My Infinite Investment System

The first pack hunter came through the burning wagon before Northstar reached the southern gate.

It stood waist-high on four jointed legs, with wet gray hide stretched over a narrow rib cage and three hooked toes cutting grooves through the mud.

Its jaw divided sideways around a nest of black teeth.

Mika struck before the divided jaw finished opening around its nest of black teeth.

Blue current crossed twelve meters with a crack that shattered rain from the air, then folded the creature against the wagon hard enough to break its rear legs.

"One," she said, shaking sparks from her fingertips.

Seven more gray shapes climbed over the southern palisade behind the burning wagon.

More followed.

Ryan counted the changing gaps between their landings instead of trying to follow seven bodies.

"They jump in pairs, second one lands left."

Nia moved across the muddy road before the next creature completely cleared the wall.

Her tower shield came off the ground, not backward into a brace, but forward through three fast steps that carried her across the muddy road.

The Aegis Heart flashed as blue force spread around the old frame and caught the first hunter in midair.

She redirected it into the second, then rotated the barrier over one shoulder while both creatures skidded beneath her.

Nothing cracked.

She had moved six meters without exposing either child beside the wagon.

Spark Sense burned gold through Ryan’s vision as the shield changed direction without losing its field.

[Growth condition developing]

’She did not hold the line,’ he thought as the shield changed angles again, ’she picked it up and moved it.’

An older civilian construct dragged one child toward a stone well while the other remained frozen beside a broken cart wheel.

His face carried wrinkles, rain, and more fear than a training illusion needed.

"My wife is inside the bakery," he shouted, pointing across the square, "she cannot walk without her cane."

She caught a pack hunter across the throat with one controlled arc, looked toward the smoking building, and asked, "How many inside?"

"Four, maybe five, I do not know."

Nobody moved.

"That is a terrible number."

She grabbed the frozen child beneath both arms and carried him behind Nia’s moving cover.

Ryan reached the gatehouse as three smaller hunters slipped between the bucket line and the nearest cottage.

The creatures ignored every armed target standing between them and the cluster of residents.

Every narrow head turned toward the civilian constructs trying to escape through the square.

"They are scored to hunt residents," he said, sweeping the square for the next gap, "we are obstacles, not prey."

Nia drove her shield edge into the mud beside the well.

"Then place me where they have to care."

He opened Spark Sense around the settlement until gold threaded every possible route between the buildings.

Gold marked the shield, regulator, doors, fences, and every person still moving.

The system refused to mark the monsters themselves until their choices threatened somebody with potential.

The old man glowed faintly beside the well while sheltering one child beneath his coat.

Neither child carried even the weakest trace of gold around their soaked clothing.

A woman waving from the bakery’s upper window burned brighter than both.

’The system is evaluating growth during a gate evacuation,’ he thought as rain ran down his face, ’useful, horrifying, focus.’

"Mika, bakery roof, low discharge," he called, pointing through the smoke, "Nia, rotate between the well and that blue door, do not chase past the fountain."

"And you?" she asked, already backing toward the building.

He picked up the fallen bucket pole beside the gatehouse and said, "I make irresponsible eye contact."

"Ryan."

"I remain F-rank, the pole is mostly emotional support."

Her glare lasted until another pack hunter landed between them.

He stepped left before it lunged, keeping the bakery woman directly behind his shoulder.

The creature followed his movement exactly, opening its divided jaw toward the civilian woman behind him.

The prediction gathered gold around the tendons inside its two front legs.

"Front right joint!"

Mika snapped two fingers together while keeping her palm aimed away from the crowded well.

A thin bolt struck the marked tendon, turning the leap into a violent roll that stopped beneath Nia’s descending shield.

Mud burst across Ryan’s trousers from his shoes to the ruined hem of his jacket.

"The bus may reject me," he said, wiping rain from one eye.

"Survive first, mourn the suit later."

She sprinted for the bakery as the bulwark crossed the square behind her.

The restored shield slid from a forward guard into a side brace without losing its field.

Three fleeing residents remained covered while the new core distributed each impact across the full frame.

Nia never planted her boots or surrendered the center of the moving formation.

She advanced, turned, gave ground, then burst forward whenever a hunter tried to change targets.

’My left knee is waiting for the old recoil,’ she thought while the new core hummed against her forearm, ’stop bracing for pain that is not coming.’

Another deep crack rolled from the northern forest and shook wet needles from every nearby pine.

The broadcast display above the gatehouse split into two live feeds beneath the official scoring banner.

The image shook.

On the left, Northstar fought through heavy smoke around eleven crowded civilian markers.

On the right, Apex surrounded a plated beast the size of a city bus beneath the pines.

The boss resembled a boar built from stone slabs and old roots, with amber light leaking between the plates across its back.

Darius held a silver barrier against its tusks while Bianca carved through one foreleg, each strike clean enough for a highlight reel.

Luca stood behind the barrier line calling rotations without looking toward the settlement map.

Emil’s sensor rig displayed three pulsing lines leading from the boss toward the southern settlement.

The three lines marked pack routes, which meant their scout had already seen the diversion.

"Their scout knows," he said, watching the feed while a civilian marker vanished from the map.

She followed his stare from the bakery doorway while carrying an elderly woman against one hip and asked, "Can they hear us?"

"The channels are separate."

"Convenient."

She delivered the woman behind the well as another marker blinked red near the northern cottages.

He touched his lapel camera and said, "Observer channel, Northstar reporting the boss is directing pack hunters toward civilian targets."

Static answered through his lapel camera for two long seconds beneath the noise of fighting.

Then the chief observer’s voice entered every team channel through a burst of white noise.

"Information noted, teams retain authority over their own strategy."

Luca glanced toward his lapel camera on the opposite feed without interrupting the assault.

"Apex maintains boss engagement," he said, loud enough for the broadcast, "eliminating the source protects the entire settlement."

The boar stamped, bringing half a pine tree down across Darius’s barrier.

Northstar’s side of the display lost another resident marker near the northern cottages.

Nia caught a pack hunter on the curved shield face, carried it four steps away from the well, then smashed it against the stone fountain.

"How much is the boss worth?" she asked through her teeth.

He looked toward the scoring display while retreating from another snapping pack hunter.

The public board still showed no values, only empty columns under survival, suppression, resources, and extraction.

Yet the official contract remained stored on his lapel unit.

He opened the expanded scoring appendix while moving beside the bakery wall.

Twelve pages of compressed legal language rushed past his thumb beneath the falling rain.

Monster suppression received a threat multiplier, while preserved resources earned points based on replacement cost.

Surviving residents carried something called continuity value, weighted by age and family connection.

He opened the attached formula and expanded its examples across the inside of his lapel display.

One boss kill offered three hundred base points, compared with eighty for each living adult and one hundred fifty for each child.

Family groups extracted together received an additional multiplier capable of doubling their combined score.

The settlement had started with thirty-eight residents spread across twelve connected family groups.

’Luca asked about the boss before asking where anybody lived,’ Ryan thought, ’he assumed size meant value.’

She landed beside him after clearing the bakery stairs, lowered the rescued cane to the mud, and said, "Tell me that face means you found something."

He turned the appendix toward both women and enlarged the continuity multiplier.

"The boss is bait for hunters, the people are the actual objective."

She shoved a snarling pack creature across the square without leaving the family behind her exposed and asked, "How many remain?"

The map held thirty-one moving green markers, two blinking red, and five that had already gone dark.

The northern feed showed Bianca cutting through the boss’s damaged foreleg while Luca ordered the final assault.

Ryan marked the nearest living clusters across their local map.

"Enough to win," he said, drawing a route from the bakery to the eastern extraction marker, "if we stop fighting their battle."