"Ding Dong! We found the solution to your previous problem, congratulations!" Heekapoo cheered exaggeratedly toward Kaito when he finished speaking.
"She really is annoying" Kaguya sighed.
"Ignore her, let's not talk about me. Tell me what has happened in the territory since I left" Kaito said, ignoring the overly amused personification of his magic.
"Well, about that..."
"Did something happen?" Kaito frowned when he saw Kaguya's expression.
"A... lot of things happened" she replied. "There are some things I think it's better to wait until you return to tell you, but I'll tell you the most important ones.
First of all, we finally finished conquering the low level area of the forest, and since you were absent, the rewards were delivered to me.
We won one gold chest, dozens of silver ones, and way too many bronze ones. Among the rewards were many sets of armor with special effects that we distributed among our most trusted subordinates.
There were also many blueprints for common facilities such as mansions, multi story buildings, single family houses, residential complexes, various shops, supermarkets, warehouses, workshops, restaurants, cafés, inns, taverns, farms, stables, barns, mills, blacksmiths, bakeries, butcher shops, clinics, schools, libraries, port warehouses, small factories, gas stations, and storage facilities..."
"Alright, I get it already" Kaito interrupted her, certain that Kaguya had memorized the entire list of buildings.
"Well, in short, a lot of things" Kaguya said embarrassedly. "There were also some rare minerals that we used to upgrade everyone's armor, a huge amount of gold, way too much. And lastly, but more importantly, Towers. There's one that summons dark elves, one that improves magical talent across the entire area, one that improves physical talent, one that improves personality, one that improves work efficiency, three related to gods, one dedicated to the Goddess of the Moon that improves both talent and power in shadow magic, another dedicated to the God of Fire that does the same, and a final one dedicated to the Goddess of Space, with the same functions as the previous ones.
More importantly, we received many empty Towers, I think they ran out of ideas.
These Towers interact with whatever you decide to place inside them and transform accordingly.
For example, Yukinoshita synchronized her special weapon with one. The Tower transformed into something called the Tower of Freezing, capable of extinguishing any fire, including attacks, natural flames, and even beings made of or composed of fire below level 5 within the territory once per day.
Most importantly, after interacting with Ysh, the Space Fairy, they turned into empty Space Towers, capable of opening a spatial gate to a selected location through a special method. But the best part is that, without using the destination space I just mentioned, they can also open portals to each other, allowing travel between the Towers at any time.
We placed..."
"An empty Space Tower?" Kaito interrupted.
"Yes, is something wrong?" Kaguya asked.
"I got a reward before in the Min... infinite resources world.
It's a medal that, as long as I place it inside an empty Space Tower, will open a gate to a dungeon identical to the infinite resources world."
"That's amazing. Infinite resources at our disposal." Kaguya nodded excitedly, however, she wasn't the one with the strongest reaction.
"WHAT?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" In the blink of an eye, Lala, who had been silently listening to everyone until now, even when they were talking about her father, was already standing beside Kaito, looking at him excitedly.
"Yeah, what hap..."
"AMAZING! KAITO, I LOVE YOU!"
Without letting Kaito finish, Lala excitedly interrupted him before kissing him passionately.
A few seconds later Lala pulled away, then copied Chika's pose on the other side, happily wrapping her arms around his as if she were a girlfriend who had just received the greatest gift in the world from her boyfriend.
"Why are you so excited?" he asked in confusion.
"Kaito, Redstone! It's Redstone!" Lala said, unable to contain her excitement. "Do you know what that is? Infinite energy with variable output!"
When she saw that Kaito didn't understand, Lala explained.
"Using some Redstone dust, you can create a Redstone Block. I tested it before, and it works as a power source.
But here's the incredible part, not only is this energy inexhaustible, its output depends entirely on what it's being used for.
Normally, you can't use one power source for everything. Something with too much power would damage small devices like phones or televisions, while something with too little power couldn't run an oil refinery or a space elevator.
But with Redstone Blocks, the output is always exactly what's needed for whatever they're powering.
With this, we could create anything, even those huge, inefficient dolls you asked me for once."
"You mean mechs?" Kaito asked in surprise.
"Those, call them whatever you want. Normally those things are an incredible waste of energy. Their enormous bodies are basically giant targets, their defenses are mediocre, their movement is slow, their weapons are limited, their abilities are almost usel..."
"Alright, I get it, you don't like mechs" Kaito interrupted her.
"The point is that if we can even power those walking energy guzzlers, then we can power anything. There's no limit to what we can supply with energy, it's literally the perfect power source.
Kaito, you've just given us access to the future. There isn't another energy source like this in the entire universe. You're incredible! I love you! Marry me!"
"A alright, you're starting to embarrass me" Kaito said, stopping her. "And that's the plan anyway."
"Hehe." Lala smiled and hugged his arm even tighter as she leaned against him.
"Continue" Kaito said, turning his attention back to Kaguya.
"Ahem, right. As I was saying, we now have Towers that function as a teleportation network.
We placed eight of them, one in each cardinal region, and around each one we merged the three villages of that region into a single large city.
This was in preparation for our next problem. The noble houses of the Dark Forest attacked, and we've officially entered a full scale war. Luna is currently staying in the territory with us.
In addition to the teleportation network and the eight cardinal cities, I also increased the number of summons, raising them from a little over ten thousand to one hundred thousand using the gold from the previous rewards.
However, I don't think it was actually necessary because they are... very weak.
With two houses, Shadeward and Darkfrost, on our side, one, Barak, already having its entire military force destroyed, and the Ashens enjoying their noble life as the new royal family without stepping onto the battlefield, that only left four noble houses and their armies as enemies, as well as the royal army, which isn't actually fighting seriously due to its lack of loyalty toward the Ashens and its respect for Luna.
Because of that, despite the enemy's force numbering seventy million, one tenth of the total Dark Elf population of the Black Forest, their effective strength was greatly reduced, and it was fairly easy to defend ourselves and then counterattack with only our one hundred thousand troops. Although summoning so many high ranking demons basically left us broke once again.
At this point we've practically conquered the entire mid level area where the battle took place, and the enemy army continues retreating, choosing instead to fortify the high level zones and use them as strongholds.
I could tell you more about each house's powers and their important members, but it doesn't seem necessary right now.
Then, back on Earth, the Union has launched quite a few provocative attacks against us. It seems they're trying to test our strength.
Even though Lucifer and all of his associates are now wanted by the authorities, no one dares approach the Shinomiya family's territory or even say anything. I've also spoken with many lower ranking families and secretly established connections with them.
Speaking of that, the Hanazono family is said to be quite important in the Sacred Forest. I've tried to contact them, but apparently they refuse to speak with anyone except you for some reason."
"Ah."
'That's my fault.'
Chika and Kaito realized what had happened at the same time, but neither of them chose to explain.
"So, although it was quite difficult, it wasn't because of the difficulty itself, but because of the sheer amount of things that had to be done. Honestly, our current strength is far above average. Every now and then people from the Union would come and cause some destruction, but as soon as I arrived, I killed them all instantly.
Speaking of that, I met Makima recently. She came to the territory worried about you, or about her own interests connected to you. It seems the Union has no intention of starting an open war against us right now, not only because of our strength, but also because their style is to manipulate everything from the shadows.
Besides..."
...
"That's... a lot of information to take in" Kaito said after Kaguya finished explaining everything that had happened over the past few weeks. "Still, it seems like you can handle everything without me, right?"
"N-no? Why does it sound like you're trying to leave everything to us?" Kaguya asked in confusion.
"I'm not saying I'm leaving. I just want to leave everything related to the territory and the Black Forest to you for a while since you don't seem to need me.
Instead, I'll focus on increasing my own strength for the future threats. My plan is to use the Dimensional Scissors to travel to dead worlds and kill shadow figures. I've already told you about the incredible amount of experience they give."
"But..."
"Of course I'm not leaving or anything like that" Kaito immediately said. "I'll just go there every day for a while. And whenever you need me because of the situation in the Black Forest, I'll come back immediately, so don't worry."
"...I suppose that's fine if that's your decision" Kaguya nodded. "But! I want to go sometimes too. I also want to become stronger."
"Me too" Mashiro added.
"And me" Megumi said as well.
As for Lala and Ai, one wasn't focused on fighting while the other only cared about her inventions.
Kaito looked at Chika. "What about you?"
"There's no need" Chika immediately refused, waving her hands.
"But your strength seems to be the same as last time" Kaito said, noticing her rather weak magical energy.
"And whose fault do you think that is?" Chika complained with a pout. "Maria has been teaching me the theory, but I can't put any of it into practice, so of course I haven't improved!"
"You can't put it into practice? Why?"
"Obviously because you weren't here" Chika said indignantly. "Instead of going to some dangerous place, help me put everything Maria has taught me into practice"
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)