Chapter 1382 (Patreon)

“Would you be willing to guide me to your home?” I asked, only to notice that these people were immediately on guard. “I’m merely curious about the lives of other communities; there are far too few people left after the Change,” I added, hoping to assuage some of their concerns. 

“Why do you want to know?” the older, angry woman asked. If she were a dog, I would think her hackles would be raised and her teeth bared, though the expression on her face wasn’t far from that anyway. 

“Curiosity, nothing more,” I repeated myself, already knowing that I almost certainly wouldn’t be welcome. Not unless I went through some trouble to assist them, beyond the material I had handed to the other woman. And even if I decided to assist them, it wasn’t a guaranteed thing, though there was always the option to covertly follow them.

“You’ll have to understand, we aren’t used to visitors,” the oldest guy, who might just be their leader, explained. His words were somewhat conciliatory, but his tone was firm, making it clear that he agreed with the angry woman's sentiment, if not with the way she had expressed it. 

“Not used to?” the guy apparently called Sunshine let out an amused snort, “We haven’t had any in almost two years. People managed to gather after everything went to pot, and those who didn’t find a place to call home didn’t make it much beyond the first two months or so.” 

“I’m well aware of that,” I sighed, “But just because people rarely travel these days, are we all just going to hunker down in small enclaves, rejecting anyone who comes along?” I paused, looking at the group before me. “What about people who need help? Is there no kindness, no charity, any longer?”

“Charity is for people who can afford it,” the oldest guy shrugged, trying to seem unbothered, but he didn’t seem happy with the situation. It reminded me of Maggie and the concessions I had to make to help me situate the people from the Blessed City. Even now, I was spending a lot more time than I would voluntarily commit to helping her community, be it through direct, large-scale magical construction or more delicate acts, mostly mental or physical healing. Similarly, Luna was rotating between the Nexus Tower and Maggie’s place, spending roughly equal time in both locations. Though since she had managed to create her rabbits, she had spent a lot more time in the Nexus Tower.

“How did civilisation prosper?” I asked, seemingly a complete non-sequitur. And in a way, it was, but it was also my best bet to convince these people to introduce me to their group. “What allowed us to go from methods of farming that had been virtually unchanged for millennia to the industry capable of sustaining billions?”

“What are you on about?” the angry woman replied, her voice somewhat annoyed but mostly confused. “Why lecture about the industrial revolution, or whatever point you want to make?”

“Because the point isn’t the industrial revolution but the open and free spread of ideas, especially during the Enlightenment. Educated people all over Europe were communicating freely, sharing ideas and methods. No great advance was solely made by a single person. They all came from numerous people creating their small bricks of knowledge and understanding that were assembled into something larger than any one person could create,” I explained, though I was quite aware that the system made some of that obsolete. Due to levels and an external system directly influencing innate characteristics and rewarding EXP for progress, the Great Man theory might suddenly gain a lot more traction. After all, by rewarding levels for progress, the system directly incentivised a certain egoism, though I was personally trying to spread knowledge rather than hoard it. 

“Well, you already handed that thing over,” she snarked, nodding towards the thin slates held in the other woman’s hands. “What else do you want?”

Shaking my head, I decided to leave things be at this point. The group as a whole was obviously not interested in going against the angry one's harsh words. Or maybe they agreed, but weren’t interested in putting their opinion out there, letting that one do the talking. 

No matter the reason, I clearly wasn’t about to change their minds, and, if I was being honest with myself, my wish to visit their community was driven by curiosity, nothing more. If they wouldn’t welcome me, I had no reason, nor interest, in forcing my presence on them.

“So be it,” I shrugged, rising from my throne. A brief flex of my powers dissolved the throne into Astral Power and used that power to reform my wings. I also, covertly, created a few additional scrying constructs, simply because I wanted to know what these people would say once I was gone. 

Then, once my wings were ready, I simply leapt into the air. My system-enhanced strength wasn’t quite sufficient to carry me past the new leaves in the trees around us, but a bit of Wind Magic caught my wings during my ascent, allowing me to continue rising, even after the initial impulse had been negated by gravity.

My transition into vertical flight was neatly smooth, even if my mind was partially occupied with listening to the rather satisfying sounds of disbelief I could hear through my scrying constructs. The group had seen me take off, obviously, but they weren’t quite willing to believe their own eyes, especially Shani, as I now learned the rude and angry one was called. She was convinced that this was some sort of trick, that I was some strange fairy or some otherworldly creature, there to seduce them into some horrific fate. I wasn’t quite sure where she got the ideas she was sprouting, but she was either a very, very disturbed woman, or had a number of rather extreme kinks. Maybe both. 

I wasn’t sure, but what she said made me glad they had rejected my request to meet. Such a meeting would likely have led to a closer relationship, and I already had one strange woman focused on me in an uncomfortably intimate fashion. I had no need to have another; I would steal her away, especially not if the woman in question seemed to swing wildly between annoyance that I wasn’t interested in doing so, and annoyance that it was possible in the first place. Even the rest of her group was giving her some odd looks; they had fallen silent while she had been ranting, and now the two taller guys were speaking quietly, softly enough that my constructs couldn’t hear them. 

Sadly, after the initial rush of disbelief, mixed with a bit of concern about my capabilities, the group didn’t really continue to focus on me or my actions. Instead, they did the practical thing, mostly staying quiet while they finished their breakfast and broke camp. Maybe they were using the routine activities to keep their hands and bodies busy while their minds were occupied; maybe they had decided my visit would be a unique event, something to talk about after a drink or two but not really bother any further; I wasn’t sure.

Regardless, I couldn't hear any other interesting tidbits, so I focused on my flying, quickly realising I would have to land soon. Given that I had met the group at dawn, and spent about thirty minutes talking to them, the Sun was already making its way across the horizon. It wouldn’t take long for the air to become distinctly uncomfortable for me, something I had no interest in experiencing, so I started to look for a good spot to land and built a quick shelter. 

Soon, maybe some twenty minutes of flying after I left the group behind, I couldn’t help but laugh. Searching for a good spot meant I was actively scanning the ground below, looking for anything that might be of interest. Like the partially restored ruins, now housing a small community of people, maybe five hundred in total. Almost certainly the home of the group I had just met, the place they hadn’t been willing to invite me to. 

It looked like fate, or maybe coincidence, had other plans, though I had no desire to force myself into their community. Instead, I made a mental note about the location and continued on, soon finding a somewhat suitable ditch, maybe an old drainage canal or something like that. I wasn’t sure, and it didn’t really matter. It was a spot where I could easily dig into the ground, where the entrance would be shielded from view and easy to conceal, exactly what I wanted for my waypoints. That it was also close to their community was merely a coincidence. 

Still grinning, I landed gracefully and started to work in the shadow of the ditch. There was more work to be done, though I at least had a better idea of the direction I had to go in. Hopefully, the world hadn’t changed too much, and I would find my way.