[D'sP] The Whole Town Has A Festival - Chapter 446

With a new drive, the inner circle pushes harder. Not faster or stupidly. They’ve had more than enough of that. Rather, with each fight, they push themselves to be better. Which floor 17 actually turns out to be pretty decent for. The annoying traps and constant kobold patrols end up being the perfect anvil.

So they train. While the rest of the town is rushing to reliably arrive at the 13th floor in the shortest time possible, those from the inner circle are refining themselves. And like that, time begins to pass until finally, Ace and his team make a breakthrough. It isn’t any one thing. Rather, the low end of their skills had all been raised to the point that they had the metaphorical high ground. At least compared to the kobolds.

Not that they hadn’t been more skilled to begin with. The problem wasn’t having a single skill or being able to spike their power. The 17th floor is a battle of attrition and they had finally managed to get to where they could beat most kobold patrols without using active skills or magic.

And with that one achievement, the 17th became a slog instead of a drag. It was no longer a question of whether they can complete the floor. Rather, it became a question of whether they would bother taking the time.

Oh! Don’t be mistaken. It isn’t a cake walk. They are still in danger. The floor isn’t “solved”. That was why Ace decided on “slog” to describe things. If they could walk through the floor, it would just be that, another floor.

Though, of course, with this development, they did find there is a new floor. What is there? Ace didn’t know yet.

He looked down at his paperwork. They had held off on entering the 18th floor. Oh, sure, Ace is certain the Barrais took a peek. For now though, they are holding off exploring the 18th until next month.

Not that Ace didn’t want to dive in. There were just some responsibilities that needed to be taken care of in town. It was going to be a big event and unlike last year; they needed some pomp and circumstance beyond just announcing it.

Ace needed to set up a festival.

Down in the dungeon, Doyle watches as once again, a team from the inner circle reaches the end of the 17th floor, only to turn around. Oh, they didn’t leave the floor. Rather, the current M.O. is to race to the end of the floor and grab as much mithril as they could. Then go and clean up the rest of the floor.

A few even climbed the cliff. They didn’t get anything for climbing for literal hours, but they did it. The cliff is actually looked at as a boon despite not giving an extra bonus.

This is mainly because it provided a similar challenge to the second floor, but the added water element meant the climb is actually shorter. Which considering some were getting to the point of the second floor climb being trivial, they stop not from exhaustion, but boredom? Well, the 18th floor climb would provide a better place to train.

Doyle appreciated this, as while the second floor cliff would keep them climbing for a long while? Yeah, it didn’t actually provide that much to him. Once a person’s Strength gets to the point of easily being able to lift their own body weight, climbing becomes more of a joke. And falling? Slow and harmless.

He watched carefully and no one in town is quite to the point of the world seeming as if made from clay to them. Doyle didn’t even particularly expect that to happen anytime soon as the World Energy levels are rising fast enough to keep things sturdy.

However, Doyle also saw the interplay between actual Strength and magical Strength. Both are rising, but increased World Energy density only protected against the magical side of things. When someone finally reaches the point of their physical Strength being high enough? No amount of World Energy density will protect the unsuspecting door knobs and cups at that point.

Doyle isn’t just watching the delvers though. Floor 20 was literally a thought away. He can create it right this instant. Yet he held onto it. There wasn’t a plan and the goat experiments are hopeful, but not far enough along.

This mental deadlock continued until he noticed something change in town. Or rather, Ally came along and told him there was something to watch and she isn’t wrong. Ace’s festival is in full swing.

While the dungeon delvers kept delving, the rest of the town was having a great time. Now, things are not decked out or anything. Maybe after a couple years of accumulation, there would be enough decorations to make a festival look properly festive. For now though, the atmosphere is being held up by music and street food. And there was quite a spread! While the system did tend to put people from similar locations in the same community, that isn’t a hard rule. Which was likely the system making sure things didn’t get too homogeneous.

Whatever the case, there is music from all over the world and while the street food is limited by ingredients and herbs, they did their best. Though it certainly helped that things like tandoori ovens, woks, and so on are easy enough to whip together. Whether through pure skill or with the addition of a little magic.

So, even if the flavor wasn’t quite there. Even if the protein options are limited. There are still many chefs cooking their hearts out for this festival and it showed.

The focus of the festival is two-fold. Outside of town, there are a bunch of festival games between the town and the raccoonkin outpost. Inside the town, a large stage had been put up in front of the inner circle wall, right next to dungeon street.

The day progressed with everyone having a good time. Which at first felt odd to Doyle. ‘Hey Ally, like, everyone is out having fun?’ Time had passed him by and he was honestly a bit stuck in pre-system ideas of how stuff is run.

Ally nodded, ‘Yep, looks fun!’

Doyle, ‘No, I mean almost literally everyone is out having fun. Nothing is open or anything.’

Ally, ‘Ah, I get you. Yeah, the world doesn’t have work how it did before the system came. Your world went pretty hard on capitalism. This is how local celebrations and such work most places.

‘Oh sure, a few people are needed to run things, but they are being relieved by others. Other than that? The entire town can stop for this. Stores are closed. If you want food made for you? It’s the street stalls or bust. You can’t just go and buy something.’

Doyle, ‘With me having been a cashier? That is honestly causing me the most dissonance since the whole “becoming a crystal” thing. The gears of capitalism never let up except for like, Christmas. 

‘Every other holiday? The store was open. Oh sure, the grocery store would close early. Hades, I even recognized it provided a valuable service. People would buy entire holiday spreads so they can have a proper holiday feast. A feast you can have no matter your cooking skills or time.’

But it is that second one that gave Doyle pause. ‘That was just an excuse, huh? If you can cook and did need a full feast? The whole “not having time” bit? That is making excuses for capitalism. The reason you wouldn’t have time is if you were working.

‘Oh sure, some of the blame could be placed on the people themselves. You open the store and customers will show up, no matter the holiday. Besides, not everyone celebrated the same holidays.

‘But the big holidays? The holidays that the government wasn’t open for? Like, sure, you need the hospitals open, but did you need a grocery store? A department store?’

Doyle wasn’t certain. Maybe Wolf’s Rest would stay like this, being able to celebrate stuff like holidays as a community. Maybe in a few years the general store would be open with a teenager managing the register. Doyle hoped not, but who knows how things would shake out.

Ally nods, ‘You basically lived with systemic abuse being forced on you. It is a generational trauma that the literal apocalypse might not have broken things down enough to fix. Though Wolf’s Rest, at least right now, is healing.

‘A local festival should stop the town. A national holiday should be celebrated as a people. Even introverts should be able to step out of their house and experience the atmosphere of celebration, even if only until their social batteries run low.’

Doyle, ‘Well, that also needs a walkable town.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve seen how where you lived ended up setting up their towns and cities. You let cars trick you into thinking distance doesn’t matter anymore. That you can put homes over here, business over there, and giant malls out in the middle of nowhere.

‘Sure, you want to keep heavy industry stuff away from the town core. And I guess I can’t blame you world too much as there is only so much noise baffling will do and even after cleaning everything, it isn’t the nicest area to live next to. Magic means you can literally isolate the noise and fully handle the pollution.’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘That’s just making excuses again. When the government did crack down on things, miraculously they found solutions. And if there isn’t a solution to some process polluting the land and air? Well, maybe they shouldn’t be using that process on an industrial scale!’

Ally, ‘I wasn’t going to say it, but yeah. Now, admittedly, the rest of the universe cheats a little by using dead planetoids for such things. Not that they couldn’t fix things, but yeah, not fixing things is cheaper.

‘Anyway, a town works best for the townspeople when they are connected. The reason you separate things like your world did is because you’ve become removed from everything. Nevermind the fact that your world basically set things up where “winning” at capitalism removed the winner from the system.

‘Like, the end state of any system should never place the participants beyond it. Otherwise, why would they try to make things better? Why would a billionaire care about the price for eggs when they earn more interest in a second than they could spend on said eggs at their local grocery store?’

Doyle, ‘But isn’t the end state of power in the multiverse exactly that? I don’t see much holding a True Immortal back from just destroying any random universe that isn’t claimed by another.’

Ally sighs, ‘I didn’t say we had it solved. Though any financial system shouldn’t be so easily circumvented. When a fine is a flat number, it stops being a punishment and instead puts a cheap price on breaking the law.

‘And sure, out in the universe such things depend on the truly strong submitting themselves to the legal framework? Except that is kind of the point of them, anyway. Confine yourself to these rules and get these other benefits.

‘Besides, the truly powerful who can ignore the rules? They simply ignore them. Nonsense like what your world called “sovereign citizens” were the realm of the weak. Still was in your world as well, just more hidden. After all, the rich either pay the pitiful fine or have some high power lawyer reduce it to a pitiful fine.’

Doyle, ‘Blarg, the world ended and way too many people died during and after. There is no “but now it’s better” silver lining. Nothing can outweigh it, the apocalypse being a very singular event. Yet, I have hope for what the future holds.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Eh, things could have been fixed. Your world has gone through much worse periods. You just had the unfortunate luck to live in one of the times about which history books are written. Anyway, the event is about to start!’

We Should Gather Faith - Chapter 445

Expanding The Circle - Chapter 447