Chapter 9 - Keep your snotty remarks down

Pretend asleep. He will just ignore you. Even in dreams he is one scary MotherFuc***

“Kid, I know you are pretending to ignore me. Out with it before I change my mind and keep your snotty remarks to yourself”[Trevor]

Alright. Ask him how he finds you in dream. “Are you a god?”, ask him with subtlety you idiot. Why don’t you just ask his gender and be done with it? [Allen]

If the ball had eyes, it clearly rolled them and sighed before answering. “No. There is no such thing as God. As far as I know. And yes, I have no gender. I am simply Trevor the friendly neighbor guy” [Trevor]

There you go, you religious fanatics. An alien looking liquid metal tells you there is no such thing as god. It must be legit. Isn’t guy like a male thing. Whatever. “You keep calling us natives. If we are natives, what are those monsters called?” [ Allen]

“You are the species of this world. Hence I call you natives. The others are thrusted here, either on their own or through the assimilation. I call them invaders” [Trevor]

Something is off. He didn’t call them monsters, but ‘others’. “What do these invaders want from us?” [Allen]

“The same thing every being in the universe wants. To survive. To flourish” [Trevor]

“Can they be friendly with us? We have a big world, we can get along fine”, that is not true at all. Humans, the homo sapiens killed 6 different species of humans ‘homo somethings’ before taking over this planet for themselves. Neanderthals won our trophy of remembrance, since they had huge heads. Our history is proof enough that we cannot coexist in peace.

May be he felt that question was rhetorical. I waited for him to give me more information, but the good-for-nothing ball just stood there like it was no one’s business. If this was an online game, I swear he was AFK most of the time.

“Are there other ‘friendly neighbors’ like you?”, what is a neighbor anyway? [Allen]

I think the ball smirked. “There is no one as magnanimous as I am. But yes, there are other neighbors, though I doubt they are friendly. That is all I can say about this matter. You possess neither the knowledge nor the capacity to understand the matters of beyond, yet” [Trevor]

Hmm, so I was on the right track. I lack whatever is necessary to pry information out of him. I got time, I’ll figure it out eventually.

“Something has been bothering me, you mentioned energy from a different dimension poured into ours. Can energy from our dimension flow to the other dimension as well?” [Allen]

“Oh my, yes of course. Energy flows through wherever it can. Although energies from higher dimensions flow much faster, hence the term pour. Your dimensional energy reserve although large is still trifling in comparison, so, may be drizzles?” [Trevor]

Unable to contain my curiosity, I blurted out, “What are these energies? Can the natives (us) make us of them?”, like shooting laser beams from your eyes or magic or kill someone with spells. Avada Kedavra [Allen]

“...”, the ball just stood there frozen for a while before answering, “I am forbidden to tell you about the energies. However, I can tell you that these energies can be manipulated by the natives with proper practice since they eventually assimilate together” [Trevor]

Another dead end huh. At least got a valuable info. I can use these whatever mystical energies. Magic and telekinesis are not just pipe dreams anymore. Are Dragons real?

Trevor continued, ignoring me talking to myself, “Think of it like your gravity or magnetism. They have always existed, but could only be used after experimentation and practice. It may take decades or centuries, but eventually these energies will bond. They may bring a new paradigm shift as your scientists would call” [Trevor]

Holy crap. Is he talking about the end of world. Atleast he didn’t say anything about judgement day. Vatican would have field day if they knew bible predicted this shit. But then again, they have been predicting this shit for a long time. [Allen-Mind voice]

“Come on, ask me what’s been bothering you. I can get it off your chest” [Trevor]

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Yes, “When you rewarded me the treasure chest, you mentioned, ‘do what you wish with it’. Does that mean, they also have other uses besides giving a reward?” Did he say the same thing to Wong? Damn, why didn’t I ask him that.

“Clever one you are. Yes. The treasure chests have many uses. They can be used as payment. The treasure chests can be combined together to slightly increase the odds of getting a better item, though you might need two or more” [Trevor]

Wong better not have opened his chest. Combining chests sounds like a cheat.

As if reading my mind, he probably reads minds, trevor continues, “The odds increase by an infinitesimally small amount. Also, you will have no way of identifying whether the item you obtained was due to combining or plain luck. I would suggest you either open them now gambling with your luck or wait till you can make much better use of it later”. His metal thingy flowed like a river before containing itself to its previous ball form and continued. “Although, you might not live that long” [Trevor]

Is that a warning? Am I in danger? Am I missing something important? Oh crap. “This is about our base right?”

“Yes. You know what happens to forts when the surrounding villages are pillaged? They are sieged” [Trevor]

This fucking psychopath. Not telling such important information. My brain picked up on whatever scrap of information it got and formulated a theory. The monsters or invaders or whatever were hiding and hunting the stragglers. That is why there were neither survivors nor monsters roaming around. They may have also regrouped like us. If the monsters bide their time and attack in numbers, we won’t be able to handle that. What happened to the other bases? Were they wiped out before they could even find footing. Unlikely, since it’s only been a day. What if the monsters are much more intelligent than they look? Fuck, all these possibilities make me crazy.

“Are there intelligent and technologically advanced creatures from the dimensional rift?”, please be no. [Allen]

“Oh my, yes of course. Why wouldn’t they be?” [Trevor]

R.I.P. to humanity. Let’s just make a huge sign board saying, ‘Humans were here’. Now that I think about it, why wouldn’t there be other technologically advanced species from a different dimensions. Intelligence is just a relative term. I mean, come on.

Only way I see out of this slaughter is to improve. And rewards play a huge role.

“How can I get more rewards?” [Allen]

“Whatever you mean by that.” [Trevor]

Feigning ignorance, the pretentious arrogant ball had the gall to insult my question. I rolled my eyes and explained like I would to a kid, “To rephrase in simpler terms, from what we know so far, the monsters didn’t drop any items except what they carried. They didn’t drop skill books or gems and they didn’t have any monster core either. However, you gave us a reward, which means these little treasure boxes and the items they contain exists somewhere. Since you granted these to us, the natives, that means we can obtain these or at least theoretically have access to these somehow. So, my question is, how do I get more of these items?”

Smiling to himself, he answers, “Like everything, these come from the all knowing. I go where I am told. I give what I am given” [Trevor]

I know a ball can’t smile, but it’s creepy to talk to a weird emotionless ball. Makes you think everything was in your head.

The what? What’s this all knowing? Bastard, why he didn’t mention it earlier? Is that a trigger or a trap? While I was pondering on how to capitalize his words, he waved his liquid metal thingy and a treasure chest materialized out of thin air.

“The all knowing has deemed that you should be rewarded. No doubt you already figured out, every time you transcend yourself, you get rewards. Courage, bravery, quick thinking, intelligence, manipulation etc are just means to achieving rewards. Improve yourself and you won’t need to worry about trivial things” [Trevor]

Transcend myself, no idea what that even means. So this all knowing is the ‘cause and effect’. How is that different from a god? This explains how he knows what I think and how he found me in my dream.

“Is the all knowing the concept of the ‘consciousness of the universe’?”, this is way beyond my imaginations. Scientists are still figuring this shit and here I am talking to one of its messengers. Mind fuckery is what it is I say. My jaws dropped down hanging in awe at my own discovery.

“You surprise me Allen. Although there are quite a few who put this together, no one managed to do this after a single statement. Alas, our time together has to come to an end I am afraid. Go on. I am expecting high things from you. Survive your trails and transcend. We shall meet again” [Trevor]

And the ball poofed away. I am still not used to his shenanigans, he’s like batman. There is a lot going on and we aren’t even at the tip of the iceberg.

I quickly formulated my activity for the next day. Since I wasn’t a very social person, I ignored the expertise every single person brought. I will ask Wong or Manager Wei to create a registry for people to mention their name, occupation etc first thing in the morning. If that’s sorted out, I can make better use of the people and their skills. Then, I needed to find more trustworthy comrades. I cannot simply get on a stage and say, ‘hey guys, the monsters that terrorised us are amassing an army and probably coming to slaughter us soon. So, yeah. All the best’. That would be the worst. I actually contemplated whether saying that would make everyone work twice hard, but the panic and civil disobedience it brings wasn’t worth it.

Needless to say, I trust no one in this town except Alvin and Camille. And that was because they know me and I know them for a very long time. My best candidate for camaraderie would be wong, since he actually fought a monster and also has two guns in his possession. I value him for his bravery, definitely not because of the guns, okay! Tsundere.

Lin looks good, I mean not in a physical sense, I mean she is good looking but that is not what I meant. Insensitive jerks. Wong shares everything with his sister or at least i think he does since he and his family were taking care of almost everything operation-wise. I think that’s because Manager Wei thinks he will get fired if he didn’t manage company resources.To add to that, having two people in my age group relaxes me. Getting mixed up with adults hasn’t been, the least to say, a pleasant memory. My suggestions get instantly knocked down as quirky remarks by an inexperienced kid. Doing something against their wishes were ‘challenging authority’ and strictly frowned upon. Unless the adult is mature enough to see my point, I don’t think I can work with them.

I drifted into my sleep while my brain did its thing. No sweet dreams for me. Oh, two treasure chests for me!

…

Wait, how do I get my chest when I wake up? Won’t it disappear from my dreams?

...