Chapter 297: Burdens (Patreon)

Coop watched as the army from Shinjuku Gardens begrudgingly vacated the Underlayer. Most realized that it wasn’t worth defying his order to leave and risking the consequences, having personally witnessed how easily he destroyed the Primal Constructs, but that didn’t stop them from stealing spiteful glances at him as they went. He let them see him, standing unbothered at their backs.

None of the soldiers had the right combination of courage and stupidity to test his resolve. Coop wondered if perhaps that was wisdom, but the truly wise wouldn’t have antagonized him, regardless of whatever prejudice they were operating with. They messed up by failing to embrace his aid the way so many others had. 

Coop simply waited, ignoring the event objective behind him, keeping his sword on his shoulder and his other hand on his hip. The Primal Constructs reclaimed the control point while the human soldiers retreated, sending a pulse of red light when it fully returned to the possession of the invaders.

The aliens would just have to wait for their turn. Meanwhile, the mass of humans streamed away, unnecessarily ceding ground to the enemy. It was almost symbolic of the assimilation as a whole.

Coop kept his eyes on the soldiers, making sure he was staring back whenever one of them turned to take another look at him. He didn’t feel any particular way about them. If they wanted him as their enemy, that was something they could choose for themselves. Presumably, they would know what they were getting into.

It seemed as though the representatives of Shinjuku Gardens didn’t have any particular desire to actually take control of the underground. Judging by the settlement’s negative score, they had already given up on clearing the invaders. They had only stayed in the Underlayer to ward people like Coop away.

After some time, when most of the people disappeared into a tunnel within the nearest giant stone column where they had evidently created a path that led to the surface, a disturbance occurred. People fled back into the underground, and as Coop watched the last portions of the masses congregate near the pillar, a muffled thump echoed across the underground, generated from within the stone.

The remnants of people trying to enter the column turned to escape while smoke and dust billowed away. They scattered, in all directions before stopping and regrouping.

It was as if some explosives had been used to destroy the internal path to the surface. Coop peered at the disorder, not knowing enough about the local settlement’s dynamics to make any real judgment.

Coop didn’t care about their access to the Underlayer, but the evacuation seemed incomplete given the people stumbling away from the enormous stone column. If they were trying to prevent him from following by destroying their path, their actions had been rather premature, not to mention poorly thought out. There were still nearly a thousand more people within the Underlayer that had scattered from the exit, slowly regrouping as the route back to the surface became obstructed.

He really didn’t think he had threatened the soldiers to the point of panic, so why had they gone and destroyed their own path? It wasn’t like he had revoked permission to enter the Underlayer forever, but maybe that was how they interpreted his opposition to their presence. That, or they really believed something so simple would be enough to prevent him from traveling to their settlement and wreaking havoc.

“Hm.” Coop hummed, rubbing his temple with a knuckle on his sword hand, wondering what he would do with the people they left behind. He had already exhausted his patience with the soldiers.

The old man had just been leaning on his walking stick, sagely minding his own business up to that point, but as Coop tried to figure out why the soldiers had prematurely closed the door to their settlement, he sighed rather dramatically. Coop finally turned, giving the old man his attention.

“You’ve put me in a bad spot.” The man complained once Coop was facing him. “You don’t intend to kill me as well, do you?”

Coop raised an eyebrow. “It wasn’t on my schedule, no.”

The man sighed again, acting like he was disappointed to have to keep living. He gazed upon the collection of people that were slowly closing the distance from the pillar. They appeared to be moving directly toward the pair. Coop joined the man in observing the crowd.

The freshly dusted clothes of the remnants weren’t as uniform as the rest of the soldiers, but they moved as one decently-sized group, and Coop suspected they shared some affiliation just by the way they looked after each other. Perhaps one of the Chosen factions disagreed with following an outsider’s directions and intended to make a stand against him. Coop adjusted his grip, relieving the tension in his fingers.

“Why’d they leave so many people behind? Those the ones that want to fight me?” Coop wondered out loud, hoping the old man could provide some context for his settlement’s actions. The people had never actually left the range of his spear throws, after all. Coop could start the battle at any moment.

“Those must be the fools that have been calling themselves the Keepers of the Mountain.” The man reluctantly explained. “You won’t need to fight them.”

“Hm.” Coop grunted. He would decide for himself once they drew closer. “Some internal conflict, then?” He asked, still wondering why they were excluded from the evacuation.

“Yes, internal conflict.” The man responded, seeming like he was constantly exasperated. Coop patiently waited for him to elaborate, turning his head and insisting just a bit with his expression, not entirely sure if the man could use mana to perceive it. 

The old man shook his head before he finally gave in, acknowledging Coop and proving he had some aura sense replacing his vision.

“The clans in power have all claimed affiliations with alien factions as another way of differentiating themselves. Ever since the Kitawa party left with the foreigners, the unaffiliated residents have been slowly isolated from society, forced to either pick sides to bolster the clans or be seen as lacking dedication to the settlement on the whole.” The man made a disgruntled sound, clearly stubborn enough himself to refuse to join in the face of any threats. “During this event the Unchosen that hadn’t yet joined one of the clans were given an ultimatum to join or leave. The Keepers of the Mountain would be the last group of Unchosen, as the clans wouldn’t have been able to force them to choose. They’re the ones that have been bothering me these days.” The old man slowly shook his head, acting as if they were a real headache.

Coop opened his mouth to ask about some specifics, but the old man lifted his staff up to shush him. “Nu uh! Don’t ask. Whatever it is, I don’t know. I just wanted to take care of my tomato plants. Those people are a pain in my neck.”

“Heh.” Coop chuckled, once again feeling kinship with the old guy. “Fine, fine. I’ll take you home with me and give you a little garden. How’s that sound?” Coop persisted, definitely seeing the hermit like a grumpy stray cat. He only received more grumbling in response.

“What should I call you, anyway?’ Coop wondered, not wanting to keep calling him old man. That was a designation reserved for Jones back home.

“Don’t call me at all.” The man insisted.

“I can name you.” Coop generously offered.

“Please do not.” The man quickly insisted.

Coop shrugged at him, finally turning his attention back to the Primal Constructs and the nearest control point. The Elites looked ready for battle. He hummed to himself, reconsidering his goals in the face of the new developments.

Coop wanted to kill monsters, and normally that was a desire without any real drawbacks. There was hardly a scenario where his actions would become an issue. However, the Primal Constructs assaulting the territory beneath Shinjuku Gardens were developing into a rather unique case.

The forward army of approximately three quarters of a million Elite Primal Constructs had arranged themselves into rectangular formations across the first control point. They were facing Coop, shields up, while their supporters generated bubble-like mana shields that rotated across the length of the field, lighting up then fading away while adjacent ones restarted the process. While the humans migrated to the column, the invaders had relocated to the objective and prepared for battle.

The way Coop saw it, there were two obvious negatives to defeating the rest of the alien invaders. The first was that it would give Shinjuku Gardens a better score, one that still might beat Ghost Reef’s, if barely. He could leave it alone and guarantee that his tiny island settlement would once again come out on top of a Settlement Event. Ghost Reef was currently number one, even after the final scores were calculated.

Coop shook his head, thinking that the score wasn’t a real problem as much as he was looking for excuses. He could just stop his grind if the scores actually became close, and that was if he decided it was more important to place first than it was to actually achieve a complete victory.

The second issue was that he was helping people that had clearly demonstrated themselves as antagonistic toward him and what he still saw as his people. Even though Coop had a faction now, his repeated denotation as Unchosen Champion hadn’t disappeared. In fact, the Lighthouse was meant to be a beacon for the Unchosen even more than for all humans, so throwing them out was a bit like an attack upon himself.

But even that wasn’t a good reason to stop and spare the invaders. Coop just wasn’t that spiteful. Leaving experience on the table and reducing his own progress in order to complicate other peoples’ assimilation was about as antithetical an action to his character as he could imagine. Coop wasn’t the type to cut off his nose in spite of his face.

“Hey, old man, how many people decided to leave instead of joining a faction?” Coop reopened the topic.

“How should I know?” The man responded. “Probably a lot since that’s what everyone thinks the sisters decided. They were important to the settlement. I believe many left specifically to try and find them, especially after recent rumors suggested they were down here. The idea of leaving became more appealing to the average person.”

When Coop looked at the old man questioningly, wondering what sisters he was referring to, the hermit shook his head. “Come on, the first thing you asked me was if I was Akari Kitawa, the younger sister.” He continued. “They are the main members of the Kitawa party.”

“Ah.” Coop muttered. “So that’s why they aren’t here.”

“It’s not exactly why, but it doesn’t matter. The mood of the settlement has been different ever since.” The old man added, wrapping up the discussion just in time for more people to join.

Shouts of “Senior!” in the distance had Coop turning toward the remnants of Shinjuku once again, letting the Constructs wait a few more moments. Coop watched as crowds of people noticed that one of the two figures they approached was the old man and were unabashedly excited to see him.

“Senior! Senior! You’re alive!” They cheered while he grumbled so that only Coop could hear.

The so-called Keepers of the Mountain were mostly Unchosen, and as Coop inspected them, they were on average closer to the old man’s level in the early 200s than to the low 100s of the rest of the soldiers. It was pretty strange that what seemed more like a random cross-section of young and old men and women, of all different social statuses, were more appropriately developed than the actual organized soldiers, but it seemed they had been kept more busy by the assimilation.

“Senior Warden! Look, I brought your seeds, just in case!” A teenager revealed, breaking ahead of the crowd, finally compelling a different expression from the old man.

The smile that snuck onto his wrinkled face disappeared when he realized the seeds had been stuffed into a fanny pack, mixing together so that it would be impossible to figure out what was what at a glance. He begrudgingly patted the kids shoulder and told him good job, despite his disappointment.

Coop smirked at the interaction, feeling like it revealed more about the old man than any of his words had demonstrated. Oddly enough, almost everyone else had a fanny pack as well. Some even had multiples clipped around their torsos, stacking them up.

“What’s with the fanny packs?” He wondered, unable to hold back his curiosity.

The nearest man glanced at the Senior Warden, as if asking for permission before unzipping one of his to show Coop the contents. Dozens of rare jewels glinted in the Underlayer light, swirling with various flavors of mana. They were obviously from a mana well. If everyone carried as many, they might have accumulated more than Ghost Reef had from the Coral Forest.

“Huh.” Coop acknowledged the collection. He should probably encourage the Adventurer’s Guild to push deeper into the caverns when he made it home.

“They are the treasures we harvested from the mana well.” The Senior Warden explained for Coop’s benefit, leaning onto his walking staff with pride.

“I can see that…” Coop mumbled before angling back to the old man. “Are you their leader or not?” Coop tried to get some clarification.

“No!” He responded immediately. “But they would get in my way if I didn’t keep them organized.”

Coop raised an eyebrow and the man that had revealed the treasures nodded at Coop’s query, confirming that the old man was in fact the leader, whether he liked it or not.

Coop chuckled to himself at the weird dynamic. He let himself relax a bit, thinking maybe this particular group of people were alright. Coop was calming down until a young lady holding a little triangular flag caught his attention in the back of the crowd. She was one of the few not paying him or the Senior Warden any mind. Coop noted what she was paying attention to, feeling his eyebrows furrow.

Further behind the rest of the people was a train of small children, all holding hands with each other. Several more of the unbroken chains started from various flag-bearing adults, all in the back of the crowd. They had been sent to the rear, protectively, in case Coop was hostile to them. Each child wore a red baseball cap and had a solid yellow backpack, many of which had live animals poking their heads from the top. Little shiba dogs and tabby cats peeked over the shoulders of kids barely older than preschoolers.

The sight was cute, but it instantly changed Coop’s mood. The Underlayer wasn’t a place for children. Who would send them into the abyss like that? It had him rethinking the mercy he had granted the Shinjuku soldiers.

“Hey, Senior.” Coop addressed the old man once again, grinding his teeth a bit, subconsciously. “Should I go kill all those Chosen?” He asked, feeling the heat rise within him. He could mistjump up their chasm and be back before the event ended, he just needed an excuse. “You wouldn’t need to leave your mountain.”

The Senior Warden grunted before speaking, as if the idea amused him. “Seems like a bother.” The old man responded, angling his face toward Coop as he realized the seriousness of the question, while sensing the Champion’s confident bloodlust. “Not all of them deserve death. Plenty of them are just trying to conform to an evolving society.” He added, realizing he should discourage what had seemed like an impossible action.

“They were pretty intent on having you dead, sending you to me.” Coop noted, still annoyed.

“I couldn’t care less.” The man declared.

It was Coop’s turn to grunt at the conversation. He turned back to the Primal Constructs. In the end, of course he was going to clear the aliens out, no matter how it impacted anything else. Coop couldn’t think of a worse feeling than leaving such a long journey unfinished at the last second. Nothing would be as unsatisfying as that. Besides, they would make a decent outlet for his rising bloodlust. Once all of the monsters were gone from the Underlayer, the danger would be diminished so that it wouldn’t be that bad of a place for supervised kids.

Coop nodded to himself, deciding to get on with it. “Why don’t you enjoy your reunion while I finish off the invaders?” Coop suggested to the Senior Warden, already turning to walk away.

Coop disappeared into a burst of mists as he mistjumped to his leftover shield, where it was sitting in the middle of the Primal Construct army that had reclaimed the first objective. The Senior Warden hadn’t even had a chance to express his desire for solitude.

When Coop reappeared, flickering through the world of mists, behind the strictly formed lines of Primal Constructs, he stopped holding back and went into action. He’d been on the verge of combat for a bit too long.

From where he appeared on one knee, he swept his sword across the legs of the nearest metallic enemies, then rolled forward, getting his feet underneath his body where he could bring the blade up and bisect a Spite Construct from behind.

As the two halves teetered toward the ground, emitting a stream of mana smoke, Coop stood tall, taking an aggressive stance while his sword and shield melted away and a heavy morning star manifested in the grip of his hands.

The elegance that he had developed on the first batch of Primal Constructs made way as the end of the heavy mace planted itself onto the ground with a splash of dirt, sounding like metal hammering earth. Coop imagined all of the burdens bolstering the weight of the manifestation.

“Just keep it simple.” Coop reminded himself, heaving the ethereal weapon toward his right shoulder and stepping forward.