Might as Well - Chapter 382 (Patreon)

The video ended with Tim and his team rendezvousing outside Stonegrave, with only a few people missing. Katie and Isabella were practically glowing, while Dan was furiously writing in a notebook, occasionally muttering to himself.

Tim did a final check with everyone, then the screen turned dark.

Sam leaned back on the couch, letting the ideas and thoughts percolate in his mind as his hand rose and he started scratching his chin.

The entire operation had been an overwhelming success.

The Blood Army had egg on their face thanks to the video he published during the interview. The morale of his own side was through the roof, also thanks to the same interview, and Tim had managed to lead a successful operation throughout the entire event.

The operation had managed to bury half a dozen fractures under almost a mile of rubble, with a few hidden surprises left behind for anyone attempting to excavate them. Though it would later become a problem when the fractures eventually overflowed and broke, creating a new Monster Break, that was a future problem for the future Sam. For now, he was just happy he had denied those fractures to the Blood Army.

Tim and his team had also destroyed several warehouses, both big and small, ruining the work of weeks or even months. According to the messages Tim had sent, there was a chance the destroyed materials, which were mostly alchemical ingredients, would have a strange reaction after being buried, but once again, everything was trapped beneath miles of rock and stone.

Still, Sam made a note to set up routine checks of the location to make sure nothing… strange happened.

And now he and his team would have to prepare for the counterstrike from the Blood Brothers.

After erasing Roserun from existence, causing chaos and destruction in Madspire, and crushing Stonegrave in practically the same month…

‘They must be seething…’ he mused.

He was broken out of his thoughts by a poke to his side. Jumping slightly, he glanced toward the source of the poke.

“Oh, hey! What’s up?” he asked.

Lucy looked at him curiously. “What are you thinking about?”

“Dinner,” he said cheekily.

She slapped his shoulder lightly. “Ass.” Then she smiled. “About the operation?”

Sam grinned. “Come on… say the name.”

Lucy let out a tired sigh. “Fine… About Operation Nutcracker?”

Sam couldn’t help but giggle a little. Coming up with a suitably demeaning name for the operation had been great fun.

Lucy just sent him a look, and he stopped giggling. “Right. Right… so we need to set up some juicy targets for the Blood Army. I’m sure they have already marked strategic locations for revenge strikes. But if we create a few hotspots, we can funnel their attention.”

She grinned at him. “Already ahead of you.”

She leaned over the armrest of the couch and picked up something before handing it over. It was a tablet they usually used to display important information during private planning sessions. It was heavily encrypted and hardened against enemy action.

Lucy leaned against him as he turned on the tablet and began pointing things out while she brought up a map application.

“I foresaw this issue and coordinated with Adam, and we put together several hidden depots,” she explained as she pointed them out on the map.

“Wouldn’t they realize they’re traps after what we did? After all, we just annihilated one of their depots,” Sam said as he tried to pretend he didn’t enjoy Lucy leaning against him.

Lucy grinned and held up her hand in a victory sign. “That’s the neat part. We’re actually using them. We had most of our infiltrators directed there.”

Sam stared at the map for a few seconds, his eyes moving between the marked locations and the information Lucy had prepared. It was exactly the kind of deception he enjoyed: turning the enemy’s assumptions against them.

Sam couldn’t help but smile. “You learned well.”

“Hehe…” Lucy giggled, clearly pleased by the compliment. “I had a good teacher.”

Sam rolled his eyes slightly, though the smile never left his face. “You’re giving me too much credit.”

“Am I?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “I seem to remember somebody doing the exact same thing time and time again, while playing the expectations of his enemies…”

“Okay, maybe I did do that.”

Lucy smiled triumphantly and leaned a little closer against him.

He looked back at the tablet, pretending to study the map, but the warmth of the moment made it difficult to focus. Seeing her so in tune with him, already anticipating his ideas, while also improving them filled him with pride.

“That’s why I love you…” he muttered softly.

“What was that?”

Sam froze as he registered what he had just said.

Lucy’s warm body leaning against him froze for a microsecond as she waited silently for his answer. The moment stretched forever as adrenaline surged through his body and he considered every possible angle.

Should he lie? Should he pretend he hadn’t said anything?

At that moment, any and all clever responses left his head. Then another thought occurred to him.

What if he didn’t do that? Would that be so bad?

It was an odd dilemma. He had approached Lucy because he wanted to make use of her skills and abilities, but somewhere along the way, it had turned into a partnership that brought him nothing but comfort.

At this point, he couldn’t even imagine doing this without her.

Not because he couldn’t find someone else with her skills, but because the idea of Lucy not sitting at that desk, doing paperwork grumpily, telling him that he was stupid, or leading politicians around by the nose felt wrong.

Feelings that had been roiling around in his head for a long time suddenly crystallized in his mind.

He took a deep breath.

“I said that’s why I love you,” he said, much louder this time.

Sam could feel Lucy’s body press a little closer against him as he felt her smile, even though his eyes remained firmly fixed on the tablet.

“Good,” she said quietly. “Because I love you too.”

Sam returned to the game in an excellent mood.

He spent a bit of time running around and dealing with things he had let lapse while he was busy with Roserun and everything related to it.

He also spent a few solid hours playing with Lucky, reviewing the wolf’s skills, planning out new strategies, and having the silly wolf practice them while he experimented. He really wanted to see if he could recreate Lucky’s shadow teleportation ability.

Sadly, the end result was little more than a training field covered in pockmarks where his void magic had exploded. He did figure out a few neat tricks that streamlined his spellcasting, but there was no luck in creating a teleportation spell with void magic.

Which wasn’t really a surprise.

Teleportation and transportation magic were both incredibly rare and complicated. It was almost the pinnacle of space magic if you followed the traditional route. Using any other mana nature only increased the difficulty exponentially.

That was why the gate system Master Fitzgerald was building was so important. It would fundamentally change how countries operated, how wars were conducted, and what distance even meant.

Lucy and the rest of the finance department had been preparing for the changes it would bring ever since he had revealed its existence. The economic gains from simply being connected to other major cities were almost incalculable.

Being connected to other countries – or even continents?

Lucy had sworn him to secrecy, but one of the people working for her – one of those math-savant types – had practically creamed themselves when they finished the exploratory research.

After deciding that, for now, transportation with void magic would elude him, he played with Lucky for a while, letting several onlookers join in. Apparently, while they didn’t really recognize Sam from a distance, the moment they spotted Lucky, they recognized the wolf.

He watched with amusement as people actually lined up to hug the silly wolf and take pictures and videos with him. Lucky even accepted requests, changing his size depending on what people wanted.

Some wanted to hold him in their laps while he was the size of a plushie, while others wanted to stand on his back as Lucky towered over the training ground.

Watching a giant wolf hug a dozen people at the same time was a bit surreal. He had a maw large enough to swallow an adult whole, yet his tongue lolled happily from his mouth, and his tail wagged so enthusiastically that the gusts it generated sent smaller people stumbling backward. Somehow, despite looking like the perfect apex predator, he was the exact opposite of scary.

Meanwhile, Sam was also approached by a bunch of people asking for pictures or asking him about the interview with Mariann or the destruction of Roserun.

Several people tried to trick him into revealing how he had “actually” infiltrated the city. They left in a huff when he kept insisting it had only been a ladder and sheer incompetence on the enemy’s part.

Naturally, that led to people asking to see the ladder.

He pulled the ladder from his inventory and let people gawk at it.

However, when he placed the ladder on the ground, something odd happened.

A collective gasp rippled through the crowd.

Sam frowned as the gathered onlookers rapidly activated their information-gathering skills on the ladder. Curious, he checked its description as well.

The ladder looked exactly as it had when he had used it back in Roserun. Yet the longer he stared at it, the more he could have sworn it was giving off a faint glow.

[Ladder of Lies: (Unique Legendary) A ladder that gained a legend of its own. Being the target of adulation from countless millions has granted this ladder special powers. It is indestructible, and if you tell a lie while holding it, people will believe you much more easily.

Curse: While it is technically indestructible, that is only from a certain point of view. If it is used to attack or damage something, it will behave exactly like a normal ladder. Whoever breaks it will suffer the Curse of Misfortune.

Curse of Misfortune: For seven days, your Luck cannot rise above zero. Every hour, it will fluctuate between 0, -7, -49, -77, or, in the worst case, -777.]

‘Wow… that’s…’ he thought as he reread the description.

Judging by the gasps and exclamations around him, plenty of other people were reading the same thing.

“I’ll buy it!” someone shouted from the crowd.

“No! I want it! Ten thousand!” another person yelled.

“Twenty!”

“Thirty!”

Soon, the small area next to the training ground devolved into chaos as the rabid crowd began throwing out higher and higher numbers, all of them staring at the legendary item and drooling at the prospect of owning it.

Sam could only stare in disbelief. Honestly, if he were a normal gamer, he would probably sell it just to get rid of the enormous target this item had put on his back, but fortunately, he was very far from what people would call normal.

So, he simply picked up the item as people continued yelling out increasingly ridiculous amounts of money and put it away. As he stared into the crowd, he noticed that several people were actually contemplating attacking him for it. Yet his fame and reputation were enough to stop even the most impulsive among them.

However, as Sam had no desire to enact a massacre in the middle of Ferabor, he beat a hasty retreat. With a quick whistle, he recalled Lucky, much to the dismay of a…

‘Wait. Is that the pop band Killin Love? What the hell are they doing here?’ he thought as he saw who Lucky was interacting with before shaking his head and using his many speed-enhancing skills to vanish from sight.

There were still people who tried to follow him, but after a few tricks, he was once again alone.

He stood on the roof of a building, looking over the city he had helped build.

“I wonder what Cynthia is doing…” he muttered. “I’m sure she would be happy for a training session.”

Clarissa’s sister was very talented and had some great ideas about how to use her skills. He wanted to see what heights she could reach if he sprinkled in some of his future knowledge.

“Now, where could I find some dragon blood…” he mused aloud as he began heading toward the area where he knew Cynthia used to rest, while simultaneously firing off a message to the girl.

A/N: Yes. Yes I did it. Let's gooo~~~