“You know, I think that when I was a kid, I never once would have believed you if you said the thing I would be most excited for in any given day wouldn’t be video games, dates, movies, some fancy new toy, or something else, but a nap,” Nick commented as they walked, thinking about how much he would give most days to just stop in the middle of work and take a nap.
“You’re going to have to wait though,” Seo-ah said. “We still have to finish off the base defense before we sleep.”
“Right, right . . .” Nick grumbled. The promise of a nap looming in the distance motivated Nick to move faster.
Allen pulled a box from his inventory space. It had loads of wires and ports with advanced-looking circuitry and a green light emanating from its core. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to install this modification to the Hangar Bay. Like Nick suggested, the core of the mechrophage queen was perfect for enhancing the cooperative capabilities of the drones. It will give them the ability to communicate more effectively, coordinate attacks, and decrease repair time when damaged.”
“What about using it on your ViVi? Since ViVi keeps getting better and better, wouldn’t using it for that drone?” Nick asked, liking the idea of buffing the base, but not wanting to short change Allen when his own drone was a fundamental part of their rotation.
“I worked too hard on ViVi to let some tech I don’t know enter its system,” Allen quickly dismissed the thought though.
With that, the artificer walked away, still half muttering to himself about the subsystems that the drone booster would enhance while admiring his own handiwork.
“You ever wonder if he feels left out, always working on his own like that? I mean, at least you constantly come to the forge to harass Reggie,” Christina asked Nick as Allen departed.
“Hey, I don’t need harassment,” Reggie huffed, throwing up his chin, “I’m perfectly fine on my own too.”
“So you don’t want me to come by as often as I do?” Christina asked with a smirk, likely already knowing his response.
“I’m fine with a little harassment,” the blacksmith shyly replied.
“Not everyone has the social battery to be with the group all the time. It’s good he has something he loves to do,” Nick replied with a shrug as the group reached the center of the base.
“So what are we building first, boss?” Topaz asked as Nick put his hand on the heart, pulling up the menu.
“This is a basic RTS problem really,” Christina quickly stated as she pushed Reggie off her, having noticed that Maria and Topaz had seen them holding hands and trying to change the topic preemptively before the two girls could tease her about it.
“What do you mean?” Nick asked, looking over the list with dozens of options.
“Well, it’s like when you’re playing an RTS game like StarCraft: You have two types of plays you can make. The first is to be really greedy. You build expansions, you max out your SCV count, you focus on just getting your mins up as much as you can,” Christina explained, once again referencing what she always referred to as the greatest RTS ever made. “But the more you spend on the economy, the more you can’t spend on walls, defenses, or armies. So some players focus on those instead, and invest in harassment units, cannons and defense, or military-focused stuff. The problem is, if you do that, then the longer the game drags out, the more likely you are to lose to players who were greedy and survived.”
“What’s that mean in English?” asked Maria, who had probably never been allowed to play games given how strict her mother was. “What’s an SCV?”
“It’s, umm, the unit that makes you money . . . Sorry. I’ll try to put it in non-gamer terms: You have to choose between short-term and long-term investments,” Christina said. “Focusing on long-term growth is always the right option . . . if you can live. But focusing on long-term growth can quickly get you killed too.”
“That’s . . .” Nick frowned as he stared at the screen after depositing the essence they’d brought back with them. The number of essences, eighty-seven, was no small number. It meant that the base had gone through a lot of encounters since he left. It made him want to forgo the “long term investments” and focus on defense only. “I survived the last round of the apocalypse because I didn’t gamble or take risks. Maybe I should remember that when deciding what to do with the essences. If we build more drones or add in some turrets, we might be a lot better off.”
“But your team still lost,” Reggie pointed out. “Let’s not forget that. You lived, but your team didn’t.”
“That’s an ugly way to put it,” Christina chastised him. “Those were his friends.”
“And I’m his friend this round, right, bro?” Reggie looked over to Nick, but before Nick could even say anything, the blacksmith started talking again. “And you know, if I’m his friend this round, I think that means now I’d like to make it to the end of the game.”
“You’re not making it better, man. Give up,” Topaz remarked with a laugh at Reggie’s clunky awkwardness.
“So what are you going to do?” Seo-ah asked. “Because I don’t have a right answer here.”
Nick sighed. “I hate saying this, but Christina and Reggie are right.”
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“You hate saying I’m right? Ouch, come on, bro,” Reggie replied, faking being hurt.
“No, I mean I hate saying that we can’t invest in defense and take the safe option. Christina has a point—life is pretty much an RTS game—and you’re right that we need to take the risk and focus on long-term investments. I’m not where I am right now in this life because I took it safe. The first action I did after regressing nearly cost me my life, and so did the last one. Every step is a dice roll, but with the team I have now, with the support we’ve put together, even this doesn’t feel like as much of a risk as it should be,” Nick said as he opened up the menu one more time, certain in the choice he was about to make.
“Then what are you going to do?” asked Arnold, who had been half-listening the whole time even though he and the rest of the Walters seemed to have their attention much more focused on the gym than the actual conversation the group of young adults was having next to them.
“Well, if stats are the resources we need to gather—the mins that the SCVs need to harvest in Christina’s terms—then we need to focus on those first, but . . .” Nick went to the gym section of the menu. “We should focus on the stats that will keep people alive first. With this terrain and these monsters, the thing I’m worried about most is people dying in fights.”
“So options are glass cannon or tank,” Christina noted, making yet another game reference to explain what Nick was talking about.
“Yup, except this time making the decision will be a lot easier. The advantages of a glass cannon in most games is that it lets you kill faster, so you can keep getting resources faster, build a better glass cannon faster, and so on. The glass cannon scales a lot faster in games, so focusing on it is usually the best option. However, this isn’t a game. Our resource limitation isn’t how fast we can kill, but how many monsters are going to attack us, so we don’t have to worry about the largest downside when picking the tank option,” Nick told her as he loaded up the gym buffs that focused on increasing constitution.
Revitalization Pools
Cost: 50 Essence Stones
Effect: Increases stamina regeneration by 25%, allowing the user to return to working out faster.
Capacity: 10 people
Space requirement: 12 ft x 12 ft
Bronze Soulforge Sauna
Cost: 75 Essence Stones
Effect: When used for 15 minutes directly after a workout, increases constitution gains from the workout by 25%.
Capacity: 20 people
Space requirement: 14 ft x 14 ft
Bronze Cardio Room
Cost: 75 Essence Stones
Effect: Those who train on cardio equipment in this room will have a 25% increase in agility gains from exercising.
Capacity: 20 people
Space requirement: 25 ft x 25 ft
Bronze Weightlifting Room
Cost: 75 Essence Stones
Effect: Those who train on weightlifting equipment in this room will have a 25% increase in strength gains from exercising.
Capacity: 20 people
Space requirement: 35 ft x 35 ft
Bronze Target Dummy Room
Cost: 75 Essence Stones
Effect: Those who train on cardio equipment in this room will have a 25% increase in aura and magic growth.
Capacity: 20 people
Space requirement: 25 ft x 25 ft
“Right . . . so you want to focus on getting everyone’s durability and hit points up so that we don’t lose people in battle, and then we can switch to focusing on a different stat later, like magic or strength, since those are the damage-oriented ones,” Seo-ah observed, seeming excited as she read the list of options available for constitution.
“Exactly!” Nick replied. “If we have to choose between those SCVs and defenses and drones that will help us, then let’s focus on something that hits both of those: constitution. It’ll help even further since the more constitution our members have, the more they can work out in the future. It’ll compound their gains when they have the stamina, health, and energy to put in extra hours with the weights.
“That’s a good choice, Nick,” Mr. Walters remarked, looking incredibly proud as he gave Nick a thumbs-up. “You can’t build a body at all if you don’t have a good core.”
“That’s the right type of thinking indeed,” Arnold said, beaming too and adding a thumbs-up of his own. “I always knew Nick was destined to be one of us.”
“Well, that’s two votes in favor of focusing on constitution-building upgrades,” Nick said, looking at the others.
“Make it three,” Elizabeth said, adding a thumbs-up too. “The tougher they are, the more they’ll be able to endure the medicine ball. You can’t heal without medicine.”
“You know I’ve always wondered who looked at a large heavy ball and said, ‘Yeah, let’s call it a medicine ball,’ when it really doesn’t heal anything. It just hurts. It hurts a lot,” Maria grumbled, but then she gave a thumbs-up as well. “Oh yeah, and I’m in favor too.”
“I feel obligated to point out that talking about people as a ‘resource’ that needs to be farmed and raised kinda makes us sound like villains, you know?” Topaz said, shrugging and frowning as she became the first dissenting voice. “But yeah, I’d still prefer turrets.”
“I’m with Turret Topaz actually,” Adele admitted. “Those monster waves aren’t going to get smaller. How do you know we can handle them? This war between those knights and those things . . . It’s been clearly going on for a long time. It’s not like we’re going to have a shortage of essences in the future. Let’s invest in keeping people safe first.”
“I’m with her,” Reggie said and pointed to Christina, who was giving a thumbs-up rather than actually saying anything.
“Of course you are,” Nick laughed. He then looked over at Lou and Seo-ah, who were also giving him thumbs up.
“Okay, so . . . constitution it is,” Nick said, looking over to the screen as he hit the button and began dumping nearly all of the essences right into the gym upgrade.
The Gym
Level: 1
Building Type: Training Facility
Dimensions: 50 ft x 50 ft
Capacity: 10 Trainees at a time
Current Upgrades and Effects:
Physical Training Zone: +10% to selected stat growth.
Magical Attack Training Zone: +10% to selected stat growth.
Bronze Cardio Room: +25% Constitution growth.
The Gym begins as a barebones, empty building that will increase the training rate of individuals within it by 10%. However, The Gym can be leveled up to increase the buff and specialize it for more targeted growth to better unlock the potential of the trainees by purchasing specialized rooms and facilities within the building.
“There. Done,” Nick said, feeling good about the choice. It wasn’t the course he would have picked going in—even at the end, he still was hesitant, wanting to click the extra defense options—but he had to trust in his team. He had put together the smartest of the smart people for his companions, and the Walters, at least in his last life, had risen to become one of the most powerful guilds in the city with their careful decision making, so he had to trust that his people knew what was best.
“So now can we take a nap?” Seo-ah asked, already heading toward the tent that Kaylee was standing by and pointing at as four people were carrying in cots for them to sleep on.
“Yup,” Nick said, nodded, but hesitantly looked over at the walls, as if another interruption would come at any minute.