"Argh! What the hell?!" Alice complained loudly.

"Nothing again?" Ava asked concernedly.

"Yeah. No one's been here since the end. It's frustrating!"

"You know," her girlfriend encouraged her, "they might be with the group at the university, and we still haven't checked the secondary locations."

"I know. And I probably wouldn't be this irritated if, of all people, Simon's family wasn't the one we found a sign of. You know, the one guy who died looking for them? It's so ironic that it's cruel."

"Alright, everyone, it's time we pay our neighbors a visit!" Alice put as much motivation behind her mental voice as she could.

"Two people in that direction!" Debby pointed to their left about ten minutes later. "And three more that way!" the woman was clearly excited as she pointed to the front, right to where the university was at. "Should I try to contact them?"

Alice thought about it for a moment, "No, we should keep telepathy hidden for now."

"Are you sure? They might lose their trust in us," the woman was quick to argue.

"Not forever, of course. Even if they aren't outright hostile, we don't know their stance towards our group. We will tell them if they prove to be trustworthy allies, but until then, it's too good of an advantage to waste."

"What if they have some kind of lie detection? If we outright lie to them and they can tell, wouldn't that make it even harder for them to trust us?" Daniel wondered idly.

"You are right. Okay, We won't tell them anything that could become a disadvantage to us, but we won't lie if they ask us directly."

"Then we have to make clear now what we can tell them and what not. It will be a problem if we become inconsistent," Harry commented.

"Good idea. I would say, mostly nothing about telepathy and else just no information about precise numbers or Classes? Actually, if they start asking about that kind of stuff, it would already become pretty suspicious in and of itself."

"We also shouldn't tell them about Albert. If they ask us how we managed to survive, we can just tell them we got lucky. After all, Al's presence was quite the stroke of luck," Max gave his own opinion.

"Good thinking. That should do for a general guideline for now. Or has anyone something to add?"

The others shook their heads.

"Okay, from now, keep telepathy to a minimum. Only use it if our hosts aren't supposed to hear you, and try not to react," Alice finished before continuing out loud, "Deb's, how far away are they?"

"The three I noticed earlier are right around that corner," the woman pointed at the street up ahead, "But I can feel their base now too, and they got a lot of people. I can already feel as many of them as we have, and I don't think that's the end of it."

It was not much later that Alice entered the crossroad, slowly revealing an impressive around the corner. At first, she thought that they had somehow lost their way, ending up in a strange place. However, Alice clearly recognized the buildings around her, which meant that they were in the right place. Just that apparently, someone had built a humongous wall around a large part of the campus.

The wall was at least fifteen meters tall, dwarfing the surrounding buildings. However, what made the whole thing even more impressive was that compared to the simple Golden Glades earth mages were building, these looked like proper, medieval city walls, including space to walk on top of them and even crenellations.

"Oi! Which group are you guys from?" one of the three people Debby had noticed earlier called out to them.

He was wearing a leather jacket with the emblem of some kind of gang. Even from such a distance, Alice could tell that both the material of the jacket and the print were cheap.

"Urgh, of all people..."

Alice didn't react to Ava's voice visibly, asking her, "You know him?"

"Not him specifically, but I know that jacket. He is one of the 'Money makers', a group of wanna-be gangsters. Bunch of stupid assholes if you ask me."

"Oi! Why the hell aren't you answering!?" the guy called out again.

Alice put her finger on her lips and shook her head, indicating for him to be silent.

"Eh? I'm a General, no need to worry about the monsters."

"Could you still be silent, please? Even if you are a general or whatnot, there is no need to tell half a city full of monsters where we are. Just be patient for ten damned seconds, and we can talk in volume that they won't hear us!" Alice already had enough of the guy's shit as she screamed back. By now, it didn't matter anymore because everything that hadn't heard him would have to be deaf.

"You don't know what me being a General means? Are you from an entirely different group of survivors?"

"Yes, we are. And even if you can clear the entire city by yourself, for the sake of my nerves, could you please stop shouting?"

"Fine, fine. If you are from a different group, did you just stumble over us, or were you sent out to make contact with us?"

"We were searching for relatives of our own people. That's when we found your base. But we are also supposed to establish contact with any group we find," Alice explained their goals roughly.

"I see. In that case, I should probably lead you to the King. Oi, you two, are finally done in there?" he called the two people that were going in and out of a building to the side.

As quickly as they could, the man and woman pair sorted everything they had collected from the building onto a pair of large wooden contraptions before slipping a pair of hooks on the front over their shoulders and hoisting it all up. Only now did Alice realize that they were basically extremely oversized backpacks. For a moment, the pair stood a little wobbly before they found their balance, their cargo, which was at least twice their body size and weight, making the process rather difficult.

On the one hand, Alice had to admit that she herself would probably be more than capable of a similar feat. On the other hand, it made the pair look a little pitiful, despite the fact that they undoubtedly surpassed her in pure physical strength.

Probably, Alice thought, it's because they won't be able to defend themselves like this. Also, there is the fact that that General doesn't seem to even think about helping.

"Hey, you have been talking about Kings and Generals. What's that about?" Alice asked as the group of three was leading them along the outside of the large wall.

"Heh? Ah, your group doesn't have anyone with a leader Class, right? Our leader, Andy, his Class is King. He makes you a Citizen, a Noble, or a General like me. Citizens are the workforce and pay Taxes in the form of Stats, which are redistributed to Nobles and Generals like me for the sake of protecting everyone. That's also how Andy managed to build this City Wall, for example. Anyway, we're here! Oi, get us up!" he suddenly called up the wall.

"Debby, how many people can you feel in your range?"

"About... two hundred? No, two hundred fifty is probably closer."

"Does anyone know what the average level in Golden Glades was before we went out?"

"Level eight to ten, I think. Why?" Max answered her question.

"That means... a hundred or more Stat-points per person at maximum. That's concerning, to say the least."

"What is?" Carl asked.

While Alice quickly explained her thought process, a small wooden platform, hanging at the end of a long chain, sat down on the ground in front of them. The General, whose name Alice hadn't asked for, and his two companions stepped onto it.

"Wait a sec. Pull us up!" he called up the wall again.

Maybe a minute later, the elevator stood in front of Alice's group.

"Well, let's see what this is all about," Alice commented as she stepped onto it.

"Harry, you have probably the most experience with that kinda thing. Can you try finding alternative routes in and out of this place?"

"Sure, was planning on that already," the old soldier answered.

"The same goes to everyone, but make extra sure you don't look suspicious."

"Pull us up!" she called up the wall, the platform starting to move moments later.

Soon, the distance to the ground grew more and more, the platform thankfully not swinging around. Taking a closer look at it, Alice realized that the carriage wasn't actually hanging freely but had a set of wooden wheels with which it rolled along the wall.

Soon, they crested the top, and once again, Alice was greeted by a sight that made her just a little uncomfortable. The elevator was a crude construction of stone, wood, and scrap parts, the first two of which were undoubtedly magical in nature. However, it was the 'engine' Alice had a problem with. Because the elevator was driven by humans.

"I really don't like this group dynamic," Debby said in their minds.

"Yeah, gives me too many Egyptian vibes," Ava commented.

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked.

"I mean the 'What? We don't have the ability to build giant pyramids? Let's throw a million slaves at it and see if that's still true!' kind of vibes."

"I don't like this either. Just in case, no groups smaller than two people. Max, Debby, stay with me, Carl, or Harry at all times. If at all possible, always stay inside the range of Debby's network."

"What you guys built here is quite astonishing, to say the least," Alice commented idly, looking down the inner side of the City Wall. Within just a few days, the part of the campus that had been encircled by the wall had changed considerably.

With the office building in the middle, looking more than ever like an old mansion, most of the surrounding space had been turned into either magically made barracks-style buildings, or the ground had been ripped out and turned into fields where groups of people were working on planting vegetables and other plants.

In one corner, Alice could see a surprisingly big hole in the ground, people moving in and out of it carrying stones on their backs, depositing them in an area with a roughly house-like shape. Another guy with the same cheap leather jacket as their guide giving them commands.

And finally, there were the groups on the tops of the walls. Only now did Alice notice that there were a total of four elevators, including the one they had used. There was one in the middle of each stretch of wall. But those weren't the only groups. Roughly every twenty meters, a single person stood there watching the space in front of their piece of wall, guarding it.

Where Golden Glades was a military base in how its defenses were set up, this place was an impenetrable fortress.

"Right, I haven't introduced myself. I'm Alice."

"Patrick, but my friends call me Patty. I think you can call me that too, sooner rather than later. Anyway, the stairs are over there," he said, pointing a bit to the side, "and the King is in his castle," he pointed at the office building. "Let's go get you that that audience. And you two, bring that stuff to the warehouse!"

Without saying a word, the man and woman duo turned around, walking to the end of the group since they would block the relatively narrow staircase that went along the inner side of the wall, and they wouldn't exactly be the fastest to get down.

"Say, how long did it take you guys to get organized. Truth is, Ava and me were actually here when it started, but we also left pretty quickly. It's just that I wouldn't have thought that a group of university students would manage any kind of largescale organization fast enough."

"You aren't wrong. It was pretty chaotic at the beginning," Patty recalled as he led them to the Castle, "But when the first monsters came, we squished as many people as we could convince into the Castle and only defended the entrances.

And, well, telling someone 'all you have to do is become a citizen of my new country, and this group of people becomes strong enough to protect you and everyone else' is surprisingly effective when there are actually real monsters around trying to kill people.

Especially so after they had witnessed that we, the Generals, could actually protect them.

A while later, Andy got the City Wall Skill, and we got a pretty big and completely safe base.

What about you? How did your base come to be?"

"As I said, I was at the university when it began, so I only joined that group after they were completely organized already. But, well, its actually a home for the elderly, so everyone there is either a very nice person or very experienced, so I imagine there was very little conflict."

"A bunch of old people with dementia and their caretakers managed to survive?" Patty asked incredulously. "Ah, apologies," he added quickly, looking at Harry.

"Hmmm." the old soldier grunted his response.

"Not anymore. In some way or another, it seems like all of them were cured of that particular problem. So they are mostly a bunch of overly relaxed people who help where they can, but leave all the 'troublesome stuff' to the younger generation."

"That's definitely not something I would have expected. Anyway, here we are," he said as he opened the doors to the office building.

"Harry, have you found any escape routes so far?"

"Some, but magic and Skills are too unpredictable, so I can't tell what would actually work out."

"Better than nothing. Debby, you still have two marks, right? How long does it take to put one onto someone?"

"Only a few seconds."

"Can you do it without anyone noticing?" Alice asked of the woman. She realized that it was something they should have done earlier, but Alice only thought about it now.

"Yeah, I think so. On whom should I put them?"

"Me and Harry, in the worst-case scenario, he will be the one to lead all of us out of here."

"Give me your hand," Debby said, taking the one Alice put behind her as inconspicuously as she could.

For a few seconds, Alice could feel a strange warmth in the appendage before it settled into a deeper part of her being.

"Did it work?" Debby spoke in her mind, the message much clearer and with more nuances than the network.

"You upgraded to fiber optic cable?" Alice joked as confirmation.

"In here," their guide said, opening the doors to a small assembly hall. Someone had written 'Throne room' onto the door.