Chapter 139: Kovalev
Captain Kovalev landed in the compound with the first helicopter of the morning, while the pilots of the flight that had remained in Marimgar overnight were showering after their morning gym workout.
"Captain, good morning."
"Coordinator, good morning. I got the most curious message this morning when I went to turn in a quest."
"Oh, what might that have been?"
Captain Kovalev pulled up a stool and sat with his elbows on the check in counter.
"I complained that we were short on so many supplies, when you had a dungeon here to get them, and the System told me that if I needed supplies, I should come here to buy them instead of complaining."
Kalli snickered, and the Captain gave her a furious glare.
"Sorry, but it really is funny when the System trolls people.
Yes, you can purchase supplies from me with System Points. What do you think that you’re going to be the shortest on?"
She still hadn’t picked her reward option, after all. People kept distracting her every time that she tried to.
[ I’m going to put a sticky note on the bubble tea machine soon, just so I don’t forget again. ]
"We’re eventually going to be short on everything. But what can you offer at the store?"
"I have a few basic categories. Weapons and armour, vehicles, food, and domestic goods, like housewares, tools, basic construction supplies and such. So, I can get you the basics of everything, but none of the super specialized things that you might be looking for.
I already helped your attack helicopters a bit with a reload of their weapons systems. That came out of my pocket, though.
Tell me what you need, and I will give you a price.
But I will warn you, when you need it in bulk for three quarters of a million people, I can almost guarantee that it’s not going to be affordable. The store was designed for heroes to keep themselves supplied."
"Ah, I understand. Alright, what would it cost to get a bunch of Laser rifles? Ranged weapons that don’t use consumable ammunition."
"Ah, that is possible. One point per rifle. They’ve got thirty shots on a charge, and do about as much damage as the standard issue special forces rifles. A bit more, if you’re not a specialist in ranged weapons."
"At that price, I’m surprised that you haven’t had your people get them for everyone in the base."
Kalli shook her head, understanding where he was coming from, but he had it wrong.
"It’s more important for now that we have the heroes focus on what they can do to improve within their specialties. When the Second Trial is almost over, I will have them spend a day focusing on bulk supplies for the group.
Our town is already well defended, so we haven’t needed to conscript the civilians as militia yet.
The only great disappointment is that we haven’t managed to trigger a second dungeon yet. If we had a second one, we would be able to train new heroes much more easily, and it might have more supplies for us."
Kovalev shrugged. "You’re already one Dungeon ahead of us. We’d be sending level zero civilians through with a medic and some rifles if we had one, just to stockpile food."
The look on Kalli’s face confused him for a moment before she began to speak.
"We considered that as well. But then we realized that we didn’t have the space to store it.
Oh, give me a moment, I hear the chicks complaining, I need to go feed them right quick."
The Captain followed her outside and around the back of the building, where a small chicken coop had been built, housing somewhere near a dozen black chickens. Chickens with teeth in their beaks, and long metallic claws.
Those were definitely monsters.
But the Coordinator simply walked in, poured them a bunch of grain, put a head of lettuce on the ground, and crumbled a nutrient bar over the grain pile before checking the water trough.
"I’ll need to top that up too. The well is just outside, forgive the delay. My morning routine needs some adjustments."
[ Those damnable chickens are growing too much. They’re already the size of normal chickens, and has it even been two days yet? What’s with this world and everything growing to maturity far too fast? ]
Once the water was topped off, Kalli checked the coop for signs of trouble, and realized there were a half dozen eggs already laid.
That was easy.
She scooped them into her [Storage Realm] and left the enclosure, brushing her hands off.
"Alright, issue solved. They will be happy for a while. Have you decided what you would like to purchase?"
"The most pressing issue we face is cloth. With the emergency evacuation, we had to limit luggage. So, everyone only has a few changes of clothes at the most, and many arrived with nothing. The government didn’t give advance warning, and for those whose houses were destroyed in the first fifteen minutes, there was nothing for them to take."
Kalli nodded. "You’re in luck. You don’t have to spend points on that. We just so happen to have a textile mill in the back. It’s processing tuber plant material into canvas. Let’s go see what they’ve got before you make plans to spend everyone’s hard-earned points on cloth."
The weaver looked up as she walked in with the Captain, but didn’t stop his work.
There were dozens of people working in the shop, doing everything from spinning yarn, operating the loom, spinning rope, and refining the coarse yarn to a thinner thread that would make a finer cloth than the thick and coarse canvas that was the priority.
They needed it to protect surfaces, seal windows, and many other practical purposes. The knitted soft stuff like blankets would come later, when it wasn’t so hot outside.
"Gentlemen. The Kalkan Fleet is looking for fabric for clothing. I don’t think that they’re picky about the quality, and durability is likely to be a selling point."
"As long as you like green, we’ve got you set. We’ve run through a thousand yards more canvas than the repair teams have used so far. They wanted more for curtains, but we can surely spare at least half of it for the Kalkans without messing anything up."