Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 82: The Relation Between Their Territory and Monsters
"Are we coming with you this time?" Luke was the first to jump at the chance, his eyes darting between the thick, oppressive fog and John’s calm expression.
"Last time we were barely able to fend off the monsters, and we were under constant threat from those sound devices," John said, shrugging with a casualness that belied the danger they had just escaped.
"This time, the rate of monsters attacking our area is far lower. Besides, the density of the ones that do attack us is small enough for two people to handle on their own if they remain vigilant."
His words carried the weight of logic, and yet, there was a deeper intent behind his decision. While his previous actions were dictated by the desperate pressure of system quests and immediate survival, he now felt a growing need for long-term strategy. He wanted to truly scout this Trial world and begin drawing a mental map of the terrain, the resource places, and the potential hazard zones.
"But," John added, pausing when he saw the flickering excitement in the eyes of his companions, "we need to amass a significant stockpile of cores first. Why don’t we wait until tomorrow to set out in force? Let’s dedicate today to gathering more cores, then we can move out tomorrow morning."
"Fine," Luke muttered, his disappointment palpable. He had been itching for a change of scenery, even if that scenery was more grey mist.
Ricky, however, jumped in with a question that sliced through the brief moment of peace: "How will you decide who goes and who stays?" He looked around at the group, his gaze lingering on the girls and then back to Luke. "As you can tell, everyone here wants to accompany you. Nobody wants to be left behind."
"We can make it random," Elena suggested suddenly. She stepped toward a nearby tree, snapped a low-hanging branch, and began breaking it into several pieces of varying lengths. "We can draw straws! The ones who pull the shortest lengths stay behind to guard the camp."
"..."
Hearing this made Luke feel his hopes shatter instantly. He was a man who understood his own history; in any game of chance or random selection, his luck was consistently abysmal. He could already see himself standing guard while the others discovered the secrets of the world.
"It’s settled then," John nodded, effectively ending the debate. "For today, I’ll head out alone to scout the perimeter. I need to verify if the monster density has remained consistent since yesterday’s surge or if the clearing of the sound devices shifted their patterns."
He didn’t feel the need to boast about his recent combat successes or the sheer volume of cores he had already secured. His inventory was currently far more bloated than their combined efforts, but keeping that card close to his chest was a habit he wasn’t ready to break.
"You plan to do it the same way you brought us here?" Cissel asked. She was sharp, her mind already connecting the hints in John’s words.
John nodded. "Enough of moving blindly and guessing. We have a stable food and water supply now—enough fruits to satisfy us for at least two weeks if we’re careful. We can pick a single direction every day and map it out, seeing how far our cores can lead us. But to create those safe corridors, we’re going to need a massive surplus of cores."
He looked around at their current perimeter. The first few waves of monsters they had faced today were embarrassingly small, not even yielding enough cores to satisfy a small part of their projected daily expansion needs.
Before departing, John stressed the importance of rationing. He set a strict limit: no more than forty fruits per meal, and no more than three meals a day. It was a harsh directive, but necessary. With the rules established, he turned toward the north, picked a direction, and vanished into the grey wall.
"Tsk! This new change made things worse for me in some ways," he muttered once he was out of earshot. He had hoped that his experience with the black fog would make spotting enemies easier, yet after spending a few hours navigating the deep mist, he found the new dark grey coding structure of the environment to be trickier than he anticipated.
The monsters blended into the fog code structure with frustrating perfection. Yet he could still make out the general outlining of the monsters if he focused on a spot for quite some time.
"And their numbers are still high," he observed, watching a cluster of shadows drift past a hundred meters away. "That means they couldn’t see us easily through our territory. Our expanded area is acting as a buffer, shielding us from the Fog Seekers’ natural aggression."
He wanted to confirm this theory. He didn’t like building a strategy on assumptions. He found a secluded spot, reached into his inventory, and used a handful of cores to clear a small, circular area. It was roughly the size of the tiny patch they had occupied when they first arrived in this world.
He stepped into the centre of the light, drew his blade, and waited to see how long it would take for the monsters to realise he was there.
Ten minutes passed, and a huge number of monsters flooded the small area. He simply killed them, his blade flashing with every slash, leaving behind a dead monster, before waiting for close to twenty minutes. Like clockwork, a second, larger group attacked him, drawn to the tiny beacon of safety in the dark.
"This proves it then," John muttered, wiping the black blood from his sword. After repeating this process four more times, he confirmed his theory.
"The size of a territory helps shield us from these monsters... It’s as if a larger area creates a blind zone where their tracking sensors or instincts fail to trigger. Still, without their cores, we can’t clear enough area or look for decent water and food sources. It’s a paradox."
It was a dilemma he decided to postpone worrying about for later. Yet something else flashed in his mind, an exploit that made his eyes gleam with a fierce light. "We can use this method to keep farming monsters regardless of how vast our area is... We can build small outposts just to lure them in for slaughter."
He gained a lot from this tour, gathering data on terrain and monster behaviour, yet he didn’t meet any other trees or hear the distinctive sound of running water. After ten more hours of fighting and walking around until his legs felt like lead, he decided it was time to return to the camp.
As he relayed the news to his friends, their spirits lifted. Encouraged by his findings, they decided to expand their territory even further. They invested two thousand more cores to add an additional third of the area to their current perimeter.
The results were immediate and perfect: they only had to fight one more wave of monsters before night fell, and even that wave was disorganised and small.
