We were speeding along what the Asphons considered a road. Of course, this didn’t mean a well-paved, straight road in this case. No, the monsters running rampant on this layer made it impossible to properly maintain long stretches of civilization. No matter how hard they tried, they wouldn’t be able to properly defend their streets for a prolonged amount of time, not without deploying a system-made barrier that they used for their cities and villages. The resources that would be needed to do something like this were instead funneled into their settlements, making them as good as can be. As such, a road was considered to be a long stretch of land that had been mostly cleared of all the debris from the collapsed buildings.

In a short conversation I had with Nimma earlier, I’d asked how it was possible that there were still buildings standing after so many years. Apparently, the answer to that was that the system was rebuilding them every now and again. They’d confirmed a few things I’d seen in the upper layers, namely that the system slowly rebuilt damaged parts of the layer. Supposedly none of them had ever witnessed this process, but the proof was in the buildings randomly returning to a non-destroyed state. They would still be in disrepair, as this was apparently the whole theme of this layer.

Interesting tidbit aside, the purpose of our outing today was to travel to the village nearest to Lophan. A small village called Oomah, the second village they’d founded. The collective of Lophan currently consisted of nine villages and two cities. According to Lophan, in order to build a city a territory needed three villages, after which the system would allow them to found a city if they fulfilled certain other conditions. As such, they’d been ready to found a third city for quite a while now, but the system kept blocking them from building a third city.

A problem that not only Lophan was dealing with, apparently. The system was very cagey about granting the rights to a third city across the entirety of the seventh layer. Nobody had figured out the requirements to get permission yet and all of the big settlements were frantically racing each other to be the first to get it. After having exhausted almost every idea they had, most settlements had set their sights on the travelers.

This explained the competitive scene I’d witnessed on my first day on this layer. Both settlements desperately wanted to get me on their side on the off chance that they’d somehow fulfill the hidden requirements needed to found a third city. While I wasn’t terribly interested in the metaphorical dick-measuring contest between the settlements, it was an interesting window into the life of the Asphons.

As I mulled over this new information, we finally got into range of the Oomah. Our group, consisting of Nimma’s entire team and me, stopped. Redax wasn’t visible, as always, but I could feel him slink around somewhere to our right. I was annoyed that I could sense him so clearly since he was clearly allowing me to, but instead of focusing on our petty game, I jumped to a higher vantage point, taking in the village before us.

Contrary to Lophan which was dominated by high-rise buildings, Oomah didn’t have a single building over three stories tall. If I had to guess, there weren’t any more than a thousand Asphons living here, the protected space instead being used to safe-keep their crops. Yes, the village's main purpose was food production. While it was entirely possible to scrape by by eating the monsters they killed, it was in no way a balanced diet, nor a very tasty one. The big cities were dependent on the food from the villages and were even more tightly guarded than the cities. Sure, the system kept monsters out of the protected zones, but it wouldn’t stop a stray fireball from destroying their fields.

The crops themselves were just as alien to me as the Asphons. I could spot something that vaguely resembled the wheat I knew, but aside from that, the plants looked like nothing I had ever seen on Earth.

“Are the nine villages really enough to supply both themselves and the two cities?” I asked skeptically when I heard somebody jump up behind me.

“Not entirely,” Nimma’s voice answered. “It accounts for a decent chunk of what we need, the rest we supplement with monster meat and system trades. Still, the more food we produce by ourselves, the fewer system credits we need to spend on it, which allows us to get other things we need. It also helps that there is no winter here. It’s always the perfect weather for farming.”

“Still, isn’t it a bit overkill to have this many guards patrolling the village?” I watched the guards on their patrols, never much more than twenty meters between each squad of three.

“It is most of the time, but when something happens they need to be able to respond as soon as possible,” Nimma explained. “Depending on what monsters are duking it out, just one stray skill can be enough to raze an entire field to the ground, or worse.”

As if on cue two monsters crashed through a building on the far side of the village perimeter, prompting at least twenty guards to immediately rush them down. Skills and spells rained down on the unfortunate monsters, making quick work out of them. They apparently took their job very seriously. Or, at the very least, more seriously than the guards I’d seen in Lophan. As far as I could tell, those guys loved to slack off the entire day.

“Impressive,” I commented as the guards began dragging one of the dead monsters back to the village. Probably an edible one. “Well then, shall we?”

Nimma nodded at my prompt and we once again picked up the pace. It took only a few minutes to cover the rest of the distance and we were greeted by a squad of guards that had seen us coming a mile away. Once Nimma told them what we were here for, they visibly got excited. Something that was mostly articulated through tail movement, as I’d learned. Soon enough we were being escorted through the village towards the administrative building in the center of the village. Said building was easily recognizable as it was the biggest building in the entire village.

On the way there we were being followed by excited whispers, the few Asphons that weren’t working the fields today taking note of our arrival. We arrived in short order, and the first thing I noticed was just how little foot traffic there was compared to administration in Lophan. Presumably, most of the Asphons were actually out working, which left only a precious few bureaucrats to do their thing.

Once we stepped into the building proper, I decided to get my nightmare fuel on and started showing off my fancy new walking technique. Orbos visibly shuddered when I started doing it, but hey, this way they didn’t need to clean up my deadly mucus. At least the others were professional enough to pretend they didn’t mind. Nimma was just about to inform the receptionist about the purpose of our visit when an Asphon came running down the stairs behind them.

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“Welcome…” the Asphon almost tripped over his own tail barely managing to not fall by holding onto the sturdy desk of the reception. “Welcome to Oomah! I am Lando, the chief of this village. Allow me to welcome you to our humble slice of this layer.”

“Thank you,” I replied, doing a small bow that once again caused Orbos to discreetly look away. “My name is Gary, and I’m visiting today because I’d like to complete a village quest if that is okay with you.”

“Absolutely!” Lando, who was a male judging by his voice, replied a bit too eagerly. “There would be no greater honor than having you complete a village quest for us!”

I shot Nimma a questioning look, to which she replied with a shrug. We’d gone over this already and I’d seen it every time I went to accept an individual-tier quest, but the reaction this time around was much more visceral. The poor guy looked like he was about to faint from excitement. Me completing a quest for a village would amount to some pretty good stuff they could demand from the system, chief among that, the option to gain more land. Usually getting more protected land from the system required them to jump through hoops for years, but if I managed to complete one quest for them? Boom, more land.

So I wasn’t about to look down on a man who was looking at the business opportunity of his life.

“Since we’re on the topic already, would you mind explaining the process a bit more to me?” I asked, idly noting that every Asphon within earshot was now glued to our conversation. “I have a rough understanding, but would like to know the details.”

“Of course, of course,” Lando started bowing to me repeatedly and I started to worry that he was about to grovel. “Why don’t we move this conversation somewhere a bit more comfortable? Would you like something to drink? Some food? You must be parched after the trip.”

“I could do with some water,” I replied politely. I didn’t actually need it, but it felt rude not to take him up on the offer.

“Absolutely! Kanrah, would you be a dear and bring us a pitcher of water and enough glasses for everybody?” Lando asked the receptionist as he ushered us up the stairs. His office was located on the second floor and a lot more humble than Lophan’s had been. His desk was a lot smaller and of lower quality and the same could be said for everything else in the room. There was a table big enough to seat six off to the side which was barely enough for all of us.

Well, there was no open spot for Redax, but the elusive archer hadn’t shown himself at all, so it was just as well.

We were seated around the table in short order, Lando across from me, almost vibrating in his seat. The receptionist arrived with our water, and after Lando poured each of us a glass, it was finally time to get into the meat and bones of our meeting.

“So, about village quests,” Lando opened after taking a shaky sip of his water. “The process is very simple and rather similar to what you’re used to from the individual-tier quests you’ve been doing so far. The main difference is that individual-tier quests are determined by what the Asphon needs of you, while village and city quests are both generated by the system. We won’t know what the quest will be until it has been generated and once you confirm that you want to generate one, you will be forced to accept it. The quests usually spawn in certain things and even if you determine that you do not want to deal with the quest, the danger will still be present.”

Lando had rattled off all of this information quickly and without taking a single breath, nursing his glass of water while breathing heavily afterward. I was starting to believe that the signs I’d seen weren’t due to excitement, but crippling nervousness. How did a guy like that get into office?

“So what, if I make you generate a quest and then dip afterward, you’ll be left to clean up whatever the quest spawned?”

“Precisely,” Lando coughed up after choking on some water. “Village quests, while not exclusively, tend to revolve around defending the village from some sort of strong monster, or multiple monsters. If you should leave after it was generated, we would have to deal with the issue ourselves. Now, we have warriors on standby that are at tier nine. They could pretty easily deal with the fallout of a village quest. The bad thing would be that we’d actually get a penalty from the system because we helped you out too much during your quest.”

“You get penalized if I don’t do the quest?”

“Yes, we do,” Lando confirmed. “We are permitted to lend you some aid, like scouting services for example, but we’re not supposed to take too much of the burden on ourselves. We’ve had quests where the traveler decided to fortify the village and had us help defend against a horde of monsters, which is also permitted. Essentially, as long as the traveler deals with the bulk of the problem, we should be in the clear.”

“I have to ask, did anybody ever just leave you hanging after generating a quest?”

“It didn’t happen to us, but I’ve heard of a traveler that deemed the quest too dangerous after it was generated and refused to risk it,” Lando shakily poured himself another glass while my water was still untouched in front of me. “Understandable, really. The village-tier quests are dangerous, after all. It’s just a right mess to deal with the penalty the system imposes. That’s why, we tend to make extra, extra sure that the traveler is ready for the quest before we generate them.”

“Rest assured, I won’t back out of the quest, no matter how dangerous it seems,” I stated confidently, hoping to alleviate some of the jittery man's worries. “Actually, I’d prefer it if the quest presented a challenge to me.”

Not only was I looking to get myself into a proper fight since the individual tier quest had been lacking in that department, but no, harder usually also meant better rewards. Here’s to hoping that the higher-tiered quest didn’t just reward more levels, otherwise I would be pretty annoyed. Lando asked me one final time whether I was absolutely sure before generating the quest. It only took a few seconds for the quest window to pop up in front of me, and after being prompted by Lando, I read the contents out loud.

New Quest!

A massive threat has been spotted near the village of Oomah. The giant gelatinous cube (T8) is devouring everything in its path to satiate its unending hunger. Stop it before it destroys the village and devours their fields.

Goals:

Kill the giant gelatinous cube before it reaches the village.

Rewards:

2 level-ups.

1 ton of gelatinous acid.

Accept?

Y/N

“Can anybody tell me what the fuck a gelatinous cube is?”