OMG OMG M ICAHEL THIS IS THHE BEST THING EVR

  ?(???)??(???)??(???)??(???)??(???)?

  The spam of emojiis and faces went on.

  "Play, what the hell is extraction loot spawns?? Can you give me an answer instead of tweaking out over there??"

  She was probably bouncing all over the couch given the spam of emojis.

  But she finally did get back to him.

  You find loot chests of any kind, and the System will spawn stuff inside of it

  "…What kind of loot chests are we talking about here?" Wade looked over to the crate in front of him. "This is a loot chest?"

  yeh, it's basically anything that can hold loot. Empty barrel, pottery vases, jewelry boxes, cabinets, drawers, someone's pockets, idc just wherever you can get loot counts. Even if it's completely empty, first time you try and loot, the System has a chance of spawning something inside it.

  And if it mentioned a chance, that meant Wade's Luck Stat. Which was rapidly climbing up out of the 'odd and potentially useless stat' to 'very much has interest.'

  "So… if I'm lucky enough, I could loot an epic item or something out of a kitchen drawer?"

  Why not? There's more upgrades down the line here, some really good juicy things ehre

  "I'm going to assume you tried to type out 'here?'"

  yeh idc, you gotta see this. First upgrade adds a chance of finding storefront coins directly, with more difficult to reach loot spots having a higher drop chance.

  Next upgrade gives you notice in some way that there's a loot spawn nearby or something, description's pretty vague but has to be a good thing.

  upgrade after that increases chance of an immediately useful item, another one adds earth loot to the pool, I can see a few that add weapons, armor, utilities and other random stuff. OH and a rarity upgrade too.

  "Is it already unlocked?"

  no, you gotta buy the base upgrade first. One coin and now all containers in azdrial have a chance of spawning stuff. Amazing deal

  The world would be in danger the moment Wade had his hands on that.

  OH OH, there's one for five coins later that give a chance of spawning system lootboxes. Says small lootboxes and system caches, but doesn't matter: SYSTEM LOOTBOXES MICHAEL. FOR FREEEEEE

  And if that was an upgrade, then they could probably also pay coins to upgrade them from small to larger and larger boxes. This could be real good of a pathway.

  Illy and Leon were going to freak when they found out about this. Wade's advantages were going to snowball hard if he could up his luck and start pulling micro-lootboxes at basically anything that looked like someone could potentially stash loot within.

  "Could we cheese this?" If they made their own empty lootboxes and then opened them, would the System start giving them a chance of having something spawn inside?

  Wade knew the answer immediately. The System was absolutely not going to allow that kind of cheesing to happen, there were limits and he could imagine it spawning a ticking bomb inside instead if his intention was to cheese the nature of the game.

  He didn't know why the System allowed him to be creative with some things, and not with others. It felt like just wild balance to him. Or the System followed the march of its own drum on whatever felt the most fun.

  Could he make this kind of loophole fun to watch from the System's point of view maybe?

  He'd need to think about it some more.

  It's gonna spawn a mini-mimic that'll eat your face off lmao

  That might be fun for the System to watch. Just not fun for him. "That's … fair, yeah probably." And if it was a punitive measure to discourage that kind of behavior, the micro-mimic wouldn't drop any loot, nor give any experience. All danger, no reward.

  And then he had another realization. "Play… if this was an entire storefront tree, and requires someone to have the ability to bring loot back to Earth… was it built just for me?"

  Probably not. imo, there might be a storefront upgrade later on that lets people start moving merch. Likely limited at the start.

  Shit. That meant Wade needed to get the Azdrial Smuggling Services up and running asap, so he could reap the first mover advantage to the max and beat the coming competition.

  But given how slow leveling was in the first place, it could be week or months before anyone else had that advantage.

  For once, the slow leveling pace of the game was really favoring him hard.

  Maybe ask the other two you run around with if they got it anywhere in their storefronts?

  That was a good plan. He'd see if they could do anything with their loot. Or if they had different specific upgrades based on their ability.

  For now, they were in a good spot. Powered armor, weapons, a mana crystal to burn in case of emergency, and with the mithril crate dragged all the way here to barricade the only entrance, they were pretty safe from Blackrot sneaking in.

  They might even be able to take potshots at creatures passing by with his Glock, he had the ammo for it. Three people's worth of ammo in their pack mule preparations.

  One problem: While wolves and boars didn't have any means of climbing vertical terrain like walls, the fungal tentacle monster roaming around might, and so too could other blackrotten creatures with enough dexterity, so maybe this place wasn't as safe as he'd hoped.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  "What to do now? Wait, or fight?" He turned to look over the skeleton for opinions. Eri clicked his jaw back, likely wishing he had eyebrows again so he could wiggle them suggestively at his boss here.

  There was a giant level fuck-off monster outside, and they had weapons and magic here. The implications were obvious to the skeleton. He reached a hand to pat Wade's shoulder, grinning the whole time.

  You live only, like, infinite times. Come on, live a little.

  "I know," Wade sighed, waving off the skeletal devil on his shoulder. "The problem is all our quests right now. If I take on the monster out there and wipe, we're fucked. Like, actually fucked. Can't get Bael or Medy back home. Plus when we come back here tomorrow, we don't know if Bael or Medy would stick around. They probably won't, and without them as guides we're in deep."

  And there was another risk to it all: "Also can't get any of those side-objectives either, and for all we know the questline we bought vanishes if I fail to do it in the round I bought it on."

  Wade had spent one good coin here to get a questline all about finding Medy's old lab up in the floating city - which was above the mithril sea. They'd need to not only find the way up the mountain to the nearest demon shelter-city or whatever they used, and then hitch a boat ride to catch up to the floating city itself. It seemed next to impossible to get done in one round.

  On the other hand, if he flunked this one, he was still getting something out of it: Good information to know that paying a coin up for a System questline came with the gamble of getting that quest done. It would change how he prepared for rounds ahead of time.

  He should have taken the dive-into-hell and recover the chest down here option, but hindsight was 20/20 and he truly believed the mithril sea did function like a sea would given there were boats floating on top. He'd need to ask Bael how those boats floated if it wasn't physics of buoyancy at all.

  "Dead serious here Eri, the responsible thing would be to just sit tight and wait it out. Zero risk, and that thing isn't going to spot us this far off. It'll eventually move off somewhere else. We don't risk anything at all."

  His phone buzzed.

  Losing the mania debuff's making you so boooring (?_?)

  "Yeah, but being fun as you say is just too much of a danger. There's too much to risk over what we could gain."

  Not quite true, you're forgetting two things about staying in one place.

  "And that'd be?"

  First, Challenge mode. You're being hunted remember? ?(>??)

  Stay in one spot for too long, and whatever assassin is after you is going to find you.

  And the waiting for Bael and Medy is coming at a cost. And then when Bael returns, he'll get eaten right away. So more time to wait. But you got a second issue. The challenge gaunlet quest.

  "What about it?"

  It's still in your quest log right?

  Wade closed his eyes for a moment, then brought up the menu and re-read the quest one more time. Specifically one part:

  Evade or defeat your hunter. Reward: One storefront coin and one randomized additional stat point if your pursuer is eliminated.

  The quest was still active. Which meant the fungal colony had not been evaded.

  It was still hunting them even after Medy led it away. That was a temporary solution.

  "Ah goddamn it." He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, thinking. "So I'm stuck between either going out there and possibly dying early, or I sit tight here, but I run a higher danger later when whatever the assassin or that thing finds me."

  Naw, the choice is more you wait here and set up traps, while hiding from the fungal colony's sight until it finds you. How good's your stealth and trap setting?

  "Not great."

  He had some rope, couple of grenades, a few shirts, and a weasel cage. He could maybe make a decoy of sorts?

  He looked down inside the crate. Maybe he could pull something out of there with the flares.

  And how good is your direct offense in comparison?

  "Objectively better." He'd killed Lapushka with a similar build. Blackrotten Bael was equally a hard matchup but they'd done it, and a pack of wolves to boot.

  Almost all he had on him that he was proficient enough to use was all damage, that and Eri. The only defensive item he had was the armor which he had no practice with yet, the dodge rolls, and the ability to run away really fast and potentially dodge the blackrot bugs using Identify.

  Seems to me the answer's obvious. ╮(︶▽︶)╭

  Eri clicked his jaw in affirmative, waggling his head up and down.

  The lack of eyebrows was not stopping the skeleton from talking.

  You could. You should. It'll be fun.

  Yeah, what he said (?ω?)

  Play, of course, doubled down with the skeleton.

  It's level 102, that's going to be more than just a coin gained if you solo it. You need to snowball.

  Kill that thing early before Bael respawns, grab him and Medy and get out of there fast after before the assassin finds you. Ez dub

  "You do realize if I do that I risk everything upfront right?"

  Gotta risk it for the biscuit Michael~ And I have a feeling you can come up with a good plan. (????)?

  Eri's fingers tapped in a wave on Wade's shoulder, expecting. The skull inside the ripped-up snowboarding hoodie leered at him, fully exposed now without the snow mask and goggles.

  It was like Death itself leaning to whisper in his ear.

  You saw as I did. You saw the health-bar move. It can bleed. It can die.

  "How would we even kill that thing in the first place? Grenades don't do great damage against Blackrot. I've got the System, some basic defensive gear here that I'm not yet good at using, a Glock with bullets, and I can run real fast and dodge roll twice in a fight. Maybe three times if I get enough time in between."

  Eri slowly nodded his head at his boss, already seeing the gear turning.

  Yes, yes, there we go.

  Truth was, Wade already had a plan. A potential. His finger brushed on the modified grenades on his bandolier. Three of them with him. And two more normal grenades.

  The real fight would only take a few seconds realistically. It was a full on damage-per-second check. If Wade could frontload all the damage, as much as possible, and chunk the monster's health before it could outheal that damage, all they had to do was get it to 0% and the System would smite it out of existence even if that thing should have been able to regenerate.

  That or find a way to disrupt the blackrot healing factor? Setting it on fire perhaps.

  "Note to self, bring molotovs next run." He muttered, rummaging through his backpack for the gear he'd need.

  He had more than just all this. He had knowledge. Information to plot around - the fungal monster's own behaviors. It was eternally hungry, eating anything around it. It clearly ignored anything that wasn't food. Blackrot could sense living being and food even through clothing. Eri could walk outside and be a ghost to the monsters out there. He had nothing to eat, and they could tell instinctively.

  That meant he had a free agent to move outside without danger until Eri actually attacked.

  Bait was possible. And it didn't just have to be him.

  "Identify."

  Level 1 Blackrotten Beetle - 100%

  Dozens of those nametags were still all around behind the tower. The creature didn't just care for meat, it wanted more rot. Bugs were just as much a draw as a hiding retail worker with mania slowly creeping back into his head.

  Eri clicked his jaw, skeletal fingers tapping his greatsword. Waiting for the plan with silent glee.

  Wade opened his backpack and rummaged through it, dragging out a longshirt, then tied it up until it was more a sack than shirt. "I need you to go behind the tower and grab every bug you see, then stuff them inside here."

  He tossed the shirt-sack over to the skeleton, who grabbed it out of the air with no trouble.

  "Don't kill them. We need them alive and trapped in that sack."

  The skeleton gave him one finger gun, then leaped over the mithril crate and went off behind the tower to grab the grub. He was immune to blackrot, grabbing everything with his own hands would be trivial.

  Wade took a steady breath, this was THE GAME.

  Play was right. He needed to snowball. Killing a Level 102 would probably hand him another level at the very least. Possibly two. Lapushka had given three, and Wade wasn't that much higher level compared.

  Wade had lived every day waking seeing his life as a series of subtraction. On what he couldn't do, couldn't buy, couldn't be.

  He needed to see life as addition: What if he could do it?

  What if he went out there, and beat it - despite every voice of sanity in his head told him to hide and run.

  What if he could pull off a goddamn miracle?

  It was worth trying.

  He opened his eyes, and his hand pulled out the second pistol holster. Then, with great care, he reached down again and pulled the second Glock from deep within, pulling off the protective plastic.

  Time to pick a fight.