If there was anything that could distract Ruth from runes, it was people in distress. Her expression immediately changed to worried. “Oh, no! What do you think is going on? Come on, let's go talk to them!” Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed his hand and pulled him along.

  Josh couldn't help but feel amused by the fact that he was being bodily dragged by a girl who was literally half his size. He really needed to put some points into Strength soon. Maybe once he got to Improved-tier? Yeah, then his insane point distribution wouldn't be as important, and he could spread out a bit more.

  By the time they got over to them, Mary had her hands tucked under her armpits and wasn't looking at anyone. That was a very bad sign. That meant she was genuinely worried that she might hit someone if she didn't control herself. Darius, to his credit, seemed to have realized that, and had stepped back to take a breath. He had his glasses off, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  “Oi,” Josh said, with forced cheer. “What's all this? You have a party without us?”

  Both of them glared at him. He'd call that a win, since they weren't glaring at each other any more.

  “It's about that stupid bird,” Mary muttered. “Little D is making a thing of it.”

  “Don't call me—” Darius looked confused for a moment, then rolled his eyes. “Don't call me that, either.”

  “What bird?” Ruth asked, bewildered. “Is this about that hawk monster?”

  “They're talking about Anna,” Josh said with a sigh. “You know, the crazy bint with the weird sword.”

  “...what does that have to do with birds—”

  “It doesn't matter,” Mary snapped. “It doesn't matter what happened with her, or what didn't happen with her, because who I do or don't do isn't anyone's bloody business!”

  Josh closed his eyes and let out a long breath. “This is about sex.” It wasn't a question.

  “No,” they both said instantly.

  “It kind of sounds like it is,” Ruth pointed out.

  “Well, it's not,” Mary snapped. “No one in this room ever has to worry about who or what I'm shagging!”

  Darius opened his mouth, but before he could shove his foot down it, Josh interrupted. “ENOUGH!” he yelled. Everyone, including Ruth, turned to stare at him. “Look, we've got a freaking magical orc and an army of mercenaries ready to pop up in our backyard sometime between yesterday and five minutes from now. We're all dealing with too much shite right now to toss this stinker onto the pile.” He pointed at Mary. “You, don't talk to anyone about anyone's pants, including your own.” He pointed at Darius. “You, likewise.”

  “I never accused her of anything,” he insisted. “I simply wanted to know where Anna was, as she is an important part of our defenses!”

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  “And then you started laying down trap words and double-meanings and—”

  “ENOUGH!” This time, they just glared at him, but they did shut up. “I don't care. Keep this in your damn bedroom.”

  “We're not—” Mary began.

  She was interrupted by Ruth, of all people, covering Mary's mouth with a hand. “Nope,” she said. “Nope, nope, nope. Josh is right, not the time, not the place. You two can finish up your weird hate-fueled escapades later. Right now, we need to get ready for the inevitable attack.”

  Darius glared at her, but wisely didn't argue. Instead, he turned to Josh. “When do we expect the attack to begin?”

  Josh crossed his arms and shrugged. “That's the big question, innit? Dunno if the big guy had everything ready or not. Think the fact that we haven't seen anything yet is probably a good sign, though.”

  The door burst open, and Anna ran into the room. “My boys saw something. You coming?”

  Mary glared at Josh.

  “This is not my fault.”

  Anna laughed. “So you're not the one who set the big guy on fire?”

  “Okay, that bit is my fault.” Josh paused. “Wait, how do you know about that?”

  She jerked her head to the exit. “Because he's out front, yelling for you.”

  Josh looked at his friends. As one, they all turned and ran outside.

  Once they reached the top of the wall, they were greeted with a disturbing sight. Josh had expected an army of mercenaries. There were certainly enough soldiers, reclaimers, and random kids with too many levels and not enough sense in the world. There was always someone willing to pay for violence, so there were always people willing to sell it. Mercenaries varied between fresh-faced kids who didn't know which end of a sword to hold to some of the highest level people in the world outside of the Eight Immortals.

  Josh had thought that they were prepared for the worst. He thought Hou Zheng might have managed to hire some of Jonah Moore's peers, real monsters like Rezin the Ruined, who famously rolled a fire mage every single reset. Or Golgotha, that weird [Healer] who kept trying to reinforce his bones with steel, and seemed to get closer every year.

  He hadn't been prepared for tanks.

  He had never actually seen tanks in real life, at least outside of a museum. They had been obsolete long before humanity lost the ability to make more. Pound for pound and credit for credit, high-level classes were just more effective in every way. An artillery mage could do at least as much damage as a tank, a decent Defender could survive at least as much damage, and they'd both be more mobile to boot. Even with the fact that people had to re-train their classes every single year, they were better than tanks in every single way.

  But damn, seeing armored vehicles sitting there, massive gun barrels pointed at the wall, was certainly intimidating.

  They were small tanks, admittedly. Also, it was possible that they weren't technically tanks. He had never kept up on that sort of military terminology. What was the difference between an Armored Fighting Vehicle and an official tank? It couldn't just be the treads.

  Regardless of exactly what they were called, Josh didn't think anyone on their side of the wall had been expecting to see four heavily armored vehicles with very large cannons roll up to their front gate.

  There were mercenaries too, of course, but they were almost redundant. They could handle mercenaries. While most of them were wearing masks, the ones who weren't were between levels thirty and forty, with two or three that Josh spotted barely tapping level fifty. The defenders outnumbered them, and with a better defensive position, they could hold them off.

  Except that those tanks looked ready to blow their defensive position to smithereens.