Chapter Twelve: Arriving At Great Haven

Flying through the sky while hugging the waist of Henrietta, Karl just continued to look around at how much nature has changed, and he wondered if all of the animals were now mutated as well. The trees were now just incredibly large mushrooms as they had smaller mushrooms branching out.

Continuing to watch the ground, Karl saw a quick flash of purple passing by as a large trench was made while dust and debris flew everywhere, and then a flash of green going in the same direction as the purple.

"Those were some bears fighting for territory, there are tens of millions of them in Canada, and they are one of the higher levelled mutated animals. Very few of the people in Great Haven can defeat them.

Most of the animals are mutated, but our bodies are mutated as well so we can handle eating the mutated animals, and we can gain a little bit of EXP from eating them. The only animals that haven't been mutated mutated are our Ravens and Dogs, at least they are the ones we have found so far, there might be animals hiding somewhere that aren't mutated.

The highest levelled person in Great Haven is level 50, at least publicly, they are the current leader of Great Haven as they have a few so called 'Generals' under them, the Generals are level 35-45, anything above that and they are the decision makers in Great Haven.

We have all sorts of people from different nationalities as well as people with all kinds of different skills and whoever has skills has to write down their knowledge about them. I'm not talking about magic or fantasy skills, I'm talking about skills such as carpentry or stone work, chemical engineering or biological sciences, and doctors or mechanical engineers.

Missions are sent out from the Association to collect stuff from the towns and cities, like how we came to collect the clothes, it was a mission from the Association. Books are to be collected, any kind of books, it doesn't matter what kind, even kids books.

Guns and ammo are collected for the weaker people who need them to level up until they are strong enough to not need them, but the most important thing is probably medical drugs, books, and kids clothing.

No kids have been born so far as not enough time has passed since they got pregnant, but it will be happening in the next 1-2 months as we are accounting for any premature births that might happen, and if they do we have all the resources needed as well as magic users who can use healing magic.

The first month after all this happened was spent mourning, the second was spent on levelling up as the leading figure was the current leader of Great Haven, third was spent on making houses and stores while making sure that everyone had enough food, which was easy because the walls surrounding Great Haven always had thousands of mutated animals prowling around it.

The fourth was when the Association had came to be with people going out and exploring for rewards from missions, but some people who had a more adventurous spirit had already started exploring in the second month, the first people to start exploring back in the beginning of the second month was a man and woman.

They are now Generals of the leader of Great Haven, the man's name is Matthew, he is blond with a very bulky frame, but he uses magic. The woman's name is Kris, she has bright red hair and was a sword user.

From the fifth month till now not much has changed, people are steadily growing in level while Great Haven is slowly filling up with more buildings, and there are rumours going around the leader is going to be hosting a grand banquet in his castle.

It will be held in a month as he plans on proposing to the love of his life and hopefully start a family with her. He has never revealed her identity, he just says that he has loved her and she him ever since they laid eyes on each other shortly after the first day.

Only those who have been invited by him can go to the banquet as any uninvited guests will be thrown out and banned from ever setting foot in the Association."

Large amounts of information were spilled from Henrietta's mouth as Karl just listened quietly. He had been exuberant at that fact that Matthew and Kris were alive, but when he had heard about Kris being one of the Generals he had a feeling that something was wrong.

That feeling amplifying when he heard about how the leader would be proposing to the love of his life, but these feelings were all put aside when he heard Henrietta. "Look at that, we have arrived at Great Haven."

Turning his gaze in front of him, Karl saw a giant wall hundreds of metres tall and a hundred metres thick encircling an area of 10,000 square kilometres with a giant mushroom that was over twenty kilometres tall in the direct centre of the area.

Surrounding the large mushroom was tens of thousands of smaller mushrooms ranging from 50 metres to over 1 kilometre. At the base of the largest mushroom was a magnificent castle constructed out of stone bricks, metal, and painted in different shades of red and blue bioluminescent paint that was created from the mushrooms.

Hanging off of or built into the smaller mushrooms were houses and shops with many of them currently brightly lit with some fires and a few just using the natural light from the mushrooms. One thing in common with almost all of them was that there was at least 3 or 4 Ravens and Dogs hanging around the periphery of the buildings.

Another building that stood out like a sore thumb was a gigantic warehouse/mansion type building that was at least 4 square kilometres large, with giant words painted on the front of it, and no other buildings within a 10 kilometre radius. The words were "Association Headquarters" with multiple landing pad areas around the bottom of it.

Bringing their birds down, Kevin and his group landed on the landing pads and disembarked from their Ravens. Examining the Association Building up close, Karl took in the grandness of it as he marvelled at the shiny metal exterior as he walked inside the building with Kevin's group.

Walking past other groups of people, Karl exclaimed as he saw that the interior of the Association Building was grand with marble walls, equally sized yellow glowing mushrooms that provided the light for the building, many different rooms with wooden doors and names on the doors for the rooms, and sets of stairs leading to other floors.

While still marvelling at the interior, Karl and Kevin along with his group had walked up to one of the multiple lines of people in the main hall of the Association Building. It was leading to one of the 10 counters with an adult woman behind it, they were the ones who handled the missions, whether giving them out, receiving the proof of the completed mission, or deeming it as a failed mission.

While standing in line, Karl was observing the faces of everyone around him, checking if he could see anyone familiar, but there was no one, that was until he saw a flash of red. Whipping his head towards the flash of red, he saw that it was Kris, dressed in her amour, and holding a bag of some kind of mysterious item.

She was currently talking with the woman at the counter while Matthew was standing beside her with his arms crossed and looking at everyone in the main hall. He was watching them whisper to each other as seeing Matthew and Kris was very rare because they almost never come to the Association.

Matthew had seen Karl at the same time that Karl had seen him, Matthew then gave Karl a fierce look when he saw how he was looking at him and Kris. While an inner struggle was going with Karl as he was debating if he should go and talk to them or not, Matthew had unfolded his arms and stomped towards him, and Karl didn't notice as he was too engrossed in his own thoughts.

Kevin, who was also watching Karl, saw that Matthew had started stomping over angrily, and he made a quick few steps as he stepped in front of Karl. Smiling at Matthew, Kevin apologized, "I'm sorry, General, this guy is new and he has never seen you two before, so forgive him for his wandering eyes."

Halting his steps, Matthew looked at Karl fiercely before speaking to Kevin, "I'll overlook it just this once on account of your track record, but don't let this happen again." Turning around and heading back to Kris's side, Matthew continued to glance at Karl periodically, and his anger had simmered down when he saw that Karl wasn't ogling him and Kris anymore.

Looking back at Karl, Kevin gave him a little piece of advice, "It's best not to ogle anyone in higher positions, they are easily offended and quick to anger because of the high stress situations they are usually in, and definitely don't ogle any of the Generals."

Moving forward in the line, Karl continued to dwell on the choice to reveal his identity or not, but he decided against it for now. Waiting for over half an hour, Kevin and his group finally stepped up to the woman at the counter, and they placed all of the bags of clothing they got on the counter.

"We have finished the mission we had undertaken yesterday. We would now like to receive our rewards for completion, we also have something to report." Kevin was the one who spoke as he was the leader of the group along with the one who had assembled this group for the mission.

Kevin, Gary, and Henrietta were the only ones who knew each other when they had assembled the group for the mission. Raising her hand, the woman at the counter touched each bag as a white light emanated from her hand and moved across each bag like a shockwave.

Nodding her head, the woman, who's name tag read 'Annabelle', handed each of them a small silver necklace with a small blue mushroom suspended in sap. "These are the storage necklaces, the armour is in the necklace, and you can now speak freely about the information you wish to report. Oh also, the man in the mask won't be getting any rewards since he was not in your group when you undertook the mission."

Examining the necklaces, each member of the group could see a small picture appearing in the corner of their vision when they thought about the space inside the necklace, and in that picture was a new set of armour placed in a pile.

With smiles on their faces, everyone except for Kevin, Gary, Henrietta, and Karl all left the Association Building after they had received their reward. Leaning in towards Annabelle, Kevin whispered into her ear, "There is a new Guardian inside of the city we had gone to get clothing from, we also found that man in the mask in the city. I think he is around the level of the Generals, he was why I could escape from the Guardian unscathed."

Staring at the masked man in incredulity, Annabelle stood up straight after listening to everything Kevin had to say, she then rung a bell that made a loud reverberating sound, and smiled at Kevin. "Thank you for the information, we will make sure to increase the rewards you get when completing missions, and goodbye."

Tapping a bell on the counter, she indicated for the next group to step forward. Backing away from the counter, Kevin gave Karl a card with the name and address of a building on it, and then he started walking towards the door with his two friend beside him.

Just as Karl was going to follow them, the woman at the counter called out to him, "Sir, please wait! I would like to talk to you!" Walking out from behind the counter, Annabelle walked up to the masked man as two bulky men dressed in tuxedos appeared behind her, another woman had taken the place of Annabelle after she had left.

Stepping in front of the man, Annabelle extended her hand for a handshake, but Karl didn't shake her hand, he just looked at her. Unable to use her magic on the man, Annabelle couldn't get a grasp on his identity or level.

The spell that Annabelle had used was a spell for identifying things, that's the simplest way to put it, the longer explanation was that when in physical contact with a person or object, it can tell you information about them.

Depending on the skill level along with the level of the caster it can gather approximate information about the target or exact information. Reaching forward to try and grab his hand, Annabelle thought that the man would be too surprised by the sudden move to be able to react to it, but he backed up a few steps as soon as she had started moving her hand forward.

Unable to reach the man, Annabelle snapped her fingers and the two bulky men behind her moved forward to grab hold of the masked man. Unlike what she thought would happen, the man didn't resist, and he let the men carry him into a room behind the counter with the words 'Examination Room'.

(AN. If you spot any mistakes please leave a comment on that paragraph, I noticed that there had still been many spelling mistakes when I went back and checked on some of the previous chapters. It doesn't have to be right after you spot the mistake, you can keep reading as to not brake the flow, if you have it, and leave a comment after you're done the chapter. Also, my 'U' is acting up now, so if there are any words that should have a 'U' but don't, then leave a comment so I can fix it. Peace out for now.)