As much as Sandrine wanted to directly rush into the forest, this was still a dangerous offroad event in a new unexplored environment. She had to make thorough preparations to make sure that her precious pets would be as safe as possible.
She got off Paquerette's back and helped both Gribouille and the mare put on their light armor. Then she took out her crafting table and crafted four small traps. After all, contrary to the previous event, this time this wasn't an old polluted city but a clean forest, surely the animals could be either tamed or butchered if they hadn't been contaminated by the black fog, right ?
Sandrine tied her hair in a tight ponytail, put on her vest to offer an additional layer of protection, and took her tamer's pitchfork in the right hand and her manual lamp in the left one. She made sure that everything was ready one last time, and finally carefully got off the infinite road.
Her boot slightly sunk into the moss and the fallen leaves. Immediately, the damp smell of grass and decomposing plants filled her nose, much similar to the smell of a forest in Spring after the rain. The bushes covered in morning dew left dark wet spots on Sandrine's riding pants everytime she brushed against them, and the light of her lamp revealed glittering sparkles on every plant, the water reflecting the light and looking like stars in the night of this somber environment.
It was a bit beautiful and enchanting, but also a bit unnerving and bizarre.
Sandrine's eyes darted left and right.
"Where could the chests be ?"
In the previous offroad event, all the chests had been in buildings, but there wasn't a single one here. She couldn't find any peculiar place either, everything was just trees and bushes.
"Is it a hide and seek round ?"
It was a bit troublesome. How could she know where to find the chests ? Did she need to search every nook and cranny, climb on the trees to check the branches and dig out beneath the bushes ? It was just absurd !
Just as she was grumbling, Gribouille suddenly passed her and trotted ahead, his little nose stuck to the ground and wiggling intensely.
"Did you smell something ?"
A small bark answered her, and the puppy suddenly sprang forward towards a big tree that didn't look much different from the others.
"Wait, baby ! For every chest there is a…"
Before she could remind him of the danger, a blurry silhouette came out of the bushes and rushed towards Gribouille. It was so fast that Sandrine couldn't see what it was, but her body reacted before her mind. She threw her pitchfork with all her strength, and the teeth stabbed the enemy, pinning it to the trunk, less than a centimeter from Gribouille's face.
Only then, stopped by her weapon, could Sandrine see what it was. It looked like a kind of ferret or weasel, brown with small but sharp teeth, black beady eyes, and a ferocious temper. Well, at least it had been fierce before being stabbed and laying in a puddle of blood. Now, the animal was thoroughly dead.
Gribouille was shaking, staring at the attacker with wide eyes. The puppy had completely forgotten that chests could have such dangerous things protecting them ! He had been so happy to find something to give his mom that he had rushed without thinking. Now, this was a lesson he would remember.
"Are you okay, baby ?"
Sandrine rushed to Gribouille's side to check on him. After making sure the puppy was alright, she finally turned to the attacker's corpse. Seeing something that had been breathing a few seconds earlier now stabbed with her pitchfork and laying dead, drenched in blood, Sandrine's pupils contracted sharply. It was as if she was looking not at a weasel, but at a blonde man with a spear and a crossbow, widening his eyes and staring at her as he was slowly dying.
Sandrine slapped herself several times, trying to chase away the vision and its lingering effects on her body, ignoring her shaky legs and her churning stomach.
"It's really annoying…"
It would have been better if she was thoroughly crazy and without remorse, but it looked like this wasn't the case.
A low snort filled her ear, as a big soft nose gently rubbed her cheek. Sandrine turned her head and saw Paquerette looking at her with worry.
"I'm okay, thanks bestie."
She petted the mare's neck and gently rubbed the space between her eyes.
"Let's check out what our baby has found."
After all, they were here because Gribouille had rushed ahead after finding something !
Understanding that his mom and auntie wanted him to show what he had found, Gribouille got out of his daze and cautiously walked towards the big tree, avoiding the trickling blood from the animal still stabbed into the trunk. There were a few big roots emerging from the green moss, and if you pushed back the climbing ivy to look into the space between the trunk and the roots, you could see a small space inside, with a wooden chest peeking out.
Sandrine whistled.
"So hard to find ? The wooden chest is blending into the trunk too, I would have never found it ! The game is really playing with us now."
Taking the chest out would require some effort and digging, but Sandrine didn't want to bother. After all, she had a backpack. As long as her hand could get into the narrow space, she could take the chest out.
She took it into the inventory and then took it out again in front of her. Opening it, she found 3 backpack extensions. Exactly the same as in the first chest of the previous offroad event.
"Nothing better ? I'm a bit disappointed…"
Well, it was still the newbie protection period after all. And backpack extensions were still very good, Sandrine needed those things ! The thing was : If the content of the chests were the same as during the first day of the previous offroad event, Sandrine really didn't need them. Foldable beds and showers were nice, but those weren't things that she needed.
Right now, she had to get more wood. It would be more worthwhile to take an axe and cut down some trees. With enough materials, she could craft the barn and she would finally have a big space to store her stuff, as well as a roof above her head that she could safely sleep under.
But the problem was : Getting a high rank in an event was too valuable ! With the whole string of rewards from the system including personalized items that she needed, Sandrine just couldn't abandon the event's chests !
Getting the barn was important for her safety and to get on the same level as other players, but focusing on it and not competing in the event would make her miss some good stuff and get even further from the rankers.
Tough choice.
Sandrine grumbled and looked at the server chat. It looked like some players were stuck, too scared to get off the road, but also not wanting to continue driving and meet their demise on a double road.
She really wanted to employ those idle players, paying them to cut wood, but unfortunately if she did such a thing publicly, this would advertise that she had a crafting table and that she was currently working on something big that required a lot of wood.
She was already a target, she didn't want people to bother her about blueprint crafting and harassing her for information.
Also, considering that there were a few troublesome individuals targeting the rankers, she was afraid that if 84jojo84 officially said he needed wood, those guys would try to screw him over by encouraging the other players not to trade wood on the trade platform. After all, not all people were good.
Sandrine frowned. Anyway, AlphaWolf and MomImThirsty had already said that they would help her get wood. The first one was a bit simple and was more likely to cut trees himself while fighting in the forest, but she didn't believe that MomImThristy wouldn't think like her. This friend was quite smart, and he knew how to take advantage of his position. He also wasn't scared of publicly displaying his strength, as proven by his water trade in the whole server.
He didn't seem to have much fighting strength either, he relied on his overwhelming monopoly on water trade to buy whatever he needed. Sandrine guessed that during the offroad event, the other party didn't fight and search for chests. As for what he was doing, Sandrine didn't know but it was probably linked to how he could get so much water. A job, maybe.
Anyway, since she knew he wasn't busy with fighting and exploring, she thought that he would take advantage of this time to get more wood for her and ask her for things in exchange. He was the type to do this, using their collaboration to help her, but never allowing himself to be on the losing side. That was why, even after being friends, he was still insisting on having collaboration agreements.
Sandrine still sent a message to remind him, even telling him that she could offer him a good price for a bigger stock of wood, and when she got an answer that he knew, she finally got this out of her head and prepared to focus on the offroad event.
She pulled her pitchfork out of the trunk and sent the weasel body to AlphaWolf before looking around her.
Without the excitement of the beginning of the event, Sandrine could calmly analyze the environment. This was a normal forest, maybe a bit more lush than usual, but the vegetation seemed very familiar, contrary to the park she had visited during the first offroad event. At that time, all the plants and the fruits looked strange and she didn't dare harvest any, however here she could clearly recognize some of them.
Of course, as a corporate slave spending most of her life in front of a computer in a city building, Sandrine wasn't overly familiar with wild plants, but she could still recognize some of them. And she also had a bit of common sense.
"Those are blackberry bushes, right ?"
Unfortunately, they weren't very ripe. Most were still red or green, the rare somewhat purple ones showed signs of having been picked on by birds on top, and small mammals on the bottom.
"At least this shows that this forest is full of life. In addition to the things protecting the chests, there might be quite a lot of wildlife."
There were too few ripe blackberries to do anything with them. Sandrine still picked a few to send to MomImThirsty, hoping the guy could cultivate a bush or two, and left the rest alone. It was more worthwhile to install a trap here and try to catch a few animals coming here to eat.
Sandrine took out two small traps she had crafted earlier and put them near animal tracks leading to the bush.
"Think you can remember where this is ? We need to be able to take them back later."
She gently spoke to Gribouille, and the puppy that was growing smarter everyday seemed to understand somewhat. His mom wanted him to remember this place in order to go back later. He was a very capable puppy, he could remember the smell very clearly ! After all, the two things his mom had put down had her smell, so he could find them easily.
Sandrine made sure that Gribouille understood, and then she got ready to go again.
"Remember, baby, be very careful !"
In the next few hours, the group advanced carefully. Gribouille was leading them towards the chests, and Paquerette kept an eye out on the surroundings, using her instinct to inform Sandrine of any impending dangers. The girl was in the middle, following the puppy while harvesting the edible plants she recognized, which were not a lot, but she was still quite happy to have fresh vegetables for the first time since she had entered the game. She didn't forget to keep the ones with seeds to give MomImThristy. She had given him a pot and some fertilizer that she had found in a chest in the previous event, and she knew that the man, after understanding that he could become self-sufficient in food without having to fight outside, would probably buy more.
Eventually, helping the guy who helped her with her own matters was the same as helping herself.
And since he secretly had a soft heart, she hoped he would share some of his harvest with her.
Sandrine hid the greed in her eyes and stifled her laugh. She was a nice and innocent lady, she could swear !
On the way, she had put down the other two small traps and she had gotten a few other wooden chests. They were all hidden in impossible places, either atop tall trees that Sandrine could only climb thanks to her high agility, or underneath thick roots and buried in the soil. One was even hidden in an enormous knittles bush. Just brushing against it would surely cover Sandrine's skin with red patches and white bumps, with an unshakable itch that would render her crazy.
Any normal person would either give up or find a way to slowly clear the bush to reach the center.
But Sandrine, despite her somewhat normal usual behavior, was still absolutely batshit crazy.
A grating laugh halfway between squeequing rats and a violently bad violin solo filled the forest. The origin of that laugh was a brown haired woman rolling naked, so as not to damage her clothes, into a thick knittle bush. Her skin had turned so red, inflamed, itchy, covered in bumps, that her limbs were slowly stiffening and her bruised face was unrecognizable.
Outside the bush, there was a horse with a blank look of despair and giving up, and a puppy who looked very confused and a little scared. Both were following the crazy woman with their eyes, looking like they very much wanted to abandon her here, but also couldn't exactly bear to. Unfortunately, that was their everyday life. Their human could be very sweet and nice, but also very unhinged.
"I got it !"
The human finally touched the wooden chest in the center of the bush and turned to her pets with a wide crazy smile. She looked very proud of herself, and happy that the ordeal was over.
But Paquerette only rolled her eyes. What was she even happy about ? Didn't she realize that she had to traverse the bushes a second time to come back now ?
Sandrine was very dispirited when she realized.
It took her a while to come back to them, but when she finally stepped out of the bushes, her naked skin seemed to heal quickly, the redness paling, the bumps shrinking, and the scratches closing. In less than ten seconds, everything had disappeared and Sandrine's skin was as smooth and healthy as usual. This was the power of a high constitution focused on healing.
Sandrine put on her clothes while taking out the chest and opening it. Nothing interesting was inside, just a few vehicle upgrade materials, and among them was a very small quantity of wood. She didn't even know if her ordeal had been worth it.
"That makes it five chests, right ? If my calculations are correct, now that the other players know about the rankings, they will all try to get the golden chests. If we all have three golden chests, the rankings will be based on how many wooden chests we got. And if you directly go for the golden chest at the beginning…"
Well, in her experience, every confrontation with a field boss ended either with her body getting wrecked, or her wrecking the map by making everything explode. Both situations wouldn't allow her to search for wooden chests afterward.
"I'll first get the wooden chests before searching for the golden one. In the previous event, Jackalope65 ended up in first place with 3 golden chests and 15 wooden ones. That makes it 1 golden and 5 wooden per day. But now that people know about the rankings and will get more motivated, to reach the top of the rankings I should target around 1 golden and 7 wooden per day."
With that, she was guaranteed to have a good result. Sandrine checked out the time. Four hours had passed since the beginning of the day, it was 10am. She took a deep breath and followed Gribouille once again.