God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

The earth continues on its path around the governing celestial body. All these are constants, created to mark the passage of time and the forever constant changes of the seasons.

Seated on the deck of Gwendolyn, Cain let his black hair flow freely behind him.

It had been a month since he had woken up, and quite a few things had happened.

Looking up to the sky that seemed to remain eternally grey, he let out a sigh.

'Hunter, are you there?'

Hunter's slightly cold voice filtered into his mind.

Cain smiled, 'How are things going?'

'The hunt this time wasn't bad. We managed to hunt three Tier 1 sea mutants. We lost two people when the second one went on a rampage. Caught us all off guard...'

Hunter's voice was almost emotionless as he recounted the details of the hunt.

Cain sighed, rubbing his chin. He could already feel a bit of stubble.

'Time really does go by quickly.'

Shaking his head, he continued to inquire for more information,

'Then, the mana shards...'

Fortunately, it seemed their luck wasn't too terrible this time.

'All three had mana shards. As for the rest of the hunt, we managed to bag quite a few. The other teams probably have very good hauls as well.'

'I see...' Cain managed to let out a breath of relief.

Over the past month, Cain had gotten to truly feel the weight of what it felt to be a leader.

Caring for so many people, was not easy at all.

First, he had to worry about the basic amenities; clothing, food, water, and hygiene.

Clothes were the easiest to get, as they could be purchased at the system store. However, armor was another thing. Apart from getting it at the special store, all other armor the system had to offer was terrible trash, heavy and impractical unless you had the upper body strength of a hippopotamus.

As such, armor had to be created by gathering materials from mutant creatures, or objects that had been magically influenced by the arcane.

Then, there was the issue of food and drinkable water.

There had been a lot of issues the first two weeks due to this. Not mainly because of food, but because of drinkable water.

The black ocean had an impossiblity high salinity. It was nothing short of an abnormal miracle, or curse depending on what angle the situation was viewed from...

Food was easier to obtain, as one could directly hunt Mutant Creatures for their meat.

Just thinking about it gave him a headache...

Luckily, they had been able to solve the problem thanks to Evangeline. The ability to produce a large amount of fresh water was nothing short of a miracle, although he had to pay her exorbitant amounts of mana shards. It felt incredibly painful just thinking about it.

With magic, nothing was impossible. In any case, the most pressing issue of all four was hygiene.

Even though they had the presence of mana to prevent impurities from their bodies, that didn't mean it was omnipotent. It just meant they were able to stay clean longer than others.

They still got dirty, and that fact was further cemented by all the dirty work they had to do.

Luckily, there were baths on the ship. However, these baths couldn't accommodate everyone most of the time.

There was even some people who had given up hope of rejoining with the rest of society. Those ones had become deviants who would rather revel in their own stink that take a bath.

Cain had been entertaining the idea of throwing them overboard for some time now...

The one thing all these things had in common, was their eed for mana shards.

Mana shards had become far more important than Cain had ever thought they would.

When the ship has stopped in place a month ago, Cain had been baffled. However, he had soon come to find out that the reason the ship refused to move wasn't because the spirit of Gwendolyn decided to be rebellious.

Instead, it was a quite simple reason;

The ship was out of fuel...

Yes... The magical ship, Gwendolyn, ran of mana as fuel. Any type of mana could work.

This was why mana shards were so important. For the ship to run, they needed lots and lots of mana shards every day.

'How's Steve and his team doing?' Cain asked Hunter after a long moment of contemplation.

'They are doing alright, for the most part. Steve said Susan has been acting a bit strange. He sounded quite terrified.'

'Oh, did he...' Cain thought, his headache magnifying many times over.

This was another source of a headache he had been trying to avoid this past month as well.

'Those girls are just too much for me.'

Trying to keep his mind in tracks Cain spoke again,

'In any case, things should be progressing better now. If things go wellz we should get to the city in less than a month.'

There was silence from the other end of the mental link.

'Are... are you sure?'

Cain regarded Hunter's question carefully.

'Honestly, I'm not so sure. However, we can only afford to move forward from now.'

They had lost contact with the rest of humanity for months now. For all they knew, this corner of the earth could be ruled by Devils already.

The earth might be scorched black with the presence of Devils, and all life could be corrupted. They had no idea what they were sailing to.

But the time for rethinking had long since passed.

'I see...'

To combat the issue of mana shards, Cain had created many hunting squads. Each Hunting squad had one major objective; to provide mana shards and materials that could be used to craft equipment, weapons, and ammunition.

These things would then be exchanged with weapons, ammunition and armor...

It was strange... for a lack of better words.

The burden to provide these things fell mostly ok Cain and the group of Beastmen helping him.

But he wasn't complaining. It helped him increase the proficiency of his skills after all.

Still, he was incredibly exhausted. Both mentally and physically.

He had basically created a very wide network of workers, funneling resources back to the mothership so it could work properly and get them to their destination in one piece.

As most hunting squads weren't on the ship at most times, the duty of protecting the ship in case of a monster attack fell on those still present. Which was only him most of the time...

'There should be nothing out here for a while so we are heading back.'

'Alright. Get back safely.' With that, Cain terminated the connection.

He stood to his feet and stretched his arms above his head.

"Feels about right..."

Right now he was alone on the deck of the ship.

He summoned {Platinum Genesis} from the {Armament Armory}. Weighing the blade in his hands, he enjoyed the familiar feeling in his hands.

Spreading his feet a bit, he took a stance. Swinging the blade, it made a soft whistle as it cut through the air. Changing his stance with a quick movement and placement of his feet he struck forward again, this time with a forward diagonal cut.

Twisting his wrists and taking a step back, he swung backward, leaving a fain after image behind. These series of strange steps and swings and cuts continued for a while each onw getting progressively faster and faster until he had turned into a blur.

Beads of sweat poured off his face as he got busy. Lost in this strange dance between flesh and iron, he didn't notice time fly by.

When he finally came to a stop, he could feel his sore muscles throbbing.

What he had just done, was practice a set of sword techniques he had carried with him for a long time.

They had been taught to him by his master a long time ago, but he had never felt confident in training them until now.

Slowly, but surely, he wasaking sense of the strange sword style, although he couldn't truly understand it.

It was a strange feeling indeed...

The sword style was aggressive, with a few defensive stances. However, most of the stances weren't attack stances as well.

Most of them involved controlling the flow of the battle, and the most important of all;

Improvising...

It was incredibly strange. Trying to link it with {Black Dragon of the Crimson Sky} was incredibly difficult, so it was one of his main goals these days.

He let out a sigh of relief.

'Mich better.' This was the best way for him to unwind and get rid of the accumulated mental fatigue of crafting new equipment and weapons everyday for the past month.

But, as with all good things...

His training session has come to an end. Summoning a damp towel from his inventory, he wiped his face and neck yo get rid of sweat as he descended back into the ship.

On his way down, he was respectfully greeted by the people he encountered. He always responded politely, still not used to the reverence and slight fear in their eyes.

He was sure all sorts of rumors about him had circulated around the ship already.

Still, that was not something he cared for particularly. Instead, he chose to actively ignore it, as making a big deal out of things could worsen their situation instead of improve it.

Walking down further, he stopped at a certain part of the ship just before the part that held the various workshops;

The Brig...