Chapter 2 (Patreon)

Chapter 2

There is no known method for producing a masterwork magical building. Each one comes into existence through a masterful abuse of the system. A plan so manipulative it makes the impossible possible. My masterwork farm manor existed solely because the king needed to use Blackwood's abandonment order and the house upgrades I'd earned through various schemes to ensure Pavatin, his most promising royal architect, gained an epic threshold boon. It was a manipulation of the system so elegant it created a build that, while noticeably different from the one I grew up in, felt exactly the same.

It felt like home.

And I'd missed that feeling more than I would ever admit. Money, fame, women, and power don't make up for living without a place that feels like home. Don't get me wrong, they helped, but they don't fill the void. They just let you forget it's there.

In fact, my farm manor felt so much like my childhood home that I couldn't sleep in the master bedroom. Being in there felt like being in my parents' bedroom. The space, while familiar, didn't belong to me. It wasn't mine.

So, I'd moved into the room where my old bedroom was, and Salem had moved into the guest bedroom, understanding without being told because he'd experienced every moment of my life that I wasn't ready for anyone to sleep in my parents' or sister's bedrooms.

On the third morning after I'd spoken with Yaceb, as the sun began to rise through my bedroom window, I lay across the bed scribbling notes. Stacks of paper covered the space around me as I tried to recognise every way I could make myself miserable and come up with a plan to avoid it. I'd figured out numerous ways to avoid these pitfalls, but I was far from done.

The last time I was this obsessive with anything, I'd found a glitch that allowed Don and Charley to combine their attacks in a way Warlord's designers hadn't intended. Our team had ridden that glitch to win our one and only tournament, and I planned to do the same here, creating a happier life.

For three days, my mind had been running a mile a minute as I lay on my bed, scribbling down ways to make myself miserable and ways to avoid making those mistakes. There wasn't an easy answer for many of the things I put down, and some were entirely impossible to avoid, like being reincarnated again, but that didn't discourage me because life was finally beginning to make sense.

I'd always viewed life as a series of events, ones that were either positive or negative but ultimately were only short-lived. No one ever sat me down and said life was a game, and like with any game, there were strategies that could make you win or lose.

I mean, my parents had sat me down and explained why I needed to go to college, but they hadn't really explained that preparing for my future applied to everything. Not in words, at least. Looking back, their actions all pointed to them doing so, but they had never spelt it out for me, and I was too dense to pick up on that or too preoccupied with going pro to pay attention.

Yaceb had gone a step further than them and said we weren't all playing the same game and that what might work for one person wouldn't work for another. Then he'd given me the tools I needed to find out what game I was playing, so I was using those tools to the best of my ability. 

While I wrote down my latest idea, Salem opened his bedroom door, clutching the handle with his paws. Now that his familiar mark had been fully integrated into my body, he could change his form at will. He'd used that ability to restore his form to what he looked like when I first met him, a gorgeous midnight black cat with luscious short fur and a handsome face.

None of his features offered a hint of the raw power or intelligence held within his tiny form, and that was exactly how he liked it. Wandering around the village without being noticed was hard when you were larger and prettier than a regular cat should be. People would comment, rumours started, and then high-level individuals might get curious, making it difficult for him to visit Ranic when he wanted an intellectually stimulating conversation.

Salem dropped to the ground before crossing the hallway to my room and leaping onto a stack of papers at the end of my bed.

He gave my work a look of contempt. "I see you didn't get any sleep again."

"I'm too busy to sleep," I replied, scribbling notes.

Salem began to approach me, knocking any stack of paper that was in his way onto the floor with his paw. "That was what you said yesterday."

I lunged across the bed, catching the third stack of paper before they went everywhere. "Stop that."

Salem stopped, his control of his body overridden by my command, but he didn't lose his attitude. "Why should I? You don't need them. What you need is sleep."

I could feel his concern for me and his annoyance through the bond we shared. "I'm working."

"On what?"

"Living a happier life."

Salem groaned. "It's too early in the morning for me to deal with whatever stupidity you've concocted, Arnold."

I looked past him. "You know where the door is."

Salem ignored me and walked over to another stack of papers to rifle through. By the third page, I could sense him frowning.

"What exactly are you doing?" He finally asked.

"I'm finding all the ways to make myself miserable and then figuring out ways to prevent myself from taking these actions. Yaceb said if I can avoid self-sabotaging behaviours that make me miserable, I'll find it a lot easier to be happy."

"That is fairly decent advice."

"Will you leave me alone now?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Salem stared at me, our eyes nearly even with each other, and then he sighed. "Because you need sleep, Arnold."

"I'm fine."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not."

Salem scoffed. "I know you, Arnold, so you can't lie to yourself and say I don't. That means I know that somewhere among these scribblings is a note that says you need to get enough sleep to not be miserable. And I know that you are actively ignoring those words."

There was, but I wasn't going to admit he was right. "I'm a champion with absurd attributes. I can get by with missing a few night's sleep."

"But can you do so without being miserable? Judging by your hostility towards me, I would say no."

Someone had clearly woken on the wrong side of the bed. "You knocked my work onto the floor. Of course, I'm going to be hostile."

Salem rolled his eyes and took a seat. "Unless you've somehow lost all the intelligence you've gained since we met, everything you've written down now resides in your memories. Memories which you can navigate through more quickly than you can sort through this mess. This means these papers are nothing but physical reminders of the work you have done, making them trash. Now, I could understand your hostility to knocking them off your bed if you hadn't already been using your floor for waste disposal, but your room is an utter mess, so one must assume your hostility is coming from your exhausted mental state, not my actions."

I was too tired to deal with this. "Or maybe you're just being an asshole?"

"Go to sleep, Arnold. You will thank me when you wake up."

"Like I said, I've got too much work to do."

"Work that will be waiting for you when you wake up refreshed."

"I'm on the cusp of recognising something important."

Salem scoffed again. "That is just your exhausted brain deluding you into thinking you are being productive when you are really too tired to think straight. Be honest. Have you come up with anything significant since I went to bed?"

My mind automatically went back through everything I'd figured out during the night and categorised it all as possible but highly unlikely to occur. Pulling information out of those with perfect recall was a skill, and Salem was a master. He was also right. I wasn't being productive. I just felt like I was.

Before I could tell him that he was right, Salem's earlier comment about knowing me repeated in my head, and I realised I wasn't the only one here who knew the things I did that made me miserable. I had an excellent second opinion sitting right before me.

I started to smile.

Salem groaned.

"If you want me to sleep, why don't you take over for me? You should be able to do this as easily as I can."

"That is out of the question."

"Why not?"

"Yaceb is trying to teach you emotional maturity, and you are trying to push that learning experience onto me, which completely defeats the purpose."

That wasn't a bad reason to turn me down, but that didn't stop me from trying to use reverse psychology. "You probably wouldn't understand how to do it anyway."

Salem chuckled. "The fact that you think that might have worked should show you how tired you are. And I understand what you're trying to achieve. I go to great lengths to make sure I do not dwell in misery myself."

I frowned. "How?"

Salem swished his tail. "I sleep."

Ever since I'd gained the farmer's rest promotion, Salem had been sleeping from sunset to sunrise. He also had numerous naps throughout that day. He slept more than he was awake if he got the chance to, which surprised Misk because, during his time at the academy, Salem had never slept.

"I've been meaning to ask you about that. Misk said you never used to sleep."

Salem dropped his gaze and sighed. "That was once true. Now dreams are my only escape from reality and the pain it causes me." There was a sadness to his words that I rarely heard from him. It quelled some of my annoyance.

"Are you alright?"

"No, Arnold. The nature of my existence was fundamentally altered, introducing sorrow where none should exist. I will never be okay so long as I remain in this reality."

"Then why stay here?"

"Because I have a mission to complete. So, I endure, keeping my misery at bay anyway I can, like a reasonable individual."

"Does this have something to do with our bond?"

He shook his head. "My nature was altered before we met. If anything, our bond has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Because of you, I can sleep more than I ever could before."

"I'm pretty sure you've told me numerous times that I shouldn't run away from your problems."

"I am not running from my problems. I am running to the solution. In this form, I can dream. And in those dreams, if I am fortunate, Maraveer is there to greet me. Allowing me a few blissful moments free from the sorrow and pain his absence fills me with."

I scratched the back of my head. "That's not a healthy way to deal with grief."

"I would agree with you if I were human, but my existence is so fundamentally different from your own that I have no other choice."

"Why not?"

"Despite everything you know, you're understanding of reality is still too limited for me to explain the nature of my existence to you."

"The system prevents you from telling me."

"Yes."

That sucked. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Yes, but you would not be willing to do what I need you to do?"

"Try me."

"The only way you could help me would be to choose the fastest method you can to pass through your farmer threshold and then claim all the completed classes you have access to."

I wasn't going to do that, but I was curious why he needed me to do that. "Why do you need me to get stronger?"

"Because you growing stronger will make me strong enough to confront the creature Maraveer summoned for me. Once I have removed the threat it poses to this world, I can leave this reality and return to mine."

"Wait, you're the reason the demon lord was summoned?"

Salem sighed.

"Why would you want to summon a demon lord?"

"I did not have Maraveer summon a demon lord. The term demon lord is just your translation ring mistranslating."

I hated it when this happened. "Then what did you summon?"

"My father."

I had so many questions. "Is he a fallen angel? Is that why the translation ring translated it as demon lord?"

Salem groaned. "Once again, I am not an angel. That form was forced upon me by the system because it is the closest concept you understand to what my true existence is. However, for this analogy, you are close enough to the truth to proceed. In my reality, my father lies asleep in a medical facility, his mind corrupted by a sapient parasite. Our people know of no way to remove the parasite from his consciousness without the procedure killing him, so I came to your reality to bend the rules."

"I'm assuming mind control evil parasite in this scenario?"

"Yes."

"How did our reality change the rules?"

"Maraveer was supposed to summon them and give them separate physical forms. My intent was to install a mental command in the parasite which would force it to leave my father's body willingly when their minds were returned to our reality, freeing him from its influence without his demise."

"Something obviously went wrong."

"I had not accounted for the chance that the parasite had previously been to this reality or interacted with the system that governs this world. The moment they arrived, the system provided them with a single physical form, which was then upgraded to the peak of what the system could offer. Maraveer was an academic, not a warrior, so he was not prepared to confront such a powerful being, even when it was disorientated. He perished in the battle, and now I must live with the grief of losing my only friend."

"It sounds like it wasn't your fault he died."

"I'm well aware of that. I don't blame myself or him. We spent decades preparing for that moment. We did not walk into the summoning blind."

"Yet, you can't get over it."

"Once again, I am not human. I do not process things the way you do. My people do not experience grief. We have no way of processing the emotion. I feel his loss now as intensely as the moment I first lost him and the moment I first missed him, along with every other moment of pain. The only way for me to free myself from this misery is to return to my reality."

"And that requires you to remove the threat you brought here and save your father."

"Yes."

I could understand why he wanted me to get stronger, but there were too many people depending on me to do as he asked. "I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to help you in that way."

"I know, which is why I've never asked you to.

A small bell chimed from the kitchen.

My ghost had become significantly better at predicting when we would wake after the housekeeper upgrade, but she had also come with all sorts of problems. She was supposed to be a blank slate, but due to how she had come about, she had many of her former behaviours. Behaviours which Salem had to train out of her. It was a slow process, and I was still sleeping with a ward in my room. I was happy that the daily offers of back rubs had finally stopped, but she still smacked ass every time I walked past her.

"Your breakfast is getting cold," I said, trying to change the subject.

"My breakfast can wait. If I leave you to your own devices, you'll be awake for another week."

Salem seemed to want to end the conversation, too, so I was happy to oblige. "I need to do this."

"Why?"

"I finally feel like I'm gaining some control over everything that's happened to me."

Salem walked over and placed his paw on my shoulder. "Let me give you some advice, Arnold. You're procrastinating. You're procrastinating because you're terrified that Yaceb's advice won't work for you, so you're finding every excuse not to step outside your bedroom to begin implementing the plans you've created."

That was not what I wanted to hear because it hit too close to home. "This is important," I said defensively.

"It is, but it is not the sort of work that needs to be done all at once. You have dozens of things you can implement which will improve your life, so thinking of more right now will not get you any closer to your goal."

When he put it like that, I had to admit I was procrastinating.

I sighed. "Any other advice?"

"Start with the solutions which are quickest to implement. Those small successes will motivate you to take larger steps."

I reached for the list I'd been making. It wasn't categorised by shortest to longest like Salem suggested, but there was something he might be willing to help me with. It sat at the top of my list because it was the easiest to fix. The second item on my list was to find players for a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign. 

"Can you do this for me?"

Salem stared at the list. "Why do you want me to design an educational program for you?"

Ever since his familiar mark had fully bonded with me, Salem had been more honest. He'd never truly lied to me in the past, but he did phrase things, so I came to the wrong conclusion.

"I'm tired of children in this world knowing things I don't. Every time it happens, I feel like an idiot, and I hate feeling that way. You know where the gaps in my knowledge are, so I figured you might be able to design the perfect curriculum so it doesn't take me so long to catch up."

"Stop behaving like a fool, Arnold. If you truly were an idiot, you never would have been able to accomplish what you have. Yes, you are ignorant in areas, but that ignorance rarely prevents you from doing anything. I made sure you learned everything you needed to thrive here."

"I know, but you didn't teach me everything I needed to know not to make a fool of myself."

"Once again, no one who works with you considers you a fool, but I understand how this would bother you. And not having to listen to your inane rumination will please me greatly. I'll have Ranic organise classes for you by the end of the day so long as you go to sleep."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Thank you."

I picked up my pen and placed a tick next to: Stop being ignorant and go back to school. Now, I needed to find players for a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign.

I looked up. "You can go."

Salem continued to stare at me. "After you're asleep. Otherwise, the moment I leave, you will continue procrastinating."

"I thought you were joking."

"No. You were hoping I was joking. Now go to sleep."

I glanced at the tick on my page and decided that his help was worth a little shut-eye. Blindly trying to fill in gaps in my knowledge without his help could add months of unnecessary study. I might be tired, but I wasn't so exhausted that I'd make that mistake. Besides, I could get back to work the moment I woke from my nap.

I put the list with the other important papers on my bedside table, cleared the bed by tossing everything onto the floor, and climbed under the covers.

I'd barely closed my eyes before sleep took me.