Everyone had completed level ups before our reinforcements arrived. Five Humvees pulled up and over two dozen guardsmen filed out including someone with a captain’s markings on the front. He was a short middle aged man, barely 5 and a half feet tall with a scowl fixed on his face. I Saluted him, “Captain Cassland reporting. We needed to wait for reinforcements given the number of orcs and lupin that remain. We fought off many before they pulled back when their leader was injured.”

  The captain looked me in the eye, “You’re the one that’s a problem, Ain’t you.”

  Well, he’s blunt. He has that going for him. “I am not sure I am a problem. I have been solving problems.” I pointed to all the dead orc bodies. “My squads are pretty good in high pressure situations, though we had several who were injured.” I decided to do asses for my own sake.

  Human, Office Worker, level 1

  Still level 1, and only an office worker. They really haven’t worked out the whole leveling matters yet. I had been improving skills, mana, levels, and I have extra abilities that I didn’t have before. I need to be cautious, but only for political reasons.

  “Nah. I think you are the problem person I was warned about. Well, I have more men here, so we will head in front. Just cover our asses. I hope you can do that, at least.”

  I didn’t argue with him, I just nodded and motioned for him to go first. He made it inside only to yell, “What the fuck happened in here?” He seemed to be speaking rhetorically as no one answered him.

  I set half my remaining folks to protect the flanks and rear, while the others tried to quietly loot the dead bodies of anything useful. I really wish I had my staff, and I could use detect magic. It would make this go just so much easier. It was almost a game though, looting dead bodies while the other soldiers were none the wiser. Many items were damaged, but we still managed several potions in the front area. Their weapons were of normal quality, and nothing seemed magical. I would have loved it if the shaman had dropped his staff, but I wasn’t quite that lucky.

  What we really needed to do was pile up the dead bodies and burn them, but I didn’t have the spare folks for that much lifting. Thus, we continued to follow behind the other Captain’s soldiers, looting as we went. We had worked our way through the first and second floors of the main building when our second squad showed up. Sergeant Jones found me on the second floor, “Hey Captain. I heard you could use some help.”

  “Yeah, I appreciate that. Let’s continue this over there.” I pointed to one of the classrooms. He nodded, but looked confused.

  Once we got into the classroom and my guys would keep the others away Jones started with, “What’s with all the secrecy?”

  “Politics.”

  “Wait, are not all of the officers getting along. Are we secretly in some sort of military comedy?”

  “Umm, no. Think of this as the worst Tom Clancy fanfiction ever written.”

  “Fuck, That’s bad.”

  “I can’t really go into details, but who told you to come over here?”

  “The girl that’s in charge of everything. Nora I think her name is.”

  Great, so I’m not really the one in charge. Glad to know where I am in the pecking order. “And how did Nora know we were here at the academy?”

  “She messages Ted sometimes. He told her where you were. As soon as we got done with the houses north of the interstate, we came right over.”

  “Is all of Oakland north of the interstate already clear?”

  “No. Third squad is still finishing their last street. Then we will be south of I-44 in the morning.”

  “That’s great, we can work right through Oakland into Crestwood and Sunset Hills. In a few days we could have everyone in my constituency in Fenton. It would be rather amazing. We will all be in one area and much easier to protect.”

  “That part all the guys like. Knowing all our families will be safe and have good close neighbors.”

  “Yup. In the meantime, we need to navigate all the weird politics of the situation. So, just always ask questions of the guys in other units, but ever volunteer anything of substance. Spread that carefully through your squad and squad three. All of you guys are going to be the best leveled of all the company.”

  I felt comfortable talking to Jones. He was friend of one of my older brothers. He grew up in Fenton, went to college, and then moved back home to take over the family business. He is someone I feel confident saying even that much to. I wouldn’t go into more detail than that. Only my immediate team knows everything.

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  With that conversation done I rejoined the teams in the hallway and caught up with the other captain who was finally securing the quad area where so much fighting took place. He saw me and walked over purposefully.

  “How did you guys take out all these monsters? And where did the survivors go? My guys have not been able to track them.”

  “We used every claymore we had. We don’t just shoot them in the body. Critical hits to the head or joints are the best shots we can take. Their ribcages seem so much thicker than a human. We also had an air strike. That was the big part. Without that we wouldn’t be talking now.” I knew he knew about the claymores and the air strike. He was literally examining the dead bodies. She saw that most of our shots were hitting the head, joints, and the occasional gut shot. I didn’t feel like this was new information to him, but merely confirming what he was already seeing.

  “Fine, Fine. You shot them in the head and then air strikes. Claymores. Sure, but this is an awful lot of dead orcs. None of the other companies have had a good time against these orcs as you call them. Also, where did they go?”

  “I guess we’ve been getting lucky on the killing part. I should have info back momentarily on the trail of these orcs.” I didn’t explain that these guys with me have all been raising their rifles skill and their perception so that we don’t get caught flat footed and we hit the orcs in vitals more often than not. But that would require him to listen and then not try to poach my soldiers off of me. I wasn’t going to get in that particular pissing match, because at the moment I might not win. There was a time to reveal to everyone how we had gotten decent, but today was not that day.

  I called over the radio, “Rick and Katnessa, how is recon going?”

  Several seconds later I got the reply I wanted from Rick, “The whole lot of them went across the soccer field. They went through the woods and then made their way to the southwest. Seems like it is in the direction of the Portal in Sunset Hills right off the interstate. The only way to know would be to somehow catch up to them. They’re moving swiftly, but most of their tracks are being removed with abilities. We got lucky and some of them couldn’t help but leave their scent.”

  “Thanks, Rick.” I turned to the other captain, “Sounds like they are heading for the Sunset Hills Portal.” The Captain immediately got on his walkie talkie and started talking to someone, presumably in command, that a large group of monsters were potentially headed towards the Sunset Hills portal. He stated he couldn’t confirm they were, but he had some intel. When he was done he changed channels and brought his guys back.

  He turned to me in triumph. “We’ll be heading towards Sunset Hills. Hopefully we can cut them off before they get there. You should stay here and control the area until relieved. I’ll have another one of my platoons head over here in the next hour or so.” He sounded happy, like he was going to get credit for stopping them. He might. I didn’t care. We could soon loot bodies unmolested and try to find magic items.

  “Congrats. You should get your teams out on the road. We’ll hold down the fort.” In his joy, he didn’t realize what he was giving up. I saluted him, and he saluted me back extremely briefly while he got on the move. As he moved off, he was on the radio trying to get another one of his platoons to join him in taking out the monsters. I was already at level 5. He had no clue that the only reason we survived was because of prep work, consistent head shots, and an air strike. If we didn’t have all of that going on in spades, we wouldn’t have survived. I hope he doesn’t lose a bunch of men, but he was going to. He wanted glory, without genuinely putting in the work to achieve the requisite level of success. Noob.

  I knew it would be a while before we got backup, so we divided and conquered. We had the looters, the carriers, the sifters of the rubble, and the burners of the dead bodies. The smell of the dead bodies would be something awful, so we set the pyre up in the middle of the back parking lot. It would be away from the buildings and surrounded by concrete. I felt bad for the people tending the fire, but it had to be done. We will kill new enemies tomorrow. If we could get a small fight for Will at some point tomorrow, he could progress to level 5, and he would be the most efficient ability stealer available. Pretty soon, he would start pulling class tokens. That was the new goal, as there was going to be a massive need very soon for all of us who get stuck with 5-level classes.

  Right after we got started, our third squad showed up in addition to three squads organized from Oakland. We were up to five and a half squads working at the site. Two of the spell casters were found. Their corpses were crushed and mangled horribly. Both were lupin. We found some items on them, but I held off identifying them. I wanted to make absolutely sure that we plundered every last ounce of benefit from the sight of the orc massacre. The biggest win was the 75 vials of healing: all in metal vials as opposed to glass ones. Man, those orcs could really use those about now. At some point, we heard gunfire off to our southwest and assumed that the other captain and his soldiers were having the time of their lives.

  During the southwestern gunfire phase of the evening, I finally settled down and identified a pair of boots that looked magical. The stitching looked like something elves would wear from a Tolkien novel.

  Boots of Woodland Travel

  The wearer of the boots may move silently through grass and wooded terrain. In addition, horizontal difficult terrain does not slow them down, and they have far less difficulty when moving vertically over obstacles that are less than half their height.

  While Joe would benefit from these, they needed to go to our park ranger, Rick. I called him over and presented them to him in front of the guys in the squad. I trusted them not to go spreading information about every item they are given or earn. I also promised to ensure folks in the first squad would all get something magical that would be useful to them. I had the opportunity to give every single person in all five and a half squads a healing potion, as well as replenish my own stock. Every man and woman there had now seen at least the orcs and lupin in front of them. They better understood the scale of the threat. I reminded them that this was most likely just the tip of the iceberg. We knew that most monsters were all over the world. But with sharing of resources, we would be triumphant.

  The three squads from Oakland agreed to stay and hold the site for the night. They knew I had to get back to my house to sync up with my team and to meet a reporter tomorrow. It was with a bit of a heavy heart that I left them there on guard duty while the remainder of my squad drove back to Fenton. It had been a long and exhausting day. I would need cookie replacements tomorrow since I ate some of my stash to heal myself back up to full. I didn’t like being down in health for extended periods of time.

  I walked in the door to be greeted by my team entertaining one Hound News Reporter, Natalie Snowe. I guess my evening isn’t over just yet after all.