Leadership, Kazuto quickly learned, was mostly about answering obvious questions.
"Where are we going, Master Kazuto?"
"What about food, Master Kazuto?"
"Can we please hit the overseer just once, Master Kazuto?"
He stood by the mining cart, now loaded with the pit's meager supplies: some tough dried fungus, crude tools, and waterskins filled from the stream. The freed dwarves milled around, a mixture of frantic energy and shell-shocked confusion. The head overseer still sat in its cube, now ignoring everyone, a model of sullen imprisonment.
Right. First, direction.
He climbed onto a low rock. Thirty-plus pairs of eyes locked onto him. His delivery uniform felt stupidly bright.
"Okay!" he said, clapping his hands once. It was the same tone he used for new hires on the sorting line. "We're moving. We need a better location. Defensible. Near water. Somewhere nobody wants."
Doom scratched his beard. "The Scablands. A day's walk east. Rocky, bad soil, full of bitter wells. Not even the Seats bother with it."
"Perfect," Kazuto said. "We head there. Doom, pick a few scouts who know the way. Everyone else, grab anything useful. We leave in ten."
A wave of purposeful motion swept through the group. They had a task. It helped.
The next problem was the cube. Kazuto walked over to it. The overseer glared.
"I can't leave you here," Kazuto said, thinking aloud. "You'll just tell your boss where we went."
"I will sing of your location to the ash winds themselves," the creature hissed.
"And I can't take you with us like this." A floating box would attract every monster and bandit for miles. He needed a more portable solution.
« QUERY: ALTER BARRIER PARAMETERS FOR MOBILITY? »
The voice's prompt felt like his own thought, but smarter. Yes. Smaller. Dense.
He focused on the cube. He imagined it shrinking, condensing, becoming heavier. The golden light shimmered.
The ten-foot cube began to compress. It folded in on itself silently, becoming a five-foot cube, then a three-foot one. The overseer inside yelped, forced into a crouch, then a tight squat as the walls pressed in politely but firmly around it. Finally, it settled into a neat, opaque, golden box the size of a large piece of luggage. It was perfectly sealed, with no visible seams.
« PARAMETERS ADJUSTED. [DIVINE OMNI BARRIER] NOW IN PORTABLE CONTAINMENT MODE. »
Kazuto reached out and tapped it. It was solid, cool to the touch, and weighed about as much as a full cooler of drinks. He could carry it.
A young dwarf boy stared. "Is… is it still alive in there?"
"Yes," Kazuto said. "And probably very annoyed. Which is fine." He slung his satchel over one shoulder and hefted the box under his other arm. It was awkward, but manageable. Like a bulky appliance delivery.
The march began. Doom and two younger dwarves led the way, cutting a path east. The main group followed, a slow, ragged line through the ancient trees. Kazuto walked somewhere in the middle, his eyes constantly scanning the forest shadows. The package and the prison-box made his arms tired.
The dwarves weren't warriors. They were tired, underfed craftsmen. Progress was slow. After a few hours, the initial energy faded. The line stretched, the weaker ones lagging.
Kazuto called a halt by a small, rocky outcrop. "Rest. Fifteen minutes. Drink water."
He set down the boxes—the mysterious package and the overseer-container—with relief. As the dwarves slumped to the ground, he saw the problem clearly. They were running on hope, and hope ran out faster than calories.
Need a system. A route.
He walked over to Doom, who was chewing on a piece of tough fungus. "We need to pair up. Strong ones help the weak. Rotate the lightest loads. We walk for an hour, rest for ten minutes. Like a clock."
Doom blinked, then nodded slowly. "Aye. Like a mining shift." He got up and started moving through the group, organizing them with gruff efficiency. "You, Borin, you're built like an anvil, help Lina with her pack. Rolf, take point with me next leg."
The line reformed, looking slightly more ordered. They moved on.
The forest began to thin, the ground rising into rocky, stubborn hills. The trees here were shorter, twisted. The "Scablands" were living up to the name.
It was during the third rest period that the threat came from above.
A shadow passed over the sun. A low, guttural shriek echoed off the stones. Everyone looked up.
A wyvern. It was smaller than the stories, maybe the size of a small plane, with leathery wings and a tail that ended in a venomous-looking barb. Its yellow eyes were fixed on the slow-moving line of dwarves. Easy prey.
Panic erupted. Dwarves scrambled for cover behind rocks.
"Do not run!" Doom bellowed, hefting a mining pick. "It'll pick you off!"
The wyvern dove, its maw opening to reveal rows of needle-teeth. It was aiming for a cluster of dwarves too far from cover.
Kazuto's mind went blank, then clicked into a single, clear point. The cart. The supply cart was the most exposed, right in the wyvern's path. The dwarf pushing it froze, staring at death descending.
« NOTICE: AERIAL PREDATOR ENGAGING. NON-COMBATANTS IN PERIL. »
Kazuto didn't think about skill names. He just threw his will out like a net, focused on one thing: That cart is not to be damaged.
« ACTIVATING [DIVINE AURA OF SAFETY] – TARGETED APPLICATION. »
The wyvern's head slammed down, intent on snatching the dwarf and shattering the cart.
Its teeth closed on empty air, two feet above the cart's wooden frame. Its head jerked to a sudden, impossible stop, as if it had bitten a solid, invisible boulder. There was a loud, painful crack of bone-on-nothing, and the wyvern let out a confused, hurt squawk, recoiling mid-air.
It shook its head, dazed. It looked at the cart, then at the terrified dwarf now peeking out from under it. With an angry scream, it whipped its barbed tail, lashing down at the cart to smash it to splinters.
The tail struck the same unseen, unyielding field. The barb didn't bounce—it just stopped, the force dissipating into nothing. The wyvern's own momentum spun it awkwardly in the air.
It righted itself, hovering, utterly perplexed. It tried one more time, breathing a stream of acidic, greenish bile that could melt stone.
The vomit hit the invisible dome over the cart and spread out, sliding down an unseen curve to pool harmlessly on the ground, smoking and etching the dirt.
The wyvern stared. The dwarves stared. The cart and the dwarf were perfectly dry, unharmed, surrounded by a circle of scorched earth.
The creature let out one last, frustrated shriek. It gave the cart, and by extension the strangely calm man in blue standing nearby, a wide, wary berth, and flew off in search of less confusing lunch.
Silence returned, broken only by the sizzle of the acid dying in the dirt.
The dwarf under the cart crawled out. He touched the wood, then his own body, as if checking they were both still there. He looked at Kazuto, his eyes wide.
Kazuto let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. His heart was hammering. "Is everyone okay?"
Nods and murmurs came from behind the rocks. The fear in their eyes was still there, but mixed with something else: a dawning, solid belief.
Doom walked over to the cart, kicking the hardened acid residue. He looked at the retreating speck of the wyvern, then at Kazuto. "You… you protected the cart."
"It has the supplies," Kazuto said simply, as if that explained everything. He walked over and picked up his two boxes again. "We're burning daylight. Let's move."
As the line reformed and began to trudge up into the rocky hills, the whispers started.
"Did you see? The beast's teeth broke!"
"He didn't even move. Just… stared."
"He cares more about the tools than his own safety?"
"No. He knew the tools were our safety."
Kazuto walked on, arms aching. He heard the whispers. He felt the weight of the stares, heavier than the boxes.
This isn't a delivery, he thought, adjusting his grip on the prison-box. This is a permanent relocation. And I just signed for the freight.
Behind him, a young dwarf whispered to her mother, "Where is he taking us, Mama?"
Her mother, watching Kazuto's steady, burdened back, said softly, "I don't know. But for the first time, it feels like a delivery that might actually arrive."