Too Stubborn to Die

After dropping off loot, namely the wombat corpse with Zach and Marko, Aaron traveled north. He quickly reached the ocean and shot out over the lapping waves.

His target was the other continent. But he didn’t go in a direct line. On his map, he had spotted a few obelisks along the way, thanks to Dober’s size. As the United Front had grown, they had unlocked the ability to see all claimed obelisks on their map. So he knew exactly where to find ones controlled by people other than Darius, how big they were, and what the ruling factions were called.

And along his flight path, he had spotted two islands almost midway between the two continents, both with obelisks.

Before he even reached the first island, it was obvious that it was a small and weak community.

Most beasts roaming its prehistoric vegetation were mid E-grade. He didn’t waste any time with the weak beasts, crossing the small island in a second.

Inside a dormant volcano, he found the obelisk and a meagre settlement built around it. Interestingly, though, the settlement was entirely made up of families, who had been transported together by the System upon leaving their rather idyllic and easy-mode Tutorials.

Kids were literally frolicking around. And a couple mid-E-grade guards hesitantly approached him as he entered. He could see the fear on their faces. They knew that if he was here to do bad, there wasn’t a thing they could do to stop him.

“We welcome you to our home.”

“Yes, please, if there’s anything you need. Anything at all! We will provide it as best we can.”

Aaron just raised a brow at them. What a curious development. Perhaps the System wasn’t as careless as he had originally thought. Or maybe, it just wanted to play fair. After all, what were the chances of these families surviving if they had landed near the ant hive as he had?

Even if their parents had been half decent warriors, it would have been a struggle to keep their children alive with such monumental enemies around. Just from looking around and sensing auras, he figured there were probably at least three children for every adult.

However, the System’s ways were obviously more complicated than just making it easy for vulnerable people. Aaron being dropped down in what might have been the most deadly jungle on the planet made sense. But what about Marko, Zach, and the goblins? If not for him, they’d have all perished in that jungle. And there was a pretty good chance there were others he never found.

Considering all of this, he presumed that the System used a combination of luck and power-scaled balancing. Stronger people were more likely to be placed in dangerous situations, but ultimately, there was a degree of luck to randomize it all and keep things interesting.

“No. I don’t need anything. But I might be able to help you,” Aaron said.

It did not take much convincing to get the island to join the United Front. Although Aaron wasn’t entirely sure if they were doing it out of fear of him. That said, he didn’t really care.

He wasn’t about to sit around and waste time hanging out with children just to convince them that he was a good guy. In time, they would see the value of joining the United Front.

He said his goodbyes and informed them that he would send help. Even if there were no immediate threats, the island was just too weak. D-grade wasn’t such a big deal anymore, and their strongest were still quite a few levels away from it. He couldn’t just leave them in such a precarious situation, and would get Julius to send help the moment he could.

Not too far away, he reached the second island with an obelisk. They appeared far more competent. He spotted several on the beaches as he neared, and even a few boats bobbing in the pristine waters around it.

Even though their island itself hadn’t been populated with particularly strong beasts, they did have adversaries to overcome, unlike the other island. There was a particularly powerful den of sea serpents nearby that constantly harassed them.

Before Aaron even landed on the island, the strongest gathered to greet him. Even though they had a few D-grades amongst their ranks, the moment they inspected him, their faces betrayed their feelings.

“Greetings, Aaron Dober. We never expected to see somebody like you on our humble island. What can we do to help you?”

“G’day, mate. I’m just passing by. Looking for friends and allies.”

“You need allies?” The man who appeared to be the leader asked. “What for?”

Aaron explained everything, and what he was planning to do about it. Unfortunately, he had to explain quite a bit, as they didn’t have all the maps, and settlement upgrades he did, and knew very little of the world beyond their island. Which made convincing them of anything hard.

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However, Aaron had his own way of dealing with such problems. The moment he heard about the harassing sea serpents, he shot away from the island and into the sea.

Several minutes later, he came marching onto the beach, walking straight out from the ocean.

“Wait, is that?” one man pointed with a trembling finger.

“Mother off…”

“I’d recognize that anywhere! It’s the serpent king!”

Aaron walked straight up to the leader and dumped the massive corpse he had carried over his shoulder at the man’s feet. Apparently, the serpent king was the leader of the sea serpents, and it was a decently powerful mid D-grade that had killed quite a number of their people.

He had considered leaving it. The experience of killing such a thing would be good for the settlement. But he didn’t have time to coach them through it, and he had something he wanted their help with.

“H-how did you do this?”

“Err, he put up a bit of a fight. But I’ve dealt with much stronger,” Aaron shrugged, and the leader glanced around at the others.

“S-sorry about before. I didn’t know this was possible… Forget what we were talking about. We would be happy to join the United Front.”

More allies were always welcomed. But the real reason he had taken the time to deal with their problem in search of more allies was the island full of children.

With their biggest threat gone, they had free manpower. And Aaron had one simple request: send a D-grade warrior or two to defend the other island. That would give them something until Julius could help out further.

He couldn’t leave them as they were. D-grades were too common now. And a single mediocre D-grade could stumble upon the island and do whatever they wanted to it. At least this gave them some kind of defense.

The relatively fast level gain was thanks to the power of their world, which Aaron was starting to appreciate more as he learned more about the multiverse. As a Beta World, leveling was far quicker than that on an Omega World, like the sea-covered world ruled by the sea king, Benigoreng. And even that world had been crippled by losing control of its World Core.

For a Beta World, D-grade and even C-grade were not particularly special. But progression would become nearly impossible beyond it. With perhaps a handful of B-grade tyrants being etched out of the ranks of the absolute peak of society, those who took advantage of every possible opportunity.

It was a troubling thought. They might have been a long way away from that. But he could already see what happened to those who fell behind. Would he, even with his insane skill, be able to defend an island like the one he had just seen if those were the only beasts he had to grind himself against?

Would he be able to defeat Darius?

The answer seemed obvious, and it was a harrowing truth to accept when an unknown like Mark Manifold already had in his possession what was required to turn his world into an Alpha World.

Would Superearth become like the island?

He shook the thought away. Now wasn’t the time for it. But it did put pressure on him to work harder, strive higher.

Before leaving, he watched as several boats loaded up with supplies and fighters to leave for the other island. It reminded him of how humble many others still were, as most on the island still lacked flight Skills.

Hopefully, now that they had joined the United Front, they could share resources, and their people could help these islands and their ascendancy to something more self-sufficient.

As he prepared to leave, Aaron checked his map again. He noted that there were several obelisks under the water itself. But he had delayed long enough, and decided to leave them for another time.

There was still the main target of his trip to deal with. It had caught his attention when he first spotted it, and he was deadly curious to check it out.

Covering a decent chunk of the other continent was a faction called the World Alliance. Besides the United Front and Darius’ Undead Empire, there was only one other faction as big as them. He counted sixteen obelisks under the control of the World Alliance. It was less than Dober had now, but that was only because of his rampage cleansing corrupted obelisks. If, unlike his own, this alliance had been slowly expanding and building out its obelisks as its population grew, then there was a real chance that what it actually controlled was considerably bigger than the United Front.

But that wasn’t what really interested him about it. On the map, it looked like a chunk of the alliance had been bitten straight out of its center, as its territory curled around a peninsula of obelisks claimed by none other than Darius’ undead empire.

Based on their borders, there could be little argument that they already knew of the undead, and were not on friendly terms.

But none of that was particularly newsworthy. What was, was that while watching the map previously, Aaron had seen one of the obelisks ruled by the Undead Empire flicker, and then change sides, conquered by the Alliance.

Up until now, he had essentially just been saving people in hopeless situations across the globe. But this alliance seemed as if it might actually be a force to be reckoned with. Which excited him to no end.

It was time to move on, and Aaron said his goodbyes. It was time to pay the alliance a visit and discover who was leading it.

He had not actually spent any time talking about factions when he was in the dungeon, something he now regretted. All of the strongest rankers were there, so it made sense that such a large faction would be ruled by someone he already knew.

The shoreline approached quickly as he sped above the clouds. Far in the distance, he could already spot several settlements. Cities, even what looked like roads connecting them, and a barren waste where the two factions met each other.

Mana and aether pulsed through his body as he cycled it through his core and blasted it out through both his [ Ghost Wings] and his ever-improving mana anchors, turning him into a human rocket, leaving the sound barrier in his wake.

A smile creased his face. He had a feeling beating back some of Darius’ goons with a mate from the dungeon was going to be a good time.

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