After refreshing the buffs, Flora and her companions entered the instance.

Zone Information

Name: Garbage Disposal

Level-Cap: 5

Color: Orange

Players

Defeat: Defeat

Cornered: 15min

Drop: 0%

Flora blinked. Not only did they appear on the outside, but they stood on the same spot, they arrived earlier today—the marketplace of Tsoville.

Quest: Garbage Disposal I

Description: Kill Trash Elementals and Save the villagers on the square.

Living Villagers: 20

Living Elementals: 10

Difficulty: B

Fights were everywhere.

"Milady, their RGS rose to three."

Flora wanted to survey the whole area, but when she spotted a trashy chasing two children, she decided to attack.

"Aito, mark the next target. Prioritize the villagers in sticky situations."

Skulls appeared above the heads of two elementals.

While Flora ran to the nearer one, the trashy raised its arm, which ended in a sharp spike. The villager, a wood guy, formed a green dome in front of him. His once fancy shirt smeared with blood and slime, he mumbled magical words.

Flora let the spell fly, but before it reached the elemental, his arm crashed down, piercing the shield of the villager. Flora's heart clenched, and she staggered. The wound was blurred out by the parental control feature, but not the face of the villager, contorted with regret, pain, and rage. She was sure it would hound her.

Villagers: 19/20

"Burned toast! We have to be faster." Flora was thankful for the red veil that shielded the carnage. She was nearly in range to attack. 'Get a grip. Just a little bit closer.'

After the trashy killed his opponent, it went after the children.

"Bliz, shoot the marked one until it slows down. Aito, fetch the trashies of the villager who struggle. Lure them to us. Let this be the last dead villager!"

Under the attacks of the team, the elementals forgot about the children and turned to Flora. She never before was so thankful for getting targeted.

Flora got another Lightning Bolt off before the first reached her, then she had to melee. Channeling Tempest, she swung her plasma sword. Lightning rained on the trashies. Now and then, the shock effect activated, and they froze, glowing from inside as the lighting flashed through them.

The trashy struck her with a broom, dripping with goo.

Flora didn't evade but glanced at her HP bar. She took less than ten damage per hit, a negligible amount of her 330 hit-points.

"The elementals are tough but hit softer than a granny. At least softer than me in RL."

"Every strike carries poison, Milady. Up to now, you resisted."

The second trashy reached her. It wielded a rake.

"Then we have to clean the poison from the villagers."

!

Light of the rising sun streamed over the square, while Aito's shots zipped through the air. Every second, one more trashy turned to them.

In a short interval, a third joined the melee, and a forth walked to Flora's back.

Feeling crowded, she jumped backward.

!

Lightning tendrils zapped from Flora to the four trashies, hopping from enemy to enemy in a magnific display of electric power.

The first elemental dissolved, but a new one took its place. Then another one joined.

Flora got hit from all directions. She only saw brooms, mops, rakes, and even a spade closing in on her. Without aim, she swung her plasma sword.

One trashy couldn't hurt her, but five of them did. Her HP plummeted. Her attention switched frantically between the attackers and her bars. When she asked herself panicking what she should do, her mental conditioning kicked in.

She still lost hit points, but at a slower rate. However, her mana-pool depleted rapidly.

"Beep." Aitoshuri displayed the skill Lure.

Description: Creates an irresistible object for one minute. If your opponents won't touch it, their attribute OVs gets halved for 25 sec.

CD: 5 minutes.

!

All the trashies switched targets to the dummy, which appeared amidst them.

Flora took a deep breath. "Thank you, sweetie."

The survival skill reminded Flora she had her inventory and quick access slots filled with traps.

Two trap-turrets, four explosive traps, and four frost-traps emerged.

The dummy turned to wooden scraps under the onslaught, and the trashies turned back to Flora.

"Beep."

A picture of Flora running away while shooting Lighting Bolts over her shoulder appeared on her HUD. An arrow pointed to one of the corners of the square.

A part of Flora rebelled on the thought of running away, but she was still overwhelmed and panicky, so she listened to Aitoshuri and sprinted. She cast a bolt behind her, but it struck the earth. Aiming magic backward was more difficult than it looked.

When she reached the corner, the arrow vanished. She whirled around and shot a Lightning Bolt at the closest elemental, which Aito had marked with a skull.

Shocked, it stopped, and another trashy passed it. The mark switched to it.

The arrow reappeared, pointing to the next corner of the square.

When Flora reached the halfway point, it vanished, and she cast bolts again.

"Now, I understand. We are playing tag."

"The proper gaming term is Kiting, Milady."

Her team had moved to the middle of the square, within firing distance of the four corners.

Bliz alternated between all the elementals to keep them slowed, while the turrets and the octopuses shot Flora's last target.

Flora developed a rhythm of running a few steps, shooting Lightning Bolt or Kinetic Bolt at the fastest to hinder it and running again.

On the way, Aito marked additional trashies, which still fought the villagers.

Flora cast a Frost Bolt on one and then threw it with Magical Pull into her train.

When she completed one round, she felt confident enough to mix in Hail to slow them further. Besides, such a nice pile of garbage monsters just invited area effects.

Flora's mana battery worked hard to supply her with enough juice, and she had to drink a potion to supplement.

Just when Flora had collected all roaming trashies, the next elemental perished.

Eight elemental were still more than enough to tax Flora's concentration. But she enjoyed figuring out a balance of running, bullying the elementals to stay in the pack, and raining ice on them.

When only four elementals were left, Flora tried again to cast while running. Her bolt missed the trashies again, but this time it hit Aito's octopussy. Friendly fire was deactivated, so nothing happened except beeping from Aito, which sounded suspiciously close to laughter.

Flora messed up the kiting rhythm out of concern for her little helper and got hit by a mob again. The beeping increased. Now it was unmistakenly laughter. Flora smiled. She enjoyed the sound of it.

It took minutes to grind them down, by far the longest time Flora ever fought.

Quest completed: Garbage Disposal I

Living Villagers: 19/20

Living Elementals: 0/10

Difficulty: B

Completion: A

After the last trashy dissolved, Flora scanned the square. The villagers were safe.

Two of them ran to Flora.

"Hero, the waterworks is under attack. A boss monster is breaking through the barricade. Please save the village!"

Quest: Garbage Disposal II

Description: Kill the Corrupted Waste Pile at the waterworks brick building.

Difficulty: A

As Flora started to jog towards the location, Aidan interrupted her.

"Stop, Milady. I suggest you regenerate and repair the mech-suit first. There is no time-limit on the quest."

"Good thinking." Flora sat down and ate Nutella toasts while repairing her equipment. She meditated until her mana-battery filled up.

When she closed in on the waterworks, she could see the wooden barricade from a distance. It reached higher than the construction in the current village and was creaking and groaning. The militia was missing as well.

Flora refreshed her shield as she jogged to it.

The barricade burst, and splinters showered the group. Bliz lost half of her hit-points and the turrets one third.

"Burned toast!"

An ultra-trashy appeared behind the wreckage, easily two times Flora's height. The pile of garbage had one power shovel and a doorframe instead of arms.

Name: King of Trash

Type: Corrupted Waste Pile

Level: 3

Rating: A

RGS: 3

!

The boss swung its shovel at Flora. It was as big as her torso and probably weighed more even with all the heavy materials of the mech-suit considered.

Flora ducked, but the tool still rammed her shoulder and pushed her away. Struggling for balance, she cast the next spell.

A crown of rocks surrounded her head.

Buff: Earth Halo: - 18% damage; + 3 OV stability; Time-remaining: 10 sec;

"Bosses have a high resistance to secondary effects. Smite or Acid Bolt might be the best choices, Milady."

Water gushed from Flora's hand, trenching the elemental and corroding it.

The shovel came at her again. This time Flora jumped back but still got clipped. She closed in and swung her lightsaber at its feet with her right hand and casting spells with her left hand.

In the next few bouts, Flora tried jumping over the shovel, ducking under it again, and doing nothing. None of it worked to evade the weapon, but the last one proved especially ineffective. The impact brought her to her knees.

The boss raised its shield and slammed it so hard on Flora's head she saw stars. In a cheesy animation, the stars exploded on her HUD and restricted her vision.

"Not funny, System," she complained while picking herself up.

"Dive, Milady."

Flora reacted fast and rolled to the left, still blinded.

The shovel caught her bottom and flattened her again.

At least the stars had grown more transparent, and she could recognize shapes again, and the displays reappeared.

They didn't show good things, though. Bliz had only a sliver of HP left while the turrets were severely damaged.

"Use Refrigerate on yourself," Flora said, worried about the cute icicle.

Just when Flora got up, the next attack came in. She got pushed around again but remained standing.

"I'm not your golf ball, trash."

Flora jumped onto the pile and trampled her way up to where the power shovel joined the garbage.

With her right hand, she burned the connection using the plasma sword. Her left rained Smite down.

The shovel turned and twisted, but Flora balanced it out. However, a "seasickness" debuff appeared on her HUD.

The Uber-trashy finally remembered it had a door frame in his left hand and rammed Flora with it.

She tumbled down and landed behind the monster.

"Milady, watch out, it's close to the ten percent mark."

Before Flora could ask what Aidan meant, the garbage pile started to pulse. Bubbles of foul-smelling liquid rose to its surface.

Surrounded by the dark ground, the notification on her HUD stood out.

The little icon symbolizing Bliz grew red, and one of the turrets died. The other tower had only a few points left.

"What is happening?" After asking, Flora used the connection through her nocks to cast a command.

"Milady, The King of Trash exploded and transformed into a smaller trash monster. Unfortunately, Bliz has changed alliances. We had to take her down together with the boss."

As Aidan narrated, a message appeared.

Quest completed: Garbage Disposal II

Difficulty: A

Completion: A

Quest: Garbage Disposal III

Description: Find the source of the corruption in the sewers.

Difficulty: B

When Flora reemerged from the ground, trash and orange goo littered the area around the brick building.

She tried to resummon Bliz, but the spell failed.

"You can't call the same elemental after it died for one hour if you have no contract with it."

"A pity, Bliz did a good job. I appreciated her slowing effects." Her HUD displayed Summon on cooldown even though it failed. "What was the 10 percent stuff you were telling me?"

"Many A-rated mobs have special skills at 50% and 10% HP. From the shockwave, which disabled your HUD, as a 50% mark, I estimated its total Hit-points and issued a warning when it approached ten percent."

"Uh, good job. Now that I know of the mechanic, the warning will be useful. Please continue delivering."

"We might encounter an S-rated boss. Many of them execute special skills at 75%, 50%, 25%, and 10%. Should I bring it to your attention?"

"Yes, please."

Flora repaired the robots and regenerated again. Then, she connected the trap-throwing-toaster to her nock.

"I'm tempted to connect a healing-turret, as well. What do you think?"

Aito held up two tentacles.

"Even two of them? Then I have to get rid of both turret-traps. My nocks are all occupied. Or I connect them via technomancy."

"I can't execute the software controls of the turrets over a magical link. You could use Establish Connection on my octopussy, Milady. With level 50, you can put 15 mana into it.

At the moment, it shares one of the nocks with the mana-battery. When the battery is in use, it leaches MR-bandwidth from it, resulting in a downgrade of the octopussy."

"I need more nocks." Flora half sighed, and half grinned. "Remind me on Monday Two to visit Doc Brownski."

Flora established a magic link to Aidan's octopussy. Then, she connected two healing turrets and put them together with the turret traps in her quick access belt. The sewers were too narrow and filled with waste and hurdles to have them out.

"Add changing the wheels of the turrets, maybe into tank tracks or spider legs. I bet if I choose spider legs, the next quest will be in the snow. Oh, let's do a customizable movement apparatus."

Flora started to sketch a design until Aidan reminded her, time mattered for the dungeon rankings.