Chapter 522 (2/2)

“Well, I don’t know… and I wouldn’t want to impose,” Gary said slowly. “Besides, this might be as many as a thousand people… I doubt there is enough room…”

“Well I could just make more,” Rand said with a shrug.

Gary smiled. “Oh, could you?”

****

Days settled into a routine for Randidly. From morning until early evening he worked in the furnaces, making more of the sought-after Erickson Steel. Apparently, the quality had so impressed some of the buyers that demand was rapidly increasing, and now Foreman Davey paid him $6.50 per ingot. It was a small thing, but in the quantities that Randidly was selling, it quickly added up to several extra hundreds.

In addition, Randidly was experimenting with more advanced metals and experiencing modest success. He didn’t go so far as to mix his blood into the metal again, as that metal was so resilient he couldn’t shape it, but he used other recipes to make metals that Randidly would experiment with on the side.

Refine and Extract were the obvious beneficiaries of this extra experimentation, as both continued to steadily improve. In the early evening, he would return to his little hovel. Occasionally, he would receive calls through his interspatial watch, that seemed to function much the same as a phone. Randidly made a note to see if the technology of it was possible to bring also to Zone 32.

Not that the communication really mattered, as people had the friend's list function of the System. But it was a familiar distraction. Humanity here seemed to take comfort in it.

Most of these calls were either from Griffith or Tatiana, although occasionally Foreman Davey would call, talking about a spike in demand for Erickson Steel. Inwardly, Randidly wondered how they seemed to know he was taking a break at this time. In addition, how the hell did they justify communicating with him if he spent his time in this worthless hut? Randidly wasn’t a status-minded person, and even he was starting to be irked by the thought that he would be seen living in this place. By now, most steelworkers knew of him and his Erickson Steel, and greeted him deferentially. It was nice.

It wasn’t enough prestige to catch the attention of Ghost, but it was a nice return to the respect he received in Donnyton.

But on the subject of how the other people justified his home, maybe they just thought he was that sorta guy. After all, most people seemed more thrown by his bare feet. Randidly shook his head sadly.

In the evening and through the night, he would go to the forest and work on his search and his underground space. Of all the areas of these few weeks for Randidly, the most disappointing was the search for the Creature. He must have gone up and down the Zone, searching for traces of Aether, and yet he found nothing.

The giant scans that exhausted him still caught the barest hint, but the individual scans did not. It was infuriating, but it also made Randidly cautious. The best explanation that Randidly could think of was that the Creature had prepared countermeasures for him. Although he could subvert it with his general search, the specific ones didn’t let him detect it.

Still, Lucretia was working tirelessly to expand his ability to detect Aether, and the related Skills improved as a result. It was only a matter of time. And when the clash happened, Randidly intended to be ready.

In some ways, his daytjime activities improved his focus for the night activities, because as time went on his image for the underground area shifted. Now, Randidly was creating not only a housing comlex, but also a forge, where he could make his own metal away from the eyes of Ghost.

The only other indulgence Randidly allowed himself was to continue to plant the flowers left at that small shrine into the ground, quickly turning it into a strange little grotto in the forest. Some of Randidly’s Vitality seemed to bleed into the flowers he touched, and they often grew bigger or brighter than their normal counterparts. Some of the flowers even climbed up nearby trees like vines.

The Raid Boss that was hiding within the area had disappeared, along with its spawn, but Randidly didn’t mind. It was all the better that it left, especially with the increased military presence in the area. The borders of the Zone had continued to expand, and probably close to 2,000 people had been relocated to a nearby camp run by the strange church of Father Foster.

When Randidly heard this figure, there was a very sour feeling in his chest. These 2,000 were only ⅕ of the total that had been freed by the expanding edges of the Zone. But along with people, high-Level monsters were found there. The rescue operations encountered heavy casualties. All the while, Randidly knew he could have done something about it.