Chương 63: I Wanna Go Home

'I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home.' During the nine hour altercation with an opposing faction, June ended up liberating hostages and prisoners of war by accident. The people who had travelled to save their people have either joined June's retinue or gone back to their faction to bring the rest back to join his retinue. June wanted to claw his eyes out. Among the 300 new people who joined his faction of 250, there were two more Dreamers.

Neither of them assumed the leadership role from June. June let out a suppressed sigh, trying not to look tired in front of the spearhead party. June had not slept since the pilgrimage started. The times the retinue was able to rest were times when June was fighting a large group, or if a carriage broke down, even then, June would not rest. When his faction slept, he watched; when they rested, he fought.

'Hopefully the Dreamers try to usurp me when I sleep.' The faction was currently walking through a large plains biome. They could have set up a base already, but a cartographer with a disgusting amount of knowledge on the mega-continent stepped in and said they knew a perfect location.

'I've heard that damn phrase so many times.'

'I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home.'

"We're here." The cartographer walking with June exclaimed proudly. The plains were mostly flat, but the spot the cartographer guided the retinue to was a large plateau. A net of rivers flowed around the plateau, making it a natural moat; the rivers flowed into cascading waterfalls that pooled into a giant lake underneath, not to mention wildlife that was sparse in the plains seemed to teem in the area.

Not too far away, a forest could be seen, which was perfect considering the need for lumber, and in the opposite direction was a large stone plain that could be quarried. June tapped his foot; the cartographer nervously waited for a response. June stopped tapping his foot and grabbed the cartographer with a firm grip on the shoulders.

"Good Job." June turned to his retinue and held in a grimace.

"Set up camp…. this is our base." June preemptively used his ability to manipulate sound to mute the noise that would reach his ears, but either way, the ground rumbled as almost 600 people cheered.

June found himself meditating in a dark tipi once again. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. The pilgrimage stalled his plans of creating a magic nexus for a few days. But now, June was able to'Relax, Relax, Relax, Relax, Wait no, Nexus, Nexus, Nexus' Leonard shouted.

"Focus." June inhaled slowly and exhaled. He inhaled. He exhaled. He inhaled. He exhaled. He inhaled. And he choked on his spit. Leonard looked at June with an incredulous look.

"June, have you sensed mana yet?" June fell back from his meditative pose.

'The leather floor feels so nice.'

"Not in me yet? But, I am seeing some funky lights."

'I might be holding my breath for too long.' During the pilgrimage, June was able to observe several different magics with his own eyes. There were spells that acted like keywords that channeled mana into a product like the iconic fireball. And there was magic which took shape depending on the wielder's intention.

'intention.'

'intention...'

'intention....?' June sat up suddenly.

"I have an idea."

"Could you make me a rock?"

It's been a week since base camp was set up. The people had been split into two symbiotic groups that are led by a Dreamer. The first group is led by Dreamer Atish, whose aura had the passive ability of making him and the people surrounding him harder to notice. He was a Qi specialist, and he is good with long and short-range weapons, not to mention he was a capable leader. The second group is led by Dreamer Sidri.

Her aura didn't give her a passive ability, but she's an exceptional strategist, not to mention she has experience with city planning, which made her an asset. She was a pure range fighter, but as a mage, she has a diverse cast of moves and elements she's capable of. Atish's group was primarily a group of transporters and specialists. He would typically lead an expedition to key locations, and if they were important enough, Sidri would be deployed to set up a base camp.

New people appeared every day, and travelling back and forth wasn't as efficient as setting up bases.

"The current population has jumped to 1, 200." June felt like passing out, Sidri and Atish sat at the same table as him in his Tipi. Despite being the leader of the faction, June settled outside the walls surrounding the base; he lived inside a Tipi instead of a house, and as one of the Dreamers in charge, he had the privilege to have his own space within the safest reaches of the walls. His living conditions were more rustic than those of his faction's people.

He was the first to greet the travelling teams when they arrived, he was the first to say goodbye when they left, and in the end, he was the first defense against any threats. Oddly enough, due to the fact that he willingly lived in poorer conditions and that he was the one who always made sure everyone was greeted when they arrived and bid farewell whenever they left, he unintentionally created a connection or sense of loyalty between himself and his faction.

'Why do they look at me like that?' June could smell the revolting smell of being respected. It made him sick to his stomach, even considering the idea of himself being respected.

'Being respected means gaining responsibility... ugh' The other two Dreamers tried to follow in June's footsteps by settling outside the walls. June managed to convince them with idealistic words to settle closer to the walls as a second line of defense, but in the end, their houses were built within a couple of hundred meters of June's tipi.

'I just want to be alone... and if I'm alone, I can die faster, and if I die faster, I can be with Lilia instead of—' June sighed and skimmed the report that was engraved into a stone tablet.

'1200 current residents.'

'Quarry is going well.'

'Lumberyard is going well.'

'Farming is proceeding well.'

'Livestock sourcing is proceeding well.'

'Job allocation is going without a hitch.'

'Faction dissatisfaction is almost nil, heh, that rhymes.'

'Surplus volunteers for external work''Crime rate at nil''S-Suspected refugee amount: 14, 000 within three weeks…'

'Scouts predict enemy-faction attack within the c-coming weeks!'

'Liberation force?'

"Hey, what's the liberation force?" Atish ended up responding with more enthusiasm than June was ready for.

"They are a secondary faction that belongs to your faction, m'lord! They are our secondary attack force of 2, 200 soldiers, and they liberate war camps and hostages that enemy factions take." Atish looked at June with a gleaming sense of pride despite his elder age. June slowly placed a hand under his jaw to keep it from falling off.

"A-and that's everyone, right? No more people in the faction, just the…. 2… 3, 400 people?" Sidri opened her mouth with an enthusiastic gleam, and he had no heart to shut her down.

"Nope, if you count our third, fourth, and fifth forces."

"We have about give or take 20, 000 more people in our faction!"

"That's not even including our allies!" June's jaw fell off.