"The system event was created because there had been a lack of progress in our area of the multiverse and it an attempt to stimulate an increase in power, it created what it called a system event, but was really just a war." The lord began and Owen just listened for a moment. He was thankful the real lord had decided he was interested in talking, which was even more helpful when it turned out that none of the warriors in the room had been real.
When he hadn't felt almost any resistance, he had expected they managed to dodge somehow, but he instead had gotten more notifications for killing echoes rather than real people. He turned his attention back to the lord as they told their story. Apparently, while they weren't technically vampires, Owen still felt like they were close enough. They absorbed life energy, and they needed to have a constant supply, otherwise they HP would continue to fall until they were completely run dry.
Owen shuddered thinking back to his first experience playing around with his HP and temporarily paralyzing himself inside of the tutorial. "if you guys are constantly draining HP, how long do you usually need to go before eating?" Owen asked, still not sure he wanted to know how they gathered life force. he remembered some fantasy demon types, that seemed to do something similar, but Owen felt himself relax at the response. "I wouldn't necessarily call it eating, but we need to fight every so often, each attack we land regenerates some of our lost HP. Though because of this while we are a very battle oriented world, we can't fight enemies that are too strong, because we would end up losing more HP than we would gain from the fight."
The lord seemed to pause for a moment after he finished responding and he gave Owen another once over. "I hate to interrupt your learning session, but what exactly is your goal now? While you were talking with my echo, I was still being honest about my desires." The lord said and Owen stared at him. "Okay, I suppose I hadn't told you everything, but it will truly happen how I said it would. Everyone in my world under level 30, would enter the gate box and then you would bring it back to your world and set them free."
Owen still wasn't fully against the idea, but he did decide to restate his main points. "I don't have the power to ask for permission, but I am part of the strongest group of people nearby my city. But I don't have a way to guarantee that any of your people would listen to me. I need that more than anything else." Owen imbued mana into the box while he was speaking and saw an interesting notification pop up.
*This box is already connected to a wielder. Must slay the wielder to gain access.*
Owen stopped talking as he read it and turned to the Lord with another annoyed glance. ":You really can't be honest for a single second?" Owen said, disappointment seeping into each word. "I promise with my entire being and my connection to the system that all I wish for is the continuation of my people." the lord said and the words caused the entire room to shudder.
*You have joined into a contract with the Lord of Undeath - Moxius
If either party breaks contract, then they lose access to the system and all of its benefits.*
Owen stared, he spent a moment worried what his portion of the contract was, but the lord's words interrupted his thoughts. "This is a one-sided contact that binds my words to you." The next moment Owen saw an intense energy collect around the body of the lord and the notification for the gate box also changed in the same moment.
*Would you like to bind the tier 2 gate box? Y/N?*
Owen sighed but pulled a chair from the table and sat in it while staring up at the lord. "Alright, let's figure something out." They spent the next several hours discussing the terms of their agreement. While Moxius, who had finally introduced himself by name, wanted his people to go free, he didn't want them to be treated as slaves by earthlings, which Owen found commendable. Owen was also surprised to find out though, that Moxius was only in reality level 25 and had only barely been promoted to lord after the previous one died only a couple years before.
Owen had fully expected that Moxius was attempting to pull another trick and had planned to sneak into the box when Owen wasn't looking, before having himself and his people cause terror on earth, but apparently after Owen had bound the gate box to himself, that became impossible. Owen had to give permission for anyone to enter, while they also had to fit into the limitations of a tier two gate.
They eventually came up with a plan that didn't bother either of them too much, though Owen was already nervous he was agreeing to something he shouldn't. He knew when thinking about it that there wasn't any reason to feel nervous, even if everyone in Rochester began clearing gates right now, they would still experience gate breaks. So, the deal they had reached was that Owen would bring them to earth, and they would immediately have to join on as a subsidiary guild or join the main guild.
They then wouldn't be allowed to enter the main city until all of the surrounding gates were cleared, which worked for both of them, since they needed gates cleared and Moxius's people were starving. They would also have to sign a contract with either Myra or the guild itself, promising loyalty for the first year, before they were able to make their distance. All in all, Owen felt confident that the agreement was sound and that he could finally leave the gate without issue. It seemed like the system agreed as well and Owen grinned at the notification.
*You have successfully cleared a tier 6 gate.
You have earned 125,000 credits
You have gained 4 class levels.*
Owen had mentally added on the last message, as fighting each boss had been good practice and levelling for his class, though he was certain it would slow down after this gate. He was well aware at this point that the only way to consistently level up his main class, would be to follow in the steps of the polymath, though he was certain he was already straying from their path. But at least he would probably gain another ten levels in it or so, before he would grow mostly away from it and need to select another main class.
Still the achievement of clearing a tier six made him slightly giddy and an annoyed Moxius, angrily entered the box, before Owen was teleported outside of the gate. He only debated for a couples minutes before he rushed to the next closest gate, though he ultimately moved back towards Rochester. He ended up clearing four more gates, though the highest leveled one was only tier four. He got back to the city only slightly disappointed, but he couldn't help but grin at the sheer amount of credits he had access to.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
*You have 374,631 credits*
He was grinning ear to ear as he walked into the guild building, before collapsing into a chair and waiting for Peggy and Myra to get back.
He woke up the next day, without having seen either, though he was pretty sure they were both back already. He had been the only one to pick up the habit of sleeping in the guild building, though that was in part due to feeling slightly guilty for mooching off of Peggy and Myra for so long. He couldn't exactly buy an apartment now, though he knew he could simply move into one, but the thought itself seemed like far more effort than he was willing to put in. The guild building had showers and that was all he needed, though a part of him did regret throwing away or donating most of his previous belongings.
Even he would admit he had been a little too eager early on to be a main character and more than anything he missed his pillow. Both sides were almost permanently cold and after using it for years, no new pillow could compare to the old comfort. Grunting, he got up and stretched, before hopping into the shower and changing into a spare set of clothes. Less than an hour after he finished getting ready, he heard a knock on the front door, while he lounged in the main reception area.
He had to hold back a laugh, the sight of someone knocking on the front door to an office building and waiting to be let inside was something he had never thought he would see. Shaking his head, while trying to hide his smirk, he walked up to the front door and opened it for Audrey and threw her a confused look. "Do you also knock on the front door at the dentist?" He said in a teasing tone, but didn't give her a chance to respond, as he gave her a device that let her connect to the guild store.
"This is what I want you to learn. Most of the city is still in shambles and the fastest way to clean up in using the system's building options. Find out how many people plan on joining the guild, then figure out a base estimation of resources required to rebuild, then come to me with the amounts of credits everything will require. I will do my best to gather the required credits, but it will take a while, so we will need to come up with a way to prioritize what we should focus on first."
Audrey had stayed quiet for most of Owen talking, other than a few nods and affirmative noises, but she seemed to have gone pale and Owen just shook his head. Even if what he said had felt overwhelming to her, he had confidence she could pull it off. A part of him also was pretty sure she had been trying to get a reaction from him, by making that reaction. But he knew the type of person she was already and of anyone he knew, she would be the least overwhelmed by this opportunity.
---
She was only a little upset that the Owen boy hadn't even react to her look of helplessness. She had hoped that the high position would offer her more accommodations, but the boy hadn't even allowed her a chance to speak. She had to admit, it was more annoying now than it had ever been, dealing business with high level executives. At least they would openly be condescending, but this boy didn't care to even check if this was too much for her, or check to see if she would need personnel to help her out.
Feeling extremely annoyed, she didn't end up managing to get anything done for a while, but eventually the female brats arrived at the guild building and they didn't even throw her another glance after seeing she was holding one of the devices that connected her to the guild shop. She eventually sat down at the main desk and finally started doing as was asked and began cataloging the items they would need for basic rebuilding, before leaving to get basic numbers for the people living in the new rochester.
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Owen had chosen to hide in the back offices as the level of anger radiating off of Audrey was palpable from anywhere in the room. When he saw that Myra and Peggy had arrived, Audrey had thrown them both death glares as they walked through the reception area, them both also choosing to flee into the back offices without saying anything.
"What did you say to her?" Peggy asked as she shivered when glancing back at reception. "I only told her what we expected of the position and she looked overwhelmed for a moment, before becoming like that." Owen said, shaking his head. "However, I have a couple things I needed to talk to you guys about." He then spent the next several minutes describing his experience inside of the tier six gate. They had nodded their way through most of the story, until he had gotten to the end and had mentioned the weird interaction he had had with Moxius.
"So, I end up with lame exploration gates and you meet with the leader from another world and get them to join us, talk about unfair." Myra said when he was finished. "But most importantly how many credits did you end up with?" A greedy glint flashed through her eyes and she waited for his response and Owen couldn't help but see the stare mirrored in Peggy's eyes.
"I collected just under 375,000 credits." Owen said, now feeling slightly self-conscious with both of them staring. Myra cursed under her breath, but Owen saw the smile on her face and groaned as a system notification was shared with him.
*You have 411,769 credits*
Peggy looked like her eyes were about to fall out of her head as she also stared at the notification, Myra parading around the room the entire time. "We have over 700,000 credits we can use to rebuild the city and to defend our guild. Guys, we might have an actual shot at surviving!" Peggy cheered, as she tackled Myra into a hug. They both laughed and Owen grinned. There was a knock at the door and he had to hold back a groan as he opened it.
Six decked out army soldiers were standing outside of the office room at attention and Owen just stared for a moment, before he followed them out to the reception area. "My apologies, I forgot you were coming along today. We have had a lot of good news today." He said as he gestured for them to wait for a moment. "Myra, we've got those soldiers we both agreed to train." Myra looked back at him with a large grin on her face. "I didn't agree to train any of them, its all you partner!" She grinned. "I have important guild leader business to attend to, so you should take care of this."
He held back his groan and walked back out to the reception area. "I guess, I am training all of you for the foreseeable future." The next several hours was spent with him gathering all of the soldiers status menu information, before trying to come up with a plan to train all of them. He had already hoped to follow the same basic training process that Xerxes had used on him after the tutorial, though it wouldn't work well with soldiers, since it relied on them having not gained their extra physical stats, which he doubted.
The following days were spent with him gathering temper supplies and slowly learning how to properly help someone gain a body temper. None of the soldiers had one, so it was more than time to help them get one. The process ended up being more simple that he thought it would be. Essentially, all someone needed to do was absorb certain materials into their body, through using a mixture of their soul, mana, and vitality.
The first several took multiple attempts to get it right, but at the end of their first week, all of them had finally gained a 1st grade temper, which meant it was time to start bringing them into gates and have them cleared. Owen spent a day, letting them recover, while he, Peggy and Myra, left the city. They stopped only a couple miles outside of it, before stopping their run. "It's time," Owen said nervously and the others nodded. Grabbing the box from inside of his storage bracelet, he let his infusion of mana fail and the box seemed to shudder as a gate formed in mid-air.
Both Myra and Peggy entered, leaving Owen to sit watched outside. Several hours passed as he nervously stared at the gate, before a stream of people began exiting the gate. Owen kept them all in one place by blasting his strength, until Myra and Peggy exited, quickly followed by Moxius. "Welcome to earth," Myra said as she opened her arms wide in a welcoming gesture.