Another Stupid Isekai

The first few fights were pretty damn hard with so little light, but I was patient and did my best to maneuver the enemies in such a way, that they couldn't surround me completely, and eventually dealt with the whole group. This scenario repeated itself few more times.

Time passed little by little. At some point sun finally closed itself to the horizon bringing more light. It was gray around when I reached the point where passage through the canyon was splitting, heading to the orc camp on one side, or to the harpies on the other.

I chose the second option, and with few more steps, a view that brought me to my knees showed itself before my eyes. A camp belonging to the expedition we send a month ago.

Guards noticed me almost as soon as I noticed them, and few persons came to meet me halfway. Dirty Nobuo Adachi, wearing clothes with many signs of a long journey. Zora was with him, and she didn't look much better.

- Peter-san. What are you doing here? - leader of Bushido was clearly surprised.

- Long story short, I had to go and look for you. Moods in the city are... Let's just say a lot of people miss you guys.

- Are you saying we should try and make it back in one go? - asked Zora, supporting herself on her ax.

All of them looked exhausted by this long road to Uhm's and back.

- If that's possible. I for sure bought some time before people do something stupid with my departure.

- So you again got all the blame? - Nobuo was slightly smiling.

- Yes. Fortunately, it was only me.

- Come. Let's talk with the others they should be awake soon anyway - Zora grabbed her weapon, and put it over the shoulder as she turned back to the camp.

I followed, with Adachi closing. A moment later we were between badly pitched tents surrounded by carts filled with crystals. I noticed the lack of provisions. That was a direct representation of the stare they were in.

- I have some food with me if you guys need it.

- Yeah, we will take that - said Hailwic crawling out of her tent. - We have been cutting our rations pretty heavily the past few days. A bit of relief would be nice, even if we are two days of travel from the city.

- Take it then - I took the bag down and gave it to Zora.

She rummaged thru it immediately, and grabbed something to munch on, then passed it to Nobuo.

- By the way, what are you doing here Peter? Did you miss us that much? - Hailwic continued.

- I had to go. People are very restless, because of your absence, and somebody had this brilliant idea, that I lied to send you to certain death, to take over the city.

She laughed.

- That sounds pretty bad.

- Is Velvet Lotus and everybody there ok? - Aisha joined the conversation getting out of her tent.

- For now yes. The past two days were pretty rough, so I had to go.

- Fuck. Everybody! We need to get moving! - she started to shout, waking the last sleepyheads.

- Peter! You missed me so much, you had to come all the way here? Damn. You are making me blush - Will showed up out of nowhere.

- Will! I would say it good to see you, but that would be a lie you old fart.

- Why so mean this early in the morning?

- You just bring so many negative emotions in me, that I can't help it.

He smiled.

- How is the city? I overheard some bad news.

- Yeah. You guys need to return as fast as possible. I have no idea what those knuckleheads might come up with next.

- Ok, let's go then. Come, I'll find you some work.

He led me to his tent, and I helped him to take it down. Then we also gave a hand to others. It took maybe a few minutes, and a whole group was ready to travel again.

My bag with the supplies just disappeared among people, to never come back to me, but I didn't really care about it. I was more interested in making it back to the city as fast as possible and also learning what information they brought back.

There was no time to talk at first, with the work required to pick up everything and put it back on carts, but as soon as I could, I attempted to grab somebody I could get some information from. Hatta was the closest person.

- Hey Hatta.

- Morning Peter. I saw you helping around. I heard some bad news about moods in the city.

- Yeah. We should rush back. What about on your side? What did you guys find out?

- Well...

- You will find out with the rest of the people - suddenly I heard Aisha's voice from the side.

She was clearly having an eye on me, and still holding the grudge. I smiled at her slightly.

- Ok. I'll wait.

Hata did his best to keep a poker face, but it was pretty damn obvious he wanted to smile about the whole ridiculous situation.

- Maybe that's for the better - he said eventually.

- Then at least tell me how was the journey? Hard I get from how you all look.

- Yeah. It was further than we anticipated, and actually way more dangerous. We had to be careful about the surroundings and pick our path with a lot of caution. There are monster territories further ahead with pretty nasty creatures.

- Like what?

- Giants. Big ass giants.

- Damn...

- Yeah. We had to fight with a few, but together we actually managed to take them down pretty easily. Fortunately, we encountered individuals rather than whole groups. If we got more than one at a time, it could be rough.

- Good job.

- Thanks. Still, the length of the road was the worst. We have been pushing on the fumes since a few days ago. The food is almost gone, we have barely any water. To be honest our preparations were pretty damn bad overall.

- But you made it, that's what counts.

- Yeah, we did, and nobody died  - he laughed a bit.

I realized then how tired he was.

- Blue didn't try anything? - I whispered suddenly.

- No. Surprisingly, no. Although he clearly is fishing for allies. Not wasting any opportunities to talk with people. He tried with Russians, he tried with Nobuo - he said and looked to the side, at Aisha.

She was close by, and probably could hear us, but didn't show it in any manner.

- What? - I asked following his gaze.

- Nothing. As I was saying. He tries what he can. Probably to make his grand return to the top. He has few people, and probably enough strength under his disposal to not be ignored even if we would really want to. We actually need to talk about that later.

- Yeah. Let's do that.

- I know that with everything going on in the city, and now us not really sharing much you might be worried, but we are actually bringing pretty decent news. Even though, we will have a lot to talk about. As a community.

- That sounds serious.

- Well... We got too few conclusions as we were traveling together. Some things need to change, that for sure. Maybe for the first time, we will have a clear goal to work for, except of course our own survival.

- You mean like it was back when Zhang Yong was alive?

- Yes and no. Everything will be decided by all of us. One person as a leader is clearly not gonna work because the others won't allow that, but that doesn't mean we can't come up to an agreement. We already discussed few ideas and will discuss them again in the public.

- That sounds reasonable, and also like a start to our own government.

- I know. That's a good thing, isn't it?

- Depends on the government, but we already had few examples of people who could do whatever they wanted, and it didn't end well, so maybe that's the only alternative we have.

We kept discussing this matter and pushing forward. Eventually, the path cleared by me ended, and orcs showed up. With everybody exhausted and a long road ahead of us, I went to the frontlines, to deal with them, mostly alone.

It was a good decision, that allowed us to keep up with the tempo, although it wasn't as fast as I would wish for, rushing them was out of the question.

The cliff was the worst obstacle. We struggled for a long time to get all the carts up. With that finally behind us, there was only a wide forest and a bunch of goblins between us and the city.

Night fell soon after, but we didn't stop. The march had to continue until we finally reach the destination. That though took all the night and a bit of the morning to achieve.

Day ended with 1 124 481 points remaining on my account.