Turn One

I'm not sure if they agreed with me, but as I saw it, this was the only way to go.

We utilised the most out of the thirty minutes the System gave us to find a suitable location to plant our "Anchor." There was only one suitable candidate and that was Mobito who was suffering as we moved him around.

We found a nice and mostly solid building that only had a few chunks taken out of it. The building had a solid basement section that seemed to be untouched according to what Saizo noticed, and since there was only one way to get to Mobito — the lone stairway down into the basement — we thought that it would be the best place to have our "Anchor" stay for the task.

Out of all the buildings that we took a quick look at, this was the only one that had a basement. The buildings looked foreign, made of stone bricks instead of the usual wood and rope that the buildings in my village mainly used. Even Saizo struggled to pinpoint exactly where the buildings may have come from. He hadn't travelled too much, but over the years of adventuring, he has met a lot of adventurers from quite a few different countries who've shared stories and described their hometowns and motherlands.

The buildings that surrounded us felt like they were compiled together randomly from a variety of different cultures before the cataclysmic event happened that reduced the city to ruins.

Kat seemed to catch on quite quickly and offered to be the "Watchtower" when I suggested that it would be best for someone who could run and hide. I'm not sure if it was because she was still scared of me and wanted to stay away, but as it was what was best for the Party, I put it to the back of my mind.

I tried searching the Help Entries to find more information on "Anchors and Watchtowers", but the only entry that popped up was even vaguer than what the System had already told us about the game so far, and was not helpful at all.

We don't know who we were going up against in this task, but the game started as soon as the thirty minutes had passed and we were informed that we were currently in what the System called: "Turn One."

All three of us were standing around on ground level above where we placed Mobito, and we saw the ground glow a light-teal colour. We were informed by Windows that told us that since we were within our base perimeter, we get a boost in Mana and Stamina recovery.

Kat yelped slightly when a Window popped up and informed her that the "Detect" skill was now unlocked and ready for her to use. When she tried it, she noticed a POI that was closest to us and helped me get started on my journey towards the POI.

As soon as I stepped out of the building, a random group of five LEVEL 5 zombies spawned outside and I dispatched them with quite a bit of ease. Their routing was similar to the Goblins that I fought in the Solo Dungeon in the way that they went into a single-file line towards me and with the right timing, I was able to use my Slash skill to cut deeply into their health bars.

Saizo saw how easily I handled the zombies and when I nodded to him as I left, I knew that he was a lot more comfortable being Mobito's protector.

Saizo and I were our Party's "Soldiers", and even though both of us technically could go and seek out the POIs together, or even go our separate ways so that we could cover more ground, I managed to convince him that if the opponents manage to find Mobito as a POI, then there needed to be someone to be there to protect our "Anchor."

Since Saizo had tankier stats than I did, it made much more sense that he would be the one to stay and protect. And seeing how easily I handled the LEVEL 5 zombies gave him more confidence in me that I would be able to handle myself as I became the sole "Soldier" to seek out the enemies' POIs.

I started to make my way south of where we put our base. The buildings were lined up and the area around me kind of resembled like what I would imagine a ruined city's streets would look like.

I swiped away the Window that informed me that I had finally levelled up to LEVEL 11 — the EXP I got from defeating the zombies was just enough for me to level up — and as soon as I stepped out of the teal-coloured ground, a small Window in the corner of my field of vision popped up and I realised that I was still able to hear both Kat and Saizo.

"Hello?" I cautiously called out as I turned around and looked back at the building with Mobito in it.

"Ryuu?" Saizo replied. It sounded as if he was right next to me, even though I could see his distant figure step out of the building.

"Why can I hear you both?" Kat mumbled, "I've gone the opposite direction and it sounds like you're right here with me."

"This must be part of the task," I said as I turned back around and kept heading towards the direction Kat originally pointed me towards, "this way we'll be able to keep in contact with each other."

"It would be very helpful for Katsumi since that means she can continue relaying information to us no matter where she is," Saizo added.

"That must be it. I didn't realise the System had this kind of function. It would be so helpful to have in the outside world," I mumbled as I started to jog, "Kat, when you're able to, can you make sure I'm going the right way?"

There was a moment of silence as I continued to jog, and then she spoke:

"Turn to your right a little bit."

I did as I was told.

"You're now heading straight towards it."

"Thanks, how are you going Kat?" I asked.

"Good, I guess," Kat sounded like she was sprinting, "I have to keep on the move after I use the Detect skill, otherwise they might be able to track me down."

"Right," I remembered what the Task Window had said about the "Watchtower" role, "how's it going for you Saizo?"

"I'll be fine, remember, I'm LEVEL 15, so I'm not some pushover. I'll make sure Mobito stays safe," Saizo reassured me.

My mind drifted a little bit as I continued to make my way to our first POI. It seemed that the amount of EXP required to level up post-level 10 was significantly higher than what it took to level up to level 10 itself. The fact that it's been so long since I levelled up last — at the end of the Solo Dungeon Quest — meant that Saizo's level 15 must have taken the Adventurer a seriously long time to achieve over the years.

I snapped back into focus when I realised that I finally arrived at the POI that Kat sent me towards. I hid behind some rubble to take a look at what was happening in the area. I saw what I assumed was the POI itself. It was a human-sized box that the zombies seemed to spawn from, periodically a number of zombie units — all unique with different levels of flesh hanging off of them walked out and lined up in an unnatural garrison formation. After what looked like twenty zombie units had spawned, they all started to walk down to where I had arrived from. Could it be that they were heading towards Mobito and Saizo?

Before they got to me, I whispered, "Saizo, watch out. There's going to be a pretty big group of undead coming towards you from where I am."

"You can't do anything about them while you're there?" Saizo's annoyed voice berated me.

"I could, but I thought it would be better to focus on taking care of the spawner they came out of and I didn't want to be completely surrounded by them."

"You think I want to be surrounded?" Saizo said.

"I'm sure you can handle them since you're so much higher-levelled than me!" I snuck a look above the rubble and realised that they were walking past where I was hiding way closer than I first guessed. I hissed as quietly as possible, "they're all LEVEL 5 so you shouldn't struggle too much."

I could hear their synchronised steps as they walked past my hiding spot. When I risked looking above the rubble, I sighed in relief when I saw that all twenty or so zombies had walked past. I looked back at the spawner and noticed that it hadn't started spawning more units since the twenty had moved on. There was a Window above the spawner that said:

[TURN COMPLETED.]

"Seems like the spawners have a limit of how many units they can make in a turn," I informed the other two.

To my dismay, I watched as a random group of five zombies popped into existence out of nowhere. Similar to what happened near our base at the start of the turn. I gripped my hunting dagger as I made my way towards them.

Luckily for me, they were all still LEVEL 5 and I utilised the same strategy that I did earlier and managed to get rid of the units.

"I levelled up again," Kat's voice rang out through our communications. Good. She was now LEVEL 3. The higher her level, the stronger she would be, and the speed of her levelling reminded me of what it would have been like if an outsider was watching my progress in the Solo Dungeon.

When I approached the spawner, just as an experiment, I swung my blade against one of the sides and sparks flew from the contact. The spawner was unaffected. A Window popped up in front of me instead.

[WOULD YOU LIKE TO DISASSEMBLE THE ENEMY'S SPAWNER?

YES || NO]

I selected the yes option and watched as a circular representation of a countdown appeared above the spawner. As I waited for the countdown, I decided to clear out some of my outstanding Window notifications. When I reached the Window notifying me of my levelling up, I opened up my Status page and looked at my current stats.

With the Left Arm gifting me five added points to all physical attributes, it meant that my STRENGTH and AGILITY were both at 15 points, while my VITALITY was 17 whilst my INTELLIGENCE and WISDOM stats were at a respectable 10 points.

I looked at the elephant in my Status Window and paused. I had yet to use the 20 Ability Points that the System gifted me from finishing the Solo Dungeon Quest and levelling up to 11 brought the number up to 23. To be honest, I had planned on using the Ability Points after being knocked out by the monster in the first task, but everything happened so fast and we found ourselves in this current task, that I forgot.

Now that it came to a lull in the task, I struggled to decide which attributes to invest the ability points into. Intelligence and Wisdom attributes help out with magic spells and understanding magic, but now that I know that I'm unable to learn magic spells, I regretted putting points in the two attributes to equalise everything.

I hadn't placed any attribute points when the countdown above the spawner finished and the box fell apart automatically. I swiped my Status Window away and said, "I disassembled one of the enemy's spawners. Kat, where do you want to send me next?"

A small Window popped up above me that said:

[TURN TWO]

"Hang on," Kat's reply came.

After a moment of pause, she continued, "it's a bit far away, but I've marked it on your map for you if I understood how to work the "Detect" skill properly."

I navigated to the map and saw that there was a mark on a specific spot on my map. As she said, it was quite far from where I was, "I have it. I'll make my way —"

The point moved further away from me. Kat explained over the communications function, "sorry. Seems like this POI might be the "Watchtower" or one of the "Soldiers," I'll update their location every now and then whenever they move."

"Okay, I'll try and make my way to them as fast as possible," I said.

I was determined to catch the POI and just as I was about to move, a sudden scream from Kat caused me to lose my footing and fall to my knees. Saizo and I yelled over each other to try and find out if she was okay.

There was no response and I gulped. I quickly turned back to my map and noticed that the point that Kat gave me had moved once again. She was still alive. Something must have happened to force her to stay quiet. I gathered enough courage in me to stand back up and started to sprint in the direction of the POI. No matter what, I was going to make sure that Kat stays safe, and to do that I would make sure that the task does not go longer than it needed to.