Shovels In Spades

Daz stepped through a previously-inactive teleportation gate in Waterford's Teleportation Station which was now linked to Las Vegas. He was pushing Rose's wheelchair while Mr Barrier sat on the girl's head and a very nervous and upset Jim was following behind the two of them.

"Ah, welcome back, King Daz," one of the Archons that ran the building said in greeting.

"Thanks," Daz answered the human-looking being bluntly and without emotion then promptly left the building. Naturally, the Archon kept a smile on his face as he returned to his duties.

"Smoke?" Daz asked softly.

Rose nodded. "From the report I'm now getting, a third of the outer wall of Fort Skip has been destroyed by a massive explosion of some sort. It seems like Sandy was able to warn everyone in time though, so no one died, though about 50 people are in critical condition, Sandy included. In fact, if he hadn't somehow figured out what was going on, the numbers I'm getting here suggest that upwards of 214 people could have died. It's amazing people even believed him, to be honest. He has a lot of trust put in him."

"Thank God for Sandy then," Daz said through his anger. "The man's a hero."

"Hah. The system seems to agree, anyway, we should talk and move at the same time. Alpha and Beta are there at the scene, but we don't have any fire-prevention services yet and no one really has any skills suited towards water or ice or, like, removing oxygen, so you might wanna buy something before the fire spreads," Rose suggested.

"What the hell is going on here?" Jim muttered under his breath as he tried his best to not earn the ire of the clearly angered Daz. If his trembling arms and twisted expression weren't tell-tale signs of a very pissed off man, then Jim clearly didn't understand people as much as he thought he did.

As the three of them and Mr Barrier raced through Waterford to Fort Skip, Rose explained that a massive troupe of suicide bomber robots had suddenly appeared right outside of the outer walls. They numbered 100 strong but apparently there was supposed to be four times that amount.

Sandy had found the hidden teleportation formation that had been drawn into the grass just outside of outer walls. It had been made with invisible paint and Sandy had chanced upon it when he saw an unfamiliar man acting suspiciously in the area with a paintbrush.

Working off a hunch and thanks to his pre-warning from the system that an attack was coming, he knocked the man out with his renowned builder strength. Just as the suspicious individual was losing consciousness, he activated the incomplete teleportation formation.

Sandy, using some of his farming skills from his hoe-related class, Novice Farmer, was able to alter the terrain in a split-second, but even then, all 100 of the robots exploded, each with the force of a powerful missile.

The barrier from the Base Shield Generator that was a part of the Lightning Defensive Tower had absorbed roughly 35% of the damage while the Walls of Retylon had endured another 60%.

In fact, most of the injuries suffered by the affected civilians were from shards of the walls hitting them after the massive collective explosion had shattered them. Sandy and the suspicious man were the only people to suffer life-threateningly serious damage, and even now, both of them were at death's doorstep.

The other wounded civilians, while in critical condition, had no immediate concerns about passing away, thankfully.

"Who did this, Rose?" Daz asked as they were nearing the explosion-site.

"Timothy Marglow, if you want a name, though I guess you could blame the system if you look at it broadly," Rose answered as she used the back of her hand to wipe at her forehead. The heat from the smoke and flames was making her sweat.

Jim Tucker's face took on a strange look. "The governor of California?"

"The one and only," Rose answered with a lacklustre tone.

Daz frowned. 'The governor of California? Is this what the system meant by 'focus on California' with that hint? But Rose said I should blame the system... I guess this 'Timothy' person's semester goal relates to defeating me or something? Still, why didn't I get a notification about him attacking me? He can't be an emperor, can he? If he isn't an emperor then he needs to pay a lot of merit points and follow strict rules to attack a fellow king, right?'