His lens lit up like a Christmas tree and started displaying different designs of clothes one could wear. All one needed to do was think and choose a design for the nanobots to generate. It was similar to Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit in the Avengers. One might think that with such nanotechnology, they wouldn’t need to buy any more clothes and could survive with just one.
No.
In order to obtain a particular design, one would have to pay royalties to the designer. In a way, it was more direct and better, and one could access a set of designs depending on the amount of money spent on their nanocloth initially.
Aric did a quick search, and since it was mind-controlled, his clothing design changed into one of the most common ones he had seen among humans, which was just a T-shirt and loose pants. After transforming himself, he soon left for the cave.
Within half an hour, he was back at the cave. Seeing the old, dilapidated cave, he thought of changing his base once he was sure of the world, but at the moment, this would have to suffice. Instead of returning to the magical world, he found himself back at his grandparents’ place.
The last time he tried teleporting from his bathroom to Echorysia to his bedroom, he just visualized his bedroom a bit and was able to teleport instantly. He wanted to see if he could do the same with other places too. And surprise, surprise...
He could go to any place he had ever crossed paths within this lifetime. So every new place he had visited in the last few days since his reincarnation, he could move through via two teleports. It was basically like exploring gaming maps and having fast travel to each location he had ever visited before.
This meant that he could return to the same village where everything went awry and he was thrown into the jaws of death. But he needed to have a better strategy than the previous one he had. After returning to his grandparents’ place, he was welcomed with food again, which he loved.
"Grandma! I can’t eat any more cookies. It’s too much," Aric protested as he was given home-baked cookies.
"Who is telling you to eat? You are just tasting. There’s no harm in tasting," Grandma said, which frustrated Aric a bit but also made him thankful for their love. As he was eating, his grandpa came with a box in his hand.
The small cardboard box had "NOKIA" written on it in big letters. Aric’s eyes widened when he saw that.
"You damaged your previous black and white mobile?" Aric asked.
"I may be old, but I’m not that old. Do you think I’m that clumsy?" Grandpa seemed to get angry and berated Aric for assuming things.
"Then why the new mobile? You do know that the bill for a single call comes at a high cost," Aric said.
"This is for you. Your birthday is coming up next month, and I wanted to surprise you," Grandpa said. In his previous life, Aric had received a mobile on his birthday the following month. This time, the whole story had changed, and he received it earlier. The previous him would have been very happy with this gift.
But the current him wasn’t moved at all because he had something better on his wrist, something he hadn’t even started unlocking its full power and potential. The knowledge he had saved on his communicator would be enough to change the world on a fundamental level.
Yet, Aric was beyond grateful for the gift because a mobile might not mean much to him, but the thought behind it moved him. He thanked his grandparents profusely and engaged in general conversation.
His grandparents were surprised that Aric was so mature. It had only been a month or so, but Aric seemed to have changed a lot. Of course, he had changed. Not only his mental age but also due to the murder he had committed an hour or so ago.
After chatting and joking with his grandparents while listening to their old stories, they had their dinner, and being the old people they were, they went to sleep at 9 pm.
The mobile Aric had received didn’t have a SIM card yet, so he couldn’t contact anyone or share his number. Not that it mattered. It was time for hunting.
Around 10 pm, when he heard the soft snores of his grandpa, he closed the doors quietly so that nobody could barge in. He took his drones, which he had hidden after returning, and the gun.
The pistol had come with 500 rounds of plasma rounds, which was enough for Aric to deal with 12 or 13 men. He just needed to be careful and use his abilities optimally. Taking a deep breath and camouflaging himself, he returned near the same tree where he had hidden before.
From there, he could already see that the village was in total darkness. There was no light anywhere except for the light from the sky. The moon was high above, and the clear stars seemed to be shining enough to make out what had happened.
Bodies were piled one above another in the main square of the small village, lifeless and their clothes fluttering in the calm wind. Aric felt goosebumps all over his body when he saw that. When the bandits assaulted the village, he thought they might leave them alive since they were wearing masks, but they killed multiple men and women of the village and didn’t even provide a burial.
This was beyond disgusting, and all the minute guilt he felt for killing Eric vanished. Their whole group deserved death. He pulled out the drones and gave an instruction through his communicator to follow the tracks of the people who have caused this cruelty on the village.