Thud! Thud!

Steve started to hit the statue once again.

“Anyway brother, willing to sell it to me? I am some idea regarding this side quest but how much I can raise my stats is unknown to me”

Clang.

Klautz stopped with that.

“What will you play with?”

Steve stopped punching as well as if that were courtesy.

“You already know better than anyone what’s on me. So name your price, whether it is a fair price or not is up to me to decide”

“E-rank gauntlet,” Steve replied instantaneously. Klautz had no specific need for the gauntlet but that was the best thing he could ask from him.

Furthermore, the information wasn’t much valuable to Steve anyway. He would have figured it out anyway.

Furthermore, the gauntlets gave him the +1 Strength stat boost.

“Here”

Steve passed the gauntlet to the man.

Kluatz equipped them.

Name: Gauntlet of Styx

Rank: E

Endurance: 250

Effect: Strength +1

“Hitting this statue can raise your Strength and Stamina state by at most 20”

“Hmm, figures. It would have been weird if it could be raised indefinitely” Steve contemplated.

‘If I get a high ranking during the boss raid, I might get a pretty good reward.’ was what Klautz thought.

The bosses that comes every 5 days are difficult.

No matter how well they fight, a few will inevitably die.

But if he can gain an overwhelming victory over the boss, he might get a weapon of rank ‘C’ or higher.

‘A ‘C’ rank is sufficient.’

To defeat the monsters at the trial a ‘C’ rank weapon wasn’t enough, at least not for a newbie

However for Klautz, to defeat the monsters, a rank ‘C’ weapon was more than enough.

As he had the experience and skill to fill the gap of having a lesser weapon!

—

Five days have passed.

At this point, there were only 32 survivors left.

After 13 deaths on the first day, one to two people died every day thereafter.

Everyone had become desperate after they learned that they will die if they didn’t fight.

Even though there was plenty of food for everyone. Cause even though the food received through prize food wasn’t much but the monster food was edible.

But, the water that they had received from the prizes wasn’t likely to last them much long. Especially since they had life and death struggles every day, they lost a great deal of hydration cause of sweating profusely from all the fighting.

Today one man has fainted cause of dehydration. This caused everyone to panic.

“Should we team up and force those two to give away water?”

“Don’t kid with me. They are wolves in the truest sense. Even if we team up there is no telling if we will win against them”

“But Bill and Bruno’s water source has almost been exhausted”

“Should we just trade water for our clothes?”

“Turns out someone did, but he was turned away by the weirdo claiming that his clothes at this point were damaged beyond repair”

“But… but our clothes were damaged because of fighting the beasts. How are we responsible for that?”

“Don’t ask me, ask that weirdo over there”

Selena overheard the conversation. She was pushed to the edge. She was thirsty as hell. She kept biting her nails while trying to figure out what to do.

—

There was a crowd around the person who had fainted. People were trying to fan him to prevent his sweating and yet there was no water for them to feed.

Bill took out his water bottle to feed the man however he was stopped by Bruno.

“Don’t”

“Bruno, he is dying”

“Let him die, he isn’t that useful in the raids anyway”

“Are you insane?”

“I have never been more sane in my life. I also want to save him but if you exhaust your supply how will you feed your teammates?”

Bill shook.

“There are people who are useful in the raids and there are those who are not, I believe we should stop wasting resources on those who are useless to facilitate survival”

“I don’t care, I don’t care anymore. I will find a way later. At the moment I need to save this man”

“Fine if you want to feed everyone then do so, from now on we are on our different ways” saying so Bruno rose leaving Bill and after him followed his group.

But then the unexpected happened.

Klautz came forward and fed water to the unconscious man.

His action caused Steve to grin. His hunch told him that there was more to this even than pure kindness on Klautz’s part. Both of them had already finished raising their stats by 20 points. This only means that Klautz would make his next move.

Gulp Gulp Gulp

Water flowed into his mouth. There was no end to it. Everyone cursed the unconscious man cause they were thirsty as hell while this man could drink all the water that he wanted.

The Root of Ale could produce 10 liters of water every day. It couldn’t even compare to the easy water the runner-ups had received.

Klautz rose.

“I am going to explore the outskirts of the ruins to look for the freshwater source. All volunteers will receive a liter of clean water every day.”

He’s insane that’s what everyone thought except Steve.

‘He is a sly one’ Steve thought. Klautz specifically waited for someone to faint to use his card.

That was the one thought in everyone’s mind.

Why would all these people try to stay in these ruins?

Because if they went even a little bit outside the temple, they would be overwhelmed with monsters!

And he was going to explore that place?

It didn’t make the situation better now that he was handing out bread and water.

Going out there would be no different than suicide. They couldn’t decipher any other meaning besides going out to die.

But, Klautz continued to wait arrogantly.

It was like it didn’t matter if anyone joined him or not.

No one would volunteer… that’s what most people thought.

“How about me?”

Soon after, someone raises their hand.

Selena Welch.

After getting embarrassed by Steve, she decided that this time she would try and join Klautz.

—

Author’s thoughts:

Like my story? Add it to your library.

And do drop some stones. Those stones are my salvation… my only motivation to continue writing, continue working.

And do drop some reviews to let me know if you would want me to continue with this work.