It’s Not Easy Making Money In The Apocalypse

I returned to my suite-like apartment complex. Seeing the posh location again, especially after being in the apocalyptic world, only made the lavish beauty even more alarming. Shaking my head in disbelief that I owned such a place, I knew that the only way I’d be able to keep it is if I kept getting items for Lily to sell at the auction house. The bones would only work for so long. At some point, I would have to start acquiring other items, and thus far in the waste, I had yet to establish any regular and consistent source of income.

It seemed like that to establish the income, I had to establish a safe trade route. The raiders had decided to take the route south to be unpassable, but things were different now than they were a few weeks ago. I had the resources necessary to heavily fortify a single route. That route would be the path to the Allco building I had first appeared in and the subway near it. With my Allco master code and Cecelia, I could create a security system that would be unbreachable.

However, first things first, I needed to head to the factory. I left the large suite and the elevator took me down. My previous escort only brought me one way. The age of dedicated elevator operators didn’t seem to exist, no matter how fancy the property was. When I reached the bottom floor, the security guard was waiting there though. The man gave me a friendly nod.

“You heading out, sir?” He asked.

“Ah… yeah, just heading to the factory for a bit,” I responded, not sure what else to say.

“Do you wish to log your trip with us, sir?”

“Huh?”

“It’s just an extra security precaution we offer. If something happens and our residents don’t return at a specific time, we’ll respond quickly with a private security detail, and if needed, contact the relevant authorities. Oh, and you’re also welcome to rent the security detail, but it will cost you.”

“I understand… thank you. I might be a few days in return.” I responded, my lips twitching slightly.

“Very good, sir.” He nodded as if this was normal. “If you do encounter any trouble, please give us a call anytime. We can also send out a security detail on location, send a ride, or provide catering, for a cost, of course.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I answered before hastily leaving the building.

Wasn’t that a bit excessive? Just living in the building gave you a one-stop-shop for just about anything you needed. The more I thought about it, it made a bit of sense. It was always safer that someone knew where you were, and when you were rich, that could be the difference between life and death. It also wasn’t that big of a detail that while you’re working security, holding a couple of numbers on standby should anything occur.

I wondered what they’d say if I told them I killed someone and needed cleanup? It probably wasn’t worth the cost. It was cheaper just taking them back to the apocalyptic world and dispatching them there. It took longer than I cared to admit that such a service shouldn’t be something a normal person should consider. Was that even a rich people problem, or a problem I seemed to be having?

I put such a thing out of my mind and became warier of the world around me. The last thing I needed was to stumble onto criminals that I ended up dispatching. Thus, I quickly made my way to the warehouses, which were far closer than they were from my old apartment, and I was able to reach it walking in only about fifteen minutes. I cautiously looked around to make sure no one was around before entering the building. One could never be too cautious. As I walked in, I could hear a robotic voice speaking.

“Movement detected! Please identify yourself immediately.”

“Stand down.” I lifted my Perco like it was a shield as I walked out in front of the security droid.

“Master identified. Standing down.” The robot’s entire body shut down as it went into standby mode.

I had seen how destructive and terrifying those robots could be on the other side, so it still caused me a bit of stress every time I walked out in front of one. Cecelia had assured me that the coding was 99.999% accurate, and a security droid seldom opened fire on someone who didn’t deserve it. It was that .001% and the almost that worried me the most. That said, I didn’t truly trust people. Even the likes of Red and her Dragon Claw in slave collars weren’t enough to satiate my worry completely.

That’s why I had to depend on robots and computers to do what I couldn’t trust the humans to do. Of course, I understood that even the master code was a form of trust. Would Cecelia turn on me the second the master code wasn’t binding her programming? I never wanted to find out.

“Time to start moving items.” I declared to myself.

Although it seemed like my transfers could occur indefinitely, they used up the crystals used as currency in the other world. Every time I transferred, some of the crystals would flash and disappear as the energy within them powered the spell. The more items I took, the more energy ended up being expended. All spells took crystals. Even when Hazel was casting all of her powerful spells, she had been using up the energy from nearby crystals to do it. Her high mana allowed her to pull from crystals from a greater distance, and it was difficult to say just how much her display cost, but it was enough that the extremely rich slavers were reduced to poverty.

Thankfully, sorcery was not a well-known weapon in the 90s, and the slavers presumed the crystals were destroyed, not consumed. The outbreak came out just as the first generation of spells were being released to the public, and it hadn’t caught on. This was why spell codecs were difficult to find. I also hadn’t missed that a virus that turned living things into crystal makers appeared at the same time that sorcery was starting to reach the mainstream. I’d be a fool to think they weren’t related.

At the moment, I had three spells. The first spell I had come to call world travel. It was a complicated spell that allowed me to transfer to another world. It’s hard to say why the spell worked the first time, bringing me to that apocalyptic world. It was likely some fluke, an errant anomaly caused by the atmosphere. Thankfully, I had found the Perco and put it on. Had I tried to return without it, I never would have made it home, and likely would have been a missing person case after being eaten by neerrats.

The two newer spells were psychokinesis and pyrokinesis. One allowed me to create fire, while the other allowed me to move objects with my mind. The more one tried to do, the more crystals were consumed. However, there was also one more limitation. That was the sorcery stat. If the codecs were the spell, the Perco was the means of casting the spell, and the crystals were the fuel, then the sorcery dictated the user’s ability to use said spells. For my sister, the codex allowed her to alter the weather and create powerful psychic storms that destroyed several city blocks. However, I started with the sorcery of 1, and after countless world travels, it had only expanded to 2.

I had tried pyrokinesis, and the most I could do was light candles from a distance. If someone stood still for a bit, I could burn their arm, although the level was about the same as holding a candle to their arm. Similarly, psychokinesis could only push or pull light objects under twenty pounds. I also had no control over them. If I tried to pull something, it’d come flying at me like a poltergeist threw it. As for stopping bullets or pushing them out of the way like my sister seemingly did with ease? I didn’t have the ability.

I was pretty disappointed when I saw the difference between my sister and myself. No matter how much I trained my sorcery, it’d be unlikely I’d get it up over 3. This world also didn’t have any AllSorcery or whatever they would call it. Since the sixth status of sorcery was new, they hadn’t released such a recipe. I told myself that comparing my sister’s ability to my own was like comparing an Olympic athlete with, well, myself. No matter how much I lifted weights, I was never going to be able to compete with a naturally gifted strongman. Thinking that only made me feel a little better. I still would never bring my sister back to this world of danger. Her skill wasn’t so important to me that I would ever risk her life again.

All of that came back to one thing. I wasn’t meant to become some overpowered magician ruling over the waste. My talents came in my unique access to world travel. I could travel between worlds, and through that, I could work to become rich. It wasn’t as simple as it seemed. Even though this method was quick, it was somewhat costly, and using this method of travel was far from the pure profit I liked to pretend it was.

Furthermore, if there was ever a situation where I made a mistake and transferred to earth without any energy crystals, then I’d be unable to return. This was the reason the mirror existed. It allowed for the transfer to be powered from one side without the other being necessary. I had been lucky to find the inventory and keep a certain amount of crystals in there, but there were times I had used a lot of my crystals and never considered just how close I had come to never being able to return.

Thankfully, Cecelia could keep a far more accurate measure of crystals than I could, so I’d never over-extend myself by consuming more crystals than I could afford. As for earning more crystals, I needed to come up with a source soon, or I might not be able to keep bringing supplies. For the moment, this was the best I could do.

As I started moving supplies back and forth, watching my supply of crystals quickly disappear, I recalled one more thing that might be able to change the status quo. The Allco Research and Development building, the current headquarters of the stupidly named Cock and Ball raiders, was still out there. Who knew just what could be found in such a place? I might even be able to find a solution to my crystal problem.