Chapter 294: The Cowboy Way

One thing that Kalli did notice was that while John’s outfit looked like any other cowboy, he had a pair of Epic Grade pistols on his hips, and his oilcloth coat was a Rare Grade magical item.

As was the bandana under his hat.

The man was likely wearing a full suit of armour, but his fashion sense hadn’t changed, so it was wearing it under his outer layers.

"I don’t suppose that your System sells horses, does it?" John asked.

"No, but I have motorcycles of multiple sorts, and a Hoverbike."

The old cowboy sighed. "That’s a shame. Lost the horse in the second trial. Snake monsters got it. Let me tell you, herding cattle on foot is no easy feat, even when you’re as fast as I am."

The heroes all had impressive stats, so they understood what the man meant, and how exhausting it would be to try to protect a herd of cattle against monsters.

"If you prefer a quad, I can get you one of those. It will just take a bit for our tech to make it run on mana, and then it’ll be good to go."

"How many points?"

John was nothing if not practical.

"The quad is ten. You can talk to Matteo about the upgrade, but he will likely do it for you at a good price, since he will get a System Point for his time."

"Alright, I will save them up. I see that there are quests here we can do, and I’ll start on them tomorrow. Being inside the walls is a great time to rest, but I need to get my cattle settled before they go picking a fight with the tuber plants.

They lose every single time, and they still try it."

Clearly, the tubers were a favourite food of more than just the armoured boars.

The difference was that the boars had gotten pretty good at actually digging them up, and it sounded like the cows had not. They were large, and strong, but not as muscular or agile as the boars.

Vinnie knocked on the table to get everyone’s attention. "I hate to butt in, but how did you manage to keep even part of a herd alive through four trials?"

"Gunslinger Class skills. I have weather sense, so every time things got nasty, we just moved along to somewhere that it was tolerable. But I also have unlimited ammunition as long as I’m using a pistol.

It might be a nasty fight against a wandering monster tribe, but as long as you keep shooting, things work out."

Clearly, he hadn’t seen the same sort of monster density that Marimgar had. But that made a lot of sense, as his faction was ONE person, not an entire city. Even if there had been more people with the herd to begin with, the trials adjusted to a set difficulty.

Also, it was possible that he simply got Easy mode trials all the way through.

It was only the one where the monsters had voted things up to Epic Difficulty that really challenged Marimgar’s survival. Without that, they really might have kept first place, even against the birth rate of the sea folk.

"Alright, I’ve got housing vacancies here on the computer. I personally recommend that you spread your people out in a region, let them intermingle with the locals, instead of staying isolated.

It will help them make friends and integrate themselves into work projects.

But I don’t force them to stay anywhere.

I know that there are a few civilians among the new arrivals, and we have an underground portion of the city to keep them safe. The Hive City, they’re calling it. Things might not be perfect, but it’s safer than being on the surface if you have no System access at all. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

The total honestly isn’t enough that it’s going to strain our housing reserves, no matter where you go, we over built, expecting to have many more System Users rise from the lower city.

Here is the map, I will let all the team leaders choose their spots.

John, I would recommend this section of the housing on the outer walls. Now, it’s not prime real estate, and the walls are closest to the danger. But it puts you near the largest open grassland that we’ve got inside the walls, to graze your cattle.

If you want to move them outside the walls, that’s up to you. But I can’t guarantee that when the sun comes up we’re not going to be swarmed with monsters again.

More than once, the trials have given us waves of monsters all the way to the horizon."

Kalli’s speech motivated the new arrivals enough that they were at least willing to pick housing without too much bickering.

But some of that was almost certainly exhaustion.

"For food, just have them scan an eye or an index finger. The system will automatically add them to the meal card program. You can get food anywhere in town, plenty of the shops are open all night. Especially on the first day of a trial."

John breathed a sigh of relief, and Kalli saw him put a nutrient bar back into storage.

One case was a thousand bars, an entire year of bare minimum nutrition for an adult. But it was not an appealing way to live.

"You know what, I’m going to go look and see if they’ve got a proper bowl of beans," he decided.

Sanchez nodded. "Out the Academy gate, second building on the left, go up to the mezzanine level. There’s a place there which serves properly spicy baked beans and cornbread."

The old cowboy smiled. "Now, that’s how you treat a guest. I must say, I never thought that the day would come when I missed beans and cornbread, but three weeks in, when I was living off nutrient bars, I learned just how good I had it."

Sanchez chuckled. He also ate there a lot because the shop served spectacular fish tacos, and they made their own tortillas in the back. It wasn’t a fast process, so there weren’t many shops that did it.