Despite his claims, Dennis couldn’t in fact go and immediately grind more goblins. He was just too weak, and recovery took time, so he was forced to rest for a few days and just live in the fort. It was a bit surprising but life was pretty chill. Even without him, other members of their party were good enough to provide both the defenses and the ability to go on short raids to nearby stores and houses.

  The main defender of the fort was Ness. The combination of great tactical position and her aiming skill turned her into mini-Richard, a person capable of singlehandedly putting an arrow in the eye of any goblin she could see, and she could see a lot. High ground was OP. Not that she was the only one on the walls, of course, but she was the one who pretty much guaranteed that the immediate area near the fort was safe.

  The core of the raiding group were the brothers. They frequently ventured out with other volunteers to gather food and necessities, which was a fine short-term solution for feeding a few dozen people. The long term solution was something they were ‘working on’, as John said, though Dennis didn’t know what was there to ‘work on’. The options were to fish in the nearby river, which they didn’t have much success with as of yet, or eating goblins.

  He was fine with eating goblins as long as someone figured out how to cook them, but the vast majority of people he talked with were very much not in favor of the idea.

  Yet.

  So, John and a few others were ‘working’ on the long-term food solution. Dennis left them to it.

  The main problem with life in the fort was how immensely boring it was. Once the immediate danger to people’s lives became a bit more distant they found themselves with a lot of free time and not enough jobs to go around. Sure, there were people who were responsible for the defense, and raiding, and a variety of minor tasks that had to be done, but all of those didn’t need everyone to work. The vast majority of people had literally nothing to do, and somehow Dennis was among them. There was no electricity, no internet, and he didn’t even have his personal collection of comics. All of his usual ways to spend time were unavailable to him, and it left him lost.

  One would expect the magical apocalypse to be anything but boring because, well, levels! Grind! Magic! But what was he supposed to do when he wasn’t busy with killing yet more goblins? The cool answer would be to, he didn’t know, train? Figure out spells? But they knew jack shit about magic aside from the fact that it probably existed because the wizard goblin existed, and that left training, and what was he supposed to train? Dennis was already, somehow, the best fighter in the world or something, and physical training took just a small portion of his free time and was in no way fun. And it was less training and more rehabilitation exercises anyway, forced on him by Nancy, and the faster he would be done with those the better. They just sucked.

  It was a bit weird how the realization that the apocalypse upturned people’s lives came to him only after he settled down a little and had free time. Wasn’t he supposed to feel like life finally made sense? Like the mundanity of modern society was slowly killing him, and the excitement of getting stronger with life or death battles was the missing element that finally made him a person? He missed his old life. The chance of actually fulfilling his deepest dream was great, sure, it was amazing, but what else was he supposed to do? He couldn’t be a hero 24/7, at least not yet, and every other part of his life was basically dead. There were no more comics to read, no conventions to attend, no games to play, no forums to shitpost on. He had nothing. Every single thing that his life revolved around was gone. Sure, most people would say that his life was shitty anyway, and he didn’t lose anything meaningful, but fuck them! He loved his basement, and his toys, and he was content.

  And now he was lost, and he had nothing but his sword, and he couldn’t even use it until he recovered enough.

  At least he wasn’t the only one. Most people were restless, and lost, and trying to carve some sort of meaning or entertainment back in their lives. There was a dude who was getting pretty good at fixing and improving goblin’s weapons. A girl who spent most of her free time making nets for fishing. One guy found a guitar, somewhere, and there was a literal queue of people who took turns to play it with varying degrees of skill. Dennis kind of expected that some asshole would emerge and try to turn everything into some sort of military dictatorship, a small lawless kingdom of misery, and it just didn’t happen? People volunteered for pretty much any job that needed to be done, and a few that weren't needed. They helped each other, joked around each other, and generally tried to keep their spirits high.

  It was a bit disappointing in a way that he didn’t get the chance to smack any bullies or dictators, but that was probably a good thing.

  What wasn’t a good thing was that it seemed that most people were figuring out how to move on and live their lives in this new world, and Dennis wasn’t among them. He drifted from group to group, trying to find at least something to do, and it all was so boring! He didn’t want to learn how to cook! He didn’t want to help with making armor! No, why the fuck would he want to play with the kids?! In the evenings people were gathering around the fire and sharing stories, and while they were welcoming and did invite him, listening to those normies just made him fall asleep. Who the hell cares about the life of someone’s dead wife? Well, everyone but him, apparently. There were a lot of stories of someone’s dead someone. The only good part was when someone started playing music, it was at least pleasant to listen to, sometimes.

  Every next day was more unbearable than the last one. He, just… He wasn’t doing anything. He wasn’t being a hero and saving anyone, wasn’t grinding to become even faster, and he couldn’t even lose himself in his old hobbies like he usually did. Picking up some new downtime activity sounded like a good plan on paper, but why would he? Let’s say he helps that girl make more nets for fishing. Will it make him a better hero, a better speedster? No. Was it fun? No. So why bother? He was always a bit too focused on one thing to the exclusion of all else, but he didn’t think it was something bad. It meant that he was good at prioritizing his time, in his opinion.

  Thankfully, the days of him agonizing over not having the internet and refusing to branch out into other activities were over.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Constitution: 7 -> 8

  The system message caught him off guard while he was just laying in the grass and counting clouds. Since the initial stats seemed to reflect people’s actual abilities, they theorised that it was possible to increase the stats through training, but this was the first instance when it actually happened. It was probably because his constitution was so low in the first place that it wasn’t that hard to raise it. After all, he wasn’t doing anything physically straining before the system appeared, so just a change of lifestyle was enough to see noticeable gains. It was nice.

  And more importantly, it meant that the system itself decided that he was in a better physical shape than he was before it all started. It meant that he recovered enough. Not that his recovery was complete, he was still sore in some places, and it was a bit hard to hold things with his right hand, but if the system decided to tell him that he was already better than when he started, who was he to argue? So he didn’t argue, he grinned, stood up, and started doing some light stretches. The rehabilitation exercises that Nancy put him through were awful, but he couldn’t argue that his body felt better and easier to move after a bit of warmup, and now he actually knew what it meant to do a warmup and how it’s done. Useful stuff.

  The system message was a gift, because now he could finally stop agonizing about the big chunk of his life that was taken away from him, and focus on the one he gained. There was no reason to suffer through any personal crises when he could go and slay more goblins. As long as he could go and be a hero there was no point in worrying about anything else. All those days of feeling like a lost zombie without any meaning or purpose were now beyond him. No need to solve any lingering questions that appeared in his mind when he failed again and again to adjust to the new normal that was life in the fort. Those questions were answered by the virtue of being irrelevant. No need to think about useless stuff when he could go kill more goblins.

  With his spirits lifted and Muramasa behind his back, Dennis went to the exit gate. Sadly, leaving the fort wasn’t as simple as just walking out. The thing had not one but two drawbridges, and in their immeasurable desire for safety people actually used them. There was a guy responsible for operating the things, and Dennis actually needed his help to lower them. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be solved by a few good smacks. Or his communication skills. He did practice those in the last few days, didn’t he? And he was kind of the hero of the fort or something, so surely the merits of his reputation would help him here.

  “Yo, drawbridge person,” Dennis raised his hand to greet the guy. “I wanna leave. Lemme out.”

  “No.”

  Was Dennis actually wrong about the nice friendly atmosphere in the fort and it was actually some sort of totalitarian post-apocalypse dictatorship? Not letting people out was totally evil. Who did that? How didn’t he notice? Dennis mentally prepared for the smacking to commence, but decided to flex his communication skills once more in case there was a misunderstanding.

  “You mean like you also don’t know how to lower the bridge? Did I get the wrong guy? I thought you were a drawbridge person.”

  The guy released an exhausted sigh.

  “It’s polite to call people by their names, Dennis.”

  “Dude, I have no idea what your name is.”

  “It’s–”

  “No!” Dennis closed his ears. “I had to remember way too many names already. You’re the drawbridge guy. You do the drawbridge thing, right? Just let me out, man.”

  “Oh for fucks sake,” the guy muttered under his breath. “No, I can’t let you out. Why do you even want to go out?”

  “Duh, to grind and save more people,” Dennis answered. “Why can’t you let me out?”

  “It’s– It’s John’s orders, okay? Just go talk to–”

  “So there is a totalitarian dictatorship!” Dennis pointed his finger at the guy accusingly. “Also, John? I thought he was cool.”

  “What? No! And it’s more like a democracy anyways. And it’s for your own safety! I can’t just let people out in a goblin-infested hellscape! That’s the same as killing them! Just join the raiding party if you want to go out so much. Or at least talk to John before leaving. They’ll hang me if I let you out and you disappear!” the guy shouted.

  “For my own safety?! That’s what a totalitarian dictatorship always says!” Dennis accused. “Also, we do hangings now? What the fuck?! How did I miss those?!”

  “It’s a figure of speech, Dennis.”

  “Ah.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence.

  “I mean…” Dennis said more quietly as he tried to gather his thoughts. “You do realize that I’m, like, totally overpowered? It should be a known thing at this point. Had a ‘goblin slayer’ as one of my possible skills and everything. Between me and the raiding party I’m probably stronger than the raiding party. It kind of defeats your ‘for safety’ point.”

  “That’s…” the guy seemed hesitant as he tried to answer. “Yeah. I’ve heard the stories. I was actually in the cleanup crew to move away the bodies, you know? It’s just… kind of hard to believe. And letting you go alone still feels wrong. Even if you are as crazy strong as they say, I think it’s still safer with a party. And I’m still pretty sure that I’ll get in trouble for letting you out.”

  “You have gatekeeper syndrome,” Dennis said.

  “I don’t have gatekeeper syndrome. Not letting kids go out there is perfectly reasonable.”

  “I’m gonna smack you.”

  “Please don’t. Talk to John?”

  “Ugh.”

  Dennis didn’t know what it was exactly that made him listen to the guy. Was it because smacking would make him even less likely to let Dennis out? Or because the guy made some amount of sense? Dennis didn’t want to do this song and dance every time he wanted to leave, so getting his fort-exiting pass from John felt like an easier option than aggroing the whole totalitarian regime. Honestly, it felt like John was the one who deserved the smacking, not the gatekeeper guy. Though it felt a bit weird that someone actually managed to change his mind on something. Maybe it was gatekeeper powers? Gatekeeper skill? ‘Shift the blame’, part of ‘I’m just doing my job guy’? Dennis wondered if mind control powers were a thing as he went to John’s office.

  Was having an office a red flag? Now that he thought about it through the lens of looking for an evil dictatorship, having an office did sound a bit villainous. Who the hell finds himself in an apocalypse and thinks ‘man, I need an office’? Dennis never saw any good people in offices. Having an office was an indicator of villainous activity. And how the hell did John manage to become the de-facto leader of the fort? Like, sure, Dennis thought of him as the ‘leader guy’, but to actually make about fifty people to think the same? When and how did that happen? Wasn’t Dennis supposed to be the leader since he was the strongest? Maybe he should’ve listened more to what the people were talking about. Shit was suspicious.

  Wary of a possible secret totalitarian dictatorship, he opened the door to the office. John and some other dude were sitting at the table, looking over a map.

  “I wanna go kill more goblins and the gatekeeper guy won’t let me. Tell him to stop being such a stuck-up bitch.”

  “No,” the other dude said, his voice carrying an authority that left no room for arguments.

  Dennis reached for his sword.