New Quest!

  Within two weeks, build a road connecting this village to the city of Armas.

  Goals:

  - Clear a straight path at least five meters wide connecting the village and the city.

  Rewards:

  2 level-ups.

  Upgrade one passive at C tier or below to the next tier.

  Accept?

  Y/N

  I looked at the quest description, trying not to make a face. My inability to make proper faces aside, I was trying to not let it show how disappointed I was in the quest that had just been generated for me. I was hoping for a quest with loads of combat, but instead, I got… this. The reward was uncharacteristically good, which made me think that there might be more to the quest than meets the eye. Upgrading a passive was a rare opportunity and I shouldn’t let it pass me by, but… making a road? I wasn’t exactly built for construction.

  “It says… I’m supposed to build a road between here and Armas within a week. How far away is that?” I asked the gathered Asphons who eagerly waited for me to tell them about the quest.

  “Building a road?! How wonderful!”

  The first to react to my question was the leader of the village, a female Asphon called Zanoba. She was almost comically tiny compared to the rest of her race and seeing her happily clap her claws and jump for joy almost made her look cute. Almost. She still looked like a tiny alien murder machine, after all.

  “Is it really such a big deal?” I ask while looking to Nimma for confirmation. She and her team were as per usual accompanying me. “I’m not exactly too confident that I’m suited for this task…”

  “It is quite a big deal, actually,” Nimma replied. “Destroyed buildings get rebuilt by the system at some point, so any kind of street we make is temporary at best, and almost never worth the effort. Roads made for a quest, though… They are permanent and even enjoy a lesser version of the protection our cities and villages have. It makes the lives of the Asphons in charge of logistics so much easier, and safer to have a road like that.”

  “I see…”

  It did sound like clearing a road would be pretty beneficial for the Asphons, with immediate results that I could observe instead of the usual. I quickly scanned through my list of passives and realized that almost all of my passives were of B-tier and above. There were only a scant three of them. Crystalized Poison, which made it so that my poison didn’t need to be ingested. Lightning Resistance, which was self-explanatory. And Apex Hunter which increased my damage against hunters.

  Apex Hunter was basically useless to me since I hadn’t even caught a whiff of a hunter on the seventh layer so far and the upgraded damage wouldn’t be needed either way. Crystalized poison would only make the problem of my mucus a bigger issue, which left lightning resistance as my only viable option. I suppose having a greater resistance could come in handy at some point, and I’d be doing the Asphons a pretty big service if I did this. But then again, how was I supposed to clear that much space?

  “I’m willing to try, at least,” I say after mulling it over, much to the enjoyment of the village chief. “But again, not exactly a road-building kinda guy. I can demolish stuff, but how do you expect me to clear all of the rubble that’ll generate?”

  “Can’t you just throw all the rubble into your -allegedly- bottomless inventory?” Orbos asks, looking at me as if I was stupid.

  “Oh,” I said stupidly, not having considered that. And after I’d talked about considering it more with the skill expert as well. “Yeah, I think I should be able to clear the road. Pretty easily, actually.”

  We had gathered at the edge of the village, a sizable crowd standing some distance behind us. I could hear them chattering excitedly about the new road, curious about how I was going to tackle the “construction”. Redax was currently out there, marking all of the buildings that needed to go according to the planning of the village chief and her people. They’d taken about an hour, going over their maps, trying to find the optimal path to take so that the road would be mostly straight and I needed to demolish the least amount of buildings.

  I was of the opinion that I could’ve started once Redax had marked the first building, a five-story high, already half-collapsed one about fifty meters away from the village border but I was told to wait until he came back. Out of boredom I once again tried activating my hunter radar but as always, there was no ping. For some reason, there were no hunters on this layer, which got me a bit miffed. If I could quickly go and slap one of them around, I could pick a nice new passive and then upgrade it immediately, but it seemed like it wasn’t meant to be.

  While I was considering how odd it was that most of my passives were of B-tier or above, Redax finally returned from his marking duty. He was the fastest guy in the team and even then it took him the better part of an hour to complete his task.

  “All the buildings have been marked, no irregularities found, and the guards at Armas have been informed of the situation,” Redax reported to us as he fell in line with the rest of his team. “They’re looking forward to the new road.”

  “Looks like we’re ready to go,” Nimma nodded to the elusive archer before gesturing to the nearest marked building. “Gary, if you’d do the honors?”

  I looked at the building in front of me. Most of the buildings that populated the dangerous zones were at least five stories tall, some of them having up to twenty. This particular one was an even ten and had a ton of blue paint running down its side. The Asphons had prepared some weird blue liquid that was apparently collected from somebody’s skill and then filled them into something akin to balloons. Redax had stuffed a ton of them into his inventory before leaving, throwing one at every building that needed to go.

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  While we were waiting I had spent some time thinking about the best way to go about it, even doing some brainstorming with Andrius. Due to the nature of the quests, I needed to do most of the heavy lifting myself, since the Asphons weren’t exactly allowed to help out. Both the destruction and the subsequent clean-up fell to me. Nimma and her team would still tag along in order to keep monsters from disturbing me while I worked, acting as bodyguards, essentially. The quest only specified having to clear the path, so them fighting off the annoying monsters was well within their right, just as long as they didn’t help me out with the actual “construction”.

  Well, no point in delaying what was bound to be a pretty boring quest. Step one: Destroy the building. I started weaving a spell with practiced ease and soon enough a void laser tore through the building in front of us. I kept it going for a bit, making sure to transform the once sturdy building into rubble. A few gasps and shouts of excitement could be heard behind me as the building collapsed and I would be lying if that didn’t stroke my ego a bit.

  Behold! The crazy magical void slug!

  While the dust of the collapsed building slowly settled I started overcharging a magical bolt infused with wind. I wouldn’t need it to be a tornado like when I tested this on the gelatinous cube, but having the assistance of some strong wind should help me clear the mess a bit faster. After all, I just needed to clear a path, the quest never specified where the trash needed to go. Might as well just scatter it throughout every part that wasn’t designated as road.

  Charging the spell took a bit longer than shooting the void laser, but when I finally shot off the ball of concentrated wind, it had grown to be about two meters in diameter. The howl of the wind trying to escape its magical prison could be heard until it finally reached its destination where it exploded, sending high-pressured wind outwards. The rubble shot off like shrapnel and Andrius as well as a few guards took care of some stray shots coming back at the village. There was still lots of debris left, so I repeated the process a few times with smaller, better-aimed wind bombs until only a few manageable piles remained.

  Just as Orbos had suggested I hopped over there and started throwing building parts into my inventory by the bucketload. I merely needed to touch what I wanted to put in there, which allowed me to take care of it in no time at all. I’d considered dumping the stuff after finishing up one building, but I kinda wanted to test the limits of my inventory. I could really fill it up with all kinds of trash while working on this and I was wondering if I’d ever hit a limit.

  Demolishing the building and then cleaning up took me a mere thirty minutes, which was insanely fast compared to what I knew from Earth. I proudly looked at the empty lot where the imposing house used to stand, eventually coming back to reality.

  One down, a few hundred more to go…

  It was currently the third day and I was making good progress. Over time I’d gotten more efficient with the process and clearing a medium-sized building only took me about ten minutes. The quest had given me two weeks, but going at this rate I’d get done with it by the end of the week. And honestly, I couldn’t wait for that moment to come.

  It had been kind of fun, at first, but I eventually got used to the spectacle of a collapsing building. Fun turned into indifference and indifference into boredom. It was mind-numbing work, repeating the same steps over and over. To make matters worse, Nimma and the guys took care of any monsters that came to investigate what all the noise was about. I couldn’t even take a break by engaging in some recreational fighting.

  To make matters worse, I was somewhat stuck in my own head the whole time I was working. I tried keeping myself busy by attempting to beat my best time over and over again, but even that became boring after the first day when no more significant time saves could be achieved. So I found my mind wandering, almost always returning to the goblin army quest and how I felt at the time.

  I knew for a fact that I was addicted to fighting. That was something I realized way back on the third layer and I had somewhat made my peace with it. In some ways, even if it sounded contradictory, this addiction was less destructive than my gambling addiction. Even if I got hurt or almost died, I usually came out on top and my wounds would heal. And if I lost, well… I wouldn’t have to worry what came after. Nobody around me suffered from my almost compulsive need to fight monsters, heck, it was actively encouraged and celebrated.

  But what happened during the goblin army quest… was different.

  I couldn’t help but feel like I lost something precious that day. Like I had lost some of my humanity. A weird sentiment coming from the nightmare space slug to be sure, but I couldn’t help but feel that way. I kept replaying that day over and over, trying to put my finger on what it was that bothered me so much without making any headway. Every now and again I considered getting some professional help. Maybe seeing a shrink would get me some clarity. But then I always decided against it.

  I was fine, wasn’t I?

  Then I caught myself longingly watching as Team Nimma fought off some curious monsters, fighting the urge to just go over there and take care of business myself. I’d start thinking about my odd mental state again, and repeat the whole thought process over and over again. It was like I was stuck in some sort of mental gymnastics loop.

  “Taking a break?”

  I jumped when I heard a voice behind me, spinning around to see Redax standing behind me. I must have gotten better at reading the subtle body language of the Asphons since I could tell that he appeared concerned.

  “No, just got a bit lost in my thoughts,” I replied as casually as I could.

  No further questions came from the usually silent Asphon, but he also didn’t leave, standing behind me, watching. Deciding not to pay too much attention to the Asphon I considered to be a friend, I prepared to cast a void rend. The spell was a bit overkill, but I’d gotten really lucky once or twice where I’d get a super clean cut along the ground, which gave me a few moments where the building was kept intact before collapsing. If I acted fast enough, I could then put the entire fucking building into my inventory. When it happened the first time, I’d considered taking my time to replicate the effect with weaker spells, but overall I’d be losing too much time compared to brute-forcing it.

  The spell shot out but my aim was a bit off and large chunks of the building got blown up. Luckily quite a few big pieces flew away to where I wouldn’t have to deal with them. I watched the debris and dust settle with Redax still behind me.

  “You know, if something is bothering you, I’m willing to listen,” Redax’s voice broke the silence. “Or help.”

  I turned around to find the Asphon staring at me intently. The relationship we shared was a bit of an odd one. We spent quite a lot of time together since it was usually him who accompanied me on quests, yet we never talked a whole lot. Redax was the silent type and I’d quickly learned that he didn’t enjoy conversation much. We still got along swimmingly, constantly engaging in little contests and a bond had slowly formed between us.

  Looking at his body language again, it was quite obvious that he was uncomfortable with the current situation, which made me appreciate the gesture that much more. I was still struggling with the decision of whether it was necessary to visit a professional or not, but maybe talking to a friend first wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

  “I might take you up on that offer,” I said sincerely, holding eye contact for a few moments. Well, I looked at his face plate. “But not right now, maybe after this quest is finished.”

  After a few moments of silence, Redax gave me a nod before vanishing, most likely re-joining his team. I looked over to where the three of them were fighting some kind of monkey gang, and watched them for a minute, once again impressed by their coordination and teamwork. Then, I turned around to face the rubble of my most recent demolition. I still had work to do.

  It took me eight days, but finally, the road had been cleared. There was a massive celebration in Armas that began as soon as I received the notification that the quest had been completed. I ultimately upgraded my lightning resistance, which upgraded into greater lightning resistance, now cutting down the damage from lightning-based attacks by seventy-five percent. While the level-ups were useless to me, I’d technically received another reward.

  I had an inventory full of building pieces and other debris, and even five buildings that I’d managed to keep intact. It was a bit dumb and pretty ineffective, but I was looking forward to throwing an entire building at some monster in the future.

  For now, I was looking forward to taking a break from all of this work. Maybe go out and fight some stuff just for the heck of it.

  And maybe, just maybe, I would take Redax up on his offer.