TJ forced himself not to look at his Status as they trekked back to town. More and more, he was struck by the differences in everyone's soaring Attributes. He thought of himself as pretty strong, and in his coatl form, he'd been able to muscle out some of the monsters. As a human, though, he couldn't carry one of the Gila Monstrosities. Sarah and Connor slung the corpses over their shoulders without any fuss as they continued to keep their shields up in the other hand and watch for any possible attackers. TJ guessed that each of the monsters weighed at least 500 pounds, though he suspected it would be quite a bit more.
From snout to tip of the tail, each Monstrosity was at least 12 feet long, and when standing, they'd been about 3 feet tall, and they were packed with dense flesh and muscle. Even so, the two Zealots didn't struggle with the corpses. TJ carried the severed head of one and the tail of the Serket-blessed rattlesnake, and the head had to weigh at least 70 pounds, if not more. To distract himself from getting lost in his Status and new Skill selection, TJ focused on the quick math necessary to guess what Sarah's Strength would be at now.
She didn't get bonus Strength from her Bloodline, so one Strength per level of Human, and an Appraisal let him know that she was at level 18 in Human, the same as him. 18 Strength there. Both her Class and Occupation gave +3 in Strength per level, so 108 for the 36 levels between Class and Occupation. TJ didn't think she'd put any of her Free Points in Strength, but that didn't really matter now, though that was a possible variable of another 36 possible. Then, there was the +10 that her shield with one Attainment gave her.
So, her Strength was, at least, 136 plus whatever she started with. Her Endurance and Vitality would be close but still a ways below that, but TJ was struck by how little of a leg up he truly had with Divine Transformation. Much of that was because his Occupation wasn't one that truly aligned with his Class, and TJ wondered if he would be able to change his Occupation moving forward. The irony that he was asking that at the same moment that he was holding himself back from looking at that Occupation's Skill selection wasn't lost on TJ. While he wondered about changing his Occupation, the System answered his unasked question.
Once a Participant has chosen an Occupation, that Occupation and its evolutions will be all those that the Participant will have access to.
But what did that mean? The System didn't elaborate, and TJ had to guess. As far as he could tell, the names of the initial, Dirt tiered Classes, didn't seem to indicate godhood. Based on his intuition, which was frequently wildly wrong, Classes and Occupations would evolve? Maybe like how that one Skill, Primeval Champion or whatever, changed the way the Occupation Savage would work. Even after making those suppositions and attempting to ask the System to clarify, he got nothing.
With a force of will, TJ pulled himself away from calculating other people's Attributes or how evolutions worked and instead focused himself on their surroundings. Since Farid, Stanton, and Seth were all keeping an eye out, There was little to no chance that there would be anything capable of getting the drop on them, but keeping watch was more productive than thinking about other people's levels at this point. The winds whispered to him about what was nearby, and with his steady steps to ground him, TJ didn't get lost in the whimsical wandering wind.
It said that there was something alive, something interesting a couple miles away, but TJ wasn't about to pull everyone away to check this thing out, and he'd like to think that he'd learned his lesson about running off alone, so the interesting things the wind wanted to show him were forgotten. As their steps sloshed through the melting snow, TJ continued to listen for anything noteworthy the wind had to say. Since he didn't consider the Tutorial's continued control over the weather to be of special note, there wasn't anything that the winds told him that he cared to remember.
As they walked into the clearing that the industrious people of Pine were still creating, TJ let out a sigh of relief. They'd entered the safe zone at this point, and he didn't need to keep such a clear view of everything around them. More and more, TJ found that he wasn't hungry after eating his fill as a coatl, so instead of going to eat lunch, he went to help Peter in the fortification preparations. There was so much left to do, but the walls now surrounded the general store with a 25 foot berth in each direction. They stood about a foot and a half high in every direction, plenty high enough to ensure that whatever was on the opposite side would end up struggling through the dense branches still attached on the outside of the walls. It wasn't enough, though, with supernaturally strong creatures on the outside that could certainly continue to grow faster, stronger, and more deadly.
"How can I help?" TJ asked Peter as he approached. The construction manager swiped the sweat from his forehead, sighing.
"Probably not me, right now. I'm figuring out how to make sure these walls are sturdy enough to keep building them up. If they're 100 feet tall but fall over from someone breathing on them, they're no good."
"You've got your work cut out for you, then." TJ responded.
"Bet they need help on water duty, though." Peter followed up as he started digging into the ground and scowling at the hole. Not knowing what exactly water duty was, TJ turned to go ask someone else about it. Before long, he ran into Molly and Tessie, who were walking back into town with 2-liter bottles in both hands and spilling out of the backpacks they wore.
"Heya TJ!" Molly waved as he walked up to them. "What're you up to?"
"Trying to help out while the other people who went out to hunt recover."
"Oh, yeah!" Tessie said. "You were the ones who killed those giant lizards?"
"Yeah. You two might find something to do with their skin, since I doubt I'll have enough time to."
"Ehhh." Molly waffled her hand back and forth. "I doubt they'll have time to cure anyways. Even with the Tutorial helping us out."
"Maybe it'll help us out more since there's so little time?" Tessie answered with a shrug. "Wouldn't hurt to do something."
"You're right." Molly rolled her eyes, less dismissive than joking. "So did you think we needed your help? Sorry, but nope! We're big girls, can carry our own water and everything."
"Nothing like that." TJ raised his hands in mock surrender. "I just saw you carrying water, and I was told that the people on water duty might need help."
The two teens looked at each other in understanding before Molly nodded. "Yeah, sure. Don't know if there's anything we need help on right now, though."
TJ didn't say anything else, merely holding out a hand to offer help to the two girls. Molly scoffed and gathered her waters up more tightly as she led the way. Tesse shrugged helplessly and offered the two soda pop bottles filled with water she held. He chuckled, took them, and tousled Tessie's hair as he caught up to them. It wasn't long before the two girls were talking to each other again, speculating what the siege and boss fight were going to be like. The anger that TJ kept tamped down swelled in him as they neared their destination and the girl's talk continued.
These were two girls, sophomores or juniors in high school, and they should have been talking about an upcoming school dance, or a TV show, or literally anything instead of strategies to ensure they and those they cared about didn't get ripped apart in less than two days. This System, though it'd seemed to extend some level of favoritism towards him, still was pitting so many people against monsters, and it didn't care how many people it killed as it did so. He didn't quite consider it to be his enemy yet, but it certainly wasn't a friend or anything either.
"Here, TJ." Molly said. As she looked at him, though, she cocked her head. "What's wrong?"
"Just… all this. I hate that kids like you two are stuck in all this shit, and I wish there was something that I could do about it."
As he spoke, TJ expected to have at least Molly begin posturing, saying how they were grown up and didn't need his pity. That wasn't what happened. Instead, first Molly, then Tessie too, fought to keep the tears from filling their eyes and spilling. Neither was successful, and as the breath caught in Molly's chest, Tessie spoke.
"Us too." She sniffled, unable to speak coherently as she continued. The teens fought to get themselves back under control, and Tessie was again the first to do so. "We try not to think about it too much. It's hard. And it hurts."
Molly looked up at TJ, her tears streaking her face as she spoke. "I miss my mom and dad. I–" Her voice broke again and she collapsed into sobs, though she continued walking towards wherever needed to have the waters dropped off at.
"I'm sorry." TJ said as they walked into the back of the general store, where the trucks unloaded everything. "I shouldn't have said anything."
Tessie shrugged helplessly as they walked to the dropoff and deposited their water bottles. There, Laura met eyes with the teary girls and then looked at TJ. Though she wasn't at all accusing, when the leader of the town saw the grown man walking with two crying teenagers, TJ couldn't help but feel his stomach drop.
"My bad. I was just thinking about how shitty it is that we have children here who're being forced into this instead of regular life."
Laura's mouth dropped open in understanding. "Makes sense. It's a bit of a landmine. I'm sorry, girls and TJ. It's easier to try to forget everything that used to be instead of wishing it were still here."
TJ nodded, and trying to truly change the subject, he spoke up. "I heard there's more people needed for water duty? What is that?"
"We don't need anyone else right now, but I can tell you what it is. Since we won't have any water running or a river down here during the siege, we're preparing all the water that we can manage to store before then. With enough, we can make sure everyone's hydrated throughout the siege and final battle. We don't need more right now," Laura continued talking, keeping TJ from interrupting her, "because all the bottles and barrels we have are filled now. We'll need more later, after we use a fair amount of the water we already have stored, but we have several hundred gallons prepared already."
"Oh, ok then." TJ answered. "Makes sense. Anything else I can help out with?"
"Not at this time. Thank you, TJ. Now, girls, would you help me with this over here? I'm afraid my Strength is much too low to organize one of our stockpiles."
For a brief moment, TJ wondered why she was asking the teenagers instead of him, but he quickly realized that Laura was working to distract them from the hard feelings TJ had reminded them of. He nodded to Laura and walked on his way out of the store, instead looking for somewhere to sit down and go over his new Skill options. It wasn't too long before he walked out of the perimeter of the walls and found himself back where he ordinarily slept. Now, though, there was nothing left except for a couple of bricks and broken drywall.
The beds had been brought back into the general store, the final preparations for the siege having taken away the last vestiges of privacy available. TJ wondered where all the debris from destroyed storefronts and homes had been hauled, how the workers had disposed of it without creating bulwarks for the enemy monsters. Surely there was some plan there, and TJ couldn't bring himself to care. Instead, he looked around, saw that there wasn't even anything to lean against, sighed, and laid down on the ground.
Surrounded by the ruins of someone's home and livelihood, TJ pulled up his Skill selection options from Savage, read through them, and was left with a difficult choice to make.