Chương 342: (335) 5.31. All By Myself

The rest of the council meeting was filled with the usual boring and tedious decision making that reminded Vin why he generally didn't bother coming to these things in the first place. Voting on specific permits for crafters and support classes. Sifting through shockingly mundane suggestions that Earthers were welcome to turn in to the council. Even going over zoning laws and discussing what areas of Terra were to be used for specific events and construction in the future. It was awful.

The moment they wrapped up, Vin did his best Lumel imitation, vanishing as quickly as possible as he rushed out the door. He waved a quick goodbye to Linda on his way out, before putting the town hall behind him and going about the rest of his day. After spending the last couple of days researching away within the library, he decided it was high time to venture out into another fragment, but he did have one promise he needed to fulfil here in Terra before he could take off again.

He spent the rest of the day with Alka, helping her run her more experienced Slayers through mock battles with a mage and allowing her to focus her attention on her newest assortment of trainees. Having Trod and Tiffany at her disposal was huge for training, as the monstrous orc and terrifying merider were fantastic stand-ins for real-life monsters, if not far deadlier in their own rights.

Trod still seemed a tad apologetic about having knocked Alka's literal lights out the other day, but it was hard to tell for certain. The orc hadn't really been all that talkative before the incident either. Once her Slayers were breathing hard and mildly singed from a few carefully aimed Fireballs, Vin called it a day and headed home.

Alka had confirmed she'd be sitting this next adventure out as she had plenty of work to catch up on with her trainees after her brief comatose experience, but he had plenty of other people to check in with.

"Sorry, Vin, after our success the other day for the dwarves, Mary and I are going to be spending the next few days trying to create our own strains of magical plants," Shia said, giving him a wide smile.

"I've got a few ideas that we could potentially plant around town to add yet another layer to Terra's defenses for the future monster waves, so I want to get this figured out sooner than later."

"I get it, that's definitely something good to focus on," Vin said, turning toward his next targets.

"Scule? Reginald?"

"You know me, I'd love to scope out potential new marks any day of the week, but we're actually busy as well," Scule shrugged.

"After recent events with the dead alchemist, Bill and I have actually been asked by the council to come up with a set of lab safety rules for everyone who's interested in alchemy to follow. Boring, I know, but still important. Apparently, it took a guy drinking his own faulty crap and dying for the council to realize that just because someone picks up a crafter class, doesn't mean they know what they're doing.

Unlike Bill, who was an actual chemist in your world from what I heard, the new guy had a job totally unrelated to alchemy before coming over here. Some sort of 'game developer' or something."

"I hadn't actually considered that, but that makes sense," Vin said, wondering if the dead alchemist had just been throwing random ingredients together in a pot and hoping for the best.

"I sort of just figured the class would give people the knowledge needed to progress in it."

"Crafter classes do to a degree, so the guy must have been a real idiot," Scule snorted.

"That said, a set of regulations is probably a good idea regardless, so yeah, I'm going to be busy for at least a day or two. Reginald is planning to take advantage of me being busy to head back into the citadel and visit his great grandchildren." The rat gave him an apologetic squeak, and Vin smiled.

"You're good, Reginald, glad you're trying to visit the family when you can. Though this is crazy, if Lumel is busy as well, I might have to hit up the next fragment completely on my own!"

"Don't do anything more stupid than usual," Shia laughed, before wishing them all a goodnight and vanishing into her bedroom. Scule and Reginald resigned to their rooms shortly after, and Vin sat in the common room, working on his journal and existing map of Edregon. Drawing increased to lvl 12! 1, 200 exp gained. Cartography increased to lvl 12! 1, 200 exp gained. It was another few hours before Lumel finally showed up, and she blinked as she walked in the front door and spotted him sitting at the table.

"You weren't staying up on my account, were you?" she asked, walking over and giving him a warm hug as she peered down at his map.

"Wow, that's getting quite large at this point."

"I've finally gotten the full second ring mapped out," he nodded, tracing a large circle around the known world of Edregon.

"Which means it's officially time to get started on completing the third ring!"

"The job that never ends," Lumel giggled.

"You're going to need a larger journal at this rate."

"I'll figure something out," he said, closing his work and turning to face her.

"Any chance you're free to go exploring with me tomorrow?"

"Ah… I'm sorry, but I was planning on devoting myself to studying the new, monster-free dungeon we just encountered," she winced, giving him an apologetic smile.

"With how close I am to hitting level 45 and getting my new passive… I want to focus on achieving that over anything else." Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"No need to apologize, I understand," he said, getting up and giving her another hug.

"Obviously, if there's anything I can do to help, just let me know."

"Thanks, Vin," she said, practically melting into his arms as they held each other.

"Were you planning on drawing any more, or are you heading to bed?"

"I should probably turn in for the night," he decided, his mind already racing with where he was going to start his newest adventure.

"I've got a busy day ahead of me tomorrow." As he jogged toward his destination the next morning, Vin went over the current map of Edregon in his head. Including the Earthers' fragment, at this point, he had discovered and rather thoroughly explored twenty-five unique fragments on Edregon. The entire first and second ring of fragments around Terra were on the map, along with an offshoot of them off to the east where they'd made a beeline for the floating library.

He had quite a lot of options for where to head off to next, but he decided one area deserved a more thorough check than the others. There were two unknown fragments bordering the neilans, and he needed to make sure they were doing alright. The neilans were a scrawny race of people with long fingers and large heads, consisting entirely of Ritualists.

They had lived in what sounded like a utopia prior to Edregon, having isolated themselves on an island and living under a gigantic ritual that prevented death and allowed them all to live forever. After getting pulled over to Edregon, the few neilans who made the journey had created a new ritual, one that formed a massive barrier around their fragment and redirected monster spawns to the fragment north of them.

The decision had caused the extermination of the blue fur clan, a people resembling furry monkeys with four arms, and the neilans hadn't been upset about the act in the slightest. Vin, Shia, and Alka had put the threat of death to the neilans if they ever even thought about adjusting where their ritual dumped out the excess monsters, but it was still probably a good idea to go and ensure the other fragments neighboring them were okay.

Vin went west into the Sacred Forest, waving at a few elves that spotted him as he ran, careful to avoid accidentally damaging any of the plants. A few pesky fangers, monsters that looked like lemurs with horrific teeth, attempted to attack him as he went, but he was actually faster than they were and easily avoided their lunges with the use of Threat Detection. Once he was through the Sacred Forest, he hugged the fragment barrier between the neilans and the valley in the mist.

There was a small village hidden in a large ravine deep below the mist in this fragment where people refused to take on a class from the System, and thus it wasn't a place Vin felt very welcome within. At the very least, they'd managed to befriend one of the villagers, a man named Normun who they'd escorted through the mists and left to his own devices.

Vin had still yet to encounter the man since they'd helped him leave the valley, but seeing as he'd followed in Vin's footsteps and taken the Explorer class, it was probably only a matter of time. Assuming he hadn't already gotten himself killed. Running with endless mist on his left and a wall of grey energy on his right was a curious experience, but Vin covered the six miles quickly enough.

He did have to dispatch a solid number of floating white jellyfish that would explode if they got too close, but a single Fireball was more than enough to finish each one off. Because of the mist, he didn't even spot the newest fragment until he was right on top of it, and he blinked as he crossed the fragment border unexpectedly, coming to a sudden stop. Third ring fragment discovered! 1, 500 exp gained.

Catching his breath, Vin looked around at the surprisingly mundane fragment, keeping his eyes peeled for anything even closely resembling a threat. Seeing as he was on his own for the first time in ages, he couldn't be too careful. The fragment was a pleasant temperature, with warm winds that were nice without being overbearing. He was currently standing in a meadow, though he could make out what looked like fields of something akin to corn or wheat being grown off in the distance.

There were birds chirping and scattered flowers growing everywhere, and Vin simply stood there, taking in a deep breath before letting it out. Well now, this fragment is downright peaceful! Unable to keep the smile off his face, he began walking forward, keeping his wits about him despite the calm nature of the surrounding landscape. As he walked, he cast his makeshift 'Sense Earther' spell to be safe, coming to a dead stop as his mana bounced back and he got quite the shock.

According to his spell, there were three missing Earthers contained within this fragment.

"What?" he muttered out loud, casting his spell a second time just to confirm. Sure enough, three different souls with absolutely zero points in the magic attribute bounced back at him, all coming from somewhere around the center of the fragment. How did three of them end up getting sent to the same fragment? Vin picked up the pace and began jogging as he tried to go over possibilities in his mind.

It had been nearly two weeks since the arrival of wave five and the missing Earthers, which meant these people had gotten lucky enough to arrive in a fragment that wasn't insanely hostile. On top of which, based on the distant crops that were clearly organized in rows and well-cared for, it wasn't an abandoned fragment either. Even if he hadn't spotted them yet, people were clearly still living here.

Though after personally watching the mana signatures from the Gods' ritual blasting in every which direction, he couldn't shake the feeling that the odds of three missing Earthers all arriving on the same fragment seemed rather slim. Which means one of three things. Either it's a statistical anomaly… missing Earthers are more likely to be deposited in groups, like with Paul and Eleanor… Or someone went out of their way to gather these three up and bring them together.

Even as the thought went through his head, Vin spotted something appear on the horizon as he crested a small hill, and he slowed to a stop as his jaw dropped. Rubbing his eyes, he blinked and looked once again, unable to believe what he was seeing. His focus enhanced his senses to a remarkable degree, but he still found what he was looking at hard to believe.

There, toward the center of the fragment and right where he was detecting the three missing Earthers, stood something he'd surprisingly yet to actually see in all his time on Edregon thus far. A castle. And a damn big one.