Another Stupid Isekai

It was obvious, that what we did, didn’t go unnoticed, but people were nice enough to pretend like they had no idea what was going on.

I was the first to emerge from between the buildings. Celestine needed a moment, and also a bit of support from the wall. I, of course, offered my help, but she declined. Sometimes the fact that she insisted on doing some things on her own was a bit annoying, but I also loved that side of her. She wanted to be her own self, and leave her own mark on the world. That was something I highly admired. The annoying part was, that stuff could be done easier for her if she just would let me…

Anyway!

It awfully looked like the time was getting close to midnight, or maybe even past it, so I had to go. I again flew to the goblin territory to have a quick look to verify if that was actually the case. I spotted a few roaming around the forest, so I spawned my army of shadows, sending them on a crusade to get me as many crystals as they could and then deliver those to me.

They obeyed my absolute order.

I personally went to clear up the cave, but after emerging from it with the precious stones, I didn’t straight away return to the city, instead went to kill all the rats too.

Only then, with quite a number of crystals, did I show up. The sunrise was still quite some time away, but you at least were able to see a very faint glow on the opposite side to where the local star vanished when the night came. I guess you could call it east.

I sold the score from both places for 736 000 points. This combined put me at 1 393 740 points. Enough to get the upgrade, which I immediately did. I also had 4 spare class points, but it was too little to even think about using on anything. At least for now.

The changes caused a very mild earthquake, but it was enough to bring people out of the buildings there were squatting inside. Some clearly looked like they weren’t sleeping at all, but a few looked like they actually managed to close their eyes at least for a little while.

Among that group, as it wasn’t the whole population of the still unnamed city, was Tihana.

– Good job dad – she said to me, approaching with her arms crossed on her chest.

– Thank you – I replied. – Few more days and it should be over. The further we go, the slower it gets, though.

– It has been going quite fast so far – she pointed out and shrugged her shoulders. – I thought it would take days the get where we are right now. I thought everything would reset every midnight, and we would have to basically sit on our asses, waiting for the respawn so we could get the necessary crystals. I actually had this idea to bring some crystals with us…

As she spoke those words I began realizing that for some reason my old perspective on how the device works, back when I was using mostly observation, was still heavily influenced me. It was resetting itself with upgrades too, so I actually wasted a single respawn of goblin territory already.

– Fuck – left my mouth.

– What? You never thought about bringing the crystals with us, didn’t you? – a cheeky smile appeared on her lips.

– No. It’s not about that. I wasted a respawn of goblins – I sighed. – Anyway… From now on I won’t waste the respawns.

– Oh… But what about my idea of br…

– Yes. Very nice idea, but we didn’t – I patted her on the shoulders, leaning a bit forward to whisper to her ear. – I have some crystals I actually brought with me, but don’t tell anybody.

She turned her head to glare a bit at me, then slowly nodded.

– Ok… But why?

I winked at her because I just didn’t want to tell her the selfish reason for me not wanting to spend big numbers of points so others could just sit on their asses while doing nothing. I was giving them a headstart, but that was all.

Everybody was gonna do their part as soon as they would be able to. I already have given them enough.

Avoiding the awkward conversation, I flew away to get to the goblin territory, clean it up, and then switch to rats, to then switch to the wolves.

Every location was identical to what I had in my memories o those same places in Arc, which actually made me look forward to the fourth location. The wastelands were always bugging me, but now it seemed like The Great One just configured that place in such a way, that we could see the signs of the downfall of our predecessors.

Now it kind of looked to me like a warning to not stir away from the correct path. His path.

I returned bringing with me a bunch of crystals worth 1 378 530 points in total. With what I had left from the previous upgrade, I had a total of 1 772 270 points and 7 class points. The bottleneck of the whole project started.

A quick calculation was enough for me to find out that it would take several days to get to four open locations, and unlocking more would be an even heavier time-consuming process. I guess my worries were painted all over my face when I was contemplating on, while basking in the morning light of our first sunrise in the new city, because Celestine did notice something was bugging me.

– What’s going on? – she asked, slowly approaching from the side.

Other people also came out, trying to find something to do, but they weren’t bold enough to just approach me.

– Let’s talk somewhere more private, ok? – I proposed.

She nodded.

– Where exactly? – she asked.

As an answer I picked her up, which surprised her a bit, then took off into the air to get us away from the rest.