Limitless Path

As the group of people, all level zero, Beth noted, started to wrangle with Tazeen, Beth motioned to Blood. The two of them made their way across the lobby before one of the members of the group called out, "Hey, the kid's leavin'!"

As the group turned towards her, Tazeen said calmly, "She is an emblem carrying member in good standing. Any attempts to threaten or harass her will be dealt with most severely."

"Look, just because he's an elf doesn't mean he can push us around," said one of the group members.

"You really are some yokels," said John caustically.

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked the man hotly.

"Use Identify on them," Beth commanded the group coldly.

"What are you saying now?" asked the man, still angry, as he turned to her.

Beth face-palmed before explaining, "Look at Tazeen, who you have been talking to, and try to focus on seeing information about him appear."

As the group turned and did so, it was clear that a number of them were still entirely unused to the systems that now permeated their lives. Several waved hands in front of their faces with exclamations of surprise or dismay. The angry man snapped, "What kind of trick is this?!"

"Wow, you guys are dumb. It's not a trick, it's just how things work from now on. You can think whatever you want, but I'm leaving. I'll just say before I go that either of those guys behind the counter could kill the whole group of you by blinking. Not in the time it takes to blink, just by blinking hard. Alright, I'm out," Beth waved at the group and turned to continue out the door.

As she walked out, she passed by the obstinate man from the day before. When they were a few feet apart, he suddenly lunged for her, snarling, "You little pest, see if we let youurgghhhhh-." He didn't get very far through his statement though, as Beth calmly stepped forward and to her right, sliding past him. Also, on the way past, she planted her fist about three inches into his gut, producing the very weird ending to what she assumed was the word 'you.' The man collapsed on the ground clenching his stomach and groaning, and Beth turned to continue walking.

This move obviously did not go over well with the group inside, but they only had time for the angry man to shout "Hey!" before a crushing pressure filled the lobby, driving them to their knees, several simply flat-out collapsing. Tazeen had simply narrowed his eyes, emitting a level of force the people in the group couldn't comprehend. John continued to lean on the counter, totally unfazed by Tazeen's strength, snickering at the group on the floor.

"Again, I repeat so you may understand; she is an emblem carrying member in good standing. She was attacked on our doorstep by a non-member and used minimal force to retaliate. If I was not confident in her abilities, I would have intervened. That intervention would have resulted in the swift death of your friend. I will not permit a man already under censure to threaten our membership. Do you all understand me?" Tazeen's voice was certainly not loud, but it cut through the still air like the crack of a whip, nonetheless.

"W-we understand," stammered the woman in charge of the group, at which point Tazeen withdrew his pressure. The group stayed on the ground for a time, sweating and gasping as they tried to recover. Beth gave John and Tazeen a wave from outside the door before hopping on Blood's back and taking off.

"Yokels," she heard faintly as they sped away, shaking her head. John seemed to have a pretty one-track mind when he latched on to an insult.

The trip home wasn't all smooth, however, with the pair having an encounter just before reaching the highway. It was another huge boar, which made Beth a little suspicious, since boars weren't really seen much in the northeast. Traditional knowledge likely counted for little, but she still decided to have a look around, maybe tomorrow morning, to see if there was some kind of boar dungeon or something nearby.

This one was just as large and just as stupid as the first specimen she had encountered, and dealt with even more easily, the footwork training already working to increase Beth's fighting prowess. The whole thing was, in fact, a letdown, as the massive animal was felled with a mighty crash, but only a single punch. Beth made a face and pulled out her improved cell phone, deciding to test its capabilities.

Surprisingly, there was ringing after she dialed her father's number. A moment later he answered, a question in his voice, "Hello?"

"Hey, dad?" Beth replied.

"Is something the matter, sweetie?" he asked, concerned.

"Uh, is Zack there?"

"Zack?" he asked, transitioning now to confusion. "Yes, he's here with me."

"Uh, ask him if he's interested in butchering another boar. Please?"

"Please tell me there is not another thousand-pound animal corpse in our back yard," he replied with a sigh.

"Uh, no. We're gonna need a truck. Or two," she answered.

"Hold on, let me say something to him," her father covered the phone for a moment, she could only vaguely hear him saying something. He came back a minute later, "What kind of distance are we talking, sweetie?"

"Like, a couple miles? I'm to the east, where the highway turns north," she replied.

There was some yelling from the background as her father said, "Yes. Hold on. They'll be there in a few minutes."

"Alright, I'll wait. I'll be home in a little while."

"Alright, sweetie. Be careful out there. I love you," her father replied.

"Yeah, yeah. I got it. Goodbye," she answered him, hanging up right after.

It didn't take very long for two pickups to pull up onto the shoulder of the highway. Zack got out of the driver's side of the lead truck while Bill similarly got out of the driver's side of the second truck.

"What the fuck?" grumbled Bill immediately. "How much damn meat do you think we need?"

"Well, getting food might be getting harder. If I keep killing thousand-pound boars every other day, I think most of the neighborhood will be fine," Beth answered, seeming to seriously consider it, tapping her chin and all.

"Alright, enough bullshit. Let's get this done before it gets dark," Zack interjected, opening the back of his truck to grab the heavy leather bag with his hunting/butchering tools.

Beth once again leant her support to the effort, helping with the effort to drain the beast before the butchering got started in earnest. She then leaned against the bed of Zack's truck while the two men got to work. It was another impressively sized animal, and it would take them a while to skin and butcher it. After working on it for about twenty minutes, Bill started getting the offal that they would discard out. While he worked, Blood darted in and with two terrific tugs, ripped the liver out and trotted to the side with it.

"Damn, warn a fella," Bill said, wiping a bloody arm across his brow. "And don't just take the choice bits. Lecture that mutt of yours, Beth."

"I'm not gonna do it. She carries me around everywhere and has to spend all day watching me practice. She deserves a treat," Beth replied, crossing her arms.

As they continued working, another pickup drove up along the road and stopped in the right lane, the driver rolling the window down.

"You folks need some help? Something happen?" he asked.

"Nah, we killed a boar. Big sucker, too. If you're driving east after you cut north, be careful. They seem to be coming from the eastward area," Beth replied, propping her right leg up on the rear tire as she talked.

"Alright then, you folks be careful. Gets dangerous now after dark," the man said.

"Ah, don't worry about us. We're not a bunch of pushovers. Thanks for stoppin', though," Beth replied, waving as the man rolled the window back up with a wave of his own before driving on.

It was another half-hour of bloody work before the carcass was in a state for them to load it, the sun starting to set by this point. Zack laid out tarps in the back of his truck while Bill packed the tools and tossed both sets into his truck. Beth walked over to the cleaned carcass and grabbed the left legs each in a hand before pushing them forward and grabbing the right legs. Having the front legs in her left hand and the rear legs in her right, she lifted the carcass up only about half a foot off the ground and walked it to the rear of Zack's truck.

Both men then got in the bed while Beth stood on the ground, making use of her rather high STR to lift and push while each of the men dragged on the upper part of the carcass. It took a minute of grunting and swearing to get the body up on the tarps, and there was simply no way to close the tailgate, so Zack and Bill strapped it down with bungee cords.

"Goddamn, we're gonna need bigger trucks," Bill grumbled, roughly wiping himself off as he walked back to his truck.

"That's actually something that may come up. I might be fighting and killing more stuff like this, as well as monsters with valuable body parts, like scales and stuff. If I kill a massive lizard with tough scales we can use to make armor, how do we get it back to the neighborhood?" Beth responded.

"Shit, I was just bitching a little," Bill replied, stretching out with his hands on his lower back before opening the door of his truck. "Don't know how we'd even buy a new vehicle right now."

"We can work all that out later. I know a couple of the old guys and a gal that handle military surplus; might be able to get an old deuce-and-a-half from them. We should get back and get this in the shed first," Zack said, waving to the dead boar before hopping in his truck.

Beth waved to Blood, leaping on her back as she sauntered over. The two men started their trucks and pulled out onto the road, able to whip U-turns right away as there was no median at this point, just a double-yellow. As they started back to the development, Blood loped along behind the second truck, easily keeping pace despite them going up to 50+ MPH. Having to move with the trucks meant waiting at red lights, even with very few other people on the roads, but it didn't take very long to get back to the neighborhood all the same.

They drove right back to the street where Beth lived. Bill had built a second shed in his yard for curing and proper butchering of kills, being an avid hunter and fisher, leading to him believing it well worth the expense. Despite being a large building by the standard of sheds, the huge boar carcass would basically take up all the space. A number of the others came out of the houses to see what was happening as the trucks pulled up, with a few doing a double take on seeing Beth riding Blood.

Zack backed his truck into the Scott's driveway at an angle to let them get the boar out and through the fence gate easier. Beth helped the two men, managing to haul the animal out and into the shed in one go, gravity making getting it out of the truck easier than in. Afterwards, Beth headed back into her house, her mother clicking her tongue at the state of Beth's clothes and Blood's disheveled fur.

Beth made her way to her room and proceeded to have a messy shower involving also cleaning up Blood of all the…well, blood. After getting dressed, she spent some time just petting Blood and brushing her hair, content in her companion's company. Beth decided to turn in a little early, setting her phone on the nightstand as always.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ding, ding. Ding, ding. Beth reached over and shut her alarm off, throwing off the covers and hopping out of bed right away. It felt somewhat strange, to wake up fairly normally in a fairly normal house after the world had basically ended and started anew. Then again, what she would be doing throughout the day would be far crazier than going to high school or the boxing gym.

She made her way downstairs, the first to arrive in the kitchen, as usual these days. Blood had trotted along behind and waited for Beth to get her fresh water before starting to drink. Beth prepared food, heating up a bunch of eggs and sausage in two pans, as well as getting a ton of cereal. Giving Blood a large section of boar meat, she sat at the island and the two tore through the food. She was just getting up to clean up when Kim walked into the kitchen.

"Morning," she said.

"Morning," Kim replied, beginning to get some food herself.

"Anything new happen yesterday?" Beth asked her as she cleaned up.

"Nope. Same old, same old. Gonna be on guard duty again today as well," Kim answered.

"Well, have fun with that. What I'm doing isn't really any better, if that's any help," Beth added as she led Blood back to the mudroom.

After gearing up, Beth and Blood stepped out the backdoor to find an ant in the yard. Not a level one ant, but a level two ant this time. Looked like the levels of the creatures were increasing, after all. It had been several days since Beth had been to the ant nest and decided that was the first stop of the day. She casually killed the level two with a single solid punch, dragging the corpse out of the yard and throwing it deep into the woodlot.

It didn't take very long for the two to arrive at the ant nest, killing several more low-leveled ants along the way. There was an ant at the top of the nest today, a level four as usual, and Beth killed it with a casual swing of her new sword, the ants neck parting like paper before a razor in front of her blade. She and Blood meandered down into the nest itself, finding it much the same as it had always been. The level fours and fives fell to Beth without any effort at all, the combination of her higher level, better sword, and training in movement all making her an overwhelming opponent to these lowly beasts.

It wasn't until the third floor that the differences started showing more tellingly, with level seven ants in the first of the four rooms. They were still normal type ants, and Beth and Blood killed one each while exerting hardly any effort at all. The two moved on down the corridor towards the second room, Beth holding up her sword and saying, "This new sword is really good. If we got Kim and Sabs blades like this, holy hell. We'd stomp everything."

Blood just chuffed in agreement as they continued on, finding the second room had three level sevens. Again, this was no challenge to them, killing the three creatures netting Beth one new copper coin. It would only take a year to outfit the team at that rate of earning. She wasn't overly discouraged, however, knowing that just clearing this place would net her and Blood a silver. The two moved on to the third room as she ruminated, where they found four level sevens waiting. They cleaned this room up with ease, steamrolling the four ants without any problems.

They moved onto the final room of the dungeon, the so-called "boss" room. This was rather different now, having two level eight ants guarding a level nine princess. Beth and Blood tackled the ants head-on, the level eights not posing a challenge to the two of them. The princess, as per its usual behavior, observed the fight without charging out, only responding when it was directly attacked.

Its speed was quite high at level nine, but Blood was able to keep up, attacking and maiming its legs as the two danced around each other. This set Beth up to deliver a killing blow, cleaving the princess' head in twain with a massive overhead blow after its movements had been sufficiently restricted. Getting the notification for a dungeon clear and the one silver each, they headed back outside.

Their next stop was the wolf dungeon, Beth hopping on Blood for the ride to the south of the neighborhood. She didn't dismount when they reached the field, and instead they blurred across the area until they directly burst into the dungeon. Blood fully utilizing Swift was far too fast for the measly low-level wolves outside to keep up with at all. After entering the dungeon, Beth hopped off Blood and faced the entrance, looking to see if the low levels pursued inside. After a couple minutes, she concluded the wolves in the surrounding fields either wouldn't or couldn't enter the dungeon again.

The two moved deeper in, easily cutting through the first clearing, slicing apart the group of wolves like it was nothing. Beth didn't feel like wasting time today, having no one with her she wanted to help train, so they cut right for the heart, heading into the next clearing in the inner ring. These wolves were of a level higher than previously, Beth Identifying them from the side to see what they were up against.

Grey Wolf Level 7

Grey Wolf Level 7

Grey Wolf Level 6

Grey Wolf Level 3

Grey Wolf Level 3

Grey Wolf Level 2

Grey Wolf Level 2

It seemed that every wolf in the room was a level higher. Beth had no idea what this meant in terms of the mana density increase rate or final levels for Earth, but it didn't seem like the planet was going to wind up being mana-sparse in any sense, particularly if this trend continued for a long time. The two girls moved into the room ready to fight, knowing that the wolves would rush them as a group. This didn't really help the wolves in the end, Beth's new sword not bothered at all by the tougher hides and bones of the level sevens.

The two girls hewed through the whole room quite easily before resting for a minute. When they were ready, they moved on to the boss room, finding the great wolf was now level nine, and it also had level sevens with it. Slightly concerning, perhaps, but nothing that would present a deadly challenge to the two of them working together. The boss was the toughest part of the room, but they managed it in less than ten minutes with only a few minor scrapes and bruises.

Grey Great Wolf Level 9 slain.

One silver gained for clearing Wolves Breeding Ground.

Swords Apprentice[3] acquired.