Chapter 21: Chapter 20

“Slimes? I love them! They are just the best at making beast-kin purr! Not even my husband is as good as our slime and let me tell you, he knows what he does.”

Random stranger on the street

 

—

 

Trevor did not like what the fox told him. He would have to doom a large part of their population, just to have some survivors and he only had a day to prepare. Trevor didn’t want to believe it, but honestly these were weird times right now, so not giving the group any credit would be even more stupid. He still needed some proof and he decided that if they showed him magic he would have to believe them.

 

Trevor looked the fox in the eyes. He had to look up, a fact he did not like but there was nothing he could do about it. “I don’t like what you just told me and honestly I don’t want to believe it. Not even giving you a chance would be stupid though, so if you show me real magic I will at least take some meassures.”

The fox, Alyra was her name, growled annoyed. It was a bit intimidating coming from such a large predator. She turned around and shouted at her group, “Mom! Shoot a tree for me please!”. The ears of the fox-woman flicked and something shot away from her. The projectile was hard to track and once it impacted a tree Trevor lost sight of it. He looked at the tree and saw a fist-sized hole that went through the trunk. He had no idea what had just happened, but one thing was clear. The woman hadn’t even pointed at the tree and he was just glad not to have attacked the group.

Alyra turned to face him again and raised an eyebrow. “So?”, she asked. Trevor gulped, “We will come up with at least something.”. Alyra looked at him for a few seconds and then turned around. “If you gather the people that are with the universe, then gather them in the east. That way you will have more time to react. We will stay at the edge of the forest and try to save as many sapients tomorrow night as possible.”, she turned around again and looked Trevor in the eyes, “As long as they are friendly we will not care about their appearance. I would recommend you do the same. You will need all the people you can get in the future.”. With that said she turned to her group again, clearly having ended this talk.

 

Trevor walked to his own group of people again. “Keep an eye on them and make sure no one gets near them for now. You all saw what the woman did, so don’t antagonize them.”

He turned towards his secretary, “I need to talk with you in privat, Steven.”. Then he got back to his office at a hurried pace. They didn’t have time to waste.

 

Steven closed the door after he went into Trevors office. “What did they say?”, he asked. Trevor sat down and turned really serious. “I know we said we wouldn’t ask, but I don’t see myself getting around this now. Whom did you choose?”

 

—

 

The group made their camp at the edge of the forest and Alyra and Fia went hunting. The boys were doing their thing and talked amongst each other. It was likely boring doom planning in Argul’s opinion. She sat on the ground purring and patting Aina while Mia caressed her ears. Life was good.

 

Once Alyra and Fia returned they had a meaty dinner again. Argul really wanted to eat something other than meat. She put some serious thought in creating some cultivating plants in her dungeon.

 

They had the same watch schedule as the night before. Argul honestly thought that Fia and Alyra just wanted to let her have time working on her dungeon and that’s why she wasn’t on watch duty. Fia likely did the same with her universe while she was asleep. During the night Argul added plankton and some crabs to her sixth floor. 

 

The starting island had finished growing. It curved around a large bay with a beautiful white beach and blue water. The volcano was quite a bit away from the bay and near a second beach with black sand. Argul added another two plants to the island. There was a cliff on one end of the island where you could see smaller islands jutting out of the water. Though these weren’t more than large rocks.

 

The next morning the first thing Argul did was cleaning all of them. Seriously, why in magic's name did the men have to smell that bad after a day of nice walking. Maybe it was because they didn’t have her stats, but Argul didn’t think further about it. At least she got a bunch of thank you's from them.

 

Argul continued to teach Mia during the day or played with her. Sometimes they just watched the things going on in the town. Around midday they noticed the first group of people leaving to the west. Going by how much stuff they were carrying they were fleeing.

 

The first group was then followed by a second and more and more people were leaving. Mostly families or old people though. In the evening it looked like more than half of the people had left and there were still people leaving. The town looked deserted and empty now. There was a second group of people that was congregating to the east of the town. This group consisted mostly of teenagers and young adults, though there were also some older and younger people. Argul would guess there were about 200 people there, not a lot considering the amount that had left.

 

Trevor approached them with a group of guards again and Alyra grinned at him. “You know, for how leaderly you acted yesterday, this was not what I expected to happen.”

You are reading story Reincarnated as a mana core at novel35.com

Trevor scratched his head, not even trying to act like a leader. “I don’t think I'm that good of a leader. I’m just good at organizing and somehow landed in this spot through that. We spread rumors of what you told us of and tried to gather those allied with the universe. Today is the result of that.”, he said and shrugged.

 Fia smiled at him, “Believe me you won’t regret what you did in the slightest. It is likely that you will think you haven’t done enough.”. Trevor did not like to hear that, but he would know tonight if he had been scammed or entered the hell of a new era. His guards shot them doubtfully, but also excited glances. There would be magic for fucks sake!!

 

“Do you know of a good location to build a village or city?”, Arthur asked Trevor. They needed to go somewhere tonight and having a goal would help keep the moral up. Trevor raised an eyebrow. “Don’t understand me wrong. I have no intention of becoming the leader of any group! If you are good at planning things I’m happy to leave that to you, but with this many people we need to have a goal to give them motivation. Though the monsters hunting them will likely provide enough motivation.”, Arthur hastily added.

Trevor thought about it for a moment. “There are a few hills with rivers to the north of here. Sadly we weren’t able to locate any mountains or such things in the last three years. Without technology there is only so much you can do.”, he said, shaking his head.

 

Argul nodded to herself and accidentally thought out loud, “To the north it is then, as long as we stay somewhere around the center of the mana zone we should be fine.”. That got her a few curious glances, which Argul didn’t notice so Arthur had to ask. “Why would we need to stay near the center of the mana zone?”

Argul got red, realizing what had happened and her ears drooped a bit in embarrassment. “Uhm… There is a rip in space in the center of the zone. You could also call it a portal. You can go through it and on the other side there is a moon-like environment, just with silver plants and some animals. That’s where Aina comes from.” She held the slime before her face, but more to hide herself than anything else.

 

The others got the message though. There was something mysterious to discover and giving something up that could be a boon for them was foolish. The group did not fight Trevor for leadership, but made clear that they would leave the moment they thought him irresponsible. 

 

Trevor left them to themselves and went back to his own people. They would need time to come to trust each other.

 

That night nobody really slept except the children. It was a long time after it got dark that the first people let out surprised exclamations as they felt their body begin to change. There were a few in the group that were not allied with the universe and could only stare in wonder as some peoples' races changed in front of them. They could stare for all of five minutes until they screamed in pain and became horrific abominations. While this surprised the group they were ready and managed to kill the things that had once been their friends without any injuries.

 

After that hell broke loose in the town. A few people came running towards them just as things started, suddenly having changed their mind about staying in their homes. Then monsters started to brawl inside the houses and streets. They waited for another fifteen minutes during which Argul and Fia shot everything that followed any coming survivors or approaching monsters. They couldn’t wait any longer than that though, as the size of their group attracted the once people.

 

Trevor gave the sign and they started to move in the direction of their hopefully new home. Faces were grim and people were openly crying here and there. None of the naiv excitement of the younger peoples was left. They had all watched the gruesome sight. The quest of Argul’s group got updated again and the new survivors all got a new quest.

 

What remains

The members of your former species had been given a choice, a choice that has already produced many casualties and will continue to do so as the level 1 mana zone spreads. Gather at least 50 survivors and build a base of operation from where you can send out relief squads.

 

• There is a small settlement 15km west of you that will be integrated in about 5 hours. People saved: 3 Str +1

• You have to choose. There is a village to the east that will be integrated in roughly six hours. There is a village located in the south further down river where people will slowly be integrated depending on how much mana saturated water they drink. There is a small town near a hill to the north-west about one and a half days by feet from your current position. Integration is estimated to be in three days. You saved 234 People of the town. All +2   A large part of the population fled the town before the zone arrived. Wis +2

• You know of a possible location to start a new settlement. Build a fortified base of operation that can act as a beacon of hope for humanity.

 

 

Getting more wisdom might be a bit counter productive right now Argul thought, but ultimately she didn’t care. She had already had enough time to accept the things her existence would cause. It would happen anyways so they might as well speed it up a bit.

 

The quest gave most of the 200 or so people hope and a purpose, something to strive for so that all that they had been through was not meaningless.

Unbeknownst to all but Trevor and two rather foxy persons, Trevor got a second quest, a quest that might have excited him just a bit.

 

New Quest: Leadership

You have been acknowledged as Leader by most of your group and are seen as such. As leader you have access to a special interface with the purpose of making ruling easier and the life of the people better. More functions of the interface can be unlocked through the Leadership quest series.

Find somewhere to settle down!

You can find story with these keywords: Reincarnated as a mana core, Read Reincarnated as a mana core, Reincarnated as a mana core novel, Reincarnated as a mana core book, Reincarnated as a mana core story, Reincarnated as a mana core full, Reincarnated as a mana core Latest Chapter