After personally seeing gan and Amber off, Magnus slipped the day’s harvested Crystals into the black tattoo space. He stood by the door briefly, listening to the chatter of the won inside, still caught up in talk about rewards. Then he left alone, checked all around to make sure no one was watching, circled to the side of the house, quickly stripped, crushed a Water Crystal in his hand, and quietly rinsed himself off.
By morning, the villagers had finished cooking the first batch of stead rice. The iron pot was only so big - feeding 2,500 people ant staggered als. Two hours later, with everyone fed, Ashton, Molly, and Lucy led the teams back to the mountain. The villagers returned to work on lunch prep.
Those three took the morning shift supervising the dig. gan and Amber would take over at noon. Magnus didn’t go with them today. He got up later, sat on the edge of the bed, lit a smoke, and just stared off, empty-minded... thinking about Ice Regint’s future. mories from his previous life flickered through his head.
He only survived nine months in his last life after the apocalypse. Two teor showers. The first hit five hours before it all started - before the red light ca down from the sky, bringing those monsters with it.
The second? That was the day Magnus died. That one ca fast. Less than two hours from first impact to his death.
Was there a pattern between the teor showers and that red light? If not, why was there never a single teor before the apocalypse, and then suddenly they’d rain down in swarms?
But if there was a connection... what was it? Maybe every ti teors fall, exactly five hours later, the red light appears. And from that light, the apocalypse creatures start crawling out...
Too bad, the second ti he didn’t live long enough to see what happened after those two hours.
Lately, though, his mind was tangled. Too many things were off. He awakened a second ti in the Anomaly Zone. Crimson rain showed up early. Then ca that teor mountain - all these things, he never saw in his past life.
And then the Springvale City troops, the Ridgebreak Battalion, the air raid shelters, underground grain storage - all of it, new to this life. His path was already completely different from before.
His thoughts were a ss. He didn’t even know what he was thinking anymore when gan and Amber knocked at the door and ca in.
They had the morning off and had just eaten. With nothing better to do, they figured they’d co chat.
There was one thing they’d been wondering about - they couldn’t figure out where the crystals from the last four days had gone. There were dozens of rice sacks full of them. Could he have lost them sohow?
The two searched the whole place - the outdoor kitchen, the bed, even inside the stove. No crystals.
Seeing them co in, Magnus just smiled, got up, and pulled two bottles of green tea from a cabinet, tossing one to each of them. They’d worked hard these last few days; he hadn’t done much of anything.
After so many als of plain rice and leaf soup, seeing green tea made them happy. They cracked them open and took big gulps before kicking off their shoes and climbing up on the bed.
Amber, always the more lively one - with long legs and a sharp energy - pulled off her helt, shook out her hair, and folded her legs beneath her. She looked at Magnus, then at gan, who gave her a wink. Amber hesitated, then asked, "Captain, there’s sothing and gan have been dying to ask."
Magnus lit another cigarette and sat cross-legged across from them, nodding with a small smile. "Go ahead."
Under his gaze, Amber hesitated for a beat, then said, "We’ve been puzzled... Where did you stash all the crystals we dug up? You didn’t lose ’em, did you?"
"We didn’t an anything by it. We were just worried the place you hid them might not be safe," gan quickly explained.
Magnus smiled faintly. "They’re stored properly. Very safe." He knew the two had no bad intentions, just plain curiosity, but there was no way to explain the space tattoo.
Amber glanced at gan, both even more puzzled now. Just then, a knock ca from outside. Alex’s voice rang out, calling Magnus’s na. Given most inside were resting won, and he was a man, it wasn’t fitting for him to just barge in.
Amber looked to Magnus, who gave her a nod. She got up and brought Alex into the house from the outer kitchen. Alex stepped in, smiling as his eyes swept the room. Seeing only two girls fully dressed, he flopped down on the bed with a grin, rubbing his hands. "Captain Magnus, you taking it easy?"
Magnus tossed him a cigarette with a smirk. "Got sothing on your mind, old man?"
"Heh..." Alex chuckled awkwardly, scratching his head. "Well, yeah, a little sothing..."
"Speak straight," Magnus said, tossing him a lighter. Alex caught it quickly, lit the smoke, took a deep drag, then said sheepishly, "It’s just... you guys have dug up quite a haul of crystals these days - bagfuls of them. And our folks, well..."
"Old man," Magnus cut in, pretending to frown, "we had a deal when we ca - one cart of grain for two crystals and the intel you gave us. Now you tell , how much grain did we give you? Enough to last the village twenty years, right?"
"Yes, yes! That grain - more than enough, way more than we asked for," Alex nodded rapidly, "but... Captain Magnus..."
He grimaced and continued, "Can’t you cut us so slack? Look, two Water Crystals ain’t enough for the handful of old folks we have. They don’t know how to seal them like you Awakened..."
Magnus understood that. These villagers couldn’t seal crystal energy like he could. Two crystals wouldn’t last them. Considering he’d already dug up nearly a thousand by now, giving out a few more wasn’t a big deal.
He had planned to hand them out when they left, but since Alex showed up, he might as well hear him out.
Alex kept up, "These days, we’ve done nothing else but cook for you - hot als every day... Captain Magnus, could you spare just two more Water Crystals? Just two more, that’s all."
"Two more water stones?" Magnus snorted lightly. "Fine."
He stood up, casually turned to rummage in a cabinet by the bed, slipped two Water Crystals from his space, and handed them over. "Here, take these two. When we leave, you’ll get the other two as agreed. We won’t short you."
"Great! That’s great!" Alex could barely contain his grin, carefully tucking the crystals into his coat. Grinning ear to ear, he bowed his thanks to Magnus before saying, "You’re a generous man, Captain. We country folk from Willowglen Village won’t be outdone either."
With that, he jumped up and headed to the kitchen, returning with two big woven sacks, one in each hand.
"Captain, take a look at what I brought you..."
Magnus glanced inside and froze. "Alex! Is this... ginseng?"
User Comments
0 comments from readers