Quill ran while looking through his storage ring and properly sorting everything he had bought. It was a real time saver that he could actually do it without taking things out and putting them back in. Eventually he found all the clothes he had bought, thankful he had actually remembered to check they were in his size and were meant to fit a human or humanoid. It would have been a little frustrating if he had bought shirts meant to fit something with 20 arms or whatever.

  Grabbing a shirt he stopped running for a moment so he could get out of his dirty, blood-stained, worn down armor that wasn't really armor at this point, and put on the fresh hand-me-downs that likely belonged to some alien somewhere in existence. The sheer absurdity of that statement was mind-bending to him. Also the shirt was too big.

  “I don't really think orange is your color either. Maybe try a blue, green, or perhaps a grey?”

  “Yeah I don't really like this shade of orange either which is why I'm putting it on first so it will get ruined sooner. Also I am going to be avoiding any grey colors going forward. The color makes me feel sick to my stomach.”

  She somehow blew a raspberry at him and he continued back on his journey towards the strip of land sandwiched between the ocean and the E-grade zone.

  He was going to need every second of time to make as many traps as possible before the buffalo came back. Though now that he thought about it, he wondered whether a day was the 50 some hours that were currently happening with the elongated days and nights or if a day was the 24 hours before the system hit. For that matter, was a month the usual 30 to 31 days or was it some arbitrary number that wouldn't make sense to him currently. Hell, what even was a year? How did that work??

  “So are you really going to try and blanket the whole strip of land with various traps and do nothing else for the next several months?” Grey asked, likely just trying to get him to think about something else before he went off on another tangent but he still indulge her question.

  “If you have a better plan I'm all ears.”

  “ I mean you have a bunch of E-grade and D-grade Guardians. Why not just use them and charge towards the Buffalo before they even have a chance to attack. Keep picking them off and go at it guerrilla Warfare Style.”

  “Well they all travel in a herd so I'm not sure how effective guerrilla warfare will do aside from picking off the occasional straggler and I doubt that'll be enough to dent their numbers in a way that would make a difference. As for these automatons.” he hesitated as she did kind of make a fair point and looked slightly behind him where the D-grade one was following behind him at what came off as a leisure pace despite him running at close to top speed.

  “You guys are classified as territory Guardians according to my little system. Are you capable of leaving the territory?”

  “Negative, we can only act in accordance to your will within this territory and nothing more.”

  “Well there you go. follow up question though, if you die or one of your brethren dies is there a way to bring you back?”

  Negative, once we are gone we are gone forever. You may of course buy new guardians with your system credits.”

  “Damn. Going to have to make sure none of you die then when the stampede comes. I certainly can’t afford to replace any of you.”

  “Ugh! This is going to be boring beyond measure.”

  “You are more than welcome to leave if things get too boring. Nothing's making you stay.”

  “Nah, I’m just complaining for the sake of complaining. I actually find watching you to be endlessly entertaining no matter what you do.”

  “There is no way you find that entertaining”

  “What do you think I do when you are asleep? Count how many breaths you take? I mean I do that, but that's only because I'm just watching you so intensely. I need to memorize every detail of you every second of the day.”

  He felt himself shiver at those words. It was certainly uncomfortable and he could have definitely gone through the rest of his life without learning that. “I don't suppose telling you to never do that would make you stop.”

  “Pssh. Not now, not later, even if you waited all of eternity my answer would never change. You know some men would be happy to have a wife like me who absolutely adores their partner like this.”

  “We are not married, I do not even like you. Just because the system decides to make my last name grey doesn't mean that's actually my last name.”

  “Oh?? then what is your last name?”

  “It’s Grey” He stumbled and fell face first into the ground which, given his speed, caused him to skid who knew how many feet before coming to a stop.

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  She let out a snicker but there was a clear euphoric elation to her words as she spoke. “What the hell was that? Did you lose your footing?”

  “ No!!! I literally just said. I said…” he clutched his head “ Why the hell did I just say grey?!? You said you weren't going to do anything to mess with my brain”

  “And I have kept to my word. I have taken no steps to actively mess with your mind in any way. Or at least not in the way that I did before with magic and stuff. I enjoy messing with you using the occasional flirtatious banter as you get so cute when you're flustered. But I have done nothing in the way that you are asking. Perhaps it was just a slip of your tongue. Or maybe you just secretly want to acknowledge me as your wife but I know you will push back at that. So let's just say it was a slip of the tongue.” Her words continued to hold pure ecstasy in her tone which was clearly from what just happened.

  He needed to get rid of her stat, and thankfully he might have a way to go about it with the system store if he could just upgrade his village to a high enough rank, he should be able to buy something that could actually purge her out of his soul. Sure she said it wouldn't work but she wasn't exactly a reliable source. She was still messing with him. He knew that, he just didn't know how.

  “Really don't trust me do you? You are more than welcome to investigate with your little split thinking or just properly examine yourself when you have some moments of peace and quiet. You will find that I have done nothing.”

  “There is no way I would have said grey unless you did something to my brain. Or maybe it was my soul, either way I will find out what you did and work to figure out how to stop it from happening again,”

  “ Oh, fine! since you're being so butt hurt about it. I didn't do anything to your brain, I merely took brief control over your mouth, tongue and vocal cords to force you to say the word Grey. Yeesh, there is no need to take a prank so seriously.”

  “Are you fucking serious???”

  “What?? I had to get you back somehow for trying to purge me with that little pill you bought. Completely ineffectual but the thought was still hurtful.” Her tone showed she had zero remorse for anything

  “Oh Cry Me a River.” he growled as he dusted off his clothes that were now a little ripped from the friction of his skid and covered in dirt. It was a good thing he bought several pairs. Hopefully not all of the shirts would be too big for him.

  He started his jog again while doing his best to tune out any comment she tried making until he finally got to where the planes ended and the strip of land began.

  He opened up his territory map to see how far the borders had expanded and they had moved quite a bit, more than he was honestly expecting. However instead of a circle it started to misshapen a little. Most of it still had its no corner circumference but it seemed like his territory could not go into the e-grade zone. So despite his territory expanding a little bit of the ways into the strip and the ocean, it refused to go anywhere inside the forest.

  So much for using the D-grade and E-grades automatons to deal with the monsters in their like that weasel. Instead he began running down the strip of land and the moment he passed his territories borders the D grade automaton instantly froze just inside which he had expected.

  “Alright, head back to the castle walls and patrol the area I guess. Take care of any potential invading monsters or hostile entities that try to enter without permission. Oh! But any sentient beings are to not be killed even if hostile.” He wasn't actually sure if monsters counted as sentient or not. He would open that can of worms later down the road.

  The automaton saluted and ran back towards the castle's walls. He was actually surprised he could see them even from this distance. Even with the hills blocking some of his view. It really did go to show how massive those walls were.

  He opened up his quest screen and looked over said quest again. Technically the quest only stated that he needed to stop the stampede from destroying his territory and it sounded like the leader of the herd would be the main source of antagonism.

  Of course there was the issue of when he identified one of those armored Buffalo originally, it called them notoriously stubborn, territorial, and if he angered one he angered them all.

  He really didn't want to have to go and kill every single one assuming he even could do that. He would need to figure out how to kill their leader, thin their herd, and somehow convince the rest to not destroy everything. Easy peasy right?

  The traps he would be setting up were his answer for thinning the herd. As to the other two problems? Well he had about six months to figure it out.

  He considered how he's going to go about making the traps and decided to mostly go with explosions and pits. Simple, easy, and fairly straightforward. Plus he could make the pits wide enough that he could capture multiple buffalo in them and use his explosions to potentially fling the armored Buffalo either over the cliff or into the E-grade zone.

  He doubted poison would work that well against the metal unless he violated the Geneva conventions and did something like mustard gas but that seemed too cruel. Using blades, blunt/bludgeoning instruments, or shooting some kind of projectile didn't guarantee he would kill them or even hurt them that much. Plus he just wasn't aware of ways he could design those kinds of traps to kill or hinder multiple Buffalo while with the pits and explosions it was almost a guarantee short of really bad luck.

  He decided to have some pits be lethal with spikes at the bottom and some pits to just be deep enough that he would hope the Buffalo wouldn't be capable of jumping out.

  He’d position most of the pits on the center part of the strip while most of his explosions would be on the outer sides. In order to maximize the potential catch, he was going to have to place them all over which likely meant many traps wouldn't get triggered but that would be the price he would have to pay. But looking at all the potential land he’d need to cover he knew he was going to need a lot of material and that meant multiple trips back and forth between here and the system store.

  Quill also decided that when the time grew closer with stampede and he felt satisfied with the number of traps, he would try building some kind of sturdy fortification just inside the territory. It seemed like a bad idea if the traps weren't enough to let the buffalo swarm the planes with their overwhelming numbers. While sure there was a very good chance they could just run around the barricade with the E-grade zone, he would hope that they would be too blinded by anger over their fallen brethren, too scared about the potential monsters lurking inside and two stubborn to run around.

  “Seems like wishful thinking if you ask me.”

  “Perhaps, but if they do just run around then it will be easy enough to retreat back to the castle's walls.” his face twisted into a scowl when he realized he just responded to her without meaning too.

  “ Are you really going back to giving me the cold shoulder? Because that didn't work that well for you the first time and it will definitely have the same results this time too.”

  he didn't respond, instead he took out a fairly large shovel and began to dig.