I did just state that I had a lot of questions, and I really did, yet when it was finally time to ask them I found myself unable to decide which question to ask first. The presence of the Asphons was a bombshell I still hadn’t entirely processed. And, the whole thing that was going on down here was another bag of worms entirely. Up to this point, I’d essentially been riding the wave, going with the flow, while trying to parse as much information as I possibly could.

Asphons were still around, they inhabited the seventh layer of this world, were somehow connected to the system, had rivaling societies, and travelers passing through had some kind of worth to them. As I followed the lead of my new guides, they allowed me to sort out my mind, a pleasant silence falling over the group as they waited for my first question. Well, silence might be a bit of a stretch. Aside from the constant noises of battle in the distance, the Asphon's steps were anything but quiet. Every time their clawed feet met the ground I could hear a sharp “clack”, which in turn made me conscious of the wet splotches I made every time I landed after a hop.

I’d always assumed that I made some… unsavory sounds by traveling like this, which had been confirmed when I finally mutated some ears. I didn’t care all that much, but now that I was in the company of other people, I became oddly conscious of it. With a final, wet splotch I landed on the ground and did something I hadn’t done for a long time. The land crawl. Utilizing my tentacles in tandem with the natural movement of my body I started crawling/slithering along the ground, which earned me a few odd looks.

At least, I assumed that was what they were doing. It was somewhat hard to tell when my contemporaries didn’t have an actual face to look at.

Sensing their questioning looks, I decided to distract them by asking the first question that came to my mind. “So, could somebody explain this whole quest thing to me?”

“Of course,” Nimma answered, and I spied what I thought to be Andrius and Orbos once again exchanging something shiny. Were these guys constantly betting with each other? “The system always gives the same set of objectives to travelers that make it to this layer, which is to complete quests. You might have noticed that monsters on this layer don’t provide you with experience. That’s because to level up, you need to complete quests. It’s not a coincidence that you are required to complete twenty quests, as the reward for completing a quest is usually going up a level.”

“I see,” I had been worried when that monster I’d killed didn’t give me any XP, wondering if I was screwed with no way to progress. “And I can really only get those quests from you guys?”

“Yes!” Nimma confirmed as we entered the ruins of the city I’d seen before, following the guidance of Redax as he scouted ahead. “We have a sort of… symbiotic relationship with the system. We help it with monster research and the guidance of the travelers that make it this far, and it provides us with resources, among other things. One of the things we do for the system is give out quests for travelers. As the travelers are rather important to the system, it puts a lot of worth on them.

“There are certain rules we have to follow when interacting with one of your kind, one of which you’ve already heard about. Once a traveler enters an Asphon-controlled city, they are registered to it and have to spend the rest of their time on the seventh layer helping out that settlement. Since the system gives us extra resources when travelers complete quests, the opportunity to associate with a traveler is highly sought after and fights break out regularly, as you’ve seen. Then there is the fact that there are some things that we can only achieve by having a traveler act as a proxy for the city.”

“So having me come and complete quests for you helps you out as well?”

“More than you can imagine,” Nimma chuckled. “Especially if you decide to complete some of the higher-tiered quests. They tend to be pretty dangerous, though, so nobody will be mad if you simply decide to do the regular quests and then move on. Just from that, we’ll already have gained a lot. Everything else is just a bonus.”

I took a moment to process this information. The quest system was easy enough to understand, but I was beginning to doubt my preconceived notions of what exactly the system was. Ever since coming to this world, I’d been questioning what exactly the system was, why it wanted me to do the things I did, and whether or not it had malicious intentions. The whole “uploading knowledge into my brain” thing was still kind of fucked up, but I had decided that it was a fair tool, available to be used by me. Of course, there were subtle hints that it was more than just a tool, available to everyone.

The very first hint that the system wasn’t just a thing that existed here, was the fact that an administration was mentioned in the description of this planet and its main quest. The second one were the travelers themselves. According to Tim, the travelers were very important to the system, which was now confirmed by Nimma. The fact that the system autonomously called for traveler reinforcements during the void invasion, lead me to believe that the travelers might be in a symbiotic relationship with the system as well, just like the Asphons.

More and more, the system began to appear like an entity, instead of a thing, a force of nature.

Redax occasionally sent Orbos and Andrius off to kill a monster that got a bit too close for comfort and I made it a point to observe with my void feelers. Of course that was limited to watching the dark spots move around until one of them stopped moving. I was still getting used to this new layer of perception and I occasionally got things mixed up. If it wasn’t for the system providing me with the knowledge on how to operate my new body parts and senses, I’d probably have stopped functioning a long time ago. For now, the system would remain as this mysterious, larger-than-life thing, that I probably shouldn’t concern myself too much with.

There’d be plenty of time to investigate later. For now, I had more questions to ask.

“And what form do these quests usually take?” I asked, curious about what I’d have to do for them.

“Most of the individual tier quests aren’t that interesting, to be honest,” Nimma explained. “They usually consist of a simple hunt for a specific monster or the retrieval of some materials. I assume you got a bonus objective to complete village and city tier quests as well, right?”

“Sure did.”

“As you can probably imagine, individual tier quests are given out by individuals of a settlement, while village and city tier quests are given out by the leaders of these places. Luckily for you, Lophan, our settlement, has been upgraded to city tier a long time ago. You’ll be able to complete all of your bonus objectives when you join us.”

“That’s great!” I’d honestly not even considered that little tidbit before agreeing to go with Nimma. Since I couldn’t change my affiliation once I’d joined, I could have potentially screwed up big time. “So what are village and city tier quests like?”

“Village tier quests are more of the same, but with higher difficulty. Where it gets really interesting for us as well, is the city tier quests,” a hint of excitement entered Nimma’s voice when she started talking about them. “You might have noticed that there’s quite a bit of competition between settlements, and city quests are one of the forms these competitions take. We usually take part in these competitions ourselves, but if a traveler agrees to compete and wins, the city can get some really nice rewards from the system.”

“I was planning to complete the bonus objectives anyway, so you can look forward to seeing me perform in… whatever these competitions are,” I could hear the faint hope in Nimma's voice as she explained about the city quests and decided to confirm my intentions.

“The city quests take place once a week and the system generates them one day before they start, so I can’t really tell you exactly what to expect,” Nimma said happily. “But they usually pit the competitors of various cities against each other in a friendly contest like hunting or spellcasting. Sometimes there are tournaments as well.”

“Sounds like fun,” I admitted. Honestly, this whole quest thing sounded rather easy. I’d have to see what the actual quests were like, but for now, I wasn’t too worried. “I guess that’s enough about quests for now, I’ll figure out the rest later. Let’s move on from that. I’m still kind of confused as to your whole situation. The system showed me these memories of your civilization's downfall and how you got eradicated by turning mad or something, but now you’re here just casually existing, can you go into a bit more detail about that?”

“I’m hardly the best person to talk about this,” Nimma deflected. “If you’d like the exact circumstances, you’d better go and talk to one of our historians. But, the short version of it is that the system took a special interest in our planet. Before the incident, monsters simply didn’t exist across the expanse. We were isolated and studied, and once most of our people started going feral, the system stepped in to help us out. I’m told that the system actively intervening in something is incredibly rare and that it should be an honor, but our planet has been transformed into what it is today and we’ve been stuck down here ever since…”

Nimma trailed off, uncertainty entering her voice. I didn’t know how long ago this all happened, probably thousands of generations ago, but it was probably not a nice experience to have an external entity come to your house, rebuild it from scratch, and then lock you into the basement. I once again wondered just what exactly the system was. Was the system some sort of god? Was it just some thing that existed, controlled by the administration? My head started to spin just thinking about it, so I decided to ask the next question.

“So what, you’re kept down here as prisoners of sorts?”

“I think you should talk with our leader about the specifics of this,” Nimma deflected me again. “You’ll be meeting him for sure, and he should be able to answer all of your questions regarding that.”

I realized that I had been pushing on some uncomfortable topics here, as not only Nimma, but the other three members of her squad were visibly bothered by this line of questioning. Not wanting to pry too much, I hastily decided to switch the topic. I’d get my answers later, according to her.

“So uhh… the city, tell me about it. What can I expect?”

“Well, it’s a city,” Nimma seemed happy about the change of subject but didn’t exactly know how to tackle this particular question. “We have an item in the center of town that emits a protection field. All Asphon settlements have one, and it keeps the monsters out. They are given to us by the system and are also proof that we are indeed a city. Aside from that, it’s more or less what you’d expect of a city. Houses, people milling about, stores to buy things, places to eat and have fun. You know, a city.”

“I.. see,” I was a bit surprised. For some reason, I’d been expecting some crazy alien cityscape that fit right in with the weird shit I’d seen ever since being reincarnated. Now that I thought about it, I had seen the Asphons cities in the memories, so I shouldn’t be too surprised at the way they built their cities.

“Well, you’re about to see for yourself,” Nimma said as our little group turned a corner. “Welcome to Lophan City!”

As we came around the bend, I was faced with tons of rubble. It would seem that the Asphons had cleared a perimeter around their city. It was an odd sight, as we’d technically already been inside a ruined city, which was then broken up by the perimeter where not a single building was left standing. Lophan itself was much more of the same as the ruined city we’d been traveling through, just a lot less ruined. There was also a wall erected around the city, and I could see a faintly shimmering dome over the city, most likely the barrier Nimma had been talking about.

It was a few hundred meters to the wall and I could see some Asphons on patrol atop it, although I didn’t quite understand why they did so when the city was supposed to be protected by the system. There was a wide-open gate a bit to the left of our current position, although there was no discernable foot traffic at the moment. Nimma and her squad waited patiently for me as I took in the scenery. Once I’d seen enough, it was time to finally go see what this layer was all about.