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Chapter 334: To the Victors - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2024-12-19 23:51:34 +0000 UTCAuthor’s Note: Small correction to last chapter - Miria references being able to make two clones in a emergency. However, she doesn’t read her System notifications until THIS chapter. She also hadn’t gotten her last few notifications yet because she hadn’t earned them XD. This has been corrected, to Miria making a broad assumption she can make one clone in an emergency.
We waited several more minutes after the translucent spider left, just to make sure that it wasn’t waiting to double back and catch us moving around. However, as time passed, we started to grow more and more confident that it had left. We spent a few minutes conversing with each other, before we decided we needed to leave. The spiders had retreated, but they seemed hellbent on killing us earlier. If we didn’t get out of here now, there was no telling whether the spiders would try to hunt us again tomorrow.
I was still missing my legs, so Anise offered to carry me. She didn’t have very many ways to contribute to fights, so for now, we decided to leave Sallia and Felix as our combatants. Meanwhile, Anise would lob grenades, and I would provide whatever ranged support I could manage.
With our decisions made, Sallia took a very hesitant, very careful step out into the hallway. The quiet sound of a human footstep echoed through the area, and our group tensed as we waited for the spider to come back.
Nothing happened.
Finally, I smiled. Our last, final safety check was done.
We made our way onto the street, and I swapped to my various special sights.
<I don’t see or hear anything unusual,> I said. There were a few skeletons in the distance, but I ignored them. Skeletons weren’t even threats anymore - they were minor inconveniences that we could ignore.
Sallia grinned. <I don’t see anything either. I think we’ve made it out.> Then, she paused. <Since it doesn’t seem like we’re in a dangerous situation anymore, let me go over my System notifications. I got a few during our flight from the spiders, but I was too busy to take a look at them.>
<Me too,> I said. <I should have gotten a bunch of assists from transporting the bombs, but I didn’t even have a chance to look at what I got.>
<I’m also pretty interested in seeing what I get,> said Felix.
Our group spent a few minutes popping open our Status Screens, to see what System notifications we had missed.
I had a few pretty interesting ones.
First off were the most generic System notifications. I had expected these.
Slaughter: Assist in killing a Wanderer of Lost Silence for the fifth time. Assist in killing a Wanderer of Lost Silence for the twentieth time.
Influence: Contributed to the defense of the Market by a [Negligible] amount.
Achievement +300, +500 Achievement +20.05
The only thing I noticed that surprised me was my ‘contribution to the defense of the Market.’ Usually, when I got this kind of notification, it said I had contributed to the defense of the Market by an extremely negligible amount. This time, the word ‘extremely’ had been removed. I doubted it meant much - after all, the Market was huge, and creatures like the Wanderers of Lost Silence were probably still quite insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I seriously doubted we had made a lasting difference here. Still, it was nice to see the System acknowledge my improvements, however small they might be.
I was also quite happy to get a restock on my Achievement. Last time I had used a clone, I had dropped to 802.95 Achievement. With a bit of time passing, I had lost a few fractions of a point of Achievement, but getting 820 Achievement brought me back into a more healthy Achievement total of 1622.95. If I needed to, I could use the Achievement to make another clone, or I could also use it to buy some more stats if I thought they would make a difference. In fact, I probably would buy some more stats before we reincarnated again. I wanted a bit more of a safety net for the next world, and more stats were never a bad thing to have.
However, the next Achievement notification surprised me a bit more.
Exploration: Explore the Spatial Fair, claim a (minor) benefit, and return alive.
Disciples and Legacy: Chip away at a threat to one of the Market’s inner districts, leaving a lasting legacy in the Market. Future Transmigrators will have an easier time re@#($ this district, if they ever @#($&@#
Achievement +400, Achievement +20
I hadn’t expected that districts of the Market itself would qualify for exploration-based Achievement rewards. Even after hearing an explanation of roughly what Achievement was, some of the nuance still baffled me. I had no idea what did or didn’t qualify as a place valid for exploration. Still, I was glad to see it.
The other part of the Achievement notification was more baffling. This was the first time I had ever seen a Disciples and Legacy Achievement reward - and it was for inflicting minor damage upon the spider hive, of all things. Damage that I suspected would be regenerated pretty quickly, if the giant spider was capable of birthing more spiders. I had no idea why some of my actions in previous worlds hadn’t qualified for Disciples and Legacy Achievement, while this particular bout of fighting did.
Either way, I wasn’t complaining. With the extra 420 Achievement, I sat at a healthy 2,042.95 Achievement total. Just enough to make two clones in an emergency.
After we finished checking our System notifications, we started moving. None of us wanted to be around if the spiders returned. So we spent a few hours running. We wanted to be as far from the Spatial Fair as we could before we ended up in a major mess.
After a few hours of running, we decided to settle down and plan our next moves. We found an abandoned store, which only had a cash register and nothing else inside of it. Perhaps the owners had been setting up the store, before the collapse of the Market started? I had no idea. Either way, the lack of skeletons guarding it meant we could save our essence. First, Felix hopped over to the cash register, before transferring 10,000 Achievement to Anise. Finally, Anise had the leeway to start making some spell maps. Then, it was time to think.
“By my estimate, we have a little over a month left before we need to head to our next world,” said Felix. “What do we want to do with that time? The Market is an amazing place to gather resources, so wasting our time here would be a huge shame.”
I gleaned at the inner district of the Market, and wondered if we could survive returning. If we could survive a different inner district.
Eventually, I shook my head.
I had no confidence that we could pull off the same feat if we tried again. The spider hive was alerted to our presence now, and provoking them again seemed suicidal. However, if we tried to raid another inner district of the Market, I had no clue if we could survive. The Spatial fair had gone somewhat well, but it had been far from perfect. More importantly, we weren’t completely healed yet. I was still missing both of my legs, and my Tarot Deck would take years before I could use it again. Anise had used {Phoenix’s Last Stand), so she was missing her biggest trump card. Trying a new area was likely to end up with all of us losing another life.
“I think… we need to take it easy for the rest of our time here,” I said. “As much as I hate to say it, if we raid another inner district, we don’t have the power to survive yet. I need to replace a few items, and Anise might benefit from swapping out her sword as well. It’s already used up, and Market items only seem to recover when we die and return to the Market. In a world or two, Anise will probably outgrow it anyway.”
“I agree,” said Sallia. “I still have a pair of boots using up one of my item slots. Extradimensional boots with unusual hardness are nice, but there has to be something better I could put into that item slot. We need some item replacements. More importantly, we could also do with some Achievement farming. Miria and I are almost tapped out, and I would like a few more stats before we go into our next world.”
“So we’ll raid shops, take it easy, and build up some Achievement while we prep for our next return to the Market?” asked Anise. “I think that sounds good to me.”
“Sounds good to me as well,” said Felix, after some thought. “I’m a bit curious about testing some things with my dimensional factory, anyway. I want to see if I can keep items inside of it in between lives. If I can, that would open up a lot of possibilities for transporting items around. If it works, we could have a huge armory of Market items on standby.”
I blinked in surprise, and thought of my Tarot deck again. The biggest weakness of that item was that it took up an item slot, but could only be used once every five years. However, if Felix could carry it around while it was on cooldown, that would be a different story. At that point, the Tarot Deck would no longer waste an item slot on an item I had to think carefully before using. I could just unequip it when it was on cooldown and toss in something else.
I grinned at the thought, and then nodded. I didn’t know if it was the ‘right’ thing to do or not, but it looked like we had made up our minds. We would take it easy, gather more items and Achievement, and then prepare to reincarnate. Truthfully, part of me was relieved that we didn’t have to face anything terrifying like the Spatial Fair until we had another world behind us.
I just hoped that we were making the choice that we wouldn’t regret in a few worlds, when it came time to gather more lives.
Author’s Note:
Final reminder - this is the last chapter of 2024. After this, I will be taking two weeks off. Have a nice holiday season, and I’ll see all of you around January 7th-ish. Assuming I don’t change what days I upload chapters or something, of course. I do typically revise my schedule over each vacation, as I figure out what did or didn’t work for me over the course of the year. But in any case, the week containing the date January 6th, 2025 will have new Markets chapters, unless I get very sick or get struck by lightning or something.
I did my best to end the chapter on a reasonably ending-ish note… if that sentence makes any sense. I wanted the story to be easy to pick when I start writing it again in two weeks, but I tried to tie up the smaller loose ends here.
Anyway. Happy Holidays, and I’ll see you in two weeks!
Join my Discord! (I’m much more active there than in the comments section).
Comments
Imagine Baggins
Thanks for the chapter, and also consider this a reminder not to get struck by lightning this week!
