Rise of the Godking - Chapter 85

Daneel drummed his fingers across his knuckles as they walked to the small room that once again held the outsider.

On the way, he dwelled more on what had happened before his little rest and the eventful things that had happened after. Without magic at his fingertips, he had almost felt handicapped, and now that this had been rectified, it felt as if the world was once again in his grasp.

The Will was powerful, yes, but at the end of the day, it was something external. Power from within was always that which gave the most confidence, and so, the moment he entered the room, an easy smile came to his face, but his cheeks burned when he remembered his dreams out of the blue, and how pleasant Coraline's body had felt.

Cursing at himself, he took a seat and waited for the man to talk. The outsider's pride had left him, replaced by the calm of a businessman intent on closing a deal.

He clasped and unclasped his fingers for a few moments, studying Daneel and probably thinking about the offer he was going to make. Using the system, Daneel had already counted the exact number of crystals present inside the vault. He had also taken the time after his shift in the Pit to talk to Madeira and find out exactly how much food and squirreled away crystals they had exchanged for the items they had bought from the man.

"This is an unprecedented situation. In the hundreds of islands that are outside the Mainland, it has probably happened in only one or two, and even then, I'm not sure whether the deal actually went through. What you ask for—" 

"Get to the point."



Daneel's brusque tone made the outsider grimace, then gulp, before forcefully making his hands fall still. He then spoke in a flat tone, and Daneel felt himself leaning forward with interest.

"For the sum of 5,000 processed crystals, I might be able to procure a crystal powered machine from the Mainland that can automatically dig out crystals from the mines."

Beside him, Daneel heard Reese suck in a sharp breath. His own brow furrowed, too, at the same time, due to the steep rate.

He had found out a few details about the details of the operation that went on in the town. A few of them he had already known. For instance, because he had been a slave, himself, he knew about the fact that the Pit had a daily quota of a hundred kilograms of crystals, which were turned into 500 blocks of processed crystals in the Refinery. There were hundreds of slaves and hundreds of refinery workers, after all, so this was a number that could be expected from the bottom two layers of Graiton.

Over a period of decades, the man had only managed to stockpile 10,000 processed crystals. If such a large chunk was taken away at such a crucial time…what would be the case if that brat of a kid appeared, and there weren't enough crystals to give him?

The town wasn't up to full production, yet, and from his calculations, they had two months, at most, before something would have to be done. During these two months, he would be able to supplement the lesser outputs of all three layers with what was present in the vault…but if he paid half of it to the outsider in front of him, then it might throw a wrench in everything. They would only be able to hang on for a month, which was just too short a period when lives were at stake.

Daneel pondered on it. One month might seem like a considerable amount of time, but he just couldn't bring himself to agree to the deal. If anything went wrong, the price was too high to pay, so finally, he said, "Unacceptable. Is a line of credit possible? We might be able to pay the amount over time."

A difficult look appeared on the outsider's face as Daneel said this. After glancing at Reese, he gave his answer in a measured tone, sounding as if he didn't want to give offense, but had no choice.

"Pardon me, but that is impossible. The future of any island where a revolution has happened is fraught with uncertainty. As such, we cannot expect you to remain in power for whatever period of time we decide on. And we have faced losses, before, where the new rulers refused to honor any deal we had made with those that they replaced. You can understand how they might have felt. In fact, we had to run away from that encounter, and since then, no credit has been accepted."

Daneel made a face and shook his head. What the man was saying made sense… but he needed the machine.

"As for the price, I'm afraid it cannot be lowered, either. I'm already giving you the best deal, and besides, I'm not even the one who will authorize it. I'll tell you this now, itself, so that there are no misunderstandings later. For a deal of this magnitude, my superior has to arrive and see that everything is in order."

Daneel's frown deepened, but he waved his hand and replied, "We can think about that later. It's just that—"

He paused when he felt Reese's hand on his shoulder. As he met the man's eyes, the healer nodded towards the door, and with a nod in reply, Daneel got up and walked out. 

Closing the door behind him, Reese looked at him for a few moments and said, "Harrold isn't the only noble in town, Daneel. He wasn't even the one in charge of the three layers. Different parts of the town were handled by different nobles, and you've already killed a lot of the most powerful ones. What I mean to say is… this isn't the only vault we have at our disposal. And besides… if you truly want the former slaves to find a new line of work, I expect that we'll need more than one machine. Let's tally the rest of the vaults, too, then talk to him. And because we're buying at least one, let's call the superior over. I know as well as you that we don't have too much time… so I suggest that we speed things up. And, er… I hope you don't think that I'm trying to take away your leadership. You earned it, and you're the one respected all over the town. I just thought that you might have missed this, so I spoke up."

Taken aback, Daneel looked at Reese's sheepish expression as he said the last part. He chuckled, then, and Reese raised his eyebrows, clearly not understanding what was passing through Daneel's mind. 

"You think too much, my old friend. Without you, I would have died on that first day. Leadership does not mean hoarding the heavy duty of taking decisions. Never hesitate to speak up. And besides… I never said I wanted to be a new master, either. The others need to understand this, too. As for what you said… you're completely right. I was too caught up in things, so I didn't notice this detail that was right in front of my nose. Let's go back in."

After clapping his friend on his shoulder and entering the room, Daneel shook his head once more and took a seat. He had meant what he had said to Reese: he really had not had the time to think about the other vaults as his mind was still being pulled in the direction of other issues such as the displeasure that was definitely present in the town, and even the rest of the mysteries regarding magic that he wanted to unveil. Given some time, he would have reached this conclusion, but he was glad that Reese had spoken up, and right away, he decided that he would be giving the man a lot more responsibilities from now. Over his time on Angaria, he had built a knack of identifying people who were suited to lead, and everything he had seen so far had convinced him that Reese was more than qualified based on both his past, and who he was now.

"Call your superior over. We might just end up buying more than one machine, and I would like to bargain with him, directly."

The outsider let out a sigh of relief as he heard Daneel. His hand went into his pocket and he took out a triangular object made out of what looked like purple glass, at first.

"Please lead me to the edge of the town. This thing will only work there. And can I borrow a processed crystal?"

He looked askance at Daneel as a response wasn't given even after half a minute passed. It was finally only with Reese's urging that Daneel nodded and rushed out of the room, excusing himself without giving an explanation.

He felt Reese's puzzled gaze on him, but at the moment, he couldn't care about anything else in the world… as the system had sent a notification that changed almost everything. 

After reaching the library again, Daneel gave the order for it to be repeated, and as the words echoed in his mind, he goggled at thin air as if it held the greatest treasure in the world.

[Communication device scanned. Possible method found to transmit stored power from Angaria to host's location.]