Godfather's System 105

It didn’t take long for me to arrive at the hunting outpost, but rather than going in directly, I stayed outside, observing the changes. Even during the night, it was an impressive sight. 

It was impressive just how much improvement it had gone through in less than a month. Its walls stood even higher than the town, two layers of enhanced wood, with the inner layer covered with many towers. 

Each tower with a ballista in place, ready to take down a large beast the moment the patrols couldn’t handle. The mood was high as the people patrolled.

Most importantly, the population had increased. It wasn’t anywhere near the towns, but I could feel the numbers reaching five thousand. I had no doubt that most of those people were farmers and other classes with little practical application, but for my purposes, it was not a problem. 

I gave them protection, and they gave me experience. An excellent deal. 

Interestingly, I could even see that, toward the south, there were several farms, the herbs already growing. A good idea to reinforce our self-sufficiency, even though it wasted quite a bit of manpower. It was never a good idea to be dependent on external sources while chaos was going on, especially with the number of farmers we had. 

After examining it for a while, I slipped inside the outpost, none of the guards good enough to notice my presence even as I stood in the shadow of one of the towers, Concealment and the darkness allowing me to stay concealed. 

I expanded my Charisma to cover the whole outpost. 

[+12 Experience]

[+82 Experience}

…

[+46 Experience]

A flood of notifications appeared, rapidly replaced by the new ones, though, at this point, they were familiar enough to ignore easily.  

“Not bad,” I thought, happy with the number of monsters attacking the outpost, especially since I was able to handle them easily. 

A quick calculation at the speed of increase showed me that I managed to get almost a million experience points every hour. A shocking number compared to the earlier numbers, though the weight of the exponential growth was significant. 

Pity I couldn’t risk going into a dungeon yet. 

Luckily, that wasn’t the only way I could increase the amount of experience.  “It’s time to test your strength,” I said as I glanced at the guards who filled the walls, and used my Charisma as a spike … and, suddenly, the monsters that were attacking the town multiplied. 

“Beast tide!” the guards started to shout as anyone that was outside the walls — not many in the middle of the night, the reason I risked the operation — retreated back to the town, while the people started to rush toward the walls, their bows in hand. 

“Terrible,” I murmured as I watched them rush toward me without a hint of organization, people blocking each other. They had been fighting well while they were operating as squads, but the same didn’t hold true during a battle. 

Since I had the time, I cheated a little, and used the Charisma connection I established to resolve the worst problems, even as I made a mental note to have a talk with Jertann about adding some emergency drills to their training schedule. 

Luckily, it took a while for the monsters to reach the walls, which allowed a semblance of organization to be established. 

And, the experience I was gathering increased five times. 

”A big loss,” I murmured as I watched the monsters. Things might have been different if I used that trick before my promotion, collecting even more Experience. 

But that was life. I didn’t consider that, costing me some opportunity. Luckily, I still had one more promotion to go through, and for that one, I would be far more prepared. 

I turned my attention to the current situation, tempted to increase the power of the Charisma connection. It would have allowed me to get more Experience, but after some consideration, I ignored the temptation. 

I didn’t want people gossiping about the sudden and temporary reduction in their gains. 

Hours passed, and when the color of the sky started to shift into a soft blue, six hours since I had first started my meddling, the outpost was already exhausted under the repeated monster attacks. Not only the people in the outpost was exhausted, but I was exhausted as well. 

Maintaining two Charisma fields, one constant to gather the Experience, the other intermittent to gather the beasts, was not exactly easy. 

The results were worth it, though. 

[Experience: 45,192,012]

And, more importantly, the Experience might be the most important gain I made, but it wasn’t the only one. The biggest advantage was the coordination and competency of the outpost. Under a constant, intense siege for six hours, the outpost guards started to coordinate much better. 

My occasional subtle orders with Charisma further helped the coordination. Ultimately, handling a siege of mindless beasts was a simple issue, especially with the exaggerated number of ballistas, there to handle the dangerous pocket of beasts. 

However, that led to another discovery. 

There was no experience gained for the beasts killed by ballistas, which was an interesting difference. For some reason, the System didn’t grant that experience, but the arrows were fine … and I observed to make sure the distance was not the issue. 

An interesting benefit. 

I still had two hours, and I could have used the time to gather more experience, but I decided against it. Everyone was already tired and tense, and it was better to use my remaining two hours to stick around while they recovered. 

I didn’t want them to suddenly have an accident. I didn’t have any actual evidence to believe that, but if I were in the place of my enemies, I would have used the rare opportunity to poke around to create some permanent damage. 

The opportunity was simply too good to miss. 

And, it happened barely twenty minutes after the first stop. The suspicious thing was the subtle flash of Charisma I could detect.  Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have felt that from such a great distance, but the feeling of one of my connections snapping off was too distinct to miss. 

I rushed in the direction of the lost connection, afraid that they had been killed. 

Luckily, I didn’t find what I was afraid of. Instead, I found a patrol group, coming back casually, though with two two unfamiliar faces joining them. 

The unfamiliarity wasn’t suspicious, but the weight of charisma pressuring the rest of the group was. What was more suspicious was one of them was dragging a large cart behind him. 

I could have attacked them directly, but instead, I decided to take a different path. “Go back to your base,” I ordered the whole group without even revealing myself. The original group continued toward the outpost in a dazed manner, unable to handle the weight of my charisma, even with reduced impact.  

It was a bit different for the two unfamiliar faces. Their eyes widened, and they tried to resist the order. “Go back,” I ordered again, this time focusing the order on just two, which was finally enough to trigger their movement… 

They started walking, their steps mechanic, unable to resist the pressure of the order, dragging the cart away. I made them drag it for ten minutes before I bothered to ask any questions. “Tell me why are you here?” I asked. 

One of them managed to resist the order to speak, showing that even when focused, Charisma wasn’t exactly a panacea. Useful, certainly, but had its limits when the target was trained. Whoever arranged them was smart enough to send spies with some training to keep secrets. 

I expected the second one to stay silent as well. He certainly managed to resist strongly.  

Then, he made a mistake, and tried to use his Charisma to create a shield. One that shattered almost in an instant, which damaged his resistance. “W-we’re here to destroy the outpost,” he answered. 

I was surprised, as I didn’t expect a direct Charisma conflict to have such an impact. Still, it was useful to know. “How are you going to do that?” I asked, enjoying the helpless expression of the other saboteur.

I could hardly feel any mercy against the men who planned to destroy my base, probably killing hundreds of people in the process. 

However, I didn’t feel angry either. 

It was a lesson I had learned early in my life. Once you stepped into the darkness, the stakes were different. It was as pointless as getting angry against an enemy on the other side of the battlefield. 

It was life. 

“We were going to use an explosive at the center of the outpost,” he said even as he pointed at the cart. 

The moment it was revealed, the first one tried to reach toward his pouch, his desperate intensity enough to give me an idea about exactly what he was planning. He was planning to detonate it. I grabbed it immediately, not wanting him to activate it. 

A mistake … I realized the moment I grabbed the box, and felt a flare of mana under my hand. I was holding a detonator, and I accidentally managed to activate it. it. Glad that I bothered to replenish my mana, I took two actions. 

First, I jammed some mana into the detonator, hoping to somehow disturb the explosion. As much as I could manage in an instant. 

Then, I dashed away as fast as I could run, not even bothering to drag the two. I had no idea how strong the bomb they brought along, but considering they were planning to use it to destroy the outpost, and the size of it, I doubted that it was just a hand grenade. 

I wasn’t enthusiastic about pitting my Health against an unknown weapon. 

It turned out to be a good decision, as just a second after I started to rush away, it radiated a distinct blue energy, and covered the area, the impact enough to throw me toward a tree as the explosion covered the sky. 

I pushed healing energy into my body preemptively just in case, ready to inject far more. 

[-50 Health]

My enemies weren’t as lucky at the epicenter. 

I rushed toward them, to see if I could do anything to help. them … but unfortunately, they ended up charred, their secrets gone. 

Another lesson about the dangers of the world.