Axel forced Teruria to tell him what happened. But after he did, he couldn’t help but feel a headache coming.
"So..." He summarized with a hand to his forehead. "To ensure I survived the Mana Overload, you were forced to use that Witch’s Kiss or something on me, is that it?"
"Exactly~!"
Teruria nodded energetically.
"And thanks to that, the two of us now share the same mana pool~!"
"...What?"
"Ah, let me explain that too!"
The covenant through the Witch’s Kiss was something meant to help each other out, not simply a proof of each other’s trust, but also of everlasting commitment. And as they use a modified mana combined with vitality, the sharing of mana pools is basically sharing one’s lifeforce with the other for witches.
Of course, that’s the case only if it’s a covenant between witches. But Axel was neither a witch nor a warlock. He was a human. His mana was not mixed with vitality or anything, just pure and unfiltered.
Thus, although it’s not like Teruria couldn’t use it, it was normally quite troublesome to do so.
"But thanks to your absurd mana levels, I can basically brute force the conversion and still get some change to spare! Really, you’re astounding in more ways than one, dear husband~!"
Axel heard everything and figured that this situation was quite beneficial to Teruria herself. However, to him, this wasn’t really a plus, but rather a minus.
"Is there any way to break this covenant?" He asked frankly.
"Eh?!" This caused Teruria to gasp in shock. "Does my husband want to divorce me so early?!"
Axel rubbed his arms filled with goosebumps and warned, "Stop calling me husband, I have bad memories with that word. Anyway, is it possible or not?"
"Well, it’s not like there’s no way..."
Teruria’s face looked sad as she explained.
"However, breaking a covenant can only be done by the Witch Queen—my mother. So I can’t do much about it..."
"..."
Axel could recall her saying that she tampered with the teleporter she used, making it so that it’d take a week at least before someone from Witcheria could come for her.
"That’s too long..." Axel sighed, shaking his head.
"But I guess we’ve got no choice. Then, let’s wait for five more days before breaking this covenant. You wouldn’t want to be paired with a nobody like me either, would you?"
"That..."
The little princess faltered before showing an awkward smile—a mix of sadness and resignation.
"Well, I guess so."
"...?"
At that time, Axel had no clue as to why she had that face.
But by the time he learned of the reason, it was already...
...
Axel was forced to rest for half a day more.
Of course, he was served food in bed as he was recuperating, with the girls taking charge of watching over him in cycles. Although he wasn’t really injured anymore after drinking a potion, they still insisted.
Having nothing better to do, Axel instead focused on the new quest he had just gotten.
It was a simple, straightforward quest, but one that required great planning before he could implement it.
Quest: Accessing the Waters!
Requirements:
- Access the river to the west
- Build a waterwheel
Rewards:
- Unlock Terrain: River
- Unlock Hydroelectricity
- Unlock Housing: Drainage
- Unlock Housing: Waterway
A quest that basically asked him to harness the power of the river for the camp.
Of course, with his financial prowess, it’s not that hard to complete the quest. But the problem was not only distance, as the river was roughly 60 kilometers away.
"There are two monster dots I need to pass before reaching the river..."
From the sizes being extra small, he was sure it wasn’t that much of a threat. However, he was worried about something else.
Monsters that he had encountered so far were undead, monsters that die instantly under direct sunlight. But these monster dots were moving around even during the day. Which means...
"These aren’t zombies, but other monsters."
Though even if he knew that, he couldn’t figure out what sort of monster they were. The map didn’t say that, at least, only showing "???" as the description. Axel figured that to discover what sort of monster they were, he had to first scout them out.
"I guess that’d be my task once I’m able to go out..." He nodded to himself.
Just as he was getting bored, Axel heard a new ringing sound echo in his ears. Realizing what it signified, he quickly checked the crafting panel of the system, only to see that the auto-crafting of dolls had completed.
The ring signified he had reached the limit for the specific item in his inventory!
To be specific, he now had 250,000 pieces of Voodoo Dolls—the target quantity he initially set—after automatically batch-crafting them!
Right, even after he lost consciousness, the auto-crafting was still running undisturbed! During the first night, when he unlocked batched mode for the auto-crafting, it was even auto-applied to the active production lines!
Each batch craft takes about twice as long as individual crafting, but they could create up to x999 of the said item, increasing the speed and efficiency greatly!
"Shit...!"
And realizing that all crafting had its batching applied automatically, only then did Axel realize that his money was going down the drain! The drop in his money was visible to the naked eye, seeing the numbers roll lower and lower with each new batch being made!
"I gotta recoup my losses...!"
Without delay, he sold all the items he’d stockpiled. Of course, he didn’t fine-tune individual prices anymore, as with the large quantity he had, doing so would be impossible either way.
But something weird happened the next instant.
"Huh?"
The items, which had reached thousands, if not hundreds of thousands in quantity, vanished in the blink of an eye. His account, which fell to seven digits, bounced back to having over eleven digits at once! One digit more than before!
"88 billion!"
It wasn’t much, considering his debts, but otherwise, it was enough for him to directly pay for his Humvee and more! But the speed at which his items were being sold out made him worry.
"Don’t tell me, scalpers hit me again?!" He guessed.
But after checking the shop, he didn’t find any of his items being resold. Not the accessories, not the weapons, nothing!
"Huh...? Weird..."
Although he was puzzled as to why his items suddenly gained enough fame to literally fly off the shelves in the blink of an eye, he still appreciated his customers. With them crazily spending to buy his items, he was now able to proceed with his projects with even more momentum!