[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 56: Windfall

Sam held the [Sourcestone] within his hands, wondering if this was the right decision. Without a quest of any kind to provide an objective, guidance of any sort, he was completely on his own.

There was so much unknown about settlements and Skyshards.

His mind ran through the possibilities, though maybe he was also distracting himself from the impending decision.

Skyshards varied in size and resources. That much he knew for certain.

Some already had structures, whereas most appeared to not. His Skyshard certainly had nothing but what they placed upon it.

So Sam and his group would be working with a clean slate. They wouldn’t need to clear away rubble and wrestle control from any creatures or monsters already inhabiting it.

Raiko’s Skyshard might be a different story.

What will happen when I socket the [Sourcestone]? Could be that the Skyshard grows bigger, and that’s why it’s so small, he thought.

That naturally opened up a deeper rabbit hole. If it increased in size, would its level go up? Would its mana too?

Or would it need more resources to stay afloat?

If that was true, and that was a big if, that’d make Sam’s small Skyshard an ideal starting point, because it would be easy to take care of when he didn’t have much to his name.

He double checked the Skyshard’s information.

[Tiny Floating Island (Level 5)]

(Skyshard) (F-Class)

(★Common)

Attributes

Mana Reserves (68%)

Mana Density (First Layer I)

Sockets

Settlement Core (0/1)

Tiles (0/0)

Nope, doesn’t even qualify as small. Just tiny, he thought with a shake of his head. Mana reserves have gone down too, not good. Nothing else has improved about it either.

Realizing something, Sam paused beside one of the boulders. “This is basically the equivalent of a life raft, isn’t it?”

The group collectively groaned, though in Matt’s case, it may just be a zombie thing. He didn’t want to be racist, so he kept that thought to himself.

“Were there many more Skyshards of this size?” Matt asked. Considering he was unconscious at the time, he didn’t see all the dozens more fleeing to safety.

Most of them had been even smaller than this one. Sam didn’t envy those cohorts much. They wouldn’t have a [Sourcestone] to improve their Skyshard, nor were they heading to another Skyshard to join forces.

Really, considering everything, Sam’s luck wasn’t turning out to be that bad.

Aside from the fact he was going to have to fight for Raiko’s settlement. Which wasn’t too terrible either.

While it sounded like a lot to deal with at the time, no doubt he’d be able to gain some Experience from that conflict, pushing his Swordsman Job and Void Path even higher.

Maybe even a quest would pop up too, amplifying the rewards even further.

“Several. Some had trees, some had water, but mostly all the same,” Raiko answered absentmindedly, staring into the endless blue scattered with the occasional green and blue of islands. She sat in the air rather than bothering with the ground.

“Wait, some of them had water, but weren’t as good as this one in your eyes?” Sam asked, wondering what her reasoning was.

“To be honest, I figured they might not survive without it. Didn’t want to lead them to their deaths just to make our situation a little bit more convenient.” Raiko glanced at them. “Each of us here, even the cat, is more resourceful and resilient than the average individual. Besides, our Skyshard is technically bigger.”

“How so?” Matt said.

“You can’t see it so well from up here, but despite being considered tiny, it’s actually rather deep. The rock and dirt extend quite far, so we could dig if we need to. We have much more than a measly couple feet of landmass below us.”

Imagining that was unsettling. If they had that little beneath their feet, Sam might have blown them out of the clouds just by practicing with Void mana.

An errant cleave of his greatsword might do it, too.

Swaying side to side, Komachi hunched down between the boulders, hiding her muzzle in her paws. Apparently, she didn’t like thinking about that either.

“Think I’ll refrain from practicing my Breaking on our own land for the time being,” Sam said lightly, fearing he could easily obliterate even their current Skyshard.

Matt’s eyes lit up with curiosity. “Breaking, huh?”

“I’ll show you sometime later, preferably when we’re fighting monsters somewhere else. A place where I can destroy things without consequence.”

“That aren’t spiders, please.” Matt shivered in revulsion.

“They really did a number on you, huh?”

“Yes! Though the Dungeon was… somehow worse? As if spider poison wasn’t enough, those gremlin creatures hit me with poison darts, then traps had to poison me too.”

“Dungeon?” Sam asked.

“I call it that,” Matt explained. “But it was more like a trap-lined tunnel that ended in that dead-end door.”

“After the elevator thing?”

Matt nodded. “Speaking of Dungeons… remember all the loot I said I got?”

“Hard not to,” Sam said. “You were pretty descriptive.”

“I wanted to be thorough.” Matt cleared his throat, clearly having a hard time with this. “I had said that if I survived, I’d give away all my wealth. And you saved me.”

“Matt, you wouldn’t even sign off on a minute of overtime when we—”

Matt waved his hand to silence Sam. “I know, I know! Listen, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for how I treated you. You and everybody else. Some of it was the job, a lot of what I could do was limited… but I could have fought harder for the workers. Been kinder. And I don’t want to be that person anymore. I’m giving all of my loot to you, Sam, and you can decide what to do with it.”

Komachi’s ears and butt—yes, both—wiggled at the mention of loot. She leapt atop Matt’s shoulders and perched there, bringing her muzzle unnecessarily close to his face.

“Loot,” she breathed with an ominously deep voice, bordering on the supernatural. “Loot, you say?”

Matt went still as a corpse.

“Does that mean you plan on staying with us?” Sam asked.

That, more than anything, was the most pressing issue. They needed people. Even just one or two more would make a huge difference.

Matt was silent for a while. Though that could be because Komachi was still uncomfortably close to him.

Finally, he looked up from the dancing flames of the campfire and the roasting fish Komachi had placed there.

For the first time, Sam noticed the virulent poison-green eye color. The man had had brown eyes when he knew him, but everything changes, doesn’t it?

“It is difficult to say this, but if you would have me, I would gladly stay with you,” Matt said. “I’m not one to shy away from responsibility or opportunity, and I would like to make a fresh go of this. A clean slate. Anything you thought you knew of me before is gone. I am tossing away my old life and embracing this one. I leave the choice with you.”

Sam hadn’t expected Matt to turn it into a question for him. But in the grand scheme of things, Sam understood.

The two of them had not always seen eye to eye. In fact, more than once, Sam had nearly done something that surely would have gotten him fired if Kale hadn’t stopped him.

The thought of his best friend missing still tore him up inside, but he had to believe that Kale could look after himself.

It didn’t stop Sam from feeling guilt-ridden, though.

And then there was the unsettling certainty that he hadn’t seen the last of Darren. The erstwhile assistant manager would be building up an army of lackeys, that much was certain.

Worse by far was that Sam knew there would be other people who were far worse than Darren. They wouldn’t be sitting idly by. They would be gaining land, acquiring new people by force or intimidation, and acquiring every last drop of power they could get their hands on.

Do I want to just sit out on this grand scale conflict of impending power, content to let others do the fighting and eventually come for me in my little haven?

It was a sobering thought. Sam had never thought of himself as a leader, and yet… here he was.

There were just a few of them, and the odds were incredibly high that Kai would rather throw himself into an active volcano than take orders from Sam… but it was a start, wasn’t it?

I could throw it all away, he realized, and then just surf the clouds peacefully.

You sure could, said another voice in his head, and then you’d be weak and easy to topple once somebody stronger thought, “Hey, that looks like a nice plot of land you got, I want it.” And then what would you do about it?

And maybe it made Sam feel like a bit of a psychopath, but he actually enjoyed fighting. It felt amazing. The rush of combat, the uncertainty, and the rewards were second to none.

All this passed through Sam’s head in a matter of seconds, though he could still see the uncertainty in Matt’s newly minted green eyes.

Sam looked at Raiko, who smiled encouragingly, then at Komachi, who was trying out picking her nose.

Before he opened his mouth, Matt interjected, “I’m not trying to buy my way in. The loot is yours, whatever it is you decide. I really thought I was going to die. And I would have gladly traded everything away for just a few precious seconds more. Silly, I know, considering my new undead state.”

“You’re still alive as I see it,” Sam said. “You’re conscious and aware of your surroundings, can interact with them. Seems pretty alive to me. We can’t help the way we are, Matt.”

“Komachi is naturally gassy.” His cat punctuated that statement with a poot that was thankfully carried away on the wind. “Is Komachi accepted?”

Sam held out a hand, and Komachi came scampering up to him. “Of course,” Sam said. He looked up at Matt. “You’d be more than welcome to join up. I don’t… have any idea what it is we are, grant you. But you’re welcome to whatever this is.”

“I actually have some ideas on that,” Matt said with a brilliant smile. Something dawned on him, and he held up his hands in surrender. “Not that I’m trying to take over or anything. Those days are gone. I’m more than happy not trying to climb to the top for once.”

Raiko snorted. “Going from a pathetically short lifespan to immortality will do that.”

“She’s right,” Matt agreed. “I have hundreds, maybe thousands, of years to look forward to. Being a part of something that gets built from the ground up? That sounds exactly like the sort of thing I would love, and you can use my experience to help you out.”

Sam had to admit, he would appreciate the insights that Matt might be able to give him. Then again, those insights were strictly Earth-based. Still, more help was nothing to scoff at, especially when the only assistance he had was a magical cat and a ghost-lady.

“I’ll take it,” Sam said. He scratched Komachi behind the ears. The purring engine started up and immediately reached full rev. “Now, about this loot, exactly how much of it is there?”

Matt looked around. “You don’t think it’ll just fly over the edge of the island, do you?”

Sam shrugged. “We could always do it inside of the tent, but I don’t see any reason to. It’s a bit windy out, but unless you have bank notes from on Earth, nothing should just fly away on its own.”

Despite the description that Matt had given, he hadn’t accounted for everything. And even Matt admitted that he just stuffed his Inventory as full as possible without looking at item descriptions, in case the ogre came back.

“Mostly gold goblets, silver trinkets, that sort of thing,” Matt said, eyes unfocused as he read through his Inventory. “Now that I get a better look, there isn’t so much equipment as I thought. But if we ever find a merchant, we’ll have some good seed money.”

Sam laughed. “Seed money? For what?”

Matt began pulling out golden necklaces, jewels, and several gaudy pieces of jewelry that looked as if they belonged in a museum. “Why,” Matt said, laughing as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, “to start your kingdom, of course.”