Ruthless: Path of Conquest

I thought it was ill-advised from the start, Dave tried to communicate to Sam with a look. The idea of testing this man in this way. He’s much more dangerous than he looks. So just let him lead the way. Don’t try to show off.

Sam gave an annoyed shrug, as if to say, Why didn’t you say something sooner?

But Dave couldn’t answer that question. Not now, verbally, in front of Robard. Maybe one day, when the four of them were all close friends, they would be able to discuss these past misunderstandings and laugh about them. At present, it was possible Robard would turn out to be the sort of man who would kill them for questioning his authority. Dave sensed that Robard could do it, and in the right circumstances would do it, with little hesitation.

Dave had been trying to suss out what it was about James that gave him the heebie-jeebies for most of this time. Finally, he had fought his way through some mental blocks to a set of unfortunate memories that James reminded him of. Recollections of Dave’s service in the Sino-American War. That had ended a decade and a half ago, but the memories would last him a lifetime.

James moves like one of those special forces guys, Dave finally realized. Since the war ended, he’d never seen someone who moved so much like a predatory animal. Like his whole body was a deadly weapon and he knew how to use it.

The rest of the walk, unfortunately, Dave had been swimming in memories. Once he opened the floodgates, he couldn’t easily close them again. His worst memories were of the men he’d killed and the good men he’d seen die at his side.

My father told me that the Chinese would hate me on sight, Dave remembered. His Japanese heritage would be obvious to them with one look at his face.

“When you see their looks of hate, it will be easier to pull the trigger,” his father had promised.

But when he was actually there, in the forests of China, things had been different. He came upon two Chinese soldiers, and Dave was quicker to aim his weapon than they. Both men raised their hands over their heads in the universal gesture of surrender. Their eyes weren’t hateful. They were surprised and afraid.

“You no American,” one of them said in broken English. “Why you come here? We make no trouble with Japan.”

And at first, Private Matsumoto had no answer to that. Not because he was Japanese, as they assumed—that was his father, not him—but because he didn’t fully understand the causes of the war himself. He enlisted, because there was some incident in the South China Sea, and the two great powers of the world declared war on each other, as people had been anticipating for years. He was a patriotic American, and he would do his duty.

But like so many soldiers thrown into that meat grinder of a war, he’d been hastily trained. He certainly wasn’t well versed in the nuances of the conflict. He couldn’t explain, in any meaningful sense, why he was there.

Then one of the men made things easier for him. Seeing that his enemy seemed uncertain of what to do, the man lowered one hand and went for a pistol. Then the Private’s training kicked in. He quickly fired his weapon and executed both men.

That seemed to answer that.

In subsequent firefights, his finger felt more natural on the trigger. It got easier. Thank God, it got easier. Though that was probably bad in its own right.

One year and many engagements later, Corporal Matsumoto returned home and was honorably discharged. He even received the Army Commendation Medal, though he wasn’t certain he deserved it.

But the images and the feelings never fully faded. Images of desecrated bodies, friendly and enemy alike. The constant feeling of being watched as he marched through a Chinese forest—borne out as true all too often, despite being dismissed by his commanding officers at first.

Then the System appeared, and all those old memories resurfaced again. Now it felt like there might be a Chinese soldier around every blade of grass. Instead of soldiers, there were monsters. Creatures that didn’t talk back were easier to kill, in some ways. But they also seemed to lack human fear.

The memories distracted him as he walked through the woods with his friends and Robard, who he hoped might be an ally in the future. He missed scraps of the conversation. Robard said something about wolves arriving tomorrow, which simply did not compute.

They pulled him back in when they started talking about the game they were hunting. Apparently the beasts were feral hogs.

Dave segued the conversation into swapping Orientation stories. It seemed like a good topic for group bonding. Though some of the memories were unfortunate. The strange spectral image of Dave’s dead father being one of them.

And now they were creeping up on the feral hogs, which Sam—and possibly Robard?—had been able to track very precisely.

Dave used Identify on several of the creatures, as was his standard practice when they approached a group of enemy monsters.

Short Tusked Feral Hog, Lv. 12

Short Tusked Feral Hog, Lv. 9

Short Tusked Feral Hog, Lv. 13

Not good. It looked like the average level was a little high, given the numbers. There were dozens of the monsters gathered in front of them, circled around a watering hole.

He locked eyes with Sam, who stood a foot behind James in the lead of the group.

“What?” Sam mouthed.

“The levels are too high,” Dave mouthed back. “We should make a better plan.”

Sam looked at Robard, and his face took on a stubborn cast. Then he shook his head.

Dave pressed a hand to his forehead. Ugh. Macho bullshit motherfucker. He loved that his friends Sam and Paul had never served in war. Sam’s father was a military supplier, and Sam was employed by him in a mission critical role in the company. Paul, like their new friend Robard, was too young to have served.

The fact of their non-service allowed them to move through the world with a lightness that Dave would never have. It was why Dave allowed Sam to lead the way through Orientation. Dave didn’t want the responsibility; he already felt like he was carrying enough. It was more than fine to simply advise Sam, who would more often than not listen to good advice.

But sometimes, Dave felt an ugly wish. That Sam would have lost someone in the war. That he would have had to watch one of his friends bleed out before a medic could get to him. It was an atrocious thing to think, and he repented it every time. Especially after they actually did lose a few friends in Orientation.

Sam didn’t seem to have learned much from the experience, though, if this moment was any indication. Refusing to back down, just because Robard was willing to go forward, was the decision of a child. A boy, afraid to look like the lesser man.

We could all die, if the monsters are coordinated in their counter to our attack, Dave thought. Because your ego is too big to back down from a challenge. Too big even to ask for a huddle to come up with a better plan—

And then Robard struck.

He did something with his arm, a move too fast for Dave to see, and the closest beast went down. Then Robard’s whole body blurred as he lunged forward, and it became difficult for Dave to track his movements. The only clue to where he had just been was the trail of destruction. Dead hogs fell where Robard had been, sometimes in pieces, sometimes gushing blood from a single vicious wound.

This wasn’t a hunt. It was a massacre. It reminded Dave of one of the worst nights from his time in the war, when he and his team were sent up Elephant Trunk Hill—No, damn it, focus! Any moment now, they’ll kill him and turn on us—

Then Dave saw the blurred figure zipping back to them as the hogs ran into each other in their confusion at the elusive attack.

He survived them. Somehow he survived them. Wait, is he going to lead them back here?

Robard landed next to Sam. Dave was alarmed to observe he wasn’t even breathless. He was smiling serenely through a spattering of blood.

“I’ll let you guys get the next group,” he said mildly. “I think I killed enough of them for the community to eat for a week at least, but of course, we need to make our best efforts to secure all the supplies we can. The best information I’ve gathered is that our bags from Orientation seem to keep the meat fresh forever, so there’s no downside to getting more.”

Dave glanced over and saw the bodies of at least fifteen fallen creatures.

“So you think we should kill all of them?” Sam asked. Dave turned back to his friend. He could see the pants-shitting expression on Sam’s face as it dawned on him just how dangerous Robard was, and how much he expected of them.

Robard tilted his head from side to side and then shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to wreck a source of really good protein. And maybe we can breed these things. I would leave some of them alive, I think. Maybe kill a half dozen more, and we can try to capture the rest?”

Sam nodded. “Sure. Right. Just kill a half dozen. Sounds easy.” He still looked gobsmacked as he spoke the words, but then a look that was almost confidence returned to his face. “Come on, you guys,” he said, looking to Dave and Paul. “We can do this.”

Dave nodded slowly. Maybe they could. A few of the feral hogs were trying to run away. The rest were looking out for the next attack. Only a few had seen which way Robard went, and looked in that direction, poised to attack.

If we just fight those ones, then we should be able to do it, Dave thought. Our old tactics worked well enough against the wargs, why not hogs? Of course, that had only been one or two wargs, but now didn’t seem to be the moment to doubt themselves. They had a new friend to bail them out if things got too rough.

“Usual strategy, then?” Paul asked.

Sam simply nodded, then drew his long hunting knives from their sheaths on his hips and waited for them. Paul loaded his sling with one of the small, hard stones he collected. Dave swallowed and drew his pistol. The one that the System had allowed him to upgrade to fire Mana bullets.

Then he made an affirmative movement of the head aimed at Sam. They were as ready as they were going to be.

Without further thought, Sam charged in, long knives flashing in the air.

Sam wasn’t as strong or as quick as Robard, clearly, but the Lonely Hunter Class excelled at solo combat with beasts. The way the other two had synergized with that was that they supported him with their ranged weapons while Sam got in close and drew the enemies’ attention. While Paul and Dave pumped the enemies with rocks and Mana bullets respectively, Sam butchered the beasts.

It helped when they had other front line fighters around, so Sam couldn’t be overwhelmed, and nothing could get past the front line. But he hadn’t chosen to ask for Robard’s help. Clearly, Sam wanted to prove something.

He stepped in front of the bushes that hid Robard and the other members of the party, and he took up a challenging posture. Dave had seen Sam go so far as to literally beat his chest to provoke a group of goblins into aggression before, but this time, just standing there was enough. Three hogs charged straight away.

Sam slashed at the center one’s throat, and he managed to draw a fountain gusher of blood with his first strike. But the huge, monstrous thing was still alive, and it pushed him back with its body as its charge carried forward. Paul and Dave shot at the other beasts, aiming for their faces.

Dave killed one almost immediately. His Mana bullets were perfect for piercing natural defenses like the tough hog hides, and his head shot brought the hog careening to a dead stop. Paul was less successful. He landed a stone right in the eye of the other hog in the charge, which appeared to blind it without going deeper. The second stone scraped the hog’s snout but didn’t hit anything important.

And then the half-blind hog was flailing, charging blindly into trees. Far from dead, but not nearly as much of a threat as it had been with its depth perception ruined.

Dave focused on the other hog, which was bleeding heavily all over Sam but had smashed him up against a tree.

Damn it, Sam! This is why you should wear goddamn armor. Sam generally eschewed protective gear, claiming that it slowed him down and made him louder when he wanted to move silently while hunting. And there was truth in that.

Sam had been the most effective hunter in their Orientation. Even on the rare occasions when Dave had seen Sam’s prey get the chance to fight back, he tended to do well at dodging the projectiles or clumsy blows from goblins and their kin. But Dave was fairly certain he knew the real reason Sam didn’t like wearing armor.

Sam had been a recreational hunter in the pre-System days. Back then, he’d never needed to wear armor. Dave was more or less certain that when he was hunting, Sam sometimes felt as if things were back to normal. As if the world made sense again.

Wearing armor would only detract from the illusion that Sam was out in the woods, hunting and skinning animals with his Pa. Just pursuing his hobby, with a surprising diversity of beasts. Sam was carrying his own emotional wounds. They were just more subtle than Dave’s.

But now Dave wished Sam would just get over it. He was trying to fire shots at the hog that had Sam pinned, but just grazing its back. The body was too low to the ground for Dave to aim accurately without getting much closer.

Suddenly, the hog collapsed to the ground.

Dave saw Sam pull himself up from where he was on the ground. His shirt was drenched in blood. The white cotton would be dyed a dried blood brown forever after this. But he raised his knives triumphantly in the air, as if to say, See me? I did it!

And he had. He’d bled that hog out expertly with only a couple of cuts. Even if it was obvious that Sam had broken a couple of ribs waiting for it to die, he had managed to avoid getting gored on the hog’s short tusks, which was probably where all his Strength had been applied while he was on the ground.

But as he was congratulating Sam in his mind, Dave noticed a real problem. Three more hogs were charging up now, replacing the ones that had just died. The one half-blind hog seemed to have spotted Sam as well. It too charged.

Sam stood his ground and took on a fighting pose. It was really the only thing to do.

Dave just poured more Mana into his gun. Sam wasn’t going to die on his watch.