Verdant Sanctuary

"Status window."

The next hour came and went quickly. After winning a duel with the Veldans and killing the Alorae scout without batting an eye, it was pretty obvious that news was spreading about how strong I was. At this moment, I was at the top of the leaderboards as the strongest human, but that did not mean that I was the strongest in the first season. Every race had their monsters; I was just humanity's monster. At least for now.

I navigated from my status window over to view the scoreboard and leaderboard. I was pleased to see that nothing had changed among the sponsored objectives. The fact that I already changed the history of the first season meant that there was no telling what kind of changes were to come.

Season 1 Scoreboard

Humanity: 102,388

Alorae: 12,749

Veldan: 11,440

Leaderboard

Ronan Wilde [Humanity]: 100,000 points

At'tok Krosfah [Veldan]: 1,980 points

Losha Feivoni [Alorae]: 1,740 points

Korralis Bayspo [Alorae]: 1,724 points

Keke Keke [Veldan]: 1,397 points

The points were adding up fast, and humanity was in the lead all because of me. It felt good, but there wasn't any time to bask in my accomplishments.

Tim the cart rolled alongside me, his tiny face appearing tired. "Hey Ron, how much longer?"

I navigated to the system map and glanced at my current location. "Maybe another fifteen minutes."

"Sweet, my legs hurt."

I looked at Tim's wheels. "You're a cart right now. You don't have legs."

"Fuck, okay, my wheels are tired."

I resisted the urge to make a "two-tired" joke and just continued walking. "We'll get there soon, and when we do, you can turn back into a watch."

Tim's face disappeared from the side of the cart, and he was quiet during the rest of our journey. I had the location saved in my memory, as this was the first place where I remember feeling safe in the Verdant Abyss. Humanity had several monsters among our players who were just starting to learn the ropes, and a couple of them were protecting this site.

Fifteen minutes passed, and we finally reached our destination, the first human settlement in the Verdant Abyss, or rather, the birthplace of it.

"There it is. Verdant Sanctuary."

Tim's face manifested itself on the side of the cart, and I could tell that he was not impressed. At the moment, there were just a few makeshift fires burning and about a dozen humans at the site. It wasn't much to get excited about, at least for someone who didn't know the future like I did. I had explained to Tim during our trip here that I had visions of the future, an oracle-like skill that I had stumbled upon before contracting with him.

I shouted from a good distance away and waved my arms wide so as not to startle the first group of settlers. "Hey! I'm a friendly!"

A young man in a hunting outfit holding a rifle stepped in front of the group and pointed his gun in my direction. He calmly shouted back, "What's your favorite food? There're some Alorae that can shapeshift; I need to know something about Earth from you before you take another step, just a precaution."

I stopped moving forward and responded, "Don't shoot me for the pineapple part, but I really like bacon, chicken, and pineapple pizza. That's my favorite food."

The rifleman lowered his gun and laughed as he motioned for me to join their makeshift campsite. "I can't waste a bullet on that; come join us."

I started jogging towards their campsite, Tim the cart right on my heels. The people at the camp looked startled at the self-navigating cart, but given everything that they probably experienced up until now, something like this wasn't completely unexpected.

The young man extended his hand toward me. "I'm Robert Foreman. What's your name?"

I shook his hand and gave my name. "Nice to meet you; I'm Ronon Wilde."

The camp suddenly got quiet. There were about fifteen or so people who were there, all of whom looked at me with a shocked expression. Robert blinked a few times in quick succession, as if he were trying to check and see if he was seeing things right.

"Holy shit, you're the guy who killed the Verdant Leviathan that was worth 100,000 points? The Ronan Wilde at the top of the leaderboards? It's been less than a day, and you're already the guy everyone's talking about."

"I figured it would be like that." I blushed a bit after hearing this. I forgot that my actions would put me in the limelight, but I wasn't ready for this sort of attention. "Let's just say that I got lucky. And right now, a lot of things want to kill me."

"Well, you came to the right place. Heather and I were planning on making this area a small settlement. There's an abundant monster around here called a Murkcap Mushroom. It's only worth one point, but it's easy to farm and tastes like portobello mushrooms. Down south, about a quarter mile, is a river for fresh water. You're welcome to set up camp here; we'll work together to keep you safe. If you die, that's 100,000 points for another team, and I'd like to keep our world intact."

"I agree. You said you and Heather?" I asked this question even though I knew who both of them were. Robert and Heather Foreman were two of the monsters among humanity who made it through the first four seasons. They both have ultra-rare firearm skills, both for long-range rifles.

"Heather is my sister; she's out hunting right now with one of our groups. She'll probably be back in an hour."

"Okay." I smiled and looked over at Tim the cart. "You won't need to hunt for a while; I've got a literal cart and inventory load of Verdant Leviathan meat that you can use to help keep everyone here well fed."

"That's very kind of you; I accept your generosity."

I had Tim unload his cart full of meat, which he gladly did. When he was done unloading, he reattached himself to my wrist as my smart watch again. I then checked my radio for Punisher. It's been quite a while, but I remembered that Punisher had one of the farthest spawns in the West that you could have in the first season. It had been a while already, but I was certain that he would be close by now.

As if it were fate, the moment I checked my radio, I heard it buzz with activity.

"Hey Ronan…" [Bzzt] "…maybe…" [Bzzt] "…adio silence…" [Bzzt]