Chapter 448 (2/2)

Randidly raised his hands. “You are both right… and it’s a little more complicated than that. Based on what we have seen, Classers felt the lack of energy in the air much later than the NCCs, which means that it wasn’t that the Villages had stopped producing energy, just that it was getting sucked out of the atmosphere, making people expend their energy faster. But the Dungeon is like a little bubble, sealed up because of the time dilation.

“Still,” Randidly continued. “Eventually, the Creature would run out of Aether. Unless… it had a Village, created and founded inside the Raid Dungeon, which would provide a source of Aether.”

Everyone looked at Randidly, shock clear on their faces. He flourished his hand, creating a small golden coin, one of those used to create Villages. He hadn’t discovered it here, but it was from a long time ago, right when Donnyton was started, and he helped clear monsters for Donnyton. It was also a time that the Creature’s influence over him was at its strongest.

“I discovered some things, when I talked to Lyra about Golden Coins, just in passing,” Randidly said, remembering a passing conversation they had had back before he was pulled into Shal’s world. “I asked why we stopped finding them. Lyra told me that it takes two things for a coin to spawn; a Leader type monster needs to be killed, one that possesses minions. And the killer needs to be under Level 10.”

Randidly’s hands clenched into fists, and although the coin was System strengthened, he had moved past the point that a cursory level strengthening could resist him. Besides, the strengthening was designed to resist a normal person under Level 10. Against Randidly, that stopped being sufficient long before he had even acquired a Class.

“Which is why we’ve basically seen nothing but horde type monsters,” Rose said, her eyes flashing. “And if our Zone is discarded from the new Earth for failing to pass the Raid Dungeon, and just descended into oblivion…”

“The Creature would just sit here, in its bubble, having a backdoor to Aether,” Randidly confirmed.

“...Still, wouldn’t they notice?” Ace asked, scratching his head. “That Aether is just flowing to what should be a dead Zone?”

After a brief hesitation, Randidly said, “...I think that the System functions largely independently, with only a minimal level of oversight. Also… isolating itself is just a short-term goal for the Creature; I believe its ultimate goal is to hurt the System somehow. Buying itself time, as our Zone is forgotten about, and multiply that by whatever dilation is in place here…”

“Still, seems foolish to have taken the Regalia,” Alana said again, shaking her head. She hefted her spear and gazed at its sharp metal tip. “How could it not know that would make us send our strongest against it?”

To that, Randidly said nothing, for two reasons. The first being that the Creature didn’t consider them a threat at all, and it might be bad to tell the rest of the group that now. And the second… was because it was likely at the stealing of the Regalia was likely bait for him, specifically. After all, if Randidly stayed outside in the Zone, unwilling to go into it, he could likely find ways to use his Aether Crossroads to support the entire Zone.

His experience expelling all that Aether from inside of himself had taught him the dangers of losing himself in that sensation, but it was theoretically possible. Randidly just hadn’t dedicated any energy to discovering more, because it hadn’t seemed necessary when he could just go into the Raid Dungeon and kill the Creature.

That now struck him as slightly arrogant, but there was no point in worrying about it now.

For the first time, Clarissa spoke up. “...so it just had all these carefully laid plans, and gambled that you would come in here, under Level 10, and kill the right sort of monster, and it would drop? That seems like a pointless gamble.”

Randidly grimaced. He was hoping that no one would comment on that. “...I believe it knew that I still had a leftover gold coin from earlier. If I hadn’t caused one to drop, it would just try and kill me and take it.”

“Ah, so you are the reason it antagonized us,” Alana said, chuckling. Randidly flushed.

Thea tapped her hammer to her breastplate. “And it must have dropped while we did that quest to defend those people while they attacked the Death Cultists. That’s why they left so quickly.”

Everyone else nodded at that, and as it seemed there were no more questions, Randidly spoke again. “...That’s about it. I also just want to stress that if you can avoid it, don’t fight the Creature; it will not fight fair, and without my abilities…”

Randidly said the last part very slowly, looking around at everyone, but they all nodded seriously, accepting this. Randidly breathed a sigh of relief. That was one thing that he didn’t want to worry about, others being corrupted by the Creature.

“So we go in then?” Ace said with an easy grin.

“So we go in,” Randidly replied, his eyes flashing as he turned towards the cracked wall in front of them.