SA AU #3 Repeat - Chapter 31 (Patreon)

Time keeps getting away from me! Here's your next installment!

Chapter Thirty-one

Repeat

22 Weeks post System Onset

The Escridium Madeo’s weren’t the only non mutated monsters that emerged to give our native ones a run for their money. We spent the next few weeks barely able to keep our shit together.

Each day bled into the next. Days off were a pipe dream. Falling into bed at night, waking up early and going out again. Repetitive, and hard on the body despite the system renewing us every moment of every day. Perhaps it really was more of a mental thing too.

The one day we'd encountered the Escridium had been the farthest we'd been able to push out. Ever since then, the monsters were coming for us. To us. Butting right up to the domains of our mutated native fauna. The only small mercy that I could see was that at least it wasn't raining anymore.

However, now summer was almost upon us. Five months into this and we'd gone from autumn verging on cold winter -- cold for us anyway -- to spring turning into our usual boiling hot summer. Jackets were a thing no one wanted to wear, but we had to -- all the more armor, all the more protection. And as the summer months approached, so too did the possibility of mutated mosquitoes.

I was not looking forward to that.

Three and a half weeks of fighting, daily. I no longer worried about Jackson heading out there. He was either with me or he wasn't, but either way, he was as safe as he was going to get. He'd even almost hit Level 40. Everything after 40 felt like a complete and utter slog. Distributing the experience over the sheer amount of people we sent out in patrols, along with low leveled Advance classes like we had from the Pirra Clan and the Zarrie, meant that everything trickling through to us was meager - even including the apparent bonus we were supposed to get from surviving on our inhospitable continent.

"You look tired."

Mason wasn't trying to start anything or be a dick, but damn it, right then all I wanted to do was snap no shit Sherlock right at him. Instead, I took a breath and flashed him a wry grin, at least that's what I think it was. From his reaction, it could also have been closer to a grimace.

"Tired. Exhausted. Wondering if it'll ever end?" That wasn't combative right? He didn't deserve my moods. He'd been nothing but helpful and supportive of our entire initiative at Garbo since arriving. Not to mention being a godsend with the kids so I didn't feel quite as guilty all the time for everything I had to do.

Not quite anyway. I mean, being a mum already comes with a large dose of guilt about every damn thing.

"I'd tell you to get some rest. But it doesn't appear like you can do that here." He bit his bottom lip, like he was deep in thought about whatever was bugging him. I knew he'd tell me eventually, but I really wished that time could be now. I could use a distraction.

"Did you not think it would be like this?" I asked, my voice soft because to be honest, this wasn't how I'd envisioned an apocalypse either.

He shook his head. "No. I did not. I thought coming up here would show us how we could better manage the shitshow we have down the coast."

"And it's not helping?" I didn't have a heap of answers for him. It almost made me feel bad.

Mason chuckled dryly and looked around the house. It was just us two there right now. Jackson was with the tech group and Wisp was helping with the Wombats.

"It's not not helping? You've all got your shit together, it's just that it doesn't seem to matter. All of this Mana mutation, alien monsters crap? It's still coming no matter what you do. Hard and fast, and not leaving much room to breathe." He sighed before continuing. "Seems to be pretty much the same everywhere. At least here."

I nodded slowly. "Yeah. Carindale isn't any better off either. I know IRSHA is having difficulties in the few other settlements in Brisbane that they took over. Right now no one has numbers to spare for each other. It's all pretty much fend for yourselves and hope you survive."

And suddenly I just didn't like this roll over and let this whole thing happen attitude. Because that's what it was, wasn't it? Right here, right now, I was giving up - I was resigning myself to how things were and would always be. And just no!

Pushing myself up from the table, I shot a message through the admin system to Hirish and Mon'swkinon. This could all be damned. There was no way I was letting this happen anymore. We had to be more proactive. Figure out bigger and better ways to address all of these invasions and attacks. We had to blow shit up with whatever means necessary.

"Fuck this." I said, grabbing my things and heading out. "We're in a rut. And we're not staying in one. You coming?"

Mason didn't say anything as he followed me out of the house, onto our little scooter things and over to the center. The streets weren't empty like they had been at first when we all moved into our houses. There were some kids around Wisp's age and maybe a little older, playing in the street. They'd drawn hopscotch squares on the pavement and were hopping their scotching for all they were worth. That was something I would fight to protect. And fighting like we were now wasn't going to get us anywhere. All it was doing was delaying the inevitable, letting it draw us inextricably closer to being devoured by the apocalypse just the way the system had foretold. Only a bit slower than expected.

And damn it if I wasn't going down like that.

"What're you thinking?" Mason ventured the question almost like he didn't actually want the answer.

I grinned at him as we dismounted in the parking lot. "I'm thinking that we haven't been approaching this correctly - and that maybe, just maybe we're going about this all wrong."

Hirish stood, his arms crossed, just in front of the entrance to the center. It was warm enough outside that I didn't want to go in, not to mention it didn't get dark until much later these days.

Motioning him toward me, I dragged him over to where the gate initially stood. Now we just had the gate tower there, able to still keep a watch out all around the center and residential area. Mumma saw me and trotted over, offering her large side for my leaning pleasure. Damn it if I didn't just love this wombat.

Mon'swkinon arrived several minutes later, and I could no longer remember which of his limbs had been so badly damaged in the Carindale attack that he'd needed to cybernetically enhance it. Sometimes the Shop's sheer scope scared me.

"What's the deal?" The Hakarta seemed a little impatient. Maybe I'd interrupted his dinner or something. Perhaps he was just tired.

I raised an eyebrow, and patted the ground next to me. Hirish scowled.

"Why are we just sending out patrols and fighting to clear nests and fight off any of the newer monsters that have pushed their way forward?"

"To keep the surrounding areas cleared." Hirish sounded utterly confused.

"Yes, but... we're not thinking ahead. We've just been ploughing on, doing the same thing we do every day without truly strategizing, and that's not going to cut it anymore. We're just waiting to be killed." I watched Hirish, because I knew him and the Hakarta well enough to know that if it came to that, the Pirra Clan were out of here. Their obligation was mainly to the Crafting Cartel, and the moment it looked like their investments were no longer monetarily worth it, these allies we made, these aliens I sort of considered our friends? Well, they'd hightail it out of here on the next possible portal.

"How do you mean thinking ahead then?" In his defense, no one expected the Australian native survival rate. This sort of Mana saturation was apparently a rare occurrance and thus our continent had been given a mostly zero chance of survival. Sure, I got that, but that also meant the system counted us out before counting on us, and in a way, we could use that to our advantage.

"We've been fighting the problem from a perspective of survival. Only survival. We haven't been looking to expand, all along all we've wanted was to gather survivors and make a defensible town. But what if the town wasn't just defensible. What if, instead of just having lookouts and alerts paced past our borders, we place traps, necessary measures to hunt creatures before they can strike. While they're hatching. While they're spawning?" My brain wasn't cooperating. Perhaps I was too tired to get the words out in the way I needed to to bring my point across. So I tried it again.

"Let the monsters fight each other, and go in and pick off the remnants. Bait them into fighting each other. Blow them up when they hit low health. If the surroundings get blown up, then so be it. But choose wiser battles so we all don't burn out, and take them out with bigger bangs."

I watched the Hakarta's expression closely, needing to know if he thought the idea stupid or brilliant, or if maybe he'd already thought of it but hadn't suggested it due to potential backfiring reasons.

"That can get very dangerous. Baiting monsters toward each other..." but I could see that spark in his eye. He liked the idea. No, he didn't just like it, it was giving him other ideas as well.

"Make the mutations and monsters take each other out, and deal with the remnants. That, sounds like the plan of a species who decided to show the system how wrong it was for counting them out." Mon'swkinon leveled one of those stony grins in my direction.

I couldn't believe it had taken us this long to come up with a plan like this. The grin that spread over my face felt a little unhinged, but that was okay. I did some of my best work when I was overtired and not quite with it. "Now all we have to do, is talk to the tech team and see what sort of incentive we can come up with for the monsters to fight each other."

After all, I couldn't do all the heavy lifting. I'd had the idea, now we just needed to figure out how to execute it.

❖

Garden City had far fewer people in it these days. Even with the excess people we were still bringing in and adding to the population, we had enough empty apartments that it didn't seem to post a problem. Sure, we had interim housing in the center, but a lot of the small families, or multiple people who knew each other chose to pool their money and buy their own abode. Not that I could blame them. Living in a giant shopping center rescue housing way, got a little on the annoying side.

But since we'd moved out, there was more room for the Tech department, and damn did they make use of it. They'd combined several of the shops together where they'd initially set up, and we had about twenty-five or so people working under Chris and Sarah.

"I mean we've been making explosives for several of the different classes that use them already." Chris still seemed somewhat confused by what I was asking, and I couldn't blame her.

Sarah on the other hand, was practically bouncing off the walls. We'd established pretty early on that taking either or both of our Tech engineers with us into battle on too regular a basis put their production behind. Making new things would help them level their skills up. They were still in their mid-thirties, and I got the feeling Sarah was competitive.

"Okay so we want to engineer a trap explosive that will help us draw the mutations and monsters to each other so that they can duke it out and we can send in patrols to pick off the left overs. Do I have that right?"

Her eyes looked at me, but somehow through me at the same time, and I got the distinct feeling that she was already devising something or other. "Got it spot on."

Sarah's bubbliness took a back seat to her business manner, but her deep red hair and grin gave her this sort of gleeful air that I couldn't help get infected with. It was difficult to stand still while I waited for her to continue.

Then she looked back at us, focusing on us again. "Okay so. This isn't going to happen tomorrow, but I think I can engineer via scent explosions. So you're going to have to get me scent glands from those creatures who have them. If you've got them in inventory, bring them to me. The more different types, the better. That way we can engineer and build these and they technically should do exactly what you're asking. Especially if that scent is smeared all over an areas another species is trying to mark its own scent on." She frowned for a moment, as if she was calculating something in her head to double check it.

"Yes. That's it. All the scent glands. The sooner the better." She smiled up at Chris who returned the eagerness.

"Truth be told, we've been a little bored. The Shop has almost everything anyone could want, and just recreating what it has so we can all save some cash gets a bit tedious." Chris reached up to twirl a strand of her short blond hair. She seemed to do this when thinking. "Give us about two days once we get the scent glands and we should have everything figured out. But if we want to keep this up, scent glands are going to be imperative."

I was already diving into my inventory since I knew I'd kept several things to the side from the Shop to talk with Ginali about. when I hit level forty, my inventory jumped to 169 slots, which was plenty. So much I sort of forgot about things sometimes. It was a lot to go through. Pulling out a Koalzilla scent gland, a Caneglobulous, and a Tetchrihorn, I handed them over. "That'll get a start, right?"

Sarah's eyes just glowed with excitement. "This is going to be so much fun!"

I attempted to smile back at her, since this wasn't really in my wheel house of fun definition. But I guess I did like to take grafts from plants and see what I could concoct or repair with them, so maybe we weren't so different. Mana flared to life around Sarah as she examined what I'd handed her, frizzing around her edges with almost as much energy as she exuded. The others were handing over some they'd had with them, but for the most part, we pretty much sold everything we got. And scent glands had never been high up on the need or want list for anything else.

"It's enough to get a good head start, Kira."

I started a little and noticed that Chris was focused on me. Teach me to get lost in my thoughts. "Thanks. Glad I hadn't emptied out from the last two days. Tomorrow's patrols will be under instruction to retrieve all scent glands possible."

Chris opened her mouth, like she was about to tell me something, and then thought better of it.

I nudged her with my elbow, only lightly, but she pretended it hurt, even while fighting a grin. "What is it?"

"I had an idea to perhaps use some other types of explosives to stun, or root, or perhaps even seal them in one of those ice blocks. I've had ideas, and I know you can get some sort of potions to do that too... I'll tinker some more. The more explosions, the better if it fights the creatures off and gives us some damn peace."

"Sounds like a good idea to me." And I really did think so. Maybe, just maybe, with all of this we could get our shit together and finally start to make actual headway on all of these damned creatures. "Don't know about you all, but I'm getting bloody sick of being on the defense all the time."