Chapter 56: The Price Of Safety
Many of the youngsters still hesitated, but the group who had gone to rescue them had even less patience for their antics than Kalli had.
"Look, we lost six very good people to go and rescue you. Do not disgrace their sacrifice by whining and wasting your chance to step up as heroes.
You always wanted to be someone, right? To grow up and take over the family business? How could you even dream of doing that if you can’t take the most basic actions to help yourself?" Carmen, the lone ginger of the Student Council, asked.
"Well, I mean, that’s a long way away, right? Don’t we have time? The adults are here to protect us until we’re ready."
Carmen’s laugh was cruel and bitter. "What adults? They’re dead. Dead. Not coming back. All that’s left here are students, and a couple of soldiers. The last so-called adults we saw tried to steal our food supplies and leave us to starve.
Nobody is coming to save you.
Even if we see other students who have gotten the hero designation, they won’t be saving you, they’ll be looking for others who can help them save themselves.
Now, grow up and make the heroes we lost saving you proud of you."
The lack of sympathy, and the true pain in the eyes of the ones who had known the students that were lost in the rescue mission, got through to the younger students on a level that Kalli’s threats had failed to.
She had scared them into motion, the others had shamed them into doing the right thing.
And with that shame, the knowledge that others had died to rescue them while they cowered in a secure room waiting for the monsters to find them or give up on their own, motivation began to creep into their attitudes.
Everyone else was doing what they could. They were all fighting and doing their part, though most of the group at the Academy was only a few years older.
To a fourteen-year-old, eighteen felt like a lifetime away. But seeing everyone else working hard only made them look worse if they didn’t do their best.
Like the spoiled brats that they hated being called.
Carmen joined a few others who had finished their workout and kept the new arrivals on track, building strength so that they could actually fight as real warriors.
Agility and stamina could wait. But if they couldn’t wield a sword properly, they would never be able to actually do the job that their Class was designed for.
For some reason, these kids hadn’t gotten as large of a bonus as the older warriors had, and Carmen suspected that it was because the bonus was based on your existing fitness. The better your physique was, the more you gained when you awakened.
She was on both the wrestling and volleyball teams, plus the track team. There weren’t any major deficiencies in her training, and when she had awakened, she had become a prodigious fighter right from the start.
And now, she was counting on the same being true after these kids were trained.
Kalli knew none of that, she was simply making sure that everyone had received their quest rewards before she turned in for the evening.
Only to find that she didn’t have to sleep so early.
"We’ve got a mage taking over for you in the tower. Having the same people on duty every night might lead to complacency, so even the special forces guys are rotating towers.
Go ahead and sleep through the night, and then you can lead everyone through their missions tomorrow.
I know that everyone is afraid to let you leave the Academy, but from what I’m hearing, you might not have to. There are more of those pig men in the area, and the day shift was concerned that they might group up to attack us.
No offence, but you’re the closest thing that we have to a General, and your Class is Coordinator. So, you’re probably best suited to defend the Academy."
Kalli smiled. "That’s most likely true. We’re going to start attracting attention as we continue to hunt, and the more game we clear out of the area, the more monsters will move in looking for supplies to pillage.
Our world might be devastated by their arrival, but their food supply has been scattered all through our city, along with multiple hostile forces.
The conflict is inevitable, and we’re just one more faction involved."
"You’re a veritable ray of sunshine, aren’t you? That really wasn’t a thought that I needed to have today, but now that you’ve mentioned it, the whole thing makes more sense.
The armoured boars are a food supply for the other demonic armies in the city, and they ended up nearest to us. So, now everything else is running out of food because anything that wasn’t living didn’t get transferred from their world.
At least, I haven’t seen any huge supply wagons or anything.
And that means they need something to eat, which is not something that is pleasant to think about.
But it does mean we’re going to need to put more effort into gathering as many students as we can."
Kalli nodded. "Exactly. We’ve got a few more days to get everything set up for the next stage, and I suspect that whoever we manage to find is all that we’re going to get.
The others will either be defending their own groups, or they’ll be gone.
I just hope that someone can get the kids on the right track. I scared them into working out, but if nobody convinces them to be useful, they’re all going to be nothing more than dead weight in a couple of days."
"We will take care of it. I hear that they already had a run in with the Student Council, who reminded them of the price paid for their lives.
That should be enough to get them to at least try to adapt.
Go, do whatever it is that you do in the evening. We will see you in the morning."
With no shift on watch to prepare for, Kalli realized that she actually had a lot of extra time.
And no idea what to do with it.
However, there was one more thing she had to do. With all the complaining, she realized that she had never gotten to giving the kids weapons. They couldn’t do much without them, and most of the others didn’t have gear to spare.
Everything was either a replacement for damaged gear or an addition to their equipment. With a heavy emphasis on replacing broken gear.
