[D'sP] Ace Finds Some Scum - Chapter 498

Irritated after days of working on the database skill without progress, Doyle spreads screens across the core room. All of them showed the same thing, but with a different focus. It was like having the same webpage open on multiple screens, but scrolled to different positions.

The more Doyle looked into the Database skill, the more frustrating it seemed. There seemed to be no true rule for how it was organized. This is best seen with how it treated plants and animals.

The creature patterns were all consolidated. A simple enough thing and it included not only the monsters, but stuff like the squirrels he had recently picked up as well. On the other hand, there is no single “plant” sub-table and it isn’t related to pattern level.

After all, the vines pattern is at level 99! The cap for a long while. Then it also has seaweed at level 1. So some might think the difference in level was too great. Except while not at level 1, there was the udoroot at level 5.

But that might be the problem as well! After all, the udoroot is a plant, same as the assassin vine. So maybe when those were included in the creature sub-table it locked out the plant sub-table?

And there were other problematic categorizations as well! “Food patterns” is mostly plants except for three patterns. Sugar, salt, and bread. You might be able to juggle sugar to be under plant, but bread had non-plant things in it and salt?

Salt is a mineral! Which if anything, should be under the material sub-table. A table that happened to have trees in it. Trees! Doyle was honestly going a bit crazy over the whole mess.

The “database” skill really needed to be a database in reality. Not that at this point, Doyle believed such a transformation was possible. For some reason, the system seemed like it is trying to avoid such a thing.

Then again, Doyle couldn’t exactly blame the system. He had personally come across a few situations before the system where a database would have been perfect and he just couldn’t bother. Honestly, this seemed exactly like the sort of thing where he would avoid it if possible.

So instead, Doyle had begun to focus on how he would want things to be organized. The example of there being plant monsters perfectly encapsulates the kind of thing he wanted to square away. Also, it was thankfully the easiest to fix.

All Doyle needed was a monster sub-table. Problem solved. Plant? Animal? Who cares! Just toss it in the monster table. That would also separate out regular critters and plants so there wasn’t any confusion.

Not that there were currently too many points of confusion. However, right from the start there had been the horned rabbit. A critter that Doyle wouldn’t have felt bad about mistaking it for a monster pattern. After all, there were way too many stories that started with them as the first monster, right up there with slimes.

Also equally, they were in the running for top newb slayers. Whether it was the slime that is seemingly immune to physical damage or the horned rabbit that pierced through your leather armor and gores you. Not to say that they couldn’t do that in this new magical world Doyle lived in.

Rather, what Doyle had was the pattern for the common horned rabbit. A being that is truly just a critter, like any other rabbit. The horn is simply some extra defense and a place that concentrates power.

So right there, Doyle had three tables. Monster, animal, and plant. This brought him to another problem. Where does bread go? It was currently in food. Doyle was going to get rid of food.

Why? Well, Doyle had gone down a bit of a rabbit hole. Specifically, what is “food”? Even before magic came knocking, this wasn’t as cut and dry as some people would think.

Is grass food? Not for humans, unless you mean the seeds of certain kinds of grass. Oh, and bamboo was popular in places. And of course, technically, bananas are the berries of a grass. Then there are cattle who eat the stuff as their primary food source. So, is it food? Depends!

And once you add magic? Well, what can be considered food expands infinitely. Literal fire? Fire elementals love the stuff and have preferences. Rocks are consumed by a number of beings, including regular creatures. From what Ally had to say on it when he asked, there were moles that ate dirt itself and not just the bugs and worms that live in it.

So, a sub-table labeled food? That was purely the effect of his time as a human. After all, a dungeon core could be seen either as not eating at all or eating everything! Sure, a table for things that his most common delvers weren't the worst idea, but then it would be under “human food”.

So yeah, where would bread go?

It was a food, a material, a supply, an ingredient, and on, and on. Doyle couldn’t even just shove it in a “non-living” category as other similar products wouldn’t fit there. Stuff like yogurt.

So Doyle decided on two more sub-tables. Materials and products. This wasn’t perfect. Bread could be sliced and used to make a sandwich. In fact, most of the bread Doyle had eaten was a part of some other dish.

Doyle paused once again looking at those two categories. With a sigh, he decides against the products category. That was going to be the catch-all category for things like swords. Except, it could have broken up a few existing sub-tables if done wrong.

Materials, a broad category. It almost didn’t seem worth using in the first place. This was especially true given that Doyle already knew of a few things that wouldn’t go in there. In particular, weapons and armor. Even potions wouldn’t be in materials.

So maybe it wasn’t the best name? Though it did help him categorize a few other things. Adventuring gear, which would contain both the equipment and the consumables.

Doyle sighed and swiped the various blue screens away. This was getting him nowhere. He could theory craft until every single pattern was split off into its own custom sub-table. Though after thinking things through like this, the way the system organized stuff made more sense.

Toss it all together and only split off sub-tables when it feels right!

Now, this wasn’t the first time Doyle had thought this. Over the days of work, he had come around to the system’s method a number of times. There wasn’t anything new about this well-trod path.

Except something sparked. Like walking down the same road every day, only to see something catch the light. Maybe it was a bit of trash, but it also might be a coin!

And this time? Doyle wasn’t sure, but it felt worthwhile to consider.

Right now, the skill was split up based on an automatic system process. Likely based on his own thoughts at the time. Maybe to fix things, he needed to return it to simplicity. Merge all the sub-tables back into the original form of the skill. A simple list of patterns sorted by their levels.

And even if this didn’t work? Well, he had the time, so where to start?

Doyle looked through all of the sub-tables and one stood out. The golem patterns! Or rather, “pattern” because the sub-table had only a single entry: plated crystal core crystal clay hexape golem. Quite a mouthful, but still only a single pattern, so merging it back into creature patterns shouldn’t be a problem.

So, Doyle set about trying all his previous methods to merge the pattern back into the larger table.

And while Doyle was slamming into this brick wall, up on the surface, Ace had his own brick wall to apply his forehead to.

Worse for Ace, he isn’t able to manipulate the blue screens like a dungeon or their fae can and so he is forced to have everything written down. Thus why we find him staring at his desk, a headache forming as he glances around at various pieces of paperwork that shouldn’t be connected, yet feel like it did.

Ace shuffles through the papers, looking for a starting point. Some clue to lead him deeper. Because someone had been messing with the town. Someone wasn’t paying their taxes!

Oh sure, a bunch of individuals didn’t pay. Not much Ace could do about the random guy who shows up, delves the dungeon a few times, and leaves. This wasn’t pre-system, where taxes would find them, eventually.

However, for Ace to notice something? Well, this wasn’t going to be a small one-man shop! Whoever hadn’t been paying was going to be a group or at least a significantly sized gathering of like-minded individuals.

Ace sighs after finding only a few threads to tug on later. Whoever was behind this? They were covering their tracks quite well. Ace smiles. They aren’t going to be happy when he arrests them, anyway.

Not only would magic allow for miracles, where even the simplest tracking spell could bring the town right to them. But there was a reason Ace had put so much focus on getting the paperwork in place! Ace just needed to finish digging through all the paperwork and the answer would be revealed.

Ace sighs, he needs to relax. This whole tax thing is important, but not the end of the world. He knew why it is getting under his skin, though, and knew this was going to bother him until it is resolved.

Whoever was doing this? Ace personalty knew. Everyone this big, Ace has met with at least a handful of times already. Both officially as the leader of Wolf’s Rest and at the occasional get-together the Barrais set up.

And unlike how it was pre-system, Ace isn’t going to just let the rich keep their money. Taxes would be paid! The only people who didn’t pay taxes at the moment are those who worked directly for town and that is because Ace didn’t want to play like that and the pay could be considered post-tax.

Maybe sometime in the future that would change? While the system refrained from doing it all for the town, it also had a bunch of town hall features that would also make things easier to handle. Right now though, Ace didn’t even draw a salary in the first place, so such things could wait.

Later that evening, out in the town itself, a small group of merchants meet in the private room of a restaurant.

One of the group looks nervous, “They will find out if we go too far!”

The leader of the group, an older raccoonkin, smirks at the nervous one, “They didn’t notice yet and it isn’t like we’re going too far. Like, we still visibly pay our taxes! What can they complain about? Besides, without us, how could they even dream of selling all this stuff!”

Around the room, the other people agree with this, chiming in with things like “yeah” or “they need us”.

The leader basks in their agreement for a moment before laughing. “Besides, I’m related, if a bit distantly, to the current leader of my people. If anything does go down? I have them to act as an umbrella. We don’t have to get wet, just because it might rain.”

Though to himself, he can’t help but add that some of these people would have to take the fall if it came to that. Not that he cared. To him, all that mattered was being richer than others.

Before being brought to this planet, he had been stuck as a middle manager, constantly on the road to solve minor problems. Now? He was going to be on top! Even if it cost a few flunkies. This early bit of smuggling and tax dodging was simply to pad their income so they could expand even faster.

Not that he considered stopping once they had enough money. Or rather, he didn’t really believe there was such a thing as “enough” money.

Oh, Maybe It Won't Be That Easy - Chapter 497

And Catches Them - Chapter 499