Desolate World

Ace was sitting on the beach of the lake while staring at the waterfall. His mind was preoccupied with his family's condition. Although he looked calm in front of Geo, he was in fact very scared. 

How did he not? Their sanctuary was damaged, it would not be impossible for the dome of their sanctuary to cave in or it had already been. Such a strong earthquake could overwhelm the dome of every sanctuary. 

His hope at the moment could only be placed in the strong structure of his house and the system claimed to be safe capsules to protect them until the army came using Gopher to dig their way to his sanctuary.

Actually, the cave-in of the sanctuary had happened a few times. Every time it happened, many inhabitants of the sanctuary were killed. 

Gophers were machines that were used to dig underground. They were used to make tunnels to do rescue missions or building projects.

A hearty laugh then entered his ears. It woke him up. He then saw Geo who was playing with Red and Blue, gliding on the surface of the water of the lake.

Ace then waved his hand to his kid, which was returned with a wave of hand from Geo who was riding Red.

He really envied his son for his adaptability. It only took him a day to return cheerful. On the first day, he worried about his dinosaur toy collection, his friends in kindergarten, and some cats and dogs that the neighbors had.

After Ace's various attempts to distract him, Geo finally could 'forget' the real-world situation. 

It had been a week since they were stuck in the game. It was not kind of trapped in the game like a classic scenario in a novel. They were stuck in the game, because the condition outside was too dangerous for them to come out.

These days, Cloud always babysitted Geo, while Sofia helped Aria design some core buildings such as the town hall. It was based on a blueprint that was illustrated in a book in the library.

Although it couldn't take effect before the village was recognized by the system, it was better than doing nothing.

Aria and Mars were surprised Sofia had such talent. As an inventor, Aria could evaluate the blueprint that Sofia had drawn. She must acknowledge that the blueprint was usable and had a great effect. However, because most dragons had big stature, Aria made some modifications.

It was then Sofia's turn to be surprised. She never imagined a fixed blueprint that was recognized by the system could be modified. Moreover, the building's effects became stronger after its blueprint was modified.

After recognizing each other, the two women became friends. They exchanged ideas when having time. Mars, who had witnessed the capabilities of the two then entrusted the village design to them. 

Ace believed that his wife's quest completion in the future would surpass all people. Becoming one of the village planners would boost her contribution by a lot.

Gon led several men quarrying stones under the cliff a little far from the waterfall. Because no one was an expert in mining, they were doing it carefully. However, Gon was different, with his physical advantage he dug every large stone with confidence. As an earth dragon, his claws as if had been created to do it, as it looked so effortless. 

He did it that way because Mars had ordered him to get rid of the riff at that side. According to Aria's plan, their village would be built on the shore of the lake to some areas on top of the cliff, so the village had two layers. 

The top layer would be inhabited by dragons, angels, and dwarves. The bottom layer would be inhabited by humans, elves, and gnomes. As for the other races' placement would be thought of later, as every race had its own characteristics. 

For a note, Eric's and Erica's task was not only to report the discovery of the suitable place to build the village, but also to guide a floating island of the angle to go to their place. The floating island would carry dwarves, elves, gnomes, angels, dragonlings, development tools, and supplies.

They would be the initial villagers of the village. The dwarves, elves, and gnomes were some refugees that the angels had saved from several occasions when their islands passed the wilderness. It would be impossible for them to remain on the floating Island, as it had many uses for angels.

However, with the floating island's slow movement, Aria predicted that it needed at least 2 weeks to travel to their location. With the time needed for Erica and Eric traveling to Dragma valley and the time that the people over there needed to prepare everything to carry, Aria had predicted it would consume roughly 3 to 5 days. So, maybe it needed less than 3 weeks for the island to come. As a week had passed, maybe it would take 2 weeks for them to arrive.

In the forest not too far from Gon's location, Sampson, Adrian, Derek, and several men cut the trees down. They would be the main materials for houses and various buildings in the village.

As for Ace himself, he was preoccupied with the task that Mars had given him, which was to find more humans.

These days he had searched 20 km radius from the village, and could only find bunches of monsters, roaming the forest and hunting each other. He mostly avoided them, as he didn't want to waste too much time. However, some winged monsters were difficult to avoid. Fortunately, they were weak. Well, for Ace they were weak, as they were mostly bellows level 15. However, for ordinary people, they were deadly. By attacking with his card sometimes, all of the winged monsters chose to escape.

He couldn't find any trace of human beings or other intelligent races these days. It then forced him with a difficult choice, which was to venture into the grassland, beyond the misty forest. However, by the findings of Sofia who had scouted with Red around the forest at night 5 days ago, the grassland was void of any activity on the surface.

Yes, only on the surface. Underground, some creatures were hiding. And in the air, some bats were patrolling periodically. Realizing something was odd, Sofia didn't dare to continue her scouting and chose to come back.

After reporting the results of her scouting, Aria said they might be undead, to be precise, skeletons who were hiding underground, and the bats were the vampires' pets. 

After that night, the air surveillance was out of the question. It was too risky to do it on the grassland as the visual of the sky was unhindered. Once it was spotted, the vampires in the Iron Gate Fortress would be dispatched and she would be chased.

Then it came back to Ace. Only he who had agility and survivability to sneak in the grassland and find the survivors. And this night would be his departure time. He didn't know when to come back, so he decided to spend the day resting.

It appeared somewhat stupid to go there at night time, as the undead were basically stronger at night. However, Ace had confidence in his means. Whether they were skeletons or bats, he would solve them in the shortest time and then he would evacuate from the battle spot immediately.

After calming his mind, Ace stood up and walked to the busy crowd. He passed many villagers who were building some simple longhouses to become their dwellings temporarily.  

Some men greeted Ace who was passing by. They didn't show any disapproval of Ace's demeanor for not helping them, because it seemed all of them knew that he was resting at that time. He usually came out in the evening to search for other humans.

"Hohoho… it's rare to see you strolling in the middle of the day. Don't you sleep?" Suddenly Ace heard a familiar voice. He then searched around and found an old man was sitting on top of a log, it was Phil.

"Good day Elder Phil… It's such a nice day. Don't you want to fish?" Ace said while walking towards the old man.

"Nah… Maybe tomorrow. I was busy monitoring the boys. It's the last step, I don't want something wrong to happen. It will be bad if the roof is leaking or some beams weren't connected correctly. After all, the people will live there. Such mistakes can lead to an accident," Phil said.

Ace nodded. He didn't know anything about constructing stuff, so he couldn't say anything at all.

Looking at the silent Ace, Phil then asked, "Your brother said that you will depart to the Northern Prairie tonight. Is there no other way?"

'My brother and his big mouth,' Ace cursed Sampson in his heart. 

Ace sighed. He then said, "I have searched in a 20 km radius of this area, and I could only see monsters. I doubt that any humans could survive this environment. So I could only take some risks."

Hearing that, Phil then looked deeply into Ace's eyes. He then said seriously, "I don't see any fear in your eyes. It's a good thing for most of the time, but it is proof that you still don't understand the terror of the undead. And it's reckless. I know what Guardian could do, but fear of nothing only shows that you become arrogant."

Ace was shocked at Phil's saying. However, he couldn't refuse his assessment. He looked into himself and found that maybe the old man was true. But he thought again, 'What's wrong with becoming fearless if you see nothing to fear?'

Looking at the unmoved expression of Ace, Phil shook his head. He then asked, "May I suggest you other solution?"

***