Amazon Apocalypse 4: Chapter 41

Personalized Training Quest generated!

Training Quest Part 2 of 10: A Test of Leadership

Your faction has fought many battles, and will fight many more. Raise up reinforcements to bolster your ranks.

Push 20 D-Grades to C-Grade. (Progress: 7/20)

Push 200 F-Grades to D-Grade (Progress: 87/200)

I was surprised to find the next training quest involved my people as well. Perhaps I should have expected it though. I held the title of a Shardking, and though I didn’t often feel it, I was responsible for everyone in my domain. In a way, their strength was my own.

I could get behind this quest, since it was something I’d been planning on doing anyway. And I had a trick up my sleeve that would make completing it much faster.

“Well done, everyone! There might be more voidlings out there, but based on the notification I just got, that trial is over.” I congratulated my forces.

A cheer went up, and I let them continue until I heard someone shout the question I was waiting for.

“What about the rewards?” someone asked.

I pointed to them in the crowd. “No doubt many of you are wondering the same thing! Don’t worry, there’s plenty of sets of power armor for the highest kill count contributors. But there’s something else I want to do for a couple of standout fighters I saw up on the wall. Call it a bonus for bravery.”

And then I pointed to everyone in the crowd who was on the verge of a rank-up but hadn’t entirely made the cut. To them, I started handing out experience pearls. All the people on the edge of C-Grade got a full size pearl, while those at D-Grade got a piece of one. The aim was to get everybody who was within five levels of reaching the next realm of power over that ridge.

“Oh hey, I got a quest!” a young man said as he stared at an invisible box in front of him. He’d just reached level 199.

“I got one when I reached C-Grade too. It seems to be hit or miss, but they come with benefits if you can complete the challenge.”

The young man nodded, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

While I did want as many people over the C-Grade threshold as I could to progress my own quest, I would urge anyone with an opportunity to make the most of it.

“Alright everyone. Rest and recover. I’m going to pick up the rewards I promised from town. When I’m back, we’re going to sweep through the former Torchdragon shard and look for survivors, monsters, and any remaining Voidlings.”

I looked around, seemingly picking someone out at random.

“Sandon, you’re in charge!” I pointed out Sir Sandon, now in the body of Sam. he had been one of the people who’d reached C-Grade during the fight, and while he wasn’t the strongest there in terms of level, he had the most overall skill. More importantly, Sir Sandon had been a knight commander before the integration, which none of the others had.

“That’s Sam, sir.” someone corrected.

I waved off the confusion. Sir Sandon had a new lease on life, but I’d leave explaining the specifics up to him. No doubt Sam’s old friends would be displeased to know their friend was dead, even though their body was up and moving. But I didn't want to string them along either, though I doubted Sir Sandon was the type to do that. This would give him the opportunity to explain things immediately.

“Myrina, help me with the dead. We’ll take them to Doctor Roswell.” I nodded toward the wall, which sadly had a few fighters on it who wouldn’t be leaving their posts.

We collected the dead in Morgathor’s bag of holding before I left. Unfortunately, none were in as good shape as Sam’s body had been. While Voidlings attacked the soul directly, they didn’t mind mangling the flesh in the process.

I even approached the pale hand to take a second try at rescuing the original Sam’s soul, but the hand crumbled to dust and left no traces. I was pretty sure I sensed the souls trapped within it fading off into the System’s dimension to await their reincarnation.

With a sigh, Myrina and I departed for Crownhill with all haste. The new elites were important, but the men and women who’d just fought a fierce battle against the Chaos-possessed Torchdragon also needed a pep talk.

I knocked on the door of Doctor Roswell’s clinic. On the outside it looked the same as before, though when I opened the door it was clear he’d done some redecorating. There were several cages lining the walls that held zombies of various sort, most of them pinned to the wall. A couple were missing arms and legs.

“Welcome to Doctor Roswell’s clinic! If you or a friend are missing a limb, feel free to pick one out from the zombies on display. We also do special requests, though it might take time to get the organs or body parts required. Unfortunately we’re swamped today, but I can schedule a consultation.” the clerk gave me a creepily wide smile. She seemed like the sort of clerk who worked in horror movie hospitals, not real ones.

“I’m looking for the C-Grades who went through earlier. Lots of them were injured from a big battle recently, and they should have been brought here. How are they?”

“Ah, Carter Smith. I should have guessed. Right this way to the recovery wing. A few people are awake already.” The clerk stepped out of her booth, revealing she was also a nurse. Then she led Myrina and me around the corner to a set of hospital beds.

I recognized most of the people in the room. More than a few were sleeping, and a couple had been outfitted with new arms and legs that didn’t quite match the rest of them. But I let out a sigh of relief as I took in everyone who survived.

Sakura and Bridget had been alright when they’d gone in for healing, so I wasn’t surprised to see they looked fine.

Kyle and Marcus had both been battered around pretty badly, and Kyle sported a new arm. Many others had dragon-tooth shaped puncture wounds, which thankfully were much easier to heal.

A couple like Bridget had been struck by or forced to block some of the Lich King’s nastier magic. While I could shrug it off and heal through the worst he could do, it hit others a lot harder. The spell burned and blackened skin and corrupted the spirit. Perhaps it even turned people into undead, if allowed to spread over their entire body.

Thankfully, when Doctor Roswell appeared, undead were the ones who were afraid. He knew a thing or two about dealing with zombies, as did Reluna. With the two of them working together, things turned out much better than they could have.

It was too soon to tell, and if we’d been any slower in bringing the wounded back, things would have been much worse, but it seemed like most of the people who’d fought with me in that climactic battle would pull through. And they had a lot to show for it.

“Thirty three levels...” Kyle wheezed, throwing me a thumbs up with his new hand.

“Glad to hear it. You guys take it easy. I’ll be training up some of the rookies into new C-Grades, and they can take over the monster patrols until you’re all feeling up to fighting again.”

“Well fought! Next time, our enemies better bring two undead dragons to face us!” Myrina pumped her fist in the air to, and a few joined her with weak cheers.

I waved goodbye to them while they healed up. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too long before they were all in action. We stopped by the Obelisk and the farmhouse.

There were a bunch more experience pearls waiting for me, though to my surprise, the solar array had been turned off after all. Maybe I really could issue the mannequins instructions and have them be passed up the chain of command all the way back to my computer. That thing seemed more capable by the day.

It was probably the effects of my new Machine Spirit Awakening ability. When I finally put those upgrades I’d been planning together, hopefully we’d see even more of an impact.

After picking up the promised rewards, I returned with Myrina to the front lines. There, most of our fighters were leaning back as they recovered from the exertions of the battle. But when I started distributing rewards, they call climbed to their feet. Especially those who’d earned a set of Mark One power armor.

With everyone outfitted, equipped, and motivated again, we set out into the Torchdragon’s shard. We spotted a few of the Torchdragon’s clutch of young drakes, but none came to confront us. With all the voidlings running around, they must have taken cover and weren’t ready to leave their volcano yet.

We let them be. After all, they were Sharky’s favorite snack, so I wanted to give him the chance to hunt them down as a reward for all his hard work. Besides, they gave a lot of experience points, and if this series of training quests mitigated the negative effects of my curse, I might be able to take some of that experience for myself if Sharky ate them.

There weren’t any people left that we could find, but a part of the shard was from a farm in Iowa, which was great for us because it meant there were a few tractors and harvesters up for grabs. These would be excellent acquisitions to improve our food production. Maybe I’d even bring a few of them to Myrina’s farming village on Themyscira.

Mainly, we were hunting small cat and dog-sized monsters. The Torchdragon kept its territory scoured clean of enemies, but many of the things on the shard were smaller than a human. The dragon probably didn’t think of them as anything more than insects.

With our first sweep, we took out the strongest monsters with our soon-to-be C-Grades. A couple of them made the leap after a fight or two. Once I was pretty certain we’d wiped out everything that could cause a full team wipe, we split into parties to clear the place further. There were a few more things of interest on the shard besides the farm, but nothing we could really take with us.

I still wanted to explore the volcano where the Torchdragon had made her next, but something like that would require specialized equipment to travel through. I was pretty tough these days, but I didn’t want to go for a swim in molten lava quite yet. Especially lava with as much mana flowing through it as I could sense from that volcano.

Quest Progress: A Test of Leadership

13/20 of your followers have reached C-Grade!

124/200 of your followers have reached D-Grade!

We returned home after a long day of leveling. Bridget and Sakura were there, and Bridget even tried to cook for us again. I refused and sent her to bed. While mostly healed, Myrina and I were the only ones in fighting shape.

“Your job is to rest up. Myrina and I will take care of dinner, and breakfast tomorrow too. Sleep in. You deserve it.” I gave Bridget a pat on the head.

“But...” Bridget protested.

“We accept this challenge! Your pans are no match for us!” Myrina declared, hands on her hips.

“Okay...” Bridget reluctantly retired to the living room, where she and Sakura were watching some old animated show the two of them liked.

Meanwhile, Myrina and I struggled in the kitchen.

“Alright, steak and potatoes sounds easy enough, right? I’ll get the grill set up. You boil some water.” I went looking for my electric grill. I’d practically lived off that thing when I was a bachelor, though ever since Bridget moved in, it had been gathering dust. It was probably somewhere in the old farmhouse. Now was as good a time as any to bring it in.

When I finally found it, I returned to find Myrina struggling with her task.

“Uh... Carter... I think I burned the water again...” Myrina shot me a sheepishly look.

I rolled my eyes. “Myrina, you can’t burn water. It’s... holy shit! Grab the fire extinguisher!”

We put out the fire on the stove, and from then on, Myrina was on dish duty only. In fairness to her, I’d completely forgotten any ability to cook I once possessed, and the steaks were half raw and half burned. But at least they existed, unlike Myrina’s potatoes.

She looked sheepish the whole time. This was the second time something like this happened, so I probably should have seen it coming. I made a mental note to teach Myrina to use a stove next chance I had.

“Dinner is served!” I declared, heaping a hefty chunk of steak on every plate.

It wasn’t exactly the feast fit for a king we were used to, but it was worth it to see Bridget trying her best to pretend to like it and not rush right over to the stove and fix my mess.

We had a quiet night, then we rose the following morning and made breakfast. I made a big plate of scrambled eggs, which thankfully went better than the steak. With my careful guidance, Myrina was finally able to boil water and even get it into the French press so she could declare she’d successfully made coffee.

After, it was more leveling. I took a personal interest in the monster hunting expeditions, which was something I didn’t often do. It was neat to see how my people had refined the career. These days, hunting monsters was a respected career choice for people in Crownhill. The only one more popular was diving the dungeon I’d set up, which was the only reliable way to get pre-integration luxuries like televisions, gaming consoles, ice cream, and other favorites.

I even learned a few things from my people that simply hadn’t come up for me. Like for women, reaching D-Grade apparently meant an end to the whole monthly cycle thing. I probably should have guessed as much, since it never came up in my household. Apparently, it was all thanks to me.

It had been one of the selections I’d picked for Homo Accelerata when making my racial modifications. I’d only gone through the menu for men, so all the changes carried over. And since men didn’t get periods, at D-Grade, neither did women.

“So, thank you for that, Lord Carter. I know you’ve received some criticism for trying to transform all women into super fit warrior women, since that’s your type, but I think it was the right choice. I think it’s helped a lot of people survive, and those little details you caught are proof you were really thinking about the future,” said a young woman who’d just reached D-Grade minutes before, much to her excitement.

“Ah... yes. That’s it. That exactly. You know me, always keeping track of the details...” I chuckled awkwardly at the genuine praise that was completely undeserved.

The next day saw us through another four C-Grades and more barely edible dinner. The pans were much cleaner than Myrina and I left them, so I was a bit suspicious that Bridget had sneakily whipped up a quick lunch for herself and Sakura while we were off fighting monsters. The two of them acted innocent, so I pretended not to notice.

Dinner took another great leap forward, and Myrina successfully boiled potatoes while I made grilled lizard.

“I’m impressed. You two even made side dishes today,” Bridget said as she tasted the food.

“Haha, yeah...” Myrina did her best not to look guilty, since most of the food we’d bought on the way home.

After dinner, I picked over my supplies along with the monster cores I harvested. Doomseeker was depleted thanks to all the fighting, and I needed to rebuild my enchanted rapier again. I did so, largely following the old design but with a few improvements. After a few minutes of waving the new rapier in front of Myrina and boasting about how it was vastly superior to my previous one, I did a bit of work expanding the experience pearl farms, then onto my prototype Doomblade armor.

I still intended to call it my Doomblade armor, even though both armor and associated sword were completely destroyed. I’d harvested enough in the way of raw materials during our monster-hunting expeditions that I had everything I needed to build the armor even better than before. These days, I wasn’t too far off from hitting B-Grade as an Aethersmith, and I could feel the progress in the way I could manipulate metal and enchantments with hardly a thought.

Pretty soon, I had the start of a new set. The one other priority to rebuild were a new set of rings. I needed those if I was ever going to use the fourth level of Mania again. Unfortunately, appropriate monster cores were hard to find, even now. Perhaps the Torchdragon’s core would have worked, but the ritual the Lich King cast in possessing it had used the core as fuel. Either that or the Voidlings had eaten it. It was nowhere to be found, so I assumed it was gone.

I suspected I could find the monster cores I needed in the markets of Mucaria, so I’d just have to build more Mark One power armor to sell when that time came.

Over the next few days, I made steady progress on my training quest, and soon Bridget and Sakura were back in action. We were all much relieved, and I realized how much I’d been missing having the buffs from her cooking constantly active.

That was the day I finally reached the goals the System set out for me.

Quest Completed: A Test of Leadership

You have raised up 20 additional C-Grades loyal to your faction!

You have raised up 200 additional D-Grades loyal to your faction!

Congratulations! Your Death Defier title now provides significant bonuses to leadership, and your Death Curse will be less likely to lure in monsters under inconvenient circumstances.

Now beginning Personalized Training Quest Part 3 of 10.

<Note>

Continuing Carter's training arc! I know a lot of you guys were expecting this before fighting the Naga, Undead, and Dragon, but that would have made the fight too easy for Carter. Most of them won't be a full chapter long, but the more entertaining/plot relevant ones will be longer.