Chapter 19

In the hours that followed, it became clear to everyone in the camp that there would be a general vote tonight. Several of the larger hunting groups had already given their tentative consent to the creation of a human government and army. They had also announced that they would offer their candidacy as the basis of the future army. Some of those groups backed George Bristol's party, some endorsed other political parties.

Part of my job was meeting with other hunting groups and trying to get them to join the Army.

While I was hunting I often met such groups and they knew me, but that wasn't nearly enough. That's why Garat Breg and the two combat instructors, Zakaraya and Hank, agreed to help me with this endeavor.

I reminded them of the advantages and security of the army, the influence they could gain if they were among the first groups, the support of the artisans and their future inventions, the responsibility they had to the people of the tutorial and even to humanity itself.

I reminded the leaders of such groups that their groups were not based on acquaintances from Earth. Here it was rare that anyone knew one or another participant from before. And the groups had only been formed for a few days. Therefore, they had no particularly strong loyalty to each other yet, and their future was somewhat uncertain. Especially if the other groups enlisted in the army en masse. What would happen to the creature hunting and currency unit gathering then? Would they be pressured and even isolated?

The truth was that it was not so difficult to convince some hunting groups, rather it was difficult to attract the right hunting groups. The ones that were successful and managed well.

Those whose leaders and members had proved themselves in just a few days. They were the ones I wanted to attract to the army. They were the ones who were to lead and protect the people in the tutorial and represent humanity in this trial.

About this and many other things I spoke again and anew. I even started getting better at it. Or so I thought. In the end, for one reason or another, we managed to assemble several solid groups that were quite sufficient to be the core of the army.

And so, throughout the day, I was working non-stop, meeting different people and time was flowing simultaneously slow and fast. Many events happened, but the sun went unimpressed on its way in the sky. Nothing could disturb its imperturbable march. And lo, the time for the election came at last.

Although the figure of 1,000 people sounds like a lot, in practice it is only a small percentage of the capacity of a modern football stadium.

Most good cafes or shops have many more customers every working day. This greatly eased the difficulty of organizing and running this event.

The aim of every candidate was to receive at least 40 votes. That's way, we could get upto 25 chosen representatives, but since not everyone was going to vote, and also there were dozens of people outside hunting, not bothering with the elections, the actual numbers could be lower.

Voting was done by people simply lining up behind their candidate, or not lining up anywhere if they wanted to abstain, and those who were completely against the creation of a new government had to stand in a designated part of the field.

There were people who often changed their candidate or just went around unsure who to do or what to choose. That made things a bit difficult, but we didn't want to rush things. After all, the candidates needed time to present their ideas and the people needed time to hear them.

Slowly, after the sun set behind the trees, we lit the torches and bonfires. Couple of hours later after many speeches and discussions, we asked the people to stop their movement and started counting the votes and writing down the names of the MPs (chosen representatives).

There were a few small political parties with several candidates each, but the larger one was that of George Bristol. He managed to win twelve of the twenty one spots in the new government. His political alliance held the backing of the alchemists, a portion of the independant hunting groups and of the instructors which made him the leading force in government.

After the counting, everyone applauded the new government, and few people gave speeches. Those twenty one people were now responsible for the creation of the new human government, its associated systems and the future laws of our now democratic society.

However, I had no time to celebrate. I had lost my entire day and instead hurried to "hide" using my magical skills and when I found a suitable place that I chose with my mysticism skill I began to practice my arts.

"Good thing nobody caught me. It's about 21:30 now and I have a whole 6 hours until 03:30. I have to make up for the time I missed today."

Despite the long day, I had a lot of energy and the training was a much simpler task than the complicated political maneuvers. I started slowly, with some mana intensive exercises, aiming to strengthen my magical channels network.

An hour later I had to stop and meditate, attracting the mana particles from the nature around us and replenishing my mana reserves. When I felt ready, I started doing special physical exercises and trying to connect my channels to various muscle groups. That way I would be able to send mana to the muscles, energizing and improving them similar to the martial classes. They had trained for three or more weeks with specialized instructors, but I, or anyone who put in the necessary work could accomplish the same thing... eventually.

So the time passed and I came to my tent tired and hungry. I didn't have the strength left to order food from the store, and after summoning my creatures, I hurried to sleep.

"We must betray Meridin!" said the voice of one of the masked men gathered around a small solitary fire.

"Let's send him to certain death on some misguided mission." said a second voice.

"Let's sully his name on the next trading day!" agreed a third.

More and more voices joined in, their ugly sounds like scorpions in my ears.

Multitudes of magic rats began to emerge from the nearby trees, flocks of imps showed themselves from the trees, and suddenly a huge dinosaur darted towards the voices, swinging its tail and spewing fire at the same time.

I spun around in my tent as my nightmares continued until an hour later when I finally fell into a deep dreamless sleep, aided by my summons.

I woke up around 7am, and the arm I'd been sleeping on was quite sore. I tried to move it a bit, and when I did it, I began to feel the pricking of multiple needles on my skin.

"What strange dreams," I said stoically to myself as I examined my hand and then put on my robe and headed for the river. Other early risers were also washing their faces in its cold waters, and though the light morning mist hid their numbers, I thought:

"Hopefully the newly elected politicians will bring some order to the camp. Everyone goes wherever he pleases. I feel incredibly lucky not to have stumbled upon some well disguised "surprise" in the grass…"

And indeed, the hundreds of inhabitants of the camp were polluting its surroundings with an insistence that was simply scary. In my head, started to form well organized latrans and drinking water fountains made of wood. The water from the river was delivered in a clean way and was used safely, before being disposed of in specially designed and well marked places.

After finishing the morning procedures, I went back to my tent and hurried through my mana, in an effort to develop my magic skills a little bit more.

Every day that I hunted, I shot a lot of mana balls. I also used some of my meditation time to develop my fire and earth elements. Though for now, I couldn't show any significant results yet.

When I finished my training and meditation, I hurried to meet Mr. Delucci. I knew he had synthesized his new poison and today I wanted to test its effects on the stronger zombies.

"Good morning Mr. Dellucci," I said.

"Good morning Meridin, did you sleep well? Did you have anything to eat? Here take these fruits."

I slowly took the fruits Mr. Dellucci handed me, and put them in my backpack while thanking him. The old alchemist smiled and started urging me again:

"In one of the alchemy books I found several herbs mentioned that can make a great hangover cure. I would like to give you one of the three copies with their description. Patrick is such a good boy, has very good penmanship and makes excellent copies. Even his drawings are good. Where did I leave that sheet."

"No need, Mr. Dellucci. I'm going zombie hunting today. I'm not going into the woods."

"Who knows where these devils grow," the old alchemist grumbled as he searched for the sheet with the description of the herbs.

"Besides, alcohol costs too many currency units. Anyone who spends that much of them deserves his punishment." I added.

"It might be so," smiled Mr. Dellucci knowingly, "but soon we'll start making our own liquor."

"That would be .. interesting," I replied uncertainly, thinking about the effect of readily available alcohol on the population.

At that moment Patrick came, but even with his help they could not find the lost copy.

"Maybe next time," I said.

After spending about 15 more minutes talking about a few other things with the elderly alchemist, I took several bottles of the poison and hurried to my meeting with George Bristol.

He was naturally in a good mood.

"I see you celebrating with a large breakfast", I said.

"Join me Merdin, I am waiting for Zakaraya and Hank and a few other instructors. Today there will be a slight delay to the morning training. We have several things to discuss with the instructors."

During the breakfast, we talked about the training of our future army, and the potential compensation and the privileges offered to the instructors who were interested in joining in this endeavor.

After that we all headed to the training grounds.

My lectures were not as popular as the martial classes, and especially the mock fights and demonstrations after the lectures. However, I was happy with my work, teaching the secrets I had learned during my hunting sessions, and all the knowledge from the special library that I got after the miniboss.

I was aiming to explain things clearly, in simple language but also in depth, respecting the intelligence of my students. They felt that and the lessons went by smoothly and were very productive.

After the lectures were over, the questions from the students became more and more extensive and I often had no answers. In this way I also learned many things and the time I spent as a lecturer was not wasted at all. My control over the mana was affecting my combat power and was an important investment into my future.

Despite this, I was very careful with my time and that's why about half an hour after the lecture I entered the zombie town. I had summoned my creatures and was advancing rapidly towards the interior of the city.

"If I hunt all day today, late into the evening, I might be able to rack up ten or more hours of hunting time." It was less than the fourteen or even fifteen hours some of the overactive groups I had spotted were spending. But then again, I wasn't falling too far behind, in my opinion, because they didn't have my speed and efficiency. Besides, I could get further into the city, thanks to my scouts.

My hunt was going well, although over the past few days, the zombies were getting stronger. Special zombies were a frequent sight, and the usual slow and harmless zombies from the first day were almost completely gone.

I started testing the alchemists' poison by doing experiments on zombies crippled by my bear and recording the results. I also took samples from them, which I carefully stowed in special containers in my backpack. They each cost two currency units and were provided to me by the alchemists' group. Although I had personally purchased a few myself.

I had spent all my currency units and I couldn't wait to get more.

I tried to avoid other players, but I occasionally encountered them. Also, towards noon, I noticed a temporary fortification slowly starting to be built on one of the main streets of the city. "So the Thompson group is finally going to test their hunting method," I thought with conflicting feelings.

On one hand I wanted them to succeed, on the other I was worried that if they did, I would have to abruptly change my hunting habits. "The important thing is that we humans get more currency units and kill off the zombies in the city. Who knows what secrets lurk within its depths." I thought to myself.

One of the zombies had the ability to shoot concentrated fireballs which surprised me and did some serious damage to my bear. I, however, pelted it with arrows and mana balls, even calling my imp to distract it.

It turned out that its defense was no greater than that of a regular zombie and it wasn't another mini boss. After eliminating it, I quickly dealt with the other four zombies that accompanied it.

If it weren't for my special training recently with my mana channels and the ability to slightly improve my physical performance, those four zombies would have been a big problem. They were faster than an average man, they didn't tire, and they attacked from different sides, showing a certain amount of intelligence.

But my bear was faster and stronger than they were, and I had long since learned how to load my crossbow on the move, sprinting from cover to cover, stopping to reload, aiming and using my not very well developed "merging with shadows" skill, to somewhat distract the zombies.

"I'm so glad I picked that crossbow and that I had mastered its use in the selection hall." I smiled to myself once again as I rested and absorbed the zombies' mana after one of the battles. "The cost of the bolts is high, but I'm getting better with them and I don't lose them as often anymore.". That was completely true. I had learned several techniques which could protect the bolts and even improve their penetrating power a little bit, by putting a certain amount of mana into them.

The mana was able to stay on the projectalies only for a second or so, before disappearing in the air, but this was more than enough for now.

There were ways to further enhance arrows using runes and formations. But at this stage, few were trying to advance in this art and their services were not readily available. But some day, every archer would want to have at least a few special arrows to rely on when facing particularly dangerous opponents.

"Zombies get tougher, but they also give more currency units after you kill them.", I noticed.

"Here, these five special zombies, for example, will give me about 10 or even 15 currency units. If things continue that way, by the end of the day I will have about 200 to 300 currency units. I will be rich again!''

These thoughts gave me wings and I started hunting much more aggressively. More and more often I used my stamina to run towards the next group of zombies and I was constantly thinking of tactics to save time.