Early Sunday morning, Silas shoveled down a simple breakfast and bid the team farewell, setting off on the return journey to The Sprawl.
The others stayed behind. The fortress was critically short-handed, and with the impending storm, the difficulty of defending the outpost was set to spike. They couldn't afford to leave the perimeter unmanned.
It wasn't like the old days when they could simply drop a Defense Tower and walk away. Sandworms were passive creatures; if you didn't provoke them, they ignored you. That was why Jax hadn't worried about the towers when he took Barnaby to the city previously.
But the ecosystem had changed.
Rodent-Maw Creepers were aggressive predators. The moment they caught the scent of a human, they would launch a frenzied assault, regardless of whether the target was visible or not. Leaving the fortress unattended now would be suicide; someone had to keep eyes on the perimeter at all times.
The team fell into their routines, though the absence of their miner meant the daily resource output had been cut in half. They labored through the morning, and by noon, the heavy transport truck arranged by Outpost 15 rumbled into view just outside the valley.
To keep the fortress's interior secrets safe, Jax, Kaleb, and Barnaby had spent the early hours hauling the mountain of carcasses to the valley entrance.
The truck ground to a halt, its heavy tires carving deep ruts into the dirt road. The driver killed the engine and hopped down, trekking the final distance on foot. When he spotted Jax standing casually at the valley mouth, his jaw practically unhinged.
"You... aren't you that wanted criminal?" The driver stammered, taking a step back. "I thought you were dead!"
Kaleb bristled at the inauspicious greeting. "Watch your mouth! Our Boss is alive and kicking. Who said anything about him dying?"
The driver stammered a flurry of apologies, his eyes darting nervously toward Jax. Jax simply stared back with a faint, inscrutable smile—an expression that sent a cold shiver down the man's spine.
"Enough," Jax said, his tone even. "Take a look. Sandworm corpses and Rodent-Maw Creeper hides. Calculate the value. I'm selling the lot to you at wholesale price."
The merchant nodded, relieved to switch to business. He pulled out a calculator, but when he rounded the corner and saw the hill of dead insects, he froze.
"These... you killed all these Sandworms?"
Jax nodded. "That's right. Roughly three thousand Sandworms and nearly two thousand Rodent-Maw Creepers."
He said it with the breezy nonchalance of someone discussing the weather, but to the merchant, it sounded like a billionaire casually listing off his private islands. The mix of envy and shock left the man speechless.
He walked into the hollow where the bodies were staged. A pungent, rotting stench slammed into him—the smell of death and ozone—but as a veteran of the trade, he merely wrinkled his nose. It was the quantity that floored him. The hollow was packed wall-to-wall.
These guys aren't just scavengers, he realized. They're apex predators.
Loading the cargo took until dusk. It was an all-hands-on-deck effort, and even then, the merchant had to radio for two additional trucks to handle the volume. As the convoy filled up with insectoid biomass, the merchant's fatigue was replaced by excitement.
"With this influx of stock, the price of Sandworm meat in the city is going to crash," the merchant said, wiping sweat from his brow. "So, I have to be honest—the purchase price per unit is going to be a bit lower this time."
Before Jax could respond, Gareth stepped forward. The team's resident miser bristled, clearly unhappy about his margins being squeezed.
"What do you mean? We just broke our backs loading your trucks, and now you want to short us?"
The merchant looked pained. "Brother, you have to understand the market! Since the Black Rain started, the Sandworm population has exploded. They're flooding toward The Sprawl. Supply is up, prices are down. Sandworm meat spoils fast, and only the poor buy it—they can't afford a markup."
Jax nodded slowly. He had noticed the pattern himself; the nightly waves had grown from a hundred to nearly five hundred over the last half-month. The Black Rain was clearly accelerating the spawn rates.
"Fine. Set a fair price," Jax said. "But take the Rodent-Maw Creeper hides too. The meat is garbage, but the leather is worth good money."
The merchant nodded vigorously. Gareth sighed, watching the potential profits shrink, but he held his tongue. After all, Jax had done the killing; Gareth was just the accountant.
The merchant tapped furiously on his vintage calculator before looking up.
"Okay. The Creeper hides are worth about fifty thousand. The Sandworm meat volume is high, so that fetches two hundred thousand. Total is two hundred and fifty thousand. Do you want Cores or cash?"
"Cash," Jax said instantly. "Can you cover two hundred and fifty thousand on the spot?"
"I brought it, I brought it," the merchant assured him. "I heard you guys were heavy hitters, so came prepared. I'll get it from the cab."
He returned moments later with a bulging canvas bag. He reached inside and slapped five thick stacks of bills onto the makeshift table—fifty thousand Credits per stack.
The sight was hypnotic. Gareth and the others stared. They had seen money before, but rarely more than ten or twenty thousand at a time. A quarter of a million Credits, stacked in neat bricks, hit them with a visceral impact.
The transaction complete, the merchant waved and the convoy rumbled away into the twilight.
Jax looked at his stunned team and laughed. "Alright, snap out of it. Including me, there are six of us. I'm not taking a cut. I'll hold Barnaby's share for safekeeping. The rest is yours. Split it up—fifty thousand each."
The group stood frozen, processing the words. They looked at Jax, waiting for the punchline, but he seemed completely serious.
Gareth was the first to move. He hesitated, then reached out and grabbed a stack, clutching it to his chest.
"I... I can really take this?"
Jax nodded. "Take it. Save it up to find yourself a wife."
Kaleb grinned and grabbed two stacks, shoving one toward his sister. Annie recoiled, waving her hands frantically.
"It's too much! I don't feel safe holding that much money. Brother, you keep it for me!"
Kaleb laughed, understanding her fear, and stuffed both bundles into his pockets. He turned to Jax, eyes shining with gratitude.
Everyone was ecstatic. Aside from Silas, whose share would be held for him, the three present members had just pocketed fifty thousand Credits each. For people who had scraped by in the gutter of The Sprawl, this was a life-changing fortune.
Before joining The Dire Wolves, they had lived hand-to-mouth, too terrified to take high-paying hunting missions without the safety of a Defense Tower or proper gear. To them, hunting Sandworms used to be synonymous with suicide. Now, it was a gold mine.
Night fell. The campfire crackled. Just as the team was preparing to pull their money out and count it for the third time, a cold, mechanical chime echoed in Jax's mind.
[Mission: Eliminate the Tier 3 Acid-Web Arachnid.] [Mission Reward: Tar Pit Trap Blueprint x1] [Mission Failure Penalty: Current Builder Level reduced by 1]
Jax froze.
The monster wasn't even here yet, but the system had triggered the mission early.
He stared into the fire for a long moment, listening to the joyful chatter of his team. He didn't want to ruin the mood, but the system didn't give warnings for nothing.
"Ahem." Jax cleared his throat. "Pack up and get your gear ready. We have a mission. And this one... might be tough."
The team, still high on the dopamine of newfound wealth, barely looked up. To them, "tough" meant a few extra Sandworms—nothing the Defense Towers couldn't mulch.
"Boss, just tell us," Kaleb said, his eyes still glued to the cash in his hands. "What's the job?"
He had finally started calling Jax "Boss" naturally, a title earned through blood and profit.
Jax looked at them, his expression grim.
"A Tier 3 Acid-Web Arachnid is inbound."
Thud.
The stack of bills slipped from Gareth's fingers and hit the dirt.
"A... A Tier 3 Acid-Web Arachnid? Did I hear that right?"