Gerry gladly collected all the tubers from the heroes, while the Supporter girl went back to the apartment with her share and the good news about how to prepare them.

She wasn’t going to be the only one, either.

Every team had gone to look for them after the first team came back and reported that there were more plants to complete the quest. They all brought Supporters to carry the loot, and now that they knew about the entanglement, and what the plants looked like, they were feeling confident.

Even Esmeralda, who went out alone, brought a Supporter with her to carry the loot.

She picked one of the younger girls, who wouldn’t actually be able to carry thirty kilos or more of tubers. But ten was possible, and there were only two of them.

And that brought them to a valuable bit of knowledge.

The plants had thirty to fifty kilos of tubers under them, on average. And Esmeralda had gone into a cluster of them by accident, as her undead didn’t see the others behind the tree.

So, she ended up killing four of them, and found way more tubers than they could use.

"Hey! You lot from the apartments. Come and gather all these tubers. Make sure you’ve gathered at least five kilos each and bring them to Kalli if you have the quest. Just leave one in the dirt from each plant when you’re done."

The workers gave her matching confused stares.

"Did none of you take botany? Plants that grow tubers will regrow from tubers. So, if we leave one from each plant, we will have more again in a month or two. We’ve gotta keep the food supply up and not force ourselves to go too far out from the Academy on foraging missions."

The other teams had simply stopped when the backpack got full, and they were reasonably certain that they had enough.

They didn’t fully dig out the plants, so that was how the rest of the survivors from the apartments had been harvesting until this point. But they also mostly grabbed what was near the surface and didn’t dig too far out. So, they might have also missed some.

"We will be sure to tell everyone else to do it tomorrow. The plants put up a real fight, but we’re all willing to fight for our dinner when there is this much of it available."

By the time that they got back. The apartment kitchen had turned the tubers into a huge pot of thin soup with flour dumplings, much to the confusion of the gathering teams.

"There is enough we don’t have to ration for a bit. We’ve got hundreds of kilos in a single day, and we have all week to stockpile."

The cook shook her head. "It’s about the soup itself. You’ll understand when you eat it. These plants give you something like a sugar rush. Too much in the soup, and you’ll be awake for days. So, the soup is thin, with dumplings to make it more than broth.

Trust me, it’s the best way, with the benefit of stretching resources even further."

By the time that it got dark, Kalli was starting to become concerned about the future of her storage space. She had been collecting tubers and crab parts all day long as everyone turned in quests, and she had developed quite a collection of crab legs.

She had close to a thousand kilos of tubers already, and even Gerry had taken an hour to go out and loot a bag full of them to get the bonus System Point.

A team had gone back out with him, just to be sure that nothing happened to the chef. But they didn’t have to fight anything, as there were already partially harvested plants chopped off.

That part was fine, the tubers were just one very large bin in the warehouse sized space, but the crab legs were not so easily stored.

Gerry just picked himself a bag full from the already defeated plants, with the knowledge that the requirement was only to "Harvest Edible Plants" and not to get into a fight with them.

Then, on the way back, he spotted a few likely looking herbs. He was pretty sure that they were common spices, but he would check them when he got back to the Academy, in case they were some sort of alien mutant plant like the tubers.

"Well, that’s two points for nearly everyone. Even most of our younger members managed to get the Stoneshell Crab mission done, and I think we all did the plant harvest." Sanchez informed Kalli as he came back at the end of the day.

He had remained out until all the residents of the apartment building were safely home. They had just finished the quest, and he wasn’t willing to lose anyone during a routine scavenging mission.

"It’s coming along very well. Soon, we will have enough stockpiled to last us through another event. At least we don’t have anyone allergic to shellfish."

The Sergeant laughed. "Wouldn’t that suck? The only source of meat, and it’s giant crabs. But there are simply so many of them that just keeping them from pushing inland is going to be an ongoing issue.

Do you have any idea what the next mission is going to be?"

Kalli shook her head. "No. The System doesn’t give me that sort of advance warning. The fact that it told us when it was coming feels suspicious enough. But that’s a chance for us to spread out and explore the area.

Once we’ve seen everything that’s around us, we will know where to get what we need, what threats are native to the area, and that will give us a better idea when things change.

Did you guys see anything else of note? I’m keeping a threat map updated."

"Nothing but the aggressive plants, the crabs, and some birds that didn’t seem interested in us at all."

"I will put the birds on the list, in case they do get interested."

"Alright, you’ve got another night off. Just keep all the notes in order. There is always a pattern to attacks, even if most of us can’t see them. When we still had military intelligence working with us, they were the ones to spot those patterns and warn us about potential changes to missions.

That’s your job now, apparently. It’s not like we’ve got anyone else to do it."