Sea Survival: My Luck is Off the Charts

"Alright, since you’re my pet partner now, I’ll give you a name. Cecilia Yardley. It sounds nice, doesn’t it?"

Faye Yardley was in an excellent mood. ’After all, it might be an Azure Phoenix. A name like "Azure" would be too plain. But the "Jade" part of her name comes from a word that means both greenish-blue and bird. Perfect.’

A good mood called for a little drink.

So, Faye Yardley took a small bottle of plum wine from her warehouse and poured herself a glass to celebrate.

But would the night be calm and free of trash?

As it turned out, the system wouldn’t let anyone have such a peaceful night.

So at 8:00 PM, all sorts of trash began to surface around the raft again.

Bramble and the others took care of all the emerging trash in turns, so Faye Yardley didn’t even need to lift a finger.

Faye Yardley even had the time and mood to spend a full three hours in the training room.

At midnight, the amount of trash surrounding the raft exploded.

It might have been agonizing for others, but for Faye Yardley, it was now the second day, which meant her five automated recycling boats could be deployed.

However, she didn’t send them all out at once. Instead, she had Cole Kensington and Lucy White each escort one of the boats to prevent them from being attacked and destroyed by the Sea Monsters lurking beneath the trash.

Eamon, of course, couldn’t go out at night. He was, after all, a technical specialist, and more importantly, he needed to keep a close eye on the red apricot, which was about to ripen.

Faye Yardley stood on Goliath’s head. The moonlight was bright, clearly illuminating the surroundings.

’So there are a lot of Sea Monsters mixed in with the trash,’ she thought. ’No wonder the system specifically mentioned the raft’s damage speed.’

The trash in the immediate vicinity had been cleared away completely. Faye Yardley glanced down, then took a sudden leap and plunged into the water.

’Since someone else is handling the trash on the surface, I’ll take care of the Sea Monsters underwater.’

As it turned out, killing Sea Monsters awarded more points than collecting trash. Her motivation soared.

’It would be disrespectful to myself not to kill every last one of them for points.’

The only unfortunate thing was that during the event, all Sea Monsters only turned into points and provided no meat.

[Aaaah! Can’t they give us a break?! So many Sea Monsters mixed in with the trash in the middle of the night! I lost several fishing nets. I’m gonna explode!]

[I have my mom watching the raft’s damage and constantly repairing it with wood, while I’m desperately trying to scoop trash and kill Sea Monsters. I can’t keep up, I just can’t!]

[How does Yardley do it? She disappears from the points leaderboard whenever she wants and reappears at the top just as easily. She’s first again!]

[You have time to worry about the top players’ rankings, but you haven’t even collected a fraction of their points. You should be scooping more trash.]

[Heh heh... I’ll let you in on a secret: killing monsters gives you more points than collecting trash. Get to it.]

[Guys, if you don’t clear the trash, it’ll swarm onto your raft automatically! It’s terrifying! My raft was almost buried in it. The stench is overwhelming!]

[Dammit, this is infuriating! So many of us are helping our guild leader farm points, but we can’t even break into the top 100.]

It had to be said that the overall strength of some newly formed guilds wasn’t necessarily greater than that of individuals in the top 100 on the combat power rankings.

After all, there were quite a few powerful solo players on the points leaderboard.

Faye Yardley was getting into the killing spree underwater but didn’t stray too far from the raft. After all, the smell would be too strong with all that trash floating above her head.

Bramble stayed close to her, and any trash that tried to approach was instantly snatched by a vine and sent into the large recycling bin on the raft.

It was also possible that, this being the first wave of Sea Monsters at the start of the second day, their attack power was just a bit too low for Faye Yardley.

Because her second Talent was Underwater Breathing, she could stay in the sea indefinitely. She went on a total rampage, slaughtering so many that the water around the raft turned red.

When she surfaced, her nose was filled with the metallic, rotten stench of blood.

Rubbing her nose, Faye Yardley rose gradually from the sea like a water spirit, then dashed across the surface, each step faster than the last, back toward her raft.

By then, three of the automated recycling boats had already completed their daily quota and stopped moving.

The sun had yet to peek over the horizon, but no more trash was appearing.

It seemed the system’s designated rest period had arrived again.

Needless to say, the first thing she did upon boarding the raft was rush to take a shower.

Only when she came out did she see several messages on her communicator.

She glanced through them casually and paid them no mind.

She went to check on the Green Egg next. One look told her its progress was practically zero.

An excited voice called from downstairs, "Sister! Sister, come down quick! The red apricot is ripe!"

She leaped straight out the window and followed Eamon, running toward the planting room.

The moment she entered the planting room, she was greeted by the fresh fragrance of plants. As she approached the red apricot tree, sure enough, two bright red apricots hung conspicuously from its branches.

With a light leap, she reached out and plucked them. The two red apricots were now in her palm.

The red apricots, about the size of normal ones, emanated the special, sweet fragrance of ripe fruit.

[Red Apricot: Consume to randomly increase your luck. Maximum duration: 2 hours.]

"Eamon, you’re amazing! You actually managed to grow the red apricot that temporarily boosts luck!"

"You’re giving me too much credit, Sister. It was a good seedling you brought. I wouldn’t have been able to grow it otherwise."

Faye Yardley ate one herself. ’It’s sweet and sour. So delicious!’

Even without its special effect, the fruit’s taste alone was enough to capture Faye Yardley’s heart.

After a moment’s thought, she gave the other one to Eamon. "Here. You should also taste the red apricot you grew yourself."

"Ah? Are you really giving it to me?"

Eamon was stunned and deeply flattered.

"Mhm. Go on, eat it."

"Thank you, Sister, thank you... *Sob*... Sister, you’re too good to me."

Watching Eamon clutch the red apricot and cry so dramatically, Faye Yardley felt speechless.

Unable to stand his theatrics, Faye Yardley quickly left the planting room.

Outside, she felt for the first time that the temperature was normal for this time of day—not too cold, not too hot, just very comfortable.

There was no terrible weather, either.

It seemed like a genuinely wonderful day.

"Sister, you should eat something now."

"Okay. What about Lucy White and the others? Are they not back yet?"

"They’re back. They went to change and wash up."

RING RING RING~

Faye Yardley answered the call as she walked toward the dining room.

"Yvonne, what’s up? Why are you calling me? Did you just wake up, or have you not slept yet?"

Yvonne Lynch pouted, clearly unhappy. "Yesterday, Miss Hughes brought over two girls about my age. She said they were here to keep me company, but I don’t like them at all. They’re dull and no fun, not to mention they kneel and beg for mercy the moment I say anything, which makes it look like I’m bullying them. I think Miss Hughes just can’t stand me and found these two to piss me off."

Her words instantly reminded Faye Yardley of the time after the Rhovan side-quest Invitation Card dungeon, when she had used the stealth machine and seen Chloe Hughes asking that Mrs. Sheldon to find two young girls.