Chapter 522 (1/2)

It turned out that becoming friends with Randidly Ghosthound was one of the best decisions that Gary Firefly had ever made. Everything he touched seemed to go well. He had inquired about Rand’s Stats and Skills and had been refused with a bright smile. Still, Gary didn’t really care about the details. It was enough that this young man produced results.

Within the past three weeks, since Gary had met Rand, the young man had given him enough high-Level carcasses that West Providence had paid Senator Firefly’s personal military company ten million dollars in order to acquire more materials to experiment on. As they pushed the bounds of weapons, they needed to be sure that their results were enough to overcome the rising Endurance of these high-Level monsters.

One time, Rand had actually asked what Gary did with the bodies, the young man had been thoughtful. Then he had informed Gary, in his strange abridged speech, not to put too much stock in such tests because they didn’t account for the monster’s Skill.

This was a revelation to Gary. Luckily, only Rand was there to see it, and the socially awkward kid just grinned about it. It was with great pleasure that Gary Firefly met with the representatives of West Providence.

“Your research is going well?” Gary asked, knowing how these idiots would answer.

This particular representative was a young woman with her blonde hair up in a ponytail. She beamed at him. “Yes, excellent. With these examples, we believe we have a prototype that will revolutionize the military sciences. Very soon, we expect the borderlands to be open to us-”

“Of course, of course…. That’s good to hear.” Gary said, “Perhaps I was being foolish. I abruptly had a queer fear last night you didn’t account for the monsters’ Skills when you performed the experiments… but undoubtedly my fears are unfounded. I cannot wait for the good news. I hope you don’t mind if I inform Congress of the projections of your-”

“Wait, wait…” She was shaken now but in the bright-eyed, optimistic way of youth. “Account for the Skills? Of course, when the monster died they stopped- Senator, where are you going? If you don’t mind, I’m sure my supervisor would love to hear-”

“I’m terribly sorry, I’m sure you understand. I have another meeting,” Gary said, smoothing his shirt down.

His meeting was a visit to his newly planted orchards. Rand wasn’t exceptionally talented at planting, but the System made up for a lot of deficiencies. Within a week of the castle’s arrival, there was now an orchard on the hill beneath it. After these three weeks, Gary felt no choice but to believe that this Randidly Ghosthound was from another Zone. Ghost himself had agents watching Rand’s every move, corroborating the stranger’s story implicitly.

Gary was just pleased that Rand had come to him, and damn the stupid orchards. What was a silly dalliance before being in control of your own destiny? Due to Rand’s actions, Gary’s faction was better respected by West Providence, which got him the high-end prototypes to field test. This, in turn, earned him the support of the military who wanted to control who had access to these prototypes.

After watching Father Foster’s movements, Gary also had a thought to sponsor a refugee camp for those who would be liberated from the frozen time in the borderlands. It was unclear how many would survive, but Senator Firefly liked the sound of spinning himself as a humanitarian force with the election coming up in two months. There wasn’t looking to be any real resistance in his district, but he knew some of his supporters would be facing tough slogs, with Father Foster gaining more mainstream support.

Which was why, when he arrived at the orchard, he approached Randidly with a smile. The young man basically seemed to spend most of his time with Gary’s aides and Ms. Terrygate, who had taken on a motherly role for the kid. There certainly was something childlike about Rand, and the way he reacted so surprised at even the most common thing.

Shoes, for instance, left Rand aghast, and even after the concept was explained to him, he shook his head and said he “wasn’t allowed.”

“Rand, how are you?” Gary asked, finding the kid picking apples with at least three of Gary’s most athletic aides, all of them sweating. Without looking up, Rand answered while he continued to pluck and throw apples over his shoulder towards the three aides.

“Good, good, good. This is fun.” His hands worked independent of each other and flicked his wrist only lightly to throw each apple. But each sailed over towards the area where the three aides held baskets and caught the apples. In fact, the dropped apples were only because the aides kept competing with each other to catch the apples.

As Gary arrived, they all paused for a second and looked at him, as though they were caught committing a crime. It was only when three apples hit the ground due to their inaction that they snapped back to it, taking turns now.

“Mmmm… Indeed. I’m glad you’ve learned to appreciate apples. Oh, by the way, did you know a lot of my friends are moving into this area. They might even help out with the orchards. I’m just trying to figure out where they can stay…”

“Oh!” Rand said brightly, turning around with a smile. “They can stay at my castle. I have a lot of empty space.”