Chapter 1686 (2/2)

He shook his head lightly and crouched down next to her. “Well, you’ve certainly gotten more polite since I’ve seen you. What happened to the little girl who was constantly demanding that I play hide and seek with her…?”

The blood visibly drained out of Delilah’s face at the mention of hide and seek. “I-I… I’m a b-bit too old for g-g-games like that any longer… s-sir…”

Randidly tried to chuckle, but even to his ears it sounded forced. I guess I had thought that I’d gotten a bit better at social situations… but maybe kids are a bit difficult for me...

He straightened and looked again and Vye, who gave him an imperceptible shrug at Delilah’s obvious negative reaction. Randidly scratched his cheek. “Well anyway, I have another meeting. You can handle things here?”

Vye nodded and Randidly produced his Philosopher’s Key. A second later, he was back on his own island. Feeling that heavy pressure between his shoulder blades return, Randidly walked in front of the gathered pantheon and Nemesai and returned to the waiting root throne. After making himself comfortable, he cleared his throat. His Weight once more wafted out and suppressed the surrounding space. “Alright, tell me what you have so far.”

The Nemesai and Pantheon took turns explaining their tentative plans for the upcoming Calamity. Listening to them speak about the details was more difficult than Randidly would have thought. Because as the people here rather callously discussed how sudden its arrival would be or widespread its scope, all Randidly could hear in their voices was the willingness to kill the people of Expira.

And I’m the biggest culprit. Randidly pressed his eyes together. I’m not blaming myself for the deaths that will follow from a Calamity… but that doesn’t mean I can escape responsibility. That is something that I need to accept.

Randidly released a low breath when the presentation had finished. He could feel his Nether Core gradually accelerating. This moment began to stretch, the particular moment of the ‘present’ so heavy that it blurred into the past and future. Methodically, Randidly cracked each of the knuckles on his right hand.

Influence +49!

“Let’s go with this,” Randidly said slowly. “I’m already in the process of learning to incorporate the Nemesai’s planets into this… isolated space that houses the Alpha Cosmos and Expira-”

The Winged Serpent hissed slightly and bowed its scaled head. “For which, we are very grateful.”

Randidly waved a hand. “You’ve paid for this already, I’m just following through on my end of the bargain. But I’m thinking about incorporating another planet. One that is perhaps uninhabited. The Calamity will be based in that world and periodically release waves of monsters, quite like the Raid Dungeons we needed to finish early on in the System experience.

“There will be a big wave once every week that will manifest from semi-permanent portals that will make themselves known six hours before the release of the monsters. I’ll contact Neveah and she can help work out the Aether constructs necessary to get everything to work predictably. In addition, there will be rather constant, smaller manifestations that appear throughout the week. One a minute, across all of Expira. These will only give an hour warning before they open up and release a flood of monsters.”

Lucretia nodded slowly. “...such a Calamity will quickly increase the danger in the wilderness between Zones. Especially that last Zone to arrive in Expira… will be particularly vulnerable to damage from this sort of Calamity.”

Randidly pressed his lips together and didn’t answer. He would likely tip his hand a bit and warn Kharon to be present to assist with some of that danger.

Alta reached up and scratched her head. “You are a cold mother fucker, that’s for sure. I’m not sure what a Raid Dungeon is, but the idea is that these waves won’t stop until they complete some objective, right? You’ll want them to head to the source world and eliminate the problem at its source? The sooner you give us access to the planet, the better. Or I guess, the sooner we can alter the environment, the more difficult the Calamity will become. Heh, I’m pretty confident in my ability to create doomsday devices.”

The Obsidian Duke stared straight at Randidly as he spoke. “Do you have an ideal casualty ratio for the population of Expira? You can provide unlimited energy to us, but if a certain amount of people don’t die, I suspect most of the population will continue to stagnate in their image growth.”

Randidly’s throat tightened; this was exactly the question that he hadn’t wanted to be asked. But at the same time, he knew that the Obsidian Duke’s words were true. Some lessons were necessarily heavy. He ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth. But at the same time, life has value.

Releasing a breath, Randidly said. “Do not think in terms of lives lost. The warning time period is there so that a group of determined individuals can address a problem with proper preparation. In terms of difficulty… the small eruptions shouldn’t be so aggressive that a concerted effort and preparations can’t quash them in an hour or two. The larger ones should be more dangerous. Quite a bit so.”

“The issue is what happens when a certain number of those smaller events happen outside of human habitation,” Lucretia said. “That is where the casualties will begin to accumulate; from surprise monster hordes that came into the world from hidden passages. If enough gather… theoretically, even Kharon could be in danger. And most of the current Zones have no outer defensive perimeters in place. Should we… warn them of the details of the Calamity?”

Randidly lowered his head and pondered.