2.

  Naomi was working with him in the kitchen as the rest of the group settled around the kitchen. The talk that trickled in was shop-talk, going on about monsters they’d fought, survivors they’d found, skills that had overlaps that they were trying hard to manipulate and grow. It was the type of thing that they hadn’t figured out the first time around till a year or so. Now they were doing it in under three months.

  Santi used [Air Current] and [Air Manipulation] to wrap a shield of air around the entrance to the living room. It was subtle but strong, containing all of the noise inside of the kitchen and offering him and Naomi a bit of privacy. The woman stiffened slightly as she felt the air currents change in the kitchen. When no attack came, she relaxed and kept chopping vegetables at superhuman speed.

  “You’re pushing Alan hard. We can’t seem to catch up with you,” Santi started off with the best small talk he could. Small talk wasn’t something he had ever been great at. The years of solitude as a scout had further deepened his inability to make conversation.

  “He’s pushing himself. He has his son in front of him and wants the strength to protect him. I’m just along for the ride,” Naomi said. She finished her bundle of carrots and scraped them into a big plastic bowl before grabbing cucumbers the size of her forearm. The huge salad she was preparing was all fresh from the gardens on Homebase by their [Farmers] and [Gardeners].

  “It’s a good thing to fight for. Family,” Santi was watching the pot of noodles closely. The heating rune they had on it was hard to control but Santi had plenty of experience with it and he kept the roiling boil going with the thinnest trickle of mana.

  “It is. It’s why I came back. My girls and husband. It’s the reason for all of this on my part.”

  “I’m happy that you got your family back. It’s something that we can relate to, that sense of joy. There’s nothing that compares to it, is there?” Santi said. He looked over to the pot next to the spaghetti noodles and carefully tasted the sauce. Rich and savory, it would be perfect on the spaghetti. It wasn’t his father’s recipe, nor his mother’s, but he had taken bits of their knowledge and combined it with a recipe book he had found abandoned in an old Italian lady’s house. The handwriting had been hard to decipher but the headache had been worth it. Everything he had made from that old recipe book had been fantastic.

  “When I came back, I woke them up. Went straight to their room and just pulled them into a big hug.” She smiled and softly snorted as she recounted the story.

  “They were panicking, thinking something was wrong. It took most of a day to convince them I was fine. Couldn’t stop touching and hugging them, though. That loss to willpower is treacherous.”

  Santi nodded his head and grunted in affirmation as he turned to the sausage on the final burner. They were homemade sausage from an Acolyte level boar that Trevor had hunted down. The spices in them had come from the local garden and they had a nice kick to them that was delightful. Santi wished they had bread, but no one had managed to finish a millstone yet.

  “For the first few days I couldn’t stop crying. It just hit me like a truck, everything about it. Knowing it was all going to end again nearly made me give up.”

  “You were alone and not prepared for going back. I was. We all were and prepared for years. We didn’t know how severe the backlash to losing our stats would be, but there was some good workshopping about what it’d be like. I can’t imagine going in unprepared like you did,” Naomi said. She didn’t speak down to him but rather spoke with a cutting honesty, never inflating her own ego or stroking his. Santi admired her for it, the plain speech as she spoke her mind.

  “Are you going to push into Oakland?” Santi ventured as he pulled the noodles off of the heating circle and poured the water through the strainer. The heavy chopping stopped as Naomi finished prepping the vegetables.

  “Yes. My scouts have found a few dens close by. We can clear them out and it should ensure that Alan stays as the number one.”

  “I’m only two dens behind him. I could catch up,” Santi said.

  “You could. If you partnered up with a team that’s better balanced. You have no distance fighters, support aside from the medic, and you’re the only true mage. Your scouts have also abandoned you.”

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  “Hana and Daniel didn’t abandon me. They’re focusing on integrating the hunters into their rangers for when we all leave,” Santi said, defending his teammates.

  “Doesn’t matter. In the short term you don’t have proper scouts, mages, or distance fighters. Alan has all of those things, though he doesn’t really need them. The man is a monster.”

  “That class is broken. High vitality with those leeching skills and scaling. The last life he was a true terror,” Santi said. He had never seen Alan after the initiation had started, but the stories had been more than enough.

  “He was. It was why he was one of my targets. L.A was rife with plenty of high value targets, but letting Alan rampage was not an option,” Naomi said. She mixed the vegetables she had already chopped into the salad greens and mixed them with a pair of prongs as Santi laid out the cooked pasta in a big dish.

  “Not the same targets as Duncan or Delilah?” Santi asked.

  “No. I’m a leader, not an assassin or spy. Delilah shouldn’t have come up here to spy on you. My job is to nurture talent, to protect humanity, and build a community. Duncan was to prune away threats and Delilah was to find those communities that formed and learn about them. Leaders and future Champions and see if they could be persuaded over to our cause. It wasn’t to come and stalk an ex-target,” Naomi said.

  When Santi had confronted her about the fact that Delilah was an Apostate she hadn’t apologized. She had been furious about the woman abandoning her station to come and spy on him, but she never apologized.

  “No other Apostates floating around this area? Just you three?” Santi asked as he pulled the sausages off the pan and laid them out. There was enough for each person to have a single sausage, Acolyte meat not exactly easy to find.

  “Should only have been two. The others are out there across the continent doing their work. Dungeons to tame, levels to earn, monsters to kill.” Naomi picked up the salad bowl and headed toward the dining room as Santi dropped the spells that were preventing noise from leaking out. Everyone gave a cry of happiness as Naomi put the huge bowl of salad in the middle of the table.

  Santi followed behind with the spaghetti and set it down, going back to the kitchen to bring the sauce and sausages. Plates were dispersed and food was being piled up quickly as everyone took large servings.

  “What were you two talking about in there? You were doing that thing with your spells to prevent noise from coming out,” Chloe asked as Santi settled next to her.

  “We were just talking about the strains of leadership and dealing with idiots,” Santi lied easily as he used tongs to pull a pile of pasta on to his plate.

  “Why would you need to block noise for that?” Cam asked. Alan chortled and nudged his son with a shoulder while having a wide smile.

  “The idiot is you he’s complaining about,” Alan said and the table chuckled as Cam rolled his eyes.

  “Then who’s Naomi complaining about? Would that be you?” Cam shot back as he used a ladle to pour sauce across his noodles.

  “Definitely me. The rest of the community is pretty smart. I’m the dumbass that stands in front of things and gets punched, kicked, and stabbed,” Alan said with a chuckle and an easy shrug.

  “It was Alan,” Naomi confirmed as she filled her plate with salad.

  “As long as he wasn’t talking about me,” Chloe said.

  “I’m dumb, not an idiot,” Santi defended himself. Chloe patted his head as the group politely laughed. Santi leaned back and watched as everyone ate, quiet words of encouragement or thanks filling the room as they all wolfed down their meals. There was never enough food for all of them, Homebase not producing enough yet. There were plenty of earned ration bars to finish filling them all up, but the taste was lacking. They all agreed that they’d rather have the attempt at regular dinners or breakfasts, even if it only whetted their appetites.

  “Thanks, Santi. This is really good,” Alan said as he scraped his plate of the last of the sauce.

  “It wasn’t my recipe, but thank you.”

  “How’s your mom doing, Santi?” Alan said.

  “Doing good. Her and Yessenia are back at home. Moms getting ready to run that dungeon with some of the better fighters in the community. We’ve found another dungeon right by the border on the coast line. Peak Initiate level but mom is going to get some people running it. She’s going to be running the show while I’m gone, with the rest of the council we have.”

  “She’s got a good head on her shoulders and will keep everyone in line. She didn’t want to come with you?” Alan asked.

  “No. Dad is buried up there and Yessenia isn’t interested in traveling so Mom doesn’t want to leave.”

  “Your glade is nice. It’s something that Vicente would have liked,” Alan said.

  “I think so too. We did our best with it. It’s a good place, a good home. It’s going to hurt to leave, but we need to keep traveling. But mom will make sure that there will always be a home waiting for us.”

  “What more could one ask for?” Naomi asked rhetorically. Everyone agreed, quiet murmurs of assent as they finished their dinners and settled back to relax.