Can I punch you?

Seeing Olivia trembling from anger Lewis said "Andrew get out of the room, I will deal with your punishment later. Henry relate your experience in killing the first elite, it might be useful."

Henry nodded "Right after I killed one of the fat slimes it attacked me while I was still invisible…" Henry recounted the slime fight with a lot of detail.

Lewis thought for a few second then said "This is quite problematic, slimes are actually stronger than the others 'weak' monsters, but they are easier to kill since they stay still while attacking and have a big weakness against spells.

It being able to dodge already makes things much harder, and it can even turn invisible. Major."

Having calmed down a bit, but still with a bit of anger in her voice, she cut Lewis saying "Don't worry I told someone over the radio to send a message to the other camps as soon as I heard from Henry, they must have already dealt with it, hopefully without the loss of any awakened team."

Joe asked "Are there other camps?"

"Of course, there are five camps, Olathe, Lee' summit, liberty, Lansing and our blue springs, there are a few others that where formed today like this one. Did you think only the few thousands survivors that came to our camp survived?

The army acted quick, but still only one third of Kansas city citizens survived, most being killed by the slimes or awakened animals.

Only a few of the animals became guardians and retreated with the army. Standing our ground at the surrounding cities."

Michele said "Yeah I was there, can we please not talk about this."

Olivia said "Yes, I also don't want to talk about this. Henry you are the one that understand the most about this, have any idea on how to deal with the invisibility?"

Henry said "Yes, but if your plan, or the one top of you, is using us awakened on taking back Kansas, I don't think it will go smoothly."

"And why is that?"

"I thought about this while walking back, don't you think it all went too well, the army acted fast like lightning, mysterious guardians, which didn't appear in my city, appeared here, monster didn't appear in the neighboring cities, the monster that appeared here where slow.

And the biggest thing, we, our teams exist, the army decided to pick a bunch of recruits with powers they don't really understand and sent to do a job trained soldiers should do, all that decided in a day.

Whatever is happening here was most probably done by the gods, I doubt they wanted all of their toys to die, they probably did something like this in other places too.

But as you all have seen the gods are not nice, they don't care if they kill millions as long it is interesting to watch. All they want is that to be interesting, with our equipment whatever is at the middle of the city will probably wipe any team that gets close."

Olivia said "So you want us to give up? Let those monsters wipe us out, while we stay here with our ass on the ground."

"No, I want the very opposite from that. But you are going the wrong way on this, you are focusing on numbers, you want the most soldiers, you haven't realized that the world has changed completely.

Now a single monster can wipe out an entire army, and so can a person.

In a world like this world a man with a gun can't deal with everything, guns have lost their power, now a man with enough endurance can take a thousand shots like its nothing.

What we need is not numbers, we need best, we need to form a team of twelve, with the strongest and the most useful. Anyone with a weak mind and body will end up dragging the team down."

Lewis thought for a second than asked "But that would mean we would take longer to level up, since we would be sharing it with more people."

"Yes but not by much, after I killed the first elite slime, which was the monster that I had the most difficulty killing up until now, I leveled up three times. But after I killed it again, this time with much more ease, I leveled up once.

I am pretty sure the exp you get is tied to merit, if you had a hard time killing something you get a lot of exp if not you get less. Even if I go with my same team now I will level up about the same amount if I got with a bigger team."

Charles said "This boy is pretty good on speeches, it got me convinced, I would love to be on a team where my team members aren't some scared kids."

Michele said "Me too, there is one with a good ability in my team but she is too afraid to get close to a slime after she heard they would rape her."

After thinking for some time Olivia said "I see your point, I will be communicating this to my superiors, this not something I can decide by myself.

For now all of you can go take a shower and get some rest, food is served at six."

Angela said "We are not going back to the main camp?"

"Of course not, we have set this camp to stop anything from reaching the other camp, you are the best soldiers against the slimes."

"I am sorry but I cant obey this order, I just found my wife that I thought was dead, I would like to spend some time with her."

Olivia thought for a second then said "Actually Henry has to go back to show the sword to the old sergeant, go take a shower and get changed then Lewis will take you there with Henry."

"Thank you Olivia, I appreciate it."

"I am already forcing you to be a soldier I won't force you to be away from your family. But I want you all back here early in the morning, understood?"

Angela, Henry and Lewis responded "Yes ma'am."

"Lewis make Andrew do five hundred push ups and make sure Henry sleep on the ground."

"Shit she remembered" whispered Henry walking out of the room as Brian tried his best not to laugh of his face in front of Olivia.

On their way back Brian put his arm over Henry shoulder and said "Good memory is a bitch inst it? By the way how high are your stats? Being able to fight head on with that elite didn't sound easy at all."

Lewis said "I would like to know that too, know what I might be dealing with in the near future."

Not thinking it was any secret Henry said "My two highest stat right now are dexterity and magic, dexterity at 5,92 and magic at 4,39."

Brian, Lewis and the old man Charles stopped in the middle of the corridor, blocking everyone, while staring at Henry with their mouth open.

The first to recover was Charles who said "The slime is not the monster, you are. I leveled only my dex and its still at 2,7, and it was at 2,1 when I started. I thought I was quite good."

"Why are you all so surprised, I said I got two stat points because of the challenge, I also got one before."

Michele shouted from the back "Who is blocking the corridor?! I want to take a shower."

Continuing walking Charles asked "What are this challenges exactly?"

"Well, the challenges, hidden challenges actually, are made by the god of challenges. They are something like being the first in the world to kill an elite or killing two elites before any awakened kills even one.

If I had to guess you can complete a challenge if you kill ten elites or something like that.

Don't try risking your life to do them though, any mistake on my part I would have died. But the rewards are proportional to the risk."

Lewis said "I am impressed you aren't afraid of going back to fighting, you weren't even a soldier before all this."

"My mentally changed greatly after I awakened, my old self wouldn't survive a day in this."

When they walked outside Brian shouted "Lets read to the shower everyone!"

Unlike he expected no one should in happiness they just said "Finally" "About time"

Andrew who begun following them was stopped by Lewis who said "You get on the ground and do five hundred push ups. You make sure he does all of them."

The leaders shook their head, Angela and Michele giving him an angry look, while almost everyone else didn't really understand what was happening.

Knowing he had done something wrong Andrew did not even protest, he just got on the ground and started doing the push ups.

Following Lewis and Brian everyone picked a locker key and headed to the communal showers, separated between man and woman.

Inside the shower Brian said "Hey Henry, can I punch you?"

Henry gave Brian a weird look and said "What?"

"I mean, you are good looking, strong and well endowed. At least Lewis lost some of his due to his transformation. Ouch, ouch, what was that for?" Lewis was going to give Brian another punch but a bronze spartan shield appeared in front of him.

Everyone in the shower just laughed, forgetting for a minute everything that was happening.