Chapter 62: Forty Minutes

By the time forty minutes had passed, Jaxir was no longer pretending the wait was normal.

He remained beneath the same tree with his arms crossed, staring across the open prairie toward Glimmer Village while the distant gates continued swallowing players and spitting them back out. Nick hadn’t been among any of them, and what had started as mild curiosity was finally beginning to irritate him. Something wasn’t adding up.

Nick could have taken the money and run, sure, but the more Jaxir thought about it, the less sense that made. He’d handed over a lot of money by ordinary standards, yet it wasn’t the sort of amount that changed someone’s life, especially for a player who had already spent months grinding an Epic set.

There had also been far better opportunities to disappear.

Nick could have left while Jaxir was logged out, since he had several hours with nobody watching him and more than enough time to put a great deal of distance between them. If he really wanted to be careful, he could have logged back in while Jaxir slept, taken the money, then vanished long before Jaxir returned.

Instead, he’d waited for Jaxir to log in and walked all the way to Glimmer Village beside him.

’So probably not theft.’

The other obvious option was an ambush, but even that began falling apart the longer Jaxir considered it. If Nick planned on betraying him for the church bounty, leaving Jaxir alone in the forest for forty minutes was about the worst way to set it up.

Jaxir was already suspicious now, which meant anyone walking out of that village toward him would be scrutinized long before they entered attacking range. If Nick wanted to catch him relaxed, he should have returned quickly, acted as though everything had gone perfectly, then led Jaxir directly into whatever trap was waiting.

’Wouldn’t be much of an ambush if you give the target forty minutes to wonder where the hell you are.’

Jaxir’s eyes narrowed.

Something had happened to Nick.

That conclusion brought up another question, though, and this one bothered Jaxir considerably more. Nick was wearing a shroud strong enough to hide his name, class, level, Marks and divine standing, while Rin and the church had no reason to know what he looked like in the first place.

So what trouble could he possibly have found on a shopping trip for six low-level items?

Jaxir’s gaze remained fixed on the distant village as another thought surfaced.

’Why does Nick even have a shroud?’

He’d never really questioned it before.

Nick had explained what shrouds were with the casual familiarity of someone who had already been using one, and the thing clearly wasn’t some garbage Common item he had picked up for convenience. Identity Shrouds that good started at Epic grade, which meant Nick had either paid an absurd amount for his or had acquired it through something important enough to justify hiding himself.

Then Jaxir remembered the inheritance dungeon.

Nick had already been having trouble with Gravity Boy’s side before Jaxir came into the picture, hadn’t he?

There had been the strange reaction when Twinkle Mana singled him out, the way he’d immediately understood that being noticed was bad news, and the fact that none of it had surprised him nearly as much as it probably should have. Jaxir had been too busy dealing with his own problems to pry into Nick’s, but now that he actually stopped and looked backward, the man had been carrying quite a few things he never explained.

Jaxir stood there in silence for a while, his arms still crossed as he considered his options.

He couldn’t exactly walk into Glimmer Village and ask around.

The Minor God of Gravity had barred him from every settlement in the province, which was a rather straightforward way of saying that marching through the front gate was probably a terrible idea. Nick was also more than capable of handling himself, and if the problem inside had nothing to do with Jaxir, showing up with a province-wide church bounty attached to his name might turn a manageable situation into something much worse.

On the other hand, standing beneath a tree and waiting indefinitely wasn’t happening either.

Jaxir had spent enough years doing nothing while other people made decisions around him.

The thought dragged his mind briefly toward the lawyer who had appeared in his home, and his expression hardened.

Whatever was happening with Gravity Boy mattered, but it wasn’t the only pressure closing in on him anymore. The Chance Corporation was still sitting in the background, his uncle was clearly watching what he did, and if Jaxir wanted any chance of controlling what happened next instead of reacting to it, he needed resources.

A lot of them.

Money mattered outside the game, but Divinity had already proven that what he gained inside could be worth very real amounts in the world beyond it. If Jaxir wanted enough freedom to move without relying on anyone tied to the Chance Corporation, then building capital inside Divinity was necessary.

That started with the Goddess of Light.

Jaxir needed the missing Common and Uncommon inheritance pieces, then he needed to awaken the Reflection of the Light and find out exactly what sort of power a fallen Goddess had left behind. From there, maybe he’d finally have something capable of making the Minor God of Gravity regret putting his face on every church board in the province.

Jaxir licked his lips, then chuckled softly.

’What is the worst that could happen if I go inside?’

Sure, he was banned.

That sounded dramatic enough when the System announced it, but Glimmer Village was still a tutorial settlement. How powerful could the NPCs inside realistically be?

Jaxir had already fought a Kindled Bear King, survived three Demi-Goddess-possessed players, killed all three, taken on a Fractured Divinity, and pissed off an actual Minor God. Compared to that list, getting thrown out of a beginner village didn’t sound particularly terrifying.

’It can’t be that bad.’

The fact that this exact line of reasoning had almost never ended well for him didn’t escape Jaxir, but it also didn’t change his mind.

He pushed himself away from the tree, then stopped before taking his first step toward the prairie.

There was one thing he’d been meaning to look at again.

Jaxir opened his Ability screen and let his gaze settle on the second layer of the Hex Path, the branch that had unlocked when Bind finally crossed Level 20. He had already spent a good portion of the last forty minutes reading through the new options while waiting for Nick, cycling through their descriptions more than once until the possibilities had started fitting together in his head.

He didn’t tried out anything yet for obvious reasons. He didn’t exactly have a target here.

Not knowing exactly what was waiting inside Glimmer Village, though, would probably make these a lot more useful pretty damn soon.

A grin slowly spread across Jaxir’s face.

"Alright, Gravity Boy."

He closed the screen and stepped out from beneath the trees, walking into the open prairie with Glimmer Village directly ahead.

"If you’re going to ban me, I guess we should find out what that actually means."