Chapter 6 Friendship In The Deepest Peril

I added some more fuel to the fire as the two of us sat facing it.

With the new [Clear Tree] option on my Woodcutter Minion, I decided to get it to cut down some of the trees around my camp. This way, I would have more space to build some more permanent structures. With my resources, I crafted two [Instant Temporary Shelters] and placed them down in the open grassy area.

It was really beginning to get dark. The sun had completely set and aside from the light emitted from the fire, it was pitch black.

I opened my Minion menu and set up another command.

-

ON.

[Rest] (1 hour) -> [Stand by] [Repeat]

- if [Entity Detected]

[Alert]

-

I implemented this code onto all of the Minions, this way, I could allow for the Minions to get some rest whilst also watching over the camp in the case of zombies and if they did notice one, it would alert the rest of the Minions.

On the Warrior Minion, I set another command.

-

ON.

[Rest] (1 hour) -> [Stand by] [Repeat]

- if [Entity Detected]

[Alert]

- if [Health < 30%]

[Alert Me]

-

With the extra line of code, the Warrior Minion would alert me once it dropped below 30% health. This way, I would only be awoken if something really serious happened during the night. With this, I would be able to get more rest and wake up earlier the next morning to start gathering resources.

[Instant Temporary Shelters] were not a very efficient use of my resources but I physically couldn't gather enough resources for a permanent shelter. I also had no way of literally building one from the wood I gathered so this would have to do for the time being.

"Well, I'm going to go to sleep now," I said.

"Y-yeah, I'll go as well, is that one mine?" She pointed at one of the [Instant Temporary Shelters].

"Yeah."

The two of us called it a night and slept.

*

I woke up to the sound of some clattering outside.

I quickly got out of my [Instant Temporary Shelter] but I noticed that it was just Rosie and it appeared to be dawn. I decided to get ready for the day and looked over at my Minions. They were all standing together and it looked like nothing extraordinary happened. I checked the Minion Menu and noticed that my Warrior Minion and some of my other Minions were a little injured but it was nothing major.

However, as my eyes adjusted to the light, I realised that one of my Minions was missing. I checked the Minion menu again and I finally realised. There were only four Minions on the menu, one of them likely died during the night.

Crap.

With the start of the new day, I decided to forget about the death of one of my Minions and sent the others out on expeditions. I had lost one of the two Scout Minions who were studying [Resource Gathering]. However, the one that didn't die actually finished learning [Resource Gathering] and I looked at the menu.

-

Actions:

- [Scout]

- [Fight]

- [Gather Resources]

- [Learn]

~

Both of my Scout Minions now had the [Gather Resources] option. I was able to specify which resource to gather however I did notice that it would be at a decently low efficiency. I considered letting them specialise a bit more but I wanted to gather some more resources today and try to craft some more Minions.

I sent all of my Minions out on expeditions and told my Scout Minions to gather apples and wood where possible. With that, they walked off into the woods.

I walked over towards Rosie.

"So what does your Botany System do exactly?"

"I'm not quite sure... when I was just transported here, I got a packet of seeds."

She pulled a little colour packet out of her pocket.

I looked at the packet of seeds and saw that they were just bean seeds.

"I guess we could plant them," I said.

"Yeah... but where?"

I looked in my crafting menu and saw a [Small Raised Garden Bed]. It only required 20 wood to craft. I decided to make it and the blueprint appeared in my hand as usual.

"There's a bit of space here."

I placed the [Small Raised Garden Bed] in an empty space and suddenly, a rectangular wall of wood appeared, with nothing inside.

"I guess we have to fill it in with dirt."

"Okay."

The two of us got down to our knees and began shovelling the dirt into the garden bed with our hands. The soft, wet dirt covered my hands as I dug it up and poured it into the garden bed, handful after handful.

"I should've gotten one of my Scout Minions to do this."

After a few minutes of heaving, the two of us eventually managed to fill the garden bed to the brim with dirt.

"Do I put in the seeds now?"

"I guess so, I'm not really sure what else you're meant to do with plants."

"Okay."

She scattered the seeds into the garden bed and then we looked at each other.

"So how do we water them?" She asked.

"That's a good question, have you looked at your system menu yet?"

"System menu... how do you do that?"

"I'm not really sure how to explain it, just think about it I guess..."

She appeared to be concentrating really hard.

"Ah! I see it." She exclaimed.

"That's good, do you have any abilities or anything?"

"Yes! I have one called 'Water'."

"That sure is convenient."

She made a gun shape with her hand and pointed at the seeds in the garden bed. Suddenly, water appeared in front of her finger and splashed down at the seeds in the dirt.

"Alright, you can take care of the plants then," I said.

"Okay!"

As she continued to place seeds and spread them out evenly, I decided to recall my Scout Minions and look at what they have collected. I was quite underwhelmed when I looked at the number of resources that they gathered.

[Your Two Scout Minions have collected: [1x] apple, [12x] wood]

[They have gained experience]

[They are now quite tired]

The number of resources they gained was quite minimal, however, looking again at my inventory, I already had a decent amount of resources and it was enough to craft quite a few Scout Minions.

-

<Inventory> 191/450

[21x] wood

[20x] apples

[101x] leaves

[16x] meat

[33x] rocks

-

I had enough apples and meat to craft four new Scout Minions. I quickly opened my crafting menu and crafted them.

A huge cloud of white smoke formed in front of me as the Minions came into existence.