Chương 5: The Ungrateful Mob

The journey around the island took Nihil about two hours, during which he'd collected and warned four people. He'd continued counting steps until they reached the other group, consisting of three people and led by the red-headed girl he'd met earlier. Although, calling her a girl was a bit of a misnomer. She was Nihil's age, looking to be in her late twenties. He was just technically older than her due to lived experience.

"Eight people," Nihil grunted as everyone awkwardly stood around each other on the picturesque seaside.

"Let's sit down and discuss the situation before making any more hasty decisions."

"Who made you boss?" One of the older and scrawnier men complained while scratching at his neck. Nihil simply glared at the man, channeling all his negative emotions, at which point the belligerent promptly sat down and broke eye-contact.

"I'm not a survival expert," Nihil started.

"But I counted 25. 000 steps around my half of the island. Considering the fact that it seems to be perfectly circular, that would make the island approximately 250 square kilometres big. That's the size of a medium city. Five hours to walk around its entirety, probably three to pass through the middle, which I wouldn't recommend." He shook his head. This wasn't his area of expertise, as he'd noted, but it was better to work with a guesstimate.

"It's perfectly round," the red-headed woman suddenly spoke up with furrowed brows.

"That's not normal."

"Nothing about this situation is normal," the scrawny man complained sullenly.

"Uh," an older woman who had the vibe of a schoolteacher and the bobcut and square glasses to match said profession, raising her hand.

"Shouldn't we first introduce ourselves?" Nihil looked at the slightly dumpy woman and turned his head in a way that would have generally cracked his neck. Now, nothing happened. No bones.

"I'm Nihil, former mortician," he said using his alias. There was no need to expose what wasn't needed in a tower where giving one's true name could serve as the activation requirement for a skill, or even worse, human connection.

"Musk," the scrawny man grunted.

"Veterinary entomologist with a focus on mosquitoes."

"Aliyah," the red-headed woman said.

"Forensic pathologist."

"Deborah, middle-school teacher," the dark-haired woman spoke up. The rest of the cast, all four of them, introduced themselves with their job titles or fields of study, sticking together like flies on shit throughout the whole thing. Their introduction revealed that they had all been part of the same level 0 challenge and had chosen to climb together. They didn't look like much, so Nihil didn't bother committing their names or faces to memory.

"There's only 8 of us. Found any remains?" he asked Alyah, who shook her head.

"Maybe they went inwards?" she asked, tilting her head to point towards the thick jungle starting a few dozen meters from the beach.

"Then we can just assume they're dead," Nihil said disinterestedly.

"What do you mean?" Deborah asked sharply.

"I counted the coconuts on the trees," Nihil said simply.

"There were approximately 10 coconuts per 1000 steps walked on my side. I assume the same was true for your group, although you likely didn't count. Assuming I traversed half the island in 25. 000 steps that turns into 250 coconuts, double that and you get 500. There were supposed to be ten of us, which turns that into 50 per person. 30 days makes for a bit more than one and a half coconuts per day. One fully ripened wild coconut generally contains approximately a 1000 calories.

One and a half is 1500 calories, which is coincidentally the average amount of calories a human needs per day."

"I was born on a tropical island," Deborah suddenly piped up.

"Coconut trees should have a bigger harvest in weather like this." She looked at one of the trees visible from here and furrowed her brows.

"It's odd that they only have one or two per tree. It's like a coconut tree created by someone who's never seen one."

"The levels of this tower aren't based on reality. There are no golden pyramids anywhere in the world and goblins don't exist either. I'm approaching this level from a logical perspective as was necessary in the previous one," Nihil grunted.

"The number of coconuts present on the beach indicate that a group of ten people could technically survive eating only coconuts for 30 days without even losing a significant amount of weight. This would be passing the level on easy mode. If we want more nutrients, more diverse food, we'd have to brave the sea or the jungle. Considering that the optional part of the previous level turned out so deadly, I hope you can all understand the risk of that."

"If we live only off coconuts we'll probably get, uh," Deborah muttered.

"Diarrhea."

"Isn't that from drinking coconut water?" Musk interjected.

"As long as we figure out a way to get fresh water it'll be fine."

"You'll still get the shits from just eating coconut all day," Deborah muttered awkwardly.

"It's mostly just fat and fiber…"

"Two out of ten are already dead, I think we'll manage a bit of discomfort," Nihil said, stopping that conversation before it could start.

"The situation is simple. We know the sea is dangerous and have reason to suspect the jungle is as well. Our priorities are simple: fresh water, shelter, and other sources of food. In that order."

"The island is large enough, there's probably some ground water in the jungle. A forest doesn't grow like that without a source," one non-descript person said. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The group warily looked at the sparse amount of palm trees and coconut trees on the edges of the beach, which quickly turned into a dense jungle barely a dozen steps in.

"Everyone is free to do as they wish, I'll be entering the jungle later myself," Nihil said decisively.

"But first we need to set up ways to collect fresh water out here where we know it's safe."

"Why would you go there?" Musk asked suspiciously with twitchy eyes. Nihil had nothing to hide, he pulled out the pouch the teenager had retrieved from the golden pyramid.

"The person who found the fake meaning in the pyramid came out carrying this," he said, showing everything the simple leather design. Then he opened the pouch and dragged it through the white sand at his feet. The pouch collected, collected, collected. Then he tilted it over, causing sand to pour out. More sand than should have been possible. Container Pouch: This pouch can hold 1 cubic meter worth of items, congrats, you now have a place to store a fraction of your porn magazine collection.

"Surviving level 0 could be achieved by staying put and doing nothing," Nihil explained.

"There shouldn't be a big jump between level 0 and level 1. However, additional rewards were granted for those foolish or uninformed enough to challenge the optional parts of the level. I plan to seek out further such rewards." He paused.

"Additionally, you should have noticed your experience points ticking up quickly upon arrival on this island. Now it should have slowed down."

"The experience points, they designate actual experience," Musk muttered, proving there was a brain somewhere behind all that attitude.

"It's my first time in a place like this. That makes sense."

"I plan to seek out challenges to gain more experience points. Anyone confident in their own strength can do the same if they think the potential rewards outweigh the risks." Nihil sent a critical gaze across the group.

"I'd personally recommend against it unless you have combat experience or combat skills." The group exchanged wary glances, not seeming all that excited about the idea.

"Didn't you say you were a mortician?" Musk asked suspiciously with his bulging eyes.

"Mind your business."

"You already picked a skill?" Aliyah asked suddenly, seeming confused. Nihil paused. He remembered that he'd waited until the reveal of level 1 to pick his skill, after all, it was better to know the situation, no? In the end people had started dying quite early on and while preserving their bodies for burial with the makeshift tools available on the island, he'd come up with the idea of Corpse Reanimation.

It was using those corpses as scouts that he had discovered some of the secrets of the deserted island while staying safe himself.

"I would recommend creating skills sooner rather than later, they've no use to you if you're dead. My coconut calculation earlier was wrong actually, two people are already dead, but I think that only seven of you truly need sustenance."

"What do you mean?" Aliyah asked.

"I created a skill that eliminates the need for food, water, or even sleep," Nihil shared simply, receiving some gasps from the group.

"That's actually, very smart," the middle-aged Deborah muttered, seemingly considering.

"Costs me 8071 experience points, how's anyone supposed to afford this?" Musk suddenly chimed in with furrowed brows after querying the description in the system.

"So what, we could all just create a skill like this and survive with no issues?" Aliyah asked, before seemingly prompting the same thing.

"Wait, mine costs only 7702?" she asked.

"You said you were a forensic pathologist, that means you're more familiar with the human body than Musk, whose focus is on insects and who likely only did a bachelor in biology and then stopped learning about the human body specifically beyond disease vectors," Nihil analysed.

"It would cost me 10299 points, that's three times what I even have." one of the indistinct people complained.

"I wouldn't recommend this path," Nihil spoke up, knowing he needed to guide the people somewhat to increase survival rates.

"What I did was create a combat skill of which the side-effect is that I no longer require sustenance. Survival is all well and good but how many experience points are we realistically getting per day? Thirty, twenty?" He knew the number would sharply drop as the survivors got used to the death games.

"The nature of levels is that they increase in difficulty. Spend all your points on not needing to eat and drink and then you'll have to fight a dragon or some stupid shit on the 20th floor, what then?"

"How do you suggest we go about it then?" Musk asked sarcastically.

"Your expertise is mosquitoes," Nihil pointed out.

"That means that the biggest knowledge discount you'll get is in regards to those. Create a skill around mosquitoes that serves several purposes and you'll benefit more. Assuming that the only thing preventing all skills from being equal is creativity, the discount actually determines the ceiling since it means you can spend less to buy more."

"So if I were to make a skill that creates mosquitoes," Musk muttered.

"3019 points," he said, surprised.

"How?"

"Knowledge discount," Nihil explained.

"Restrictions make the skill even cheaper, or alternatively, more powerful. Let's say you need to shed a drop of blood per mosquito, but the mosquito can in turn convert the blood they suck out of others into nutrients and water for your body. That would solve the food dilemma, you could just send mosquitoes into the jungle to harvest blood from whatever animals are likely present there and absorb the result. If the mosquitoes survive several such trips you would gain a net positive of blood.

Then, since you would get additional knowledge discounts in regards to handling mosquito summons, you could likely buy the ability to share their sight, which would be a great scouting tool."

"Just keep them away from me," one of the women from the quartet alliance muttered.

"I hate bugs." Musk for his part was sitting there with his eyes closed, muttering in front of himself.

"Mass of blood shed converted into mosquitoes, reintegration from blood carried back, shared sight… 4989. Too expensive, leave out the sight? I can afford it!" he exclaimed, opening his eyes with excitement.

"Think about it," Nihil suggested.

"Maybe you'll still find a better way to phrase things, better restrictions. You can't change a skill after you create it. You can only add additional text, in other words. You can add restrictions or benefits, but not change the core." He stood up, looking at the sun that was slowly starting to dip below the horizon.

"You know what, I'll let you all figure out some skills which can help with this situation while I collect leaves and a container somewhere. We need to set up a system to catch and collect condensation before night hits so we don't miss out on precious water." Aliyah, the red-head suddenly stood up and walked towards Nihil.

"I'll come with you," she said.

"It might be dangerous alone."

"Your help is greatly appreciated," Nihil said with a sigh. She would at least be able to carry a few leaves.

"You're not going to ditch us, are you?" Musk asked.

"I want to help as many people survive as I can," Nihil said truthfully.

"I shared my knowledge on skills and my suspicions on the dangers present on this level. I'll help set up a water station before seriously exploring the jungle." He left it unsaid that he primarily was going to take a bit of a break before exploring to familiarise himself with his new skillset. After all, the fishmen present in the deep jungle weren't all that weak when it really came down to it.

It would be unwise to go in unprepared, no matter how much the additional experience and the items likely present in the middle of this island tempted him.