I slowly made my way into the woods.
I still had the stone sword I crafted earlier, but that was basically all I had in terms of combat power. I had already sent out all my Minions to do various things. The forest was filled with the crunching sound of me walking through various pieces of greenery. There was hardly any flat land in this rich forest.
Eventually, after walking past several trees, I was met by the sight of a girl lying on the ground.
"Are you okay?" I asked as I walked closer.
She didn't respond.
I slowly walked closer to her until I heard another sound coming from a little deeper in the woods. I quickly summoned my [Lesser Stone Sword] and raised it.
All of a sudden, another girl walked out. I put my sword back into my inventory. I didn't sense any danger as she approached.
"Heyo." She greeted.
"Hi..."
"Do you need something?"
"I thought I heard someone so I came out here to have a look."
"Ah, you must be referring to the girl I just beat."
"Yeah..."
"What system do you have?" She asked.
"Why does that matter?"
"I'm just curious; unless it's something you want to hide?"
"I expect that if you want to hear mine, you should tell me yours first," I responded
She laughed and then took a few steps closer to me. She had long blonde hair which looked like it was almost in peak condition despite the circumstance we were in. She was also in a school uniform, one that I could not recognise.
"You're an interesting one." She said.
"What about it."
She giggled.
"Did you come to act as the prince for that pitiful girl?"
"I don't see why that concerns you."
"Of course, it concerns me, I just beat her after all..."
There was a moment of silence.
I waited for her to continue but nothing else came out.
Her facial expression showed confusion.
"Ah, my bad, I expected you to tell me the reason instead of just leaving me hanging like that," I said.
She laughed again.
"If you won't tell me what your system is, at least answer this question." She said.
"What is it?"
"Would you say that you're strong?"
I thought about it for a little while.
"No."
"Hehe, you're lying."
"I'm not."
"Oh well."
"So are you going to tell me why you randomly beat someone up?" I asked.
"Ah, that, well she was trying to rob me, that's all."
She flipped her hair with her wrist and looked off into the distance.
"So is there anything else you want to know?" She asked.
I looked over at the girl who was still lying on the ground, it looked as if she had slowly begun regaining her consciousness. There was some slight movement. At first, I thought this blonde girl was bad news; I was planning on drawing my weapon and calling in some Minions to fight alongside me.
However, I noticed something about the injured girl that cause me to change my decision.
I see what was going on now.
Instead, I decided to look at the blonde girl who was standing in front of me instead.
"Do you want to join us?" I asked.
"Join you? Hehe, that's an interesting proposal."
"So what's the answer?"
"It depends, what do I have to gain?"
"Well, we have shelter and some other things that we could share."
"Hmm that's certainly something, but I'm not interested."
"Why is that."
"I don't like sharing." She replied.
What an awkward person.
Well, I anticipated as much.
There wasn't much more I could offer so I decided to kneel down and look at the girl who was lying on the ground. She was weakly trying to pull herself up from the ground. As she pushed down to the ground, the blonde girl walked over and attempted to kick her straight in the back. I grabbed her leg which caused her to look at me apathetically.
Hey now, I'm just having a look.
In her hand was a Knife of Kali. I just wanted to observe this weapon from a little closer. I had already deduced that the blonde girl was not the aggressor, the aggressor was definitely the girl laying on the ground here.
Even so, I still wanted to see something.
Just recently I saw the condition required to forge a Knife of Kali.
Ah.
"Why are you kicking someone who's already on the ground?" I asked although I didn't really care about the answer to that question.
"She's getting back up, is she not?"
"There is no need for that, I'm trying to talk to her."
I let go of her leg and she took a step back.
"You're pretty confident." She said.
"I would hardly call myself that."
"I would assume that you have a pretty strong system."
"I have no method of defending myself right now if someone tried to attack me," I said.
"That's an interestingly-worded statement."
"What part of it is interesting?"
"The 'right now' part..." she continued, "you know what, I am willing to join you."
"Who said the invitation was still active?"
She giggled.
"Haha, I see now. Alright then, what do you want from me?"
I thought about it for a little while. There wasn't really anything I wanted. However, based on her personality, I had some worries. Even if she joined our group, she might still cause more trouble than she was worth. In the end, my goal was to recruit the strongest people I could irrespective of their personalities, I could always deal with that.
Whatever the case, I could read her, and as a result, a person like her could never be a threat to me.
"You have to follow all of my orders."
"Aw, so you want me to be your slave?"
"If you want to interpret it that way."
"Don't you think that's a little much?" She said, while satirically holding her body.
"Don't worry, I don't want any of that type of stuff."
"Haha sure, well, in that case, I'm allowed to give you a condition as well, right?"
"I'll hear you out."
"Hehe, I want you to leave that girl on the ground to die out here."
I thought about it. I guess this girl was underestimating me, it didn't really matter, I had planned to do that from the beginning. I decided to leave the Knife of Kali on her body since I didn't have much use for it, I don't like using very short-range weapons. The Knife of Kali is basically only useful for killing other people, it seemed basically useless against zombies.
"I don't need a thief anyways, I'm willing to accept that."
"Haha, you really are an interesting one, alright I'll follow your orders then!"
"Good. By the way, what's your name?"
"Are you sure you want to know the name of your slaves?"
"Don't act like that."
"Alright boss, my name is Chloe—Chloe Afford."
Hold on a second.
Where have I heard that last name before?
Why did it seem so familiar?
I guess I'd think about it later.
"Follow me."
"Woof."
"Stop it, I'll dump you into a river."
"Ah~ so scary."
She laughed.
I led the way and the two of us began making our way back to my settlement. Pushing the branches of trees out of my face, I made extra sure that I wouldn't accidentally twist my ankle on this uneven ground.
It wasn't a long walk back to the huts and there, we were met by Rosie, who was watering some of her plants with her system.
"Hey, William, who's that with you?"
"This is Chloe, she'll be working with us."
"Ah, nice to meet you, Chloe."
She looked a Rosie for a brief moment before responding.
"Likewise."
I made my way over to the second hut which had just finished construction. Chloe was still following me, looking around at the various things in our settlement. After a brief moment, she opened her mouth for the first time in a while and spoke to me.
"So~ what do you want me to do."
"Well, what's your system?"
"Ah... that's a secret."
"You were going to follow all of my orders weren't you?"
"Are you going to order me to tell you?"
Ugh.
"You know what, fine, keep it to yourself, just go collect some items from the forest that are useful."
"Isn't it dangerous out there though?" She sulked.
"It's an order."
"Ah, you're so ruthless."
I couldn't help but wonder about how strong she actually was.
Earlier, when I was observing the injured girl on the ground. I saw a Knife of Kali in her hand, the knife was an incredibly strong weapon, especially considering the relatively cheap cost in terms of materials. However, there was one condition to craft it, and it was to commit a cold-hearted murder of another person.
For Chloe to defeat someone wielding such as powerful weapon, she must have been strong.
Well, strong enough.