"Jax!" Aubrey practically shouted when I stumbled my way through the last stretch of bushes.

  I whistled in awe—not for Iron. They'd come a long way with the prep work in the time I'd been gone.

  "You've been working hard, I see," I said and dropped the bundle of weapons to the ground.

  Aubrey eyed it for a moment before shifting closer and whispering, "You should probably bring that to the treehouse right away. People heard the screaming. I think it's better to let them think it was a monster's doing."

  I nodded sternly, picking it back up and following her to what had become the base of Verdant Glade's leadership. Tessia was already waiting inside, speaking with Aya. The two of them turned to me when I climbed up.

  "Where the hell did you go off to?!" Tessia demanded, the gentleness from when she spoke to Elinor and her family gone without a trace.

  I dumped the contents of the bundle onto the table, next to the fruit bowl. "Took care of the trackers."

  "Trackers?"

  "I told you back at their camp that the Redeemers would come."

  She placed her hands on her hip and raised an eyebrow. "How could you be so sure?"

  I shrugged and pulled out a chair while rummaging through the fruit bowl. "Their motivation is different from ours. We just need to survive, that's all, but the Redeemers need to beat us. And how do you beat people whose objective is solely to survive? By killing them. Or at least, that's my working theory."

  "What do we do?" Aubrey asked, the luster in her skin fading.

  "Well," I said, biting into an apple. Sweet juice burst in my mouth and coated my tongue. "You just keep doing what we have been doing: fortify defenses, build a stable foundation, and get a solid squad of strong fighters. That should be the priority."

  I leaned back in my chair, balancing on its two hind legs. Glancing to the side, my eyes lingered on Aya's. "I take it that'll be your job."

  She nodded once and answered with a simple, "Yes."

  She'd been busy in the time I'd spent at the dungeon. I hadn't appraised her last time, but she'd leveled up a fair bit. She still wasn't anything incredible compared to me, which was a problem. While I was the first to beat the Direwolf Lair dungeon, there were other dungeons. That much was already clear from the fact that the two Redeemer camps downstream had settlement crystals, meaning that there were at least two people, or two squads, equally powerful, or stronger than me roaming around. If the Protector of the Verdant Glade didn't level up quite a bit before running into them, the Settlement would be leveled, or worse, captured.

  I took another bite and studied her. She'd reached level seven, just like Tessia, in the time that I'd been gone, but had no real equipment to speak of apart from the long spear.

  With a nod of my chin, I directed everyone's attention to the weapons. "I'll keep a pair of daggers and a bow for myself. Use the rest to arm the people. Everybody needs to raise their level, I'm sure you all understand why."

  A low mumble confirmed my suspicion.

  "Will it become a problem?"

  I could tell by her tone that she wondered about the scouts I'd encountered and dealt with. "No. Not until after the blood moon, at the very least. How are the preparations going?"

  Aya cupped her chin and walked over to the window. Her massive frame covered almost all of it as she leaned out. "We should finish with time to spare. Morale is high thanks to the new recruits."

  "Elinor and her family joined?" I turned and asked Tessia.

  "Yeah. All it took was one look at the place, and she changed her tune."

  I scoffed. "Figures."

  Who doesn't like a nice treehouse?

  Pulling out a chair, Tessia sat down opposite me and threw her feet up on the table. "Adam and Martin are welcome additions too. Both of them are quite high-leveled and already have bows of their own. But the kids..."

  "Are no concern of yours," Aubrey snapped back, unusually sharp.

  I raised an eyebrow at Tessia.

  "They're just not very useful."

  "They're the future," I said. "They'll be able to get classes just like the rest of us."

  Aubrey turned to stare at me. "But they're kids. I won't let them fight."

  "They don't need to fight," I said and shrugged. "I'm sure there are classes not meant for fighting. You just need to unlock them. Take Aya, for example. What did you do to unlock your Protector class?"

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  She turned, leaning on her elbows in the open window. "Not sure. It's all I know, so I think it came naturally."

  "And I earned mine in a dungeon. Meaning nothing forces people to take one of the basic classes." I turned to look at Tessia. "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

  She rolled her eyes. "Did I ask for your opinion?"

  "Just saying."

  "Then maybe you should stop talking. I'm happy with my choice. Besides, the system told me that experiences can have a large impact on how your class evolves. Just because I chose a basic class doesn't mean I'll be locked to it forever."

  "Good point," I muttered and gave it some thought.

  It really is a good point. Maybe my class was actually meant to be a standard summoner, but my build is skewing it in another direction. I rubbed my chin. But the Titan didn't really look the type to let summons do his fighting...

  Letting the chair slam back onto the floor, I stood back up and threw the apple core out the window, awfully close to hitting Aya, making her glare. "We've still got hours of daylight, let's go help the others," I announced, somewhat disappointed. I'd hoped to do some more hunting and recruiting, but if the forest was crawling with Redeemers in every direction, I might as well wait. I'd done enough killing for one day.

  Before climbing down, I grabbed two sheathed daggers and their accompanying belt and strapped them on. With the sword, I was starting to have an awful lot going on around my hip, so I wore the quiver and bows on my back. It was a lot more uncomfortable than movies made it look—downright impractical even—but it'd have to do for now. Lastly, I slung the bow diagonally over my shoulder and puffed up my chest.

  The others just stared with dead eyes. They didn't understand that there was actually a reason for me to carry all these weapons. It made me look like an idiot, I understood that quite well, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Aubrey had assumed the position as the leader of Verdant Glade anyway, so I might as well just lean into the role of eccentric benefactor and leave everyone in the dark.

  We climbed down the tree. I clattered like I was made of metal when I jumped down the last bit of the ladder and spilled arrows all over the ground. Smiling sheepishly, I scratched my head. "Sorry."

  I'd need to deal with that somehow. But later.

  Tom was easy to find. His soft, yet burly, voice traveled across the camp like the wind. His eyes lit up at the sight of me. "Did you change your mind?"

  I smiled. "Something like that."

  "Good. We need strong people to haul logs."

  And just like that, my smile fell. "I'm sure there's something else I can do."

  "Not really. Everything is moving along nicely now that everyone's settled into their roles. Changing things now would just complicate the process."

  And therefore he wanted the level sixteen summoner to haul logs—the highest level in the settlement, and the very Lord of the Verdant Glade—reduced to manual labor. Still, if I could kill for the Glade, I might as well haul logs. When I reluctantly accepted the task, something in Tom's eyes sparkled.

  When I was out of his sight, I chuckled under my breath. He's enjoying this!

  I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the stupid smile, but it stayed, even as I made my way to my designated zone and saw the small mountain of timber.

  "Watch your head!" an unknown man shouted from behind and tossed another log onto the pile.

  The wood rattled and sent pieces of bark spraying into the wind like molting leaves. "You know where to carry 'em, yeah?" he asked, wholly unaware of who I was, it seemed. My smile grew wider.

  "Yeah," I said. "I know where to go."

  Heaving one of the logs onto my shoulder with a grunt, I looked out on the workers as they buzzed around like bees. Although cogs in a well-oiled machine might have been a more apt description. Each of them had a hand in slowly dismantling the surrounding forest. To me, it looked like they had been doing this for years, not just a few days.

  Currently, I had seventeen points in strength. It didn't make me into a superhuman, but it did mean that logs, even when as massive as the looming birches made them, didn't pose all that much strain on me.

  Time passed smoothly. Menial labor left a lot of time to think, but instead, I just focused on the simplicity of it. I didn't want to think right now. The blood moon was coming, and I wanted to face it as calm as I could be. At some point, Flow State activated, making the already quick flow of time pass like the stream of a raging river.

  The fortifications and perimeter of Verdant Glade gradually strengthened. With each trip, things looked different. A wall was erected surrounding the mother tree—as the subjects had started calling it—inside which a few structures started to rise. They were houses meant for storage and supplies where the people would stay until Tom's plans progressed far enough that the settlement had another wall, an outer one. Inside the outer wall, the general populace would live and work the land, while the core of the settlement would be where we stored important items and food. It would also be where the leadership of the Verdant Glade settled down.

  When the Sacred Seed became what it was meant to become, the center would be a hub, so Tom had set his sights on the mother tree. The thing had grown at least ten times as thick, with branches as large and sturdy as whole trees now. Building more housing in it wouldn't prove too difficult with that kind of support.

  I hoped Tom had plans to make me a treehouse so I didn't need to mingle with the growing forces of the settlement. With the beacon at work, it'd become noisy in no time, and I liked the idea of privacy when I came back to visit. A place of my own where I could dip my toes into civilization without getting drowned.

  Time kept passing, and I rolled what must have been the hundredth log off my shoulder and onto the ground. Carl, a laborer I'd gotten to know during my many roundtrips, grunted and swung an axe, the impact sounding like a thunderclap. He didn't have a class yet, which meant that his strength before the system must have been monstrous.

  "There," he said with a slight smile and wiped a trail of sweat off his forehead. "That's the last one I need."

  "Thank God," I moaned and slumped down on the ground. I really needed some more points in endurance and strength. Not too much, just a superhuman base would do. "What type of stats do you need to do that all day?"

  He chuckled. "That's a trade secret, I'm afraid. My Profession likely helps, though."

  I looked him over and nodded as he handed me a cup of fresh stream water. He was a Woodsman. That wasn't something he'd been before the collapse or anything, but with his axe and the amount of cutting he'd done the last few days, apparently he got the option and liked the benefits. It was an interesting one. It didn't just benefit his wood cutting ability, but his proficiency with an axe as a whole, along with the added bonus of an extra stat boost. According to him, the boost was static and didn't move as he leveled, but it was a welcome addition.

  I gulped down the water and looked him over again.

  Yeah.

  I definitely needed a profession.

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