Chapter 28 Fixing Myself, Messing with Others
The village is going perfectly, for now. Until the people grow and more join the ranks, things will be adjusted and improved. We have an armory, a library, the smith, a hunting lodge, an information and quest center, and storehouses. I also thought of a currency we can use after the barter system is established. Of course, I warned people about hoarding and banned it as much as realistically possible. All hoarded resources belong to the whole, while people gain personally on merit, except for basic welfare.
In the end, I called the money unit the MYU. It is worth a day's worth of food for a warrior, or a one hour massage, or half a day as a helper, and so on. I try to find easy and convenient pricing that adapts to inflation. Meaning, to us it does not change, but outside our village the MYU is worth little for now, then later it will be worth a lot more, because the standard of life will be better for everybody at the same time. Welfare and merit based salaries rise as a whole.
The only "rich" person is the village itself. You cannot hoard more than a few months of life in value. If you reach that point, take a break and do something nice. There are not many ways to spend it anyway.
I made only a few of these coins, made of Echatium, encrusted with a tiny crystal that can hold my power almost forever, unless destroyed. With that, you can eat two meals, since six meals a day are needed here, in this world, you could get a massage, or sex relief, since welfare covers basic food, basic clothing, basic weapons, and so on.
This is what we have for now. We do not have many people, but even the pets have access to "citizenship." The ones that are smart enough receive coins, while the more primitive ones give a certain amount per head. I give half a coin per goat, a quarter coin per pheasant, one coin to Berth, plus one more if he does a carrier trip. Red gets a full share based on merit. We do not have many ways to spend it, other than having fun with each other.
The kids love to try to get coins from the adults and make them do whatever they want, chuckle. In the future, we will get even more freedom. People try different jobs and become smarter.
I commissioned some paper at the information guild, which is part time run by Temate and Matema. They, in turn, hire people to do things needed around the village. Everybody passes by the guild in the morning, then gathers for morning chatter and tea before going to work. By the way, I also put lots of knowledge in the library.
The guild takes care of refilling the conservation devices and maintenance of the library. This is also a test, to see if they can do it without me. I might only put more quests later on. Temate will manage the village, with her mother helping.
Once I made everyone in the village happy, I chose to go train by myself. By training, I mean eat.
Since I ate the snake, I am pretty sure enough food should solve part of my power problem at least.
I sent Nalia, Lily, Tama, and Tati, to gather the other oppressed women's villages. Nalia knows of five others in this area, while Elnora left them live in other places in the forest, also being differently managed.
They will go as a team, with Nalia as leader.
I realize I am getting more work, but I cannot let people suffer for my own little comfort.
So while I eat all I can find in the forest, some of the girls travel the world, others train at home, and the remainder craft things or care for animals.
...
Beno's P.O.V.
(It's been two months since that bitch set foot in my paradise. Stephany Lyon, a damned noble and crazy man hater. I'm in love! I want to put my feet on her face whi…)
Stephany: "Beno, you piece of filthy shit, are you listening!?"
Beno: "No, I mean yes!"
Steph: "You fucking asshole. I said, where is the damned place? All I can see is a lake!"
Beno: (If she calls me asshole one more time, I will shove my sword up her…)
WAP! Whip clapping.
Beno is upside down in a tree, the whip holding him by the legs.
Steph: "Answer, you fuckhead!"
From his upside down view, his eyes bulge. He was too busy fantasizing about Steph, that he forgot where he was. Now that he looks at the lake…
Beno: "W.T.F!?"
Steph: "That's my line, goddamned idiot!"
Beno: "I don't fucking know. Last time we were here, there was a bunch of traps and a forest fire. How could it look like this?"
Steph: "Sigh. (Why am I stuck with the most useless men?… Ho, right. I killed too many of them, fufufufu.)"
She rubs her eyebrows.
Steph: "We will say there was a treasure, but it was blown up. If they take a look, they won't suspect a thing. Now let's go home. (I want to go back to my boy toys!)"
Whip clapping.
Beno falls face first in the dirt.
Beno: (I will k…)
Steph: "Let's go!"
We all go back to the outpost and get on with normal life, feeding the bullshit story Steph told us to put in the reports. Except that, a few weeks later…
Grunt: "Leader! All the women are gone! The five other villages have been emptied too!"
Beno: (Now I have to report that? No way, I'm not doing that!)
Beno: "You go tell Steph about it."
Grunt: "Did I offend you, boss!?"
He shivers while saying this.
Beno: "Hehehe, no buddy. I just don't wanna go myself either. You know what, if you don't wanna go, just find someone else. Hahaha!"
The grunt wipes his sweat.
Grunt: "Thank you, boss!!!"
Beno: (In the end, nobody will report to Steph. You could blame me, or the other guy, or the one after, hahaha. I ain't fighting that boy again. Shiver.)
I rub my chin for a while, thinking how to fix this ugly situation, while having Steph take the blame… (I could... Wait!)
Beno: (That's it. Nobody loves that bitch, except her two pussy dogs. I'm sure we can fuck her up good, hehehe. The boys need an outlet after all, now that we lost our influx of fresh women. But we need to keep her alive, since her nut job family might look for her later…)
...
-Sam P.O.V.-
I am bored… Hunting is fun, but this is just pure genocide, or insecticide, and animal-icide. Hell, you could add fungus, trees, plants, minerals, everything I can get my hands on… sigh.
I pick a spot, eat everything, and move on to a farther spot, making sure I do not kill everything and turn this into true genocide. I also teach Ammit to do the same, because even destruction needs rules.
I suddenly have a very good idea, hehehe. I do not want to destroy Elnora's forest, so I decide to go to the sea, in the east.
With my fastest speed, I can travel very far in a single 32 hour day, probably half a small country.
I get to the sea in five days, from high in the north, to south and I even manage to lay my eyeball on Beno one more time, as they came to check the hole I left behind. He looked pathetic, hung from a tree, chuckle...
I cannot fight them yet, so I simply watch them return to where they came from. This time, we left no traces behind at all... With my evolution wreaking things up....
I did not think this forest was so big... And now the ocean appears, which we can see much farther than on Earth, the air being purer and the land flatter. There even seem to be mountains made of water in the distance. It might be gravity, or maybe some volcanic rock that spits water upward. I cannot wait to see it with my own eyes.
The ocean is quite the sight. The waters create huge waves that break on the shore, stretching wide across the rocks, at least in this area. Those waves are not caused by wind, but are certainly generated from inside this giant body of water, like it has a pulse of its own. I call it ocean, but it should be a lake the size of earth...
After my five days of travel at insane speed, I am not sleepy yet. Five days here, are seven days on Earth. Still, before going for a dive, I sleep a full night, to avoid any problem.
...
The following day, I spot a big old turtle sleeping near the rocky beach.
(This could be my ride!)
I approach gently and pat her shell.
"Hi there. Your name will be Shelly, hehehe."
I gently pour my energy inside her shell, establishing a bond.
Shelly groans, "Erg… ouuuuuuu…"
Splurt pfrpfrpfr!
She drops a full clutch of eggs right there and then. I purse my lips, thinking this is awkward.
"Sorry about that, Shelly."
Shelly answers weakly, "It's okay… erg… I'm grateful. I can live a little longer now. I thought I would die just then. This clutch was stuck inside me. I thought you could not wait to eat me anymore, and chose now to attack…"
"You were clogged?"
She looks at me strangely, shaking her head in disbelief.
"Forget it… I'm just too old… sigh," Shelly replies.
I pour a bit of knowledge about Earth's years into her mind. This can be done by strongly focusing on a memory while passing power between two beings. She now have the knowledge of calendars.
"Sorry to ask a lady, but how old do you think you are in Earth's years?"
She thinks for a very long while, slow and deep.
"Too many to count. I would say maybe twenty thousand," Shelly finally answers.
"Wow. Amazing."
I sit beside her for a while, quietly watching as she buries her clutch. I can feel that she already influenced me, her energy being incredibly ancient. I let her share everything she has with me, my power filling her old body and slowly rejuvenating it. The place feels calm, balanced, and untouched. It is nice and peaceful here.
.....
Twenty thousand years. Hard to imagine living that long, but Arianna told me the gods lived a very long time, longer than Elnora currently has, and she already sits at four eons, or something close to that.
"Ammit, come say hi!"
Shelly looks at me while I puke a black sludge onto the ground, the little girl forming out of it piece by piece. She stays calm, like this kind of thing is perfectly normal.
"Ammit, this is our new friend Shelly!"
Ammit strolls over to her and gently pats her head with a small smile, then casually walks back and sinks into my stomach...
Recently, since I have been eating a lot, she stays in there like it is her home. Which it is. I suspect it works like my mindscape, where Gary and Barabas are actually training themselves too.
The space inside my mindscape, including the unknown doors, is immense, so they have plenty of room to live comfortably and even help solve some of my mental burden. The place is so big, you can find yourself immersed in a panorama, forgetting about the other four zones completely...
This I realized, is part of my race. Not a mental problem, but Elnora must have trillions of Elenora's consciousness in trees and insects around the world... For me, 5 minds in one human body is already not bad. Now I have two more, Gary and Barabas. They are actually strong and "change my mind" by being in there... Chuckle.
I consider them part of my mind now, while the things that forced themselves in during my evolution are not, like monsters meant to be chained or integrated, so I can gain some power back, and then surpass myself.
...
"Ok Shelly, I need to go in there," I say, pointing at the ocean, "and eat a lot of food. You should know some good spots, right? As long as there are lots of fish, crustaceans, bugs, algae, anything really. Food is food."
She slowly bobs her head and starts moving toward the beach. Since I feel good and calm, I simply walk beside her, watching the giant waves die down against the dark, wide, rocky shore.
The cold, dark blue water makes me shiver a little. In my old life, I never liked being at the surface when the water was too deep to see through. If you look down, there is only darkness and uncertainty waiting for you. At least when I dive, I am fine. The perspective feels different, less frightening to my brain, like the unknown makes more sense when I move straight into it.