Chapter 2215: Chapter 2215 Earning Some Cheddar
--- Souris ---
Souris had learned, sadly, that while hanging out underground meant her earth magic was more powerful it also didn’t have many orbs. On top of that, the underground wasn’t endless. Caves criss-crossed and met up... but they also didn’t. The problem with that was that if you ended up backtracking through things that was more time you weren’t looking for orbs. This was a problem because while Souris would consider herself a fairly skilled earth user... she also didn’t have infinite mana. She wasn’t a molebear that could dig through hundreds of metres of earth for the fun of it, nor could she automatically sense the nearest cave just by sneezing.
Sure her hearing helped her navigate tunnels, but if the rock wall was solid enough it didn’t matter of the next nearest tunnel was ten metres away or a hundred, Souris couldn’t tell without casting a spell or using an item for that purpose... and she simply didn’t. Souris did have a spell that tracked things through the earth... but it was designed to run along the surface and give her information about what it ran into. It didn’t travel through walls.
Instead that meant she’d needed to do something else for orbs, and her appearance in Spring provided that. There were plenty of monsters to go searching for as bounties in the office, and the fact that every time she went back there were more posters on the wall seemed to imply someone, probably Thyme, was continually adding more monsters to the area.
The pollen in the air was a bit of an issue, but Souris now had an amazing understanding of the tunnels underneath and around the Spring area. Not the whole thing of course, but the area around the town and heading off in the four cardinal directions. Souris also, might have, just perhaps, closed off a few tunnels and opened up some new ones to make it harder for anyone else to find their way down along those pathways. There was some indication that people had been here before but Souris didn’t know if they were fresh enough to indicate someone had used them during the tournament, or if they’d been set up to look used before everyone arrived.
It left her with a decent system... but one that was constantly at risk of collapsing. Her orb stocks were never as high as she’d like, and Souris was constantly rushing to make sure had a few more to survive the cut-off time. The issue was that she could either expand her tunnel network to be better at moving around the area, or she could look for more orbs... but the more orbs she grabbed in the immediate area the more she needed those tunnels to move about.
It was a vicious cycle and Souris was starting to worry that she was getting near the end of it. If her memory served, and it should she was keeping track, there was only one cardinal direction that had yet to be picked clean by her travels in the nearby areas and the orbs will not have regenerated yet. If the quest board for tomorrow wasn’t worth enough orbs, or sent her too far away then she might be stuck.
And it was frustrating! Even if Wiggles was trying to keep her spirits up it was annoying to realise that she was close to just being at the whims of fate. Perhaps if she was willing to spend more time above ground, or go exploring further away from town she could find more orbs... but she needed those bounty quests. Despite not quite being as well ’paying’ as she might want... they were still guaranteed orbs, and when you were constantly worried about if you had enough orbs to survive you had to take them.
For now, it seemed that the area was empty, and that the other contestants didn’t really like it. Souris could sympathise of course, but with her underground pathways and the masks sold by the town she was able to manage well enough that she didn’t consider it a problem. The issue would be if this changed. Souris was already using any orbs she could get her hands on, and if somebody else came in to gobble up some for their own use then that might be the end. Heck, depending on where else she explored those areas might already have been picked clean.
The issue was that Souris just didn’t know, and asking about it hadn’t gotten her anywhere. Still, she had enough for today so it was time to relax, trade her extra meat from the job for a proper meal, and then get ready to be up early the next day. The bounty board was updated at some ungodly hour the morning, though Souris had yet to catch the specific time. Part of her was pretty sure that was intentional.
The board was updated at some time before 4am but after 2. You’d think that logically it would be updated at 3 then, but the one time Souris woke up to check on it at exactly 3 nothing was updated... but the time she checked at 2:30 it had been. So clearly it wasn’t the same time every day... but what the true range was Souris hadn’t learnt.
Walking up to the bar, Souris tapped it twice and the barkeep walked over from where he was polishing the glass. "Welcome back Souris," said Nolan. "Good to see your back once again. The bounty board always needs managing and the last few people to come through just didn’t seem to want to stick with it."
Souris grumbled, "Yeah well it’s better then the fucking wetlands so I’ll deal with the pollen. Here are the trophies," Souris started to hand over the proof of kill for each of the monsters. It wasn’t always the same. Some parts were actually worth something, like the horns she was handing over, but others, like the ears from a weird turnip monster were basically just scraps. Annoyingly, the valuable ones weren’t always worth more orbs.
Nolan nodded and started to put them under the bar, or perhaps in his apron it was hard to tell. At the same time, he also slapped a giant metal tray on the table and Souris nodded, slapping down a large chunk of meat she’d taken off the bull-thing she’d got the horn from. "You know I’m basically ripping you off with this right? If you bothered to butcher the meat properly or cooked it yourself you could probably get more out of this than a few meals right? Heck we HAVE a butcher that would offer you more," Nolan grumbled.
"Would they actually give me orbs?" asked Souris.
Nolan shrugged, "Well... no not most of them. Some of them maybe. This isn’t a small amount of meat..."
"Yeah and I know my cooking isn’t that good. Plus it’s not like I’m running out of meat. This isn’t even the whole bull! I guess I can ask around, but the last time I tried to pawn off the extra nobody was interested. I wasted nearly two hours looking for buyers and got nothing. That’s time I could’ve been using for other stuff!" Souris insisted.
Nolan sighed, "Yeah well... I suppose that’s all true. Nobody likes to go anywhere so we don’t always have much to trade... and meat is nice sure but paying extra for food isn’t something most are willing to do, not this time of year. I’m sure somebody has a craving, but you’re right. If they want to pay for that sort of thing it’s usually on the board."
As Nolan said that he placed a bowl of carrots on the table and Wiggles started to munch on them. "You know that’s way more food then he should have right?"
"Yeah but the rabbit is probably smarter then you. He doesn’t eat all of it at once and I’ve seen him sneaking bits of it off elsewhere. Dunno if he’s giving it away, trading it or what have you... but that’s no issue for me. I did say you’re overpaying. Those carrots are the extras I don’t need for the soup now you’ve brought me that," Nolan said, gesture towards the towering stack of meat Souris had provided.
Souris meaningfully glanced at the bowl. The bowl filled only with carrots, before slowly raising an eyebrow at Nolan the barkeep. Sadly for Souris, Nolan had been a barkeep long before being hired by Thyme to pretend to be a different one. He was well used to customers glaring at him for no reason at all, or even somewhat valid ones. A five foot nothing twig of a mousekin wasn’t going to startle him. Not when he was pretty sure he could lift her up without any enhanced strength and including her armour. The stare off continued until Wiggles deliberately bit down hard on one of the larger pieces of carrot, drawing the attention back to him.
"You’re lucky you’re cute," grumbled Souris as she glared at Wiggles.
