Chapter 575 (1/2)

“What the fuck,” Randidly hissed, staring up at the screen in front of him. Father Foster was calmly giving a speech about the importance of unity in the face of adversity. Which was apparently a live speech. Father Foster was currently emphasizing how important this was, considering the recent attempt on President Howard’s life.

It was already a bad day. Randidly had checked his Level earlier today and swore violently when he realized he was less than 10% from Leveling to 25. Somehow, during the assault on the base, he had gained almost 20% of a Level. Which made Randidly seriously confused.

One limit that the System had placed on Leveling was that killing other humans yielded almost no experience. It was a surprisingly gentle allowance made by the System that took away an incentive to murder other people for power. It was much more efficient to attack monsters to gain experience.

When he asked Lucretia about it, she theorized it actually had something to do with the different constructs of Aether and how people absorbed experience anyway. Monsters were designed with an Aether construct that when destroyed, produced easily digestible experience. Humans obviously weren’t and were therefore much less useful to kill.

Then why had his experience risen so much? There was an easy explanation, but…

It just meant that what he had killed weren’t people. But that made sense in a way, because Father Foster was up there on the television, even now. If he had killed the person, Randidly hoped they would have the good manners to stay dead. Was it some sort of monster that could disguise itself?

There was another problem, Randidly realized watching the television. The Father Foster on tv… looked younger than the middle-aged woman he had killed in that powerplant. It was subtle, and at first Randidly thought it could be attributable to makeup. But…

Shaking his head, Randidly walked away from the screen and towards the main building of the farming compound. While he walked, he reached down with Plant Dominance and continued to expand and refine the facilities in the underground cave system beneath the place. It was still being held back as an emergency measure, but Randidly wanted it to be ready, just in case. Besides, he believed he would spend some time forging in the deep darkness soon.

These enemies giving experience caused him another headache. If he couldn’t kill them, he needed to pull Acri and Sulfur back and use them in battle so Acri would absorb the experience to grow. No more blowing them away with Skills.

There was a tickling on Randidly’s neck, and he spun around to find Tatiana walking towards him with a determined expression on her face. Awkwardly, Randidly stopped and scratched his cheek. He supposed it was a disservice to her that he was purposefully not thinking about the fact she had kissed him, and what it meant. Especially after he had forced Neveah to reveal to her fiance that she was an imposter.

Now here was Randidly, an imposter in a few ways, with a woman who seemed to have feelings for him. Did he have feelings for her?

But that was why he wasn’t thinking about it. As long as he could fool himself into thinking what they had was… simply transactional, he didn’t need to reveal his deception. But honestly, how long had things been more than transactional between them? At least a month, perhaps more. From the day they had met, there was… something there.

Or had there been? It was hard to remember. Either way, he needed…. Well, he wanted to clarify.

Tatiana spoke first when she was near him. “Follow me. I want to talk.” Then she spun on her heel and continued walking away, towards the forest. Randidly glanced upwards. There wouldn’t be a drone patrol for a while, and he wanted privacy for this conversation as well. So he followed her away into the tree lines.

She was determined, and lead him almost three miles away from the compound. It wasn’t a distance that Randidly would normally have noticed, but he counted because he knew that there was something special in this way. And sure enough, they eventually broke through a line of blueberry bushes and found themselves faced with a strange little grotto hidden beneath the trees.

The trees stretched overhead, branches extending until there were only a few sunbeams that could make it through to what lay below. A hand of roots extended upwards, pointing towards the village. Around it, flowers ranging in size from golf ball to basketball bloomed, their fragrant faces opening upward. It was the spot where Randidly had guided the child previously.

A part of Randidly wanted to ask whether Tatiana knew what this place meant to him, but he already knew there was no way she had connected him with that. And bringing it up… felt definitely like bragging.

Tatiana turned to face him. She opened her mouth, then scanned his face and body language critically. There was definitely a cold air to her right now, as if she was in a bad mood. Had something happened?

But to Randidly, this was easiest. If she had been bantering and kind, it would have been hard to break the illusion of who he was. He would have felt… perhaps guilt, or perhaps regret, because those moments might soon be lost. Her cold exterior numbed him somewhat to those warm memories, letting him take an action that might endanger them.

“Before you speak… I’d like to say something,” Randidly said quietly.