As per usual, the moment the battle came to an end, all those who participated wanted nothing more than to sit down and relax.

  Unfortunately for them, there was far too much that needed to be done.

  Despite his mana-headache, Vin let himself drop to the ground and quickly began checking on the warriors scattered around the battlefield, offering his Renewal to any who needed it. The flesh puppets of the epic monster had each been about as strong as a regular elite monster, so there was no end to the number of wounded.

  As everyone cheered for their victory, Spur gave them a few seconds to bask in their survival before announcing a rather unpleasant task.

  “We’ll have brand-new Earthers coming to town in just a few hours!” he called out, pointing at the massive ring of flesh surrounding them all. “We need to get this thing chopped up and delivered over to the Sacred Forest by then! Or at least far enough away from town that we won’t be giving a thousand new Earthers nightmares for the rest of their lives!”

  Understandably, there was quite a lot of groaning and irritation at this order, but one look from Phil was all it took for the combat classes to get to it. Thankfully, now that the danger had finally passed, the hundreds of support and crafter classes were free to exit their homes and the bunker to help out. The sheer amount of flesh surrounding their town had to be astronomically heavy, but with nearly three thousand System-enhanced hands working together, Vin imagined that disposing of it shouldn’t take that long.

  It helped that at this point, many of their strongest warriors literally had the strength of five or six people all on their own. And that wasn’t even including those who usually handled supplies around town.

  “Come on team, the warriors did their part, now it’s our turn!” a large, heavy-set man in overalls called out, getting a few dozen cheers in return. Vin vaguely recognized him as James, the friendly Head of Supplies who had helped point him in the direction of his new home weeks ago, but he was happy to see the man was still alive and kicking.

  Even more so when he realized the Earthers in charge of supplies seemed to have built their classes around just that. There weren’t too many of them, but even the weakest of them seemed to be capable of lifting many times their own body weight, and Vin wasn’t the only one with his jaw dropped as James let out a hearty laugh and began dragging a chunk of monster easily the size of a bus behind him as they got to work.

  After spending ten straight minutes hurling fireballs down at the monster from up in the sky, Vin didn’t have much mana to spare. He did what he could to heal people, before he was forced to stop for his own health. It already felt like someone was shoving an icepick into his forehead as his body desperately craved mana, and he didn’t want to find out if it was possible to knock himself unconscious if he overdid it. Instead, he headed into town to check up on things.

  Despite only having seen the one epic monster spawn, Abby and her guards were still out in full patrol, sweeping the streets and ensuring that there weren't any hidden monsters lurking around now that it was safe for people to leave their homes.

  Flopping himself down on one of the benches, Vin closed his eyes for a moment as he tried to tough out his mana-headache. When that proved pointless, he sighed and finally took a look at the handful of notifications he’d been ignoring since the start of the battle.

  Total Resistance increased to lvl 16! 3,200 exp gained.

  Total Resistance increased to lvl 17! 3,400 exp gained.

  New spell learned! Tier 2 Fire Spell (Self Destruct). 10,000 exp gained.

  Wait, what? Vin blinked as he went over his newest and most unexpected spell. While he had intentionally thrown together the runic formation that he knew would result in him blowing himself up, he hadn’t been intending to create a new spell. Had the System detected his intent and rewarded him for purposefully creating a runic formation to do what he wanted it to do? He had unintentionally spent a solid week throwing together that runic formation again and again and blowing himself sky-high, so he supposed it only made sense that it was officially its own spell.

  Even if it would be basically a one-time-use for anyone without his divine boon.

  Maybe Pyromancers have passives that would let them survive that kind of thing, he thought as he leaned back on the bench and stared up at the clouds.

  …Probably shouldn’t teach this one to Ronald…

  “Hanging in there?”

  Vin cracked his eyes open, only slightly surprised to find Theodore standing before him. He wasn’t surprised that the Spy had found him, as he was pretty certain at this point that Theodore had some ability he was using to track him whenever he came into town. But it was strange that the Spy looked like himself for a change.

  “Barely,” Vin laughed, shaking his aching head without thinking and wincing at the fresh stab of pain. “How are things looking? I was too busy healing those I could find, but it’s hard to think straight with this headache.”

  “Better than the massacre that was the battle for wave three… but worse than the battle for wave four,” Theodore admitted, taking the seat beside him and looking uncharacteristically solemn. “There are still a few injured enough that they might not make it, but at the moment, we’re looking at around a hundred and eighty dead.”

  “A hundred and eighty…” Vin repeated, at a loss for words. “What happened? That’s more than twice the number of casualties from the battle for wave four! We had a Strategist this time around and everything!”

  “The battle for wave four was a strange case,” Theodore admitted. “Remember how that other-dimensional monster froze people and monsters alike with its cries? You and Alka ran around dispatching quite a lot of them before everything started up again. Not only did that save a lot of lives, those people were then able to turn and help others who were still fighting. On top of which, that battle was still filled primarily with regular monsters. All these strange, flesh puppets the epic monster controlled and fought with were closer to elite monsters. Not quite as strong, and each with the same glaring weakness of their tendrils connecting them to the main body, but still far deadlier than regular monsters. Honestly, it’s a testament to Terra’s strength that we lost so few people.”

  “Some testament,” Vin laughed weakly, holding his head in his hands. “I hate that I’m even going to ask this, but of those we lost, were any of them… Did I personally…” he couldn’t even bring himself to finish his question, but Theodore understood his meaning anyway, giving him a gentle smile.

  “Not that I know of. Though that’s not all that surprising, I don’t think you’re really friends with many of the combat classes. If you haven’t noticed, you tend to gravitate toward other support classes like yourself. Alka did lose three of her new Slayers in all the fighting, which were probably the most noteworthy losses. Along with four more warriors from the first wave who fell while assisting Phil as they distracted the head.” Theodore went to say something else, before hesitating and seeming to think better of it. Vin was so shaken by hearing the number of casualties that he didn’t even notice the brief pause as he struggled to picture the many faces of those he’d first come to Edregon with.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “We’re dropping like flies,” Vin muttered, wondering how many of them were even left at this point. Of the original hundred people who first set foot in their fragment, he was pretty certain somewhere around half were dead by now. Possibly a little more. And that was before three months had even passed.

  A bit of a somber thought, really.

  “How are Shia, Scule, and Reginald? I saw Shia from my vantage point up there, but I didn’t spot Scule or Reginald once during the battle.”

  “Scule already checked in with me and asked me to let you know they’re alright. He didn’t have any poisons that would do anything against such a large foe, so he focused on running supplies around town.”

  “Smart plan. Yeah, I don’t think he would have been able to do much against that monstrosity,” Vin admitted. “Have Spur and the others headed out to collect the new Earthers yet?”

  “They left a little bit ago,” Theodore nodded. “Asked me to let you know you should head out once you’d recovered.”

  “I’m not going to be ‘recovered’ for a few hours,” Vin laughed, getting to his feet anyway. “But I get what they meant. Thanks for the update, Theodore, I really appreciate it.”

  “What’s the point in having your own personal Spy if you can’t get these briefings?” Theodore asked, grinning as he bowed with a flourish before running off to do who knew what.

  Groaning, Vin forced one foot in front of the other until he was jogging out of town and over toward the center of the fragment. Thankfully, all the Earthers working tirelessly together had already managed to clear away a few large chunks of the monster, allowing him to run through the gaps. There was no way in hell they were going to get all of the epic monster cleaned up and transported to the Sacred Forest in time before the fifth wavers showed up, but he supposed the new Earthers would have to learn about the dangers of Edregon sooner or later.

  And if each wave continued getting worse than the last, they needed to know what was in store for them in a month’s time when wave six showed up.

  We need to improve Terra’s defenses, Vin thought as he ran, trying to come up with ideas. I know we floated the thought of the infernals using their ritual magic to improve our walls… Might be time to finally revisit that now that they’re settled into their new home. Deorer and the dwarves won’t help with weapons, but maybe we can trade with them for better tools or armor… Other than Shredder, everyone’s just in heavy leathers. We need actual armor that can take a hit. And above all else, we need to get access to that floating library again. There are so many things we need to look up and learn about in order to prepare for the future.

  With a sigh, Vin pulled out his journal and jotted down his ideas under his never-ending to-do list. Half the time it felt like for every item he checked off his list, three more appeared to take its place.

  Luckily, at the speed of which he ran, it didn’t take him long to finally meet up with those waiting around for wave five to appear. The welcoming party consisted of around thirty exhausted combat classes, a few select people, and the majority of the council. Spur and Golrim were having a hushed conversation about supplies and, unsurprisingly, logistics. Myers and Alice were discussing how to improve the design of the magical claymores to ensure that they weren’t all wasted again like they had been in the face of the epic monster. Witherson and Phil had elected to remain behind to oversee the repairs to town and organize the tired combat classes.

  “There’s the man of the hour,” Alice said, grinning as Vin finally jogged up to them. “Way to make my claymores look pathetic. That was some explosion you set off!”

  “Powerful enough to send Alka straight through Witherson’s reinforced outer wall,” Myers added, looking equally impressed and curious.

  “Yeah, I’m not planning on doing that again,” Vin said, unable to stop himself from returning Alice’s smile with a small one of his own despite everything. “The next wave running late again?”

  “Yep. Spur’s a little bit worried about this one,” Alice said. “If something had happened to Project Ark on Earth’s end to result in a quarter of the people not coming through, we might actually hear about it from this wave. Fingers crossed they just got lost in transit and weren’t attacked by monsters on Earth or anything.”

  “Can’t say I like the idea of hoping they just vanished during the trip, but I get-”

  Vin’s words caught in his throat as the massive ritual silently began and his eyes widened. While nobody else could tell it had even started, he alone could see the mana forming itself into some sort of massive tunnel stretching off into another dimension. All this time he’d assumed the people were transported over one-by-one, but now he realized they were all shunted over at the same time.

  Lesser Arcane Discovery! 5,000 exp gained.

  Weirdly enough, however, there was something off about the tunnel he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It almost felt as if it was fraying, like it had been used one too many times and was in need of repairs. Almost like a massive pipe eroding from all the dense magic flowing through it.

  “Vin? Everything alright?” Myers asked, trying to follow his gaze and not seeing anything.

  “They’re coming,” Vin said, pointing out toward the open field. “In three… two… one…”

  Just as he predicted, he watched as the mana pulsed down the invisible tunnel, followed by the sounds of hundreds of small tears in the air as the fifth wave of Earthers suddenly found themselves standing in a grassy field, blinking dumbly at their surroundings. The sun had just about finished setting at this point, painting the sky in beautiful streaks of red.

  Beautiful to them, most likely. It reminded Vin far too much of the battle they’d just fought.

  “That’s not a thousand people,” Myers said quietly, her eyes scanning over the gathered crowd. “Looks closer to seven hundred. Even more people are missing than last time.”

  As always, before any of the new Earthers could ask what was going on, Spur cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Welcome to Edregon, everyone! I’m Commander Spur, the official head of our quaint little town known as Terra. Forgive our exhausted faces, but we just had something of a rather tiring day, and we’d love to wrap things up here and hit the hay. Would whoever is in charge of the fifth wave please come here so we can talk?”

  Unlike the previous wave, whose leader hadn’t made the journey, a man wearing a crisp Project Ark uniform stepped up, nodding toward Spur and giving a quick salute. “Lieutenant Colonel Parker, reporting in.”

  “It’s nice to have you, Parker,” Spur said, pausing for a moment as if waiting for more information. “...I don’t suppose you have any urgent news for us, or anything like that? Anything involving Project Ark specifically you were ordered to tell us upon arrival?”

  “No, nothing of note,” Parker said, silently waiting for new orders.

  “Huh… Well, I guess that’s good, right?” Spur asked, glancing around. “Vin, you doing alright? You kinda look like you’re spacing out there.”

  Vin hadn’t really heard any of the last thirty seconds, his eyes wide and unfocused as they continued watching the God’s magic tunnel they used to transport Earther over to Edregon. Similar to a leaky pipe, he could see a few individual mana signatures leaking out the side, moving so fast that they were launched off into the distance before they could hit the ground where they were supposed to. It wasn’t hard to figure out what was happening, and he gasped as he put it together.

  “The ritual used to bring Earthers over to Edregon,” Vin said, finally snapping out of his Beyond the Veil ability and fixing everyone with an excited look. He didn’t even feel the warm blood trickling down his nose as he shouted out his findings. “They’re not dying! They’re leaking!”

  “They’re… leaking?” Spur repeated, raising an eyebrow. “Sorry, come again?”

  “The people not making the trip from Earth to Edregon,” Vin hurried to explain, his heart pounding at the discovery. “They’re not vanishing into the void or just disintegrating during transit like we’d feared! At least, not all of them are!”

  “Well that’s good to hear!” Alice said, looking relieved. “So where are they?”

  “That…” Vin said, watching the last of the mana signatures rocket off into the distance, ending up on who knew what fragment. “...is an excellent question.”

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