Aggro Litrpg || Progression Fantasy

An hour or so later, when the boredom started eating at the corners of my brain, I opened the village interface again. Guess what? It was still the same screen, with all the same options. No sudden miracles and no secret upgrades. There was just a stubborn list of the usual suspects blinking back at me like a tired shopfront menu.

Village Hall: Under construction. 2 hours 30 remaining.

Hunter's Lodge: Available.

Storage Shed: Available.

Signal Cairn: Available.

I drummed my fingers against my knee as I scanned the choices, but there was nothing new to bite into. No golden flashing 'build this for instant salvation' icon.

Although, considering I didn't have nearly enough resources to start the next building - and while my Shadowborn Labourers were still cheerfully hammering away at the Village Hall - there weren't any resource goodies flowing in. Not even a trickle. And seeing as I wasn't exactly in a rush to rip myself a new one through the Well of Ascension just to trigger another Worker Surge... yeah. Bit of a quandary, that.

No matter how I tried to slice this particular cake, it came out the same: I needed more resources. And I needed them faster.

I flicked open my inventory and gave the remaining Remnant Bones a long, hopeful look, but whatever weird threshold had let me spin them into Shadowborn earlier was stone-cold dormant. I wondered if it was tied to building the Medical Hut?

If so, that made it all a little... chicken and egg, didn't it? I could have more workers when I had more buildings. But I needed more workers to get more buildings. Beautiful little paradox you've got going on there, Bayteran. Be a shame if someone smashed it to death with a morningstar.

Regardless, as long as the two workers I did have were stuck making the Village Hall frame, they weren't out there gathering fresh supplies. And unless someone started stacking up timber and stone in my resource pool, the rest of my so-called village was going nowhere faster.

And – less I forget - all the while, ticking away behind my skull like a slow grenade, was the knowledge that in less than two days, some joyless loan shark in Sablewyn was going to murder Lia's dad if I didn't hand in proof the Alchemist was dead.

Good times.

Okay. Enough lollygagging. I snapped the interface closed with a thought and started pacing the perimeter of my village. And yeah, 'village' was doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. Realistically, it was just a clearing in a haunted wood containing a glorified first-aid hut, a half-built pile of lumber that was aspiring to be a Village Hall, and a Well that doubled as a cosmic loading dock for horrors beyond human comprehension.

Still. Vibes were strong.

I needed something to speed this whole operation up. Because at the current pace, Lia's dad was going to be chum floating facedown in Sablewyn's sewers before I could even slap a roof on this place, never mind upgrade the Medical Hut so that it was powerful enough to heal Lia up so that we could deliver proof we'd actually completed that assassination mission.

And that was the optimistic scenario.

Because that was assuming that in the middle of this hiatus, I didn't get overrun by another surge of shadow creatures. And was assuming the Empire or the Rebellion didn't notice my little mud patch and send a death squad to plant a flag on it. And assuming the big, polite Shadow-Ogrin didn't change his mind, decide I was a disappointment after all, and come back to smash the Well and me into matching piles of wet gravel.

I couldn't afford to sit around waiting for things to happen. I had to make it work. Somehow.

I watched the slow progress of the Village Hall construction. The two Shadowborn Labourers were hard at it, knocking up the frame in their strange, scraping way, but it wasn't fast enough. Not by a long shot. I needed more hands.

More hands meant faster builds. Faster builds meant better defences. More upgrades. And if I could upgrade the Medical Hut – and quickly – it might, might, mean I could get Lia back to Sablewyn in one piece before her dad ended up as a cautionary tale at the bottom of a river.

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I pulled the interface open again, flicking through options with a growing sense of frustration. There had to be something I was missing. Some angle I hadn't seen yet.

Because I sure as hell wasn't about to drain the Well again for another Worker Surge. The last time nearly wiped me out, and I had a strong suspicion the Well wouldn't be merciful a second time. I had to be smarter. Work the margins. Build on what little I had already clawed out of this miserable clearing.

I was still staring at the stagnant resource counters when something shifted.

The interface stuttered, warped slightly at the edges and a new notification dinged.

> [System Notification: New Construction Option Unlocked]

> Basic Resource Worker – Tier 0

> Cost: 10 Stone | 10 Wood | 10 Food (or 50 Gold)

> Note: Alternative Cost Detected – [Warden Pathway] Variant Available.

A second panel opened beneath it outlined in the same eerie grey-blue light the Well pulsed with.

> [Warden Variant: Animate Worker via Core Exchange]

> Sacrifice 1 point from a Core Attribute to manifest a new Threshold-Bound Labourer.

> Eligible Attributes: Strength, Agility, Speed, Endurance, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Luck

> Warning: This exchange is permanent. Core regeneration not available without Class Evolution or External Intervention.

Permanent.

I stood there as the rain spattered off the Village Hall's skeletal frame behind me. I could lose a piece of myself to build one more foundation stone. That was the deal. Just like when I'd been boosted to become a Breachwalker to drop the Alchemist.

Well, I had asked for a way forward, and the Well had provided. I looked at my Charisma stat. It was already -1. What was one more deduction? Given the choices on the table, it was the one I could most afford to sacrifice.

> [Core Exchange Confirmed]

> -1 Charisma Applied (Current: -2)

> New Worker Deployed

The ground near the Well rippled like heat rising off tarmac, and one of the pieces of Residual Bone I'd gathered earlier jittered in my inventory, then blinked out of existence entirely, and a new figure pulled itself together out of the damp air. It was another Shadowborn Labourer, flickering and half-formed, but growing more solid with every second. It rose slowly to its feet, movements jerky at first, then smoothing out into that same weird, inevitable rhythm the others had.

> [System Notification: Worker Subtype Deployed]

> New Worker Class: Shadowborn Labourer (Warden-Aligned)

> Origin: Residual Threshold Echo (Core-Tethered)

> Loyalty: Absolute (Duration: Indefinite | Bound to Threshold Anchor)

> Traits:

> – Accelerated Gathering Efficiency (+50% Wood per cycle)

> – Threshold-Environmental Immunity

> – Minor Corruption Emission (Suppressed)

> – Immune to Fear, Exhaustion, Morale Erosion

> Advisory: Ambient Instability Risk: Marginal. Monitor closely.

> System Commentary:

> You gave up part of yourself.

> In return, the Threshold remembers.

> Build carefully. Dream cautiously. The cost only grows.

'The cost only grows'... awesome.

I actually felt a little lighter, like the missing point of Charisma had been tugged out of my ribs with a pair of pliers, and something small and hollow had been left behind. Still. One more worker on the ground and one who tumbled off immediately toward the treeline and started the slow work of gathering what little could be scraped from the local environment.

> [Resource Intake Updated]

> • Wood: +12 / cycle

> • Stone: +2 / cycle

> • Food: +2 / cycle

Better. Not good yet. But better.

I watched the trio of shadow-workers scraping away, patient and stubborn as termites. As I did so A small - very small, let's not get carried away - smile crept onto my face. This was progress. Slow? Absolutely. Ugly? You bet. But progress was still progress, and in Bayteran, I was learning, which made it worth more than gold.

With this extra Worker gathering, I might even have enough to start laying the next foundations when the Village Hall finally finishes ticking over. And after that? The Hunter's Lodge could wait. The Signal Cairn could wait. The Storage Shed could definitely wait. A Medical Hut upgrade, though. That had to come first.

If Lia wasn't standing by the end of this, nothing else I built was going to matter.

I shifted the morningstar onto my shoulder, feeling the rain settle heavier on my coat, and gave the clearing one last slow look. A clearing. A Well. A handful of stubborn ghosts hacking away at trees. And me. Not much of a bulwark against shadow encroachments, but it was a start.

"Well," I said, mostly to myself, "at least it's not raining inside the Medical Hut."

And with that towering achievement under my belt, I went to check the perimeter.

No sense letting all this 'progress' get murdered in its sleep.