#099 – I didn’t think this through

#099 – I didn’t think this through KaiEbikoOfficial: nana please say something bloopbooper: bloop... (。Ó_Ò。) Jeofffff: fuuuuck I missed shit again I groaned as I held my head, huddled on the floor. “M’fine, chat. Just gimme a sec...” God, running out of Intra was as terrible as ever. I was so damn lucky that I hadn’t done something dumb while I’d been braindead, at the very least. I’d just spammed a few bubbles to douse all the fire and then more or less collapsed because of the headaches. Still... Even after spending eight skill points for the Rend upgrade, I still had a whopping 32 of them now. It was crazy just how many points beating a secret boss gave you. I could now get so many things. Chat was already bursting with suggestions of all kinds, but I ignored them for now, because man my head still hurt. It also didn’t help that I’d accidentally swapped out Soulbound Item instead of Appraisal in that fight and now everything felt weird. My clothes self was just... well, clothes. And my gun self had gotten ejected out of the Soul Pocket and now it was probably just a pile of plastic scraps lying somewhere in the darkness that I couldn’t see. I still had those sunglasses on, but with my Intra already so low, I didn’t want to risk lobotomising myself again. On top of that? The ticket I’d had in my mouth... wasn’t there anymore. And I had no idea whether I’d accidentally swallowed it or if it had fallen out at some point. Goddammit, Mike was right about me being way too reckless. Why hadn’t I just run instead of doubling down and even buying a skill upgrade mid-battle like a maniac? Sure, I’d gotten all those juicy skill points and probably a chest with loot somewhere in the darkness... but man, did my freaking head hurt. At least I wasn’t poisoned this time. I spent probably another half an hour just lazing around in the darkness, listening to the eerie silence, before I forced myself to get up, and – with some suggestions from chat – brought out the Sparkling Bubble Wand I’d gotten from the coin bosses. I turned on the sunglasses for a brief moment just to be able to see where the bubble wand’s opening was, then focused my Ether, found the channels inside the wand, and blew into it. Exactly as advertised, it produced a small bubble that shone like a lightbulb. It made me automatically narrow my eyes at the sudden brightness. “...Well, let’s look for all my stuff, I guess,” I mumbled and began searching through the darkness with my trusty shining bubble – that I could hold in my hand without it popping, thankfully – hoping I would find both the gun and the ticket. Instead, I found a chest. It was fully golden, just like the secret chest I’d gotten from the locker a long time ago. But unlike that one, this chest was as big as a boss chest and also had a silver skull on top of it. “...It’s the secret boss chest, isn’t it?” I eyed with just a bit of unease, somehow feeling like this would be the perfect time for a mimic to appear to finish me off. Also, Jeoff was in chat now. Jeofffff: hell yeah “No. It’s a mimic.” Jeofffff: hell no I raised my hand, Quick Fetched my key sword into it, channeled some Ether, and then tossed it at the totally-a-mimic. The sword hit it, exploded into crystals, and then clattered to the metallic ground. The chest didn’t do anything. Jeofffff: why tf do i keep coming just in time for this shit I gave a sage nod. “Thank you for reminding me of the mimic possibility, Jeoff. That could have ended badly.” Jeofffff: fuck you I ignored him and then proceeded to approach the chest. The crystals were actually kind of annoying, but I wouldn’t ever admit that, lest Jeoff started telling me how stupid it was to keep checking for mimics again. With a bit of difficulty, I heaved the lid open, and took in the contents. There were some goggles, a pillow, a ticket, and a small pile of golden coins. Wait, hold up. Gold coins? Were those... Fate Weaver coin (gold) A second highest denomination divine coin made by the Fate Weaver. A hundred gold coins can be fused into a single platinum coin with the use of Ether. This item can be consumed to gain 1 skill point. Yup. Those were the coins I could exchange for skill points. And there were... ten of them. Holy crap. Even more skill points! With the one gold coin I still had, that would give me 43 whole skill points to work with! “Chaaat, I can’t hold all these skill points!” I said with a giggle as I stuffed the coins into my wallet and then into the backpack. Jeofffff: time for some serious upgrades Jeofffff: cant wait for more soulbinding I frowned, but decided not to address that for the time being. Instead, I shot Appraisal at the rest of the items, starting with the ticket. Giant Combo expansion ticket A system consumable that increases your total Ether, Intra, and Tempor reserves and regeneration by 25% when consumed. My jaw dropped at that. Twenty five percent increase for all three?! Goddamn, that was quite possibly the biggest power increase I’d had yet. And I hadn’t even gotten to the main two prizes yet. I appraised the goggles. Truth-seeing goggles A tool created by the Fate Weaver. The wearer is able to switch between seeing Ether, Intra, and Tempor at the cost of Intra. This item is a relic. That... Okay, wow. “Chat... It’s time for a Tempor manipulation training montage,” I automatically said. Because even though I had already sort of seen the three energies when using Fusion and when cutting trees open, these goggles had to be something more. Otherwise they wouldn’t be in a secret boss chest, nor would they be a relic. ...Also, it had apparently been created by the Fate Weaver. Did that mean anything or was it just flavor text? Before I could get too into theorizing about its origins and what I could do with it, I appraised the last item as well – the pillow. Temporal Spider silk pillow A pillow made out of a Temporal Spider’s silk. Lying down on it rapidly restores the user’s Ether and Intra. I blinked, then shrugged, climbed into the chest, lay down on the pillow, and turned off the lights. “G’night, chat.” Jeofffff: oh cmon KaiEbikoOfficial: superpillow! SpoOo0oOon: oh that is so nice! SpoOo0oOon: I hope its super comfy! bloopbooper: boop... (ᴗ˳ᴗ)zz???? RetconRanger: That’s a programmer’s wet dream. RetconRanger: I need one installed to my chair’s backrest ASAP. I didn’t actually fall asleep though, mainly because after just a few minutes of lying on the superpillow, my headaches were receding and my sore muscles were relaxing. Man, after so long of sleeping on grass and hard ground, having a pillow was divine. Even if the rest of this ‘bed’ wasn’t exactly five star quality. Jeofffff: youhave ether and intra ranger? RetconRanger: No, but they are the equivalent to physical and mental wellbeing, right? RetconRanger: It’s basically a healing pillow. Hmmm... Soft pillow... The chat devolved into a discussion about whether the pillow would even do anything for humans from Earth who didn’t have Ether and Intra, and then further into if they would gain these energies if they were plopped into this world, but I mostly ignored them, and enjoyed the softness. Wait, hold up! I reached into my backpack, pulled out Mr. Gargles, and snuggled with him as well. Perfection. This was the best day of my isekai life. I could just let go and– No, hold up! I was on a schedule, wasn’t I? Eugh, I still needed to beat the rest of the dungeon. This had already been a long detour and I’d rested a long time after the fight... Dammit. Fine. In that case, I should just speedrun it, just like I’d done it with the other two floors. No more detours, no matter how juicy they look. “...Okay, chat. Let’s just get back on track,” I said with a sigh as I reluctantly got up and shoved all the loot into my backpack. Granted, there were several things I still wanted to check out – the goggles, the skill I’d stolen, and the options for spending my skill points – but I could do that later. Right now, I needed to focus on clearing the dungeon and hopefully getting something that could fix my gun... I frowned. Right, I needed to find my gun and the ticket... and ugh, probably get Soulbound Item back, because it was starting to get weird that my gun and clothes weren’t... me. What the hell had this world done to me that I now missed being a gun? I shook these thoughts away and grabbed my bubble wand again for light. Luckily, it only took a couple of minutes of searching around the remnants of burnt cobwebs till I found the broken gun. I put it into my backpack for the time being. The ticket was a bit trickier and I was starting to fear that it had burned in the fight or something... Luckily, I eventually found it hanging in mid-air, attached to more of the webs. Unluckily, I couldn’t get it out without keeping some of the sticky webs on it, so I probably wasn’t going to be putting it into my mouth again anytime soon, until I could properly clean it. Finally, with all my stuff with me, I walked to the edge of the locker again and– “Oooh, shiii–” Immediately backpedaled and fell on my butt as soon as I saw the height. GeorgeDoshington: skydivin time SpoOo0oOon: oh no RetconRanger: Well now. How will you get back? “Hell no. I’m not jumping off of this! No, I don’t even care that I can featherfall! What if I mess it up? Or run out of Ether mid-fall? I don’t wanna go splat!” Jeofffff: thers an achievement for reaching terminal velocity tho I groaned. “Of course, there is. No! I’m not doing this! I’m not jumping off!” RetconRanger: I thought you wanted to hurry up? GeorgeDoshington: do it u chicken KaiEbikoOfficial: how else will you get down though? KaiEbikoOfficial: walk again? bloopbooper: boop... (°~°) I pursed my lips. “I... don’t know, actually.” Why hadn’t I thought about this earlier? Obviously, If I walked up this absurdly high locker, I would also have to get back down somehow. Now my options were to either waste more time slowly walking down... while constantly seeing how high I was, or jump and activate featherfall near the end. Goddammit. “Isn’t there some kind of shortcut?” I mumbled miserably as I pulled out my map again. It hadn’t changed at all. It just displayed that I’d moved from the position by a tiny bit – now on top of the locker – but there were no new arrows showing me a different way out. GeorgeDoshington: jump GeorgeDoshington: jump Jeofffff: you just have to time it GeorgeDoshington: jump Jeofffff: cmon GeorgeDoshington: jump GeorgeDoshington: jump I muted George. Then I took a deep breath, exhaled, and said, “I hate my past self for being an idiot. Okay, fine, chat. I’m gonna jump and try to time it.” Just saying it out loud made me hate this plan already. I didn’t stand up. Instead, I shuffled around and then crawled to the edge while on my knees. “Oh god. Fuuuck me...” I breathed out as soon as I saw over the edge again. I automatically gripped the edge of the locker, as if it would somehow help. I closed my eyes, took a few more calming breaths again, and before I could hesitate again, I simply threw myself off the edge.