The Systemic Lands

Chapter 4: Day 2 (2) – Grinding As A Team

We took a break at our rest spot the previous day. There was no garbage from the time before, but a slime had probably got the trash, at least that was our conclusion at the moment. Jesus had easily killed the one slime we had come across. They were the perfect starting monster, almost too perfect in my opinion.

Still, there wasn’t time to check the entire length of wall around the city. Based on C=(Pi)*2*R. The circumference was twice the radius multiplied by Pi, 3.14. I estimated the hour and a half trek to the wall as about 3 miles from my hiking experience. That meant the circumference of the wall was about 19 miles.

That was a full day to walk around the entire city, which would take a lot of time and energy. Both of these things were in short supply. Apparently geometric math was useful for survival, sorry Ms. Dobbs from seventh grade, calling geometry something only architects or engineers needed.

Once our break was over, we got into a rhythm of slime killing. We would rotate. Myself, Frank, Jim, and then Jesus would engage the slime that showed up. We only changed locations once all slimes nearby were dead.

Also, the best way to kill a slime wasn’t a direct blow, but a glancing blow. That would tear the membrane more while getting less of the slime acid or guts on the clubs.

We quickly advanced to the dead part of the forest we had reached before. This appeared to be a new zone, which made the possibility of a new type of monster much higher.

My teammates had no objections to moving parallel and clearing the slimes in the forest and in the transition area to the dead zone. Whoever wasn’t fighting was instructed to keep a close watch on the dead zone and in front of us.

It took about a minute to kill a slime. My initial goal of 20 had been way too low of an estimate. Since we were moving in the high slime area, there were very little breaks. Thankfully four people gave us enough breathing room to rotate in and out of combat to pace ourselves.

With Frank’s watch, I tracked that we each earned 18 crystals in the first hour. Everyone was good about the rotation and keeping an eye out. We took a break after an hour. After a 15-minute break we started up again.

No new monsters showed up the entire time, which was alarming me more and more. Once it was the afternoon, we were exhausted and called it a day. We made our way back to the city. We managed to find the tunnel and picked a building nearby to stay for the evening.

I was sitting on the floor with my pile of crystals in front of me. There was a total of 70 crystals in my pile. Our average over the five hours we hunted slimes was 14 per hour. All those crystals translated into 350 points.

“Should we upgrade the Store?” Jim asked. I was silent and looked at Frank. I didn’t want to comment about this, since speaking against a store upgrade would be negative and I wanted to project positivity.

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“Maybe, there might be more useful items.”

“We need water. Fruit isn’t enough. Something to work wood and cut down a tree,” Jesus added. “But…it would bring attention and trouble.”

There was a bit of silence after that statement. I spoke up. “We are doing okay for now. We get another 70 crystals each tomorrow and then focus on ourselves this time. Load up on food and improve ourselves. If we upgrade the store and other people upgrade themselves…,” that would clearly be bad for us.

“Why can’t people just get along,” Frank muttered. I wanted to say ‘human nature’ but that would just cause drama. Something I had learned in my thirty years of life, was that it often was far better to just shut up and not say anything.

Verbal diarrhea never helped anyone. “Any idea of the groups back at the plaza?” I asked Jim.

There were three main super groups. No names yet. Several smaller groups. While people had explored the city a bit, there were people who had already returned and reported the wall. Nothing on other tunnels or gates, but I was sure it was only a matter of time.

If I had to guess, we had a day or two at best, before the slime tunnel was discovered. We needed those slimes. Those slimes were point generators. Other people would realize it too and soon it would a blood bath, or acid bath as it were.

At least my teammates were alright and not useless. I wouldn’t accept useless teammates; the risk was too great. Conversation was fairly muted as we were all tired, physically and mentally. There was also the grunge from the lack of showers and baths we were suffering.

I rubbed my face and could feel stubble growing out. That was really annoying. It was almost worth it to upgrade the store to try and get a razor blade.

I took the time before I fell asleep to review some of my assumptions. The point scaling was…annoying. After today’s easy killing of slimes. It was clear that stacking up points wouldn’t be that hard. The real issue was what could be purchased if the store was upgraded?

It was frustrating not knowing how much a spear or sword would cost. I couldn’t waste mental power on that, I would find out when I found out.

No, I needed to think how I would spend my points. If I had 140 crystals, that meant 700 points. Set aside 100 for a restoration. Then 500 points to purchase one of each stat. Then another 40 for a new club and supplies.

That would leave a bit of a buffer at least. I thought about stacking five points into one stat, but I had a suspicion that the cost would increase after each purchased stat. That would be a big limiting factor. Still, it all depended on the size of the increase and the impact of each stat.

Would I need 100s of stats to make any noticeable progress, or was each stat a quantifiable difference? There was too much unknown.

“You miss your family?” Frank asked Jim.

“Yes. My mother and father will be worried. Also, my mother’s parents. It was quite a big deal for me to go to medical school. What about you?”

“Just a bitch of an ex-wife and a teenage son who only wants to see me for money,” Frank let out a sigh.

“I am sorry. I am sure things will get sorted out. Maybe we can sell our stories once we get back to Earth,” Jim said. I didn’t say anything. No one likes a downer, and I was sure getting back ranged from incredibly hard to impossible. Still, I kept a bit of hope in my heart.

“I am worried for my father. I help pay for his medical bills,” Jesus said.

I could only wish the best for my family, worrying wouldn’t help or change anything. If they were alive, they were alive. If they were dead, they were dead. Still, I should probably say something. “My grandfather is getting on in years. He was going to have surgery fairly soon. I hope it goes well.”

There, perfect enough to contribute, but not get bogged down- “What kind of surgery?” Jim asked. Of course, he would ask since he was in medical school.

“Foot surgery. There is persistent pain, and nothing has helped. Don’t know that much about the details,” I replied. They continued to lightly chat about their families that they missed. I wanted to scream at them to shut up and don’t think about useless stuff.

I couldn’t let them distract me from surviving in this hell hole. For that’s what this place was. Hell, purgatory, whatever people wanted to call it, it was going to extract human misery. My body already felt pretty miserable, and I regretted not heading back to the plaza today.

Still, I wanted points, and a bit of pain was worth it. The thing was, overplanning was just as bad as under planning. I needed to think flexibly, outside of any boxes or constraints. Nothing was off limits. It was only question of if I could do it or not. It was only day two. If I could earn at least 250 points per day, then that would be quite good.

Restoration, food, supplies, upgrade, and with a bit saved up. It was tempting to try and find something more difficult for more points, but I couldn’t afford that risk. Even killing slimes was a hassle for my fat body. I could feel my gut heave each time I swung my club.

I fell asleep on the hard stone. At least the physical exhaustion didn’t cause me to twist and turn to put weight on different parts of my body, another fat person problem.

The next morning, we ate some fruit and got ready for another day. We didn’t run into anyone as we left the city and began to hunt slimes.

I was stiff like everyone else, but soon we got into a slow groove as we massacred the blobs of acid. “Hold up,” Jesus called out and we stopped moving to find more slimes. “I saw something move out there.” He gestured at the expanse of dead pine trees and barren ground.

“What did you see?” I asked.

“Just movement, it blended into the terrain. Like a shimmer.” I looked at the brown landscape and then the green and brown of the forest.

“Retreat toward the city, keep your eyes open.” No one argued with me as we slowly fell back. We then adjusted course to begin killing slimes in the higher density area. Only a bit further from the adjacent dead zone.

The terrain did gain elevation somewhere in the dead zone, making the area a rolling forest. The changes in inclination were nowhere close enough for me to call this area hilly. In fact, the terrain was downright friendly.

There were no animal holes in the forest ground. No clusters of rocks or rocks pointed out of the ground. It was what a person would think an ideal forest would be. The slimes were the easiest enemy possible along with the terrain, made this place very noob friendly.

It was too friendly, which made me even more worried about any monsters outside of this stretch of forest. It was all too easy to imagine the creator putting a level 20 monster zone next to a level 1 zone for the lols. It would be something that I would do if I was the creator of this place. It would add in excitement and drama.

Each new zone and monster had to be treated like they were an elder chaos dragon of ultimate destruction. Meaning, extreme care and caution. Workplace deaths came from two primary sources, lack of understanding of a process and complacency towards a process.

The lack of understanding was the big issue now for other zones and complacency was growing for the slimes.

I also noted that the number of slimes had replenished from our hunt from yesterday. “Where do you think they come from?” Jesus asked.

“They might undergo mitosis,” Jim said.

“He means they divide like a cell,” I said since I knew Jesus wouldn’t know what mitosis was based on the confused look on his face.

“That was what I said,” Jim replied.

“But where are they getting all their food and stuff? We haven’t seen any water. Those slimes are mostly liquid.”

“If we are using video game logic, they are spawning from nothing overnight or when we leave. Or they are somehow emerging from the ground,” I said before I went up and took out my designated slime.

“We need water,” Jesus said. The lack of water was concerning, and the fruit we had barely cut it.

“We get watermelons for five points next time we shop. They are mostly water, and we can use the rind to make a container.” I felt stupid for not thinking of this before. The restoration had restored water to our bodies, somehow.

“This whole place…,” Frank muttered. I didn’t disagree with the sentiment. Still, it was annoying to be the one to think up of solutions. But that was what made me the leader.

This type of survival leadership was exhausting. It would be all too easy for something to go horribly wrong. If one of us was seriously injured, it would be near impossible to drag them back to the plaza. Any injury or mistake could easily be a death sentence.