Buttopia
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Chapter 100: Unwanted Authority
🕑 Added 2025-02-03 07:05:17 +0000 UTCAs we pressed forward, the group behind us swelled in size, each time over the corpses of several newly slain orcs. Interestingly, so far no experience notifications had popped up despite the fact that we had now killed at least thirty of the invading orcs. Did this whole city count as one giant encounter as far as the System was concerned? This hadn’t been part of the plan, but I wasn’t willing to leave anyone behind.
Everywhere I looked the damage to the city was apparent, and I was growing more worried by the minute of just how quickly Earth could come back from this. The potential loss of life from the secondary issues caused by the orcs could outstrip the initial attack. We may have had healing magic, but there was no way for us to be everywhere with it, and we weren’t even ready to feed ourselves yet.
The broken fire hydrants without free-flowing water meant there was a deeper issue there. Nowhere seemed to have power, and there were no moving cars anywhere on the streets. In a major city like this any breakdown in city sanitation was a potential disaster. I thought I had also read that an interruption to food supplies could easily kill thousands in any major city in a matter of days. That seems a little fast, but I suppose anyone already facing poverty likely couldn’t afford many more missed meals, especially the sick and the elderly.
It was like the orcs had managed hundreds of terrorist attacks all over the world at once. Which was probably their goal, completely destabilizing the population in waves of chaos. That would make it easier to control the survivors they wanted to keep for later while culling the rest. The thought was enough to make my blood boil. I had always hated bullies, and this somehow played right into the same anger. I forced myself to focus on the issue at hand. We had to get these survivors to safety. I had to fix this all somehow, no matter how much the idea sent stabs of terror through my stomach. This was my disaster now.
“Connie, are you going to be able to keep up the disguises if the crowd continues to grow?” I asked the dwarf, concerned about losing control of the people we were saving.
“It’s fine. Honestly thought it would be harder than it is, first time I’ve really dealt with people with no mana before. Even your family has started to gain a tiny bit, at least,” Connie answered. That was news to me. Just being around us has been enough to start priming them, apparently. I added that topic to the always growing discuss later list.
“Alright, good, that firehouse is coming up that they said survivors were holed up in. I’m thinking we either leave them there or collect everyone inside and bring them to the UN building. Even if it wasn’t standing, it had to have several below-ground floors. It was likely to be one of the safer spots. At least I assume it was built to withstand some sort of damage,” I said, not actually sure. It made sense in my head that it would be, but despite Laura’s career, I had never really asked about anything like that.
“How many people are on your world?” Cecile asked before I could get too far down memory lane into even more depressing territories.
“Several billion, possibly nearing ten, I think,” I answered. Both twinoges looked at me with astonishment in their eyes.
“That’s insane, Dave. There are only a few million twinoges,” Elicec said, explaining their strange look.
“Humans breed like orcs,” Rabyn said as he appeared from an alley, dragging an orc corpse behind him. Glorp rushed over and took care of any needed looting.
“Oh, that explains why there are so many in the Spiral,” Cecile said.
“There, that’s where we heard people were making a stand!” the woman who had initially told me about the location yelled as we neared the firehouse. From the first look, I was pretty sure she was right. I was no gun expert, but the barrel pointing out one of the windows on the third floor looked like something designed to take down a tank. I had no idea how they had managed to get it up there or even if it was actually enough to handle the orcs, but considering the building was still standing, it must have been.
“Who the hell are you?” a voice yelled from somewhere inside.
“I’m Dave, working to clear out the orcs, got a bunch of people, as you can see, looking for a safe place to stay. Some of them were already trying to find you!” I yelled back. In response, the door burst open and several men in military gear filled out, each of them carrying a large gun.
“How’d you get past the creatures?” one of them barked the question with the same voice I had moments ago heard through the wall.
“Mostly by killing them. Look I don’t have time to explain everything, but suffice it to say I’ve managed to acquire similar powers to them as have several of the people with me,” I answered.
“About time someone figured it out. Is it tied to those weird orbs in their body? We managed to get a couple after they came close enough to the big gun,” The man replied.
“Yes, but we can discuss it later. How many orcs have you managed to kill? Do you know where their main base of operations in the city is?” I asked, looking at the man, slightly impressed now. As far as I knew, they were the only ones to who had taken down any orcs other than us, but as I didn’t know much, it seemed unlikely that they were, which finally gave me a little hope to work with.
“Three, and it was pure luck. This place won’t hold against a full assault by them. They seem to be everywhere. Didn’t know what to do as the whole chain of command had fallen apart, so decided to do what we could to save people. God, I’m glad to see we are finally taking the fight back to them. I’d nearly given up,” the man said, his words turning slightly into ramblings as his desperation started to show.
“What’s your name?” Elicec said to the man, cutting in.
“Sergeant Grant with the US Army,” the man answered loudly, visibly calming down.
“Alright, how many people do you have inside?” I asked.
“Thirty people, most of them lost kids,” Grant answered.
“Obviously, I can’t order you what to do, but it doesn’t seem like there would be room in there for all the people behind me, so we are going to continue on to the UN building and see what it looks like. I’m hoping we can find someone more capable of taking charge there,” I said, looking at the man.
“Sir, if you are actually able to kill these orcs? Are they really orcs? Then I think I can speak for my men that we are going with you. As for someone in charge, are you sure that’s not just you?” Grant replied, looking at me with hopeful eyes. The man looked young, barely older than John. He wasn’t remotely prepared for any of this military training or not, not that anyone was, but here I was, the only one with any answers. Of course, he wanted to follow me. How could I say no?
Fate, deciding to make it clear I had no choice in the matter, chose that moment for several orcs to appear from one of the side streets. They instantly spotted us and charged in, roaring. They didn’t even make it thirty feet before a dozen branching arcs of electricity shot from Elicec, tearing through them, dropping their bodies lifelessly to the ground.
Before I had a chance to tell the soldier one way or the other he was barking orders to the others with him. “Get everyone inside packed up. Let’s get all the supplies we’ve managed to gather out here. Between all these people, we should be able to move most of it. As far as I’m concerned, Dave is now in charge.” No one seemed to disagree as they all sprang into action, and over the next few minutes, backpacks and supplies were distributed amongst our group, and we were back to moving toward my goal.
“What happens if we can’t find any safe place?” Glorp whispered to me, looking worried.
“Then we make one. As it stands, we seem to drastically outclass the orcs,” I answered. I wasn’t sure if that was actually universally true or not. We had just barely managed to take down their leader in a four-on-one fight, and I had no idea where we stood against someone like Rabyn. I was mostly gambling on the toughest ones, being the smarter ones who had fled.
So on we marched, the group continued its growth with every building we passed. All of them looked to me as some sort of savior. The soldiers hopped to every order I gave, helping anyone who needed it without question. By the time we finally reached our destination, there were at least a thousand people with us, it was hard to keep track. Everything had slowed down while Elody and the twinogs moved through the crowds, healing those that needed it.
The building itself was gone a few floors above ground level, but the rest was standing, and it looked like people had been working to reinforce it. Scrap of all kinds was piled in front of the windows, and a barrier of cars had been made around that. I hoped that meant there were still people inside alive.
Monster Taming classes are rare these days within the Arena, as dungeon diving has fallen more and more out of favor for a pathway of growth among the new adventurers in the Spiral. Those who are willing to brave the regions needed to tame their potential fighting partners have further decreased as well. This has led to a rapid decline among the free mana beasts. With that loss of the unique power, culture, and viewpoints, I feel as though something special is going extinct.
Mana Beasts, an Endangered Friend by Roril Thorl, Paladin of Agriculture Grand Warden of the Order
Comments
David Ellis
I hope John makes Shawarma for the gang when they get back 😉
