Surviving as a Broken Hero

“Has there been any news through the Association?” Koise asked.

Eileen shook her head. “No. Even the guild channels are silent, but we can at least still update bounties.” She gave me a pointed glance.

I frowned and said, “Surely you’ve sent someone to investigate.”

“We did… but anyone who gets a bit past the halfway point never comes back.”

“So you think it’s a coordinated blockade?” I asked.

Still, that wouldn’t have made sense. Even if whatever it was wanted the city that badly, wouldn’t the central cities just have sent their forces to break through after the first ambush?

Eileen shrugged. “Who’s to say? I’ve had enough trouble trying to put this place back together. We can’t afford to lose anyone else. Not anyone who actually listens to me, anyway.”

Koise placed a hand on my shoulder. “First things first, then. Let’s get that bounty taken off your head and see if I can’t reach anyone in the guild.”

He headed toward the Association building with Eileen. Notably, nobody brought up Alikr’s betrayal. He was still out there somewhere, perhaps near the City on the Edge.

The blockade, or whatever was happening to the supply caravans and scouts, was very unlikely to be his doing, at least. He was a problem for a different time.

Left to my own devices while the others continued organizing the refugee Unawakened, I gathered some basic supplies in an old-fashioned pack and headed toward the gates. Enchanted items were of no use to me, after all.

I’d gotten used to others being able to use their mana to activate things for me, but it was strange not having basic access to a magical bag or even being able to turn lights on with a simple influx of mana.

It was a disadvantage of the second system I’d almost forgotten about.

The comfort of a warm bed would have to wait. The city needed supplies, and a little notification in the corner of my vision only confirmed that something was afoot.

⟬Clear the road to the central cities.⟭

[Investigate the blockade.]

Oddly enough, both systems were giving pretty much the same quest.

I walked back down the main road and stopped at the gate to look over the road heading through the forest.

“You’re not headed out, are you?” the sole guard still stationed at the gate asked.

I nodded at him. “Yeah. Someone has to figure out the supply issue, after all.”

He scratched his head. “Well… good luck with that. I’ve seen a few groups not come back over the past few days.”

Was he talking about those who’d gone farther toward the central cities?

“Thanks for the warning.” I took a deep breath and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my face.

A moment later, I took off running, far faster than a carriage would’ve taken me—maybe as fast as one of the cars we’d left behind on Earth. My hair whipped at my face in the wind. Rather than a blur, the world looked clear around me, even at that speed.

The increase in Perception was already paying off.

I spotted the odd goblin or two waiting by the road in ambush, but they weren’t worth the effort. Any sort of organized group or caravan would’ve just mowed down a regular goblin ambush.

In fact, I doubted the goblins would’ve even tried. They may have been dumb, but they weren’t completely suicidal. There was a reason monsters didn’t just swarm toward cities all hours of the day.

A cool wind chill set in even while one smell after the other assaulted my senses and left just as quickly—some sort of skunk, fresh grass, dirt and dust, the stink of goblins.

There was a long way to go before I even reached the midway point.

My mind wandered during the run. The novelty of my new clarity only lasted for a while before my brain adapted and I ran almost on autopilot.

More specifically, something nagged at my mind.

‘Why are dungeon appearances coinciding with demon appearances?’

‘What are the Relics?’

‘Why do I have a second system, and what is it?’

‘How does the rest of humanity fare? Are only humans under attack?’

Much had happened since I Awakened, but the scope of my experience was still extremely limited. I’d never even been to a central city, after all. Yet there I was, running to the halfway point between Karfana and the true hallmarks of human settlement in the new world.

If things were as bad as I feared, we needed to be more proactive. It was unlikely that the demons were only after Karfana, after all. I’d seen signs of them in the northern caves and outside the City on the Edge.

That meant there was some sort of coordinated attack. I hoped it wasn’t the case, but I suspected the demons were at play with the latest supply problem as well.

Alikr had been charged with going to the central cities and informing them of the threat, but surely someone else had made it there since then and told them of our situation. What if more external cities were under the same sort of attack? What if the demons had infiltrated the central cities themselves?

Even more unimaginable in scope… what if it wasn’t a human-exclusive issue? Just how many of them could there have been, and how long had they been planning their attack?

Above it all was a feeling of grim hopelessness.

‘How can I possibly make a difference?’

I was only a single, new Awakener in a world filled with different species and far more experienced Awakeners. I had something different in the form of the second system, but could I be sure that nobody in the world had the same type of thing?

I shook the thoughts from my head as I approached the clearing in the trees I’d been told marked the midway point. I wouldn’t receive answers by speculating. It felt like there was a large puzzle before me where some of the pieces were clicking into place, but I simply didn’t have the other pieces.

Therefore, I surmised that there were only a few concrete things I could do. I had to gather more information on the demons, particularly how widespread they were, which meant I needed to visit the central cities.

I needed to solve the supply problem so I could go on such a trip in peace.

Finally, I needed to figure out the source of their command structure. Who was coordinating all of it—and from where?

The trees parted before me to reveal a large clearing of packed dirt with a small stone building to the side of the road, intended for people to rest during the journey.

Above the trees around the clearing, the sun’s orange luminescence filtered through the leaves, casting its final rays of light over the horizon and taking its warmth with it.

It still wasn’t nearly as cold as the north had been, but I felt the chill all the same.

Most surprisingly, though, was that there were no signs of violence or people.

I entered the small stone building, its ramshackle, rotting wooden door creaking open under my firm push. The interior was no more helpful than the exterior regarding clues on what’d happened to the caravans and scouting parties.

A firepit sat at the center, below a small opening in the ceiling for smoke. The flames had long since died, but the blackened remains of charcoal still resided in the pit. Dust and ash blanketed the room in a thin coat of gray. There were branches haphazardly piled up in the corner, presumably for the fire, but it didn’t look like anyone had been there in quite some time.

I sighed and sat down near the edge of the firepit, thinking. The blackened and gray debris in the pit stared back at me, waiting.

‘Should I wait until morning or continue on?’

Assuming I made it all the way to the central cities, it’d be deep into the night, even with how fast I could run. That wasn’t even to mention how exhausted I already felt. If I encountered whatever had made the caravans disappear along the way, I wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight.

I thought of myself, exhausted, a few more hours into the night and running across a demon ambush.

“I guess that answers the question,” I mumbled to the firepit.

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t return a reply of its own.

Thankfully, a fire-starting kit was in the pack I’d prepared before leaving. It wasn’t much more than a simple flint and steel because, again, I couldn’t use enchanted devices. However, man had used such tools for starting fires since the dawn of civilization.

It didn’t disappoint.

A fire sputtered to life within a gathering of leaves, branches, and some larger logs someone had roughly cut apart that I piled in the small pit.

I reached out with my heat senses and tugged gently at the flames, spreading them through the leaves and dried wood faster than they would’ve gone on their own. Eventually, I was able to coax the fire into a steady crackle and flickering orange flame that cast dark shadows over the stone walls.

My muscles slowly relaxed, and just as I was drifting between sleep and the waking world, the door swung open behind me.