Supplies check, clothes check, maps check, two bedrolls check, fire starting kit made by myself check.

I guess I gathered everything I will need for now.

"Follow me." I take my mount and exit the block.

"Ah, Thomas! You awoke at last." Chief greets me, while leading a group of people with smug faces.

"I guess you hunted some monsters?"

"Yes, everyone became a player in this group, I intend to take second group after setting safe zone and some rest."

"Good time, I was just about to get my undead and leave to Drewco."

Some people began murmur at that.

"Quiet people." He waves backhand to silence them.

"Before I leave I would like you use the cube to see it's effects firsthand."

"Of course." He takes it from his pocket and activates the item.

"Activate!" The cube starts to glow more and more, and while it does, I can see it levitating and gaining attitude, it goes higher and higher toward the sky and stops few hundred meters above us.

Suddenly a pulse of magical force escapes the cube as it begins expanding outwards, it gains speed and covers us in a second, I can see how it travels beyond the trees and hills and stops at about 1km from it's location, I could see a monster on plains getting crushed under the force and wailing as it was sent flying next second transforming into a corpse as the pulse of light didn't give it any chance.

"Well, that looked cool to be honest."
"No shit man, only in movies would you see things like that."
"It really looked like magic."
"So that will protect us for now?" Some person asks randomly.
"You blind? We all saw how that boar was killed by that light. I don't think we will have any difficulties for the moment." The teen girl from before rebukes.

Chief marvels the sight for a moment and soon regains focus.

"All right, don't just stand there like fools, choose your classes and familiarize yourself with your new abilities, we need firepower guys, the protection will only give us a month, we need to be ready for that and become capable of protecting ourselves adequately."

"Okay Thomas, I won't take your time any more, I hope you will clean up Drewco and send anyone who needs help over here, they are welcome."

"Take care Chief, and you too Monic!" I wave and mount my wolf while setting off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, it certainly feels strange to ride a wolf, not that I have any experience with that stuff.

I ride at moderate speed to not get my things fall under all that shaking. Nothing in sight for now, clean place without monsters. I hum a little under my nose as the riding ahead is largely uneventful.

Level up!

"Ooh, a level up! Guess they work hard."

I casually upgrade my status while making my strength greater. Anyway, since I'm moving to be honest, let's try sensing my surroundings like before.

I relax in my pseudo saddle and close my eyes, I can feel a refreshing feeling washing over me and moving outwards my body.

Soon I can understand all of space around me, like some radar but with permanent data feed. It's like looking from 3rd person at everything you want to see, from every angle you can imagine.

And it works when moving! I lightly leave my semi trance and order my mount to run towards recurring goblin village and enter trance again.

The surroundings blur a bit but I force the image to stabilize somewhat, my experience expands a bit as I start to feel life around me, some small specks of energy.

As I try to localise them I can see that they are bugs and insects around me. I sense where they move, looking around I even see some injured bug, his energy is somewhat lower than the others.

I leave my trance as I start to feel slight ache in my head.

"Interesting experience huh."

I look around and see that we arrived in goblin village near the store.

And it's devoid of life right now.

"Yeah a safe zone works as intended."

Nothing special here at first place. I ride my mount to the store for some scavenging.

There is a hole in the door, looks like someone already tried to go inside. I dismount and take my spear.

Lightly trying the handle I feel it's open, with a small push I walk inside. It's pretty dark inside without any lightning, only some sunlight here and there.

Looking at shelves and counter I see that some of the stuff was taken, but there is still some.

I return again with my second backpack, I take some sweets, snacks and overall tasty food for my journey, they aren't really spoiled even now, as I pack everything in sight I eat a couple and savor the taste, it was some time ago that I eaten anything sweet like cookies.

I also go to the back of the store to look for anything useful but don't find anything, and like that I tie the bag again and mount.

As I mount I can see my skeletons returning, I go to them.

"We have returned my Lord!" First speaks as they come closer.

"Enjoyed the hunt?"

"Yes Lord, We all leveled once, and the weaker skeletons two times."

I open their status windows and upgrade them all equally. Good, now they all have levels like that.

First 13 Level
Second 9 Level
Third 11 Level
Archer 6 Level
Spearman 6 Level
Wolf 6 Level

With my little army growing stronger I feel safer by the minutes.

We go to a bench nearby and I sit with First.

"So what did you hunt guys?"

"I thought that going outside by road is no good so we traveled to the forest uphill."

Wait... that's where those fucking spiders are!

"What monsters did you met?"

"Some eight legged black things called spiders, they were quite weak and our arrows killed them in a single shot."

"There was a dangerous moment when twenty of them appeared but Third with Spear Skeleton held them off while we sniped them."

"Hmm? What about Second?"

"He flanked them and attacked from side, with his strength they had no chance."

He then takes out something tied to his ribcage.

"After we killed them all, a bigger spider thing appeared Lord."

"She was called Cross Spider Brood Mother, and she was strong."

"We needed to focus all our attacks on her to make her die. She was shooting acid like bolts at us, one of it has hit Third shield and it melted off."

I look at Third and he really has no shield now.

"There were some close situations but we didn't retreat since that spider could chase us on the trees. I used Fire bow to burn her a bit and when she lost focus due to pain, Second cut off her legs, after that we pierced her with spears."

"Good job, but be more careful in the future." I warn worried.

"I appreciate the worry my Lord, still killing her rewarded us with this thing, take a look Lord."

I take it and see it's some kind of a crown made from web like thing, it's white and creepy. I inspect it.

Crown of Webs Crown made by Brood Mother of Cross Spider species, only one can be made in a lifetime, it increases one spirit as well as grants a spell 'Web'. +1 Spirit

 

"First, did that spider use a web like attack or something?" I ask seeing that spell in description.

"There was something like that Lord, the spider shoot a web at us but it didn't hit and a tree was covered in it, second time she did it, it has hit Archer Skeleton but we protected him and it was nothing we couldn't handle."

"Good job once again, take it First, it's perfect to bind your foes, with right timing you will be stronger by wide margin."

I give it to him and he wears it looking like some Skeleton King, funny.