The next day was a lot less productive. In between the smaller size of the camp and Elise accepting no excuses from the ones that were dragging their feet, they made more progress than before. The camp was still slow, way too slow to get out of the dead zone at this rate, but they got to the nearest Safe Zone soon enough.

They stuffed all of the non-combatants in that room, and left them to the care of Iota.

The place was overcrowded, but Martin’s Eviction Notes worked to their favour now. There were a little under fifty people in the camp after they gathered the last few stragglers nearby, which meant they would’ve had to go to two or three more Safe Zones before they could get a rest themselves.

Even if Elise wouldn’t have gone into a rampage having to walk for that long at the snail pace they were going at, they might’ve wounded themselves or seen several people die. They were exhausted after being awake and active for 30 hours, and the vespa that were suspiciously absent during their fight with Martin were swarming with double vigour now.

Fortunately, the vespa didn’t seem smart enough to use their acid spit on the Safe Zone doors. They didn’t test if the doors could be destroyed now that the place was evicted, but the vespa didn’t try either so it should be fine.

Which meant that they could just shove fifty people into the place and leave them be. The Bopca was still serving food and the showers still worked, as did the option to open loot boxes, but there were no more locked doors except for the personal spaces that were still inaccessible for everyone.

It was still manageable, Darryl told himself when they left. The place could hold twenty people and there were fifty in total, so they could rotate beds easily enough.

His party didn’t use that Safe Zone themselves, instead heading straight for the one down south. Elise wanted to, but she was the first one convinced when Thomas said that no locked doors meant no protection from thieves.

And so, too many hours after Martin died, they returned to the run-down bar where they left Jeremy and his wife and kid a few days back. They barely even exchanged a greeting before brushing past the couple and collapsing on the nearest bed.

___ ___ ___ ___

Countdown until level collapse: 1 days 15 hours 19 minutes

“Darryl! Darryl, wake up!” Ben said, knocking on the door.

Darryl grumbled rebelliously.

“Come on, Darryl! We already slept for ten hours!” Ben said.

Darryl turned around groggily.

Ben: Darryl!

Ben: D!

Ben: Com on!

Ben: Darryl

Ben: wake up!

Ben: !!!?

Darryl: Fine.

Five minutes later, Ben returned and began his PM and knocking offensive anew. This time he didn’t stop until Darryl actually opened the door.

“I would’ve gotten up in a minute anyway.” Darryl said.

“We were Rested half an hour ago. You’re lucky that Elise barred the door before taking a long shower, so we’re taking a slow start anyway.”

Darryl shrugged and walked to the bathroom, walking in to find Thomas already taking up one of the shower spots. Ignoring the bath, they didn’t have time for it, Darryl took one of the other showerheads of what was once a college shower room. Or a prison’s, hard to tell.

“So, what’s the situation?” Darryl said.

“I got an answer from the French, and the other team that set off to grind and find a staircase. Even with the knowledge of the dead zone, they’re not making too much headway.” Thomas said. “They told me that the Borough we’re in is a six by six grid this time, and it’s a safe bet that it’s completely barren. Here's to hoping that the Boroughs next to us aren't also devoid of Staircases.”

“Borough Boss or evacuation?” Darryl asked.

“They seem set on scouting further for the time being, but I think I can convince the French to double back once that timer starts to run low. Not sure about Gamma, but Mr. Geruet is helping me to convince them that the Silver Boss Box will be worth it.” Thomas said. “Both teams have been focused on grinding and defeating bosses, so they’re probably around the level that they can take down a Borough Boss given enough numbers.”

“I meant, what’s our plan?” Darryl asked.

“I was going to discuss it with the group.” Thomas said. “But there are huge risks to both plans, and we can still just teleport the non-combatants over as long as we take even a single member of their group along.”

Darryl gave Thomas a quizzical look.

“The Tutorial Guild teleportation exploit. If everyone enters the place and our guy opens the door near the Stairway, we can teleport them as far as we want without having to escort them that far.” Thomas said.

“Right. Smart.” Darryl said, taking out a bar of soap to scrub off all the blood and gore that clung to his body. He must’ve been really exhausted to fall asleep despite it.

“Ah, that’s odd.” Thomas said. “I thought the Bopca only handed out one specific brand of completely non-distinct white soap. Why is yours scented?”

“I got it from a hygiene box, way back during my first ever loot box opening session.” Darryl shrugged. “But I guess I’ll go ask the Bopca for some more once we’re done here, I doubt this bar will last long with the amount of filth we’re gathering.”

“Only one per floor each.” Thomas said. “So yeah, probably hang on to that one for later.”

When Darryl and Thomas left the showers, Ben slipped in past them and bashfully locked the door. Getting fully dressed, Darryl walked out to find Alexa playing with Jeremy’s daughter Cynthia while Elise, Jude and Jeremy’s wife Mary were having breakfast.

Jude seemed dead tired and worn out. It was clear that Elise dragged her along into the showers because she was clean and her hair still damp, but her eyes were still bloodshot from the tears and her gaze was hollow.

Elise and Mary were having difficulties getting her to eat, quite ironic considering Mary’s lack of hands meant that she was the one needing help, but the two of them were trying to show support and care for the mourning lass.

Not wanting to interrupt their efforts, Darryl took a seat at a different table and took out some junk food. He didn’t want to eat this kind of stuff too much, especially for breakfast, but after yesterday and going about twelve hours without food he made an exception this once.

About ten minutes later, Ben emerged from the showers and Elise left Jude in Mary’s care to join the rest of them. Carter took a seat as well, but Jeremy seemed to stay out of it to keep an eye on the two young girls instead.

Thomas started by catching them all up on the situation as he already explained it to Darryl before. He also mentioned that Epsilon had gone west, and that Corey didn’t seem opposed to the idea of exchanging information. Even if both sides seemed wary of cooperating with the other so soon after what transpired.

What they did know about their next big issue of finding a Staircase was reliable information, but unfortunately it wasn’t all that helpful.

The camp started just to the east of the Borough’s centre, and cleared out a three by four square of Neighbourhoods that almost everyone here had the maps of. There was one gap there, the Neighbourhood that housed the Borough Boss room. There was fog of war to the east, but it was just one Neighbourhood thick before they’d hit the Borough’s edge on that side. In terms of north and south, their known territory was exactly in the middle.

Then there were the areas that had been cleared by the French and team Gamma after the system for exchange of information collapsed.

The French had been slowly clearing more Neighbourhoods to the north, clearing two in this Borough before breaking off their planned clearing sweep to go to the Borough to the north and clear the first Neighbourhood they entered. Unfortunately, they hadn’t spotted a Stairway yet. They were planning to go straight north until they saw something, but were open to the idea of rushing back in case the Borough Boss would end up being their only chance.

Gamma worked a bit faster, thanks to being five instead of two people. They were clearing out the east strip working their way up north, and apparently took down the ‘Krakaren’ boss that spawned the Clurichaun army. They too doubled back immediately to leave the Borough through the east, but had yet to take down a Neighbourhood Boss there.

The west had been left almost entirely for what it was, even before the Rage Elemental went that way. Darryl's intuition told him that the nearest Stairway was that way, but there were three unexplored Neighbourhoods in the way before they’d even leave this Borough. They were going to leave that large swath of uncharted territory for what it was.

“Instead, I suggest we go south.” Thomas said. “The exit out of this Borough should be behind one more Neighbourhood, and with some luck we’ll find a Stairway there soon enough.”

Everyone nodded, mostly because there was no point arguing about the direction that was little more than an educated guess anyway.

“But first, we need to go grab those kids.” Carter said. “They’re stuck in the Tutorial guild, and there are way too many vespa around for them to make it here by themselves. And there’s a good chance that their Tutorial Guide is going to kick them out soon enough, people aren’t supposed to stay in there for too long.”

“It’s nearby and they’re children, so of course we’ll do it.” Elise said, getting another round of nods.

“We should be careful, there’s one red dot darting around that area killing vespa left and right. It’s too slow to be the rage elemental, but it must be quite potent if it survived for hours under these circumstances.”

“Yeah, is it me or did the amount of vespa get pretty crazy lately?” Ben said. “There were already a lot, but now they’re everywhere.”

“Things are getting out of hand, and we haven’t even reached the escalation point yet.” Thomas agreed.

“Are you sure we haven’t? Because there’s a lot. A lot.” Ben said.

“The first vespa appeared about 2.3-2.5 days after this floor started, and they began killing all the other mobs with as much vigour as they attacked us. The numbers we’re dealing with now come from our kills and the mobs that kill other mobs without eating them.” Thomas said. “In about twelve hours, we reach the point where the mobs killed by vespa start hatching new vespa. There fortunately won’t be a third wave given the floor’s time limit, but I think that the first wave of vespa isn’t leaving that many mobs alive to begin with. What we’re looking at now is just a fraction of what’s to come.”

“Aw, shit.” Carter said.

“Shit indeed.” Thomas nodded. “Fortunately, the last patch notes claim that half the vespa were removed off-screen to alleviate the unexpected massive quantity of murder-wasps threatening everyone. Plus, the acid spit has been nerfed and only half the pupae will be viable for hatching from now on. Hopefully that last one also retroactively applies to the pupae that were already here.”

There was no telling if that actually applied here, but Darryl half-assumed half-feared that the Dungeon was screwing them over again. If it could create dead zones by swamping other areas with Staircases, then technically this area could still have all of its vespas and a 100% hatching rate. There would just be a few areas with a few lucky bastards that got lower rates.

Because there were a lot of vespa around right now. Even after everyone had been storing all their kills in their inventory, or so they claimed, there were still A LOT of vespa everywhere. If there were two or three coming at you, then you were dealing with a newly gathering swarm. Because of course these creatures also swarmed together after a while.

“Alright, so there’s our list of tasks right now, too long as usual.” Elise said. “Save kids, avoid strong mob, avoid and kill vespa, and then we go south. Should we also go check on the Borough Boss before we go? Try to gauge what we’ll be up against?”

“We’re nearby, so we might as well.” Darryl said. “But kids first.”