Chapter 198: Road Tripping (Patreon)

Neon had no idea what he was in for. A storm was cooking. He should have had an inkling that it would be coming, since he had been the root cause of its development, but he was blissfully ignorant. Even if he was anticipating it to some extent, he couldn’t be prepared for the full consequences of his actions.

Platinum was dutifully making her way back to the city he had christened Neon Park. Once she returned to her home, she planned to take out all of her built up frustrations on the Champion that sent her away. He was aware she wouldn’t willingly play the role of Neon Park’s emissary, especially for such a long period of time, but he’d roped her into the arduous task anyway, declaring her as the only one he could trust and showering her with rare compliments until she reluctantly agreed.

After the assignment grew exponentially more difficult with the confirmed proximity of another super settlement in Silvervalley and the apparent formation of the Pacific Republic, Platinum was obligated to follow the leads and investigate further. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Her task was meant to be a simple, but long trip, where she merely applied her unique travel abilities to navigate all the way to Colorado from New York City. At her supposed destination, all she needed to do was relay an invitation to Camila Alvarez for her to return home by request of her grandmother. If she ran into anyone else of reasonable prominence, such as a Champion from another settlement, Neon had his own messages prepared that were intended to open diplomatic channels in the future. That he had sent her on the cross country road trip and not Carlos seemed to be because he had anticipated making contact with other settlements besides the one they were looking for.

“If he tries to get me to go to Australia, I’m seriously kicking his ass.” She grumbled into the whipping wind as she shot through the frigid night, south of the ‘Great Lake’. “You’ll be in the finding out phase soon enough, Neon!” She shouted into the wind, letting her voice echo across grass and trees that had been dusted by freezing mist that developed over the lake’s cold expanse.

Somewhere in Brooklyn, the subject of her normally friendly animosity felt an unusual chill and shivered involuntarily before glancing over his shoulder.

For the last forty days, Platinum had been traipsing across the entire continent, making connections all the way to the West Coast. Considering how simple her task was meant to be, it had clearly grown into something truly absurd. Thankfully, her road trip was coming to an end soon enough. She hated to admit it, but the journey was a productive one. Neon was right to make her do it, but that didn’t excuse him from her annoyance.

The vast majority of time, Platinum had been simply traveling by herself, passing through abandoned suburbia with its emptied parking lots dotted with pioneering weeds and derelict vehicles, collapsed empty strip malls, and criss-crossing highways that led to the next concrete island full of deteriorating pavement and crumbling signs. In between, the scenery would transition into vast swathes of overgrown woodland filled to the brim with magnificent trees of impossible scale, grand snow capped mountains, rocky temperate hills with brush lining bubbling creeks, enormous windswept plains, arid chilly highlands, and dry cactus-spotted deserts. Nature had never really appealed to her before, but there were moments where the majesty of the terrain left her with a sense of awe. It was certainly better than the neglected cookie cutter sprawl that she found herself following for so much of the time.

However, the scenery was mainly dominated by something else. Most of all, she was traversing across abandoned farmland.

Sometimes it was flat. Sometimes it was hilly. Maybe it was rocky or maybe it was terraced. Most of them were rectangular, but plenty were arranged in enormous circles or other geometric shapes. They were dotted with abandoned machinery, broken fences, and random clusters of buildings. The farmlands were hot, cold, dry, humid, or dusty, but they were all the same in the end. The fields were covered with lush grasses, plain clumpy dirt, leafy bushes, mounds of snow, or towering trees intent on pioneering new areas. They were full of insects, flocks of birds, and frequently bordered by herds of livestock, but generally, they were occupied by monsters.

Sometimes they were monotonously planted with a single species of resilient leafy green crops. Other times, they were sectioned off into large strips of prepared dirt, waiting for seeds, but there were so, so many farms. Platinum was sick and tired of farms.

“Whole damn country is overgrown farms.” She grouched as she flew across yet another flat square. This one was lined with small mounds that had been covered in a thin layer of snow with the entire field surrounded by a ditch on the interior of a simple wooden fence. It was the same as ten thousand other fields she had traveled over.

“At least I saw the world’s largest coffee mug.” She grumbled, though she secretly enjoyed many of the random roadside attractions that had caught her attention for brief moments.

What Platinum found annoying about the farms was that the fields were basically the perfect habitat for Primal Constructs. Even animals had a hard time reclaiming them, unless they were the smaller evasive species that could avoid the predator-like aliens that seemed happy to move in. Almost none of the rural farmlands had been conducive to continued human survival with the caretakers abandoning their charges almost universally.

She suspected there was something about the industrialized monocultures that the civilization shards avoided in the first place. Almost all of the settlements she had visited were established in parks or other greenspaces near denser human developments. Her own home was also an example of the shard landing in a park surrounded by a city.

The monotony of disused human development, whether urban, suburban, or rural, was frequently broken up by the reclamation of vegetation, but the biggest changes were in topographical features that had been altered at the start of the assimilation.

Rivers swelled to impossible widths, forcing her to detour hundreds of miles to find a crossing unless she was more inclined to swim with whatever infested the waters. Lakes spilled beyond their banks and transformed dead cities into permanently flooded disaster areas as buildings eroded and foundations sank. Mountains expanded from mere hills as if the stone had an uncontrollable urge to touch the sky, ripping through smooth ground, and growing tall enough to encourage Platinum to circle their bases to the amusement of distant eagles perched above. Chasms had formed where simple valleys had once existed, mirroring some of the most unique features of the North American landscape in unexpected places. The Illinois Grand Canyon was one of many surprises that Platinum found on her road trip. The world changed in many ways, with mana, magic, and monsters, but the geography wasn’t to be outdone.

There was no one that could keep up with her pace, so the journey ended up being a supremely lonely mission, leaving her to simply observe the numerous changes and make note of landmarks as she passed through.

Platinum was on high alert for the entire duration of her trip. She had a healthy respect for the Primal Construct’s potential, but they were more of a constant background concern. She was also moving at such a rapid speed, it was a bit like flying a wingsuit across the surface of the continent. If she lost concentration, she could risk a devastating crash. Her abilities could only save her if she casted them in time.

She manipulated her solidlights to turn them into grappling hooks that attached themselves at what she assumed was the speed of light, then used them to launch herself through the air and across the landscapes at speeds that were difficult to manage. She guessed she was pushing over 100 miles per hour whenever she got cruising. The intensity of her mode of transportation required her to watch for obstructions as well as plan the next position for a solidlight at all times. The visor she wore across her face wasn’t only a fashion choice fit for a rave; it was because she barely had time to blink.

The short breaks she took when offered the hospitality of friendly settlements weren’t enough to provide her with moments to relax. None of them could match the familiar comfort of her old raggedy couch in Neon’s Brooklyn brownstone, and no matter how friendly the hosts were on the outside, she always felt the need to keep one eye open. Security was the luxury she had grown to miss the most while away from home. The world was a crazy place, full of nightmares and strife, and she didn’t implicitly trust anyone other than Neon, the treacherous bastard.

She flicked her head to the side, freeing long strands of her silvery hair from where they were caught on her ear, letting them whip behind as she reflected on the trip.

Even the friendliest people she met, those she would call her favorites, had shot at her when they first noticed her presence, believing she was some kind of alien invader. They shot first and asked questions later: a reasonable policy in times like these. She didn’t hold the aggression against them, given the apocalypse and all. If the roles were reversed, she would have done the same. Luckily, she was strong enough to avoid serious danger from most of the people she encountered.

If it wasn’t for the quest chains to defeat monsters giving her much needed levels, Platinum would have fallen behind during her journey. Wasting so much time traversing emptied land rather than patrolling back home left a void in her leveling experience.

Surprisingly, she had encountered half a dozen different monster variants and had actually increased the rate that she was leveling with easy quest completions. The quest chains filled the void of her regular patrols. They hadn’t been enough to embed herself back into the top 10, but she wasn’t being left behind, even by those who appeared to be working hard to gain experience, like Hai Yun.

At least her assessment held true for everyone except the person that had snagged the top spot and ran away with it. The best thing about not finding Ghost Reef was avoiding an encounter with the highest level on the planet. Platinum believed that removing the threat of a bigger fish had a tendency to bring out the worst in people, convincing them that they could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, to whoever they wanted.

She figured the guy was a complete freak that might as well be another alien. If she could help it, she would avoid meeting him without Neon teaming up with her, just in case they needed to fight. As far as she was concerned, Coop would be treated as a boss monster until she was convinced otherwise, and she typically avoided the boss types when she could, which, thanks to her mobility, was most of the time.

Platinum was strong, but she wasn’t ‘beat people who might double her level’ strong. Deadly wasn’t exactly a description she would have attributed to herself at all before mana mutated the natural hierarchies of nature, but after it arrived, reassessments were necessary. She had the lethality to push every random monster quest to the third and sometimes fourth stage as she moved through the wilderness, barely slowing down. However, sometimes enemies required teamwork. Killing the regular monsters that entered her range only took simple solidlight beams as she drifted through the air. Boss monsters would need a tad bit more attention and potential allies.

A brief glance at her status while she launched herself across the sky revealed each of the monsters she had found through their quest progress. Her quest log was actually a mess of incomplete tasks: Defeat Ancient Drones III (112/250), Defeat Ruin Scuttlers IV (52/5000), Defeat Ancient Serpents III (17/250), Defeat Ancient Sparkers IV (267/5000), Defeat Primal Defenders IV (176/5000), Defeat Ancient Chargers IV (22/5000), Defeat Ruin Golems IV (802/5000), and Defeat Primal Golems IV (2287/5000). The fact that she had found nearly the exact same monster in two separate locations felt like a scam.

Why couldn’t they be the same monster? She would have been much closer to completing at least one of the fourth chains, but no, the system had to copy the Golems in the flat windy farmlands of Kansas and paste them in the dry deserts at the edge of the scraggly farms near California. They gave them a different coat of paint and slightly lankier shape, then called them different. The monsters went from harvest golems to scarecrows, but functioned almost identically. The repetition seemed cheap.

She made a childish face, mocking the system for its lack of diversity before sighing, moving on, already exhausted from her own complaints. She sent another solidlight forward into the side of a barn, and pulled herself up and over, building momentum for the next few seconds. The world blurred as she rushed ahead.

She expected to abandon the quests soon enough. They only remained for posterity’s sake, so she could have a full and accurate list to rub Neon’s face in the challenges she faced. It would take a proper accounting to be suitably rewarded. She figured sabbatical for the next 20 years would be enough to calm her down.

Platinum never remained in any specific monster’s territory for very long, so none of the quest chains had been completed. She was always concerned with encountering Field Bosses on her own. Running through the first few stages of each quest might actually be a viable strategy for piling on the experience, but it would only work for someone like her. Platinum’s skills made her travel speeds unrivaled by anyone she had met. While she was confident in her combat potential, it was her ability to travel that she believed was at the peak of humanity.

“Stupid Neon.” She grumbled again. “Taking advantage of my class.”

A month before her transcontinental trip, she had been worried about running into wild elites, and avoided unnecessary excursions to diminish the chances of encountering the evolved monsters. Still, Neon relied on her to attend to the appeals of their neighbors. After the long cross country trip, her own power had grown to the point where a single elite would need to be exceedingly tough to give her difficulties. Most of the time, they barely made her slow down, but she preferred to ignore them.

Unfortunately, the Primal Constructs weren’t done with their development. There were new, bigger threats to worry about, ones that kept her looking over her shoulder as she shot below the starry night sky. If the monster variants had topped out their evolutions at elites, she would have ceased feeling the same wariness.

There had been more than one example of the type of monster she avoided while she traveled. Platinum discovered at least as many bosses as monster variants. Most seemed to park themselves in a particularly suitable location to allow their influence to spread passively, but several were roaming on their own, possibly still in search of a proper nest or whatever it was they were doing when they stayed still. She regularly fled, rerouting her trip to avoid confrontation with the larger specimens. There was no point in her testing them by herself, and she assumed they would be territorial and too much for an individual to duel.

Platinum headed home via a more northern route through the Midwest, specifically to avoid the boss monsters that were more likely to be found near her original route. The route she had taken from the East Coast essentially bordered the South and what was now defined as the Fallen Zone due to the dominance of the monsters within. Naturally, she circumvented the threat by putting distance between herself and the more dangerous area.

But before she underwent the final leg of her journey, she visited what was becoming her own personal crossroads in the middle of America. When she stopped in the Heartland settlement for a second time, leaving the West behind and checking in on Alex Nova and his little community, they had an encounter with exactly the type of monster she wanted to avoid.

Shortly after she arrived in Kansas for the second time, a Primal Golem called Aruktai the Life Reaper drifted from the Fallen Zone and threatened the settlement’s continued survival. The watchers noticed it well before it reached their perimeter. They had incredibly long, uninterrupted sight lines, and Aruktai wasn’t exactly a creature designed for stealth. The sniper on the water tower was already taking shots by the time the alarms went off. They were thrust into combat with the invading Field Boss and the entire resident population was forced to join in.

Alex Nova’s family was well-supported by the Pacific Republic, increasing reinforcements while Platinum explored the West, but it was still a dangerous situation to face a Field Boss. Conveniently for them, the boss was rather simplistic. It was a large intimidating robot that was easily led around the open fields surrounding the settlement while dozens of ranged attackers chipped away at it, including Platinum.

The Golem Field Boss was a hulking machine that towered over their heads with a basic display of functional power, stomping forward like a hulking metal behemoth. It seemed to be patched together by various mismatched metal plates that formed a bulbous, neckless body with a thick barrel-shaped head. Every movement was accompanied by the clanging of its rumbling body. Scythe-like blades extended like fingers from its hands forming the monster’s primary weapons. Both thick arms ended with several of the blades fanning out. The boss would clumsily swing in wide horizontal attacks like it was clumsily harvesting wheat.

Each blow was powerful enough to shatter one of her solidlight plates, but its armor wasn’t sturdy enough to withstand her own retaliatory attacks. The layers of armor were held together by visible stitches and easily punctured by her solidlight beams, though they held against most other projectiles.

The boss shook off the damage, continuing its lumbering pursuit on its powerful legs while bullets constructed of mana ricocheted into the dirt after sending sparks across its chest. If the settlement had relied on walls, the boss would have been a perfect battering ram, but instead they fought in the plains where it had no advantage.

Flames scattered off its form, failing to leave a mark, but water jets managed to cause it to occasionally stumble by softening the ground beneath it. The monster didn’t truly slow down until Platinum punctured the glowing red embers beneath the lip of what could be mistaken for a hat.

Alex Nova was basically a superhero to the locals. He had also kept pace with the others on the leaderboard, thanks to the ramping threats to the settlement’s south, though he hadn’t quite caught up to Platinum. His role in the fight was to keep the monster’s attention by engaging with it in melee range, giving it a convenient target while evading the long blades and countering when it caught up to him. Ultimately he was the one that finished the monster off, blasting the metal alien into pieces with a massive powered up punch after the boss had been weakened by their collective efforts.

The Heartland settlement were becoming experts at dealing with raids thanks to the regular boss action their shard was attracting, and with the help of the Pacific Republic, they appeared to be ready to thoroughly dig in as a beachhead against the Fallen Zone.

Platinum almost felt bad about leaving the settlement behind, but despite dreading so much more traveling, she had to say her goodbyes. The trip had already taken too long, and more than anything, she just wanted to be home.

After another several days, she was getting close. She could see Detroit in the distance, and knew it marked just another 100 miles until she reached the outer perimeter of their allied territories.