SL: Chapter 724 – Day 5,914 Part 4 – The Same Wavelength

It had been a long time as we all sat quietly. Clarissa had purchased a table and snacks. The raw cucumbers and fruits brought back memories of my early days in Purgatory. I took my time squeezing various fruits to make juice, creating a pile of trash next to my chair.

Only Young Michael wanted my juice. There was an art to squeezing fruits with my hands without making a mess. The trick was making a small hole and then spreading out the pressure equally and slowly. Bursting a fruit in my hands might have been funny but I didn’t want to deal with being sticky.

Michelle had her eyes closed and was probably taking a nap. Clarissa had purchased high quality chairs, but for the number of points we had now, such purchases were minor things. It did make me want a portable store even more. But I wasn’t about to take the one Clarissa had and ruin our relationship.

There really wasn’t that much left to talk about either as everyone waited for time to pass. I got up and checked on the pillar.

Vote Initiated
Quorum Achieved
Quorum Present
Pick the option you wish to initiate a vote on. Each option may be voted on multiple times as long as a quorum is present until it has passed. A vote will remain open until a majority has voted. Voting options will remain present and can be voted to reverse them at any time.
1. End Arrivals
2. End Environment
3. Create Exit Portal
4. Create Public Ranking
5. Contact Support

“The vote reset, and all the options are still there,” I replied. Everyone else sat up at that as I made my way back to my seat. There was no rush or point to standing next to the pillar while we discussed things. Young Michael got up to check as well but the two women remained seated.

“It is good that it resets,” Clarissa said.

“It is. But if it didn’t that would point to a design flaw, rather than a cultural misunderstanding.

“So, a third vote, there are only three options left,” Clarissa said.

“Well only one of the three options is something I would be willing to actually vote on, the exit portal. The first two options don’t seem to have many upsides to them,” I replied, but there was a lot of hesitation to do another vote in my mind. The first two had not gone to plan. While they didn’t have bad outcomes, they weren’t the outcomes we had expected.

That was made the votes so scary. They were completely unpredictable. “Has there been a System created portal before?” Clarissa asked exactly what I was thinking. How did the Almighty System define create, exit, and portal.

“’Create’ most likely means to do whatever process is necessary in the background with ‘public’ meaning to make available for purchase. The word ‘exit’ and ‘portal’ would be complete guesses,” I replied.

“’Contact’ meant sending something we could interact with, that System Golem. But we should be even more weary of the word ‘end’ in the other votes. ‘End’ might imply permanency from the System,” Clarissa said, and I nodded at this.

“Exactly. A portal at its most basic is a connection between two different locations. A transition area if you will,” I replied.

“What if the portal is the size of a zone and we are sucked in or kicked out? It could be one way as well,” Clarissa replied.

“Recall everyone to the airship and then vote?” I asked while Michelle and Young Michael watched us go quickly back and forth. That was why Clarissa and I worked togeather so well. While we might have different thoughts, once we got on the same wavelength we worked really well togeather.

“That would probably be for the best. While we are thinking a circular portal human height, the System doesn’t have to adhere to our expectations in the slightest,” Michelle said.

“My main concern isn’t the portal, but what is on the other side and the strength of any enemies we might face,” I replied.

“You don’t think it will be Earth?” Young Michael asked.

“Absolutely not,” I said. Clarissa just said ‘no’ at the same time as me. We glanced at each other and smiled slightly.

“It might be a good idea to sleep on such a decision. It is getting late,” Michelle said, and we all looked up at the sky. The light source was getting close to the horizon.

“If we do have to wait, which is probably the case after the last two votes, I don’t want to wait in the dark. We should head back, then come back tomorrow,” I said.

“Agreed. We can postpone it,” Clarissa said. There was no rush and mentally I was feeling a bit wrung out at the moment. The two lack luster votes were waying heavily on me. While it might seem like a good idea to rush the third vote, I wanted to be at my most alert. Getting some sleep and coming out tomorrow was the best option.

A shame the airship wasn’t big enough for so many people. Even with us and the guards we had brought along it was insanely cramped. We all got on and I let Young Michael fly. He would probably be sick of it after I made him do all the flying when I started grinding. Once we reached Clarissa’s base, I dealt with the flying monsters chasing us and landed underground.

“I am going straight to bed. We can discuss things some more in the morning,” I said. I wanted everyone fully alert and ready for tomorrow. While the exit portal was likely to be a big bunch of nothing, I couldn’t help but worry.

After bringing us here and putting us through so many headaches I didn’t think the Almighty System would let us go so easily. There was a purpose to this place. A design. A goal. That much was clear. And no matter how alien the Almighty System might be, these core principles didn’t change. You didn’t put this much effort into bringing people here and doing all of this just to let people return to Earth without any issues.

That meant the exit portal would be a trap of some kind. Or something horrible would come out of it. Or perhaps it would just lead to the rainbow dimension. That place was crazy and incompatible with human life. Unfortunately, there was no spare breathing equipment and we wouldn’t be able to manufacture any for a long time. Without the crafting buildings and crafting crystals, it just wasn’t possible.

As I lay down on my bed on the airship, I listened to Young Michael breathing softly. I could tell he was asleep since his breathing pattern had changed slightly. There weren’t many guest rooms in Clarissa’s base, and I preferred to sleep on the airship and in my own bed.

With my stats I needed less sleep, but just laying quietly in the dark gave me an opportunity to think about what I would decide. While I had brought everyone else along, ultimately only my decision mattered since I had all the votes necessary to vote for any option I wanted.

If I was stuck here long term, I would need to make sure the sword didn’t get more votes. Since it would probably vote to end the environment killing everyone here. While it was tempting to think the exit portal would lead to wherever we would go once this place disappeared, that was a very dangerous assumption to make.

That was the only good thing about the first two votes in my opinion. They cut away any assumptions we might have made. The Almighty System clearly had its own interpretation of the options it gave. I didn’t understand what was so hard about giving some explanations. It gave an explanation on the voting process, but that was it.

Now that I thought of the voting explanation, that was what really annoyed me. It wasn’t that the Almighty System didn’t want to give explanations, but that it chose not to, in order to be difficult. Even a single sentence would have been fine or a lot less annoying at the very least. Instead, we got a couple of words and had to guess what the votes would do based off of that.

I really was split on this next vote. I wanted more information, but I just knew there would be a bad outcome. The last two outcomes were ‘meh’, but it seemed clear in my mind that the voting got worse as one moved from the bottom of the list towards the top. I wasn’t exactly sure how ending arrivals was worse than ending the environment, but there might be knock on effects from the vote.

If a vote went through, we had no idea about all the consequences. Right now that System Golem could be running around, doing who knows what. While I liked to think it was destroying the sword or tracking it down to make its existence difficult, there was no proof or evidence, just wishful thinking.

On the flip side, there was information just within our grasp. While it might seem trivial to people who didn’t understand, every piece of information about this place was incredibly valuable. Knowing where an exit would lead, even if it was terrible, was incredibly valuable. After being here for over 16 years, I wanted answers. I deserved answers.

But I also knew, rushing forward was a good way to die or suffer. The towers were a perfect example of such a thing. If someone rushed into them, it would be a nightmare climbing up the tower. But even if got a trillion more points and invested all of them into stats, would that be enough?

If I didn’t have my second meta-point, I would definitely vote no on the exit portal. But I had confidence of handling whatever nonsense might occur. Unless it was instant death, I felt I could win. Especially after beating the sphere. I had beaten it with only one meta-point, now I had two. Could anything truly pose a threat? The sphere was clearly from outside this place and the Almighty System and it was something the Almighty System had a hard time dealing with. While it might be a case of rock, paper, scissors with the sphere having an advantage, it was up there with the Almighty System and I had beaten it.

Ultimately, I was leaning towards voting yes on the exit portal, but that nagging feeling didn’t go away. It wasn’t danger sense or anything like that. It was just pure intuition, that such a vote was a bad idea. Like standing near a cliff and knowing that dancing on the edge was stupidly dangerous. Going through with this vote was stupidly dangerous. Anyone who said otherwise wasn’t competent in the slightest for pushing boundaries in the Systemic Lands.

We would have to take a lot of precautions with the next vote. I would only put myself in danger and have the airship remain a distance away at the edge of the tower base, ready to depart in a moment’s notice. If I died, then I shouldn’t drag everyone else down with me. I was debating on if I wanted to borrow the portable store from Clarissa.

That would be a tough conversation. If I disappeared or died, she would be in a difficult position. But if I was trapped somewhere, I would need that portable store to survive.