Chương 161: Chapter 157

They ransacked the captain's quarter. Unfortunately, there wasn't any other extraction loot spawn the System so generously might have offered, but Wade was rather leery of that right now. For all he knew, it would throw him some lint and a wrapper. Maybe a paperclip, if they had those in Azdrial. Yes, he was perhaps, slightly salty at getting an old (empty) whiskey flask for his first real loot gain. He had to keep telling himself the real wins were all the chests he was going to loot the moment he could find them.

Starting with the Discovery of Bones quest. Single copper lootbox with nada else offered, but for the price of Eri busting the door down, it was a steal. The only other difficulty being playing detective and putting together what his new fixer-upper prime real estate location had been used for.

"Somewhere in this room has got to be the answer to what the hell this place was made for." Wade muttered, looking over the dead quarter.

"Papers still seeming intact." Leon said, grabbing one such leaf off the desk.

"Oh, ho. Is very well preserved." He gave it a bit of a tug, testing.

"Strong too. Even for cold temperature. Many different variations of paper used over time, is very interesting how creative people were. Curious how it is done here." Wade gave the papers an identify, getting the immediate answer on how the Azdrians here managed to do their papers. The answer was by cheating: Mana-treated Paper (High Quality)"They really have us beat three hundred and one ways when it comes to keeping things preserved." Wade said, looking over the papers scattered over the desk.

"We're lucky with that, they're all readable too." Market's blessing to the rescue for that one. Wade got to work trying to see what the late captain had been up to with all these scattered notes. And boy were they filled with junk. Most of it was logistics. Leon explained it as double-entry accounting. Which seemed like a no-brainer idea to Wade and perhaps a little redundant, but this was clearly a logistics thing. Every little scrap of gear, items, or food was accounted for. Including what was… hunted?

"They eat creatures in here?" Wade asked, looking over the columns.

"Yeah, it's not really the best tasting meal but it gets you through the hunger pangs." Medy said, voice a little tinny from distance on the couch.

"Most creatures are pretty gamey, and the mushrooms all taste more like blood and marrow out here. You do need to cook it with mithril pots to clean it all of mana, it's all mostly safe to eat after. There's always exceptions, some things will give you the runs. But if you're really lucky someone might have smuggled a few spices more than just salt and they might gamble it." Ah. And Azdrial was so far behind Earth in a lot of other ways. Cooking was a big one.

Jumping in from Azdrial into the arcane realm was a mass equation, so the less mass that had to be calculated, the better. If the expedition could hunt for food instead of bringing a week's worth of supplies with them, that's what they did. And apparently, the crew here had jumped with all hands on deck.

"That isn't normal." Bael said on the couch, watching through the little video screen.

"A Warlock summons the demons once they've arrived in the realm, first thing once the bell is sealed off. Saves on mass to transport. Very few reasons why the crew would be transported with the captain." And they did leave skeletal bodies behind, while demons faded away instead. Which meant the crew here were either mostly mortals or all mortals?

Wade wasn't really sure, but he could tell this expedition wasn't the normal mining one, and he was certainly motivated by the promise of a copper lootbox in getting to the bottom of things. Most of the other papers Leon and himself found were maps of the local region, along with markings where other expedition sites were.

"Give us a clearer view." Bael asked. And Wade complied, moving the phone over the maps. Almost everything detailed here was about other expedition sites within marching distance.

"Is that normal?" Wade asked, looking over the extensive map of the region. Leon shrugged.

"In gold rush, many miners had stakes going. Map important to keeping track of who's owning what. Maybe is same here?"

"It normally is." Bael said.

"Stakes are important. Fighting another expedition wastes resources and time for everyone. Ownership of the land is settled outside this realm long before expeditions travel. The map is formality. If they were illicit, perhaps they were seeking to pilfer these stakes before the mining expeditions settled the territory disputes and traveled here." Wade looked over the maps, and the next one had a lot more details. A lot more.

"Well, the captain's really meticulous." He said, with a nervous chuckle. Because he'd seen something on the writing that made him realize this place was less sneaky-stealing-before-anyone-noticed and something other. House Elimar's Stake. Crew size, 12 Possible Deathguard among defenders. Wall defense, warded with House Elimar's usual trash. Self-exploding storage is the problem. Critical to defuse before unlocking first.

Expected to remain for 11-13 days in total before storage is full given the size of their stake. And under that was the Azdrial version of tally marks, counting how many days the expedition here had stayed mining. So that when the time came to go back home, with all the hard work already done, perhaps some group of well-meaning entrepreneurs could show up and give them a surprise security test. Free of charge.

"Yeah, okay, so I got a pretty good idea of what they were here to mine, and it wasn't the mana lakes."

"Oh?" Leon asked, putting down the logistics papers to look over at what Wade had been studying. Wade pointed at the different stakes, including one that was crossed out.

"They were pirates. This is a pirate base. We're squatting in a literal pirate cove." Given they had found the entire crew dead out in the wilds, killed by swords rather than eaten by wildlife, and nobody back home…

"And I'll take a wild guess here they screwed up one of their raids." Discovery of Bones complete! One Copper Lootbox spawned nearby. Not one, but two entire copper lootboxes materialized out of nowhere an inch above the cold metal, and landed with a massive clunk on the flooring. One for Leon, and one for himself. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

"Oh, very nice." Leon said.

"Easy quest complete." All right, so Fort Wade had a somewhat troubled past in criminal activity. And murder and theft. And possibly could have a bounty on it or otherwise give him some trouble in the future. He had no idea how that would complicate things exactly, but he did know he had some time to mull it over, and something else to occupy that time right this moment: Loot.

"So...." He muttered, looking down at the two innocent looking copper chests.

"Mimic?" Leon asked.

"Mimic." Wade nodded. They both knew what the chances were: High. That's the problem with his luck stat. The answer was goddamn high. And he was almost certain the System would find a way to squint at those odds if it really needed to send him better loot or a message of some kind. It was doing all kinds of underhanded tricks already. Wade wasn't in the business of getting fooled a third time.

"All right Leon, let's get to work." He was currently standing on top of the captain's desk, glock ready in one hand, and his spray bottle of doom in the other, both held akimbo and aimed straight down at the enemy. Held in the crook of his armpit was a broom they'd found among the cleaning supply closet, which had been a very welcome and oddly normal find. It seemed even in a fantasy world, there were still janitors. Or people took shifts.

"Ready?" Leon asked, standing behind the first copper lootbox.

"Here we go." Wade said, then jabbed the broom tip against Leon for a quick bit of damage to trigger his knockback boon, and then yanked the broom fully up. String tied to the lock pulled the lootbox lid just a crack up, and the chest sprung open the rest of the way. And then continued to spring upwards. Since tasty food was currently standing inconveniently high up on a desk instead of in biting range where tasty dinner should be. Leon instantly slapped the mimic right as it jumped up for Wade.

The entire chest was rooted in place an instant later. In midair. Tiny thin legs twitched helplessly. Extremely upset. Wade jumped up and down on the desk, trying to time the right moment as the mimic thrashed in place and kept biting at nothing. Rooted in place and unable to do anything but screech angrily about it. Wade didn't need to wait long. The mimic finally opened its jaw wide. While Wade had just started jumping. His main hand squirted a misty spray of doom all over the inside of the mimic's mouth.

And the glock opened fire at the same time, aiming right into the gullet. As many bullets as Wade could pump into the target. When he landed back on the desk, the mimic was having a very hard time with multiple bullet wounds inside its very exposed mouth and guts. Level 12 Mimic - 73% And now it had completely closed its mouth, using the chest as a protective shell while it considered what to do about that gun.

"Not the easy grab and go lunch you ordered? Huh?" Wade stared the monster down. He cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. Right now, all he had to do was wait five seconds. Five seconds passed and the spray bottle of inevitable destruction went to work. Inside the monster's mouth. The rim of the chest glowed bright red as the potion detonated. Level 12 Mimic - 43% It screeched in muffled pain, but stubbornly kept itself sealed shut, the little legs skittering around in pain.

Wade was looking for one single thing on that health bar and found it: The little skull icon appear next to the mimic's health bar. His Skyviper archer boon was back in action. And it could trigger belatedly on a spray. He'd done just about 30% of the monster's health with one big zap inside its mouth, which meant about 7% per second of damage, for ten seconds. This thing was as good as dead before the thirty second root Leon had thrown on it ended. It twitched in the air, writhing in place.

Wade watched it without mercy. The first tick of Skyviper hit, and it did more than 7%. (Uncommon upgrade) - Consecutive hits within the same jumping attack increase the damage and duration of corrosive debuffs. Wade pulled his glock up, and gave it a quick peck and words of affirmation for the good little murder tool that gave him all the followup hits he needed. This was going to be his bread and butter out here.

Deal the strongest frontloaded damage he could, and then ramp that damage up by firing everything he had in the same jump. He just had to get his hands on a bit of mana, and mix Azdrial free magic body-enhancing spells to master his evil damage over time build. The chest twitched a few more times, thin spider feet clawing at the ground just under it, trying to now flee the room. And still remained rooted in place.

"And before you go buddy, I want you to know that you're my friend out here." He gave it a wink. And considered it a non-enemy target. Because if Arsonist triggered, that mimic would explode on death and probably cause the rest of the Coffin to implode inwards. Fortunately, he'd done his due diligence and testing on ants before, so he knew how to keep that boon from misbehaving.

The chest gave a strangled death rattle as the health bar ticked down to 0% and then did them all a service and properly died, still hovering in the air. A few more seconds and Leon's root boon timed out. A massive clunk came as the empty lootbox hit the metal ground.

"Right." Wade said, nodding to himself as he stared down at the dead mimic. Good preparation, good planning, and good tools all put together had made this fight nearly a cakewalk. Which was needed, given these things might actually start spawning all the goddamn time, he had to have a good mimic-clearing routine down. He put the bottle back on his belt, and then patted the dust out of his hands.

"Man, having you here as backup is night and day different compared to being alone out here." Leon put his hammer on his shoulder, where he'd been prepared to golf-club the chest with a knockback on the off chance it was immune to the root or otherwise about to get to Wade. He looked slightly disappointed, but Wade waved him off.

"There's going to be plenty of things out there that'll need to get walloped out of the way, don't worry." Backup insurance that gave Wade good confidence to run with his plans.

"It'll be nice to have a teammate I can rely on, unlike some others I could mention." Wade said, shooting an angry glare down the corridor, where a certain troglodyte was floating upside down, watching the events happen, happily munching on a bag of chips she managed to smuggling out with her. Wade didn't remember bringing it in his pile of gear and prep. She gave an upside down shrug.

"Can't help you mortal, rules are rules. But if you find some way to sneak my help on an abuse case, you'll still need to bribe me with tribute and worship first. I got standards." Wade grumbled, but otherwise didn't have the time to handle the NEET. She was right, better she not attack stuff as an assist, otherwise whatever the Nathir enemy System had on their side's gods would get to do the same thing. They reset and redid the same thing for Leon's chest, prepared for mimic number two.

Leon's chest didn't have have one and was a perfectly normal chest, which Wade found both comically unfair and fair at the same time. And with the danger out of the way, the pair got to work looting the actual goods. On his notifications he found the usual hidden notification now unhidden, but this time the System didn't narrow down the loot category but instead flat out improved the loot. Luck triggered! Hidden Lootbox Challenge added to spawned Lootbox. Loot upgraded.

"This better be good, I swear to god." Wade said, opening the copper lootbox.

"Don't swear on my name Michael, it's quite uncouth." The NEETess spoke, mouth half open to eat the next handful of chips. She'd ended up behind him, equally watching to see what he'd pull. Wade was about to start cursing a storm up at Play, but the light within the copper lootbox came to an end. And he found a floating potion. Elixir of Temporal Health Conversion II - All damage taken can be recovered by dealing damage. Lasts 5 Minutes. Well now, that was something he could make use of.

Health restoration mid-combat was an extreme advantage in almost every game he knew of. The main rule of survival was to not die first. Dead damage dealers don't do damage. Dead tanks don't keep the rest of the team from dying, and dead healers… Excluding a certain undead healer now running around with a pope hat, most dead healers don't get to heal. Point was, not-dying was the first priority.

"I getting same potion, except no two at the end. Base version." Leon said, looking over the slightly different vial.

"Oh, lasts thirty seconds. Suka blyat. Maybe I should have hoped for mimic spawn." The jump in timing from thirty seconds to a full five minutes was a rather massive upgrade between the base rank and the upgraded tier. More playstyle altering than a simple stat increase. Thirty seconds meant it was made to work with one or two specific attacks or actions in a fight. Five minutes made it something to plan around for the entire duration of that fight. Things to work with.

He could load up some debuffs everywhere dealing damage, and then sprint away letting himself heal back up to full before coming back at full health. And repeat the process multiple times over. All in all this micro-quest had given as much as the System could possibly offer him for low stakes danger. A single lootbox reward, with no coin, no storefront options, not even experience rewards.

What he wasn't certain of is if the System could specifically smuggle him that potion for something it saw coming in the future, or if this was just a random drop chance, and the System was just trying to give him as many advantages as it could stack. He held the potion in hand for a moment, looking it over.

"Oh. Duh." The System was showing him, in very clear terms, what loot upgrades meant and how significant they could be. Wade looked over the cabin filled with incredibly important knowledge on running and maintaining the bell along with how a full crew ran the place.

"Let's get to the actually important things now. Leon, you've got all the points in strength, mind helping me move all this copper back to the crew quarters with the rest of our loot?"