here. Remember, don't risk your lives unnecessarily."
"If you encounter anyone, bring them to us" Plan Geographer said and immediately turned around.
No one asked unnecessary questions, as there was no need for them. This had become a habit; Geographer clearly explained every detail of the mission so that no questions would arise, so the group quickly gathered and everyone headed closer to the city.
The path lay only through fields. Occasionally, solar panels or wind turbines were seen, slowly but surely rusting. Ahsan found this somewhat strange, but overall, all the old architecture was heavily eroded. The houses that occasionally appeared on the way were already covered with dark vines. Parquet floors in the houses were cracking, and everything else was simply rotting. Everything old was slowly dying, perhaps giving way to something new.
"Hey, Asan, do you know what today's date is?" — The voice of Laszlo, which came from his left side, broke him out of his thoughts.
Turning his head lazily toward the sound, Asan merely responded with a questioning nod upward.
"It's been a month... A month since all this nonsense started. Can you believe it? Just a month ago, neither you nor I could have imagined something like this" the guy said, putting his hands behind his back, looking relaxed.
A month, huh? For Asan, every day felt like an entire month. In his chest was the feeling that he had already lived his whole life traveling from place to place with the sole purpose of reaching the Alps. Geographer was like Moses, leading everyone through the barren fields of Germany, occasionally changing hills, with the sole purpose of getting to the Alps. Many people believed in this, and for them all, it became like a prayer that Asan could almost hear every evening.
In matters of faith, he was neutral; he didn't care about gods or religion until System descended. Now he was less skeptical about such things, solely because of one branch seen in the system. Divinity. It was the biggest mystery among other systemic icons. What was most striking was that it was present only for Laszlo and Asan. No one else had encountered it.
Overall, they hadn't met any other living people yet. Although they had already traveled quite far, they hadn't noticed anyone, as if they were the last survivors in this world. But that wasn't entirely true. In any case, their camp inevitably came across places where people could have been. These were either tents abandoned in the forests or smoldering embers of campfires. The scariest thing was that the owners were never found.
"Everyone stop!" Geographer shouted, and the others stopped on command.
He immediately approached the assault group and called Paul over, saying something to him. It was probably a signal that it was time to head for the town. Paul nodded at him and turned to the assault group. Asan's guesses were confirmed, and soon the entire assault group marched towards Stolpen.
'Wonder what medieval forts look like?' Asan mumbled to himself.