Chapter 378 Mathew's Mental Restriction



"Caveat this, limited time that," Nadia chimed in the discussion by slightly mocking Mathew's words. "Mathew, listen," she said as soon as she approached her man close enough.

Nadia then climbed up on the tips of her toes while reaching out with her hands for Mathew's head. Nadia pressed her hands against the young man's cheeks, securing his head in place just for her to climb even higher and strike his forehead with her own.

"There was never a need for you to try to coax us into helping you out," Nadia whispered, banking on the direct proximity to carry her lowered voice. "So if you want us to go and do something, just tell us what."

'Is it the aftershock of my previous breakdown?' Mathew thought, strangely suspicious of the chance in Nadia's behavior.

She was the one who was the biggest reason behind Mathew's attempt at pulling the girls into the decision-making process. And now she was admitting that they would all go wherever Mathew would send them… just because?

'That has to be it,' Mathew thought; his looks softening up a bit.

"All I know is that in order to access this other world, we need to develop this place," Mathew revealed. "Just like we could do so with the fortress, we should be able to do the same with the settlement."

This part of the message from his future (past?) self was pretty clear.

If he wanted to open up the doors that would lead to the other world he saw, Mathew had to raise the level of his settlement.

That's all Mathew learned from his vision. No details as to what exactly he had to do, no specifics as to what area of his settlement had to grow.

'If it's really me who recorded that message, then I either couldn't tell the precise details or I knew that by not divulging them, I will make them all the more visible!'

If there was anyone that Mathew knew really well… then it was Mathew himself. And just by stretching his imagination and putting himself in the shoes of the person that recorded the message, be it some stranger posing as him or Mathew's version of himself from a different timeline, Mathew could see a few more ways of looking at the situation.

And by looking at something with different light, Mathew could now see the clues that could lead him to the answers he was seeking.

"How many cores do we need to gather for that upgrade?" Nadia asked, pulling Mathew's mind back to reality. She then took a step back and rested her hands on her hips. "It will be a lot easier to gather them if we know what amount we are looking for."

"To be honest, I don't know," Mathew shrugged his shoulders. "I came back as soon as the message ended, so I didn't have the chance to look through all the options yet," he revealed.

"Then, how about you do it now?" Nadia then suggested as if it was the most obvious thing to do under the sun.

"There is no point," Mathew quickly refused Nadia's suggestion. "It's not like we have any real number of cores left," he pointed out.

They only managed to unlock the settlement thanks to the two thousand cores that Carol found stashed away in the area. Without them, they wouldn't be even able to afford the upgrade!

As such, however many cores they were currently left in Mathew's possession, he didn't even need to check to tell they wouldn't be enough.

Not for the upgrades that Mathew had in his mind.

"Is it a problem to check it?" Nadia asked, raising her eyebrows as a sense of surprise appeared on her face.

"Not really a problem…" Mathew muttered, glancing over to where the merchant's figure stood in silence, paying no heed to anything that was happening around it.

Mathew then bit down on his lips before averting his eyes.

Ever since he figured out their meaning, he always felt safe within the merchant's subspace. It was a realm separated from all the bloodshed of the apocalypse, a safe haven for someone tired of all the fighting and cooking up plans for the future.

A safe haven... That turned out not to be anywhere as safe as Mathew expected it to be.

'I'm quite sure something more happened while I was at that merchant's subspace,' Mathew thought, turning his attention to the small cracks that appeared whenever he would try to scan his memory of the event second by second.

There was this one point, right where the time flow of the vision came to a complete stop, where things didn't really make sense.

Sure, everything was in the exact same spot in the two following instances of time. There were no sudden jumps of matter that would suggest someone messed around with Mathew's perception.

No, there wasn't a single element that Mathew could pinpoint as the one responsible for the eerie feeling he had.

Yet, no matter how much Mathew lacked the means of proving his point, he was sure of this one element.

Right after the moment when the time of the vision came to a complete stop and before his other self appeared to pass on a message… something happened.

'Most likely the point of interference,' Mathew thought as he gulped his saliva down.

The beings behind this whole apocalypse clearly keep him on a watchlist. And the second they could snap at him, they did so right away!

But, looking at the situation from the outside… it was only when Mathew stepped into the merchant's subspace that he exposed himself to the attacks of those who were behind this realm in the first place!

"Is there any problem with checking it out?" Nadia repeated her question. This time, however, she didn't do it lightly.

The girl approached Mathew first. Then, she gave a long stare at his face, waiting patiently for his bout of overthinking stuff to pass. And only when Mathew's eyes regained their brilliance did Nadia bother to speak at all.

"It's not like I want to pressure you," Nadia added in a slightly meeker tone, clearly bothered by Mathew's reaction to her suggestion. "I just didn't think…"

"You didn't think there were any drawbacks to doing so," Mathew finished for the girl before nodding his head. "Trust me, I was the same just a moment ago," he admitted before turning his eyes and looking at the darkness hiding under the merchant's hood.

"But right now, I'm not so sure if it's safe to interact with merchants. So unless absolutely necessary..." Mathew gave Nadia a quick glance, "let's not do it for no real reason, okay?"