The next eight hours were a whirlwind of hostile encounters with jungle animals. Progress was slow, but steady as the party cut their way through the monsters. Thanks to the quick increases in mana from both absorbing souls, and exercising his magic, Jaden could feel himself getting slowly stronger.

After a particularly difficult fight with a creature that seemed like a fusion of wolf and beetle, Jaden opened his stat screen to check his progress.

*************************************

Jaden Harris

Max MP: 152

Free MP: 12/76 (50%)

Stats

Strength: 10 (0%)

Agility: 10 (0%)

Fortitude: 25 (10%)

Endurance: 10 (0%)

Charisma: 10 (0%)

Intelligence: 70 (40%)

Magic Resistance: 10 (0%)

*all stats are rounded to the nearest whole number

Jobs:

King of Games Level 4

Skills:

None

Titles:

Fop Level 1

Originator Level 2

Creator Level 1

Status effects:

None

*************************************

Jaden smiled grimly as he closed his stat screen, hoping his newfound strength would be enough. Checking his map, Jaden determined that there were still twenty-five miles left to go until they reached their destination, and only three days. Hearing the crunch of twigs, Jaden turned to find Niko limping up to him, using her sword as a crutch.

“You ok?” He asked her, concerned.

Niko nodded. “Tired. Lots of fighting.”

Jaden offered his hand, helping her to sit next to him. She sighed in contentment as they wiggled into the embrace of a nearby tree.

“I think we need to move faster if we really want to reach the nexus before the end of the week.” Jaden told her mournfully.

Niko groaned, attempting to burrow further into the small hollow she occupied among the tree roots.

“Do you still want to do this? We can leave any time, and wait out the clock.” He told her gently.

Niko shook her head. “I won’t be weak. Leave now, and I am still the same. Finish this, and I can be better.”

Jaden nodded, and stood. Affectionately, he patted her shoulder as he walked past her, and she smiled at him wearily in reply. Locating Lois in the distance, he made his way to sit next to her.

“What do you think about this trip? Should we keep going?” He asked her.

“I don’t care about getting stronger like Niko does, but I think we need to reach the nexus.” She replied after a moment. “I honestly don’t trust anything Clip says, and we need to know more about what’s going on if we’re going to survive.”

“But what if trying to reach the nexus gets us killed? I still remember the coordinates Clip gave me when we first came here. We can come back in a month after we’ve had time to get stronger.” He argued.

Lois’s eyes widened. “You’re saying we shouldn’t try? I’m surprised by you, loverboy.”

Jaden sighed. “I like Niko, but I don’t want any of us getting killed. This place is dangerous. We’ve been lucky so far, but the closer we get to the nexus the harder this is getting. Even just moving through the outskirts of the training grounds we’re barely getting by. I just don’t know if we’re strong enough to do this. Especially when we reach the boss enemy.”

Lois shook her head. “I get what you’re saying, but I have the feeling if we tried to turn around, Niko would leave without us. I know we haven’t known each other very long, but you don’t seem like the type to abandon her.”

Jaden nodded. “I’m not, I’m just trying to figure out how to make this work without someone dying.”

Lois thought about this for a moment. “Why not make an army?”

Jaden blinked. “What?”

“Hear me out.” Lois said, smiling fiercely. “I know I was freaked out before when you made Yuki, but what if you made more like him? We could make a group of soldiers to help us fight. At least it would give us a better chance.”

Jaden’s mind went into overdrive at her words, already working through the possibilities. Grabbing his deck, Jaden rifled through it until he found the two cards he wanted.

“I play the card Jungle!” Jaden stated, pouring forty mana into the card.

“Next, I play Aki the Spellsword.” All of Jaden’s remaining mana went into the summoning. A man with a lean frame, patrician face, and golden robes appeared in front of him. Concentrating, Jaden linked the mana from the land card to Aki. Consciousness entered the man’s face a moment later.

“What can I do for you milord?” Aki asked deferentially.

Jaden handed him two cards from his deck. “Alternate summoning the Plains card, and the Loyal Soldier card, each with your maximum mana. When you have one of each summoned, bind them together like what I did to make you. Until I summon another commander, you’re in charge of organizing them into a unit. Can you do that?”

Aki nodded. “As you command milord.”

Without saying anything else, Aki held up his plains card, and a moment later, a pile of dirt fell from the sky.

Jaden turned to Lois, and smiled. “Hopefully that’ll be enough.”

Lois shook her head at Jaden. “You put a lot of thought into that didn’t you?”

Jaden shrugged. “I’m a bit of a strategy game fan. The first rule of any strategy game is to automate as much as you can.”

Lois rolled her eyes. “Nerd.”

“Guilty as charged.” Jaden replied, smiling.

Lois walked away, shaking her head and smirking. Jaden returned to where Niko had planted herself inside the tree, sitting with her in companionable silence. Several minutes later, when Aki had summoned five soldiers, Jaden instructed them to scout the jungle; clearing any monsters they saw, and bringing back the corpses as potential resources. Aki remained behind to continue summoning soldiers, while the small squad moved out to follow their orders. Niko watched silently as Jaden collapsed next to her once his orders were given.

“Tired?” She asked him.

Jaden nodded. “I think this is a good time to sleep for a bit.”

Niko nodded. “Long day.”

Lois walked up at that moment. “I second this motion. Sleep sounds great.”

Without further ado, the party prepared for sleep.

-----------------------------------------------------

Soldier number four stood in the back of the formation as the point-man led the march. Aki hadn’t deigned to give any of the soldiers names, merely assigning them numbers, and four felt this was wrong on some fundamental level. In fact, he was so caught up in trying to decide on a suitable name that he collided with the soldier in front of him, number two, when the line ceased moving.

“Five, what’s up?” Three asked from the middle of the pack.

“I found some tracks. Looks like these might be humanoid.” Five replied.

Four found that he didn’t like five. The man was too stiff for his liking, though given that he had only existed for a little over an hour, he couldn’t consciously explain why.

“Can you tell how old they are?” Two asked, voice tinged with concern.

“No idea. I know how to track, but not well enough to see the finer details.” Five replied regretfully.

“Should we follow them? We’re hunting monsters, but nobody said anything about people.” Three asked.

“People can be monsters too.” Five replied.

While the others were conversing, Four scanned his surroundings. His vigilance saved his life as he was the first to see the fireball erupt from behind a tree.

“Incoming!” He shouted as he dove to the ground. Two and three were vaporized by the explosion, the fireball detonating on impact with the ground. From behind the tree, two green-skinned beings with a singular eye each charged the remaining three soldiers. Four could feel that they were far stronger than any of the soldiers, and made the executive decision to retreat as Five and One drew their weapons. Sprinting at his top speed away from the fight, Four was able to dodge as a third cyclopes appeared, launching another fireball.

“This is Four to team leader.” Four cried, activating a messaging spell Aki had taught to every new soldier.

“This is team leader. What’s the situation?” Four heard, as if it had been spoken next to him.

“We’ve encountered hostile humanoid enemies. I was able to confirm three hostiles, possibly more. They used a fireball spell, so I believe they’re sentient. Two and Three are confirmed KIA, while Five and One are actively engaged. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re already down.”

“If you’re not sure, then where are you?” Aki asked pointedly.

Four bit his lip, and told the first lie of his existence. “We decided someone needed to pass on the information. They’re currently covering my retreat.”

There was a moment of silence from Aki, one that made Four question the value of lying. “Copy that. I’m sending six through ten to reinforce you. Rendezvous at the location I’ve sent to your map.”

“Roger.” Four marched as fast as he could to the marked location. While exercise didn’t exhaust him the way it would a normal human, it did drain his mana. Though Jaden hadn’t thought to ask this question yet, the mana of his creations refreshed far slower than the initial thirty second value of the land card, thanks to the effort of maintaining the physical form. That time frame was now more along the lines of minutes. As a result, Four was feeling the mana exhaustion by the time he reached his destination.

“I assume we’re marching that direction?” An unfamiliar “Loyal Soldier” asked Four.

“Yep.” Four said, nodding, and panting. Despite his magical composition, Four found he still needed to breathe air.

“Alright, follow me. I’m Eight by the way.” Eight said.

“Glad to see some backup. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one left from my squad.” Four replied, staring at the ground.

Eight sighed, and shook his head. “Sorry to hear that. Sounds rough. Did you know them long?”

“I’ve known them my whole life. Four replied honestly.

“Well we’ll get revenge for them at least. By the way, Lord Jaden has officially changed the name of our race. Instead of Loyal Soldier, we are now Jeff.”

Confusion tinged Four’s tone. “Jeff?”

“Yes. Lord Jaden found it strange calling us Loyal Soldiers, and decided to give our race a new name. He said that Jeff sounded like a normal enough name, and officially ordered us to accept it.”

Four’s face went slightly slack as the order from his creator burned through the magical circuits of his mind. “Ok, sounds good. We are Jeff. Does that make me Jeff Four then? Or Four Jeff?” Eight shrugged. “We’ve been going with number, Jeff. That’s how Commander Aki handled it, so it stuck.”

“Alright, cool.” Four nodded in agreement.

The six soldiers marched for half an hour, eventually reaching the scene of the battle. The soldiers stopped, finding the scorch-marks from the previous battle. Eight examined the scene for a moment.

“Let’s go check it out guys.” Six proclaimed excitedly. Four could already tell he wouldn’t like Six. The man was far too cheerful.

Four sighed. “You guys go ahead, I’ll watch the rear.”

“Sounds good.” Six said naively.

Marching forward, Four kept an eye on the trees the first attack had come from. Thanks to that, he was able to spot the enemy preemptively.

“Over there. An enemy.” Four whispered to the Jeff in front of him. Jeff nodded, and passed the message to the next man in the column. Thus it made its way up the line to Six.

“An enemy? Charge!” Six cried, beginning to sprint toward the cyclops.

“No!” Four cried, but he was too late to stop the suicidal dash. He panicked, leaping to hide behind a tree, watching as the squad ran into danger.

The Cyclops, realizing he had been spotted; reflexively lobbed a fireball, which only killed Six. Four shrugged from where he stood; not feeling particularly sorry for losing the overly cheerful, bumbling fool. This time, only that single cyclops emerged to fight. Four concluded it had stayed behind to watch the clearing, and hadn’t expected to get caught.

The four remaining Jeffs in the fight dove in valiantly, while the creature roared in primal rage. Rushing in, Eight stabbed his spear into the Cyclops’ hide, only to have his blade bounce from its powerful skin. It slapped him aside casually, and Four saw the blow remove most of the man’s mana, the remaining mana slowly regenerating his crumpled form.

Seven proved more successful, driving his spear an inch into what was apparently a softer target on the creature’s right hip. It roared in pain, shoving him away. Despite being more of a shove than a blow, the hit still did slightly over half of Seven’s mana in damage, his chest a caved-in ruin. He watched, body regenerating, as Nine and Ten, angered by their comrade’s wounds, charged in blindly, spears failing to penetrate. Nine proved the most skillful of the group, dodging under the retaliatory blow. The next attack after that, a downward swipe of the Cyclops’ meaty hand, smashed into Ten’s skull so hard he disintegrated on the spot. It was at this point that Eight finally recovered enough to jump back into the fray. Limping slightly, he stabbed at the same location Seven had damaged, near the hip. This time, the blade went in another six inches farther than the last strike had.

The cyclops, experiencing the most intense pain it had ever felt, lost control of its magic. It screamed, loosing a powerful shockwave of mana that ripped into the nearby Jeffs. Eight was completely dissolved by the impact, while Nine, still having most of his mana, was blown backward, landing with a thud directly on top of Seven.

The cyclops panted heavily, staring dazedly down at the two remaining Jeffs.

“Seven, you must take my essence. With the extra mana, you might be able to kill that thing.” Nine wheezed.

“But Nine, you’ll die.” Seven replied in shock.

“I’m already dead. My mana will run out before this wound is healed. You need to win this battle. For Jaden.”

A solitary tear fell from Seven’s eye as he nodded. “For Jaden.”

Four watched in astonishment as Seven’s mouth opened impossibly large, swallowing Nine whole. Seven then leapt to his feet, screaming in primal rage as power coursed through him. Charging the dazed creature, Seven ducked under a clumsy swipe of its paw, planting his spear several feet deep into the creature’s hip. It batted at him, pushing him away several feet, but he simply stood up, regenerating a dent in his side.

Meanwhile, the creature seemed to be suffering; wheezing harder and harder as if it couldn’t catch its breath. Seven charged in again, planting his spear deep into the cyclops, another foot deeper than even the last attempt. The cyclops, no longer having the breath to roar, instead began gasping for air, falling to its knees, then its side in pain for a moment before expiring. Seven grabbed his spear, planting it into the ground, and huffing. Nine began checking out his slightly glowing physique as Four emerged from behind his tree.

“Great job Seven!” Four called from the treeline, keeping his distance.

“Where were you?” Seven growled, striding angrily toward Four. “More of us might have lived if you helped with the fight. Don’t you care about your duty? The programming that we need to do what’s best for Jaden? To follow his commands?”

“All I have to do is remind myself that Jaden needs to know what’s going on here, and I’m not contradicting it at all.” Four replied, edging back. “Come on, you can do it too next time.”

“No, I am loyal to my creator. I’m reporting you to Aki for-” Seven’s eyes went wide, as his internal glow intensified. A moment later, his substance blew outward in a miniature mushroom cloud that blew Four off his feet. Blinking in surprise, Four stood up, realizing as he dusted himself off that he was now alone in the jungle. Yelping, Four dashed towards base camp; activating the communications spell.

“Commander! Trouble!”

“Give me a sitrep soldier.” Aki responded calmly.

“Seven ate Nine!”

From the other end of the spell, Four could hear as Jaden burst into hysterical laughter, soon shushed by Lois. Feeling resentment towards the callous laughter of his creator, Four decided Jaden didn't need to know that badly. After all, the creature was dead now. Feeling the resentful joy of pettiness, Four slowed his pace: arriving at the base camp an hour later than he would have otherwise.