Chapter 22: Alexandria

Deryn didn't hear Chris's welcome. He was a little shocked by what he was seeing in front of him. He saw a wall in front of him. Not just a small 3m wall like he had around his shelter, but a wall at least 6m tall and a few metres thick, covering the around 100m wide entrance to a valley where he had seen the human shelters on the map.

Deryn would have been slightly jealous if he didn't notice the wall was made out of wood instead of stone, yet it didn't stop the slight behemoth sight from making him sigh in surprise. He took out the map and saw that it had been updated in more detail, now showing him the wall surrounding the base.

He looked at Chris "That's some defences you have".

"Ha. Yeah, one of us got a decent chest and among the loot got this bad bo...."

"OI CHRIS! SHUTUP DONT GIVE AWAY OUR SECRETS YOU DOLT" a female shouted atop the wall.

"CERRY, OPEN THE GATE I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR EVERYONE" Chris hollered back, throwing Deryn a small apologetic smile for not continuing explaining the rewards.

Deryn just shook his head, waiting for the gate to open. A moment later and the gate slowly began to open, and starting up the buggy once more he prepared to drive in, a slight nervousness building up in the pit of his stomach.

"I didn't expect a top leaderboard ranker to get nervous" Chris laughed at Deryn.

Deryn gave a small chuckle in response before driving into the now wide-open gate. Noticing as he drove forward, the ground behind the walls became a lot more smooth and a slight smell of cooked meat hit his nose. He parked the buggy beside the entrance of the inside gate out of the way and started following Chris on foot.

Deryn's eyes were widened slightly to not miss any detail, and a mana shield spell was prepared just in case he needed it. The sights shocked him to no end. He noticed at least 7 shelters so far with 6 aboveground and a single one below ground.

The above-ground shelters didn't look any different from log cabins back on earth, whilst the underground one had the aesthetic of a nuclear bunker, just smaller, with an entrance inside, built into the ground.

"Chris... who shouted at us on the wall?" Deryn questioned, after still not seeing anyone after a minute or so of walking.

"That would be Cerry. We have communications from the main shelter, which lead directly into all our structures, including the wall." Chris replied.

"So why is there no one on watch? Shouldn't you always be ready for an attack?" Deryn asked back, more than confused by the lack of security he had seen.

Chris sighed. "You would understand when we get to the main shelter but there are only some people here who know even remotely how to survive outside. The rest have got comfortable behind these walls. So they won't take watch on the walls or go out to fight".

Deryn couldn't believe his ears. It was only day 4 and people were already getting too comfortable to do tedious but important jobs.

"Chris... don't tell me you have dead weight here? That's going to kill your own survival chances you know?" Deryn spoke the first bit before muttering the rest. He didn't know the guy too well and with all the shock, was more sociable than usual.

Chris didn't answer because they had arrived at the back of the encampment.

"There are 3 shelters merged into 1... I didn't even know that was possible." Deryn thought. The shelters were merged and the entire thing looked like a wooden castle, with the left and right shelter being the turrets of it, whilst the central shelter being the main body.

"It's big... but one fire and it's all over" Deryn continued to be lost in his thoughts.

Deryn hadn't noticed the beauty of the place this time. The 3 shelters were dark wooden coloured, with the turrets reaching around 10m high whilst the main body was hovering around 6-7m. Surrounding the shelter on the left and right were traps and greenery, whilst the back wall of the shelter was joined directly into the sheer drop of the hill behind it.

The front entrance of the shelter was large, borderline too large at around 3mx4m. There were a few windows in the shelter, which seemed to have glass panes in them. Overall it was large and could house the few survivors Deryn knew this group had.

Chris stood silently at the side letting Deryn take it all in. He couldn't tell what the other man was thinking as Deryn had replaced his slightly nervous face with a deadpan contemplative look. Chris was thinking about giving the man a prod when the castle doors opened in front of him, waking up Deryn from his reverie.

"I'M DONE WITH THIS PLACE. YOU LOT WIN A SINGLE BATTLE AND THINK YOU DONT HAVE TO CONTRIBUTE ANY LONGER, WHILST STILL GETTING THE SAME TREATMENT OF EVERYONE ELSE, HAH" shouted a small blonde female as she stormed out of the castle, tears of anger pooling in her eyes, whilst her body language looked like she was about to kill someone.

Chris rushed forward "Cerry... hey Cerry it's fine, it's fine" he mumbled taking the woman in his arms, consoling her.

Deryn just watched. Cerry was around 5ft5 and had shiny blonde hair. "She would have a pretty face if it wasn't scrunched up in anger," Deryn thought to himself.

A moment later and a group of 5 people walked out of the castle, standing to the side of cerry, and a few seconds later a group of 11 walked out, standing in an open space away from Cerry whilst muttering to themselves, giving the woman unkind looks. Lastly, a man walked out ruffling his hair in frustration as he stood in between the two groups.

Deryn merely just stood there and watched. From this brief display, he saw the camp was split into three groups, those who sided with Cerry, those who were against her, and the guy in the middle of the camp seemingly acting as the peacekeeper. Deryn assumed that this man was Owlen, who was, on paper, the leader of this little community.

Owlen sighed before looking at the two groups, spotting a stranger as he glanced around. He walked forwards under the stares of the others who had just noticed Deryn. Chris jogged to the side of Owlen before whispering something to him, which Owlen just nodded before walking forward, finally standing before Deryn.

Owlen bowed slightly. "Hello, Deryn. I want to give you this bow and my thanks for your advice which definitely saved more than just a few lives".

Deryn shook his head before reaching forward to shake the man's hand instead. "Nice to meet finally meet you Owlen, don't bow its weird, a handshake will do" Deryn muttered to which Chris laughed and Owlen nodded shaking his hand with gusto.

"I want to welcome you to Alexandria, it's a shame you came at this time as there are some unpleasantries in the air," Owlen said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

The group of 5 plus Cerry looked over sneering at the group of 11 who looked down at their feet before returning the glares back.

"What's the issue?" Deryn asked, wanting to sort whatever happened out so he could finish up here and get on with his day. He had been more sociable today already than he had during his last year on earth.

Owlen called over the groups. "Everyone. This is Deryn".

Both groups looked shocked to see the man first on the world leaderboard. One by one, Cerry's group walked over and shook Deryn's hand, thanking him for the advice which played a part in saving their lives. Deryn shook all their hands with a simple nod before once again asking Owlen what the issue was; Deryn felt a small amount of responsibility as it was his advice that seemed to have caused an issue so wanted to fix it.

Owlen sighed. "There are some of us who don't want to fight anymore, yet have no way to contribute anything else to the Alexandria. Whilst the rest of us don't want to fight but know we have to if we want to survive".

"Why should we fight! We risked our lives once and want to live behind our walls reaping our rewards!" a man from the group of 11 said.

"Congratulations. You fought a single battle and barely did anything to contribute to it. Your entire group combined killed fewer goblins than the rest of us did and ran away during the battle when we had to face the stage two goblin". Cerry snarled back, making the man take a few steps back before reaching the safety of the group behind him once more, which bolstered his courage.

"You can't expect us to risk our lives fighting monsters! You're lucky we even helped you that once!" the man once more shouted back the nods of encouragement from his group.

Cerry was about to shout once more before Deryn beat her to the punch.

Quite literally.

He moved forward at a speed no one else could match and punched the self-entitled prick in the face, knocking him out, whilst his body flew, hitting the group behind him knocking a few more people over.

Summoning a water spell Deryn tossed it at the knocked out man to wake him up before he continued speaking, not minding the looks of shock on everyone's faces.

"Were you just born stupid? Or did the teleport forget to bring your brain with your body?" Deryn asked, sheer sarcasm dripping from his voice.

Deryn pointed to each member of the group who didn't want to contribute. "I didn't give my advice to help pitiful people like you. You being here, joining this community, made the entire first test more difficult for those who actually want to survive and fight to do so".

"HOW DARE YOU HIT ME" the self-entitled prick ran up to Deryn and tried to slash him with a sword he must have summoned from his inventory.

Deryn went into battle mode. His agility and intelligence had made his perception of time extremely heightened during a battle. The man in front of him looked like he was moving in slow motion, which was true for Deryn, who had 4.5 points in agility and 4 in intelligence, making his mind and body move like a phantom.

Deryn moved forward, disarming and breaking the arm which held the sword in two swift motions before standing back where he originally was.

The momentum from the self-entitled prick's charge made his body lurch forward before crashing to the ground, and ghastly pain appeared from his arm as he began screaming.

"Attack me again and you die," Deryn said plainly.

The man whimpered before walking back to the rest of his group tears streaming down his face. Upon reaching them a few members looked at one another before walking past the man and stood before Deryn, apologising before walking to Cerry and her group, apologising once more before standing among them.

Cerry slightly smiled at this, willing to give them another chance whilst looking at the remaining 8 members of the self-entitled prick's group with contempt.

"I don't care if you don't contribute. Just do it on your own terms in your own community where you cant ruin the lives of those who actually want to survive". Deryn spoke towards the lazy group who had been whispering among themselves.

"And who are you to even tell us this? You might be first on the leaderboard but there are 8 of us. You cant kick us out, we helped build this place! We defended this place! You just got here and already started ordering us around. Do you want to take ownership of Alexandria?" another man, with dirty blonde hair, stepped out of the group, trying to sow discord between everyone and Deryn.

"haha," Deryn laughed. A genuine laugh.

"What's so funny fucker? I was right wasn't I, you want t..." Blondie got cut off by Deryn laughing again.

"You sure know how to talk." Deryn looked toward where Cerry, Owlen and Chris were. "Can I talk on behalf of you guys?" he asked. If they said no he would walk away, beating anyone who might disrespect or mock him for doing so whilst if they said yes he would sort this issue out for good.

The group didn't hesitate before nodding. "We mean what we said Deryn, your advice saved a lot of lives, probably ours included, do as you see fit. Just remember one of them has a kid who is dependent upon him living here" Owlen said whilst pointing to one of the lazy group's members.

"You... are you sure you want to be with a group who won't contribute to anything? How will your kid survive if you are too weak to protect them? Deryn said.

The man who Deryn pointed to attempted to walk forward and talk but was stopped by the group, who looked at him menacingly before he stopped and walked back into place, looking extremely defeated.

"Why stop him from talking. I asked a question and expect it to be answered," Deryn said grumpily, starting to get slightly angry now.

"Yeah on what grounds? haha," Blondie said, spitting on the floor next to him.

"On the grounds that you lot are assholes and I'm stronger than you". Deryn muttered as he charged forwards pushing the group out of the way before grabbing the man with a kid and placing him where Owlen and the others were standing. This only took a few seconds and blondie looked like he had eaten something extremely sour after he noticed the man had gone.

"Start talking!" Deryn said to the man he had just grabbed.

Blondie and his group walked a few steps forward before Deryn turned towards them "Carry on walking and ill take a leg" he threatened.

"Ahem... My name is Dan. I just want to look after my kid, I promise. They threatened me that if I didn't side with them they would throw me and my kid out of the camp after breaking our legs."

Everyone but blondie's group was shocked. Even the three members who left the group had no idea about this.

"Is that why Micheal hasn't been around recently. Do they have him somewhere... you said he was just sick and no one was allowed to see him..." Owlen muttered in shock.

Deryn didn't expect this. "How old is your kid?" he asked.

"6... he really is ill... but only because they take our supplies so we don't eat properly. They said if we told anyone, we would get punished and I haven't seen him in days. I don't want this for my child." Dan sobbed silently.

*Swoosh*

*Swoosh*

*Squelch*

"ARGHHHHHHHHHHH"

"You guys are finished" Deryn managed to growl out.