Chương 566: Chapter 557: Anxiety

"What does this one say?" asked Felix, as the six of us crowded around it.

"It seems like yet another message log," Sallia said, as she scanned the pieces of paper in front of us. Much like one of the other message logs we had found while wandering the Market, the messages in front of us looked like some strange mixture of archaic pen-and-paper mixed with modern technology. However, this one had a distinctly futuristic-technology aesthetic to it.

When Sallia ran her fingers over the paper, the images and text displayed in the picture rapidly changed, almost as if flipping through the pages of a digital book. Unfortunately, the screen was cracked, and much of the back of the paper was also ruined beyond repair. It looked like something had taken a sledgehammer to this thing - it was half destroyed. When we tried to scroll back more than a few pages, it froze, as if its memory of older conversation logs was damaged.

"It looks like we can't get much information out of it," said Sallia. She sounded disappointed.

"After we look through these logs, I'll take a look at it. Maybe I can fix it up. Even if I can't, maybe I can learn something from tearing it apart," said Felix. He sounded excited. I smiled. Normally, we didn't have enough time in the market for Felix to learn more about item creation. Now, we had two years. Any advantage we could create in that time would be beneficial. Sallia started inputting more essence into the device, which caused the screen to get brighter, and flipped back to the first page.

We leaned in so that we could see the screen. Monica: I don't actually think we could get the corporation to just declare war and try to seize resources. It's fun to think about though. It would be much less annoying than constantly trying to negotiate this accursed deal with those musty mages. Louis: Honestly, I doubt the leaders of your company would go for it either. Violence isn't always the best way to solve problems.

Costs too many lives, and if they damage vital infrastructure it can be a huge pain to repair it afterwards. Still, I'm a bit surprised to hear you call them 'musty mages.' Aren't you also essentially a mage? Even if your magic system is a bit different, it's so similar that I can't help but wonder whether the world you got your original keyword ability was the origin dimension of the Isles or something. Monica: I checked, actually. I had the same thought as you did.

None of the people I knew were in their citizen registry, and their records are super rigorous. Monica: Honestly, I respect magic. I'm just… frustrated. I don't know why they're so against just buying a functioning system from us and then installing it in a few lesser dimensions as a trial run. Even a weaker System is a huge boon to the growth speed and overall power of the elites of any civilization.

Monica: There's a reason why Luxcorp spent so much money installing an artificial System in the Market, and why it operates free-of-charge for even the most ordinary citizens of the Market. Having one is just too beneficial for the overall economic strength and growth speed of a civilization as a whole. Louis: Well, it's also true that the Market's System was baked into this dimension as it was being created.

There are some fairly large benefits to creating a dimension from rare materials and a plan for what the final product should look like. The Isles aren't strong enough to do anything like that, at least not yet. Maybe in a few millenia, if they keep expanding and don't hit a brick wall. They are one of the more advanced pure-magic civilizations I've heard of. Monica: The fact that they're a pure magic civilization makes the whole thing more aggravating.

Every single time I meet up with even a few low-level governors for outlying dimensions, I have to sit through three or four days of political theater and ceremony. Monica: It's such a massive pain in the neck. It reminds me of the weekly meeting my team leader makes us all sit through when we're in the Market. All that's missing is a few pep talks about team spirit, improving the bottom line, and protecting the shareholders. Louis: Sorry to hear that. Honestly, it doesn't sound very fun.

I prefer running my own little shop. Even if the pay isn't as good, and even if I would need to advance much further to leave the nursery and join one of the major cities, at least I don't have to sit through political theater and boring team meetings every week. Monica: But the pay really isn't as good if you run your own shop. Monica: Aghhhhhh Monica: I really have just about had it with this nonsense, though.

Monica: At the very least, I managed to push some of the smaller trade deals through their layers of bureaucracy. I got a bunch of samples of the metals that my team leader wanted. Their void steel is so durable that it's nearly impossible to destroy, and it conducts a lot of different concepts through it really well. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Monica: Corporate gave me a big bonus for negotiating a deal for large quantities of void steel.

Most of the higher end ability cubes and production facilities in the nursery are going to be rebuilt out of void steel soon. So that's something, I guess. I haven't just been totally wasting my time here. Louis: Well, you've always got to look on the bright side of life, right? Or death, since we're all dead here. Monica: Ha. We are, indeed, all dead here in the Market. Your jokes get more stale every century. Louis: I thought my joke was fabulous.

Though I also hope that it at least took your mind off of things a bit. I admit, I don't really have a great solution for the issues you've been running into. Navigating diplomacy with a foreign empire isn't something I'm familiar with. Monica: I'm not expecting a solution. I just want someone to talk too so that I don't lose my mind and ram a ball of essence up my team leader's rear end.

If he tells me I need to spend another three days 'enjoying the baths and saunas' of the dimensional isles while I wait for the governor of yet another dimension with an incredibly long and hard to pronounce name, I might actually go insane. I'm still half tempted to try to get the corporation to transfer the terraforming machinery over and then terraform a few dimensions into frozen hellscapes.

Not that I'd actually succeed before the local governors stopped me, but at least they would finally get off their rear ends and do something. Louis: Sounds stressful Monica: Sorry, there's just a lot of money riding on this deal, and the more I try to negotiate, the more I think that it's going to fall through. Even though I managed to get some smaller deals through, I really want to get everything set up, and it's just going nowhere.

And even though I got praised only a month ago for the void steel deal, my team leader is putting more and more pressure on me Monica: No wonder Carter was so eager to fob this mess over to my department. Whenever I finish handling this mess, I want to spend a few centuries in a Garden World. Preferably a vacation-oriented one where the world has some kind of enforced peace up and a lot of different vacation spots. I could soak up some sun in a nice beach for a few centuries, maybe?

Louis: That doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. Actually, it has been a while since the four of us reincarnated together. Too much time behind a desk recently. What do you say we call up Millie and Lorun and see if they're up for a new reincarnation too? All of us should be close to the time we should exit the Market, and I could also do with a vacation. Monica: Sounds like a plan. I'll text them tomorrow. Love you Louis: Love you too There were no more messages. I frowned as I glanced through the messages.

There were some bits of useful information here - the part about void steel was actually somewhat useful, because it might help Felix build something. I glanced at him.

"Any ideas for how to use void steel in your own creations?" I asked. Felix shrugged.

"I'm not actually sure whether we've encountered void steel so far, unfortunately. We know that the Market was about to overhaul the ability production cubes and some production centers… but we have no idea how far along they were before the Market collapsed. So the machinery we've found so far could be made of void steel, or made of whatever the Market used before then." Valeksi looked a bit more thoughtful.

"Still, if the ability cubes were artificially created, that implies that it should be possible to destroy them, too. I wonder why the invaders who destroyed the Market left them intact." I paused. I hadn't actually thought much about that question. It also brought up another question. Could Felix rip apart some of the cubes that created soul fragments or abilities, and use them as materials? Then, another icy thought wormed its way into my stomach.

What if the invaders of the Market had destroyed whatever created more lives? If that happened… then we might truly be screwed. Then, my eyes flicked back towards Felix, and I fell into thought. Perhaps we wouldn't reach a total dead end, even if the means to create more lives was lost. Felix was getting quite good at creating things, after all. If we got there early enough, had enough research materials, and the materials used to create the facility that produced lives were still available…

perhaps there was a path to survive even if the enemy had truly cut off every path forward. I didn't hesitate. I shared my new fear with my companions. Valeksi and Kexley looked thoughtful, but less afraid than I thought they would be.

"You don't seem concerned?" I asked.

"Well, it would also obviously be in the enemy's best interests to destroy all the ability cubes and soul fragment producers in the nursery, but they haven't. They obviously wouldn't miss something so obvious. That means that for some reason, they are either unwilling or unable to destroy the means we can use to grow stronger within the Market. In my opinion, it seems likely that it's really hard to destroy them. Or perhaps we're misunderstanding something," said Kexley.

"After all, what both of our groups know about the true nature of the Market could still fit inside of a thimble. And not a big one, either." I relaxed. Not completely, but the tension in my shoulders eased up a bit. Kexley's words made sense. I just hoped they were correct.

"In any case, we should first worry about getting down to the lower levels of this inner district so we can get a good look at whatever happened there," said Valeksi.

"We can figure out the rest later. Right now, we need to get stronger." I nodded. He was right. With that in mind, we started to prepare our next steps.