Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 230: Triumphant Return

Raul was dusty.

It was an odd thing to notice, but when Isaac looked at the returning crowd, that was what stood out.

Karl was wearing a slimmed-down version of his mech suit, something he could comfortably wear for a long time.

Patrick was wearing a suit and tie, with an addition of a belt strap, which held a grimoire. It was new, and obviously the creation of a [Skill].

Excellent. Grimoires were the core of a science-based magic user’s growth, a place to note down spells as they were created and pre-charge complex magical creations, and now Patrick had one.

Raul, meanwhile, was also dressed in formal clothes to match the rest of the crowd, but amidst a bunch of people who’d spent the last several months locked away in sealed habitats, the one guy who’d gone outside without a space suit and gotten dust on himself stood out.

The second thing Isaac noticed was how much stronger those three were looking. Everyone else had probably also grown significantly, but he didn’t know them well enough to tell beyond noticing there was a preponderance of space-related [Classes] in the crowd that hadn’t been there before.

Patrick had his grimoire that brimmed with power, a simple yet infinitely valuable upgrade.

As for the other two, their gains were less obvious yet just as impactful.

When he’d left, Raul’s field of normality had just been there, something that could sustain life, remove pollutants and erase unnatural influences.

Now that he’d returned, it had become a physical presence, one that eclipsed his [Aura] unless he was projecting it very far from his body. An energy field that could create all normal environments as desired. It might not sound like much until you realized that the universe was mostly vacuum. And then you remembered that the core of stars was also a part of nature …

Judging Karl’s progress was rather more difficult, however. After all, the advancement of his abilities was largely reflected in his technology, something Isaac was ill-suited to judge. He was hardly a Luddite, but being able to use modern technology was a whole different kettle of fish from judging sci-fi technology’s level of sophistication.

However, the artificial muscles powering the armor were obviously denser, the processing unit was putting out vastly more energy, to the point where the surrounding metal would have started melting without the cooling system and the armor itself could laugh off anything anyone not an A- or S-Ranker could throw at it.

The initial plan had been to create the portal, call the lunanauts back down, then hold a bunch of speeches and take this as a chance for some of the earthbound people to visit the moon.

Except the portal began to flicker and finally snapped out of existence before the glad-handing was even halfway done.

Oh, sure, it was a momentous occasion, the world would never be the same, but this was the second time Isaac had experienced this, albeit not from this close-up. Shake this hand, compliment that idea, make a proposition to that other person, and so on.

The gala might have looked impressive from far away, but up close, it was just like any other high-level social event Isaac had ever been to.

Then the portal disappeared, the disappointment was great, yada, yada, yada.

Having the people who’d managed to make it work down here meant that re-establishing it would be a matter of hours at the very least, possibly even days.

“Don’t worry, we’ll head up the next time a shuttle goes up there.” Patrick had ended up promising “The difficulty in creating portals between two different celestial objects will have to be accounted for, though.”

Then, one quick portal later, they were back in the meeting room in their building and Karl suddenly started talking like a waterfall.

“The communication system between Earth and the moon is working properly, right?” he asked, sounding incredulous “We had the heir to the Monkey King move in on a mountain in the Alps, and the federal government is paying for people to party with him?”

Isaac nodded.

“The same Monkey King who stole all the stuff he needed, got invited to join the celestial bureaucracy in lieu of consequences, stormed off in a huff when he didn’t get a high rank, was invited back in a show of good faith, then stole all the heavenly peaches, assaulted the servants sent to gather them, assaulted the heavenly brewers and stole most of the booze, stole a bunch of magic pills from a laboratory, realized how screwed he was and ran back down to Earth, but then went back to steal some more booze, slaughtered those who came to arrest him and grew indignant because there were consequences for his actions?”

Wow, people could speak for a long time without breath if their Stats were high enough. Also, wow, that was a pretty good summary of the Monkey King’s antics.

“Yep.” Isaac nodded “He’s been behaving himself for now, thankfully, but I am making preparations in case that changes.”

He then proceeded to explain how Sun’s various defenses worked.

“Just remember, he’s primarily a physical fighter, with most of his Stats invested in that direction. He doesn’t have many big tricks he can pull out beyond what we’ve already seen, but most people are spending mana like water to fight at their full potential, he doesn’t. If you end up in a fight with him and can’t win quickly, run because he’ll outlast you.”

“Are you sure your preparations won’t set him off?” Patrick asked “I mean, if what Karl said about his predecessor is correct, we should be worried, but you could be causing the very thing you’re trying to avoid.”

Isaac took a moment to consider how to best answer that.

“In theory, that could be a problem. In practice, he’d have to know that I know how to beat him, and dig deep into every contact I have to view the full picture. Also, none of the stuff I’m having made is specific against him. Chandler is cooking up some nasty contact toxin that can be tossed onto an enemy, where it will stick and constantly poison them. It’s also got an antidote that can be taken ahead of time and protects the drinker for a long time.

“The military is researching life-draining weaponry, and there’s no visible record of me having asked for those to be made.

“Stagmer is making daggers that are custom-designed for being enchanted with curses, that I’ll bring to certain contacts for enchantment later.

“There is a very reasonable explanation for everything I get because they’d also be useful against [Raid Bosses], specific monsters, and the cult. As long as I don’t start specifically training against him, it won’t look bad.”

Patrick looked up from his phone, where he’d clearly been looking up Sun “But neither the real nor mythological Monkey King is particularly known to be reasonable. He might flip out just because he realizes someone is capable of killing him.”

Amy shrugged “Curses, poison, vampiric weapons, all of those things are pretty normal, Isaac’s just getting them at a high quality. If that’s enough to set him off, dealing with him was never going to end well in the first place.”

“Good point,” Patrick conceeded.

“How much is this costing you?” Raul wondered “By my estimate, taking on Sun Wukong would cost a good chunk of this country’s military budget.”

“If I weren’t getting most of this through favors, or in exchange for materials I harvest myself, this would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a few billion euros.”

A collective wince ran around the table at that.

“Anyway, we’ve also got good news.” Karl said, “Now that we’ve gotten our hands on the blood runes, I can pretend to do the work needed to pretend that the homemade, electric elemental based generator Isaac showed us was discovered naturally.”

“Good luck fending off all the people trying to hire you once you publicize that.” Isaac teased “You’ll need to get a whole new email address.”

“I already pity the spam filter.” Karl agreed and sighed dramatically, pretending to faint “Oh, how hard it is to be a famous scientist.”

“Yeah, you’re underestimating how annoying job offers can get.” Bailey said, “If you ever need someone to be the bad guy and tell someone to back the fuck off, all you have to do is ask.”

“Thanks,” Karl said, creating a hologram of his generator “Now, guys, can you look at this design? It’ll work, but does it look prototype-ey enough?”

“Hm, doesn’t have enough coffee stains,” Amy commented dryly.

And that was generally how the rest of the conversation went.

But they had generators that could convert mana into power for all standard electronic devices, just in time for these things to become desperately needed.

As Levels rose and people grew more capable, fewer of them would be employed. This had been mitigated during the last few years due to the many new industries becoming available, but for many families, a time of poverty was slowly but surely approaching. The more expenses could be covered simply by having someone in the household with access to the [System], the better.