Free Web NovelChapter 67: [Weekly Bonus Chapter 5/6] Step 67 to Greatness: Unusual Peace Usually Means Something Is Wrong
Adrian’s mouth dropped open in complete shock. The bud on top of the plant hadn’t even completely grown, yet it bore so many plump potatoes!?
By no logic, those potatoes could not possibly be that big. He had only planted the potato eyes a couple of days ago. They shouldn’t even exist as tiny sprouts.
The old slime turned around proudly. It held the plant over his head like a trophy.
"See, youngster? This is what a real farmer can do," the slime squeaked. "The soil here is rich, and with my touch, any planted crops will grow fast."
Adrian could not speak for a few seconds, his gaze remained on the potatoes. Honestly, it was just like the slime said. They looked even better than the original ones he had planted.
Maybe this little slime was not so useless after all.
The slime leaned on its pitchfork again and waited for Adrian to say something.
"What’s your name, elder?" he asked, bowing slightly.
After hearing the respect in his voice, the slime puffed out its chest again and nodded.
"You have some manners after all," it said. "I am called Old Root. Back when I guarded the Verdant Depths, they gave me a fancier name, but I prefer Root these days."
The way Root talked about himself made Adrian think of something. Naturally, he asked the slime about you.
"When I recruited you, it wasn’t the first time, was it?"
Root shook his head. Although he didn’t remember its former masters or what happened to them, the feeling of being recruited wasn’t anything new.
He told Adrian that, and he immediately turned towards Freki and Huginn at a distance. As usual, they were playing around outside Amika’s room.
From the way they had bonded so quickly, it made Adrian feel like they had known each other for some time. Although back then, he had chalked it up to his thinking.
Let’s not dwell on that.
Instead, he turned his focus on Root, who had gone back to examining the farmland. He poked the ground lightly with his pitchfork at several places before nodding in satisfaction.
"This land is good. With my help, you will have food growing in days instead of weeks," he said. "If you want me to grow something, just get me some seeds."
"No need to wait. I already have some."
Saying so, Adrian took out all the packets of seeds he had received from the settlement and handed them over to Root.
"Good stuff!" Root exclaimed, mimicking an addict who just found his fix. "I’ll have them growing in no time! Oh, but where is your granary?"
"...shit."
The vegetables were meant to grow so fast. Adrian had hoped either he would get something like a granary from the rewards or he would create for himself in time.
Now, thanks to Root, these plants would grow rapidly. He won’t have any time to build a storage unit for them.
"Don’t worry about it," he told Root. "Just focus on farming and leave everything to me."
That was all Root needed to hear. For someone who had dedicated his life to farming, the place was a paradise. Good land, plentiful water, and lots of seeds. What else could he dream about?
Meanwhile, Adrian texted Hannah to get started on the storage crystals first. At the rate he was accumulating resources, they would perish faster than they could be consumed.
As Adrian stepped away, he checked the recruitment task, thinking it should have been completed by then. After all, Nysa counted as a member, so Root should have as well. freeweɓnovel.cøm
Unfortunately, the counter was stuck at nine out of ten.
"It seems no matter what unit it is, as long as it is summoned by a card, it won’t count as a member. Wait, a minute... something feels off."
It was supposed to be the day when the monster horde attacks. Things had been so peaceful that even Adrian forgot about it and went about his day as usual.
"...why aren’t any monsters attacking us?"
At the same time, Seraphine, who woke up as Sera today, rushed over to him alongside Hannah.
"Master! People are only looking for weapons at the marketplace, nothing else," Sera informed. "There’s chaos in the chat channels!"
Adrian nodded and opened the chat, and the first thing he noticed was the rapidly dwindling number of players.
He remembered seeing a counter showing over a hundred thousand players in the region. Now that number had turned to 91,236.
"Nearly nine thousand players died...?" Adrian mumbled in disbelief.
<My Wife Left Me For My Dad>: Shit! Shit! Shit! Does anyone have any spare bandages? I was collecting wood right outside my shelter when a rabid wolf nearly bit my head off!
<xX_DarkSlayer69_Xx>: What will you do with a bandage? If it were a rabid wolf, you’re as good as dead.
<Green Tea Is My Love>: Everyone! Stay inside your shelters! The animals can’t get in.
What good would staying inside do?
Adrian shook his head. The monsters might not invade the shelter, but they can sure camp it. Essentially, it was a battle of attrition.
How long could one wait inside their shelter? Even if they can trade, they won’t be able to do it for long. They won’t have any goods to barter, and their exp wasn’t infinite.
Eventually, they would have to leave. The moment they step out, the monster will kill them. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
However, their peril only confused Adrian more.
Monsters and beasts were killing players already, yet there was no sign of them near his settlement. Adrian couldn’t decide if it was a good thing or not.
"Huginn, scout the nearby area for any monsters outside the fence."
"Caw!"
The bird took flight, and as it did, Adrian turned to Hannah, only to remember Seraphine wasn’t there to translate for him. Instead, he sent Hannah a text.
"A card I told you about...? Oh, right!" Hannah winked, tapping her forehead. "Things were so peaceful here that I completely forgot about that."
She grabbed the purple crystal around her neck, and a card dropped out of it. Adrian picked it up and saw it was an uncommon card called the arrow tower.
One could say it was the counterpart of the sentinel tower. While the sentinel tower alerted them about hostiles, the arrow tower attacked any hostile creatures with, you guessed it, arrows.
Despite being an uncommon grade structure, it had an attachment slot. Any attachment put into it would affect the arrow it shoots.
In simple words, if they put a poison attachment on it, it would shoot poison arrows. If they put something related to fire, it would shoot fire arrows, etc.
On top of it all, like the sentinel tower, it was an autonomous structure. It would keep shooting as long as they kept feeding arrows into it.
Adrian handed the card back to Hannah and pointed to the area between the quarry and the farmland. It was the weak point for their settlement, as there wasn’t anyone to guard that section of the settlement.
"You want me to build it there?" Hannah asked for confirmation.
Adrian nodded, and a few seconds later, a second tower was erected in the settlement. The arrow tower was visibly smaller than the sentinel tower, yet its range covered the entire fence, but barely so.
"Now we wait..." Adrian mumbled, looking at the recruitment card in his hand. "Might as well clean up my inventory for the chest while we do that."
