16 New beginning

Peace did not last long between Keith and the New Dawn guild. After having spent an entire evening working on his escape plan, Amber visited him on the next day just as it has been decided after the meeting with Alan. This time, however, she was clearly able to notice no improvements have been made to the cannons whatsoever. Up until now, she had tried giving the benefit of the doubt to Keith, but she would no longer cover him up for his wrongdoings.

- "I thought you were supposed to help us, just as we helped you in return?!" She exclaimed.

Keith remained indifferent at this comment and simply explained : "I want to move out from this area. It's getting a lot more dangerous than I initially expected and your guild won't be able to hold off against the Pioneers for long.

- "Isn't that kind of a selfish way to think about it?" She tried shaming him.

- "Wasn't that kind of selfish to ask me to build more and more cannons for your guild? You did not even furnish me with all of the resources I would be requiring for such large projects and you dare to say that?" He retorted.

- "That's..." She started.

- "I don't care about your reasons. The fact is, every party concerned by an agreement would most likely try and benefit it more than the other parties involved. That's the way it is. In any case, I've told my reasons and I won't stay around here anymore. Bye bye." Keith interjected before menacingly taking out a weapon from his inventory, telling Amber to get out of his base.

'I'm sorry, you didn't seem like a bad person. However, you were working for an authoritarian figure and I can't follow your guild anymore.' He apologized to her in his head. With these threats, Keith hoped she would be warning her boss about his behaviour so they would hesitate some more before coming in here. Actually, they would most likely try and assemble a large group to come and take care of him.

'Alan is an intelligent man, he would certainly not chase after me without a bit of preparations. Today, I become a deer hunted by the king and his royal guards for the sake of entertainment. Except this particular deer has wings.'

'What a nice car!' Keith thought while looking at the half-metal half-wooden structure before him. Since he had equipped this vehicle with an engine using coal as its fuel, he had to make sure it would not catch fire at the first occasion. That was why, most of the lower part of the car was made out of metal, cast iron to be precise, while the upper parts where he and his stocks of resources would be seated was made out of wood.

His vehicle was now fully completed, thanks to the two days of delay he managed to get himself. However, instead of climbing on top of the vehicle right away, Keith went and made another couple of preparations. It took him an entire hour to do so, but the New Dawn members were fortunately nowhere to be seen for the time being.

According to his calculations, he only had about one to two hours left before Alan and his armed forces got there. At that point, he would not be able to do anything against them because they would certainly all be equipped with rifles. That was why, he could not let himself drift away from his current objective, successfully running away that is.

Half an hour later, Keith was satisfied about all the preparations he has made. He started off fires in a furnaces to make it seem like he did not yet run away and make his opponent proceed carefully, thus giving him a bit more time to get as far away as possible.

'Mhh, I really hope they do not take long with their preparations and actually come here within a few dozen minutes.' Keith thought while lighting up a thin rope on fire. He then stuffed a bit more resources inside of his inventory before running towards his vehicle.

After starting a fire in its engine, climb on top of it. Smoke came out from behind, and the heavy structure wobbled sofly as it started gaining speed. The landscape was kind of rugged, but Keith had planned for it by making huge metal wheels that would be breaking open anytime soon.

In any case, after a few minutes the vehicle reached a comfortable cruising speed of about fifteen miles per hour. It was nowhere impressive, but nobody in the game could catch up to him by foot anyways. That was why, Keith laid down on top of his car and relaxed as his long awaited journey began.

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A few miles away from the young man, a trained group of armed people entered a strange-looking cave after having broken open the lock on its steel door. It did not require that much time, especially since the group brought a few tools along with them, but it has been enough to grow Alan's frustration.

'I can't wait to get my hands on this dude and make him regret his every decision.' The man jubilated.

Though, all of them were moving pretty carefully, expecting traps to trigger at any moment. Most of them knew of the impressive technological advancements Keith has been able to maintain across the few months they had known of him, so they could not fathom a way he would not have built defenses all around his base.

- "What an idiot, he left all of those resources behind!" Someone exclaimed.

- "Be careful, we cannot let our guard down in this place." Alan replied. The cave was pretty dark, except from a few spots of light produced by the remains of fire within the nearby furnaces.

For now, not a single trap had triggered yet, and the base seemed to have been left in an hurry. Alan did not know whether they have been lucky and avoided all of the traps at once, or if something dire awaited for them further down the cave.

Tools strewed the floor, as if someone could not decide on what to take with him, and those furnaces seemed to have been used quite recently.

'What are you planning, Keith?' Alan meditated. 'This seems so... carefree to let all of you weapons in there! Maybe he really was an idiot, after all.'

- "Huh, what is that small light coming out from here?" One of his men exclaimed.

- "What, did you found another furnace? That's neat brother!" Another one replied while making fun of him.

- "No. This doesn't seem to..." The man stopped in his tracks after noticing a large pile of boxes catching on fire in a corner. In a flash, the man realized what could be contained within these boxes and shouted : "Everyone, run!"

However, it was too late. Before he could even warn his friends out, the end of his shout was swallowed inside of a violent explosion. In only a couple of seconds, the entirety of the cave disappeared along with the armed group of people.

A few hours later, only smoke was left escaping from the remains of the desolated scenery. Ashes as well as a few metal parts were left scattered throughout the gaping hole in the mountain, while large rocks were continuously falling down from the ceiling like a saving rain.

This was a fitting ending to Keith's first ever base in Project Overworld. Ever since he thought about his escape, he realized it would be a really bad idea to let access to all of these important resources to other player. They could have used his generator to gain an unfair advantage by producing electricity and all, leaving Keith with no safe place on this very continent.

Turning towards the horizon, the young man enjoyed the sight of the landscape passing before his eyes. He could not care less about what happened to the members of the New Dawn guild. Whether they did explode alongside his base or not, he prefered focusing on the future from now on and think of the perfect place where he could start constructing his next base.

- "What a day!" He breathed out loud. 'For me, this seems like the end of a dark era, and the beginning of a brighter one!'