Chapter 251: Collecting Crystals

In the distance, I spotted a couple Sand Stompers wandering the dunes.

Perfect. Monster territory. Let’s go that way.

Quite simply, I’d have rather dealt with some monsters that could kill me than more adventurers. I’d forgotten how infuriating dealing with people in a competitive environment like this could be. At least when it was one on one, I could just focus on taking down the person in front of me, but when it was something like this, with hundreds of people all fighting for limited resources, people could step in and interrupt you at any time. So when it came down to it, the monsters were an easy choice.

As I walked in their direction, I found that a couple other people had the same idea I did. Only, juggling by their mangled corpses lying in the sand, it hadn’t gone as well for them. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of emperor would decide to hold a tournament like this, asking people to do meaningless tasks to prove their power, knowing some of them would die trying. Even putting aside the brutal immorality of it all, wouldn’t even a ruthless dictator consider it a waste of resources?

But I couldn’t change the way this tournament worked. I could only win.

As I drew closer, the gritty wind carried the distant sounds of the Stompers’ grunts and the Stingers’ buzzing wings. Below me, I felt the occasional rumble of the Sifters, as well. They’d noticed my approach, but weren’t doing anything yet.

I could see several crystals off near the herd of monsters, but most were far too close to the main body than I’d have liked. Because they marked you with a special scent when attacking, that meant that even if I survived a hostile encounter with the Sand Hive, I’d be marked as their prey for the foreseeable future. Not very good in the long-term. So I’d need to grab a crystal and bolt out of here before any of them could even get close to me. That way, only the ones that saw me would attack, and once I got far enough away, they’d probably give up chase and head back into the main pack.

Once I was close enough for comfort, I began walking along the edge of the pack, staying far enough away that I wouldn’t agitate them. I needed to find a crystal that was far enough away for me to take it, but close enough that nobody else would have been brave enough to take it already.

I couldn’t see anything like that, though. Pretty much all of them were either being actively fed on by the Stompers, or—for the smaller ones—surrounded by them, like they were guarding their precious property. And any that were further away had at least a Sand Stinger or two perched atop it. Nothing for me, it seemed.

But, as I walked along the edge of the massive horde of monsters, I watched as they migrated through the dunes. And as they moved, they left a couple crystals behind. Some were still clearly too close, even with the monsters being further away, but one of them that was on the fringes to begin with was suddenly left totally unguarded, several dozen paces away from the nearest of the Hive.

Surely that one would be safe?

I slowly approached. My first instinct was to try and be as stealthy as possible, but then I realized I’d probably want to do the opposite. I didn’t know how perceptive these things were, so even if I was able to avoid their gaze for a while, if I was suddenly spotted in the middle of my excavation attempt of the crystal and it turned out that they did still see the thing as ‘theirs,’ then they’d come straight for me. But instead, if I walked up to it standing tall, making no effort to hide any noise and even coughing aloud a couple times as I walked over, then they’d clearly see me coming toward it. And if they felt it was theirs, they’d surely be quick to let me know—hopefully without actually attacking me.

I did exactly that as I walked up to the crystal. A couple of the nearest Stompers turned their massive heads to stare at me as I made my careful approach, but none of them charged, growled, or made the slightest indication that I was doing something wrong. Rather, they seemed to just be making sure that the crystal was indeed my goal, and I wouldn’t be coming any closer than that.

Soon enough, I was standing right in front of the crystal. It was a blue one, coming just up to my knee, and being about as wide as my arm. Slowly, I reached out and placed my hands on it. No major reaction.

I smiled. Seemed like this was mine, then! With a breath, I knelt down and started digging the sand out from around its base. I’d still not successfully taken one of these things out of the ground yet; my previous attempt had been interrupted by Jackass and Slightly Different Jackass. Hopefully, the Sand Hive near me would work as a good enough deterrent for the people who were out there relying on the easy pickings of lower-Level adventurers to steal from.

It seemed like the crystal’s base went way deeper under the ground than I’d first assumed. In fact, it seemed like the thing was double its visible length, having grown just as far under the sand as it had above it. It took a little bit of time digging before I could start to feel it loosen, at which point I grabbed it and pulled, wiggling it around to create some space for it to come out of the ground. Leveraging my Strength Stat made it much easier to do than I’d have first expected—though I did have to be careful not to break the thing—and soon enough I had it fully pulled out of the ground.

The bottom section of it had some nibble marks and small holes chomped out of the edges, probably from the Sand Sifters, but overall the crystal seemed to fit the “relatively undamaged” requirement. At least, it fit the requirement more than the one from before that’d been completely shattered under Jackass 2’s boot.

Gods, I was still pretty pissed about that.

I took a deep breath. Regardless. The Sand Hive had lumbered a little further away during my excavation, leaving a couple other decent safe picks. Only, I had less options now, since I already had a blue crystal. I needed a red, a blue, and a yellow, not just three of any color, meaning that as I collected more, I’d have to ignore any color duplicates I saw.

Sure enough, there was another blue crystal out in the middle of the field that’d been left alone by the Sand Hive, slightly larger than the one I held. Not helpful for me anymore. Though, it did seem like it’d be a good idea to pick up anyway. If Erani, Ainash, or Sylvie had trouble finding a blue, I could at least give it to them.

“I’ll also say you can trade with strangers if need be,” Index said. “If you have two blues and someone else has two reds, you can each give each other one of your duplicates.”

I didn’t think you’d be one for cooperation with my fellow man, I responded. Look at you, growing as a person.

“No, I’m not suggesting you help others, I’m suggesting you use others to help yourself. Cooperation is an extraordinarily powerful tool; just look at that Sand Hive you’re so afraid of. Any individual one you’d be fine with, but put them all together, and suddenly it’s an unbeatable foe. That status probably benefits plenty of the Sand Hive monsters on an individual scale. However, in the case of Humans, which aren’t a hive mind species, things are a little more complicated. You want to combine your powers with others, but you’re all individualistic, and there’s always the possibility of them taking advantage of you. So, yeah, trade with other adventurers. But don’t get yourself mugged for everything you have.”

It’s the mugging thing I’m wary of, honestly. Not sure I want to work with others at all, in this case.

“Yeah, I knew you’d hold a little bias in your mind after your previous negative experience. Just wanted to mention the added benefit of grabbing some extras, since that bias would likely get you to forget the possibility altogether.”

Wow. How much faith you have in me.

“I like to think of myself as a realist.”

Well, thanks for pointing that out. You think that crystal’s far enough away from the monsters to be safe?

“I actually can’t see it at all. I was just reading your thoughts and could tell you saw one from that. But I’m not sure what the situation outside of my field of vision is like, or how far it is from the Sand Hive.”

Oh, right. I sometimes forget your vision works differently from mine. I began walking in the direction of the blue crystal. There were a couple others in that general direction that were of different colors, but they were also closer to the Hive. What’s it like? You can see everything around me, but after a certain point there’s just…what, a wall of black?

“Not in the way you’re imagining it. But your imagination is close enough that I can say sure. It’s not really ‘sight’ in the way a Human would know it. Rather, it’s more like a raw stream of data entering my consciousness, that I then process and interpret. Which, technically, that’s effectively what the Human brain does with the raw stream of data coming in from your eyeballs, but the main difference is that you do all of that unconsciously, whereas I have to work through the whole process myself. Regardless, it’s not like there’s some big colored wall in the way of my sight. Instead, it’s just that I can’t receive data regarding anything that’s too far away from you. So I just…don’t know what’s there.”

…Huh.

I was about to question Index further, but then I saw a flash of color coming from one of the dunes near the crystal I was headed for.

Oh, shit.

“What is it?”

The flash of color emerged fully, revealing someone in full silvery plate armor walking up to the crystal and happily kneeling down next to it, scooping the sand away with their hands.

Adventurer. They got to the crystal first.

“Oh, go stop them from getting it!”

What? No.

“Do they seem too strong?”

No, nothing like that. Well, they could be high-Level; I’m not too sure. But I’m not gonna go steal the crystal from them. That’s exactly one that one dude, Godo, tried to do to me.

“Yeah, and he failed because he didn’t have the strength to back it up, and he was interrupted by an interferer. You seem at least halfway confident you could take this person on, and it’s much more secluded out here, so there’s less chance that someone will come and interrupt.”

Didn’t you just argue for cooperation and helping each other out? Sand Hive, and all that?

“I explicitly didn’t argue for cooperation for exactly this reason. I argued you should use others when the opportunity presents itself. And look, an opportunity. Presenting itself. Go take it!”

I am not just gonna mug a bunch of strangers to complete the challenge.

“Why not? Didn’t you take that one Spell Crystal from the one border guard, Jannin? Back in Salvation? Don’t you remember me explaining the benefits and reasonings behind doing that?”

That was different and you know it.

“Oh? How?”

First off, he’d explicitly said he didn’t have as much use for it as Erani would; here, both me and this other person have the same reason to want to complete the challenge. Second, taking that Spell Crystal was the only way I could obtain one at the time; here, I can easily find as many as I want by just grabbing them from the Sand Hive. Third, and probably most importantly to you, this is way more dangerous. Fighting an unknown enemy for something I could easily get elsewhere? What’s gotten into you?

“I think you’re the one who isn’t correctly calculating danger, actually. This adventurer is an unknown foe, but the Sand Hive is a known one. And what do you know about those monsters? They’ll instantly kill you if you fight them. An unknown enemy is the safer option.”

Except I can get things done with the Sand Hive without fighting them, if I’m careful.

I heard Index mutter something about being able to do the same thing with the armored person if I was intimidating enough, but it didn’t pipe up again. After watching the adventurer for a moment, I turned and started walking closer to the Hive. If I was competing with this armored person for more crystals, I’d probably want to go a little faster and get the next one—a red crystal that was closer to the Sand Stompers—before they were done digging up the blue crystal.

And by the way, Index, competing for the things is much different from stealing them right out of a person’s arms. One is the entire point of the tournament, and the other is a crime, to begin with.

“Hey, I didn’t say anything.”

Yeah, but you were thinking it. I can’t read your mind, but I can still tell.

I imagined Index rolled its eyes at that. Though, maybe predicting actions was a little bit of a reach.

“Just so you know, I did roll my eyes.”

Maybe not.

I approached the red crystal the same as I did the blue one before. Slowly, but making myself known. Only, this time, the Stompers got a little agitated as I got a few paces away from it. One of them huffed out a breath, turning its lumbering body fully toward me. Another did the same. Then another.

I wasn’t sure if it was because I was a little closer than last time, or because this was the second crystal I was taking in a row, or maybe they interpreted the person grabbing the blue crystal a ways behind me to be on my side or something, like I was coming at them with a teammate. But for whatever reason, they suddenly weren’t fans of what I was doing.

However, the clanking of armor coming from behind me told me that I probably needed to be hurrying. Sure enough, with a glance, I saw the person get to their feet with the blue crystal in hand, then stare up at me and the ones I was approaching. After a moment, they started sprinting ahead.

I really didn’t wanna get gored by these things another time, though. Really, getting trampled to death in a previous timeline was enough; I didn’t need to experience it again. Time was of the essence, and getting this done sooner rather than later would be hugely beneficial, but I wasn’t about to waste a Time Loop getting caught up in the competitive nature of this elimination round, getting hasty, and getting myself killed.

So no matter. They’d only grab a couple crystals, anyway, and there would be more than two eventually left behind by the Sand Hive. I could just get the rest once they were done.

But then, the Sand Stompers started getting much more aggressive. I’d already stopped my movements, and even backed away from them some. What was—?

Oh, shit.

As the armored person charged past me, the Stompers charged to meet them. And several came at me, as well. Seemed like they did, in fact, see the two of us as a unit. If the other one was coming at them, then surely I was hostile as well.

So then, do I spam as many Expedites as possible and try to get away without being covered in their special enemy scent and/or killed? Or do I just go all-in and try to grab as much XP as possible before I’m forced to use Time Loop?

Ah, fuck it. Let’s just kill some shit.