By the time he’d finished the frame of the first planter box, he’d just about run out of daylight. August dumped a bunch of the dirt he’d accumulated inside of his inventory over the last week into it until it was all the way up to the top.

Planter Box Blueprint Unlocked

You have levelled up.

August glanced up at the alert. He’d started with a level up from the quest; he hadn’t expected to finish it with one as well—had he really managed to earn that much experience in a single day? He ran over everything he’d done, trying to pinpoint where it had come from. He’d identified three new plants, which would have given him a chunk of experience, and the blueprint he’d just unlocked would have given some as well. He’d also been walking around for most of the day with [Locate Plant] on, and while he hadn’t confirmed it, using skills probably necessitated some kind of experience gain.

What else had he done? He’d helped dig out the plants, picked up the stuff everyone had collected in the forest, made a bunch of twine, cut up the wood for the planter box—he’d also finished off the [Draft Furnance] this morning, and made the two axes as well.

The whole bathing thing with Haiko and the argument with Kalter both deserved some kind of EXP reward, at least, he thought so, given how stressful both had been—plus, the thornbush had attempted to assassinate him after he’d fled the boss fight, the damage from that might have counted towards something.

Looking back on all of it now, he was surprised at just how much had happened—it was kind of a mess, honestly. August left the skill point alone for the moment, wanting some time to sit down and actually think about how to spend it rather than regret making another impulse decision.

August ducked down and dug out a series of thin holes, spaced as evenly as he could manage in the planter box. He began placing each of the onion plants in, making sure they were sticking up about as much as they had been in the forest before refilling the holes with the nearby dirt. He

Without another box ready, he couldn’t plant any of the others, so he called it a day, leaving the rest of his chosen branches in a stack beside the first one, untrimmed and with the [Bone Axe] leaning against it, ready for him to pick back up next time he could actually see.

August crossed back to the huts—Haiko, Kalter, and Boko were already inside, talking quietly amongst themselves, while Rittan knelt beside the door, in the process of butchering the [Mitikos] he’d managed to hunt down.

“You’re just in time, my friend,” Rittan said, “It was starting to get a bit difficult to see what I was doing.”

“Sorry, I got a bit distracted,” August said, kneeling down beside the entrance. “Remind me to give you the blueprint for the bow drill, that way, you’ll be able to start it on your own if I’m not around.”

August set to work on lighting the fire, using the tool in question to generate the friction needed.

“That’s probably a good idea for the long term,” Rittan said, nodding. “The more tasks each of us can handle individually, the more effective we’ll likely become as a group.”

“That’s the plan,” August agreed, “How did hunting go? Did Neptune cause any problems?”

“Neptune was actually very cooperative; as you said, he did exactly as I asked,” Rittan said before pausing. “Ladybug has reminded me, once again, that I very much wish to avoid stumbling upon one of her kind unaware.”

“You and me both,” August said, breathing out as the first curls of smoke appeared. “I only managed to make one of the planter boxes, but the onions are in there now. I’m not sure how long the plants will last in my inventory without sunlight or whatever, so I’ll probably try and get that done in the morning.”

“If you leave them out in the morning, whoever stays behind can most likely handle the task while you’re gone,” Rittan said, glancing over at him. “Do you still believe that to be the best course of action?”

“I do, but we still need to vote on it,” August offered, “You told them about it?”

“He told us,” Boko said, speaking up from inside. “Trip up topside to gather a bunch of bamboo, yeah?”

“That’s more or less it,” August admitted, “There are Otrogon up there to consider, but the singular one I encountered made no attempt to attack me when it had the chance; it just watched me for a while before moving on.”

“Which may be a quirk of its disposition and may not be representative of the entire species,” Haiko said, humming. “Ladybug was like that as well, was she not?”

“That’s right,” August agreed, carefully moving the coal into the fire and against the kindling. “Ladybug was friendly because she has a skill that let her sense my mana, but that Otrogon had a skill called Danger—which I have no idea the effect of.”

“A skill?” Boko said, “This whole invisible writing thing you’ve got going on is hard to figure out without seeing it first-hand—think you can bring me in on this?”

August glanced up from where he was blowing on the coal and somehow found himself looking at Kalter. She was already looking at him, expression unmoved from the glance he’d caught of her when he first joined them.

“You want me to recruit you?” August said, managing to tear his eyes away from her face. “I can do that, but I’ve only got one open spot at the moment. I did level up, though, so I could open up a second one—hold on, I need to get this done.”

“Sure thing,” Boko said, unbothered.

August turned his attention back to the coal, ignoring the group until he’d managed to spread the fire to the kindling and then to the rest of it. Once he was finally done, he pulled back a bit and sat down outside the hut, giving himself enough space to spread his legs out in an attempt to stop his knees from aching.

August took a moment to pull up the [Faction] menu, checking to see what it said.

Population – 1/2

Assigned – 0

Unassigned – 0

Settlements

Lakeside Hovel

It took him a moment to catalogue each of the changes—he’d put a point into [Ruler I] already, which explained the [Population] counter rising, but the [Unassigned] metric had been a one, last time he’d checked. The only thing he could think of that made sense with the context was the job system—Rittan had become a [Cook]—so it stood to reason that it was tracking how many people had joined but hadn’t selected jobs.