Return of the Wind Mage: A Regression litrpg

3.

The early summer heat had parched the surrounding countryside, turning once lush fields into barren, sun baked earth. Santi and the rest of the war party moved at a fast clip, their breaths easy, even under the fast pace. Mom was the weakest of them and she managed to keep up with them, even if she was near the rear of the pack.

A single drop of sweat rolled down Santi’s face as he kept pace, running behind Bianca and Chloe. Both of the girls were more heavily invested in physical stats than he was and without his titles he would have been left in the dust by them. As it was, it required a bit of effort to keep up with them.

“How often do patrols come through this area?” Santi asked Daniel, the taller scout gliding along next to him. Daniel and Hana’s company of scouts and rangers, along with Chad and Tristan’s hunters, were the only ones who made it out this far on the regular. Helena kept her people closer to home and Santi only led his party out for heavy fights.

“Not frequent. We mainly stick around towns or anything that we can get supplies from. These long country roads get people on occasion, but not often enough for them to be deemed safe to travel,” Daniel explained.

The last few weeks had seen a small trickle of people leaving the confines of Homebase and its immediate surroundings. None of them had left the relative safety of the city and the high ranking fighters living there, but it wouldn’t be long. There had been a handful of people found to the South and East and directly West. Anything North and Northeast was barren of life though.

From what Daniel had reported people had survived. The amount of dead wasn’t high enough and there were signs of class skills and spells used on the buildings or surroundings. Dead monsters and campfires, but everything had been pulled up and disappeared further toward the heart of the nation.

In time smaller communities would be absorbed. Small groups of survivors banding together to build rugged communities based around a dungeon or good hunting grounds. They would need the support of a larger community and Homebase would be the hub for this entire region. The wealth of Northern California could pool toward him, treasures, monster parts, crafters, and anything else would come to Homebase and the Pillar he would claim.

They needed safe roads for that to happen. Continuous patrols that would purge the nuisances and alert them when real dangers arrived. Daniel and Hana’s small company would be the first step and with the growth in numbers the job would be placed on Helena’s head. Part of internal security. A good place for young warriors to test themselves and grow accustomed to the dangers of the new world without quite leaving the safety of the nest.

“When we get back I need you and Helena to get together and start mapping out routes for patrols. She’ll provide the manpower and you provide the intelligence.”

“You got it boss,” Daniel said while flipping a snarky salute. Some of the man’s earlier attitude had begun to creep back into their interactions as time distanced themselves from the acts Santi had committed.

“There’s something up ahead Santi,” Bianca said, her hand straying to her hip where her macuahuitl sat. Santi looked past his sister and towards the ground ahead of them and saw what she had seen. A quarter mile or so ahead was a pair of abandoned wagons. The full sized one’s people used to carry around their kids' crap during soccer games.

Goods were spilt across the ground, crushed food and water bottles that had rolled away in the gentle summer breeze. The wind shifted and Santi caught hints of blood on the air.

“Mom, get to the center of the formation, Torin you have her?”

“She’ll be safe with me,” the Hall Master confirmed, pulling a heavy hammer that he used two hands to heft around from his belt.

“Grmivr, right behind the girls and Cam. You’re relief. Everyone else, normal positions.”

Daniel and Hana both disappeared and split apart, heading in different directions. The shadows were thin, but Daniel had been working hard on his skill and managed. Hana simply bent light around her till she was nothing more than a heat mirage.

Tank stepped up and slightly behind Santi, unlimbering his new and improved mace that Grimvr had crafted him. The bulbous head of the mace was ridged and had a weight to it that would have caused a pre initialization human to struggle. Tank swung it about in lazy circles with ease as he scanned their surroundings.

Without Chad they were lacking a true distance fighter aside from Santi, and he was their most effective fighter overall. Currently his spell and skill set put him as a medium range fighter, but he could pinch hit wherever the team needed him.

Mom gripped her own spear tightly, but there was no trace of fear in her eyes as she looked around. There was a hunger there, a desire for action and blood. Torin was next to her and Santi had to focus on what was going to come next if he wanted to make sure they all stayed alive.

The team slowed down, moving more cautiously as they crept closer to the signs of violence. Santi was able to fully view the wagons and abandoned supplies. Mainly dry food, crackers, dried fruit, nuts, granola, and bottled water. There were some scattered clothes, blouses and pants that blew in the wind.

“Oh fuck,” Bianca cursed, horror in her voice as they looked closer to the ditch that line the field. Santi peered down and quickly identified the scents of blood.

A pair of women lay slack and still in the bottom of the ditch, their clothes stained from battle. A broken kitchen knife was near one of them and the other had a claw hammer that was just outside of her reach. The violence inflicted upon them was monstrous and they all stared down at them in horror.

“What the fuck,” Bianca whispered while Cam leaned over and vomited.

“DANIEL, HANA, FIND ME TRACKS!” Santi barked. He knew the darker sides of man, the depths of villainy that waited. He would not allow it to fester.

“Let’s bury them. Bianca, Chloe, do you think you can move them while we dig?” Santi asked them.

“No, I’ll do this,” Mom spoke firmly even as a tear tracked down her face. The two younger women nodded and the team broke up quickly. The work to dig graves was quick and easy compared tidying the bodies and placing garments on them. The burial was quick and with few words and Santi prayed that the two women would find peace. In total it had taken less than thirty minutes from sighting the two destroyed wagons to burying the two victims.

Daniel and Hana had found the tracks and were waiting patiently until the final bits of earth filled the grave. The wagons were rooted through, but little of it held any value to them. They were beyond the food available in it and the weapons were basic tools that could have been found in any garage.

“They came from the North and are heading West. Directly toward where we’re supposed to be going.”

“How many?”

“No idea, lots though. Footprints everywhere, the ground is too hard to leave easy to identify prints.”

“Let’s go. Last thing we want is them finding Delilah and her team. Double time it,” Santi issued his orders and the rest of the group fell into line as they started to pick up speed. They raced across the hot blacktop, the asphalt emanating heat like a furnace. The shorter dwarves weren’t holding them back, their legs pistoning as they ate up ground in a hurrying race against time.

“Daniel, you and Hana push ahead and try to warn Delilah and the others,” Santi said as they got closer to the small beach town that the monster den was supposed to be in. Both of the scouts pushed off as fast as possible, sprinting ahead as they disappeared from view.

The rest of the team continued their pace, eating into the timeline that Daniel had said it would take. The day of travel timeline completely obliterated as they pushed their Acolyte bodies as hard as they could. Mom was a ragged mess, sweating profusely as she gasped in breaths, but she continued on.

Torin had offered to carry her, but had been met with a stony eyed glare that had quieted the dwarf. She was on her last legs though and would be of little use in the upcoming fight. They had caught signs of the passage of the raiders. Discarded food packets, empty water bottles, a shoe, several signs of bowel relief. They were closing in on them, but Santi was worrying that they’d be too late to find the small team of scouts

“When we meet them, Mom and Torin stay in the backline with Tank. Guys, this will be your first time truly fighting other people. The little skirmish downtown, well, you weren’t prepared for that. This will be different. They will have skills and spells just like you. And they will scream and beg for mercy, plead to be arrested or to face a jury or anything to stop their immediate deaths. They all die. Every. Single. One. Am I clear?”

“Crystal,” Chloe growled. Her black hair was pasted to her forehead as she ran a thumb along the edge of her axe. They were approaching the edge of the town and Santi saw some of them.

Dirty and ragged they walked around the town without a care. They were thin, emaciated with stringy hair with hard looks to their faces as if they were carved from granite. He counted seven with a glance as they wandered around, poking their heads into abandoned buildings or just wandered the road.

The town wasn’t even a town. It was just a single road with buildings on either side of it. A few gas stations, a diner, post office, firehouse, and then a trio of side roads that branched off with single family homes on either side. The sound of the ocean was close, the heady scents of the brine filling his nose with every breath.

The den was somewhere close by, Delilah and her team hidden from both the raiders and the den. Santi was scanning the area as fast as possible, looking for clues to where everyone was.

“Everyone, gear up. Helms, armor, weapons checks, all of it. Grab a couple drinks of water and catch your breath. We’re going to be going in fast and ending them fast, understood?”

A round of nods and affirmatives came through as everyone took a knee and drank and checked their weapons and armor. Santi touched the metal breastplate that Torin had made for him. It was lightweight, an alloy of supernatural design that was a dark cobalt color. It left his arms free, but all of his vitals covered in hard steel, or at least the dwarven equivalent of steel.

At the far edge of town, movement broke out. A burst of energy, a flash of fire, and a man’s shrill scream. The town erupted like a beehive, over a dozen dirty figures running out of the buildings in a rush, brandishing a variety of crude weapons as they raced toward where someone was burning brightly.

At the same time, closer to the sea, in sandy soil that had a thin covering of stringy grass, the earth erupted. Black proboscis, glittering eyes, eight legs on each side of a nine foot long body that wiggled as it raced toward the sounds of fighting. The sandy soil trailed off of it as its dagger-like claws tore into cement like it was dirt as it caught the first of the raiders with its long nose.