Chương 154: Chapter 150

There was a small clink of a compass hitting the flat ground, and Wade stared at the tiny thing waiting right there. On Earth. Copper Lootbox Compass (System Quality) Which meant there would be a copper lootbox spawned somewhere out here nearby. Which meant he could sell it. No need to rip the wiring out of the walls when he had a perfectly good pure copper right here. He reached down to grab the compass, and the weight felt like pure victory to him. An easy win.

"Ohhh, is that one of those lootbox thingys you were talking about?" Medy asked, tail wagging left to right before she realized it had slipped out of her dress pants and then tried her best to stuff it back inside without cutting anything.

"Yep. And that's going to be a real easy win out here since fat chances that anything tries to attack me on Earth." He paused.

"Uh oh." Zin sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Kiddo, I'd have thought you'd learn by now not to test your luck like that. Given there's an actual Luck stat and an omnipresent entity beyond our understanding listening in at all times." The System had spawned a mimic once on him. Which meant it could spawn enemies of some kind, not just mimics. That wasn't outside the realm of possibility. He scrolled through his log, looking for any sign of a luck trigger, but nothing stood out. Which didn't completely guarantee safety.

Well, if there was any danger around the copper lootbox, they would start to hear screaming in the corridors as someone or another stumbled on it first. And keeping Ann safe was now important. Wade decided he was going sit his ass down right here and wait a bit before going treasure hunting. That copper lootbox wasn't going anywhere fast. What was waiting on his system interface instead was the storefront options he'd earned. Two of them for this quest. And he had to pick one.

He started fully reading what he had to pick and his eyes widened. Storefront Options - Select one path to unlock. Extraction Loot Upgrade [Earth Spawn points] Quest System upgrade [Greater Lootboxes]"Oh god damnit." He hissed. Two good options, and only one to pick from. The extraction loot he'd already seen before, but had to pick getting potential system potions out of these loot spawns earlier. If he could unlock those bits of loot spawns on earth, then maybe he could min/max the hell out of that.

Visit a gym and do the absolutely normal act of opening every possible locker that didn't have a lock on it. Or better yet: Visit a container shop specialized in selling all kinds of boxes and storage. Nobody would look twice at him opening every single display box and shelf-item out there. Maybe they would give him second hand looks if he walked out of the store with more random stuff in his hands than he'd come inside, but that was workable. Probably. On the other hand… greater-ranked lootboxes.

He had zero idea what that meant, but he was already busting out identify hoping to catch a tooltip or another. Items within a Greater Lootbox gain one additional randomized improvement. He pulled out his phone, and stared at the black mirror with one single question.

"Play, do you think this would scale on luck?" Randomized improvement implied random choice, which implied luck. And as far as Wade was concerned, luck was basically the stat with which the System could bend the rules to help him. asking me for help after what you just did? lol. lmao even. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ✧"Come on, I need actual advice here. Isn't that your entire thing here as my Sponsor?" you just mass-conscripted me into being your personal uber driver and now you want FREE consulting too??

the audacity is genuinely impressive tbh"It's one question." first it's one question then it's two then suddenly I'm doing a j*b Wade squinted at the screen.

"Did you just censor the word job?" it's a slur against my lifestyle and I will not have it spoken in my presence Wade brought the phone right up to his mouth." Job." You court death, mortal (≖､≖╬) Medy leaned over the bed, reading the texts upside down.

"Is she always like this?" Zin just started laughing.

"Worse, usually." Wade sighed.

"She's sulking because I convinced her to actually do something next round." sulking implies I care enough to be upset. I am BEYOND upset. I have transcended into a higher plane of upset (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"I'm going to flip a coin, if it's heads I'll pick the earth spawn points. Tails, the greater one. You could put a stop to this." For all Wade knew, this might actually work. Assuming the System knew the best option forward itself. Three dots appeared, then disappeared, then appeared again as the NEET was likely fuming. FINE. but only because watching you pick wrong from that would be cringe.

"So, do they scale with luck or not? What's it say on your side of the storefront?" of course greater lootboxes would scale with luck. Everything that has random chance in the description by definition would. Earlier you instalock that upgrade the better. You know this, you're just making me do extra work you ungrateful litt- Wade closed his phone and looked at the two options again.

Play gave him a sanity check that they did indeed scale with luck, and Wade also had that system-given quest to get that player selection reward option again. Greater lootbox variants would probably have a higher chance of that happening. It dovetailed well. Quest System upgrade [Greater Lootboxes] now available for purchase at the storefront for one coin. One coin was a steal, this must be a tutorial upgrade. Which meant there might be future upgrades.

He really needed to figure out a way to get to the storefront itself faster than only once per round at the end of the round. There were a lot of upgrades just sitting away in place. Once more, he saw the other option for Earth-spawned extraction loot spawns go grey, left unpicked. Those container storage stores were safe for another day. But Wade would be back. Soon enough. Zin was busy rubbing his white gloves together with glee.

"I'm thinking I'll swing by the garden shops, buy a patch of grass to decorate the tip of a pitchfork and then we go chase the pest out of my basement. Speaking of, are we leaving soon? Go get your copper lootbox already, I want all the time in the world to enjoy this next part."

"You sound more like you're trying to remove a feral racoon from the walls." Jason said, head tilted.

"Yeah, and?" Zin asked. Jason gave a short whistle, "She must be even worse than what Wade told me if you're this excited." The Archdemon hacked a few coughing laughs.

"Kid, that word is so far beneath what I'm feeling right now you could find it in china." He wove like an eel, ending up right next to Wade, one arm looped around his shoulder. Other arm stretched out, as if painting a distant dream.

"Mr. Wade, Mr. Wade! My magnificent little agent of chaos, oh the grand things we'll do together. You, me, finally wrangling her NEETness out of my basement. Hissing and screaming, preferably. And best of all… there isn't a single thing she could do about it." Wade could feel the phone buzzing with righteous indignation. But his head was stuck on an earlier idea. One that seemed obvious in hindsight. If he could visit Play's basement, and actually extract that NEET out of there…

"Could I access the storefront while visiting her?" It was her basement after all. The phone stopped the prior angry buzzing. Then buzzed one final time. They'd find out soon enough. He turned and grabbed the copper lootbox compass, watching the familiar needle point further beyond Ann's room.

"All right, treasure hunting time. Eri, can you stay here and watch over Ann in case something bad happens out here?" He was their undead holy priest after all. Ann needed him at her side the most. Jason waved a hand, "Think I'm probably also better suited to staying here with Ann, on account of the wheelchair."

"Fair." Wade's eyes turned over to Medy, who he remembered might be able to fight, but not very well. She stared back, head tilted with an unworded question. So Wade finally turned to Zin.

"You're the only one left, come with me in case there's danger."

"Hard pass." Zin instantly said on reflex.

"I'll go after her anime figure collection as my first threat when she tries to stay in her basement."

"Why are we still standing here for Mr. Wade? Let's roll already, we have a lootbox to find." Demons always needed something offered back it seemed. Even if that return offer was almost nothing of worth. It seemed more about the principle of things. As for the danger he'd be protected from... he was mostly certain nothing bad would happen that would actually need the Archdemon around, this was Earth after all. And there hadn't been any distant screaming, yet. But best not to tempt luck. His stat did cut both ways.

"You know, Play is level 300 something by now." Wade said, as they walked past the hallways of the nursing home. It was busy enough, people passing by every now and then. And for all they knew, the lootbox might have spawned out in the parking lot. But the needle was pointing this way, so the pair went that way. Zin's stride didn't break, trying to rush them along for the next part.

"And?"

"And I just convinced her come along to Azdrial, where she could probably squash everything by herself. Which seems really unbalanced game-wise. Something's off."

"She's obscenely powerful and catastrophically lazy. That's the combination keeps the world in balance." Wade shook his head.

"Lazy in principle, if it turned out squashing stuff for me would let her get ahead she might just do that."

"You do forget her original goal in all this is to watch Azdrial burn down in flames, for fun, right? Our cute little problem is still a Divinity with the usual insanity that comes with their domains. It's all fun and games until she decides it's an actual game. Which it is, for you." Wade confirmed a supply closet up ahead wasn't the right spot, since the needle pointed slightly off to the side past it, so the pair continued the hunt, aiming to walk around to the other side.

"The System let me complete that quest when she agreed, right? So we know she can and will let me move around realms. But what's the catch? Is the Arcane Realm dangerous to gods?" Zin held a door open for an orderly pushing a meal cart, flashing a smile. Then the pair walked through, looking for the next corner to turn that wasn't off limits.

"Divinities were meant to travel through hell, heaven, death and the mortal realm. Everywhere else isn't technically where they should go. I have no clue if she can or can't. They're made of divine magic, which is the wild west of the wild west, in terms of magic. Only thing as weird as them are the Fae, so that's who's the closet cousin. For all I know she can't step inside the arcane realm without the same issues, since her essence is mimicking flesh and bone."

"I'm wondering why the System would just let me bring a level 300 nuke to the table." The compass needle twitched left. Wade followed it toward a stairwell.

"Illy told me Nox is basically running on fumes without her domain and her moon. And Play was literally hiding in caves before she got to Earth and gorged herself on every story and game humanity ever produced. And then there's that quest with the serial killer and War, who's apparently a really old and powerful god."

"Point you're getting to Mr. Wade?" The pair started climbing up the stairs to the next floor.

"The sponsors here are all different levels of powerful. So if they're allowed to meddle with the game directly, it would be an unbalanced mess and whoever has the strongest Divinity just flat out wins." His phone buzzed. I already told you I'm not fighting anything for you. I didn't agree to be your babysitter. That's an actual j*b. Wade narrowed his eyes. Play wasn't stupid. And now that he thought it through, the quest reward hadn't been instant from the moment he mentioned it.

He thought it was her deciding to commit to the action. But what if there was one more step?

"There was a moment of silence when I asked you to bus me around. What exactly did you do during that moment? Did you agree to some limits before it allowed you to come?" No answer came. Wade considered it from the System's point of view and realized he was thinking of it all wrong. THE GAME had a set of rules, and Wade had a hunch both sides played by the exact same ones. But it wasn't balance the System cared about. It was advantage.

Or removing an advantage the enemy could make better use of compared to team humanity. So what advantage was being removed from the game with Play not being allowed to fight and squash stuff for him? There was only one answer that came to his mind.

"Play… who are the enemy sponsors?" No idea but I can guess one thing. They're going to be stronger than I am.