The two days passed quicker than Jonah expected. Time flew when they remained busy.

  Jonah watched from his position near the medical tent as the camp transformed into something resembling a mobile force. Wagons emerged from the wreckage of the battle, crude contraptions fashioned from scavenged metal and salvaged wheels: shopping carts reinforced with steel beams, flatbed dollies lashed together with rope and wire, even a few actual vehicles, their engines dead, but their frames still useful when fitted with makeshift harnesses.

  The System's integration had killed anything electronic. Cars became rolling storage containers instead of transportation.

  Martinez reported on the morning of the second day. "Water's the biggest problem. We've got maybe four days of supply if we ration hard, six if we find sources along the route and keep some in reserve."

  "There's a stream two days north. Runs clean despite the corruption. We'll refill there." Jonah marked the location on the crude map they'd assembled.

  "How do you know that?"

  The question hung in the air.

  Jonah met Martinez's eyes without flinching. "The same way I've known everything else. Does it matter?"

  Martinez held the gaze for a moment, then shook his head.

  "Good. Here and here are potential areas we can get more water, but it might require a fight against some monsters and more goblins. Let's keep them as backups in case we absolutely need them. Otherwise, I want to steer away from any battles until we are fully established with the settlement stone."

  "I'll organize the water distribution teams." The former Marine walked away, and Jonah felt the weight of accumulated questions pressing against him.

  Everyone had noticed, and their questions were loud even though none of them spoke them. The man who knew things he shouldn't, who predicted enemy movements before they happened, who found hidden caches like he had a map for them, and understood System mechanics that should have taken months to learn.

  Let them wonder. Explanations would only create more questions and potential problems.

  Food proved easier than water. The corrupted buildings had yielded surprising quantities of preserved goods: canned goods that hadn't spoiled despite the System's transformation, dried goods that remained edible. The convenience store they'd raided for oil and flammables had also contained emergency rations that some paranoid manager had stockpiled. Jim had seen a few people packing what amounted to trash in the form of chocolates, chips, ice creams, sugared drinks, and more that would likely give them food poisoning before they got to fully enjoy it.

  Jonah could have prevented it, but he understood humanity enough to know that it required them to experience it or see someone else suffer before they all changed their ways. The system did not look kindly to trash calorie foods like that.

  Everything that was worth their time to collect would be enough for a week, maybe more if they supplemented with whatever they could hunt or forage along the route.

  Weapons and armor filled three of the larger wagons. Salvage from the goblin army and equipment stripped from their own dead. The better gear they'd found in the caches Jonah had led them to and even some that others had found while exploring the safe areas around them.

  Not enough to equip everyone properly, but enough that their fighters wouldn't be swinging sharpened sticks.

  Medical supplies took another wagon entirely. Rebecca had organized her materials with the precision of someone who'd spent years managing hospital inventory, sorting bandages by type and separating healing herbs by potency. The few magical items they'd found, minor healing talismans and pain-suppression charms, were locked in a secure container that only she could open. Even the pills and over-the-counter items they found had been packed and packaged tightly on the wagon; nothing shifted, and there was barely any room for ants to crawl inside the tarp that covered the large pile of items.

  The wounded filled the remaining wagons.

  Those who couldn't walk but might still recover. Miranda and the other mages who'd formed the improvised circle, their mana burns slowly fading but consciousness still distant. Fighters who'd lost limbs or taken injuries too severe for battlefield healing and the ones too injured to move, but still conscious enough to know what was happening.

  Jonah counted roughly eight hundred people capable of moving under their own power and another two hundred in the wagons, either wounded or assigned to guard the supplies. Nearly four hundred dead lay in the ground behind them, buried in mass graves that no one had time to mark properly.

  We started with maybe twelve hundred. Lost a third in three days. And we haven't even reached the first floor's tower dungeon yet. That's where we will bleed the most when everyone figures out they can earn levels, glory, and ridiculous items in there if they beat enough monsters or kill bosses.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The morning of departure brought the confrontation he'd been expecting.

  Jonah stood near the northern edge of the camp, reviewing the march order Martinez had assembled. Justin lounged against a destroyed car ten feet behind him, lightning crackling lazily between his fingers as he practiced his control, as Jonah had demanded. No collateral damage would be accepted from the Lightning Titan.

  Martinez himself stood at Jonah's right shoulder, spear planted like a banner.

  The rest of the crew were off doing assigned tasks.

  The three faction leaders approached together.

  Not allied, their body language made that clear. Derek kept distance from both Garrett and Chen Wei. Garrett's bulk seemed to crowd the space between them. Chen Wei walked slightly apart, his calculating eyes taking in everything.

  But they'd coordinated this approach, united in their demand to challenge his decisions, even if they couldn't agree on what those decisions should be.

  "We need to talk about where we're going and how you keep jumping to do stuff without talking to anyone," Derek said as they came to a halt before him.

  Jonah didn't turn from his map review. "The settlement stone is north-northwest, four days at a civilian pace. We move in two hours."

  "That's exactly the problem." Garrett stepped forward, his thick neck flushed with frustration. "You keep making decisions without consulting anyone. We've got over eight hundred people here. They deserve a voice in where we go."

  "They deserve to survive and eventually thrive with high levels and tons of battle experience. I'm giving them that."

  It was Chen Wei's turn to speak. They were taking turns. "By dragging them across corrupted territory toward a goal you won't explain? You claim to know where this settlement stone is. You claim to know the route, where all the monsters are located, and where all the dangers are supposedly waiting for us. You claim to know everything, but you never explain how."

  Jonah finally turned to face them.

  The three leaders had arranged themselves in a loose semicircle: Derek on the left, arms crossed, his eyes always keeping Justin in his line of sight; Garrett in the center, bulk radiating aggressive confidence; and Chen Wei on the right.

  Behind Jonah, he felt Martinez shift slightly, ready for trouble.

  No one needed to ask Justin if he was ready, as his lightning rumbled a bit louder than his usual practice.

  "What would you prefer?" Jonah asked.

  He was trying to get a measure of them after the floor event battle. People tended to change a lot across fights that large and seeing so many people die so quickly. Even Derek was not beyond becoming a true asset for humanity, regardless of his proclivity to try dominating and becoming a dictator.

  Derek answered first. "Away from that." He pointed toward the eastern horizon, where a beam of light pierced the corrupted sky. The first floor's main dungeon tower was visible from anywhere in their bubble, a pillar of golden luminescence that drew the eye and wouldn't let go. "That thing has been attracting attention since the System arrived. Every major threat we've faced came from that direction. We move in the opposite direction: west. Put distance between us and whatever's generating it."

  "West takes us into orc territory: three settlements within a day's march. The smallest has two hundred warriors. The largest has over a thousand. You want to lead eight hundred exhausted survivors, half of them non-combatants, through that?" Jonah asked.

  "You don't know that."

  "I do."

  "How?" Derek's jaw tightened.

  Jonah let the question hang unanswered. He was going to do that a lot in this conversation. He could already feel it in his gut, alas, he had no choice in the matter.

  Garrett filled the silence. "My people think we should stay here. The fortifications held against a goblin army. We've got water nearby, buildings for shelter, defensive positions already established. Why risk moving at all? Send scouts to find this settlement stone. Bring back information. Then decide."

  Jonah shook his head. They couldn't sit here. Not when he knew exactly what it took to move up to the next floor and to much better weapons, armor, items, healing resources, and more. They'd meet up with one other bubble on floor 2 of the climb.

  "The System gave us twelve days. Three have already passed while we recovered. Four more to reach the stone if we move now. That leaves five days of buffer for complications. Scouts moving fast could maybe reach the stone in three days. Return trip is another three. That's six days minimum before we have confirmed information. Then the full group moves, another four days. Total: thirteen days. One day past deadline."

  "You could be wrong about the distance."

  "I'm not."

  "You keep saying that!" Garrett shouted. He swung his arms back and forth getting a bit to close. Justin did not like that and he made it known by crackling his lightning around Jonah to force Garret back a few steps. The large man cleared his throat and recollected himself. "You keep claiming you know things, but you never explain how. We're supposed to just trust you? Follow you blindly because you've been lucky so far?"

  Jonah frowned. How many times did he need to go over the same conversation with everyone. It felt like he needed a recording just to keep people off his back as he tried to save humanity from ending up like it did in his original life. "Not luck, knowledge. I've been right about everything from the wave sizes, to the goblin tactics, the fortification designs, the cache locations, the class evolution suggestions, potential resource nodes. Every single piece of guidance I've given has proven accurate. At some point, you have to accept that I know what I'm doing, even if you don't understand how."

  Chen Wei spoke before Garrett could respond. "I think we should move toward the light."

  All attention shifted to the youngest faction leader. Chen Wei's expression remained composed, but something burned behind those calculating eyes.

  "That tower, whatever it is, represents something important. The System doesn't create landmarks without purpose, right? Every notification we've received has been pointing us toward advancement, toward climbing, toward growth. That light feels like the next step." Chen Wei gestured toward the distant pillar. "If we're searching for a settlement stone, shouldn't we look near the most significant feature in our area?"

  "The tower is the first floor's main dungeon. The settlement stone isn't inside it. It's northwest, in a valley three days from the tower's base—different location."

  "You're certain of this?"

  "Yes."

  "How?"

  Jonah closed his eyes and did his best not to scream and pull his hair. It was the same line of questioning that led to the same word. 'How?' Always the same question. Yet, he could not tell them even if he wanted to.

  That single question was driving him absolutely mad.

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