Amazon Apocalypse 2: Chapter 39 (Patreon)

We wasted an entire morning the seventh day I was here in town, training behind the inn. I say wasted, but any time you can get an expert warrior nearly three times your level to train you, it can hardly be called a waste.

Myrina was helping Sakura up from the ground for the umpteenth time as she explained what the Oni had done wrong when the message I’d been waiting finally appeared... sort of.

Your stay on your patron’s world of Themyscira has been extended to ten days.

I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, though I did wonder if something had happened back home to make this possible. Had Earth’s integration taken some leap forward? I shunted such thoughts aside—that was something for future Carter to worry about.

We’d been given three more days and the girls and I planned to make the most of them. We spent the remainder of our time in Themyscira training and adventuring together. Misa stayed back in town, so the wheels of our enterprise only ground to a halt when she ran out of Mana Bombs and other items to sell. She wouldn't be getting any more of those, though, until the next time Myrina teleported us back over with plenty more goods to sell.

But while we’d run out of things to sell, we hadn't run out of things to buy. There were always odds and ends we could pick up. And between the two of them, Myrina and Misa came up with lots of things a fledgling settlement might need. Crafting tools had been first and foremost on their list. While stuff like hammers and anvils for blacksmiths were easy to come by back on Earth, we were quite lacking in the tools for the more magical trades.

They'd sourced parchment from exotic beasts, quills from monster feathers, ink made from vampire blood, an inscription wand with a tip enchanted so that it could carve lines into the sides of tiny gemstones, and a thousand other things. More than a few of these items went right into my own toolbox. I hadn't realized how hampered I'd been as an artificer, being constrained to only mundane tools.

With the help of a few more magical odds and ends, the number of blueprints I could craft would grow. I had my eyes on a few I’d picked up, in particular. But I would wait to craft them for when I returned to Earth.

We made sure to keep all the items we wanted to bring with us back to Earth on us at all times, in our bags of holding. I left most of the gold we'd made selling items with Misa, since back on Earth it would only be worth its metal value. Still, its metal value was nothing to scoff at, and I imagined that if I put some up for sale on the Obelisk back in town, there were plenty of metal working classes that would love to melt them down and experiment with them.

I'd noted plenty of Artificer Blueprints that called for solid gold somewhere in the crafting process. Even with four bags of holding—two for me and one each for Bridget and Sakura—we had trouble taking everything back home with us. We’d ended up having to buy Myrina an extra bag of holding, just so the various monster parts we hunted didn't go to waste.

Myrina kept all the meat, claws, scales, and such, while Sakura kept all the pelts into her bag of holding. They made excellent crafting materials for her leatherworker profession and she wouldn't have access to such high-level hides back on Earth.

Soon enough, though, our time to return to earth came. We felt the familiar tingle of the System calling us home, and I bid Myrina goodbye.

"It feels like you just got here," Myrina whined as she clung to my arm.

"We did just get here!" Sakura said with crossed arms.

She and Bridget would probably have one more day to train and adventure with Myrina, since I brought them over several days after my arrival.

"Don't get too lonely without us!" Bridget waved goodbye to me. "Don't mind us. Some girl time would be nice."

"Yeah! It’s time to assert my dominance. I found Carter first!" The last thing I heard was Myrina's maniacal laughter as Themyscira faded away.

When the world coalesced around me once more, I found I was back inside my farmhouse. Without the sounds of Bridget and Sakura nearby, the place felt empty.

A whole bunch of System notifications popped up to greet me, automatically minimized because of my settings. I took a seat in my lounger, hand already grasping for the cup of coffee. Bridget normally handed me as soon as she saw me going through System notifications.

They'd moved in with me less than a month ago, but now that I was here alone for just a few moments, I was already missing them. I used to enjoy the peace and quiet of my little farm, but now the emptiness just made me lonely.

I scrolled through my notifications, one by one. Myrina had warned me never to dismiss them without reading them first, since more than one powerful adventurer had kicked the bucket not realizing they'd been afflicted with an unnoticeable debuff or poison.

Fortunately there was none of that amongst my many battle notifications. The fighting had been rewarding for Sakura and Bridget, and they were now firmly back among the elites of Earth's shard. I just hoped the D-Rank upgrade would stay with them, even if I took a few levels off each of them when they returned.

That was how things seemed to work at E-Rank.

They had been stuck at E-rank long enough to make them a lot stronger than their levels suggested, which was always a good thing.

"Nothing... nothing... nothing..." I muttered to myself as I flipped through notification after notification. "Oh? What's this?"

Your race, Humanity of Earth, has accepted the surrender of the Trolls!

The trolls are now enslaved.

Be warned! The human faction that has conquered the trolls are not members of your faction, and the trolls will continue to be hostile to you and yours!

"Well, shit. Somebody conquered the trolls." I ran my fingers through my hair.

That was an unexpected turn of events. I had thought I was going to need to rally my forces once more for a final push. Or, barring that, take some levels from Bridget and Sakura so I could wipe them all out myself.

That’s what I'd been mentally preparing myself for, so finding half the job already done was something of a relief, though learning that someone else had done it and that they would continue to be hostiles was a cause for more than a little trepidation.

What exactly had happened while I was gone?

Crownhill was a modest-sized American town, though spread out over a far larger distance than similar towns would have been elsewhere in the world. The rows of buildings downtown where I’d worked and where we'd established the shelter from the remains of several old office buildings was in the most tightly packed part of the city.

Nearby were several major stores and apartment complexes, along with a massive prison. Scattered throughout the area, though, plenty of people were left after the Integration took its toll. Even with the abandoned houses I'd seen and the bodies I'd found in the streets, I didn't think we had more than a tenth of the city's surviving population living in the shelter.

Most of our numbers came from picking up strays or small groups that had taken heavy casualties. Most of the remaining groups of survivors were isolated, with little in the way of communication, unless they had a ham-radio. Not to mention the fact that Crownhill supported a healthy prepper community.

I would have been very surprised to find that I was the only person with a barn full of food, guns, and supplies.

How many other groups were out there? And who among them had taken it upon themselves to take the trolls out of the picture? And just as important, how had they done it?

Even my elites had struggled with the trolls. Who took them down and how many losses had they incurred to do it?

The answers to these questions weren't to be found sitting in my living room all alone. It was time to get moving. The first thing I did was check in with Gobgob and the goblins. My little goblin sweatshop was still cranking out Mana Bombs template at full speed.

When I looked at them closely, the goblins seemed to be working much faster than before. I asked Gobgob about it.

"Gobgob gets job!" Gobgob explained. She shared the description of her job with me.

Magitech Apprentice (Rare): Gain a shadow of the abilities of whoever is instructing you, allowing you to mimic some of their abilities once they have demonstrated them to you. While you will never invent new items or procedures, you may grow quite versed in their creation under the right master.

My eyebrows rose. How in the world had Gobgob managed to acquire a Rare-grade job? I only had an Epic job, and I’d had to fight a life and death shelter establishment quest to get it.

"How'd you get this?" I asked with wonder.

"Gobgob copies you! Also magic box in the air give Gobgob a quest. Protect tribe from the scary humie and Gobgob gets job!" Gobgob proudly poked herself in her modest chest with her thumb.

Ah, so she had gotten a quest to defend herself and her people from a terrifying monster, as well. It just so happened that the terrifying monster was me—but instead of fighting me, she’d kept her tribe alive by bending wire into Mana Bombs for me.

No wonder she and the others had been working so hard. The System had probably turned it into a quest for them.

I checked on a few of the other goblins. Sadly, none of the others had earned the Magitech Apprentice Job. Most were some variety of common-grade Goblin Crafter, or Uncommon Goblin Technician. All were impressive in their own right, though, and definitely useful.

They were also almost out of raw materials. I would have to stop by the Obelisk in Crownhill to pick up some more. That was a second reason I needed to visit the shelter.

There was no time like the present, I supposed. Thanking Gobgob for a job well done, I thought about grabbing the keys to my truck, but decided it would be quicker to travel on foot.

***

I decided to head to Crownhill right away. Without Bridget and Sakura patrolling my farmhouse, the little monsters drawn in by my Death Curse would come sniffing around if I lingered for long.

While Bridget and Sakura would have had no problem dealing with them, Gobgob and the goblins were considerably weaker. If I stayed at the Farmhouse, I'd have to spend most of the day running around killing bugs and critters just to keep them safe.

I did one quick tour around the area to wipe out anything that had showed up while I was reading through my notifications. This meant I ended up fighting a dragonfly the size of a kite and something that looked like a tiny crocodile with wings. I'd only been here long enough for the fastest of monsters to arrive, though the giant dragonfly did drop a core, so it had most likely once been a regular dragonfly before gaining some levels.

I took what was left of it and added it to the pile of my barn, along with most of the stuff I'd brought back from Myrina's world that I intended to use for crafting. Cores were useful for crafting just about anything in artificing. After that, I ran to Crownhill on foot.

I'd never been much of a runner before the integration, but with my current skillset it just seemed less tedious than firing up my truck. The only reason I'd still been using the thing was to haul things that were too bulky to carry. But now with my bags of holding, I no longer had a need for it.

I ran onward, the wind in my hair and my cloak streaming behind me. I took the short road this time, deciding it was time to be a little daring. The fissure in the ground was still there, with magma burbling beneath it. I jumped right up to it, curious to see if the elemental was still there. My footsteps were far quieter than my truck, so I went unnoticed.

Still, I was pretty sure Sakura hadn't forgotten about her car.

"Best get out of here while you can. Your days are numbered," I said to the hole in the ground.

The elemental didn't respond.

Deciding to save that particular foe for when Sakura could get full satisfaction from the fight, I arrived in Crownhill and was welcomed through the gates with open arms. There was a crowd standing around the obelisk, but that was nothing unusual. All you had to do to use it was look at it, which meant anyone from any of the nearby buildings could do so. But a lot of people still wanted to stand right in front of the thing and pretend they were using a computer.

I was pleased to note that nearly everyone seemed to be better dressed than before, and there were far fewer people sleeping out in the streets. It seemed that in my absence, another wave of people had adjusted to our new reality and were ready to find their new places in society.

That was a good thing. I wanted Crownhill as strong as possible—because there was no telling what the System would throw at us once we were done with the Ogres and the Trolls.

I focused on the obelisk myself and, one by one, made selections on what I was buying and selling. The System was perfectly capable of taking items directly from my inventory, which made this a lot easier than it used to be. It also allowed me to trade anonymously. Normally, it was obvious when someone was buying or selling a huge load of goods—but that wasn’t the case when you had a bag of holding.

I clicked through my sell list. Gold. A few magic wands. Some spare tools for magical trades. A couple of skill books for melee attacks that Bridget and Sakura had both rejected, along with a few other odds and ends.

I replaced it all with an equal volume of scrap wire and other metals, along with some basic necessities like flour and sugar. I had twenty years’ worth of flour in storage for my survival needs, but when I'd packed all that away, I hadn't expected to have someone like Bridget baking like she was feeding an army. I needed to restock the pantry while she was gone.

Even at the default System-recommended prices, I’d earn a huge number of contribution points—more than ten thousand—which was more than I'd been awarded through taxes until now… and then some. I wouldn't get those points until the items I’d listed sold.

I probably could have priced exotic off-world materials considerably higher, but the people on Earth only had so much time to accumulate wealth. It wouldn't be fair to charge them the same prices I’d got the items for on Myrina's world. Besides, I considered giving away tools for cheap investing in the future of Crownhill. The tools would allow for more skilled craftsmen, which would create more trade, which would in turn create more taxes for me.

So I let the items go for cheap. That would have been all the more I thought on the matter, if not for the gasps of surprise that came from the gathered crowd the moment I made my purchases and my items went up for sale.

"The market's gone crazy, what happened?" someone shouted.

"The magical commodities index rose six hundred points!"

"I'm rich! My scrap copper wire contract options are worth a fortune!"

I shook my head. No wonder people had started adapting to the new world quicker as soon as I opened the obelisk. In many ways, the new world was just like the old one. How people had already figured out how to create a derivatives market within our tiny shelter economy, I didn't really understand.

But it didn't seem to be hurting anyone, so I let them have their fun. Still, I might have to be careful about dumping too much stuff like that all at once in the future.

With my buying and selling done, I turned and made my escape from the crowd before people figured out I was the one who'd just shifted prices across our entire local economy. I headed up to Margaret's office. Marcus and Frank seemed to be away for the time being, so if I wanted to find out what happened with the trolls, I needed to talk to Margaret.