The moon is high in the sky when I can longer see the torches in the watchtowers. The whole world just opened up to me. I go at almost a flat out run in a few places, but soon I settle at a more manageable pace. I will need to keep this up for too long, to run flat out from the get-go.

With nothing pressing for me to return to, my mindset changes. I take my time to properly settle at a comfortable pace. Without Pando’s help, I have never run so fast in a long track. I will be making 100 miles just for the first leg of the voyage. And that will not even be half of the trip.

I head in the direction of Sarah’s village. Midway, I eat the jerky I got and keep pace barely slowing down. I find a few places of interest. In all of them, however, I find the extra weight from the rope to be a hindrance instead of a help. With my attributes, there are very few places I would have trouble reaching without a rope.

I can climb any tree and most rock faces, without breaking a sweat. I might need a rope for a specially complicated cave, but I should just skip those for now. I run into a few wolves and I notice the distribution of monsters. I only found tracks from wolves within 30 miles of our village.

After that, the other tracks were for bigger monsters. Paying attention I see how the scouts might have missed them. They look nothing like the tracks we are used to. After you get used to a shift of perspective, it is not so troublesome. But before, most people would not have noticed anything. Even me, after so long in the forest, only noticed because I was looking for it.

I run through two of those tracks. Massive paw prints. Bigger than my feet, but with an almost circular profile. They are probably from mammoths. There may be other monsters with these characteristics, but I would guess no.

I ran into wolf packs on my way and they attacked without quarter or hesitation. I give each of them less than a minute but don’t wait for them to give up. I demonstrate to myself and to them who is stronger and has greater skill. I see a level 7 wolf and something on the back of my mind is settled.

Since the attack, the trouble a quarter of our population caused in their attack has stuck in my mind. The number of people who still were below level 10 across the board in their stats didn’t help. But, level 8 to 10 wolves shouldn’t have been so big and hard to deal with. Even though a big part of the problem was that they were organized and concentrated their forces in a relatively small part of our wall, the wolves were too smart.

Each movement they took, no longer was just instinct born of combat with smaller prey or other bigger animals. They each seemed to be uniquely trained to deal with humanoids. Perhaps the goblins had spent years training them, or more likely, their level-ups imparted a lot of instinctual knowledge, beyond just increasing their size.

Even as I play with them for a few moments, before I part in my journey, I think hard on what is the nature of their affliction. I loathe of thinking of an external solution for my problem in perspective, but finding the reason they are rabid will probably provide some insight into what I should do.

Do I kill all wolves, or keeping my current course would be the best choice. What I learn the system rewards the villages that kill off their mob population. Should that change my mind?

Should I kill every single living creature that I come across or none?

Neither, the solution was probably somewhere in the middle, or not even in the box.

I let the questions leave my mind and I pay attention only to the pounding of my feet.

In the way, I run across a dying tree. It is a tall and beautiful specimen. I see a part of the trunk and half of the branches dry and with a sickly color. Remembering a day so long ago, and felling a certain seed in my eye, I stop.

Looking for the cause, I walk around it. I take a sample from the soil and the tree. After tasting both of them, I don’t have a definitive answer. I spit it out and keep looking.

It takes a good five minutes, but I find the cause, a claw mark in the foot of the tree. After close inspection, I see in the ends of one of the scratches, a piece of a claw.

Around it the wood is black, so I dig it out without touching it and throw it away. I have no idea why that happened, but there is far too much I don’t understand in this world. Ignoring this particularity, I touch the tree and start to meditate. I don’t go too deep because of the possibility of attack, but I still concentrate on sending my well-wishes to the tree.

In this instance I spend about an hour mentally talking and even though the tree is not the same as Pando, I can feel my stamina recharging ever so slightly faster than before. It has been years I haven’t done that with another tree. I usually spend so little time outside of Pando I don’t need it. Rarely I spend more than a couple of hours.

I pay attention to the energy refilling me. The process of stamina regen is something that interests me very much. For years I had the concept of vigor well lockdown. Stamina in a superficial look is quite similar to vigor, but on further inspection, they are visibly different. Like HP and the body’s injuries, a simple number cannot convey the totality of the matter.

I have taken to ignoring the stamina gauge completely as I can judge my exhaustion much better by keeping a track of my vigor.

Even after hours running at the same pace as in a marathon, I just feel much more rested, since the day I came here. Paying close attention to myself, I can see that I’m still far too tired, from the whole idiotic cycle, I let myself get trapped in.

I was used to spending as long as I wanted working, then as long as I wanted resting. I slept anywhere and everywhere in the forest. I sometimes spend 3 days working and then 10 hours asleep. I did not take notice of time as most people thought about it.

A schedule was anathema to my way of thinking.

A tree may have its cycles influenced by the environment, but their concept of time is very different from the human one. I had adopted more of this mindset than I expected. After a while just letting things happen as they will, I managed to notice this. I did not even realize how close I was to breaking.

It may be strange, but everybody has their strengths and their weakness, guess I found mine.

Letting the whole affair wash over my mind, I start to run again and finish my trek to the village. Each step of mine I let myself become one with my surroundings and I draw my vigor as low as I can.

Without noticing I return to my state of not being noticed. This very strange phenomenon where nobody notices me. Over the years as I tried to remain anonymous, few and fewer people even noticed me. As long as I was circumspect, even the rangers didn’t notice me, most of the time.

A couple of hundred paces from the village, nobody has noticed me yet. I walk out from the forest in plain view on the road they have cleared. Perhaps they are already attempting to connect our villages. It goes in the right direction.

The ground is still uneven but there are no more trees. Nobody would get lost and the trip would be faster for people not accustomed to tracking through the forest. After the path had a few more people, just walking along it would start to make it better.

I take in the village. From here I can only see the wall, and it is just like the wall on our first day. They haven’t raised it like us. I guess, they would not need it. Though as time progresses, the system might start to focus on other villages more. For now, the attacks are only on us, but the tanner indicated this was for only now.

Too bad they can’t just come out and say it.

The guards notice and call out to someone inside. I approach in a jog, but not being threatening. Just a regular and light pace. The only weapon I carry is the staff I have secured in my back.

It is short enough I don’t have trouble with it as long as I pay attention. What does bother me is the excess weight in my backpack. I will probably buy some of their silk to use as rope and leave my rope here. If I can’t I might just leave the rope altogether.

“Halt.” I stop at the commanding voice. A new person slightly winded from a short sprint leaves the gate and heads for me. The fellow is equipped with basic leather armor and a short sword. He approaches and addresses me:

“What is your business here stranger?”

“I came from the village you guys established contact with, a couple of days ago.”

“We are not expecting anyone. And where are the other people in your envoy.”

“I’m not anyone official. I just came to visit, maybe spend a few coppers and continue on my journey.”

“We don’t let anyone enter, without proper authorization from the matriarch.”

I silently laugh. The system may make things cliché, but we don’t help either. Calling what I assume to be the defector leader of a mostly female village the Matriarch is just rich. I school my expression and just say:

“If Sarah is in, you could just ask her. I met briefly with her in the negotiations.”

“From which village are you?”

That does open up a can of worms. Better to leave for people with knowledge of the situation.

“The one with the guild, Charlie is the spokesperson and de-facto leader.”

“Ohh, ok. I thought it was another village. Is it true you guys have all kinds of industries?”

I pause when he looks back and says to bring Sarah.

“Yes, we are mining and have already made a few items with the iron.” I volunteer as little information as possible. They may look friendly but I was not privy to how much we were sharing with them just yet. Better not to screw the pooch opening my mouth. At my short answer he continues:

“Cool, we are trying to get a few more industries up and running. We had some success, but nothing so amazing as you guys.”

After another two minutes of chic chat, we hear another guard saying.

“Come in.”

Looking over I see Sarah has arrived. She probably saw me and okayed my entry. She looks as stunning as last time I saw her and even the guards around her, living in the same village, are affected. This and my higher willpower pretty much confirm to me she has some kind of skill.

Her gracefulness doesn’t come only from skill, but it is a large contributor.

As I arrive in front of her, she warmly greets me.

“Hello Nash, welcome to the city. Do you come in any official capacity?”

“No, I will be exploring around my village and I passed through here first.”

With a fake laugh, she speaks.

“Ohh, you are already looking so far away. You are welcome to come inside the village. Do you need to resupply?”

“Food and some of your silk might be useful.”

Heading for what I assume the central square is, I accompany her. The village looks eerily similar to our own. Before the changes we made, they could as well have been carbon copies. This one has better furnishings in most of the rooms, but it’s clear they were added by the inhabitants from here.

“The attack happened already?”

“Do you know about that?”

“Charlie mentioned something. It seems as long as you guys don’t fall, the rest of us are fairly safe.”

“Yeah, I heard the same. And yes, the attack happened already. It was at sunset.”

“You came at a good pace. The sun is not up yet and you already got here. How bad was it?”

“By the time I left, I think nobody had died yet.”

“I hope that continues.”

I just grimace and she continues the conversation. Getting close to a building she asks me.

“So, what food do you want?”

“Anything is fine for a quick bite. And something I can carry in travel, enough food for two meals.”

I stop at a house near the central square. The front has been ripped out and a restaurant has been set up. I admire their industriousness and take a look at what they are serving. I’m greeted by what looks like ramen.

“Where did you guys found the ingredients?”

“Some we bought from the merchant. But we harvested a good amount of something similar to wheat from 60 miles away. And the eggs we get from birds high in a mountain to the east.”

My mouth salivates at the thought of eating anything that is not stew or bread. This is wonderful. There was some fruit but few people got to eat them as there was not enough for everyone. I can smell the delightful aroma coming from the dishes of the people sit down.

I sit as well and ask:

“How much for a couple of plates?”

“Don’t worry about it, you are our guest.”

“I don’t want to be impolite.”

“Like I said you are our guest. It is much cheaper to make food like this than buying it in the Inn. You could eat as much as you want for less than a copper coin if we don’t take into account the labor.”

“We tried to eliminate our food dependency on the village, but so far, we have trouble even getting vegetables and condiments for stew.”

“Don’t worry, we will be trading with you guys. Tomorrow the first caravan will make the trip with wheelbarrows. The scouts have found a way to make the track between our villages.”

“That is good. I didn’t even know we had managed to make wheelbarrows.”

“We made a couple of the Chinese variety. They simple to make and we had a few carpenters. With no breaks, the track takes less than 20 hours. A group of 20 to 30 could carry a ton one-way per day.”

“If we manage to make rubber and a road between us, a single person could pull a cart carrying the ton alone in a day or two depending on their stats. There are no elevations differences in the way, and we could make a fairly straight road.”

“That is far in the future.”

Without even have ordered yet, a big bowl of ramen surprises me and I dig in. Eating with no decorum a few of the closest ladies wrinkle their noses, thinking I can’t see them. I let the feelings wash over me, not bothering with their opinion and relish on the taste.

In silence, I think over her last statement. She is wrong, we couldn’t make things work with a snap of our fingers, but the speed with which things were coming together was very high. The benefit of a thousand people working towards a singular goal, and the fact we didn’t have to establish much of the basics of our economy to even manage housing and food for everyone, accelerated things a lot.

Another huge impact was the addition of the system. Most people were, by now, working faster than even the strongest and most dexterous people back on earth ever could. The other factor, experience, was also quickly coming together, given the 10 times Exp. bonus to skill learning speed and the subtle but ever-present system, guiding everyone to the right answer.

Every time someone hit a nail with a hammer, the system imparted insight so the person realizes what they did wrong, and sometimes the system even nudged the hammer in the proper place.

Last but not least the existence of magic was a significant convenience. I didn't know, but there was no way the people in this village could harvest so much silk in so short a time without the help of magic. We also benefited from it back in our village.

The whole wood infusion was a giant testament to the massive help magic provided. The entire endeavor would be a moot point without magic given the low temperatures wood burns normally.

Even with the number of people in our village and everyone’s life experience, I thought we would only have gotten to our current point in a couple of months down the line. We had a heap of advantages.

Still, I would prefer we had this time back on earth. No need for accelerated training, just let everyone have time to properly absorb the lesson’s time imparted.

At this, I wondered at how much waste there would be. We were building a kingdom, but what would we even be able to take back?

Would we even be able to take our armor and weapons back? How about books or salves or a hundred other things.

I let all the questions for later, right now there was ramen. And ramen was life. I love ramen. This tastes awesome. The best meal of my life.