Chapter 343: Almost There

One entire month passed in relative peace.

For once, they were not being actively attacked, there were no System Message warnings, and the influx of new System Users had faded to a negligible handful every day. Those who were likely to get one already had them, making up a full two thirds of the population, and the city was beginning to grow in wealth simply due to the Mystery Boxes that came with completing the daily quests.

Sure, you didn’t get one for doing the dungeons, but they gave loot of their own. However, everyone did the daily work quests, and those were enough to get them a quest reward. Plus, the fishing quest, if you got lucky.

Many of the locals headed to the ocean to fish, which completed the quest, while gathering fish from the hydroponic water ponds did not.

It was enough to keep everyone rolling in questionably useful loot, as well as points for the items that were fed to the recycler. That material processing station had become something between the dump bin for unwanted loot and the offal disposal station for the kitchens. All the bone and hide that they couldn’t use went to the machine, which processed it and stacked it in storage for Kalli to distribute.

They still didn’t have a use for most of the bones, but the hides were becoming increasingly useful as their clothing shops advanced.

Leather coats, made with the hide of armoured boars and sea monsters, were incredibly durable, as well as being stylish.

The battle armour was still winning the fashion race, but coats over top of it were a signature item that was becoming a must have for every stylish hero. Even though the battle armour regulated temperature, and it wasn’t cold enough out that you needed a coat in the first place.

The city was truly feeling like home to everyone, and those who followed the boards at the Hall of Heroes were eagerly awaiting the day that the leaderboard updated with their first hero at level twenty.

It was bound to happen soon, the top teams had been level nineteen for a while, and they were pushing hard.

However, there was a dark horse in the running.

Kalli had gone from level sixteen to seventeen, and just this morning had hit level eighteen. Nobody could figure out why, as the Coordinator was doing the same thing that she always had, but Kalli had a suspicion.

The System was awarding her daily experience at midnight, and it had increased when they found the new dungeons, and when they added the farms.

So, there was a good chance that it was partially based on the amount of land they controlled, as well as the number of heroes. Now that the System considered them to be controlling more land, with regular patrols, outposts and farmland, including gardens that had been planted near the Frost Giant dungeon, outside the walls, they were in great shape.

So, Kalli was growing faster than nearly anyone else, but every level became harder to reach.

More experience was required, and the experience from the base quests didn’t increase, only the harder dungeons could make up for the lost growth rate. It was a pain, because Kalli didn’t know how to fix the issue, but everyone still did the quests, hoping for fun stuff from the mystery boxes.

The System had begun trolling more people as the number of system users increased, and there was already a steady market for unwanted items that were too good to scrap.

Clothing, tools, strange foods, toys, "toys", and even costumes, like some nations would wear for All Saints Eve or the Day of the Dead. There was a little bit of everything going around the city, and it was always funny when someone got something truly outlandish.

Reggie seemed to have terrible luck getting what he wanted, but somehow his item drops seemed to suit Yara very well.

It was a bit of a running joke that his loot got swapped as punishment for breaking so much gear and making her work so hard in the earlier trials. But that wasn’t really his fault, Yara and Sanchez were always the ones leading their teams to the hardest fights and the most dangerous points in the defence.

So, of course their teams took the most damage.

Reggie was absolutely certain that he did not deserve the punishment that he was getting, but the fact that it kept giving him fashion and beauty products for Yara was not a total loss. At least he got to see them at the end of the day when they were at home relaxing.

When they were actually home.

Since they were one of the top teams, they were often at the outer dungeons, and when you were in a bunk house, there wasn’t much call for any of the more appealing loungewear.

Which was a true shame.

Meanwhile Kalli had fully embraced the "Work from home" fashion guide, and any time that she was in the shop, she would simply pick a random outfit for the day, mostly from the items that were turned in as unwanted, but sometimes from her own rewards.

The Daily Mystery Box was good to her.

Sure, it was ten points, but she was burning them upgrading farmland and housing outside the walls just so she didn’t hit the cap again, so the cost was negligible.

Today, it had given her a box containing assorted lipsticks.

She never really wore them, not in this life, and not in her past life. But she had an adorable black cargo pants and crop top outfit that would go great with black lipstick from the kit.

So, when Vinnie walked in for the morning, and saw the Coordinator dressed up like she was going to a goth metal show, all he could do was shake his head and wonder if they should force her to take some vacation days.

Everyone took a day off now and then, but as far as he knew, she never did.

If she wasn’t in the shop, she was in the back room working on city details, or reading the information that the Council had sent to her. Perhaps reviewing the tactical analysis information that the scouts had sent, which still came to her directly, and not to one of the council members.

There was a lot of work to being the Coordinator.