Chapter 530 (1/2)

For the first time in a long time, Randidly felt exhausted. The day had been long and full of trials. Although there was a strange intermittent humming from his Illusion, it seemed to have survived. Unfortunately, the mental troubles didn't seem to be very close to being over.

”This is where you live? I suppose I should have assumed from your bare feet, but... tsk tsk, you should really develop a marketable Skill.” The old woman, who had finally introduced herself as Maude, said.

”I have a Skill,” Randidly replied ”I smelt steel.'

”Oh.” Maude seemed genuinely surprised by this. ”That's good.”

The refugees they rescued had been told to remain in the area of the disaster center for the time being until lodging could be erected for them. According to what Randidly could glean, they planned to set them all up shop right there, not 2 miles from an area crawling with Level 50 monsters.

For reasons wholly unrelated to the very real danger that she was in, Maude refused to remain at the compound and followed Randidly back to his place. In addition, she had brought ”that nice foreign family from down the road,” who turned out to be seven Haitians who had come to America weeks before the System arrived, and spoke enough English to know that they didn't understand anything Randidly said. They followed Maude's points well enough, however.

It was a hassle, but Randidly felt an odd affection for the exasperating woman and her antics. At the very least, when she was around, everyone eyes were fixed on her, and not on Randidly. With his illusion behaving somewhat erratically, having a distraction served him well.

Plus, Randidly cared about these people. He had helped them, and he didn't want to abandon them now.

Tatiana thought the woman was hilarious and had been reduced to a giggling blob by the woman's snark. Not that she had any room to talk. She had picked up a dozen or so strays herself. Although Tatiana's tended to be young, attractive women.

In his heart, Randidly felt a thread of trepidation about the fates of these women, considering Tatiana's company, but he trusted her. She wasn't the type to force women to do anything they didn't want to do.

They parted at the edge of town, Randidly returning with his 8 strays, Tatiana walking away with her 12.

”She's out of your league,” Maude said seriously after Tatiana had gone. Randidly did his best not to roll his eyes and helped the Haitian family erect a small hut next to his own. The work went rather quickly because Randidly handled all of the heavy lifting. At the end of it, Randidly was slightly put out, because this hut was a much better product than his own.

It was somewhat aggravating to be outdone by the refugees, but honestly, Randidly supposed it didn’t matter. It also seemed to have an effect on the people around him, who appreciated that he didn’t put on airs. As it was, he could only retire to his hut after getting the new arrivals settled. He had promised to take the father of the family, Jude, to the steelworker's area to get him started on a job the following morning.

A month ago, if someone had told Randidly he would come to Zone 1 to help others get jobs, he probably would have looked blankly at you. Now, Randidly had the inklings of a plan.

One point that he had considered in his plan to become an influential drone maker was the fact that he would need a feasible way for him to obtain the steel he would want to work with. Erickson Steel had already gained some traction as a high-quality product, and Randidly had his own experimental steels that he would use on his drones. But would the fact that he was supposedly smelting the steel and also constructing the drones raise any flags…?

Not that he currently understood the process of drone creation, but from the talk he had heard from Foreman Davey, it wasn’t proceeding very quickly at all. Randidly was willing to push that, but only a little bit. If Randidly had a supplier of Erickson Steel that would be one last astonishing thing about him. It wouldn’t be too strange to groom a successor to his Steel Smelting SKills, right?

However, Randidly knew that this was much easier said than done. He had thousands of advantages over Jude that allowed him to make Erickson Steel so casually. But it was a line of thought worth pursuing. If nothing else, it would push the man towards PP generation, which would be a boon for his family in the long run.