"What most people fail to mention about those that first rose as heroes when the System arrived, is that it was actually much easier to get rare or uncommon classes that were synergistic with your first class. This is because every dungeon in the tutorial had class gems as possible drops, and most of those who were strong enough to get them were strong enough to realize how important class synergy was and as such hold on to them to trade with others after the tutorial, or take them from others."
-Excerpt from 'A Treatise on Integration' by Loremaster Squibb
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Once the store that we were using as a residence came into view, we were all surprised at how different it looked, while the walls facing away from the street were mostly the same, the one that had faced the street was no longer covered with a haphazard stack of debris that only stood thanks to jury-rigged supports and system assisted math, but instead looked like it would actually be able to hold up to some force, and the door was now fitted to the frame and solidly stood on actual hinges rather than needing to be wedged closed, while we were in awe of the changes that a single day brought, the door opened to reveal Jason's mother, who quickly hugged us and welcomed us back while repeatedly checking for injuries like the mother hen that she was. The biggest surprise of the day happened when we walked inside however, as rather than the darkness that I was expecting now that there was a solid wall blocking the last rays of sunset, the entire interior of the store was lit with a gentle glow originating from some familiar crystals that were lying on the ground or on top of surfaces.
The actual inside of the store was also much nicer than before, most of the remnant shelves having been removed and repurposed into the main wall plus a fairly large table and some stools, and upon entering the main room everyone quickly came over to us to see if we were okay and to fawn over Sir Lora. After everyone was assured that we were okay and we told them all about our hunting trip, the conversation moved to the table, which it to turn to what they all had done while we were gone. It turns out that those old shelves were actually very good material once they were disassembled, which wasn't as hard as I had assumed since despite everything looking like a hundred years had past, it had still only been a month, so none of the screws or metal parts were rusted, and they had repurposed the wood and metal supports to make the new wall, stools, and table, with only the wall needing any materials from other buildings. As one might expect the furniture was thanks to Leo's dad while the wall and new door, which I was shown had a castle style bar lock, was the work of my dad, and the lights were apparently the work of Jackson, who sheepishly told us that while he was unable to make any real equipment using his [Gemstone Jeweler] class without the proper tools, he could still do some basic stuff, the lights being able to store mana and release light, which apparently was one of the few crystal imbuements his class started with.
Eventually Jason's mom came and served us dinner on some wooden boards cut into squares and we talked about the people we had encountered on the way back, and how we should act now that factions were forming.
"I think we should stay out of it for a few days, we are lucky enough for our group to be more or less self-sufficient and I don't think we are too close to anyone else since we didn't see anybody while we were working."(Leo's dad)
"I agree that we shouldn't join anyone right now, but we should still check out whatever factions we can, that way if it looks like things'll go bad we have enough time to run if we need to."(Jackson's dad)
"I disagree, we are doing fine on our own, and interacting with any factions will make it less likely for them to leave us alone, its better to just sit tight untill everything settles."(Jason's mom)
The conversation continued on for a few minutes, with nobody really arguing for going to join an unknown group of people besides to act as devil's advocate, but the general consensus was that we would keep our eyes and ears peeled for the next few days without joining or trying to interact with any factions. Unfortunately Evelynn didn't have a way to relay information between herself and Sir Lora, so we couldn't use him to safely spy for us, and since it wasn't worth the risk to actively spy ourselves there wasn't really anything else we could do.
With stomachs full and worries in the future, we all retired to sleep, unfortunately still without beds as none of the pelts we had were ready to use, and this time I was actually able to fall asleep, the hunting trip somehow relaxing me enough to slip into the arms of slumber. I slept through the night fairly peacefully, whether due to the lack of screams or having just slept through them unknown, and after waking up and stretching out all the aches and pains that sleeping on hard ground without any pillows or padding comes with, as I had forgotten my sleeping bag in the tutorial to my great disappointment, I spent the first hour or two of the morning practicing moving crystals after creation while I waited for everyone else to wake up for breakfast.
Unfortunately the meat from the previous day was already starting to smell, and no one wanted to risk eating it, so our breakfast was made up of only berries and nuts. Since we didn't have any methods to prevent the meat from spoiling and the temperature wasn't particularly cold outside, it was clear that if we wanted to keep eating meat that we would need to hunt it daily, and that it was a waste to hunt too much as even with 12 people we still hadn't eaten all of what we hunted the previous day, though it would likely still be worth it for those under level 10 to hunt as much as possible to get the EXP and just leave the corpses behind. The previous day there had been a discussion about changing the hunting parties to include more non-combatants since the forest was so low-level, but apparently they only got half as much EXP from fighting as we did, with those who had stayed behind the previous day earning more EXP from improving the house, and in Jason's mom's case cooking our meals, than they would've had they went hunting, so that idea was quickly shot down.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Since Evelynn had a tamed monster, there was no longer any reason for us to not use the original groupings, and since Jackson and I were both useful in improving the house, Leo's group was sent on the first hunt, this time using a sled I made instead of Leo's shield to carry the discarded animal parts both from the non-deer animals we brought back and all the meat we hadn't eaten. Once they left, I made some tools for everyone, and since there wasn't any other pressing work for me, I started continued my practice in establishing and deepening connections with created crystals, as I was unable to feel any of the crystals that Jackson had for crafting even after meditating for hours with one close by unless I purposefully filled them with my energy beforehand and was still harder than ones I create.
Like this the next three days passed, and while we were invited to join multiple groups when we went out hunting, nobody had come to our residence besides one group of three who looked very ragged and ran away when they saw us. Over these few days, our home didn't change much outwardly, but inside we had finally managed to get mattresses made out of hide and filled with grass as well as some thin partitions so everyone had their own sleeping area, plus everyone who had non-combat classes plus Jacksons mom managed to get a level from the remnants of the tutorial plus their respective actions.
On the fourth day, an hour or two after noon while Leo's group was out hunting, our house was approached by two men, both of average height and build with one having black hair and one brown, both level 10 and fully equipped with gear, though neither of them had their weapons drawn, with one having a bow and the other an axe, and they stopped approaching once they saw us with our weapons drawn while they were still 20-30 meters away.
"HEY, WE DON"T WANT A FIGHT, JUST TALK, ARE YOU GOING TO ATTACK US IF WE APPROACH."(Brunette)
Sharing a quick glance with each other, we decided to let them approach, Leo's dad beckoning them over as we lowered our weapons, but still kept them gripped at our sides. Seeing us lower our weapons, they started to approach us, still clearly tense and ready to react if we attack them, but after they got within talking distance and we still hadn't attacked, they seemed to relax a bit.
"Phew, already better than the last ones, they didn't even tell us to fuck off, just threw a big-ass rock at us when we started talking."(Black-Hair)
Immediately after he finished his sentence the brunette hit him on the back of his head and chastised him before turning to us.
"Be professional. Sorry about him, okay so the long and the short of it is that we represent a group and are looking for people who want to join, I have a longer spiel if you are interested?"(Brunette)
Hearing their purpose wasn't too big of a surprise, and I was pretty sure that I knew who they represented, since from what I could tell with my brief interactions with people from my hunting trips, and the few times we shared extra meat in exchange for rumors, there were three factions that had formed. One of them was formed by a guy named Jonathan Straus, a middle-aged man who had apparently worked in the government before and had the [Mayor] class, though I didn't recognize his name or description from before the system, and his faction seemed the most promising, since he apparently had a host of skills specifically based around getting large groups of people to work together. The second faction was the one that we had been told about on our first hunting trip by the guy with the cutlass, and it seemed like more of a loose coalition of people who focused more on levelling and the more game-like aspects of our new reality as opposed to reestablishing society, but there weren't really any bad rumors about them beyond only accepting people who made a real effort to level. Lastly was the faction of people who were given superpowers and whose first thought was how to conquer the world. While I had the least interaction with them since they were thankfully based on the other end of the city, though that was still only a few hours walk away, from what I heard they didn't ask people to join so much as force people to work for them if they thought they could. Luckily they were also the smallest faction by far, as they lacked a way to force people to stay, so most ran away to one of the other factions at the first opportunity, and the faction itself was unlikely to survive for long since there was only a handful of people there by choice and they just weren't strong enough to succeed in becoming the overlords they imagined themselves to be, instead they barely survived since they lacked non-combat classes and everybody tried to avoid them as much as possible.
With that in mind, these guys were probably from the first faction, as they were the only ones who were actively trying to get more people, and all things considered it was the group that we had been considering joining over the last day or two, since even though we were doing fine by ourselves, none of us wanted to be isolated from other people forever, not to mention that in a world where monsters could, and would, grow to fantastic strength, the safety of numbers became a far more attractive prospect. That said, we were only discussing whether or not to join, so we asked him to give us the full spiel in case there was any information we didn't already know.
"Alright, full speil it is. You've probably heard by now that our leader is Jonathan Straus and his class, but we also have a number of people whose classes let them create housing that have pretty much all of the conveniences that we've lost, minus the internet of course, and while you've certainly built yourselves a pretty good shelter already, ours have running water, both hot and cold, beds, indoor lighting, and you'd get one that you only have to share with your family, with the option of getting one for yourself if you contribute enough. Not to mention that we are happy to provide tools and any materials we can for those with crafting classes to allow you to level as quickly as possible. And for the combatants, we are happy to help you find groups to hunt with you, share any hunting sites or dungeons we find, though we haven't found any dungeons yet, and with the help of someone who has a rare [Merchant] class, we will guarantee a fair price for anything you might have brought from the tutorial, and of course sell you from our stock which includes multiple rare class gems."(Brunette)
While he spent the first part of his speak mostly looking at the others in the group, the second was clearly directed to me and Jackson, as the only people who have reached level 10, much less surpassed it, so far are almost exclusively combatants. His speech was certainly effective, as I haven't had a warm shower since the tutorial started, and I really wanted to trade away the class gem I had so I could get past level 10, I was even tempted to use it myself knowing that it wasn't a good fit for me since I didn't know when I would get a chance to trade it. It wasn't just me either, as everyone perked up when he mentioned warm water, and I knew that Jackson only went on the hunting trips because he was worried about his mom, and seemed to hate fighting even more now that the tutorial was over. But no matter how good his speech was, it wasn't like we could decide anything while Leo, Jason, and Evelynn were still in the forest so we just told the pair that we would come by tomorrow to check things out, which they accepted and left after giving us directions to their groups general area.