#040 – I’m retiring to live on a farm, guys

#040 – I’m retiring to live on a farm, guys

I approached the miniature tree with caution, wondering where it had come from.

Had someone sneakily planted it here while I’d been in the dungeon? Or was it something I had done? What would–

Oh.

Wait.

Hold on.

GonguuH: you left the fruit core in that spot

KaiEbikoOfficial: it rained too

Of course. The plants here ran on Ether. And I’d left the fruit core with seeds in it right next to the lake of Ether.

And then it had rained.

I’d grabbed the core later, but a seed must have fallen out of it at some point.

“Chat. Have I... Have I accidentally grown a tree?”

Still though, wasn’t that way too quick? It had only been a couple of days at most! How come it had grown this much already? Was it just the effects of Ether? But if the life ooze had such extreme effects, why wasn’t everything around it a total untraversable jungle?

Jeofffff: this is good tho, more food

KaiEbikoOfficial: oh that’s cool Nana!

Jeofffff: eventually

“Okaaay... Well, that’s cool! I guess those fruits would be healthier than eating infinite pizza all day, right?” I grinned and plopped down next to the sapling to take a closer look at it.

It was small enough for me to cradle in my hand and I did so.

“Actually, I still have the core, don’t I?” I said as excitement crept into my voice. “I knew the core would be useful for something one day!”

In hindsight, I should have thought about planting the seeds and trying to grow more of the fruit myself. But hey, I wasn’t going to complain about doing it accidentally.

“I still have the core! I should plant more of these seeds!”

I reached into my backpack and pulled out the fruit core.

It looked kinda grotesque and was probably starting to slowly rot at this point. Ugh. Did the backpack keep everything inside separated? I didn’t want my pizza getting rotten fruit chunks on it.

That aside, I snapped the core in half with my hands and picked out the seeds out of it before tossing the rest to the side.

“Any pro farmers in the chat? What are the optimal planting spots?” I idly asked without expecting to get any useful info back.

After all, they were just part of my subconscious. Everything they knew, I already knew myself..

Although... Hadn’t there been someone who’d given me tips on how to handle a sword? I hadn’t known how to handle weaponry at all. Had that also somehow been created by my subconscious?

Or was the chat real, after all?

Irid123: I have a friend who lives in the countryside

Jeofffff: maybe save the seeds until you know where you wanna make your base?

Irid123: she’s in chat rn

“Oh? Sorry, I still can’t read the normal chat.” I briefly glanced at the regular chat and thought I would have a seizure with how fast the messages surged through. “Ugh... Yeah. I guess I can invite her to the group chat?”

I hummed, thinking whether it was unfair to everyone else if I only invited specific people. I never liked people abusing connections to get ahead.

I shook my head.

No, what the heck was I thinking about? This person would be helping me with their knowledge. Helping me survive in this damn world. That was the whole point of the Streamer skill, wasn’t it? To have people of various backgrounds and with various skills give me advice and tips.

Assuming they were real.

“You know what?” I interrupted my own line of thinking. “I have an idea. I’m gonna keep the OGs group chat as is, but I’m gonna create more group chats for other things. Yeah, let’s do that!”

I opened up the good old menu and began creating a few new group chats.

One of them named ‘Farming’, another called ‘Fighting’, and a third one for ‘Detectives’.

“Okay! These three are enough for now. Not like I’ll be able to keep up with many more anyway... So! What’s your friend’s name, Irid? I’ll add her to the farming group chat. Oh, and if anyone else knows someone who knows their stuff, tell me!”

I idly poured the seeds from one hand to the other as I started organizing everything, adding people to the chats, and explaining my thought process.

“The fighting one is obvious. I’ll add... Uh. The person who told me about how to use the sword. What was their name again? SunOfABeach, right? Yeah. Welcome, Sun! You’re my personal combat advisor now!” I joked. “Aaand... Jeoff. You probably wanna be there too, right? Just so you can tell me all about minmaxing my build.” I jokingly scoffed, but added him regardless.

“Hmm. I had similar thoughts. I feel like crafting ultimate gear is a very... well, human playstyle, right? That’s probably what you’re meant to normally do as a human. The phoenix skills just give me an edge.”

I wasn’t going to complain. They had probably saved my life, after all.

But anyway, the blessing was only temporary. And although I could still use the fire skills even after I’d lost it, I wouldn’t be able to heal nearly as effectively from lighting myself on fire anymore. Even if I bought that one upgrade for Flameguard, it would only be half as effective.

On the other hand, tying items to my soul still sounded kind of uncomfortable. After all, my body may have completely changed and my mind might constantly be read and have mental switches added to it, but my soul was still untouched.

Assuming souls existed and it wasn’t just flavor text.

Well...

Even if it sounded uncomfortable, it was still better than dying, right? What was a bit of sticking things to my soul if it helped me survive?

“You know, I actually have enough points to buy Soulbound item and all of its upgrades right now. You guys think I should do it? It feels like it’s not that worth it right now...”

Jeofffff: are you going back there today?

“Umm...” I glanced toward where the dungeon was. “I dunno. I don’t really feel like it anymore... Actually, I don’t even need to go back there, do I? I only plunged in there because I had no food. But now I’ve got my infinite pizza and my tree farm!”

Once again, a wave of relief washed over me at that realization.

Jeofffff: ...

Jeofffff: so you’re never going to any dungeons again?

“Well, I didn’t say that! But... You know. I don’t need to rush it anymore. Heck, that quest gave me two whole weeks to clear a dungeon. It hasn’t even been a week and I feel like I’m already near the end! Like, I have to be, right? What else could there be at a water park?”

Just as I said that, I realized that I would probably be raising some dangerous flags if I was in a fictional story.

“And it’s a D-rank dungeon! It can’t get that much harder, right? How insanely difficult would the higher-rank dungeons be?!”

SunOfABeach: D rank could mean something different from what you expect

I grimaced.

“That’s true... Ugh, but still! Even if I fail that quest, it’s not the end of the world. It’s not like I’m gonna instantly die if I fail or anything!”

Why was I even arguing with them?

The constant fighting for my life had been exhausting and I just wanted a day off. I was no longer starving to death, so I could afford it.

And it wasn’t like I had streamed every single day back on Earth either. I would always have breaks even then.

So I would take a day off. Screw the haters.

SunOfABeach: no sorry you’re right

SunOfABeach: just playing the devil’s advocate

“All good, Sun! I just want a break, you know? This isekai business gets way too intense sometimes,” I joked.

While that happened, the Detectives group chat was trying to catch my attention. Apparently, they wanted me to invite a couple more smart people and, well, who was I to refuse?

FouxMoux and repeaeaeat joined the Detectives, and as soon as I added them, the conversation turned to something I had completely forgotten about.

repeaeaeat: ok so

repeaeaeat: the dedicated website where this is being streamed to

repeaeaeat: it doesn’t exist

Oh, right. There was some super special website just for the Streamer skill.

“What do you mean, it doesn’t exist?” I frowned.

repeaeaeat: it has no IP address

repeaeaeat: you can’t connect to it in any way, other than typing StreamerSkill.out in the URL

I tilted my head and frowned even deeper.

“That’s... weird, right? That shouldn’t be possible.”

repeaeaeat: it works anywhere on any device I tried even if it has no internet access

repeaeaeat: the data just appears out of nowhere

I blinked.

“Uh, right. That definitely shouldn’t be possible. What the heck? Is the Streamer skill hacking reality? Actually, yeah, the system is definitely hacking this world’s reality, at least. I just didn’t expect it to be hacking Earth’s reality too...”

Well, at least now I knew that, unless everything was a simulation, the two worlds were somehow connected.

I just wasn’t sure what exactly that meant.