“You are awake,” Lena said as she stretched on the bed like a cat.

 

The morning sunlight was coming through the window, it shone through the white curtains over the window. Lena was in a t-shirt that belonged to David and a pair of blue panties that were hidden under the end of the shirt she had stolen from him. He couldn’t see this as he was sitting cross-legged on the ground with his palms on his legs, his back was to the bed.

 

“What are you doing?” She asked.

 

“I am meditating,” David told her.

 

After the dream with the Machine Lord and the feeling of the old wooden door in the back of his mind, he needed to center himself. This entire time he had been in a panic, moving frantically around from one place to another. David attributed all of these things to poor planning and time management, these were things that he was taught in law school.

 

A good indication of a lawyer’s competence is how put together they are when it comes to their cases. Be punctual, leave plenty of time for any circumstance, and thoroughly prepare. I need to start trying to follow these guidelines.

 

“Why are you doing that?” She asked.

 

“I couldn’t sleep, so I decided that I needed to sort out everything I have been through since this all started. I realized many things since I started this process.” He said. “I spent 30 years inside the mind of a man I consider the worst kind of human imaginable.”

 

Lena was silent as she heard him start talking, instead, she turned so that her legs hung off the bed and began to use her feet to knead David’s back through his shirt. She had just removed her socks and her feet were warm, he realized that this was her trying to comfort him. He smiled sadly as he realized how much these moments had helped him along the way, especially when he had come home.

 

“His prejudices and biases have rubbed off on me,” David said.

 

Looking down he had changed his apparel and now he just wore a t-shirt showing off the scars on his left arm. When he was going to cover it he came to a realization, he felt shame about a part of his body. Then he started to carefully analyze where these emotions came from.

 

“I want to quote something that I once read in law school that I never thought applied to me. I find it quite profound in my current situation.” David said. “As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation - either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course. This was by Martin Luther King Jr.”(AN: The punctuation is missing since this was done in a speech, but I refuse to alter it as I feel that would be rude to MLK.)

 

David looked down at his arm that was covered in smooth, shiny scars from the burns, all the mana he had taken in had allowed the ability in the arm to activate, healing it to a great extent. This was a benefit that abilities had over spellcasting, tenacity. After a night’s sleep, the bruising caused by his poleaxe had significantly reduced, this was because of his arm's healing ability fortifying his natural regeneration.

 

“The Machine Lord has caused me to suffer greatly, one of the things he did was to impart his prejudices onto me,” David said. “He thought Martial Force users were either meatheads or glorified pack mules at the higher layers. I needed to spend some time thinking it over and centering myself.”

 

“What are you planning?” She asked.

 

“I once had this thought, if I was ever employed by some shady company doing things that were questionable, like lobbying the government, how would I make up for the guilt I would feel?” He asked.

 

“What did you decide?” Lena asked, her toes still digging into his back through his shirt.

 

“Donations. I would donate as much of my checks as I could to things that they hated, like green energy, higher minimum wage, rent caps, stuff like that.” He said.

 

Lena chose not to answer him, she instead waited for him to answer her as she started using her feet to lift his shirt by gripping the fabric of his shirt with her toes.

 

“I think I am going to raise a batch of Warriors, the Machine Lord hated Martial Force, but they are only limited by their equipment.” He said. 

 

At one point Edea had been a paradise where monsters were treated as fodder and magical stones were as common as resources like corn or cotton. Enchanting had been at a peak, and they had begun merging it with engineering principles to start creating complex machines like golems, airships, and flying vehicles. Then the Machine Lord broke out of his seal and started a near-endless war as he went from city to city and plunged it back into the equivalence of the stone age.

 

Martial Force was easier to train than spellcasting was, but they were severely limited by the quality of their equipment. While most of them had limited mana, they were all insanely strong with a lot of abilities that raised their tenacity. You could even mount them to improve their mobility then increase their armor and give them even bigger weapons.

 

“I can get behind using the information that the Machine Lord discovered to create a powerful group of Martial Force users,” David said. “This might just be my love of knights talking though.”

 

The image of men and women wearing large suits of enchanted armor appeared in his mind, every one of them standing at over 8 feet (~2.5M Tall). They would be equipped with large shields and short-barreled guns that fired shotgun shells and rifled slugs. They would also be equipped with one-handed melee weapons of their choice, as well as knives and other useful gear.

 

“It started when I began thinking of how I wanted to fight. I don’t have the Machine Lord’s immortality, so I have to choose where I want to fight. I think I can operate best as a mid-liner, someone who can fight in the front lines but is best at firing from behind armored combatants.” David said. “I think this will also help when I inevitably start building things like golems, and drones.”

 

Spellcasting could be done using chants and complex hand signs, but it was easier converting them into runes than just powering them using mana. It was the same process as casting the spell, but this prevented any mistakes that the caster could make. All it took was a sudden nose itch turning into a sneeze in the middle of a teleportation spell to send your spleen halfway across the universe without you.

 

“And you want me behind you, providing support?” She asked.

 

“That’s right, you have some of the best mana reserves I have seen for your layer, it means that the quality of your magic stone among humans is very high.” He told her and raised his arm covered in shiny scars. “To be able to match your mana reserves, I had to turn my arm into a worse magic stone, as our layers increase the difference between our mana amount will be like a lake compared to the sea.”

 

David lowered his arm as he felt her feet retreat from his back, he then heard the bed creak as she stood up and began walking around. He was about to turn around when he saw his stolen t-shirt thrown carelessly onto the floor along with a pair of panties that landed next to his hand. He then started hearing clothes start to rustle behind him.

 

“What about the Lycan?” She asked.

 

“The demon was not Bella, the demon killed her. The lycan is different though, I want to hear his reasoning.” David then paused. “I know that it isn’t possible to reverse his condition and one day he will lose himself to the beast, but I want to see if there is any way to slow it.”

 

One of the things he did when Lena was asleep and he was alone spent some time grieving for his dead cousin. He also spent some time venting the anger and frustrations that he felt toward his other cousin, Sarah. In the end, he hoped that Dane was able to find her before she did something stupid like going to Denver.

 

“Isn’t that dangerous?” She asked. “He could infect everyone else.”

 

“I might have a way around that,” David said this as he looked at the box that was still vibrating.

 

“How is the cat?” She asked, he could hear her putting on lotion.

 

“I keep seeing the contract that I formed with the cat activating, that means that it is becoming a demon.” He said. “The proper term might be a yokai, Japan looks like the first country to awaken someone familiar with these types of demons.”

 

“A yokai?” She asked.

 

“I don’t know what the cat will become in the end. This box is something that the Machine Lord devised personally that can jack into the Blood Sea, it is unique.” David told her. “The issue is that no demon would ever contract with him, I used a loophole in having the cat make the contract before it became a demon, but cases where someone was able to safely become a true demon are rare.”

 

“I’m ready.” She said, “Where are we going first?” 

 

David looked outside and could see that it was almost breakfast, this led him to grab the polearm and leaving behind bunker-kun, he realized through his meditation that it was useless to how he wanted to fight. He took his tools for lockpicking, an empty backpack, his poleaxe, the box, and an empty trash bag that was clean. 

 

“What should I bring?” She asked.

 

“We are going to get breakfast, while we are there we need to find someone who can act as a more frontline in the future. Then we are going hunting and we are going to check the surrounding properties. “ He said. “Can you carry our water and food, we will need a light lunch. We are going to get some magic stones and monster meat. I plan to make our future meat shield start as a meat hauler.”

 

“What are the tools for?” She asked.

 

“Do you want to spend forever walking?” David asked. “Can you drive a car?”

 

David turned and looked at the blonde woman who looked like she usually did, today she was wearing a green long-sleeved shirt and denim pants. It was very conservative compared to what she wore when the two of them were alone, her shirt was baggy and her pants were loose. The contrast was so large it caused him to pause for a few moments as he watched her tie her hair into a ponytail.

 

“I can.” She said.

 

“I guess when you start dating people you start noticing things about them.” He said.

 

“Oh?” She asked.

 

“It’s nothing, let’s go.” He said as he watched her finish moving her supplies around in her bag and place it on her back.

 

His bag was shaking slightly from the box that sat firmly at the bottom of it, and he hung his poleaxe off his back next to his backpack. Lena was armed with her blade attached to her thigh, and soon the two were headed for the kitchen.

 

***

 

Breakfast had been a light porridge made from oats and some canned fruit, oats were one of the few things they had stored a large amount of before the apocalypse. Now they were short on almost every type of edible item left, according to his father the local grocery store had already been raided.

 

There were under fifty people that made up the camp that David’s father had run, most of them were farmers from the area. This meant that the people seemed to be two ages, old or young, the number of people around David’s age could be counted on his hand. His father had told him where to find them.

 

David was about to start walking towards the first name on the list that belonged to a woman with a stout build. Just as he looked in her direction and took a single step, a hand darted forward and clamped onto his shirt like iron. He turned his head and saw Lena staring at the woman in the distance with a guarded expression.

 

“What are you doing?” He asked.

 

“She won’t respect boundaries, we can’t take her.” She said simply.

 

“What does that mean?” He asked.

 

The pulling on his shirt was getting more and more intense and he allowed her to drag him away from the woman. Instead, he let her begin to lead him towards the next person on the list, this time it was a guy who could be seen finishing his breakfast. David turned and looked back at Lena before he made any further impressions about the man.

 

“He is perfect, be careful though.” She warned him.

 

“Why do I need to be careful?” He asked her.

 

“He is homosexual.” She said.

 

David paused, and his jaw slowly began to fall before he could stop it, then he turned back towards the person. It was a man who stood at 6 foot 5 inches(~165CM) and had a deep farmer’s tan. He looked to be in his early 20’s with a clean-shaven face and a white cowboy hat covering short brown hair and steel-gray eyes.

 

He wore a blue cotton dress shirt and blue jeans, when David laid eyes on the large well-built man, he was dumbstruck for a minute. His eyes began to spin as he tried to figure out how she had come to this conclusion. Suddenly he realized that he might have seen this person before when he was a kid, and began running through his memory of when he was a child.

 

It took several minutes before the scene of a high school jock appeared in his mind, he was on the football, hockey, and track teams. This made David even more excited, then he suddenly felt deeply torn in his mind. His memory of his childhood wasn’t very good, so he couldn’t put a name on the man who was eating.

 

“How do you know that?” He asked.

 

“You can tell from his dress.” She said.

 

David turned his head back to the large man sitting at the table and began trying to figure out how she could tell from his clothes. While everything was neat and well put together, he couldn’t see anything that looked out of place. Just as he was trying to figure out if there was some kind of special sign hidden somewhere on the man's clothes when the two of their eyes met.

 

“David, is that you?” He asked.

 

David paused as he carefully tried to remember the person’s name, he found that his memory was just too poor, so he could only smile in return. The man stood up and had a happy smile on his face as he started walking towards the two of them. David began to question Lena when she suddenly grabbed his arm and firmly gripped it to her chest as if she was marking her territory.

 

This led him to a strange feeling as he was forced to break his concentration away from the two soft orbs that encircled his arm to focus on the man. The more he tried to spin his brain up though, he discovered that the memory of the people's names and some of the places he had been having faded. This caused him to have to fight a feeling of panic as well, as well as trying to seem normal.

 

“I heard about what happened in the kitchen with Bella, some monster was hiding inside her body? Are you doing alright?” He asked in concern.

 

“I am doing fine, I had to get rid of the demon,” David said with a sad smile as he remembered his cousin. “How are you?”

 

“I am doing as well as I can in this place. Our ranch was overrun and my old man Paul is dead.” He said sadly.

 

David also put on a sad expression when he heard this news, hearing the name Paul help[ed jog his memory as he remembered a pepper farmer in the area. The man grew chili peppers and every year he would use them and make large batches of chili and serve them during the farmer's markets. The only thing that was annoying David was that he still couldn’t remember the man’s name, he could even remember his mother was a small woman who came from an island country, he had seen her in the laundry room with the younger kids.

 

“I am sorry to hear that, he made the best chili in the area, didn’t he win the state competition in Pueblo once?” David asked.

 

“Once?” The man smiled sadly. “He won it six different times in his life .” 

 

“How did you end up here?” David asked.

 

“We got overrun when the military started using tanks to drive the monsters towards the city. Paul shoved on the tractor since the other cars wouldn’t work, he stood with his gun and fought them off while we drove away.” The man said sadly. “If my mother didn’t have my little brother to look after, she’d probably have joined him.”

 

David wanted to smack himself for asking something that was going to be painful, he also needed to figure out how to broach the topic of recruitment. Just as his mind was spinning and trying to come up with a sales pitch, the man started talking. He pointed at the polearm on David’s back.

 

“I heard from your uncle that you were attacked by that giant bear and managed to fight it off with that ax thing.” The man said. “He said that it was special.”

 

David paused, he suddenly realized that he was approaching the situation wrong. To recruit others he would need to figure out what they want and try to approach from that angle instead. The money would be considered useless now that the countries backing them were suffering so many problems.

 

“Do you play any role-playing games?” David asked as he removed the poleaxe from his back.

 

“I played one, there were these gates to another world that were opening, you had to close them by going inside and doing all these different things.” The man began, then paused.

 

Did aimed the flashlight side of his poleaxe at a metal plate that sat against the concrete wall. The glass on the flashlight was removed, and a flat piece of magic stone that was covered in symbols to create an enchantment was showing instead. David had to put almost half of the mana from his magic stone to power the enchantment and activate it.

 

Whoosh!

 

It was quiet and sounded like a burst of wind flying forward and caused the dirt on the ground to fly into the air. It hit the thin sheet metal and caused it to clatter against the concrete before it started falling apart, as pieces were sheared off of the metal. This is why David had gotten rid of Bunker-Kun, the only thing useful about it was the mana cannon modification, so he moved it to the poleaxe.

 

“Damn! Was that magic?!” The man asked.

 

“That’s right.” He said as he caught his breath from using the attack.

 

“Are you telling me I can become a wizard?” The large man said with excitement on his face. “I knew my father named me Harry for a reason!”