The Systemic Lands

Chapter 27: Day 41 – Voluntold

“So, you are coming with me then?” I looked at Tyrese and his posse.

“I got voluntold by Boss Carlos,” he said.

“Voluntold?” I asked. I was pretty sure I knew what he meant, but I was curious what he would say.

“When he looks at you and asks for a volunteer.” That sounded about right.

“So, the new person?”

“That’s Tim.”

“Then Hans, Greg, and Laura with the bow.”

“You actually remembered,” Tyrese said.

“Easy names. If they were named Tyrese I might forget.” He shook his head at that.

“Let’s do this. So, that way?” Tyrese pointed and I nodded.

“Yes. Brown slimes should be treated like blue slimes, but swords are easier to use on them instead of clubs. Also, you need to look very carefully. I haven’t seen any too high up in trees, but you never know.”

We made our way past the North gate into the brown slime forest. “Anyone walk outside the walls to another gate?” I asked.

“No, well haven’t heard about it. Any of you?” Tyrese asked his people and they all responded with a negative. We walked a bit more before I came to a stop.

“Alright, there is the first slime. Look carefully.” They all looked, but it was clear they were having a hard time spotting the brown slime. “You can tell because it looks a bit clear and reflects the light more than the trees or roots.” I walked over and stabbed it with my sword. Thorny roots sprung up.

“These last about a 100 seconds. After that they turn to dust. Haven’t been pricked by any, but I would not recommend it.” I picked up the crystal.

“Come on.” They followed me and I came to a stop again. “Spot it?”

“There?” Amanda pointed.

“That is a root, so no.”

“There.” Tyrese pointed.

“You got it.”

“Too smooth, the roots and tree bark have more creases,” he said. Huh, that was clever of him to notice. The difference wasn’t that much, still it was a good catch. That was the kind of thing that made having other people around useful. They might notice things I didn’t.

Tyrese killed it with his sword and picked up the crystal. “That’s about it. I am going to grind the brown slimes, unless you needed something else?” I asked.

“No we should be set. We will take it slow,” Tyrese said. I gave him a nod and left. I spent the rest of the day hunting brown slimes. My thoughts drifted to how people were so useless at the start.

They got stuck into a rut of buying food with points and then ran out. When they truly got desperate there was nothing left that they could do. There was no material one could just pick up to hit slimes with. One had to buy a club.

Using your fists was asking for a painful death. That was what had probably happened to people. Or they got too weak to move and just expired in some forgotten corner of the city. I could only shake my head. The lack of foresight was quite scary.

But I didn’t blame them. People have a hard time adapting and forcing themselves to change. There was a reason I had been fat for so long. Now I was just slightly plump at least. It was honestly kind of frightening how quickly I was losing weight. Without a scale I could only guess, but I pegged it to at least two pounds or so per day.

That was insane, but I had pushed through the pain. It was probably slower now. I had only used the fruit to stave off hunger and had been depending on restorations for long term upkeep of my body. Another point that I had lucked out in. Without the restoration the store offered, I would be far worse off.

I tried to think if I could have made it without the restoration. The short answer was no. Blisters, chafing, soreness, fatigue, and a lack of proper food and rest would make it very hard for me to continue at the blistering pace I had.

My thoughts drifted back into other people. If I took a random selection of 250 people between the ages of 16 and 63 from America, avoid people with guns and possibly weapons. That would create certain bias towards specific types of people.

White collar workers, inner city, and higher than average body mass. There would be a lack of military people both current and former, a lack of active criminals, and an abundance of city and suburban people.

That didn’t mean certain groups couldn’t slip through the selection process, but their numbers would be far more limited. That also didn’t take into account personal temperament, understanding of the logic of this place, and the ability to ignore the fear of death and the unknown.

All that was left was me. The person who just wouldn’t quit and was willing to risk my life but was also very cautious with game knowledge. I didn’t fault any of the other people for their weak wills and sub-optimal choices, but I did judge them. Also, there was a bit of annoyance.

I didn’t want to have to explore new areas. I would rather sit back and do some accounting. That made me try to think if this place was a capitalist hell hole or a socialist hell hole.

Capitalist since people were rewarded in comparison to their individual efforts. Socialist, since there was universal healthcare and food while also putting everyone at the same starting line. That was it! It was like the tv show I had been watching just before I was teleported, Squid Game.

There was no higher message involved, it was just suffering, death, and stupidity. The almighty System sure liked to put its boot down on people’s necks. There was nothing to do but endure. A Systemtocracy, rule by an uncaring System.

There was no higher authority or separate group of people to appeal to, which made this situation unique. The best comparison to Earth would be the hunter gatherer tribes millennia ago. But with those ancient tribes the challenge was more survival from nature and possibly other tribes.

Here it was more survival from monsters and humans tossed into an environment they don’t understand with rules that aren’t explained. That fear they had would just grow over time, they either learned to deal or went crazy.

As for the knowledge and understanding of this place, that came from way too much reading and thinking. If there were a million people who had read as much as me, doubtful, then say half that can actually translate the knowledge into actions. That was way less than one percent, even with the limited selection criteria.

That meant there was only a limited chance each arrival and then their temperament had to be taken into account. What I really needed was a SEAL team. Come in and just start going ham on the monsters. Instead, it was just me trying to wrangle things and get people off their fat asses.

The reason I wanted more people working were the Store upgrades. There were other reasons, but that was the main reason. I had very little doubt that the third upgrade would cost 100,000 points. I was not about to save that all up myself.

The government, Carlos and Red Dawn, had to put in some work and get the people to work. Dammit, I had to push myself even more. At 300 crystals a day, which meant a rate of about one crystal every two minutes. I needed to push myself to one every minute. Get my crystal intake up to 700 a day.

Today, I was getting 400. I stopped thinking about life and how it sucked and focused on moving and killing slimes. The annoying part was waiting for the thorny roots to disappear. Brown slimes were too slow.

I finished the day with only 367 crystals. My best day of grinding yet, but nowhere close to what I wanted. I walked through the city at night back towards the plaza. Finding an empty building I stayed for the night.

The next day I cashed in my crystals, only handing out a 5 crystal tip to the guards. After a 53 point restoration, I had 3,757 points. I was tempted to buy some upgrades but held off. I was going to start saving up a bit. I wanted a buffer and a couple hundred points no longer cut it in my mind. I wasn’t struggling that much either, so a larger buffer wasn’t a loss right now.

Even if I purchased upgrades, the cost for the next one was 515 points. The scaling price also made me slow down. I made my way to the South. To the West were the blue slimes, North was the brown slimes, East had the grass plains, and South was another pine forest.

I reached the gate without that much difficultly and entered the forest. I went very slowly checking each and every angle. I also made sure to look up quite a bit.

Something moved. I paused and listened closely. I heard something stepping on the pine needles. I looked in that direction and spotted a form moving through the trees. The distance was great enough that I could only tell it looked like a wolf.

I banged my sword on my shield and then listened again. It was a wolf. Not an overly large one and it had a brown and gray coat, which let it blend in. It was only the one wolf as well.

It rushed at me, and I used my shield to block its initial charge. I then stabbed it in the neck, shoulder, area. I yanked my sword free, and the blood was red. The wolf and the blood quickly turned to dust leaving a crystal behind. At least the monster didn’t make too much of a mess.

I took the crystal and began wolf hunting. I made sure to check behind me and know my way back to the city. From what I could observe, the wolves patrolled. The blue slimes might have done the same thing, but they were so slow and ignorant of most stimuli that I never really considered it.

The thing about the brown wolves was that I could draw them to me. I would bang on my shield with my sword, and they would rush at me with the self-preservation of a lemming running off a cliff.

The key thing was to space out the engagements, so I didn’t run into two at once. Block their initial rush with my shield and then stab them in the neck, shoulder area and deep into their body. It was a lot more exhausting than the slimes, but it felt quicker.

I ended the day with 216 crystals. I didn’t risk staying out even as the sun began to set. While I had avoided any injury, the brown wolves were quick and stealthy. At least they didn’t leave behind a mess like people did, but then they would have been a source of meat.

No free food around here. I was stuck eating fruit and vegetables that evening. I really wanted tacos. Once that thought entered my brain, I began to think of all the foods I wanted. Pizza, tacos, pizza, pasta with alfredo sauce, tacos, turkey with stuffing, apple pie, ice cream, pizza, and the list kept going on and on. I really wanted pizza.

I rubbed my face and let out a sigh as I sat on the second floor of an empty building. That store upgrade needed to come soon; I wasn’t a rabbit. I wanted bread and meat. This was probably one of the biggest things to make me chip in for an upgrade.

I decided that I would hunt wolves here the next two days and then go back to the plaza to cash in and get repayment from Carl. After that I would probably check out the plains. I had kind of been expecting green slimes in this part of the forest. The fact there were brown wolves instead, made me think there might also be wolves in the plains.

I should also take the chance to leave out one gate and come back through a different gate just to confirm they weren’t portals of some kind. That was what the stone city reminded me of, Minecraft with block protection.

Someone built a city and then protected all the blocks. Also, the square houses didn’t help with that Minecraft vibe this place had. Minecraft cities were often deserted, another creepy similarity. The only curved things in the city were the walls, outer road, and pillars.

Some of the houses intersected each other as well. Most buildings had the default layout of a square with 9 rooms. If they intersected, then a room or two might be removed to make way for the other building. Everything was also two stories with no design marks or other personal touches on the inside or outside, just gray stone.

I kind of wanted my own place to spend the night, but I wouldn’t waste the points unless I could make it secure. I was missing any kind of bed. There was a lot I was missing.