“John, if you would.”

  The Centurion stood, eyes hard as he gazed around the dim light of the longhouse's main hall. “Aye. We have begun repairs on the wall - we should be done by sunset tonight. Repairing will be much easier than creating in the first place, as we just need to drop trees next to the wall and click a repair icon. Starting tomorrow, I’d like to request a full load of unskilled Aspirants. If we’re going to war, we can’t have an army of eight people. Not only is it unfair, it’s pretty much signing up to lose. From what we saw, the enemy has horses and fire magic - we should dig drop-traps in the approaches to the town, and begin working on spears and stakes. Further, I’d like to see if we can get ourselves a source of stone when the exploration team returns - a stone wall will laugh off those firebolts.”

  “No need.” Miriam replied. “Our walls now have flame durability. It’ll be harder for them to catch, and they’ll burn slower. I’m working on a blanket resistance enchantment right now, then I’ll expand to other aspects - earth, shock, acid, the works.”

  John let out a low whistle. “I was wondering how you stopped the fire. Alright, well then I’d like to spend that time creating a watch tower large enough to see over the crowns of the trees. If we can clear out the branches and make sure we build the path, it would only make sense for them to follow it here, right where we can see them.”

  “Funnel them where we want them. Good plans all around, though we don’t know if they’ll take the paths. If they’re anything like their theme, it’ll be harassment campaigns to draw us out of position before any sort of battle. Miriam, do you need anything? Any projects we should know about?”

  “The regen spell is on hold as I work on the resistance enchantments, and I believe I can cast my Totem spell with a fire aspect, though I don’t see my Lightning Chain being able to do the same. Too different in array structure. Other than that, I worked out my mental diagnosis spell, so if anyone needs it, Sarah and I should be able to help with the more mental side of things when it comes to injuries.”

  Mitchell nodded. “Good work. Sarah? Any progress to report?”

  “Healer hit 18 during the fire. Animal Handler hasn’t budged though - seems I can only get so much for caring for the mule.”

  Mitchell hummed for a moment. “Take it over to the water and make it drink?”

  “What? It has no problem- oh. Did you just use an analogy

  Mitchell nodded. “Old adages say you can’t make a horse drink. I think that could.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Other than that, I’m going to train a few of the Outer’s in first aid. Mundane first aid - I can’t be the only person, and some quasi-paramedics would be quite useful.”

  “Let me know when you start that and I’ll send some Tiros over to learn. That’s definitely something I want my Legion capable of.” John added.

  Mitchell finished adjusting the immigration settings, baulking at the number when he was done. “You should have thirty-five unskilled recruits at the gate in the morning.”

  There was a beat of silence while John processed this. “Well, Dalton? You’ve been quiet thus far - care to share any thoughts?”

  The slightly plump man started. “Hm? Oh, yes, very good.” Mitchell frowned.

  “Dalton.” Sarah said sweetly. “If you’re not going to here, don’t be here. You get it?”

  Dalton swallowed loudly. “No, no, I’m here, I’m here. Just… Well when I volunteered to help a settlement through the Tutorial, I literally ran the odds of me getting into danger. They were low - lower than your planet's scientists use as a margin for error, if you’re familiar.”

  “I think I read somewhere that if they can prove something happens 95% of the time, it’s publishable?” Mitchell questioned.

  “Some fields do 90-” “It should be 100-”

  Sarah and Miriam looked at each other, then Sarah waved her concession.

  Miriam cleared her throat. “95% confidence.”

  “Well that is about in line with what my own research showed.”

  Mitchell nodded. “Alright. So of all the tutorials going on right now-”

  Dalton cringed slightly. “I wouldn’t say particularly?”

  Miriam leaned forward. “Actually I had a few questions about that. What the Tutorial? I obviously know it’s intended to get us up to speed before some sort of greater event, which I have also kind of figured out is just a… well, a world with the System on it. But what does that actually

  The Advisor sighed. “I can share a few things but a lot of it has to wait for E-grade. F-grade, in the wider world, is considered infancy. It’s where you learn how the world works, where your parents or babysitters will level you up so you can hit E and start actually existing as a person in the eyes of most governments. For new worlds who don’t have those parents- why do you all look so sad all of a sudden?”

  Mitchell glanced around and found that, yes, everyone seemed very morose. He spared a brief thought for his own family, resolved to find them after the tutorial, then got back to work. “Probably just because we got thrown to the wolves, literally. Keep going, though - what actually is a tutorial? We know why, now tell us where, when and how.”

  Dalton nodded slowly. “A lot of what I say will seem like I’m leaving things out, and that’s because I am - I’ll get pulled right out of the Tutorial if I cross the line, and no, I can’t tell you what the line is. It makes my job quite difficult, but here goes: Tutorials are a method of power-levelling a population up to E-Grade and culling those who are unable to make it that far. The method with which this is done varies - some Tutorials stretch their internal time to seem like it’s been years, others have brutal arena fights where only a few survive, but those that do emerge powerfully. There are crafting Tutorials, diplomacy based ones, and even Settlement management ones. If I were to guess, yours appears to be a hybrid between the Settlement and Arena type tutorials.”

  Mitchell nodded, his face stone as he internalised the implications. “Why?”

  Dalton blinked. “Why? Hmm.. yes, that’s something I can tell you. During the earliest days of the System, entire worlds were enslaved simply because they had nobody to protect them from the established powers. 10,000 F ranks wouldn’t even be able to make a scratch on a High C or Low B rank - however when classes hit E rank, some end up with skills and abilities that allow people to punch outside their weight class, to use an Earth analogy. The System was reworked to accommodate that fact, so that new planets wouldn’t immediately become colonies for the big boys out there. As for how… well in layman's terms, a long, long - and I mean think in terms of millenia - a big group of fish people got in a fight with a big group of bird people. The bird people were winning, but the fish people had developed a ritual and performed it. The fish people ended up going extinct, but when the birds found another world, they found that despite the comparatively ancient level of technology, the natives of the world had power and ability beyond what their earlier scans had shown. They’d been Systemized, and fought back, taking out the bird people. Now neither of those species are around, but the System they made was designed to run perpetually and nobody knows how to turn it off, so to speak, so we’ve lived with it. I think that’s it.”

  There was a beat of silence before Sarah spoke. “So some old aliens got their shit wrecked by some other old aliens, then decided to give superpowers to a third set of old aliens, and now we’re stuck in the woods making our own town to get us to a high enough level that we don’t get our own shit wrecked when some guys who have been at this for a while show up after the Tutorial. That sound about right?”

  Dalton nodded. “A gross oversimplification of multiple genocides, but yes.”

  “So if we’re a settlement arena, does that mean the last settlement standing wins?” John asked, his hand holding Sarah’s tightly. “We either take everyone else out, or lie down and die?”

  Dalton shrunk back. “Well, yes, but-”

  Mitchell nodded. “Then that’s what we have to do, isn’t it? Have Old Mill Town be the last one left. Dalton, if this were an Arena type Tutorial, what happens to allies? Is it truly one person that’s allowed to live?”

  “Well, no, usually it’s either the two remaining or a small group. But-”

  Mitchell held up a hand. “And these groups, do they need to be formed beforehand, like we did? Or if, say George, Kyla, and Ezekiel linked up and got the win, would they be taken out of the tutorial together?”

  “No, the time of alliance doesn’t matter, but-”

  Mitchell gave a cold smile. “Then we just need to convince all 2000 people left in this tutorial that it’s better to join us than to fight. I don’t plan to go killing everyone else off, though. Not only because my class is restricting me, but because we need every person we can get when we get yanked out.”

  “I don’t know anything for certain!” Dalton all but shouted. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, hybrid Tutorials almost never show up and when they do, they’re always unique!”

  “We can only work with what we know and prepare for the rest.” John interjected. “Questioning the end conditions won’t help us, not as much as knowing that we may have some Superman-adjacent bird person from another world show up and murder us all. Our only goal at this point is to get stronger, because if we believe Dalton, we’ll eventually get to that Superman-adjacent point ourselves.”

  “Get stronger, and keep as many humans alive as possible.” Mitchell added.

  Sarah didn’t say what she was thinking: What had happened to Mitchell’s almost evilly pragmatic views on charity?

  George limped down the marked forest trail, his leg still slowly oozing blood the colour of the darkening crimson sky. The Spinebear’s poison didn’t do any damage of its own. Instead, it halted all natural and unnatural healing, bringing George back to the uncomfortable situation of having a body that didn’t bounce back from mortal combat nearly as quickly as he’d liked. Rather than focus on the throbbing in his muscles or the scratching of his pants against the wound, he focussed on the markings.

  Each could be seen from the last, which was what Ezekiel had planned from the start. He would limp his way to a tree with a series of scratches on it, vaguely resembling a diamond with some sort of…. Well, it looked like a square. From that point, he would sweep his gaze around the forest, and spot the next marking. Trees, rocks, stumps - anything was eligible to be marked, and George noted as he passed another set of brambles to his left and a sunken, marsh-like area of the forest to the right that Ezekiel had done an excellent job choosing a trail. With each step, he thought of how lucky he was, and with each bob of Nimbus’ weight on his shoulder, he realised that they had to be more careful in the future - things could have turned horrific in an instant.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  The Spinebear had been relentless, so he’d been forced to lead it back to the river’s edge and as luck would have it, the beast had spotted a roaming patrol of riders, giving him a chance to escape.

  The journey since had been long and painful, but he knew he had at least another day of agonising marching before him until he reached Old Mill Town. He was looking for somewhere to make camp. Climbing a tree was out at this point, and he wouldn’t dare just make camp in a clearing when it was uncertain whether he was being pursued.

  With time, George came upon an opening in the ground, a crevice that plunged into a rock before levelling out and heading into the hillside. With a sigh of relief, he made his way towards the refuge, only to pause as Nimbus began to hiss from his shoulder.

  He froze, then slowly and silently began to unstrap his bow from his back.

  “Keep it where it is, hunter.” A feminine voice seemed to emerge from the forest around him, though he was unsure of its true location. He froze regardless, peering around to see if he could locate the ambusher in the shadows.

  “Alright, alright. That’s fine.” George mumbled. “Strange lady, strange forest.”

  “There’s no need to be rude, hunter. Why have you come to my grove? It is new and yet to blossom, but by seeds and stars it is mine - and you very nearly trespassed.”

  George raised an eyebrow, then with a second thought took a step back from the crevice. “Uh…”

  A light lilting laughter seemed to shake from the branchways. “You did not even recognize it as a grove, did you hunter?”

  George’s face flushed. “I’m not a hunter, I’m a Ranger.”

  The voice laughed again, the faintest hint of tree leaves brushing together layered in the timbre. “Yes, I can see that, o mighty Ranger. However, I speak not of what you are called, but of what you are. You came in here, gaze lit by the setting sun and eyes still searching. You hunt something, and thus you are a hunter. Do you disagree?”

  George let his mouth fall open. “I… well I guess so, yea. I’m a bit too tired to debate names and such, but I think that context plays a part.” His face burned. “Like, if I was actually hunting for food, I’d say you’re completely right, but I’m out here helping map this forest we’ve never travelled before, so that means I’m ranging right now, I think?”

  A delighted hum shook the branches of a nearby red maple tree, and George felt relief at finally having a direction to speak in. When the voice came again, it was from that tree, its trunk old and gnarled, the branches spread wide above him. “Yes, Ranger, I would suppose you are. I would like to make a deal with you, Ranger-who-hunts.”

  George was too tired to object, but he did roll his eyes and sigh. “Can it wait for the morning, fancy talking tree?”

  “It can.” The voice was amused. “However I was going to offer you safe harbour this eve. However - and how strange that I should use that word so soon after the last! Are not words wonderful and ? - I find your compliment of my home to be… refreshing. I will host you this evening and in exchange, you will stay and speak with me tomorrow morning until the sun brings my shade to its smallest and most potent point. Do we have an accord?”

  George blinked the sleep out of his eyes. Now that he’d stopped walking, the day's events were all catching up to him quickly. “What…. You mean noon? Sure, I can stay until after lunch.”

  The voice let out a short cheer. “Wonderful, truly splendorous! ‘Tis my first accord, Master Ranger. Mark well the day you first spoke with the spirits of the forest, as too will I mark this in my very wood. Find comfort and solace in my branches, Master Ranger, and may the conversation come morn be as binding as I expect.”

  A brief flash of unease spread through George’s mind at the way she said that, but then he was falling and Nimbus was howling and scratching and his eyes felt and then he was asleep.

  Yet unlike the past weeks, the past months, the past years, his mind was silent, and his dreams passed him by with a faint sense of peace, hope, and contentment.

  “I still don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “It isn’t.” Mitchell admitted. “But that doesn’t make it impossible.”

  Sarah scoffed. The two of them were standing atop one of the platforms on the wall - she made a note to ask John to make proper battlements, but he was easily the busiest out of all of them, save for maybe Miriam, who had been spending more and more time studying her magic alone. Down below, thirty new recruits were given basic armour and weapons bought from the system store, and were rapidly being instructed on the basic formations needed to function as a group.

  If all of them joined the Legion, John would have 5 squads to work with - Jack’s squad, then four new squads. A half Century. She highly doubted anyone else could raise more soldiers than that in such a short time, but he had pushed for three more days of new recruits, enough to fill an entire Century half again over what he needed.

  Right now, they were drilling in the morning light, standing in scattered lines, practising with sticks and boards as either Jack or John shouted out commands. With the lack of shields on the part of their enemies, John had forgone the pilum and replaced them with javelins which were much easier and cheaper to create. The squads practised moving in small formations, synchronising steps and throws.

  The results were still messy.

  They were good within their own units of 8 - 9 with the Optios -, though when John tried to have two squads work in concert as a double-strength squad, they fell apart.

  “They’re getting thrown into a meat grinder.” Sarah protested.

  “Did wonders for me.” Mitchell countered. “We need strength right now Sarah. What’s worse, endangering those who quite literally volunteered for it? Or endangering those who trusted us to protect them?”

  Sarah growled. “But you quite literally set things up to make these people come here. It just feels… wrong. Like you set out the bait of an advancement in status to trick people into your army.”

  Mitchell held up a hand. “I definitely understand that. Like if I were to offer a kid free candy for getting in my van, except the candy is safety and security for themselves and their family in exchange for committing violence on our behalf.”

  Sarah bit back a chuckle. “Really? That’s the analogy you went with?”

  Mitchell looked away. “I do feel guilt, Sarah. I do. But I can’t on it. I can’t afford to. Every night when I go to sleep, I think to myself: Will it be tonight? Tomorrow? When will the toll come due for me? When will I push our people too hard, or not be strong enough to face a threat?”

  Sarah was quiet for a moment. “Miriam told me you asked her to stop casting the Calm spell before you sleep. The nightmares are back, aren’t they?”

  Mitchell nodded, brushing over the fact that Miriam had spread something private. He trusted her reasoning, even if he didn’t know it. “Can hardly remember them, but I wake up with my heart pounding and covered in sweat. Did you know I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and the first thing I did was reach for my sword? A Sarah. Not a light, nor for Miri, no I immediately went for the weapon. I scrambled in the dark for a blade.”

  “We’ve been-”

  “That’s But I can’t stop it - I don’t know if I’ve even considered it. For better or worse, I’m stuck in charge. I’m ” Mitchell still looked away, and the sounds of training Legionnaires filled the air while she thought.

  “I think you’re doing okay.” Sarah admitted. “Sure, your first move was making yourself a dictator and installing your friends in literally every position of power available-”

  Mitchell’s head dropped.

  “-and then you built entirely too many houses rather than making the few we had worth living in-”

  He massaged his temples.

  Sarah faltered. “Mitch, I was kidding. You’ve made some steps forward and some backwards. For every issue you find, you fix it. I don’t think you did the best at setting us up, but when it comes to actually running things, you’re doing alright. People are fed and safe-”

  Mitchell growled, slamming his fist against the railing. “And I just thrust us into war.”

  Sarah grabbed his shoulder and made to spin him towards her, but it was like moving a boulder. After a brief moment of resistance, Mitchell allowed her to turn him, and she took a step inwards, “Mitchell, if you hadn’t, I would have genuinely thought you were crazy. I mean, I already do, but in an ‘unfit for leadership’ kind of way. ”

  “Nobody was hurt…” He excused halfheartedly.

  “Yes, they were!” Sarah hissed through her teeth. “Why do you think I’m at 25 in Healer now? Before you ask, yes that’s two new skills, and yes they’re good, or they will be when the scouting team gets back.”

  “What-”

  “We’re talking about you, not me. People were hurt. A lot of people. I helped to fix them, which is why I’m saying that we cannot allow these people to hurt ours again. If that means war, it means war.”

  Mitchell sighed. “Even the System wants it, and I can’t exactly go against that. I don’t regret my decision, I regret that it had to be made. For all we know, there are a hundred riders headed this way and they’ll over-run us long before we’re ready.”

  Sarah scoffed. “For all we know, George assassinated their leader already and is on his way back with a hundred prisoners.”

  Mitchell chuckled through his morose mood. “I suppose you’re right. I don’t think he is though.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “My own class upgrades. Secondary, that is. Apparently I gained increased experience in a crisis. Level 20 gave me a Clan Map that I haven’t had crafted yet, and 25 gave me a very fitting skill called Cultural Soldiery, which will allow me to cut our rate of immigration but have trained Tiros show up for John to work with. The max I can get up to right now is 10 per day though, so it's faster and better for experience for him to train up his first century by hand.”

  “Which, again, I need to protest the methodology.” Sarah reminded him.

  Mitchell finally shook off his melancholic attitude and straightened up. “It’s sound. The level of the dungeon is directly related to who enters. So we send the new guys without any higher levels to bump the level up, and they just need to fight the carpenter ants. They don’t even need to clear it, just get into the first room, fight, then leave. We don’t know if there’s a cooldown or not, so this is also a scouting mission. Besides, we’re still sending Jack with them so they should be alright. He’s around the level of the dungeon when we went, so his presence shouldn’t bump it up.”

  Sarah frowned. “I still don’t like it.”

  Mitchell shrugged. “You should probably make sure they have someone who can heal them then.”

  She glared at him for a moment before storming off wordlessly.

  Jack was a proud man.

  He stood before Centurion Forrester, his own veteran squad lined up to his left. Behind him, four more tentative squad leaders, lined up in the order he had determined with their own squads. They had only had one day of training, but it had been gruelling. They stood in the light of the setting sun, the steady of the mills mechanisms an excellent backdrop to the ceremony.

  “Centurion! Your Optio stands before you with 4 new squads!”

  John looked down on him, the Centurion’s imposing height impossible to ignore. “Optio, report on their readiness.”

  Jack shifted. “Sir! The Legion is prepared to carry out your orders.”

  John nodded and looked out over the forty soldiers before him. “First Legion!” Jack’s heart pounded. They’d been numbered, which meant they had an identity. They had a legacy. They would write the story of the First Legion starting today. The Tiros were class-less still, but the Optios were all averaging around level 12. This was a significant force. “We have been formed in the trials of survival. We were mined and picked by a Clan which needed a sword. We were smelted into a shield to guard the lives of man, and hammered by the Raccans until we were bloody and broken. We break. Now, we depart to hone ourselves against the venerated enemies which gave rise to our very own Patriarch. When the darkness falls, will we flinch?”

  There was a beat of silence. Jack’s heart dropped, and he did the only thing he could. “Legion,

  “No, Sir!”

  “Not a chance!”

  “No way!”

  He sighed, his pride leaking out like a bucket with a hole leaked water.

  John looked down at him and gave a barely imperceptible wink. “NO, we will not! We will march through any and all obstacles, for we are the Legion of Old Mill Town, the First Legion, and we have a proud duty! We march ”

  Jack tried his best to hide his embarrassment, yet he still tried again to show the same poise and decorum that he believed was essential. “Optios! Fall out and have your men formed at the Northern Gate in 30 minutes. Last squad there is digging latrines!”

  “Hold!” John called out, and Jack just wanted to die where he was standing. Why couldn’t he do anything today? “Optio Jack, I name you Optio Primus, first of my squad leaders. This will come with a pay raise, but also with more responsibility - do you accept this naming?”

  Jack’s jaw was a half-heartbeat from dropping open, but with a slight shake he regained himself. “Yes, Centurion! I won’t let you down!”

  John smiled down at him. “Good. Legion! Dismissed!”

  Jack's next half hour was a blur of packing gear, herding the Tiros, and waiting at the gate. Soon, the wooden doors swung open, and John led them on a march into the night, a bobbing line of torches the last thing one could see from the walls. Soon, those too faded into the distance, and the town was left feeling significantly more empty than it had been.

  George woke up in a hammock made of vines, suspended 15 feet off the ground. Nimbus was nowhere to be seen, but he did notice the rays of a rising sun peeking through the branches of the grove.

  “Nimbus? Here buddy, c’mon!” He called out, his voice hoarse. “Stop playing man, where are you?”

  The sounds of chirping birds and rustling leaves was his only response. With a groan, George rolled out of the hammock, almost casually grabbing onto branches on his way down the tree. He felt surprisingly relaxed after he’d fallen asleep, which was handy. The relaxation quickly fled when he was reminded of the situation.

  “I apologise for waking you, but in hindsight, our deal allows you to sleep past the allotted time. I am still new at this.”

  George jumped and turned around, the night's events flashing back to him with alacrity. “What did you do to my cat?” The Ranger spun and turned, looking into the branches and crooks of the surrounding trees. With a creaking noise, the bark of the red maple peeled itself down, revealing a knot in the grain of the wood. The knot spun slowly, like a whirlpool of molasses, and it gradually widened up and revealed a beautiful feminine face made of wood, with sap framing it like locks of hair.

  The voice answered him. “It is in my possession.”