"Look, I'm sorry about the brain thing, alright? I said it three times by now."

"How'd you feel to have some little critter's brains all over your nice pants, huh? I'll make a guess for ya–not pleasant!"

Zeke rolled his eyes so hard that he could probably see the back of his head. The trio were walking across the vast forest field, walking over several giant roots and overstepping some obvious holes made up from the gaps with some large jumps.

Despite the boy being clearly malnourished and improperly clothed before, he went around the roots with practiced ease, almost comparable to an assassin if he had a level. It was impressive, proving that Tigger's claim to follow the group to get a chance at a level wasn't just bluffing.

Not that he had a reason to doubt the boy. His appearance was proof enough of his hardship. Tigger had tried to live as best he could under these extreme circumstances, yet there was that fire in his eyes that refused to stay down.

There was that hard edge that was clearly visible, and the reason why the two men were 'fighting' about the fire fox mess made. Lyle didn't care a whit about his pants being stained. He was an alchemist–he's used to creating hard to remove stains and not caring much about them since he can just create a solvent to clear it up in seconds.

No, they were play-acting to keep the kid from feeling scared, hopeless. If they play around, showing that they were just as human as Tigger, perhaps he could feel safer around them. They didn't really plan for this, but it was more of an unspoken agreement between them.

For all Zeke knew, Lyle really was just bitching about his pants. But in Zeke's defense, he was trying to protect the kid.

And as for the 'leaders' that Tigger described the crappy bandits–they were currently being tugged along by Zeke's mana, laying on top of the floating construct like a wagon following them. To Zeke, it was so easy to carry these morons, he might as well spin them around like a flail. They were still completely paralyzed, and couldn't even groan or move thanks to Zeke forcing them down with another construct acting like a constricting ceiling.

It was so easy to do. Despite having a class, they had no Mana or Kinetic Perception, rendering them helpless to do anything against his Rare-rarity Mana Manipulation skill-enhanced Ethereal Construct.

Wow, that was a mouthful. Zeke thought when he combined the terms together like that.

"Anyways," Zeke continued, ignoring Lyle completely. "Tigger, how far are we to your camp?"

"Umm… not too far," Tigger said, scrunching his face as he made his guess. Even for Zeke, it would be hard to gauge exactly how far away is a place from where you were. "Maybe about an hour or two."

"And you've been traveling this way all by yourself?" Lyle said, completely putting aside his complaints and whistling in amazement. "Damn kid, you're a trooper."

"It's nothing," Tigger said, but it was clear from Zeke's vantage that he was trying his hardest not to look flushed. "Nothing compared to what those guys can do."

"Those guys attack innocent bystanders," Lyle shrugged. "That ain't impressive at all."

"Y-Yeah…" Tigger lowered his head. He kept moving, but now there was a clear moping about him.

That made Zeke ready to ask a question that clearly nobody wants the answer to–but it had to be asked.

"Tigger, how many people have those guys attacked?"

For a short while, Tigger stayed silent. The winds drifted across from between the trees, causing Tigger to stand still while his hand was laying next to the giant trunk. He lowered it, then turned to Zeke while waiting for the wind to pass over.

"They… uhh, they attacked a lot of people. They were able to defend themselves, but maybe once or twice…"

Zeke stepped over and put a hand on Tigger's shoulder. It was shuddering, as if recalling something bad rather than feeling the chill of the harsh winds.

"It's okay, I get it," Zeke answered, stopping Tigger.

"...I–"

"None of that is your fault," Lyle answered instead, surprising Tigger. "What can you do anyways? They were too strong, and if you got in their way, you would've been killed. Nobody blames you for not stopping them. Hell, I'd be damn ashamed of them if they try to."

"But," Tigger answered. There was a clear attempt to bring some sort of justice to himself in his eyes. "I didn't do anything other than watch. I knew what they were doing was bad, but they sometimes brought loot over to the camp, and if we followed what they said, we could eat and sleep in comfy clothes… it was wrong, I knew it, but I still took it."

"So it's like Lyle said–it's not your fault," Zeke assured him. He kept staring at him right in his eyes as he did so. Tigger was so intimidated by this directness that he looked away, but Zeke never relented. "You were trying to survive, just like everyone else. That's why I'm glad you did it. Don't worry–we're here to help you out."

"And make sure that people pay up for the crap they've pulled, thinking they're safe just because the laws aren't here to guide us."

Lyle turned to the group behind him, giving that fox like grin that would make a grown man shiver. If they still had feeling in their bodies, they'd be quivering by now.

"Let's try to get back as fast as possible," Zeke mentioned. "They're probably sick people there, right?"

"Y-Yeah," Tigger nodded. "They look really pale and have weird red spots that burn them and make them itch. Like a really, really bad pox or something."

Zeke nodded, noticing that those might be debuffs, and fortunately due to Tigger's non-connection with the system, he was spared of that god-awful debuff.

He looked down at Tigger's naked feet, then at his clothes. They were practically rags, just like when he and Mikella started out after getting out of the tower.

"Hold on," Zeke muttered, digging around in his storage bag. "I got something for you."

…..

Zeke nodded in approval as now Tigger was practically skipping left and right with no hesitation. That earlier assumption of being an hour or two now felt shorter and shorter as Tigger now had a literal skip in his step.

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The clothes he wore were responsible for that. He had a wool white shirt and gray pants, fitting him a lot better than Zeke had imagined. What got Tigger moving were the leather shoes he sported now. Those clothes were Mikella's attempts in creating clothes for her crafting skills.

She wanted to make clothing, mostly because she wanted to give Clara some cute clothes rather than buying them with gold. Apparently she always tried to do that for Clara back in their old world as well. While she hadn't gotten a skill yet, she did really good thanks to her high stats that the extra clothes now filled both their storage packs. They had them just for this occasion–to clothe the otherworlders if they were too indecent due to their tower survival.

The clothes themselves were also made up from top quality stuff. Mikella borrowed some used materials from Lyle and Cru to get started on her crafting skill, some of them made from some high level monsters. Thanks to that, the clothes were sturdier and great to wear, so even when his shoes kept bouncing around the tree's roots, often catching little ridges and sharp edges, they held on like straight rubber and hadn't even gotten a scratch.

Eventually, they found the pathway to the camp. Tigger instantly calmed down, slowing his pace as he led the two adults and their batch of prisoners to the front of the camp.

Seeing it now, Zeke realized just how destitute they were. The camp was honestly too generous–it was the slums version of a camp. The houses, however one would call them, could barely hold on with how flimsy and unstable the walls were. Some houses didn't even have roofs over their heads, and there was garbage of untold origins spread about everywhere.

What hit him the most was the stench. Waste, gruel, and all matters of bile were mixed together, reminding Zeke of the worst mixup in a trash bag, followed by getting dunked into an outhouse for good measure. There was also a hint of copper in the air–blood, fused to the stench in the air.

There, he could see the people. Some looked worse for wear, and others looked mildly pleasant. But what really stood out was the designs of their raggedy clothes–they were clearly from the old world, some sporting designs and certain caricatures that could only belong to the media of their old world. Considering that it's been three months, they must have either washed them, or never had a chance to get proper clothing.

They each had those gaunt faces, their eyes baggy and their cheeks sunken in. They almost looked like Tigger before Zeke finally put some food into him before they left. He wanted to hurl at the sight, but he forced himself to keep looking onwards.

"Jesus… they looked close to death," Lyle whispered, standing up close to Zeke's side. "I don't think I got enough medicine to help them all."

"Don't worry," Zeke offered. "I'll do it instead. You focus on finding others that have it worse, okay? I can handle wounds, but anything too specific can drain a lot of mana from me."

"Got it, but… what do we do first?" Lyle asked, flexing his fingers as he stared at the camp.

"Well… introduce ourselves, I guess."

That was the only thing he could offer. There wasn't much else to do, and Zeke made a gesture to the waiting Tigger to fall back. He didn't know how the people here would react if Tigger brought over strangers with their so called strongest leaders at the back unable to move, so he wanted to imply that Tigger had no other choice but to follow the men.

Following their impromptu act, Lyle stood next to Tigger, offering a sincere smile before expressively putting on a scowling face. With that in hand, they walked towards the camp.

It was only silent at first, but the more people noticed them coming, murmurs started flying about, some of them gathering around each other for comfort and security. Some even started to pick up what looked like weapons, some actually looking rather dangerous like the ones the bandits had.

Eventually, they reached far into the camp where one of the people finally spoke up.

"Who are you?!" The man, around the same age as Zeke and Lyle, shouted. Now that he saw it, mostly everyone here were in their younger twenties or so, some even as young as teens beyond the system's age. "What'd you do to them?!"

He pointed at the leaders, and Zeke wondered if the man even knew their first names. But then considering their record and their state, it wasn't really all that surprising if they started calling themselves masters or something.

"Don't worry," Zeke said, raising his hands and shouting at a level so that everyone can hear. With his Journeymen body, that was easy enough. "These six men are not dead–they're just paralyzed. They tried to attack us, so we subdued them."

That got everyone to murmur louder, outright speaking aloud in front of them. They looked horrified and looked like they were ready to panic.

The man who shouted at them reacted strongly. "There's no way! They're the strongest people we have here! They're all over level 20! What really happened?!"

That got the others to rouse up and shout back, shouting obscenities and even disproving Zeke's words. Zeke was really not good with this sort of thing, so he started to sweat at what to say.

Thankfully someone with a better non-existent Charisma stat stepped forward.

"Obviously because we're stronger!" Lyle shouted back. He wasn't a Journeymen, but his shout was enough to get everyone to nearly cover their ears. Realizing his mistake, he spoke softer, but just enough to get everyone's attention. "We're higher level than that! Just use Identify on us!"

Hearing that, the people suddenly looked as though realizing they could do that. When they did so, Zeke felt a bit uncomfortable with so many people Identifying him. They were barely hitting him considering their low levels, but with this many, his sensitive core felt all those stares like they were jabbing at him at every corner, making him grimace.

They looked shocked, as though they didn't think that tiny stunt was possible, but the first man's eyes widened, and the second's jaw dropped slowly before dropping onto his ass and shouted.

"T-They got no levels! They're all question marks! They gotta be super strong!"

Once that got out, everyone turned pale. Chaos ensued afterwards. Each one started to run away, clamoring over each other. Everyone dropped their weapons as they tried to flee, and some even tried to trample over the others to get ahead.

Zeke instantly realized that maybe they should've fibbed a little if this is how they would react. He forgot that they were two stages above them, causing their levels to be unknown to them. If they were otherworlders, that usually means they were incredibly strong gaming-wise.

"Shit," Lyle cursed. "Zeke, we gotta stop them!"

"Yeah…" Zeke breathed, not really in a panic himself. Now that things ended up this way, there was no other choice.

But somehow he was fine with that. He was better at acting than speaking anyways.

He raised his hands and called forth Ethereal Construct. Considering that some of them aren't even Level 10, he put more mana to his constructs to be more specialized.

Walls of pure turquoise light surrounded the entire camp, shocking everyone and making them scream as though they were caught in a death trap. Some panicked harder and tried to charge themselves through the construct but to no avail. Zeke knew they would be desperate, so he made the constructs rubbery so that their impacts wouldn't hurt them, much like Tigger did.

But unlike with Tigger, he made them a bit thicker, so they did get some bruises here and there… but he accepted that level of collateral damage.

Everyone screamed and panicked, realizing that the constructs trapped them in their place next to what they assumed were the strongest beings in the universe. If only they realized that there were literally millions of people as strong or stronger than they were, but Zeke certainly wasn't going to tell them that.

"Y-You think I took it a bit too far?" Zeke asked, though Lyle raised a brow at him.

"You prefer they run into the forest and get killed by the monsters?"

"...Good point."

Zeke felt a tug at his shirt, and noticed Tigger looked more worried than usual. His eyes darted around, looking as though he brought upon a calamity.

"You're not gonna hurt them, are you?" He pleaded. "I think they're just really scared, so…"

Zeke smiled. Despite his own situation, Tigger's concerns brought some warmth to his heart. "Don't worry, I won't break my promise. But I have to stop them from hurting themselves. I hope this is the worst that I'll have to do."

Zeke then turned to Lyle, who in turn looked back ready to do his thing.

"But if they keep going… then we might have to do some more 'damage control'."

Tigger, looking over at Lyle as he started digging around his bag, stood silent and waited. After another moment, everything else went silent as well.

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