Chapter 314 - The Minion's Return (Patreon)

Just a bit over two days have passed, and I sit outside of the bunker on one of the bigger trees.

Unlike before, the monsters almost do not attack me, the place marked as my territory after my short expeditions to level up. To hunt, I have to go further and further, but I do it once in a while.

In the past two days, I also worked with a few more upper rare unfinished items, turning them into epic ones. That has gained me 5,600 more shards after selling them to the shop. Then I sold piles of materials, mana stones, and weird robes. Everything that was plenty in amount or useless to me.

That also has gained me another 3,800 shards. And that's us going through the Veil Ignition Station twice as we didn't enter it since we returned, Dave still preparing important stuff.

The current amount of shards I hold is 25,392. With the cheapest arcane items being 100,000 and the cheapest arcane passives 200,000, it looks so little. Gaining either of them on this floor seems impossible.

So what am I doing out here?

Waiting for my minion, obviously.

Why outside?

To get to her before my Duplicate does and can turn her against me. We can't have that, and I'm sure he would try to do it.

While he was watching Dave like a hawk, I escaped. The duplicate doesn't have the counter, he doesn't have the quest, system shop, and other stuff. So he can only estimate when she will return, and I did my best to confuse him.

I even left one orb in the Bunker and made it imitate my mana signature while I escaped sneakily.

Congratulations! Your disciple will now return to the 5th floor! Bear in mind that you have to keep your disciple alive for two weeks longer. The environment on the 5th floor will become much more dangerous during that time!

And here she is.

Vega carefully appears from the entrance which is invisible to me. She is down under the tree I am waiting on.

Right after her senses show into the area like sonar, and even heartbeat thuds as the skills activate. The dagger in her hand gets coated in pale blue mana, and she lowers her stance. Then she senses me as I'm not even trying to hide. She lifts up her face, and from down there, her ruby-like eyes meet mine.

A giant smile blooms on her face, “Master!” she shouts.

“You have stopped scanning your area. That's a day of me calling you minion, and you can't complain.”

It's hard to describe, but there is a relief I feel. And seeing someone be so happy just from seeing me is still weird. I land down on the ground only to be immediately hugged by the tiny minion of mine.

“It's fine! Master can call me minion!” she holds me with the full force of her small figure.

I lift her into my arms where she rests against my chest, listening to my heart.

“Glad to see that you are fine, Vega,” I pull her closer, and with a smile, she nods.

Then I feel my orb down in the bunker disappear and someone trying to reconnect to the teleport I used to get there. But that person is unable to do so as I expected that and removed the connection with black mana.

“Okay, minion, now listen, this is serious,” I put her on the ground and kneel on one knee in front of her, “there is a guy that looks like me and even often behaves like me. But that person cannot be trusted no matter what!”

“Looks like master?” Vega asks.

In the distance, I feel an explosion of kinetic energy, and high into the air, a figure lifts up. Right after, mana detection washes over us, but my pre-prepared barrier activates, and I hide us for a bit longer.

“Yes, but you have only one master, right? You wouldn't turn against me?”

“I would not!”

“Good disciple,” I caress her hair and poke her cute pointy horn. “He probably isn't a bad guy and won't hurt you, but don't get tricked, okay? It's a test.”

“Test from master,” her eyes wide., “I will do so!”

Right after, without causing any shock and absorbing the kinetic energy of his landing, my duplicate descends. “You asshole! You are trying to turn precious Vega against me!” he immediately complains.

My minion, even wary, starts flicking her eyes between me and him. “T-two of them,” she mumbles.

“Vega, come to your master. I want a hug!” he says creepily, but surprisingly, Vega seems to hesitate, her eyes flicking between us quicker.

Wow, is she really that weak to be called Vega?

“I can't!” she says finally and moves behind me.

“You lost, loser,” I put my hand on Vega’s head and turn to him. “You are scaring MY disciple, so calm down.”

“Oh come on, that's straight-up evil. I just want to poke those tiny pointy horns. It's not much. I'm stressed too, you know!”

“Go and hug Dave or something.”

“Does Dave also look like master?” Vega asks innocently from behind me.

“You are confusing poor minion you asshole original, just look.” The duplicate moves close and leans to look behind my back at Vega, who returns his gaze with her curious ruby-like eyes.

“Is this part of Bambi’s curse?” she asks.

“As if, it's him being a smartass. Come on, one hug,” he turns to me.

“Aren't you too… well, weird?” I ask.

“You can take it easy. It's me who will disappear in a week or two, so I need my ESM. “

“ESM?”

“Emotional Support Minion! Come on, when we will be upgrading Mantle, you can go first, and I will even help you create a stronger epic item so you can get more shards.”

“Sure, deal. Vega, you can call this man Uncle Nathaniel but never call him master, okay?”

I then let go of her, and before she can complain, my duplicate grabs her and hugs her.

“S-stop. Let me go!” the minion squeaks something and tries to push him away, but she is unable to do anything.

Somehow it reminds me of the scene where I petted poor Ashenwolf after waking him up in his cave. I wonder how the guy is doing.

“So, how is the progress?” I ask.

“Almost done, but we will have to decide what to do with the minion before heading to the station again. And did you ask her already?” he pinches her nose, pulls her horn, and when he finally lets her go, the minion rushes to me.

She grabs my clothes and kicks my shin before moving behind my back, “Traitor!”

“Anyway, minion, did you try to ask the questions I told you to ask?” I ask.

After fixing her hair and clothes a bit and while pouting, she looks up at me, “Yes, I did! But the people I asked didn’t know much.”

“Oh, how did you end up asking them?” The Duplicate creates a chair from mana and sits on it.

Seeing that, Vega gulps. “I will answer if you create one for me as well!” she tries somewhat sneakily.

Knowing she would answer even without it, the Duplicate still creates one, and then we watch as Vega plops on it and tries to sit in a similar lazy manner as my duplicate.

So cute.

“I made them talk after…” She lifts up her fists and swings them a few times, clearly gesturing what she did to the guys.

Oh my. That's my disciple.

“As master said, I found someone who hurt me a lot and then put on the mask master bought. I also hid my mana as much as possible and changed the way I moved. The mask changed my voice, and then I kept asking!”

The mask she mentioned is the only valuable item I sent with her. A rare mask that has some sort of confusion against weak people and changes the voice.

“But master. I remember that man hitting me every time I tried to pass by his inn, but he was really weak now. I think I'm the strongest one in our village too!”

“You can beat everyone when you become even stronger. Right now, they could send someone strong to your village and kill you, so be patient.”

“Yes! So I asked the question, but the man didn’t know about the tutorial. He only said something about our predecessors, long long ago, going through the tutorial. Only the chosen ones entered and gained great powers. He called them First Generation.”

“Huh, that makes sense. But isn’t that interesting?” the Duplicate mumbles. “Did he tell you if the tutorial repeated again?”

“I didn’t ask, I’m sorry uncle!”

“It’s fine,” I answer instead and turn to the duplicate. “So the system takes a bunch of people from the planet and sends them into the tutorial. The surviving ones return and become the so-called First Generation?”

He continues instead of me, “After that, more people from the planet join the system, but without the advantages of people who went through the tutorial?”

“Or could it be that only descendants of people who went through the tutorial get the ability to awaken the system?”

“That doesn’t make sense. We saw a lot of people with levels on the floors. There wasn’t anyone without class.”

“They could go through the tutorial tens of thousands of years ago, and the people they weren’t descendants of the first generation died off, replaced by people with the system.”

He ponders, “That feels off, I like the theory that people from the tutorial return to Earth, and then slowly other people from Earth start awakening and joining the system. Maybe it is all even caused by people from Earth returning with mana that starts leaking.”

I turn to Vega, “Did he know more about the First Generation?”

“Nothing!”

The duplicate sighs, “So if we are right, there are 10 rounds of the tutorial. We are in the 5th round. Every round of the tutorial contains four difficulties, and each difficulty has 10 groups. 2000 people to split into ten groups in easy, a thousand in normal, 500 for hard, and 250 for hell. Overall that’s,” he counts, “3750 people for each round. If we are right and there will be 10 rounds, that’s 37,500 people that got into the tutorial.”

I continue, “Out of them, how many will survive? 20,000 people in easy difficulty so maybe 10-15 thousand of them? Out of 10,000 in normal, probably around 6 to 8 thousand, out of 5,000 in hard, probably two thousand? and out of 2,500 in hell probably what? 100-500 with 100 of them entering beyond and what, maybe 10-20 surviving?”

“The tutorial can become harder as floors pass and plenty of people might decide to stay on nicer floors. Someone from hard getting to high floors can become stronger than someone from hell who decided to stay on the 4th floor.”

“That’s true. Minion, any info on your Absolute or Champions?”

“They knew nothing! I even bent the hand he used to hit me with in the way you showed me, master, but he said nothing.”

“Pairing?”

“Nothing!”

“System shop outside of the tutorial?”

“They didn’t know about it! They said there is no such thing.”

“At what levels do primary class upgrades happen?”

“He was only level 40, he got only the 1st one and didn’t know.”

The duplicate looks at her, “Wow, our cute Vega beat up someone 10 levels higher. Is that how proud parents feel?”

Both of us ignore him, and I continue to ask a few more questions, but Vega brings no answers. But that is to be expected, looking at the small village where she lives.

“Good job, minion, you did well.”

“Thank you, master!”

After turning to my duplicate, I lift one of my eyebrows, and he sighs, “As promised, you get the Mantle upgrade first, and I will help you create a better epic item.”

The chair made of [Regalia] disappears as he stands up in a smooth motion and turns to Vega, “I’m glad you made it back safely, disciple,” he says.

To that, Vega wonders for a while and then smiles, giving him a nod.

Observing him carefully, I notice a hint of relief in his eyes. Even though he didn’t show it that much, he is happy even for that little. The minion is just that precious little thing.

As we head back to the bunker, both of us notice that the Mana Radiation has become worse, and from all parts of the Valley, the monsters are moving erratically and fighting.

And there in the air, the Veil becomes just a bit more visible, just a tiny bit, but almost enough to be able to see it with normal eyes.

The system didn’t joke, and as it said, the difficulty will gradually increase.

***

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