Aethelgard: The Survival Game (Chloe) novel Chapter 23

Chapter 23 Sickness on a Drizzly Day

Notification: [Novice Protection Period: Day 4.

[Weather: Simulated Rain (Environmental damage has been reduced.)

[Light rain today. Please keep warm.]

Chloe drifted awake in a miserable haze. Her body was limp and utterly without strength, radiating a low, smoldering heat. Even her breath felt hot.

Her throat might as well have been coated with cotton wadding, dry and desperately thirsty.

Outside, she could hear the steady, monotonous patter of rain against the wooden cabin’s roof.

The plush mattress cradled her in comfort, but she had no blanket. The last thing she registered was that she had curled herself into a tight ball at the edge of the bed.

Chloe felt feverishly hot and deeply chilled at the same time. Huddled in on herself, all she wanted was to keep sleeping forever.

She pulled up her status window: [Player: Chloe Bennett.

[Health: 135/300 (Natural recovery reduced due to Low–Grade Fever).

[Energy: 110/200 (Natural recovery reduced due to Low–Grade Fever).

[Status: Moderate Exhaustion, Low–Grade Fever, Inflammation, Energy Slump.]

Chloe knew she’d definitely caught a cold. Her eyes fell on the grimy clothes on the floor, and she couldn’t summon a single shred of motivation to pull them on.

A look at her wounds told a grim story. The worst gashes had split open again, seeping pus. The pain was present but not so sharp that she couldn’t endure it.

Across her body, multiple lacerations crisscrossed her skin, and the spots on her chest, abdomen, and arms where the Slime had rammed her had turned a deep, ugly black. Nearly all of it was pooled blood.

‘I need to get a blanket,’ she thought. ‘It’s cold today.‘

She was, by most standards, a minor tycoon now. She could afford to trade for quite a few things.

When she opened the Trading Post, she found the channel flooded with players lamenting their fate. ShadowWalker: [It’s raining and I’m freezing. I’m just stuck out here getting soaked. Two days ago it was blazing sun, and now it’s rain.]

LuckyStar: [Yeah, good thing I got a building facility blueprint yesterday and put up a structure. I’m hiding inside from the rain right now. Pretty cozy.]

LaughingWind: [The guy flaunting his luck can get lost.]

Aaron: [Has anyone noticed the system is way more humanized today? There’s even a weather notice now.]

AAA WeaponDepot: [System notifications have been around for a while.]

Aaron: [No, what I mean is the system wasn’t this thoughtful before. And “Simulated Rain, environment downgraded” just sounds really off. Like someone’s adjusting the dials.]

DamnitAll: [Looking to buy Plant Fibers.]

Player 8271: [1 Plant Fiber for 2 Wooden Logs. All welcome.]

DamnltAll: [That’s just highway robbery.]

Player 8271: [Don’t buy it then.]

WindWalker: [Looking to buy fever reducers, looking to buy recovery meds. Being in the rain too long gives you a debuff. Can you actually get sick from getting rained on for too long?]

LilNimbus: [Selling Basic Menswear and Womenswear. Selling raincoats. Selling Premium clothing. DM me if interested. Serious inquiries only.]

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Successfully unlocked!

Chapter 23 Sickness on a Drizzly Day

CarpenterSoul: [Selling wooden umbrellas. DM me if interested.]

The prices of rain gear and clothing had skyrocketed. This was where specialized life–skills players truly shone.

By the fourth day of the game, they were already selling rain gear. Chloe had no idea how they’d pulled it off. Clothing had been a high–end commodity for days. Few people had any, and those who sold it charged steep prices. Now, with the rain, it was even worse.

Chloe might have had great luck with high–level blueprints, but her stock of basic necessities was still painfully thin.

She checked the Lifestyle Leaderboard. She’d once hovered around 700th place. Now she’d slipped past 3,000 and was still visibly dropping.

Her Combat Leaderboard ranking, on the other hand, had climbed a fair bit.

She forced her aching body upright and sent a private message to MintyGrass: [Do you have any healing supplies?]

MintyGrass: [I do. Because of the special circumstances, the current price is 8 Cubic Yard Soil Plots and 50 Premium materials for a single dose of Specialized Medicine. I can show you the effects.

[It can treat the vast majority of external injuries and some infections. And it has a certain effect on Low- Grade Fever.]

Notification: [Quality: Premium.]

MintyGrass sent a smiling emoji. [I can see you’ve got some magic talent, pro, and I’d like to be friends. [How about this? 3 Cubic Yard Soil Plots, no Premium materials needed, just give me a friend slot. [This is already the group’s lowest friend price. This item consumes Talent Points to make, and I can only produce a limited number each day.]

Notification: [MintyGrass has sent a friend request.]

It was genuinely a low price. MintyGrass could have gotten much higher offers, especially since her medicine actually treated Low–Grade Fever, and medicine in a survival game was always priced at a premium.

There was no telling how long this rain would last. Chloe accepted the friend trade and replied with sincerity: [ Thank you.]

MintyGrass: [You’re welcome.]

After the trade completed, Chloe examined the item that had appeared in her possession: a green herbal bandage.

She held it and activated it, and the bandage dissolved from her hand. A cool, soothing layer of medicine settled over her wounds.

Items produced by a player’s talent truly were remarkable. 3 Cubic Yard Soil Plots was absolutely a friend price.

After a moment’s thought, Chloe typed again: [In the future, if you come to me to buy anything, I’ll prioritize giving you a discounted rate.]

To most people, that kind of promise sounded like a vague dinner invitation, appreciated but not counted on. MintyGrass, however, was still delighted.

MintyGrass: [Sounds great.]

In a survival game, everyone survived by their own wits, and trickery and exploitation were hardly unusual. While Chloe disliked Fearless Reaper’s way of doing things, she couldn’t exactly condemn it either.

‘If you have the ability, you take what you can. That had always been Chloe’s motto.

Still, having grown up under the modern world’s system of moral education, she found herself far more inclined toward players like MintyGrass.

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Chapter 23 Sickness on a Drizzly Day

Chloe glanced through the glass window of her wooden cabin. The rain outside fell in a steady, unbroken drizzle. She felt a wave of satisfaction at having asked Carpenter Soul for those extra wooden buckets.

She could use them to store rainwater and hold dirty water. Rain would solve the water shortage for the vast majority of players right now, provided they had containers to hold it.

CarpenterSoul was probably swamped with work at the moment.

‘Life–skills players truly have it good, Chloe thought.

What was more, from what she had seen on the Trading Post, CarpenterSoul and only four or five other players actually had the ability to craft wooden buckets.

Every other bucket or piece of clothing out there had come from lucky chest drops.

Through her quiet observation of the Trading Post, Chloe had learned that even most players with special crafting talents only started with a single basic blueprint.

Talents merely provided bonuses. Any player could learn a blueprint. That was why blueprint prices remained so stubbornly high. Some basic blueprints were even more expensive than expansion facility blueprints.

Chloe decided to ask LilNimbus about clothing prices. [Hello, how do you price your clothes?]

LilNimbus: [Standard summer short–sleeved shirt and trousers set: 200 units of basic materials, or 80 Premium materials. Long–sleeved autumn shirt and trousers: 350 basic materials or 120 Premium materials. [During this special period, my production queue is completely full. You’ll need to purchase through bidding. [Current bid for queue–jumping and immediate production: 10 Cubic Yard Soil Plots and 300 Premium materials. Non–queue–jumping price: minimum 1 Cubic Yard Soil Plot plus specified Premium materials, with a three–day waiting period.

[Of course, special silk fabrics, special cloth, Premium or Rare materials, Energy–recovery items, Endurance- boosting items, fabric–making blueprints, clothing design sketches, special sewing machine needles, and similar items will grant priority queue–jumping.

[Let’s discuss further if you have any.]

Chloe: [Sorry to bother you.]

Chloe couldn’t help envying players with life–skills talents. Her own talent was powerful, but the cost of using it was far too high.

Relying on the daily natural recovery of Talent Points to bless items was barely enough to cover her own needs.

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