Chapter 167: Sunk Cost Fallacy
"There are currently five hundred and eight of us here. Half from Irashia and half from the Tehaquian Desert. There were originally an even thousand of us, but we didn’t find out until too late that you needed to reach level two by the end of the first trial.
"Don’t tell me that you lost all your crafters and healers."
A woman off to the side giggled, and the amusement spread through the room, a ripple of grim dark amusement at their own expense.
"No, those we have plenty of, because they were working the whole time.
The base was operated by the Royal Family and the Oligarchs of the two nations, and they had specific standards of living to accommodate. That included many things, but not much need to train soldiers.
So, we have lots of mages, healers, craftsmen of all sorts. But not many who know how to fight.
Even our mages specialized in entertainment."
Kalli sighed. "Of course the super rich saw heroes as entertainment only, a bunch of commoners that had no other value to them. But now that you’re here, you’re going to have to put in the work to survive.
Honestly, the craftsmen will be well off, there are three quarters of a million civilians in the Arks that will eventually need things of all sorts, and we’re working to rebuild the city.
It’s everyone else who is going to need to fight for their advancements."
A short haired woman in the signature bedsheet toga of the resurrection pod came forward.
"Then we might as well start now. I’m a fire mage, I can fight, but probably not naked. What can you do for me?"
"I can get you a bodysuit like this one, and a wand that will help you with mana regeneration. Do you have the spell for it as well?"
The woman nodded. "That and Firebolt, plus fireball. It’s not much, but it seems that your people get a lot more System Points than the rest of us did."
"That’s kind of unavoidable when you’re in an underwater base, and they’re out fighting monsters daily. But a lot of the quests are also to gather supplies for the base, so I’m surprised that you didn’t get any of your own." Kalli replied, ignoring the fact that they were all set by her personally except a few bonus quests.
The mage stared at the pile of cloth and the wand in her hand, looking for a changing room, and Kalli realized that they had never seen items that could be equipped before.
"Just will it to be on your body, and it will bind to you. That’s how System purchased items and reward items work."
The bodysuit appeared on the mage, who immediately looked uncomfortable with the fashion, though it seemed perfectly normal when Kalli was wearing it.
"It takes a bit to get used to, but it’s the best protection that you can get. It keeps out all forms of toxins as well, so there’s not many substitutes. Don’t worry, nearly everyone is wearing them, and you can wear your toga over it if you really want to.
I know some of the mages wear theirs under a robe for pure fashion, and the extra clothing bonus."
Kalli handed out more of the armoured bodysuits as she spoke, and one of the other women gave a little spin as she tried hers on.
"Don’t be a prude. Everything is covered. There’s less chance of someone sneaking a peek than in any casual outfit," the healer insisted.
"They don’t have to when they can already see everything," the girl muttered.
"Like a crop top and tights are any more modest? It’s just fashion, and it’s got armour. Now, can I get something for healing? Or is there not like some super special healing staff?"
Kalli laughed. "There actually are, but they’re not in the store. At least, not directly. You see, when I sell things from the store, I don’t know in advance what bonus they’ll have. It is chosen after you equip it for the first time.
So, while the grade is known, what effect it will have is not."
"Like a Gacha game? The items from the system are a Gacha game to determine the fate of humanity?"
"Oh, you have no idea." A man’s voice announced from the door. "When you complete quests, you get mystery boxes as the rewards. Purely random based on only the quality of the quest. Life is all about luck these days.
Coordinator, can we get some fresh shovels? The lads wanted to make sure that the goblin tunnels that vanished are truly gone and not just plugged on the surface. But we may have broken most of ours against Goblin skulls."
Kalli nodded and handed him a stack of five short handled shovels.
If they were going to use them like trench combat shovels, she would just give them those to start with.
The man didn’t seem to mind the change, and simply rushed off with the gear as Kalli continued to hand out armour to the new arrivals. Some weapons too, but she was giving out mostly one credit common weapons, with the hopes that the other heroes could fix them up with a spare weapon, as they had almost all gotten upgrades during this trial.
It would save on waste, and it would keep Kalli from burning through points for heroes that wouldn’t be able to pay it back for some time.
But more importantly, it would keep the system from cleaning them out of points that they actually needed skills.
On the bright side, with the influx of mages and healers, the imbalance of classes was beginning to sort itself out, and they had much more security for the front line warriors on the walls. Or, they would once this group made it out there to join the heroes from Marimgar and the Arks that were already on the defensive.
The number of heroes in the city was growing rapidly, but so were the exhaustion levels.
It would not be an easy morning.