By the time they finally got back to camp, the sun was starting to set and they were both exhausted. The shacks were as dilapidated as they had been earlier, but she was still glad to see them. She saw some people milling about outside, but it seemed that most of the people were inside. A black-haired man wearing leather armor who seemed to be watching the path noticed them and jogged off somewhere.

The other people outside gradually stopped talking to each other, and turned to look at them. Karolina tried to imagine looking at herself from the outside: a woman in a white gi covered with dirt by her long walk through the woods, with a bright red splash of blood in the center of her left thigh. She looked over at Thomas, who was in a similarly dirty blue robe that was marred by a cut on his left arm. She could understand why others were staring at them.

Before they had a chance to go anywhere, the man in leather armor jogged back with James Buckley, speech-giver extraordinaire, in tow. She inspected him again, not expecting anything to have changed.

James Buckley: [Human (F) / Sergeant] - Level 3

However, he had leveled again. Was Sergeant a class that gained experience through bossing people around? He certainly didn’t look like he had fought anything, as his chain-mail armor was as shiny as ever and his sword didn’t look like it had ever even left his scabbard.

She could tell the exact moment that he inspected them because his eyes went wide. His soul shifted, one end expanding while another contracted, before snapping back into its original configuration. She could somehow tell that motion meant that he was surprised, although if asked she wouldn’t be able to explain why.

She smiled at him, relishing his surprise as much as she could through the pain. It felt petty, but she wondered how he liked being a lower level than they were instead of the other way around.

Speaking of that, what level was Thomas, anyway? They hadn’t talked much on the walk back to camp, both being too preoccupied with watching out for any other goblins and trying to deal with their injuries.

Thomas Hargrove: [Human (F) / Magician] - Level 4

Yeah, that was about what she had expected. She was glad that he had also reached level four; he deserved it for dealing with that archer solo.

James Buckley seemed to snap out of his surprise, and walked over to them. “You look like you’ve been through hell. Come with me to the lodge and I’ll send Aaron to get the healer," he motioned at the leather-clad man, who was apparently named Aaron.

Aaron Smith: [Human (F) / Warrior] - Level 1

She considered for a second, and looked over at Thomas. Well, it’s not like they had any choice in the matter. They needed a healer for their injuries, and he was offering that if they came with him. She pushed down her dislike and nodded at him, then started walking after him with Thomas by her side. Buckley talked briefly to Aaron, and then started to lead them to the lodge, whatever that was.

The lodge wasn’t very far away. It was the biggest building that she had seen in the camp, and looked like it used to be the main building before the camp was abandoned. The lodge’s windows were as missing or shattered as the rest of the cabins, but the single door looked sturdy at least.

Buckley went in first and held the door open for them, and closed it after they both entered. Aaron had disappeared sometime during their short trip to the broken-down lodge.

She looked around, interested in the building in spite of herself. She hadn’t actually set foot in one of the buildings in the camp yet. She wasn’t impressed by what she saw. Whatever it used to be, the building was now mostly empty. The big room they were in seemed smaller than it should because of the debris scattered around the room. Old broken chairs, smashed barrels, and other broken furnishings littered the room. The only intact object in the room was a large table in the center of the room with a few chairs scattered around it.

She sat down in one of the few remaining chairs, wincing at the pain that her injury caused her as she sat down. Thomas slumped down into the chair next to her, clearly exhausted.

Buckley clapped his hands together and moved to stand in front of them. “So! What exactly did you two get yourselves into?” he asked.

Karolina looked at the splintery table in front of her, unsure how to answer. For some reason, she felt like she was a child, being called into the principal’s office to explain her misbehavior.

Before she could decide what to say, Thomas sat up straighter and spoke up. “We killed five goblins.”

He sounded proud, and you know what? They should be proud. She sat up straighter, too. She didn’t do anything wrong, and she wasn’t under Buckley’s authority.

“Interesting,” Buckley said, and seemed content to leave it at that. Within a few minutes, the door creaked open and a blonde woman wearing a white robe hesitantly pushed open the door.

“Hello? I was told that there were people who needed my—oh my goodness, what happened?" she rushed into the room, the door swinging shut behind her. She got to Thomas first, and held up his injured arm to get a closer look at it, prompting a hiss of pain.

“Oh! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you!” she exclaimed, dropping his arm, causing another hiss.

Karolina stared. This was the best healer that Buckley could find?

Selena Lewis: [Human (F) / Healer] - Level 2

Buckley cleared his throat. “Ah, yes. This is Karolina and Thomas, and they went out to fight monsters this afternoon. It would be great if you were able to heal them.”

“Of course!” Selena held her hands up next to Thomas’s arm. A white mist appeared between her palms and started to go into his wound. Thomas looked down at the mist in fascination.

Selena kept up a steady stream of chatter as she healed him. “You guys really went out to fight? I can’t imagine doing that. That’s actually why I chose to become a healer, because it explicitly said that the class was about helping others and not about fighting. You must be very brave. And—oh, you’re done."

She moved over to Karolina next, kneeling down so she could access her injury. Selena bit her lip as she saw the gash, and then manifested the white light over her injury. The relief was instant, and she watched as the wound slowly closed, absentmindedly listening to Selena chatter on.

Selena eventually got back to her feet, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. Karolina noticed that she seemed tired, but was still trying to be chipper. “Well, all done. Glad I could help!”

“Thank you Selena. You can go now, I understand that you’ve had a long day,” Buckley said. She smiled at everyone and then left as quickly as she had entered.

She didn’t know whether it was the healing, or just the opportunity to finally have a conversation with James Buckley, but she felt a new surge of energy. Looking over at Thomas, he apparently felt the same, as he was leaning forward and staring intently at Buckley. He felt their attention, but just stood there, waiting for them to speak first.

Thomas looked at her, content to follow her lead here as he had with the goblins. She considered what she wanted to say. They could talk about the goblins, or how he had seemingly elected himself leader of the camp, or she could even try to toady up to him to get some benefits out of him. She didn’t really want to talk about any of those topics, though. Especially not that last one: that was not who she was going to be in this new world.

She finally opened her mouth and talked about what bothered her the most about him. “It’s not going to work. Escaping the tutorial, I mean. The System, as Thomas put it earlier, is close enough to omnipotent that we have no chance in opposing it,” she said.

He stayed silent for a moment, considering, and then spoke, his voice impassioned. “I don’t believe that. We can’t think like that. I don’t know if it is possible to get back to our old lives, but I know that we have to try. Maybe there is no way to directly oppose the System, but there is no reason that we can’t try to regain what we have lost. Our families are out there somewhere, waiting for us to reach them. We can’t give up on them, or on our old lives."

She thought about her parents, about how they were dealing with this, and then realized with a start that this was the first time they had even crossed her mind since this had all started. She had been so caught up in the excitement of it all that her family had fallen completely to the wayside. Was she a bad daughter?

Realistically, there wasn’t anything that she could do for them. Just based on probability, they almost certainly weren’t in her tutorial, so she was fully cut off from them. Were they in a tutorial of their own? Were they in danger? Were they going to die—she couldn’t do this.

She loved them, but she couldn’t keep worrying about them—it would drive her mad. She needed to try to avoid thinking about it.

Instead, she thought about what Buckley was saying. If she had loved her old life, would she feel the same as he did? No, she didn’t think so. While it was impossible to know how this hypothetical “other her'' would feel, she hoped that any version of her would be smart enough to recognize when the world had fundamentally changed and be brave enough to accept it.

Also, Buckley had a clear bias. In the old world, he had been a Senator in charge of millions, while here he was barely in charge of a few hundred. That was definitely coloring his opinion.

She looked over at Buckley, who was patiently waiting for her to respond, and finished organizing her thoughts.

“I don’t agree. The world has fundamentally changed, and we need to change with it. We need to learn how to best take advantage of the rules of this new world, same as we all did in the old world. What we don’t need to do is try desperately to return to our old lives, because that will be fruitless and disappointing," she said.

He looked disappointed for a second, but then his face shifted back to the pleasant neutrality that it had held for the entirety of the conversation thus far. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree."

She made a noncommittal noise, and Thomas just continued to sit there silently. She could sense that he wanted to speak up, but something about Buckley made his courage desert him. Personally, she wasn’t going to be scared of anything after charging headlong at a group of bloodthirsty goblins, but maybe that was just her being weird.

“Anyway, just because I don’t think we should be wholeheartedly embracing this new world doesn’t mean that I think we should ignore it. I want you both to work together with me to ensure that this camp will survive this new world,” Buckley continued.

“What exactly does that mean?” she asked.

Buckley took a few seconds to think before he responded. “I haven’t ironed out all the details yet. Right now all I want is for you to share with me whatever insights you gained from your fight today, as you are the only people that have actually fought in this new world. I also want a commitment from both of you to join the camp leadership that I’m putting together. We don’t know enough about this world yet for any real action plans to be developed.”

Her gut reaction was to say no. She didn’t like or trust Buckley. Something about him just seemed false. She wasn’t sure if he was an enemy, but he was definitely still an obstacle. However, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t be useful to her. He was the current leader of the camp (there was no getting around that), so at least for now she needed to work with him in order to get things done.

However, she had to make something clear first. “I have one condition."

Buckley looked pleased. “Name it."

“We don’t work for you, we work with you. That means that you don’t order us around, but that we work together to figure out what is best for everyone and then do that."

Buckley nodded. “That seems reasonable enough."

He had answered too quickly for her liking. She needed to make her position absolutely clear. She was never again going to give up on her dreams and accept being a lackey to anyone.

“I want to make sure that we’re completely clear on this. We’ll join your leadership team, and we’ll try our best to help out the camp, but we are not your subordinates. You don’t order us around, ever."

Buckley was staring at her without speaking, visibly irritated. “I already said that I agreed,” he said. He took a deep breath, and then his face reset to the pleasant mask that it had been for the entire conversation thus far.

She stared at him for a moment, and then nodded, sure that he had gotten the message. “That’s all I have. Thomas, do you want to add anything?” Karolina asked.

Thomas started a little, surprised at being addressed. He had been mostly ignored in the conversation thus far, which she felt bad about, but he could have spoken up earlier if he had wanted to.

“I—I just want to make sure that I’m not sent out to fight monsters before I’m ready. We barely managed to survive today, and I want to learn more about my skills and practice more before I fight anything else,” Thomas said.

Buckley looked a little surprised, then he beamed a full smile at Thomas. “I’m sure that won’t be an issue. Don’t worry, son, I’ll make sure that you only have to fight if and when you’re ready."

Thomas looked grateful. She couldn’t believe it: when had Thomas become such a coward? Wow, that was a terrible thought. He had saved her life today, he deserved the benefit of the doubt.

Besides that, though, he was ceding way more power to Buckley than she had wanted them to. He had just implied that Buckley was the one who made the decision on when they went out into the woods, which wasn’t true. She would have to talk with him about that.

“Well, now it seems like we have some information sharing to do, don’t we?” Buckley smiled.

They explained how they traveled along the overgrown path until they reached a clearing with a single goblin in it, and how after killing that goblin they defeated another four goblins. Karolina talked about their weaponry and basic tactics, while Thomas explained how they only took a few good hits before dying.

In turn, Buckley explained the current state of the camp. There were forty-seven serviceable shacks in the camp, in addition to the lodge and a few other buildings. That sounded like a lot until you realized both the small size of the shacks and that that meant more than four people to a shack. People were doing the best they could for today, but tomorrow efforts to make more housing were going to start, led by a Builder named Robert.

There was also something called a Satiety Generator in the center of the camp. People had found, using the inspect skill, that the generator caused every living thing within a certain radius to not need food or water. That explained why she hadn’t been hungry or thirsty yet, at least.

Next, he started talking about the current important individuals in the camp. Apparently, Selena was the only Healer in the camp. Aaron was a Warrior who was going to be working as Buckley’s personal assistant and aide. There was a Scout in the camp, Ada King, who had stepped up to say that she was going to map out the surrounding area.

There was also a Blacksmith, Jorge, who was trying to get the abandoned forge that the camp apparently had into working order. Besides that, while he was sure that there were others with interesting classes or skills, no one else had stepped up and he wasn’t able to conduct a census or force people to contribute.

On the whole, the camp was apparently holding together well, but not many people seemed to want to contribute yet. He was hoping that that would change as people accepted the reality of their situation.

After he finished his explanation, Buckley smiled again. “Well, this was helpful for me, and hopefully it was helpful for you. I look forward to working with you both tomorrow. You both can stay here for as long as you need to, and I’m confident that our little housing crisis will start being resolved tomorrow. The first official meeting of camp leadership is in one week, but if you need to see me sooner I live in the shack next to the Satiety Generator. Have a good night.”

Giving a short wave, he turned around and walked out the door.

She and Thomas sat there and looked at each other. He seemed to be almost vibrating in his seat. He had patiently waited for Buckley to finish explaining how the camp was working, but now it was clear that he had something to say.

“I’m sorry that I’m not ready to go out into the woods with you again. I don’t know how you dealt with it so well, but we nearly died. You were so fearless, charging in, but I was scared out of my mind!”

She wasn’t fearless. She remembered back to her dread before they went out to fight the goblin, and how much she wanted to run when the other goblins showed up. That wasn’t what Thomas needed to hear, though.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. You might have been scared, but that didn’t stop you from saving both of us when you needed to,” she said.

Thomas didn’t look convinced, and continued talking. “I have two skills, Mana Bolt and Convert Mana, and I don’t even know how to use one of them. I need to spend more time practicing before I can even consider going out again."

She smiled at him. “That makes sense. I should also spend some time learning more about my skills before getting into another life-threatening situation. We’re a team. I won’t force you to do anything that you don’t want to do."

He looked relieved, and then started looking around at the ruined lodge. “Wait. We’re sleeping here tonight?”

“Apparently,” Karolina said, looking unhappily at the cluttered room.

“Well, that sucks,” he said.

“Yup, but it’s better than nothing," she sighed, and then went to find somewhere that she could sleep without being too uncomfortable. It had been a long day, and she was looking forward to finally getting some sleep.