Chương 14: Badgers Hold Grudges

Back at the convenience store, Jack waited until they were far enough away before turning and stepping inside. While Cass, Reed, and Vane crossed the red sand with the water and bread he had given them, Jack finally had a moment to breathe. He leaned against the door and rubbed his chin, but his mind was still on them. He could still see them in his mind, trudging across the red sand with the water and bread tucked carefully against their bodies.

Jack could barely last a few minutes out there before the heat started pounding behind his eyes. Cass, Reed, and Vane had only narrowed their eyes against the wind, pulled their wraps tighter, and kept walking. That alone put them ahead of him. And unlike the Dustchucks, they understood words. Dustchucks could dig, sure. They were great at it. The problem was making them understand what he wanted. What was he supposed to do, mime instructions through the glass every time he needed help?

Jack imagined himself flailing at the door while a herd of oversized groundhogs stared blankly back at him. Nope. Absolutely not. Compared to that, hiring locals was obviously much more reliable.

"So instead of walking outside and speedrunning my own death, I hire them to help," Jack muttered, the more he thought about it, the more reasonable it sounded.

"Pay them with water and food. That should work, right?" Either way, it was worth trying. Jack's grin slowly came back.

"Alright. That's the plan." The system chose that moment to speak up.

"Human, your ability to calculate personal advantage is impressive." Jack didn't even pretend to be offended.

"It's called mutual benefit, okay? I've got supplies. They've got manpower. Everybody wins." The system said nothing. Somehow, that made Jack feel even more justified. He ignored the system and went back behind the cashier counter. After sitting down, he grabbed a pen and a notebook, then started working through his plan to improve the surrounding environment. Until now, Jack had treated the system's mission like a simple transaction: complete it and get a reward; fail it and lose his potatoes. Simple enough.

But the more he thought about it, the less it felt like just another system chore. The heat outside was real. The sand was real. The fact that he could barely stand outside for more than a few minutes without feeling like barbecue was very, very real. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. If he could make the area around the store even slightly less miserable, that would be more than mission progress. It would be survival.

And if he wanted to be optimistic, maybe even comfort. A little water. A little green. One patch of ground near the entrance where he could stand without feeling like he was being cooked alive. Honestly, that already sounded like paradise.

"So step one is water." Jack wrote two lines in the notebook. Dig a pit. Store water. Jack stared at the two lines for a moment before the obvious finally hit him.

"Wait. Why am I planning to dig a new pit? There's already a giant one outside." If he ran water into it, the pit could become a temporary reservoir. The store already had unlimited water and electricity now. All he needed was a hose long enough to reach outside, and he could let the water fill it little by little. For a few seconds, the idea felt almost too good. Then reality caught up. A pit that size would take time to fill. That was assuming the sand could hold water at all. What if it all seeped away?

What if the heat evaporated it faster than he could add more? And even if some water stayed, would the system count that as real progress? If the system decided none of that counted and took away his potatoes, the loss would be huge. Jack stared at the notebook, pen hovering over the page. Potatoes. The word hit him harder than it should have. Why was he only thinking about storing water? Potatoes were not just food. They were hardy, adaptable, and famously stubborn about growing where other crops gave up.

More importantly, they were already his unlimited resource. If he let water seep into the pit little by little and kept the surrounding sand damp, he could plant potatoes around the edge. The pit did not have to become a real pond overnight. If the potatoes survived, that would mean something around the store had actually changed. There would be moisture in the ground. There would be plants. There would be food growing where there had only been dry sand before. Jack slowly straightened.

"Wait." The more he thought about it, the better it sounded.

"That's it." He slapped the table.

"I can plant potatoes!" His eyes shot toward the second-floor kitchen. Before this, he had only treated potatoes as staple food, with the bonus of being something he could feed to the Dustchucks. But now that he thought about it, potatoes were practically wasteland starter-kit material. Jack stood up and paced back and forth inside the store, muttering to himself.

"Run water outside. Drain it into the pit. Make a damp ring around it. Plant potatoes. If they live, expand the area. When the locals come back, I can hire them to dig channels, lay pipes, move stuff…" The more he talked, the more he felt like a genius. Then he looked up at the ceiling.

"Hey, Loser—""My designation is LOSS," the system said calmly.

"Right, right. LOSS." Jack immediately rubbed his hands together, putting on his most shameless smile.

"Buddy. Pal. Best system ever. How about giving me an outdoor faucet?"

"Request denied." Jack's smile froze.

"Seriously? You shut that down way too fast." He was already opening his mouth to try again when the system cut in.

"Human, your enemies have returned." Jack went still.

"Enemies?"

"Red Sand Badgers detected approaching the convenience store. Number of targets: ten." For a second, Jack thought he had misheard.

"Ten?"

"Estimated arrival at the convenience store: thirty minutes." Jack stared at the empty air. Thirty minutes. Ten Red Sand Badgers. The eight from earlier had nearly worn him out. Now they were coming back with reinforcements.

"They really do hold grudges?"

"Human, emergency mission issued," the system said.

"Objective: resolve the current crisis within twenty-four hours. Failure penalty: eighty percent damage to the convenience store. Success reward: one outdoor faucet." Jack went still behind the cashier counter. Jack slowly looked down at the water plan in his notebook. One outdoor faucet. Right after he had asked for one. His jaw tightened.

"Loser."

"My designation is LOSS," the system replied calmly.

"You did that on purpose."

"I do not possess malice." Jack's grip tightened around the pen until the plastic creaked.

"You don't possess malice? That reward showed up way too conveniently."

"Mission countdown: twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes." That snapped him out of it. Right. Not the time. Ten Red Sand Badgers were coming. And they would be here in thirty minutes. Jack shoved the notebook aside, grabbed the handgun, and headed for the glass door.