The monster attacks felt calculated and almost as if an all-out attack on Avalon, though that meant the borders took the brunt of the destruction. The minotaur and the horde at the outpost felt very organized in their actions. 

I tried wondering about their objective but couldn’t come to a solid conclusion, other than eradicating the humans that killed their own. Maybe I’m thinking too hard and that’s reason enough for them.

Nathan and Rhea worked in unison, lowering the magical output of the enemy and her going in for the kill. Alexa maintained a full-on crusade throughout the warehouse, causing more damage to it than the monsters. 

Circular holes accumulated in the walls, adding to the repairs that were going to be needed. At this point it would be wiser, to start construction on a brand new building altogether.

I still wanted to test out my new gear and weapon. A longsword that had range made it twenty times easier to connect with each monster to the next. I avoided each cast of magic and by the tenth monster slain, the entire first floor was finally cleared.

“Kill them all!” Nathan of all people shouted as he followed Rhea outside a newly renovated opening on the front side of the warehouse wall. Did these battle suits cause rage-inducing effects by chance?

We were able to secure the entire compound in another twenty-five minutes. The monsters seemed to lose interest and fled from all the carnage taking place. Things really didn’t feel like a win for successfully defending our home. 

Blood, bodies both ours and the beasts, and structural damage that made the building ready to fall over any second now, from the wind blowing in the wrong direction. The number of monster corpses stacked higher than our own, but that didn’t help justify the death of each person. Eris was a miracle worker, though even she couldn’t bring back the dead.

It didn’t feel right to leave our fallen comrades out in the open and decided it best to make a grave for each one. A total of sixteen side by side graves were marked by simple stones engraved with their names. It was the most we could do right now. 

Many of us were moments from collapsing and needed a place to recover. Alexa suggested a hotel within the city for everyone. I was happy to see that Lily along with Clare and Jade weren’t one of the casualties. Their duties relied on not being on the frontlines, ensuring their safety. Alexa also made sure Selka did not participate in the fight, due to the possibility of her creating more problems than solved.

Alexa worked together with Lily and contacted Marcus through her comms ring. Everything went smoothly to the point that it fell within our current budget. Nothing luxurious and no one cared, so long as there was a bed and hot shower. 

First thing in the morning I was going to see if the realtor contact, Alyssa could help find a suitable secondary home. I planned for a dojo within the city to begin with and prayed the money from the auctions would be enough.

It was half-past three in the morning by the time everyone settled into their rooms with most sharing, to save unnecessary expenses. Even after being healed by Eris, my body felt awful though a bit better once we ate food prepared by room service. My mind churned with a million different ways of how today could’ve gone down. I tried my best to not think about the what-if situations.

Channeling my thoughts into productive ones I wrote down a list of important actions that needed to be immediately addressed. I had every intention to never allow something like this to catch us off guard again.

I had fallen asleep in the desk chair until Alexa gently shook my arm. “Are you doing, okay?” Alexa held a concerned face after I grunted in compliance.

I massaged the nape of my neck to relieve a tense knot after an uncomfortable few hours of sleep. I got a hold of Vera and found out she was planning to call me today, to send over the money for the other two battle sets. Though the bad news I shared had her asking a bunch of questions. 

After answering a few of them I told her we’d talk more later in person. First I had a meeting with Alyssa. She was able to meet me today at the hotel entrance to go house shopping.

Altogether the three sets of battle gear sold for a total of three hundred ruby coins. Vera mentioned how the second and third listing each sold for exponentially more than the previous. My thoughts went back to the free publicity that Dorian provided for the gear. At least he was useful for something other than being a nuisance. 

I had my mind set on the very first luxurious building that Alyssa brought us to. The one that was listed for purchase at one hundred twenty ruby coins. The location was perfect and this amount of money didn’t phase me as much compared to before since even more would continue to roll in. We still had the monster parts back at the warehouse to retrieve and the ones inside my ring that needed to be sold.

Fortunately, Alyssa confirmed the building was still up for sale and no one had placed any bids on it yet. Lily tagged along to work out the details on how much extra we needed to pay for the expedited deluxe package.  The total came out to two hundred ruby coins which included being able to move in the next day and all the renovations that were required to suit our needs. 

We deemed the warehouse a waste to repair and that it’d be better to start completely from scratch. I let her handle the process of buying the surrounding land to acquire a bigger plot and possibly add several other separate buildings, one including a large gymnasium that everyone could freely train in.

Volatis

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Delay after delay lol. I'll try not to make it a habit, still currently working on the new story while trying to catch up on edits for this one. Basically, I haven't been satisfied with how it is turning out and am still ironing out the world-building, etc for the new story.

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