It took Severin a while to find back his bearings.

When the menu suddenly popped up in front of him, he knew it was the System’s way to finally communicate with him, but as the minutes passed and with no follow up whatsoever, Severin started to doubt himself.

Maybe he had subconsciously opened the menu himself? After all, the fact that the System allowed him to support one more official [Employee] wasn’t news to him.

But no, after some deliberation and soul-searching, Severin decided he was not yet insane.

He decided the System really had made contact with him, though he would have preferred a more direct way, using a notification message, for example.

Was it trying to gaslight him? To drive him insane, if he wasn’t already?

Again, no. Even he had to admit that was unlikely and probably his bitterness speaking that had accumulated over the course of the last couple of months. It just wouldn’t be in its best interest. Couldn’t be.

So what exactly was going on?

Severin was determined to find out, but all attempts of persuasion led to no results. Instead, he felt himself forced to closer consider what it had been trying to tell him.

That was to at least make use of what he had available to him before asking for more. But even under different circumstances, he figured, simply asking for the things he desired would lead to nowhere.

Or would it?

They were in some kind of symbiotic relationship, after all. Right?

That was the conclusion he had arrived at, even if he didn’t understand the specifics.

Why else would it ask him to do all these quests? Why else did it need a host-how he hated that term- to begin with? Because no matter how much he, at times, despised it, even he wouldn’t go so far as to call it a parasite.

And that should mean anything that profited Severin and his ability to improve the quality of his services, and thereby the amount of profits he raked in, in some way or the other, surely had to benefit the System as well.

‘So, I should promote either Krill or Sabina? That’s what you’re telling me?’

No answer. Of course.

‘But which one? Either way, the other will be upset. And it’s still way too soon. Half a month or what, since I hired them.’

Both of them so far had proven themselves to be hard and reliable workers, even if for his taste the woman had a bit too much of a tendency to chat with the customers. But that didn’t say much.

Not when considering such a short timeframe. Even if he liked them, promoting one of them now would hardly be any different from promoting any random stranger; not to mention he would have to go looking for a replacement again.

The only reason he had accepted Bandur into his service this easily was because of how highly recommended he came. Well, and maybe the magic bullet that was the threat of soul erasure if the dwarf ever went too far out of line; something he didn’t want to rely on if it could be avoided.

As for Emily. For one, Severin might just have been even more desperate for help at that time than he was now.

And then of course there was the whole ordeal with Xander the girl had to go through to arrive on his mountain, which, admittedly, might not have put him in the most rational of mindsets.

That and the fact she was a child. Made it easier to trust her. Especially with motives so transparent and easy to satisfy.

‘Well, I didn’t want to do it before, but maybe now, with three more adults working here, I could look into hiring someone her age? Have her make some friends.’

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Severin took great care to not even think of the ugly and the situation most certainly not befitting term child labor.

Ahem, he cleared his throat.

“You know what? Instead of hiring more people, we should look into machinery to do the work instead. Nothing more efficient. Automatization. Industrialization. You should look into that! I tell you, it’s the future.”

Severin half-expected another screen to pop up, this time directing him towards the System’s store and some either still greyed out and locked, or simply just exorbitantly overpriced item.

But again, no response.

If it was that easy, then there wouldn’t be a need for said store to begin with.

By now Severin started to feel silly. At the same time, he had become painfully aware that ever since the System’s brief demonstration of sentience-maybe consciousness or sapience even?- his thoughts no longer felt quite as private as they should.

In the end, he couldn’t take it anymore. He decided if he didn't want to descend into paranoia, instead of dwelling too closely on the matter of some…thing? reading his thoughts, he had to get moving. Get out of there and clear his mind.

And Emily and Samuel were waiting for him.

…

Forcing himself to let his thoughts wander, the moment he boarded the flying ship, a vastly smaller one than the one he had been on before, he was reminded of Emily arguing about how convenient it would be to have one of these for themselves.

Now he had to agree. It wasn’t something that came up often and therefore was easy to forget, but now that it did, its importance became apparent.

Not because he didn’t want to travel with the [Berserker] or anything like that, but because of how reliant it made him. Just the thought of suddenly being stranded down there with no way to get back to his store without outside help, for a moment, made him consider canceling the whole trip.

Then he saw how excited the girl was, running over the ship’s deck towards the bow, and leaning over its rail to get an even better view than from on top of the mountain, and he immediately rejected the idea.

With the girl preoccupied with herself and past the point of no return, Severin started to engage in some uncharacteristic small talk.

“Soo. How are the children? Aren’t they coming along?”

“Timmy and Miriam? They’ve already gone ahead. Couldn’t wait any longer. Markus had promised to take them along on a raid the next time they visited. Once they realized where your mountain was drifting towards, they grew impatient. Already left two days ago, making sure they didn’t miss their chance.”

“Markus? He’s down there?”

“Ha, where else would he be? We’re headed towards his camp right now.”

That revelation came as a pleasant surprise to Severin. But he didn’t dwell on it. Right now, was an unique opportunity to talk to the experienced adventurer away from any prying ears. And the topic was already breached.

“Well. Talking about which,” he began awkwardly. “Recently I have become a bit more interested in dungeons. So I wondered if you could tell me something about them?”

“Apart from the obvious stuff, I mean,” he quickly added when he saw Samuels’ raised eyebrow. And then, “Like about their cores.” Which only caused them to raise even higher.

“I’m afraid that’s not really my specialty. I only know a bit about the experiments done with them. Just enough to know most, if not all, have either ended fruitlessly or in tragedy. My Master should know some more than that, though.”

Severin nodded quietly, processing what he had just heard and thinking about a way to approach the unsociable, sneaky hag, when Samuel took him by surprise and continued,

“But I suspect even she doesn’t know more about them than you do.”

Ahemcough

That caused Severin’s second coughing fit day

“What do you mean by that?!”