World Keeper

Chapter 709: Oldbeard

Terra and Firma smiled towards Julius from either side of him as they read out the words projected on their books. After Tsubaki called them to ask about information on Julius, the two discovered that he was establishing insurance policies against an unseen enemy. While their books did not specifically tell them who this enemy was, it was enough to send word back to the citadel.

Tsubaki asked that they move immediately to delay him while she prepared to take the field. Since the two were easily able to track Jonas’s position, it was only a matter of putting on a little show for him to make him freeze up. Careful, I can see several void threads on him. And his profile said that he could hypnotize people with the power of the void, too.

Really, he’s just one step away from a Fallen God at this point, isn’t he? The two felyns conversed mentally while staring Julius down.

“Who are you? Why are you stalking me?” Julius asked, feeling the anger bubbling up inside of him. Still, he had to keep in control of his situation. There was too much at risk here. The fact that they read out his thoughts so clearly indicated that they very likely knew about his backup plans.

“We do.” One of them confirmed, with the other one answering his questions.

“We are the incarnations of the lady Terra. And you have been a very naughty god.” There was a grin on her face as she said that. “A pact with the king of contracts himself, a taste of the void? Someone’s been tampering with powers beyond their own control.”

A feeling of disbelief welled up within Julius as he shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” To the surprise of the two girls, he was being sincere. He figured that his hypnotism had something to do with the void, but what was this about a king of contracts?

“Wow… the text is starting to distort.” The twin with the black book said, surprise written across her face. “I think I made it angry.”

“You mean that it’s watching?” The other one asked, puffing her cheeks out. “Why didn’t you say so sooner? We could have severed that link ages ago.”

For some reason, Julius panicked when he heard that, retreating half a step. What do they mean, sever the link? They can get rid of my powers? The thought caused him to feel a strong sense of alarm, and he immediately mobilized his mana to trigger another teleport spell.

“He’s heading to the mountains in the west. Apparently, it was a setting that they copied for his game.” The golden-book sister reported, her words shattering his focus for a brief moment. By the time his spell had gone off, and he found himself standing at the base of a tall mountain, the two sisters were already standing before him once again.

“That’s not… that’s just not fair.” Julius muttered in disbelief, his eyes losing their lustrous glow as darkness overtook them.

“The text is getting more distorted, watch out!” One of the sisters called out. “I think the boss is about to show up.”

“Think we can take him on our own?” The other asked, moving to her sister warily.

“You kidding? Neither of us are trained for battles! We’re just here to keep him busy until the real fighters show up.” When Julius heard that, he paused momentarily. Was this a bluff? How could the incarnations of the Goddess Terra not be fit for battle? That was the most ridiculous thing he had heard in a long time.

“Well, how long is she going to take?” The golden-book sister asked, seeing the blackness completely cloud Julius’s eyes. Her book slammed shut before opening again, and she quickly skimmed through the contents. “...Oh.”

“What ‘Oh’? Don’t ‘Oh’ me!” The other sister shouted, though soon noticed that her twin had relaxed. “She’s already here, isn’t she?”

“Well, not specifically… duck.” As soon as she said that, both felyns hit the ground, lying prone without a moment’s hesitation. Before Julius could understand what he was seeing, a beam of light soared in from the distance, at least five meters thick as it immediately slammed into his body.

The sisters held their heads low for some time after the beam passed, before eventually looking up. When they did, they saw that the man who had stood before him had been erased… as had a circular hole in the mountain behind him. “Overkill, much?” The golden-book sister asked, causing her twin to shake her head.

“No, he’ll come back tomorrow with that new respawn system of his.” Saying that, she walked over to where Julius had previously been, seeing the numerous black threads slowly retreating. “I can probably cut him off from his resurrection, since he’s still tapped into the power of the void. But it would be a lot easier if we could get Leowynn in on this.”

“Has her incarnation ascended yet?”

The question of the golden-book sister was answered when space distorted between the two of them, an elven woman stepping forward. She seemed to have starlight in her hair, and a black void in one eye. Naturally, the two Terras recognized this as Leowynn. However, this was not her mortal incarnation, but rather her true self.

“Tsubaki called me over.” Leowynn explained with a small smile. “She said that it was an emergency?”

The sister with the black book nodded her head. “She tell you about the prophecy?”

Leowynn nodded slightly. “Well, the other you did, so I’m up to date enough. Do you just need me to sever his connection with the void monster?”

After thinking it over, the chaos twin shook her head. “It’d be better if you could eliminate the problem at its source. During the confrontation just now, it was starting to take over his body, so it might have more methods of bringing him back. We don’t want another Ashe incident.”

Leowynn’s eyes went icy when she heard that, nodding her head. “Alright, I’ll go take care of it.” After saying that, darkness wrapped around her body, sending her away into the void.

“You know not to mention the Ashe incident…” The divine twin said, her ears flat against her skull. That was the closest thing to a taboo subject they knew, short of the Keeper himself being in danger.

“Well, it got her moving…” Though she said that, the back of the chaos twin was soaked in a cold sweat. That incident had left a lasting impression on the Greater Pantheon, and none of them wanted to allow a repeat of it to take place.

“Well… I think it’s safe to say that that situation is taken care of.” I shook my head with a wry smile, having expected that Julius would put up far more of a fight. At the end, I could see that his power had actually weakened considerably, being stolen away by the void connection he possessed. From how I saw it, the void monster never intended to fully possess Julius.

Instead, he wanted to consume him, along with all of the deals he had made. Doing so would have likely boosted his strength by a few levels before he simply found a new host. Of course, if that truly did happen, there was a very real chance of the void monster appearing in the future while wearing Julius’s appearance.

At least, that was the case before Leowynn got involved. As the Goddess of the Void, she was more than a match for your typical void monster. I wasn’t quite sure how strong this one in particular was, but given that Leowynn’s strength constantly grew from the Boundless Caravan, I knew that it wasn’t strong enough.

While I was thinking about that, I heard a brief mental ping alerting me of my next opponent being selected for the Keeper Games. Pulling up that window, I gave it a brief glance before sighing. Once again, I was on the defending side this time. And the Keeper who would be invading me was called… Oldbeard?

Opening up the chat window, I fired off a message to Sarah to ask her about the title. At this rank, Sarah was the only one I could reliably count on to have information about my potential opponents, without going to the Gilded Branch. The rest of the guild still seemed to be taking things slowly, as their ranks had not changed in quite some time.

To my surprise, the answer from Sarah came back rather quickly, though what surprised me even more was the content.

EverLasting: Sorry, I’m a bit busy designing a new game world right now and preparing for my next round. Oldbeard’s good though, so you can contact them directly.

It was the first time I had seen Sarah flatly turn down the chance to talk before, so I could tell that she was rather serious about that invasion. Either that or the game she was working on had reached a critical point. To be honest… it was probably a bit of both.

Either way, I shook my head and sent out a message to Oldbeard asking to chat. This time, I had to wait for roughly five minutes for a response. Most likely, she was in her world, and her System Companion had to notify her of the message.

Oldbeard: Who’s this? I don’t typically get random calls

EarthForceOne: I’ll be your next opponent in the month after this one, so I wanted to get in touch with you

Oldbeard: Really? Neat, I haven’t launched my invasion for this month yet, so I haven’t gotten the report on who I’ll be up against. Am I attacking or defending

EarthForceOne: It looks like you’ll be on the attacking end

Oldbeard: That’s been a bit of a trend lately… Just making sure, but you’re not a Monster Keeper or anything, right

EarthForceOne: I definitely like to think not. The Gilded Branch should be able to vouch for me if you need some extra assurance

Oldbeard: Nah, that’s fine. I can ask them about it later. I take it you’re calling to basically say ‘Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, I’m innocent. And by the way, are you open to trade

EarthForceOne: I.. would not have phrased it quite like that, but it’s not too inaccurate, I guess

Oldbeard: Don’t sweat the details. Let me just get my trade list, and I’ll send it right over. I just got some new items listed on it, so this will make a good test run.

After she said that, there was a lull in the conversation. Less than thirty seconds later, a message appeared, showing a long list of items along with their descriptions and prices. Glancing at my own balance, I knew that I had more than enough to spend on a few things, so I read through the list seriously to take note of anything that stood out.

First, the races she had to offer. There were two of them, with one being your rather typical elf, and the other being purely made of rock. Given my experiences with the Sylvans, I was not particularly against bringing some of them over.

Moving on from that, I looked over the items she listed. Some of them were rather ordinary, such as items that suppressed magic and mana-based energies in a radius around them, another that suppressed the presence of the void, and so on. Finally, I got to the last item on her list, which was likely the one that she had only recently added.

Level Transfer

A crystal sphere, allowing the user to copy knowledge and training related to a specified set of levels, to grant those levels to another party. Seriously, don’t buy this if you don’t have a game system, I won’t give refunds.

5000 Points, Game System Required

Looking at that item, I could clearly tell that Oldbeard had a game world themselves, and I could also imagine several practical uses for that sphere. After all, the education of youths was done by training up the Scholar class, as well as a few other practical classes. With this sphere, that education could be done in a matter of days.

Furthermore, since it passed down an individual’s knowledge and training, it could be used in tandem with the legacy scrolls to create a proper legacy that could be passed down from one generation to the next. The only potential downside was whether or not personality traits and individual quirks would manifest through this inherited knowledge.

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