[ 4 days until the next wave ]
Tanuki waved away the notification with a sigh. He leaned onto his left elbow for support and pushed himself off the ground.
Thump! Followed by clattering, his head flew straight into the underside of the desk and made plates and mugs scatter. Thankfully, his thick skull helped him suffer no concussion, only a minor wound on his wane yearning to wake up.
Edgar had long left the hut before the first rays of sunlight shined upon the realm. He put a stool by his favourite point, the intersection of the field tiles, and stood atop it. Two plantfolks’ work was overseen by him, that of the child and the old man. When Tanuki returned yesterday and explained to him the events of Yoshimura, Edgar expressed little interest in employing the refugees. But perhaps that was just his usual way of approaching all matters of life. Despite showing little interest or enthusiasm, he followed through with what was asked.
“Remember what I said, boy! Leave enough space between the seeds so your hand comfortably fits between them.” His eyes wandered over to the hut in time to see Tanuki leave with a yawn. He called out to him, “My Liege! May I have a word?”
Tanuki scratched his back and walked over, paying attention not to step on anything. Not that it would have hurt the seeds underground, but he knew Edgar would not shut up about it, even if it happened by accident.
“What is it?” Tanuki stopped a few steps away from the stool and looked up.
“You snore. It annoys me.”
Tanuki grew a frown. “I genuinely hope this will remain the biggest problem of your entire life. Then maybe historians will title you The World’s Most Troubled Trouble-Free Man.”
“Hmmm? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That maybe you should stay quiet. I went through hell to find us water, nearly died on multiple occasions, all the while suffering just to save a few innocent lives. So no, Edgar, I couldn’t even pretend to care about your non-issue. If you believe that is our greatest worry, I kindly ask you to take today off and re-evaluate things.”
Edgar remained silent for a few seconds, but Tanuki did not let go with his gaze. He held a firm grip on him until he broke from the pressure.
Edgar looked away. “I must apologise. The workers’ incompetence upset me.”
“What happened?”
“I have never met anyone as dull as these creatures when it comes to tool-wielding. I told them exactly what to do. I used the simplest terms I could find, but baby talk proved too complex.”
“Just give them some time. They’ll get the hang of it.”
“I’m afraid that’s not our only issue.” He pointed at the old man. “That one has barely made any progress in the hour we’ve been working. My Liege, I believe it won’t survive the next fortnight.”
Tanuki knew not how to respond but seeing that the old plantfolk had noticed them staring at him, he invited Edgar to follow him to the Gaia Core.
“And the child?” whispered Tanuki.
“Hmmm. He has a little more power, but I have yet to make him listen. He isn’t deaf, but there is a barrier to his understanding that resists all new knowledge.”
“That’s normal for a child. He’s around six to seven years old, children of that age are hard to control.”
“That’s not all, my Liege,” he stopped at the foot of the hill, “They are dying.”
Tanuki looked back at the field. The plantfolks worked slowly but showed no signs of sickness.
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A half-hearted chuckle left his mouth. “Edgar, you’re looking too deep into it. They are inexperienced. Work them for a few days and they will get the hang of it.”
Edgar shook his head.
“Believe me when I say I’ve spent most of my life looking at plants. Over time, I’ve developed a keen sense of detecting early stages of floral sickness. They are dying, but I don’t understand why. It seems like they are missing something.”
Tanuki fell silent. He looked at the workers, then after a while ordered Edgar to return to the fields. The farmer was hesitant initially, but sensing Tanuki had been lost to his thoughts, went away.
Two separate groups worked on the other side of the hill. The married couple and the widow were ordered into the forest as the trees had regrown, or rather respawned, in the few days since they were cut. Tanuki believed they would do better than the soulless husks since they had a better grasp on traditional work.
He was wrong. Since they were employed, the three failed to cut through half of a small-sized trunk. With this progress, they needed the tomorrow too to finish.
The other group of Six and the shopkeeper fared far better. Six gathered materials from the woods and did the heavy lifting. The shopkeeper sat by the Gaia Core and crafted tools for the others, like axes, shovels, et cetera.
Out of the seven plantfolks, only these two managed to show any promise. Tanuki commended them for their work and sent them to help those in the forest so he may be left alone with the crystal.
He planned to build houses. Though he did not have the necessary skills to build one by himself, the Gaia Core helped him when he wanted to raise one for Edgar. If the system allows, he may use the same premade blueprint for the plantfolks.
Finishing the dungeon gave him enough experience to level up his Gaia Core to [Level 4]. The size of the crystal had grown, and he felt a subtle change to himself, but no new options were unlocked in the [Menu]. As he had guessed, this may have been because the Gaia Core followed a milestone-based reward system. The first three levels unlocked something new with each level up. After those, the next reward comes at the fifth level, then another at the tenth, and so on.
Progress would slow down over time, making it necessary to grind dungeons. If he wished to get his Gaia Core to Level 5 before the next wave, he needed to find another Dungeon Key. However, he did not know where to do that.
“Perhaps I should look at the [Research] tab to see if there’s anything.”
Since the opponents he had slain resided in another realm, their corpses could not be efficiently scavenged. His Gaia Core managed to save a few, but only a small percentage compared to the total.
[ Choose one ! ]
[ 1x Dark Essence ]
[ 1x Nestman ]
[ 6x Skeletal Deer ]
None seemed to help the problem of homelessness, but in spite of that, he was happy with what little he had, especially when it came to deer.
“Based on the Gaia Core’s milestone system, I will get increasingly better rewards the more I study certain kinds of enemies. At least I hope that’s how that works, or else I’m about to waste a few days for nothing.”
Because he knew researching all the deer would take a long time, he chose the nestman. There was only one of them, and he knew that whenever he researched an enemy for the first time, it immediately gifted him something useful.
After thinking a bit more, he affirmed his selection. At that moment, he realised there was something he had forgotten about.
“The Giant Fly?” he looked over to his finished researches. So much had happened since they fought that he forgot about its existence.
“I wonder what else it will give,” he thought while selecting the fly. Immediately, a system message popped up.
[ Congratulations ! ]
[ “Fly” creatures now spawn in your world ! ]
“Excuse me?!”
As soon as he read it, a fly flew through the screen. He reached out to swat it, as if that would somehow stop other flies from spawning in his realm.
It fled and disappeared into the field with a fading buzz. Tanuki stood motionless and utterly speechless.
“Why did I not have the option to reject this reward? Am I not the God of this realm?”
He knew bugs would have positive effects on the ecosystem, as they provide food for birds, thus making it so more can be born and hunted. On the other hand, they were annoying and carriers of bacteria. Whether one outweighed the other was an interesting question Tanuki would enjoy, but he was more hung up on the fact that the [Research] tab of the Gaia Core would disallow him to reject an unwanted effect.
The more he thought about it, the more the reality of his situation became clearer. The Gaia Core appeared as a videogame system because it tried its best to display the world’s features based on its user’s previous knowledge. What Tanuki thought about researches, that they were nothing more than simple dissections of corpses, was actually false.
This universe existed like an ocean. Every time he scavenged a new corpse, his realm would throw out a net in a direction related to that thing. When he set something to be researched, that net would try to grab a thing akin in the void and reel it back into his world.
Whether that be good or bad did not matter for it. The realm did not have the same understanding of good and bad as him.
All new things were good, so long they grew the realm’s repertoire.