The Protagonist System

139 A Bit Of A Timeskip

The reaffirmed dynamic in our home seemed to make both Amy and her sister Andrea relax as much as I had. I wasn't sure if they reflected my own attitude towards the situation or if they had come to the same realization as I had. Either way, the loving atmosphere grew as the winter days wore on and the three of us were constantly smiling.

I had to delay my trip to town after Glenn's warning about leaving tracks on the snow. Not only would it give away that there was someone moving around in the area, it would also lead whomever it was that found those tracks right back to the camp. We couldn't even remove or destroy the tracks, because the snow removal in a specific area would also bring attention where it wasn't wanted.

So, my life was contained within the large confines of the camp's protections, just like everyone else. Luckily, neither Amy nor Andrea told anyone about the pile of Harry Potter books I had. They knew, just like I did, we would never see them again if we had to loan them out. It wasn't just from someone keeping them, either. They could be damaged or lost and then no one would have them. They were all first editions, too.

I pretended to maintain the showers, the water levels, the heaters, replacing car batteries occasionally, and fetching more wood for the main campfire when it was needed. The watch over the camp from the top of Dale's RV was almost redundant by this point; and we all still did it, because none of us wanted for that one time we didn't do it to cause the loss of the camp. It was almost funny that we all had that same worry, wasn't it?

The days didn't quite merge together into one massive repeat after another, thankfully. I had even reduced how many times I hunted Amy down during her chores to get her off and thank her for looking after me. She was both sad and looked relieved about that, so I made sure I didn't take her for granted and used our time in bed more wisely. Sex was supposed to be fun and not another chore for her to do.

I continued to use my magic when I was out of sight of everyone, trying my hardest to level the skill as much as possible. It was a relief to find out that any magic cast would increase the main skill and not just the individual spells. Of course, maxing the spells out also granted me certain boons and bonuses, as did using the spell books from both Harry Potter and Familiar of Zero.

Let me tell you, that first time I successfully transfigured three pebbles into three brass stones, something that only a second tier mage or higher could do because of how difficult elemental transfigurations were, it had me so excited that it gave me a partial erection and unlocked another huge section of my inventory.

By the time I reached Amy and kissed her passionately, I was fully hard and dragged her home to have my wicked way with her. The best part about it? Amy didn't even ask me why. She just laughed and was happy that I was happy.

Amy really was the best thing to happen to me in this world and while we cuddled in the afterglow of the quickie, I told her so. She blushed, looked pleased, and kissed me soundly. Andrea's soft moaning voice from behind the kitchenette counter fully agreed with me.

Time moved on again and the cold weather started to slack off, meaning spring was going to spring soon and it would be time to start working on making the camp the best camp that I could. With magic as my secret helper, things weren't going to take as long as the others thought they would. Not at all.

*

On the first official day of Spring, thanks to the homemade calendar by the kids during one of Andrea's crafting lessons, both Glenn and I left the camp with empty backpacks and long lists of 'essentials'. Glenn's was much different than my own and he was chuckling under his breath as we walked along the old path he used and read through the list.

“Let me guess. Your essentials are pretty much all feminine care products?” I asked and Glenn nodded. “Then why haven't you gotten laid yet?”

Glenn made a sputtering sound and his face went beet red.

I laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “I'm just kidding, buddy. There's not much to pick from back at camp.” I said and we kept walking. “I'm sure there's people at that farm that's about 50 miles or so away. With winter ended, we can head on over there as soon as we find an appropriate vehicle.”

Glenn's face stayed red. “At least you're not thinking about walking all that way.”

I laughed again. “I would have flown if the plane still worked... or was salvageable... or could be used in any real capacity for travel.”

Glenn gave me an odd look. “You really liked that old thing, didn't you?”

“I loved it.” I admitted and his eyebrows rose up. “I built the thing with my own two hands... assembled it from the ground up... and then I flew it around the entire state of Georgia in only two days. It was like a taste of freedom that few people ever get to experience.”

Glenn's odd look disappeared and changed to thoughtfulness.

“Yeah, you know the feeling.” I said and elbowed his side lightly. “How many times have you escaped the camp for your supply runs again?”

Glenn gave me a huge smile in return. “Escaped? Y-yeah, I... I think that's exactly what I've been doing. Getting away and just...” He motioned with his hand in an arc and wiggled his fingers.

“I totally get it.” I said and nodded.

“Totally? Really?” Glenn asked and looked like he was trying not to laugh.

So, I pulled off my best surfer dude impression. “Yeah, like totally, dude! Riding the waves, catching some air, it's totally radical!”

Glenn burst out laughing, then he kept laughing as I told him all about the best ways to hang ten. It was completely made up, of course. I had no clue how to do any of that and just spouted nonsense. It just made him laugh even more, because it was a surfer dude explaining the meaning of life to him, and it was hilarious.

We split up at the first subdivision we reached on the outskirts of town. Before he left, I gave him my backup handgun and two boxes of ammo, just in case, and told him to make sure any bodies he found had a hole in the head. Glenn looked serious when he accepted the gun and holster, then he moved off a lot quieter than we had been moving before.

I did as well, since this was pretty much new territory for me. Driving around on streets is one thing. Moving along on foot through yards, paths, patches of woods, and then along abandoned streets, was a completely different thing. The ambience was almost stifling with how still and unmoving everything was. Even the wind had died down to the point that the bare trees barely moved. It was eerie.

I didn't let that stop me, though. I had a job to do and I needed to do it quickly. My first stop was any store that carried tools that could be used in farming, like shovels and pickaxes. That was a surprisingly widespread amount of stores, since there were more than a few farms in Georgia.

I first tried a general store and it was empty. Even the shelves were broken apart and knocked around. The next attempt was only slightly less ransacked and I found a pickaxe buried through the decayed skull of a walker and embedded in the floor. I couldn't pry it up, so it was jammed in there pretty good. I didn't waste any effort on it, however.

I stored it and it disappeared from sight, then I took it back out and saw that the end that had been in the floor was slightly bent and explained why it had been stuck. Whomever had used it had not been holding back when they destroyed the walker, because it took either a lot of force to bend it or it had been heated up to make it malleable or something.

I took out my wand and used the repair spell on it and the creak of metal was really loud in the silence. I stored my wand and the pickaxe and ran to the back of the room and out of sight to wait. Nothing happened and there were no other sounds, so I didn't accidentally attract anyone's or anything's attention.

With a soft sigh, I left the store after checking for more things and didn't find anything else useful. I moved on and kept looking for several hours, not really finding anything, and then I sighed and slapped my forehead like the idiot I was. I had passed by about a dozen sheds in the subdivision that Glenn and I had walked through and never once thought about looking through them for tools.

I lost another hour as I backtracked and went to the very first shed I saw. Inside was a smorgasbord of everything a budding farmer would need. Several kinds of shovels, spades, rakes, two pickaxes of different sizes, a box of gardening gloves, a stack of six bags of fertilizer, a riding lawnmower, every kind and size of gardening shears from scissors to the huge branch cutting ones, two chainsaws, the tools to work on small engines, a small engine from a lawnmower, and many more things.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I thought to myself and left the shed without touching anything, because I just didn't want to look at the treasure trove of stuff anymore. I would have missed it all if I hadn't remembered that people's sheds had stuff like that in them.

I was glad that I did step out to clear my head, because my eyes landed on a freestanding garage that was two houses away. There were only two reasons that someone had an independent garage like that. One, they had a huge truck that wouldn't fit in a normal garage. Two, they wanted a space to put all their things that the wife didn't want them to keep in the house.

I closed the shed door behind me and walked over to the garage. I was not surprised to see that the side door was padlocked and the garage door was chained and welded shut. Whomever this guy was, he wanted his stuff protected. Since I knew that, there would probably be a security system as well.

If I was lucky, it would be off with no power. If I was unlucky, it would have a battery backup and only activated when breached. I mentally sighed at the conundrum and then glanced at the house. It was a nice two-storey one and it could also have a security system. Then again, if all of his important stuff was in the garage, the house wouldn't be that high of a priority.

On a whim, I walked over to the back door and looked inside. The place was pristine and looked completely untouched. Was the place hermetically sealed? Why wasn't there any dust on anything?

I shook those thoughts off and went to the front door. Right there on the window was the security system warning and it had a picture of both an electrical bolt and a car battery.

Paranoia for the win. I thought with a chuckle and went around to the back of the house again. I could see a large picture window that gave a great view of the woods behind the place, so I could easily see inside.

I knew I couldn't open the doors or windows, or break them, just in case the loud alarm was set off and it would gain a lot of attention. That left me with two options. I could leave and forget my curiosity or I could take a chance and do something stupid. Since there wasn't really a choice, I took out my wand and cast a silence spell, then held it up vertically in front of my face as I stared into the house.

Deliberation, Determination, Destination. I thought and pulled on my magic. With the wand, it came rushing out, because of all my practice giving me much better reserves to call on for bigger spells. Just as I was about to cast the apparate spell, a text box appeared.

Warning: Chance of spell failure is 67%.
Do you want to spend 10 Karma Points to ensure success?

I blinked my eyes in surprise at the option, because it was the first time I had received a warning before doing something stupid. It was usually after I died when I was told why something had been a bad idea. It also gave me another idea.

How much would it cost to max the spell out and I won't have to worry about it? I asked.

Cost of spell modification to never fail: 50 Karma Points.
Do you want to spend 50 Karma Points to ensure permanent success?

Yes, please! I thought, almost giddy, and I felt a shiver go up my spine. Knowledge flowed into my head and I remembered being an expert in the spell when I was back in my reward world of Harry Potter. I didn't need a wand or anything to cast spells, either. I really miss that feeling!

Now that I didn't have to worry about the stupid part of my plan, I apparated into the house and there wasn't even a crack of noise. I used my wand to search for the security panel and went into the basement to check the thing. I hit the switch to cut off the battery backup and saw that the garage had its own separate panel.

I flipped that switch as well and went back up to the living room to look out the window and apparated over to the back door of the garage. I didn't actually need line of sight, it just made things a lot easier. I stored the padlock holding the door secured and then vanished the door handle and the deadbolt lock.

Before I opened the door, I used the human revealing spell. Nothing appeared, so I pushed the door open and looked inside. It was as pristine as the house and my eyes widened at the contents. A four-wheeled ATV was off to the side by the wall, two canoes hung from the rafters, and in the middle of the wide space was a huge 4x4 truck with oversized tires.

Off to the other side of the garage were three stacks of metal toolbox cabinets that were filled with tools of all kinds and would allow for the maintenance of almost any vehicle. There was also an acetylene torch and the matching tanks. The only thing the garage didn't have was a diagnostic computer and I wasn't sure those had been released for civilian use yet or were even needed for the more modern cars.

With a shrug and a laugh at the luck of finding both a working ATV and a truck that could haul it around, I grabbed the loading ramps and tucked them into the back of the truck, stored the ATV, and then dropped it into the back of the truck. I secured it with straps and climbed into the driver's seat, then sighed at not seeing any keys.

Before I tried to go back into the house to look for them, I searched the dash, the center console, under the seat, and in the small hidey-holes in the doors. The last place I checked was where I found them, of course. I pulled down the sun visor above the driver's seat and the set of keys dropped down and I caught them.

I shook them out to check what was there and it had the garage key, the house key, the ATV key, and a spare key for the BMW. I knew all of that because they were all clearly marked. It also meant the BMW was the car they used to flee the apocalypse and I silently thanked them for making the wrong choice. If they hadn't, we wouldn't be benefiting from it now.

I started the truck up and the gas tank registered as full, proving the man took great care of his prized things. I immediately shut it off, since I didn't want to suffer from carbon monoxide poisoning. I hopped out and went out through the side door and to the front of the garage door. I tried to store the chain and it was partially welded to the door and the metal base of the door.

“Screw it.” I said and pulled my mythril sword out of my inventory. It had only become available recently, thanks to all my efforts and hard work raising my skills. I charged it with magic and swiped it at the weld and it sliced through the partially melted chain and the door with ease, proving that Tsubaki's training under Hephaestus was worth it.

My heart beat a little faster at that remembered relationship, because it had been both fun and playful. Tsubaki had enjoyed both the dungeon diving and me diving down on her, which had surprised her the first time at how good I was at both. We had a great time together, too.

I grabbed onto the chain and pulled up on the garage door, only for it to make a rattle sound and it didn't move. “For fuck's sake, of course it's powered and can't open.” I said in frustration.

I tried to not stomp my way back around to the side door and didn't quite succeed as my boots slapped down on the concrete. I went inside and saw where the electric door opener was and the chained tracks it used. A few more swipes of my magically sharp blade severed the door from anything holding it back and I pulled up on the garage door from the inside.

It slid up easily, like it was a hot knife going through soft butter, and clanged when it was fully up and against the ceiling and reached the end of the rails it was mounted in. With it out of the way, I went to the tool cabinets and stored everything, including the acetylene torch and the tanks, the spares, and just for the hell of it, I stored the two canoes and then put them on top of the ATV in the back of the truck.

The wooden paddles were next, as were the life jackets, and I climbed into the truck. I started it up, let out a sigh to let my frustration fade away, and drove out of the garage. I made note of the address and would come back to the nice house to raid it for everything else later. For now, I drove my claimed truck to the camp to offload the new toys for everyone to play with.

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