Chapter 295: Dodging Disaster

Chapter 295: Dodging Disaster

Mid Morning - Mid Winter : Atlas, Bahamut

-----

*Cl-link* *thud* The jingle of coins filled the air as I set a sizable bag on the table. "This should be everything left."

The ancient behind the desk stared at the bag in awe before quickly returning his gaze to me. "S-Sir, we have a new system, something called 'stretched payments', to allow you to pay in smaller amounts over a period of time if you wish to-"

"I have already spoken with the auction house and have promised to give them quite a lot of mythril to help alleviate costs, so I will pay the remaining costs in full."

What remained was about 250 royal gold, a bit below a third of my initial payment, but while it was still not a small sum, the auction house told me I could expect a very large portion of it to be covered by the mythril I promised to provide and sell through their auction once it sold over the next few days.

To an extent, it felt like a steal since their baseline was similar to the rate Atsáli paid, but at the same time, I had no reason to complain. -I just need to make a good bit of mythril over the next couple of days, and I can pay off the majority of what I spent...-

But while it was indeed a large amount of mythril that would take some time to create, I had no need to rush.

Finally exiting the room, I quickly met back up with my assigned butler and started making my way back to the storage room.

It had only been about an hour since I split up with Krystallo at that point, but while I knew she wouldn't have gotten herself into trouble, I couldn't help but be a little anxious about something happening.

But, of course, my worries were needless.

"Hehe~!"

As I neared the storage room, I could hear her innocent giggles, and as I rounded the corner, I was met with the view of a slender 16-meter-tall dragon laying while covered in jewelry and artifacts, wearing an expression of pure joy.

It was a sight that quickly alleviated some of my stress regarding the artifact and Ilios. "I thought you told Mother that you didn't want a hoard of treasure."

"Ack!" She immediately tensed up before popping her head up to see me. "I-I don't! I am simply appraising the quality of my new things!"

Seeing her deny it and turn her head away to expose even more artifacts on her horns, I wanted to laugh. "There is nothing bad about coveting riches. You should know better than me that it's a normal thing."

She quickly turned back to me with a pout. "But you don't!"

Finally managing to at least temporarily shake off my thoughts, I let out a light chuckle. "Haha, I do. I simply don't act on it unless it has some real worth."

She immediately hesitated before giving me a quizzical look. "I-In that case, I will..." She quickly looked at the empty boxes around her before using her aura to roughly straighten them up and take off almost every jewel and artifact she was wearing, with the exception of a select few.

Once she finished, she was only left with a handful of the artifacts she had bought during the auction, but for the most part, they were all quite valuable. -What a good selection...- But while I was impressed, I could only sigh at her unyielding desire to use me as her guide. "Haah..." -If I jumped off a cliff, I bet she'd jump after me...- But after a moment, I simply motioned over the maids by the entrance. "Please help put the things she isn't wearing into their respective boxes and prepare them to be picked up later today. Some people from my family will come by to pick it all up."

They all nodded and bowed in unison before walking out into the room and beginning to order things.

But thankfully, I had a better way to do things. -None of them look critical.. some of them even have bypass cables... What if I just activate them?-

Inside many of the devices were switches that would connect the main circuit to tiny insulated cables that simply looped back to the main circuit rather than continuing into the other devices.

Assuming they were all there for emergency bypass, such as if that module had an issue and couldn't be activated, I manually clicked over all the switches, and only left the modules I was confident in still connected.

-Alright... That should be everything...-

Finally giving it one last look over, I cleaned up and released my control over the final rune, a tiny antimatter rune that took up the entire back of the device.

*vwowowoom* The flow of mana in my room changed in an instant.

-Everything looks good so far...- Carefully watching every detail, I made sure there were no remaining issues with the battery and patiently waited for it to fill.

But once it reached about 75%, a magnet in the battery clicked over a switch that instantly activated the tiny reactor within the phone. *click-hummm*

I jolted slightly at the click of the circuit before a faint hum filled the room.

But I didn't have time to think.

In an instant, a wave of electricity coursed through the reactor's cables and into the circuit board, and while I carefully watched it all through my aura, a moment later, my eyes were met with a bright light shining through the device's black shell. -H..Huh?!-

That was when a somewhat robotic voice met my ears. "Tampering detected. Attempting to resolve abnormalities."

*CLICK* The sound of every emergency switch opening simultaneously made my body tense and my mind freeze in an instant. -WAIT WHAT?!- *VWOOOM* I slammed all the aura I could into it instantaneously before promptly opening and jumping through a gate. *Vwoop*

Silence filled my now-empty room in an instant.

-----

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Read up to 5 chapters ahead of schedule on My Patreon!

(In case Embedded Link doesn't work: /TDOD )

-------------

Also, please feel free to check out our new discord! https://discord.gg/Dv7G5bQD4v

All are welcome!