Chapter 188

Aviumen (I)

The buildings in the settlement were largely built of sandstone, the highest ones going only for one upper floor and the basement, melding in the surrounding sand. Most of the natives had hoods over their faces and googles over their eyes, largely due to habit as sandstorms were an almost everyday experience here and protecting orifices from being clogged by the sand was the basic part of surviving here.

Races varied, though ante-Humans seemed to be a vast majority followed up by the local dwarven-like race of stout and hardened ilk that grew up here, in the desert. The ‘streets’ were rather wide, the settlement itself seemingly built without any patterns or planning in mind, with buildings propping up left and right, oftentimes not even oriented in the same way.

As newcomers, the group drew quite a few eyes to themselves, though mostly of wariness rather than outright hostility. Cain ignored it all as he made a beeline for the solitary ‘inn’ of sorts of the settlement; it was one of the few, slightly taller buildings with arched entrance decorated with hand-carved balustrade above.

Signaling others to stay outside, he went in alone, stepping into a quite narrow hall with a single desk at the center and a lazy-seeming woman wearing a shawl behind it. She glanced forward and arched her brows in curiosity as Cain approached, stopping in front of the desk.

“Housing for eight.” he said simply.

“’tas a lots people,” she replied in a heavy accent. “No m’ach space.”

“I’ll make it worth your while,” Cain smiled faintly, tossing a few low-grade items onto the counter.

“We’com,” she chuckled lightly, taking the items and storing them swiftly beneath the counter. “If ya’d lik a guider, I’nbeen ‘ere all life.”

“Thanks, but we’ll be fine,” Cain smiled back and invited others. They were given two rooms in total, one in which six guys had to stuff themselves, and the other where two women had enough space to actually breathe.

The reason Cain decided to book the room was partly due to a short rest, but also partly because it would soon be the night. Even if the natural elements of the desert got easier to handle at night, the monsters that would become prominent were leagues stronger than those during the day. It wasn’t as though Cain was worried the group wouldn’t be able to make it, but it was a waste of time as the monsters didn’t really drop anything worthwhile and ratio of time taken to kill versus experience gotten was awful.

Looking out the window, the sun had slowly begun to set over the sandy horizon, forming the last, blurry heatwave. There was a much greater stream of newcomers by now, though unlike Cain and others, they seemed to be returnees. To Cain’s shock, he actually spotted several people returning as well, their clothes and armors dyed in rancid green that looked a lot like the blood of the Snakeshifters, another one of the local monsters whose ‘hide’ fetched quite a decent price in the settlement.

It’s been quite a few months since the second floor was opened, so Cain wasn’t as surprised to find other people -- there were, however, much easier places to grind. But to each their own.

“We’ll rest for the night,” Cain said. “And check around some merchants during the morning. We’ll also check out whether there are any good quests; if not, we’ll depart by midday. Everyone okay with that?”

“Sure thing,” Kramer nodded. “I noticed quite a few people outside. This place seems fairly popular.”

“Eh, it’s a bit of a stretch to call it ‘popular’,” Cain shrugged. “There are, what, 40-ish people, give or take? That’s a joke compared to the potential.”

“True,” Kramer nodded, taking out a bottle of water from his inventory and taking a few sips. “What’s your level again?” Cain had already informed the rest of them about his ‘Awakening’ since there was no point in hiding it. Though surprised at first, it was accepted eerily quickly as though nobody even thought it was strange and was, instead, just par for the course when he is concerned.

“38,” Cain replied.

“Damn, you’ve almost caught up,” Sigmund exclaimed before Kramer could. “I wanna awaken too, man! Are you sure the method you used doesn’t work?”

“We can try when we go back to the city,” Cain said in a vain attempt to keep their hopes alive. “But I’m like 99.69 percent certain it doesn’t.”

“That sixty-nine was on purpose, wasn’t it?” Jamal asked.

“Everything he does is on purpose,” Daniel shrugged from the side.

“I’m not a machine, though.”

“You may--” the group’s brief tangent was interrupted abruptly as a red-clad window appeared in front of them, causing everyone to diver their attention to it with a frown, including Cain.

//Attack of Aviumen(B+)

Type: Emergency Quest

Context: The settlement’s scouts have reported about the incoming attack of Aviumen, with their estimates being that the attackers will arrive in 30 minutes at most.

Content: Join the settlement natives and defend their home from the invaders. Aviumen are extremely weak to sunlight, which is why all their attacks are done at night. If the settlement is overran, it will become a hostile territory.

You need to defend the settlement until dawn; attacks will come in waves, so be prepared!

Rewards: Based on the individual contributions.

Note: Aviumen are night-dwelling Sandweavers, in histories recorded as the first anthropomorphic race to ever settle in the Masashi Desert. Due to a mutation in their genes, however, they are extremely weak to direct sunlight and instead build their settlements, towns, and even cities under the sand, made possible by their immense talent in bending sand to their will.//

Cain sighed, thought not for long; even if it would mean them staying one extra day here to rest, it was well worth it. Emergency quests were often the ilk that afforded decent rewards when compared to the difficulty, and seeing as difficulty was the ‘gateway’ kind of ‘B+’, the rewards would be within the ‘A’ range or so if graded.

The rest of the group seemed just as excited, swiftly leaving their rooms and emerging onto the open roads. By now, there were quite a few more people around, humans and Tower natives included, and chatter seemed to break up the monotone silence of the falling night. Cain spotted a small group of people slowly converging toward them, though as their intentions didn’t appear hostile, the group waited for them in place.

“Hey,” a man who seemed to be in charge, appearing to be in his late thirties, greeted them with a smile and a rather awkward wave. “You guys are new here, right? Ha ha, don’t be alarmed; most of us here have been packed steady for months, mostly because of these emergency quests, so newcomers tend to stick out quite a bit.”

“Oh? This is a frequent thing?” Cain quizzed with interest.

“Yup,” the man nodded. “Though, the difficulty is usually at max ‘C+’. Never had it spike that much. It likely means there’s gonna be an extra boss or two thrown in there. Settlement natives usually defend the main and back roads, while the rest of us take sides. The group that was usually defending the south-sack actually left a few days ago, so you guys can cover for them. The number of monsters that appear is evenly spread out so you don’t have to worry about a good or a bad spot. If you need help, just send any kind of red signal in the sky and whoever can afford to send help will come. Other than that, when it comes to the drops, we usually take those we need and reserve those we don’t for inter-group trading. If you guys have any questions, we won’t be too far away. Good luck!”

“Same,” Cain watch them move to the nearby uncovered area as he led his own group to the only relatively empty one. Though there were still a few settlement natives defending it, it was clear it wasn’t a priority. Similar case seemed to be with every other human-populated part of the settlement, with the highest number of settlement natives stationed to the front and rear of the settlement.

Thirty minutes went by quickly as subtle lights torched up the horizon, encircling the settlement. Emma and Kramer took the front, positioned at the open-ended part of the road surrounded by small, sandstone-built walls. The gap was somewhat narrow, prompting Cain to shove the group out further so there was more room to maneuver. Others, however, seemed content with ‘gapping’ the avalanche of the upcoming enemies, using the narrow path as a benefit and a strength.

As the invading force came closer, Cain took the opportunity to inspect them; though every individual had somewhat different stats, he realized immediately, the stats didn’t differ that much from each other, at least when the ones he could see were concerned.

//De’shaha Race: Aviumen

Level: 33

Health: 6,400

Traits: Cunning (B), Stealthy(D+), Clever (B-)

Skills: Sandweaving (B-)//

Almost everyone only had one Skill -- ‘Sandweaving’ -- with only a few exceptions that had an extra one or two basic skills in their arsenal. Aviumen soon reached within half a mile of the settlement, their numbers easily swelling into hundreds even just on Cain’s side; glancing back, they were in thousands when it came to the front gate.

“Alright, pace yourselves,” he warned others. “It won’t be just one wave -- we’ll be fighting until dawn, so we’re at risk of wasting our Mana. Test out the waters the first wave so we can see how long of a break we’ll have. Yuki, there’s no need to panic; our meat-shields can soak up a lot of damage themselves, so keep your big cooldowns for when they cry out they can’t handle anymore. Okay?”

“O-okay!” Yuki replied as Kramer and Emma shot him a stink-eye, prompting Cain to chuckle faintly.

“Alright guys, let’s do this.” he himself took a deep breath and went over all his skills, figuring this would be a good opportunity to delete, modify, or create new Skills and continue polishing his style of battle.