The long stalk snapped off and slowly fell to the ground. A few of the actual 'droplets' were broken like this, but a fair amount survived. If he could, Ashton would love to replant this and use the moondew as a sort of defensive tool for some of the more central camps that would pop up starting the next few quests. Ashton still wasn't sure if the quests worked the same way as he was aware. He sure as hell hoped so, but the council wasn't exactly as predictable as you may think.
Especially considering that it seemed like they were trying to turn this place into a 'danger zone', the quests could ramp up in difficulty a lot. Though, they were already pretty damn hard. Killing five creatures wasn't exactly easy for the average person.
As Ashton used his staff to try and pick up the wriggling, detached tentacle on the ground, the moondew attempted to swing at him with the others, as if it was trying to defend itself. Of course, this was just a stimulus response - it wasn't consciously trying to attack him, so once Ashton moved away a bit and left it alone, it would calm down. He didn't need to cut it down any more than this. The one tentacle was more than enough of what he needed for now.
Once he was far enough away, Ashton started plucking the droplets from the tentacle, giving them to the Backpacker. Luckily, in there, things weren't exactly 'touching', so even fragile things were fairly safe in there.
And, something else happened as he gave the droplets to the Backpacker.
[Contract | Backpacker - Level 2 -> Backpacker - Level 3]
With this, the space in the backpack increased by one more cubic foot, allowing space for some more droplets.
Once the droplets were all gone, Ashton used his kitchen knife to just strip all of the thorns off the tentacle, and then coiled up the tentacle itself, tying it together with some sturdy string. With everything packed away, Ashton could continue gathering some more materials.
Different plants, flowers, grasses, more and more things that seemed both familiar and unfamiliar.
For one, there were plenty of plants that were very clearly also around in the other world. Maybe they weren't exactly the same, and there were some tiny, slight differences, but either way... it looked like these plants were put here on purpose, that much was clear.
In a world that already had mana, changes to the world could happen much faster, but in one without it, it was likely that the council had to help a little bit. But the important part was this. Some of these, even if not all of them, were plants that were native to the other world. They were around even before the system appeared there.
If these plants could be put here... then creatures that were native to there would appear here as well. And that very idea made Ashton shudder. It wasn't like everything there was horrible. Rather, the native people of that world were fairly similar in strength to humans, and lived in similar societies as well. They struggled with the quests as much as humans would.
But even if the average, everyday person was weak, the monstrosities that were lurking around in some parts of that world were something Ashton would prefer not to ever see again.
Especially...
"No, there's... no way," Ashton shook the thought out of his head. For the time being, he had all the things that he needed to make at least a few potions. Now, he just had to get to a safe spot to actually do it.
Preferably, he would like to find Sam now. Since his company should be nearby, that should be the first place for him to look.
Now... finding that place was the actual problem. Obviously, it had something to do with software engineering, as Ashton already knew. Or at least, it had spots for a software engineer.
Now... what else did he know about what kind of company it would be?
Ashton and Sam were almost completely opposite in personality.
Sam was that outgoing sort. Successful, sporty, popular, and actually one of the most genuinely kind people around. He'd have a short conversation with someone he had never met before in the hall while waiting for maths class to start, and then weeks later could remember every detail of the conversation. Even all the teachers loved him, because of course they did. He aced every single class and did tons of extracurriculars. He was a model student in every single way.
And then... there was Ashton. A gloomy, antisocial freak with, at best, two people he could call friends, one of those being Sam. He would be on his own, listen to music, read books and comics, and scroll random forums on his phone. The only category he could ever beat Sam in was how much of a geek he was, and even that just barely.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Seriously, Ashton felt seriously jealous when Sam started getting traction in the games industry, and -
"That's it! Games, it was a Game Development Studio!"
That would narrow it down immensely. Yeah, not a ton of people would know about it, but if he could spot the right kinds of people, they would probably know where he needed to go. There must be a lot more people walking around right now than before, considering that they had to head out for the quest.
And the people that would be looking for monsters to kill around here might be exactly who Ashton was looking for.
Making sure to mark this place on his map as a point of interest, Ashton headed back out of the botanical gardens. On his way out, there were a few more monsters that were lured in by this place. Kobolds, lizardmen, ratmen, goblins, nothing too powerful right now. There still wasn't enough mana in the air to sustain anything too strong right now.
But by the time he got a minute or so away from the gardens, undine back inside of Ashton's vessel for now, he saw a small group of people in the distance. There were six of them. Mostly folk around Ashton's age or a bit older, but one older gentleman was with them, too. He seemed a little out of place, almost.
With a smile, Ashton jogged over toward them, waving, "Hey there! Do you have a moment?"
The group snapped their heads toward Ashton, startled, "What are you doing?!" one of them asked, holding themself back from outright yelling at Ashton.
And it was easy to see, as well. There was a group of dead lizardmen on the ground, with just one skink leftover. It was half-dead already, just barely holding onto the broken spear in its hand.
In a moment of complete desperation, the lizardman ran right at Ashton. Because of course, the others had largely surrounded it already, and it was about to die. This single, weak human should be an easy target in comparison to these six. And if it could kill him, then it might be able to get away in the confusion!
But... all that Ashton had to do was twist his staff around and sweep the lizardman's feet away. It fell down onto the ground, and Ashton just pushed his staff against its chest, keeping the weakened monster down.
"So? Are you gonna kill this thing, or not?"
The group looked over at the older gentleman, who nervously came walking forward. He was holding some kind of sharp metal pike. It looked like it was for fishing or something, though Ashton had no clue how he would have gotten it around here.
Either way, the man nervously stepped forward, still surrounded and backed up by the other five, and stabbed the pike through the lizardman's forehead.
His eyes seemed to focus on something mid-air as a system message appeared before him. He looked around at the small group.
"I finally completed this damned quest!" he exclaimed, breathing out a sigh of relief, before turning back to Ashton, "But you! Be careful out here! You've gotten lucky this time, but not all of these monsters are as weak as this one!"
Acting like an expert just because he finished the first quest? That haughty attitude, and smug expression although this success was handed to him? And all that aimed at a complete stranger?
It felt so quintessentially human, it was utterly endearing to Ashton. His smile growing even wider, he replied with a nod, "Right, right, I'll be more careful from now on. And congratulations on clearing the quest! I only just finished it a few hours ago myself."
One of the guys in the group looked Ashton up and down, "And you were... all alone?"
"Oh, no no, I got help from some friends of mine as well," he replied. It wasn't a complete lie, either. Technically.
The naiad had been unsummoned by now, though, so it made sense that it looked like Ashton was fully alone.
One of the remaining five looked down at Ashton's hip, "Hold on, you picked the lantern as your tutorial reward?! Are you insane? What about the backpack? You clearly need one!"
Ashton shrugged, "It seemed useful."
One of the group just let out a slight laugh, before the others looked at them. They just smiled for a moment, "What? It was funny."
"I've got a question for you guys. Do you know some kind of game development studio around here? My friend works there and I wanted to see how he's doing."
All six of them, including even the older man, stared at Ashton.
"Studio? Do you mean Calibur Games?"
"Riiight... That was it," Ashton remembered - him and Sam spent hours at the pub laughing about that name back when the studio was founded. Them playing into the whole Arthurian legend thing was just... funny.
"We actually work there!" one of them explained, "Well, the five of us. This man here is..."
The older man scoffed a bit, straightening his tie. For some reason, it looked like he was still trying to keep up some level of business decorum, while the other five were wearing what they could.
"I work in the same building as these kids, for Goldenhoard Investment."
"Oh, you're an investment banker!" Ashton replied, and the man nodded smugly.
"That I am."
"Well, too bad that money's useless now, huh?"
The man's smile disappeared, "... What?"
"You know. We've got these 'coins' now. The time of the Great British Pound is over."
As though the man hadn't even thought about this until now, for some reason, he just began to stare into space, while Ashton focused back on the rest of the group. He was ecstatic that he found the perfect group of people.
"In that case, I'm sure you know my friend. Do you know Samuel Penn?"
"Do we- You're friends with Sam? Wait, are you... Are you Ashton? Ashton Garling?"
A surprised smile on his face, Ashton quickly nodded, "Yeah, that's me! Did Sam tell you about me?"
"Did he? The guy doesn't stop talking about how worried he is, we barely managed to stop him from running out on us to get to your flat."
Ashton let out a long sigh, "I told him I'd come find him... Whatever, so is he still at the building?"
One of the five quickly nodded, "He is! Come on, we'll lead you there."
Happy that things worked out so well, Ashton followed along with the small group. Though, one of them kept staring at him.
"Everything alright?" he wondered, and they slowly nodded.
"Yeah, just... you're the guy that no-showed his job interview yesterday, right?"
Ashton shrugged again. It didn't feel like a big deal anymore, "Yeah, I guess I did."
"What were you doing? That was before... all of this, right?"
"Well..." Ashton thought about the best response for a second. Should he talk about the mountain of food he ate and then threw up? That he took a one-hour long shower? That he was just trying to enjoy wearing clean clothes for once? No, his answer should be much simpler than that, "I guess I just felt like living a little before the end of the world caught up to me."
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