What was this? “Mark, what the hell is a quest? Did you forget to tell me about yet another thing?” I looked at Crudia and Dusk, standing a small distance away, and they looked similarly confused, no doubt staring at the same thing as I was.

  “Forgot? No, I know what quests are. But there shouldn’t be quests yet! They should appear on floor 2 and forward only!” Mark said, his tone confused. “Open it. It could be good for us.”

  And so, I did.

  Quest

  Objective : Defend Brug town.

  Look at those poor citizens getting attacked by the vile monsters in the surrounding area… Now, ignore the fact that we are the ones responsible, and try to place yourself into their shoes - living off of scraps, their buildings getting destroyed, living every day without a guarantee of seeing the next, unable to get help.

  How sad! Good thing that you are here.

  Word is that the big bad boss is gathering power for one last push against the three small towns in his area. And Brug town is the first on his plate. Defend the city and its citizens, and you shall be rewarded! Ignore the fact that they will be one of the strongest enemies of this floor!

  Or leave them be. Be like your dad that left for milk and never came back. Who are these people to you, anyway?

  Reward : An Epic grade evolution

  On failure : The knowledge that you let hundreds die!

  I watched the thing, reading it over and over again, registering Crudia, Dusk and the other guides coming closer to me. The Marten could have my gold for all I cared. This was a bigger problem.

  “Holy shit! An evolution!” Mark said, smiling. “And the quest isn’t that bad, as far as the failing goes. Most quests have a penalty for failing the goal, but this one doesn’t.”

  “But the fact that it offers an evolution speaks of its difficulty, no?” Dusk said, his eyes glazed over. “An epic grade at that. And it will attack on the last day. Doesn’t this all look a bit too good for it to be a reward? It looks like the gods just want to watch us die.”

  “It sounds scary. What if the boss is really strong?” Crudia said, stepping closer. Her ears were, once again, pressed flat to her head.

  Talisha nodded. “It’s a tough choice. There’s still only three of you. Who knows how many will attack?”

  It was a dilemma. We could stay, but the rewards were not that clear - I didn’t like the sound of the gods deciding, while the outcome of us being surrounded was much easier to see. The memory of Xila not even bothering herself with finishing us off was still fresh in my mind, however. The strength she exerted over her party, the speed at which she got to the max level.

  We’d need that powerup. This was just the first floor, and we could not fall behind. I needed to take my rightful space at the top of the tournament.

  “I think we should do it.”

  Everyone’s head turned to me, curiously waiting for more. “As Mark said, this is a race against time, right? The monsters will get stronger everywhere. And we need to get stronger too. The evolution is just too tempting not to take.”

  Everyone went silent, thoughtful. Their expressions were strained, undoubtedly weighing the risk versus the reward, but I could see it in their features - they knew I was right. Like it or not, this was the only way we KNEW how to get such a big powerup.

  “It will be tough.” Mark finally spoke. “But I think Shrimpie is right. We need to do this so we can get a head start on the next floor. I don’t see us catching up to Xila and whoever the other nine others with evolutions are.”

  “Eight, actually. The red guy had an evolution too.” Dusk added .

  “Eight, then. It would require us to do some serious preparation. We’d be on an even tighter schedule than we are on right now . Are you three up to it?”

  I watched Crudia’s and Dusk’s expressions, and I saw the same resolve in them as the one I felt. We’d do it. We all wanted to win, to survive. We nodded at the same time.

  “Great. That means we need to get moving. We’ll need to get you all more equipment. Get your skills leveled as much as possible. Build traps, build fortifications. All of that stuff.”

  That sounded like crafting. Gosh, I was so excited for the upcoming fights and rewards that I didn’t even mind that much.

  “Let us start then.”

  And so, we did. Although Martin stole all of my gold and was nowhere to be seen, we still had Crudia’s and Dusk’s funds, and we actually managed to find some people that were willing to talk with us. We bought some more food, wood and other trap materials that Mark requested. No magical items, sadly, but those could come later.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  We’d need to move our base here too, which was a bit sad, but understandable. Losing several hours a day by trekking through the biomes would slow us down so much that it would probably cut down our preparation time by half. There was an inn that we could spend the night in, which was useful too - the sun was just about to hide beyond the horizon, and the black grass offered no light at all. Beyond the torchlights of the city, the plains beyond looked like the abyss I stared into when I got my new body a few days ago.

  None of us wanted to walk through that.

  And so, our first day of the life in the city was over.

  [Day 7]

  We needed to kill a boss the day after, or at least find one. Building traps and fortifications would require us to rally the people of the city, and Mark was sure that getting rid of one of the nearby threats would make the people here more willing to hear us out. There was a hunters’ guild in the middle of the town, and that was where we decided to source our info from.

  The halls of the guild looked just as shit as the other buildings did - poorly made, cheap wood and lacking any inspiration. A bored looking woman sat behind a wooden desk, portly and about as old as Talisha was. Her uninterested eyes moved from whatever she was looking at to us, widening as they registered us approaching.

  "Uhh... Can I h-help you?" her voice quivered.

  I waved, coming closer. "Hey there! We're off hunting! What's it gonna be?"

  She went pale. "Wh-who are you...?" she gulped, not managing to finish her sentence.

  "We know, you're welcome! Who do you need dead?" I said, brandishing my weapon.

  Looking back, Mark was holding his head, and Talisha was laughing. What was up with them? At least Timmie was looking at my weapons with an interested expression.

  I looked back and saw that the woman was crying. CRYING of all things? Was the situation worse than I thought? She must have been even more glad for our arrival than I thought.

  “We are here to ask for locations of the monster lairs around the city, Madame.” Said Dusk, his lips upturned to a light smile. “My friend is a little bit impatient with getting his point across, so please excuse him.”

  “Ah, you’re here to slay the dragon?” The woman’s face lit up. “We just put up a reward for it!”

  Dusk sighed, and went to ask about the other, weaker monsters instead.

  Rude! What was he talking about when he said I was impatient? I looked at Crudia, and she seemed to be as confused as I was by the statement.

  I zoned out on what she said next, lost in my thoughts. My stupor only got broken by Dusk turning away and looking my way. “So, what is it gonna be, Shrimpie? Any of those sound promising enough?”

  Uh. What did she say again? The woman was a completely different person once Dusk began speaking, though. She looked at Dusk the same way Crudia looked at cooked Rock Crabs. How dare she?

  “Let’s go with the first one.” I said, hoping that was the correct choice. Showing that I was, in fact, not listening, would not serve me well in preserving the leadership role.

  Dusk’s eyes widened, but if he had more to say then he chose not to do so. Instead he just nodded, and looked back to the woman, getting a bit more information. This time, I paid as much attention as I could.

  Apparently, we’d need to leave the black grass biome and head even further up north, aiming toward a jungle biome with giant trees with blue leaves. I didn’t care much for what we’d have to fight - we’d win against whatever, after all - but the biome definitely interested me. Even the guides seemed fairly interested, murmuring about the strangeness of it .

  Thanking the receptionist, we left the guild, did some checks on the state of our potions, and left the city, heading toward yet another battle.

  The path, as always, seemed endless. Nobody dared to stand in our way this time around, which was a bit of a shame - my XP meter showed that I wasn’t that far away from the max level. But the thought of finally maxing it out by the day’s end pushed me onwards for sure.

  The obsidian-black grass stretched forever, making my guesses as to where we were located completely useless. Even my map was completely black, if I wasn’t counting the dots that represented the three of us.

  The feeling of being watched returned in full as we left the city, and now I was sure it wasn’t just paranoia. What was it, though?

  As we walked, I tried to seep some more information from Dusk as to what we’d be fighting without letting on the fact that I wasn’t listening once again, but either I just sucked at asking questions, or they were making fun of me since they already knew I didn’t know. I hoped it was the former option out of the two.

  With nothing else to do, I did my least favorite activity that I could do.

  Talked to Mark.

  “So, quests are more common on floor 2?”

  His eyes shifted to me, and his face took the same look that he had whenever he was thinking hard about something. “Not common. They still require specific things to happen so they are given out. And keep in mind, I can’t tell you more about the second floor, couldn’t even if I knew. But the guides mention them appearing on floor 2 and onwards.”

  “And why not here, on the first floor?” Asked Crudia, joining the conversation.

  “Because the quests give out rewards. You don’t think that all of these items, monsters and skills came out of nothing, right?”

  Welp, that was new info to me. “Uhh. I kind of did? That’s what gods do, right? Create things out of nothing?”

  Mark sighed. “They aren’t that kind of god, Shrimpie. Not as far as I know. There wouldn’t need to be more of them if that was the case, right? What they are is just… something more than human, but not omnipresent. Not omnipotent. Just more than us. But that doesn’t free them from the laws of physics.”

  “And that means what, exactly?”

  “That means th-”

  Crudia ran between the two of us. “Look, you two! The trees!”

  I looked to where she pointed, and they really were there, still a large distance away. There were giant trees, but what was interesting was that there were other things that were already visible. Giant mushrooms filled the ground around the trees, more numerous than I could count. Unlike the black grass biome, however, it didn’t look to be completely clear of any monsters.

  I could already see some movement from this distance. With some approaching in our direction. Grinning, I fastened my pace.

  I could not wait to get there. The first step to my evolution was just in front of me.

  As a reminder, there are 20 chapters ahead on Patreon! If we get to 10 paid patrons, I'd like to run a poll on getting art of one of the characters commissioned. Call it a goal, if you will.