Chương 69: Chapter 70: Treck Back

I just kept driving, making pass after pass. After what had to have been my tenth or eleventh pass, Bruce started pounding on the top of the cab and yelling at me to stop. I snapped out of the mental zone I'd gone into and looked around. The goblins were running. I didn't see any trolls moving anywhere. It had only been around fifteen minutes since we hit the goblins at the water. How could it have been so little time? This seemed like the time to try to run them down, and I said so to Rupert.

He shook his head and said, "There are still Shaman alive, the three of us are tapped out on mana. Let them run." I stopped the tractor, and Bruce disentangled himself from the tiedowns that had held him on the tractor. He looked unharmed, so he must have used some air to cushion himself. Now that I was calming down, I could feel the seatbelt bruise starting to form around my waist. It should heal up fast with my levels and skills, but it was starting to hurt.

He opened the door and said, "There's no question that people already saw this machine, but we should still take it back to your place and hide it. Then we'll have to talk to the bishop and see what he wants us to do."

"What about the goblins on the other sides?" I said. Bruce pointed to the sky and said, "There were signal flares that went up just a few moments ago. The other encampments are fleeing too. It's going to be an absolute mess out there. They're moving into the territory, not away." I sighed. That wasn't good. Things would be a mess for a while. Maybe it would help to obscure what happened here, though. Rupert and Neil got off the tractor, but Bruce got in and said he was going to go with me to hide the tractor.

Once we were on the move again, he asked.

"How's the tractor doing?"

"Not great," I said.

"There are a half dozen things that need fixed. I got a new skill though. It lets me use mana to fix issues temporarily. I'll have to keep reapplying the patch though. They won't last."

"Can you fix the parts yourself?" He asked. I sighed.

"Not easily. There are a couple of internal seals that failed. Must have been something weak on them already. We didn't treat the machine nicely, but I've done just as bad to tractors before without issues. Luck of the draw I guess. I'll just have to keep patching them for now. I think my skill will alert me whenever I need to fix them. I'm definitely stuck near the tractor now though." He shook his head.

"That's too bad. There's going to be a mobilization now. Farmers and Ranchers will be exempted. It might just keep you safe, as bad as that sounds. The goblins went east, not west." I felt terrible for feeling relief at his words, but I didn't want to leave my homestead. We got the tractor back to the stand of trees, and I used my new skill to make sure all the mana patches I'd made were topped off. It was already 6 a. m. when we were ready to move. I was exhausted; my arm hurt, and so did my waist area.

I asked Bruce how he was. He was shivering, so I was worried he'd been hurt, but he said it was just mana exhaustion. He'd completely drained his mana pool, and his body wasn't happy about it. It would take him a day before he could start replenishing mana again. He said it would take another twenty-four hours after that before his mana would be completely refilled. I found out that there were Wizards who could heal, but the healing track completely precluded a Wizard from using any offensive magic.

It was an Earth Wizard track. You didn't get the healing spell until level 20 if you followed the reconstruction skill line. Clerics had the chance to heal from the beginning, but never got any attacking spells. The empire paid handsomely for Restoration Wizards, but most Wizards were more interested in blowing things up. No noble Wizard would go the healing route. Bruce said it should be safe for us to go back to check on the homestead, and he wanted to rest if it was intact.

That seemed like a good idea to me, so we began walking south. The trek was blessedly uneventful. Bruce was moving pretty slowly, and I didn't want to push him, so it took us an hour to walk the two miles back to the place. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. As soon as we got near, I heard a barking, chuffing noise, and Buck and Spot leapt out of some ground cover and began hopping excitedly around the two of us. I couldn't help but laugh. I bent down and petted them both.

They seemed to be in good health, and I took that as a good omen. In the early dawn gloom, I could see that it looked like the buildings were still standing, but seeing the rabbits let me feel some real relief. We moved in and I saw the pigs and goats come out of the open barn doors. I'd left the doors open so they could go in and out, but it was awesome seeing them still here. As we got near the manor house, I saw the ducks and geese where they'd bedded down next to one of the potato cellars.

I was exhausted, but I had to make sure the potatoes were still here. I pulled the heavy bar away from the door and looked in. I couldn't believe my luck. Everything was still in one piece and all the animals were still alive. They'd said the goblins came in from the south, but they'd still had a week to go out raiding; luckily, they hadn't made it here. We'd go check on the Newton's place on the walk back since it was on the way.

But first, I fired up the stove I found some eggs and corn grits in the cupboards, and grabbed bacon from the enchanted storeroom and made us a proper breakfast. Bruce definitely appreciated the food. I was itching to go check on the Newton's place, then get back, but Bruce said he needed a few hours of sleep. I led him upstairs to Colin's room, and he basically collapsed into it. He was snoring in under a minute. I hated sleeping in a bed while I was dirty, so I ran myself a hot bath.

The new enchanted pipes for the bathroom were a real System blessing. I soaked for twenty minutes, then changed clothes and got my own shut-eye. Bruce had set an internal alarm for noon, and he woke me up then. I made us some lunch, then we began the long trek back to town. We hit the Newton's place around 2. His farm was untouched as well, but his animals needed watered. None of them were dead yet, but they were mighty parched. When I said we needed to water them, Bruce looked like he wanted to argue with me.

I wasn't going to leave until all the animals had full water troughs. It took several refillings before I was confident everything had drunk its fill. I wasn't an expert on milk production, but I hoped the lack of water hadn't harmed his animals long-term. It was 4 p. m. before we left. Bruce was grumbling, but I had told him he was free to keep moving, and he'd stayed to help. Weston would need his dairy production in the coming days. We finally made it to the city gates at 10 p. m.

The goblin encampment had already been cleared out, and Hawker was on the wall again. We hailed him, and he let us through. He was grinning at me.

"That was quite the show. The bishop is in a real mood about you two disappearing for an entire day though. Rupert and Neil told us what you did."

"Could you see what was happening?" I asked. He laughed.

"No. Well, it was pretty hard to tell what you had out there, just that you had something. We made sure that only loyalists were on the walls. They were the only ones who got a good look at you. Down on the ground it was pretty chaotic. Captain Castell led the militia out and they fired within a minute of being outside. After that it was smoky and chaotic." I looked down and shook my head. He squeezed my shoulder and said, "Thanks. You really saved us.

I bet you actually killed ten of the trolls yourself, then you should have received credit for injuring nine or ten more. How much XP did you get last night?" By the System… I had completely forgotten to even check. It wasn't something that I'd trained myself to do on the regular. I opened my System UI and saw: Congratulations! You have a new Military class available: Motorized Cavalry.

You have 2 new Militia quests available: Kill a troll - 100XP Seriously Wound a troll - 25 XP I didn't bother going through all of my logs from last night, and I wasn't in the mood to choose my new class just yet, but I did tell the two men about it. They were pretty excited.

I took the two quests, then looked at my XP notifications: You have received the following XP Seriously Wound an enemy goblin - 180XP Kill an enemy goblin - 120XP Kill a warg - 160XP Kill a troll - 1, 000 XP Seriously Wound a Troll - 225XP Fight in combat with a recognized militia (Repeatable) - 50XP per day of combat - 350XP Participate in a successful battle - 250XP Congratulations, you are now Level 10! You now have 90/745 XP needed for level 11.

Please go to your Militiaman Class Tab and choose new perks and skills. Just like with my new class, I wasn't ready to do that. I had to go and speak with the bishop, then hopefully get married.