Chapter 290: How "Hard" Is "Hard"

Three days after the storm had ended, Marimgar was falling into a comfortable routine. Everyone knew their tasks for the day, and what ones they liked the best, so even without direction, they had all worked out how to arrange their days.

Even the jobs that she hadn’t expected anyone to want had been claimed.

Some of the residents had realized that nobody was actively keeping inventory on the compost, so they had volunteered to do the waste disposal. That gave them free access to the completed compost, which made for excellent fertilizer, as was intended.

Then, they could bring that down to the Hive City in small quantities, and trade it to those who wanted to start window gardens.

The greenhouses recycled the actual plant waste, the parts that were not edible, and composted them. So, what came from the city was food waste, and wouldn’t end up at the greenhouses anyhow.

Which was why nobody cared much about it.

It was a masterful scheme, and the amount of mana infused compost that you needed to add to even the worst soil was not high. At least, not when Kalli had [Terraforming] running passively at all times.

Better soil for the potted plants was a hot commodity, and so far, none of the others had realized where it was all coming from.

Nobody really thought about who the garbage men were, and why they would have access to top grade soil. They just knew who was selling the compost. And that was a proxy that the trash collection team had hired for his discretion.

The scheme was working perfectly, and the plants were growing better than they had any right to, under artificial light.

The fourth day began with rain that made the plants happy, and everyone who wanted to work outside soggy. The teams that were scouting the area, looking for changes in the plant life or signs of monsters, were all getting drenched.

It was worth it, and the suits were waterproof, but they were completely soaked with rain running down their visors. It felt a bit like they were riding a motorcycle through a car wash, with the open speeders.

The information was just as valuable in the rain as it was in the sunshine, though.

However, the fact that it was just rain, normal, non-disastrous rain, was enough to put everyone in a good mood.

The weather had finally settled for a little while.

And as the days of the Fourth Trial wore on, with the region around Marimgar growing more fertile by the day, covered in lush grasses and abundant crops, the mood in the city began to shift from traumatized by the Trials to hopeful for the rewards that would come at the end.

They were quickly reaching the final week of the trials, and that was beginning to make Kalli nervous. Sure, she had issued all the basic quests, and the system wouldn’t let her issue ones for unnecessary or unproductive activities, but it still felt like she should be doing a bit more micromanaging in order to get the people some more points.

Four dungeons a day was a good start, though.

As they were levelling up, the residents of Upper Marimgar were doing more dungeons daily, which was giving them a pretty steady supply of pork, as well as raw metals and leather from the processing machine.

She just couldn’t accept that the trial was going this easy on them.

A solar storm and some rain? That was it?

Compared to the previous trials, that was nothing. It felt wrong to have things this easy, but she couldn’t see what else it wanted. They had been scouting for monsters, even going hundreds of kilometres out.

There simply wasn’t anything there that would challenge them.

And there hadn’t been any other extreme geological or weather events to make things more challenging. They simply made sure that the crops were growing, spread some crumbled nutrient bars and compost about, and waited for it to rain again.

Which it did, every few days.

Compared to Marimgar, which was loving the damp tropical weather, the Frost Giants were not having a fun time with the current weather.

Summer had hit their territory, bringing the same heat and rains that Marimgar enjoyed so much. Only, they were higher in the mountains, and the Frost Giants relied upon the high altitude cold to keep their civilization running smoothly.

So, they were burning a constant stream of magic to keep the city and its surroundings frozen, which was hindering their ability to recover from the damage that had been inflicted upon them by the humans of Marimgar at the end of the last trial.

That massive storm, with its flood of hot water, had melted much of the frost fields outside the city, while the Giants held the city shields and did their best to drop the temperature of the storm to the point where it would be useful snow, instead of dangerous rainfall.

A thick layer of ice over everything didn’t do them any good at all.

Meaning that the trial which the System considered barely difficult for the people of Marimgar was actually a Nightmare Difficulty trial for the Frost Giants.

It wasn’t that the system was going particularly easy on them, it was just that their city was uniquely well suited to the trial to begin with, while everyone else suffered. Being atop a hill near the ocean, where natural drainage took care of lingering issues like stagnant water, and then [Terraforming] took care of the crops killed by the solar storm was basically a cheat code.

They had even managed to open a new factory this week, specializing in dried fruits.

Marimgar didn’t have a lot of nut trees to make trail mix, but they had plentiful fruit and grains. Plus, a wonderful variety of tuber chips. Barbecue, salt and vinegar, sweet chili, seaweed and dill.

Some might complain that potato chips were not appropriate food to be prioritizing. But they had an incredible amount of nutrition, even deep-fried.

Plus, they went well with bubble tea.