Chapter 256: Changed Terrain

Seeing the shuttle return alone was enough to cause Kalli a great deal of concern, but her computers quickly told her what the situation was.

The shuttle had the refugees, while the speeders had stopped to take a break and swap drivers.

That gave the shuttle an excuse to go to full speed, and it made it all the way back to the city before the rest of the team had even reached the ocean channel. That would give everyone a few minutes to get to know the people of Marimgar without the boss around, but Kalli was fairly certain that they were not going to have any issues fitting in.

The messages from the Fleet Admiral said that they were all dedicated sorts, and enthusiastic about their skills.

So, Kalli had high hopes for them when they were properly unloaded and sent back up to the surface. The Shuttle would be heading directly into the hangar area to save time, but the new arrivals all had classes, so they would arrange space for them on the surface.

But at that moment, the speeders were watching the strangest sight of their trip, while approaching at full speed.

An Ogre tribe that they had bypassed on the way in was currently engaged in a vicious battle with what appeared to be a pack of triceratops. Only the dinosaurs were using lightning attacks both offensively and defensively.

The Ogres were losing badly, run down and trampled by the large herbivores.

Yara didn’t know what they had done to upset the herd, likely trying to hunt them. But the three horned dinosaurs were fully capable of hurling an Ogre a full twenty metres in the air.

"I kind of want one," Reggie muttered as he watched the scene through the windshield.

"Right? Forget the Rhinos, those big dinos are a menace. If we had a pack of them near Marimgar, nothing would dare to attack us," Sanchez agreed.

The others in the speeder laughed at the thought of everything that could go wrong with giant lightning using dinosaurs in the wilderness near Marimgar. But given that they appeared to be plant eaters, they might actually be a menace more to the agricultural efforts than the humans.

They didn’t slow as they passed the battle, leaving the Ogres to their fates.

"Even the wildlife is a threat to the monsters in this world. Makes you think that humans are a bit behind the curve. We did so poorly while defending against the trials that you would think that the System was just reminding us that we don’t belong here," Vinnie muttered.

Yara patted her father on the shoulder. "I don’t think that the triceratops herd ever had to deal with a trial like what we got in the last couple of weeks. If they did, they might be in just as bad of shape.

I think that the System is actually trying to toughen us up so that we don’t get randomly wiped out the moment that a stronger force wants our land."

Vinnie sighed. "That’s one way to look at it.

I would have appreciated it if the scaling was a bit less intense. We were doing alright with the normal difficulty trials, but then on day ten the System decided that we needed Hard mode instead, and things went downhill fast."

None of the Marimgar residents said anything.

What could they say? "Oh, the System gave us like ten straight waves at Epic difficulty, we go so many System Points it was insane"?

That likely wouldn’t go over well.

They would surely find out eventually, but it would be better that they learned about it after they had seen the city of Marimgar, and what Kalli had managed to do with it during the trials.

Though, now that they had been away for a day, they did wonder how much land the others had cleared and turned into tuber fields.

They were determined that they would get more fields planted every day so that they could claim greater benefits from the System. But it was possible that Kalli had arranged for them to get more quests.

It wasn’t "Official" that she was able to just pick a quest for them, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that she at least got some input on the topic.

The speeders raced over the open ocean for an hour, then everyone began to relax as they reached solid land again.

At least if things went wrong here, they were able to walk home.

As they moved silently over the ash plains that were once the nation of Irashia. Vincenzo Rossi had often been here in the past, which was why he had sent his daughter to Marimgar Academy.

But looking at it now, he didn’t recognize anything.

Even the hills that should have been to their south were wrong. They used to be nearly enough to be called mountains. Now, there was nothing. Whatever was left of them wasn’t enough to make a visible impression on the horizon.

The shoreline was the same, he recognized the bay, even with the city of Danadomeh gone. But everything inland was wrong.

"The volcano erupted. That’s why it’s all gone," Sanchez explained, understanding the man’s confusion.

"Well damn. Looks like you didn’t have it easy. I don’t know if a volcanic eruption is worse than the floods we got, but it doesn’t sound fun."

Sanchez nodded. "We had to hide inside as the ash storms sand blasted the entire country. But once we dug our way out of the ash piles, it got better. The issue is that to get to real soil, we still need to clear a metre or more of volcanic rubble and rocks.

Everything that we want to improve is a major construction project."

Vinnie smiled. "Well, at least we’re not going to be short on work when we get there."

Yara giggled. "Oh, that’s the last thing you should worry about. We even have a quest for four hours a day of work. You get a prize box and a System Point. Just hope that it doesn’t give you a case of nutrient bars.

Those things are a war crime in foil packaging."