Chương 550: Two Brothers

"So, there really are other Transmigrators in this broken place," said Kexley, after we found a relatively dustless spot inside of the shop and sat down. He gave the four of us a more appraising look, before he nodded to himself.

"We saw other signs that people had passed through the area, but they were pretty rare. The two of us weren't sure if we would encounter another group at all before we ran out of lives."

"To be honest, I was thinking the same thing," I said.

"This is the first time we've found other people in the Market. Of course, we've seen hints of others that might have been near us… but we refrained from making contact. At the time, we were afraid that they might be hostile towards us. They could also be just as crazy as the Market itself used to be."

"As crazy as the Market itself?" asked Kexley. He frowned.

"What do you mean? We haven't seen any hints of the Market being mad before it collapsed."

"You haven't?" I was actually quite surprised by his statement. I narrowed my eyes at him. Was he someone who supported the old way the Market worked? If so, I wasn't sure if allying with these people was a good idea. I cleared my throat.

"We found some records in the Market, talking about how becoming the apocalypse and wiping out a planet is an extremely efficient way to harvest Achievement without fearing the diminishing returns most other forms of farming run into. Becoming the apocalypse is apparently quite lucrative." Kexley's eyes widened. I caught a trace of shock and horror in his eyes, and I relaxed. It looked like he didn't support the way the old Market worked - perhaps he just hadn't found any records on the subject. Valeksi grimaced.

"So you're saying that the old members of the Market would just go into totally random worlds and kill everyone for money? That's… well, crazy." Kexley nodded.

"It really is." he turned back to me.

"We haven't found any records of anything like that, although it could be a difference in what records we found. The two of us have never had the power to attack any of the higher-end stores in the Market, either. We did see a few rather… questionable case studies of Market behavior, but we thought that those were the exception, rather than the rule."

"Such as what?" I said. Now my curiosity was piqued.

"The record we found was about the most effective way to form a religion. Apparently, there was one really infamous member of the Market named 'Zeus' who had…" Kexley turned slightly pale.

"Well, he did a whole lot of rather questionable things in order to maximize his influence on a world, as well as the 'legacy' Achievement he got when he left a world. He basically went around having kids with everyone he could find, and then imbued all those kids with abilities from the Market." Valeksi rolled his eyes.

"Honestly, I'm half convinced that 'acquiring Achievement' was just an excuse for that guy. I think he just wanted a reason to sleep around and justify the whole mess." Sallia rubbed her forehead in frustration, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Anise shudder. Zeus's behavior was really something.

"Still, even though the Market didn't actually step in to stop or punish his behavior, I still got the impression that behavior like that was frowned upon. I didn't realize some people just went around wiping out worlds left and right." Kexley shook his head.

"Honestly, I never would have even thought of that. I suppose it makes sense, but it feels so… monstrous."

"Nobody sane would think of wiping out planets left and right for the sake of maximizing profit," I said.

"It's too messed up. It's also why I think that the Market was destroyed. We know for a fact that there are other multiverse-level civilizations out there, and if they felt the Market's actions were dangerous enough and abhorrent enough, they might have united to beat down the Market. We've already seen a lot of messages indicating that some kind of coalition of other multiverse-level nations grouped up against the Market. We don't know why they united…

but I doubt it was hard for the leader of that coalition to bring people together against the Market's atrocities." Then, I brightened up, as I realized something.

"Have you two found any information on the other big factions in the multiverse? We don't know which of them were part of the coalition against the Market, or what their current stances are - but it would at least be nice to know what other threats lurk in the multiverse." Valeksi rubbed his smooth chin thoughtfully, and looked at the destruction around us.

"We've found some information about one major faction, in a bunch of letters talking about a trade route in between high level dimensions. It was a long-winded discussion about the 'star federation.' Apparently, they're some kind of space-age empire that managed to create technology which allowed them to travel to other dimensions, with a bunch of random discourse about the rise of empires. We think that the two people who were chatting just enjoyed talking about history.

Anyway, while a lot of the empires they talked about were empires that conquered a big chunk of their local dimension, they also mentioned the rise of the Star Federation. After they left their home dimension and found their first other dimension, they discovered essence - which their home dimension did not have.

They integrated it into their technology, found ways to artificially manufacture more essence, and within a century transitioned into an empire that integrated both magic and technology - though with a greater emphasis on technology than 'spellcasting.' They colonized a bunch of other dimensions after that. As far as we know, they're still in the process of colonizing and expanding - though that information is several millenia outdated, so who knows if that's still true."

I idly started playing with a strand of my hair while I fell into thought. We hadn't encountered very many technologically advanced civilizations yet - the highest level of technology we had found was in our third world, which had just moved a bit into the early industrial era. However, while I had never seen a 'space age' civilization, the science fiction novels from our third world still gave me a rough idea what they might look like.

I felt rather fortunate that we hadn't reincarnated into a space-age civilization, though. Influence Achievement was built around being able to change the destiny of a people or an entire dimension. That was usually based on our possession of magic from outside of that world's magic system. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. However, none of our magic was capable of making any sort of meaningful impact on a space-age civilization.

Trying to gather resources in a space age dimension was probably a hopeless task, at least until we got a lot stronger.

"Have the four of you learned much about any other multiverse-level factions?" asked Valeksi. He looked at me curiously.

"We've had a few run-ins with the Universal Tree," I said.

"Actually, we were pretty unlucky. We directly reincarnated into a world being invaded by the Universal Tree. Our world got digested by a giant plant. It was the first time I've experienced the apocalypse." Kexley winced.

"Sounds horrible. We also got caught up in the apocalypse in one of our worlds - some idiot king fired nuclear bombs at another nuclear power, and then they fired back. Then, the city we were living in, as well as the mage tower at the center of the city and probably every other city in the country… all turned into fireballs. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what killed us - all I know is that there was a bright light, a wave of heat, and then I stopped being a part of biology and became a part of physics."

I blinked in surprise. I had very loose memories of nuclear bombs, based on my half-forgotten first life before I joined the Market. I could only imagine how hopeless it would be to try to survive a nuclear bomb.

"All right, I think we know each other well enough to start real talks now," said Sallia.

"Let's get to the main point. We can swap stories later. Are you guys also out of lives?" The two brothers nodded.

"We're following the Market's directions for a place to buy new lives. Considering how far the Market has fallen… we're nervous. Whatever is guarding the lives purchasing enter is probably terrifying, and I have no idea whether we can survive. Since you asked, and since you folks seem to heading in the same direction we are, I imagine you're here for the same reason." I nodded.

"That's why we're here, yes. We also need more lives." Kexley's expression relaxed slightly.

"Are you interested in some temporary teammates? We don't know each other well enough to plan for long term cooperation, but… I certainly wouldn't mind having some backup when we fight for more lives. And it's not like there's a limited supply of lives or something - as long as we can defeat the guardian, we should just be able to buy as many as we want. I don't see any big reason for a conflict of interests later down the line."

"That's the idea." Sallia grinned.

"We figure that if we work together, the odds are probably better, no matter what we run into. When we fought monsters with stats at or above grade 40, we always had big armies to swarm them. I doubt that the guardian stopping us from fighting monsters will be any weaker than that - and we don't have an army this time. But numbers would still certainly help." Kexley and Valeksi nodded thoughtfully.

"What can the four of you do? You've seen some of our fight, and while that didn't involve any of our trump cards, we certainly have the ability to hold our own against stronger enemies. What kinds of abilities do you four have? Just the basics is fine - we can wait until we know each other a little better before we start really hammering in the specifics of how we might work together."

"I'm the healer and supporter," I said.

"But I also know a fair bit of spatial magic. Here." I opened a portal, grabbed a rock, and launched it through, before closing the portal when the rock was halfway through. The rock resisted for a moment, before the collapsed portal wrenched both halves of the rock in different dimensions, and tore the rock into pieces. These pieces were flung in different directions with the strength of a catapult. Then, I took a piece of shrapnel from the corpse of the wooden doll, and tried to slash open my palm.

The piece of wooden shrapnel broke. I blinked in surprise. Sallia handed me her sword. I blushed as I realized that my [Fortitude] was too high for my original demonstration to work. I used her sword to lightly cut open my palm, before I doused my arm in water and healed myself. Valeksi looked particularly impressed.

"How good is your healing? Are there limits?"

"Well, there are several. I'm not so good with soul-related injuries, and while I can do a bit of healing related to the souls, it's very unreliable. I also need the person I'm healing to be touching water. Obviously, the essence cost is also notable, though my essence pool is able to keep up with most regular healing. But if you need me to regrow a limb or something, that's pretty expensive."

"That's still amazing," said Valeksi.

"The two of us don't have very good options for healing ourselves. Wolf form has a bit of a healing boost, but it's still too slow to be useful in combat - it's just good for getting ready for the next battle." Kexley nodded.

"Very useful. What about the rest of you?"

"I'm the craftsman, so it's a bit harder for me to demonstrate. I have some minor abilities to back me up though," said Felix, before he demonstrated some of his metal control. Kexley seemed less impressed by Felix's demonstration… until the four of us decided to show them the {Splinter of Annihilation}. After all, that was one of the big trump cards we had prepared for gaining more lives, and we planned to use it right after the battle for more lives started. Keeping it secret didn't make much sense.

The two were much more impressed by that. After that, it was Anise's turn.

"I'm the witch!" said Anise, before she conjured a fireball into her hand.

"So ranged combat and magic? Never bad to have in a fight," said Kexley.

"The two of us are more front line fighters, so we've never had a proper back line before - but I've always thought it would be nice to have one."

"I'm the front line of our group," said Sallia. She grinned.

"Right now I can reach above grade 20 in my physical stats, although my [Perception] isn't quite high enough to keep up yet."

"Grade 20? That's really impressive," said Kexley.

"We can boost ourselves a few grades, but we top out at around Grade 12. And that's if we use absolutely everything we can muster together. It's a very temporary boost." Valeksi laughed.

"At this rate, I wonder if the two of us won't be holding you four back instead. Grade 20 is way above what I was expecting. Are you four sure you want the two of us with you?"

"At least for now, yes. Let's see if we can work together to survive," I said. Kexley and Valeski both reached out their hands. I shook Kexley's hand, and a moment later, my friends joined in. I smiled. It wasn't anything like a total guarantee of cooperation… but we had allies now.