Chapter 161: What"s the point of dawdling here?
Ring!
In theory, only those who took part in the meeting should know what was said during its course. But just a single look at my ringing phone proved this official story wrong.
"Yes?" The fact that I was able to say anything before the onslaught began was some kind of miracle. "DO YOU HAVE ANY d.a.m.nED IDEA WHAT YOU JUST DID?!"
Jeff"s voice rang in my ears, almost causing me a headache.
"Yes, I"m perfectly aware of what I just did. I just set a new target for our entire cult. Will speak to you once I will be back." Putting the call to an end, I raised my head high before looking at the sky and sighing weakly.
"Something wrong?" Walking one step behind me, Ayda was quick to notice the slight distraught on my face.
"Not wrong, not really. I just managed to clean our schedule for the next few days." Smiling stupidly, I decided not to share the details of my worry with the girl. Not because I didn"t trust her, but because there was no reason to burden her with it.
Because the time to deal with Jeff finally come.
Ever since I created the cult and turned it from just an urban legend to a real ent.i.ty, I was troubled by the fact that I was barely any more important than a random figurehead. With Jeff and his people dealing with everything behind the scenes, he was of unparalleled help before, but now that my organisation was reaching higher levels, I had to remind him who was the real leader of the organisation.
And to think that this long-standing worry of mine would finally force me to act just because he had the guts to scold me on the phone!
"If you don"t want to tell me, it"s okay, but at least give me some clues." Closing the distance between the two of us, Ayda wrapped her hands around my arm. "Otherwise I won"t know how to act at all."
Feeling her warmth coating my arm, I sank into my own thoughts. Because as happy as I was to finally move forward with the things that weighed on me for a while already, I still had to take my time to figure out the proper way to achieve what I hoped to get.
"It"s not that I can"t tell you or even don"t want to. For now, I"m just unsure myself what to do next." Shaking my head, I pulled Ayda into one of the side alleys. Even though I initially hoped to bring her to earth to let her experience the lavish life in luxury, we never actually had the time to enjoy such lazy times.
Walking through the streets created by the ancient builders of the city from ages ago, a strange atmosphere appeared between the two of us. It was as if the old stone of the road, polished by millions of feet that walked on it, reflected the sunlight in a special, romantic way.
But as much as the whole world was trying to put the two of us into proper mood, I had no spare thoughts for such a frivolous thing right now.
Instead of enjoying the moment, I fell victim to the habit of constantly working that I created over the past few days. For some reason, most likely due to my own, deeply hidden worries, I couldn"t tear my thoughts away from planning my next moves.
"You know, the problematic part is how to deal with Jeff without completely curbing him and his family from the group." After some time of walking in silence, my lips moved on their own.
"So that"s what was worrying you. Oh poor you…" Snuggling even closer to my arm, Ayda instantly proved that comforting others laid well within the scope of her abilities. "Not even a moment of rest from scheming, no matter which world you go to."
Suddenly stopping in the middle of some random alley, Ayda moved to the front, only to turn around and charge chest-first into my body. Pushing herself right into my arms, she tightened her hands around my waist before resting her head against my chest. Soon, the calm rhythm of her breathing started to resonate with me, forcing my breath to a more normal pace.
"Thanks." Whispering into her ear, I lowered the centre of my weight, openly resting my upper body on the girl. "No matter how much I think about it, going to yet another world seems like a must to me now."
As repulsing as the idea was, there was hardly anything else I could to gain an edge over Jeff. And with the trouble that I caused at the town"s meeting, if he were to remain in power even after the election would be over, I would most likely never be able to threaten his position ever again.
"Isn"t that a good thing? The last time you went to another world, you met me. What"s more, isn"t it the thing that this entire system of yours encourages?" Using the fact that we were tightly hugged, we could whisper this discussion directly into each other"s ear.
"That"s… Not as easy as it sounds." Given how this was one of my memories that I didn"t enjoy at all, I tended to forget about everything that happened ever since I desperately dived into random words all the way to the point where meeting Ayda changed my life.
Because outside of the single apocalypse world that I continued to make use of, hardly any other place could provide me with anything of value.
Be it knowledge, resources or valuable people, I could only make use of the first two. After all, if I could move people between the worlds of my system then there would be no reason for all the bother to allow Ayda to enter earth in the first place.
But even with knowledge and resources, the natural limitation of a human"s personal power came to play.
I could move only so much stuff between worlds. Even if I were to spend the rest of my days hauling goods from different places, each of them would likely require yet another huge scheme for its worth to be recognised.
Even with knowledge, things were not any easier. Just like magic stones proved, even if I could obtain some groundbreaking and stalemate-shattering technology, the time required to implement it on Earth would greatly limit both its use and usability in the long term.
With all three things that I could obtain from other words either too complicated and time slash resource consuming to be used as my hidden strength, only one thing that I left off before remained now.
Magic.
And with how little I did towards my own cultivation even after learning how useful it could be only served as proof that in the end, my talent towards magic wasn"t that great at all!
"What else can we do, then? Are you sure we need to go against Jeff in the first place?" Even though Ayda didn"t spend a long time on earth, she was here for long enough to understand just how much influence this single man wielded within my faction.
"Yes. I don"t need to completely push him aside, but make sure that he won"t aspire to be the head of the entire faction. I"m not going to give it away to him just because he was the first one to offer me his support."
Thinking about the situation, I suddenly realised a certain event that I failed to properly think through before. All the way back when I first started dealing with Baskar"s family, I offered them a bit of apocalypse tech. But ever since then, despite completely joining hands with that formerly criminal family, I never ever once heard about any discovery related to this technology!
"Wait, could it be…" Even though it was obvious that the stalemate situation with the city could only last for so long, Jeff was pretty unsettled when the period of fake pace finally came to an end. Rather than being excited over the new opportunities that it offered, it appeared as if he was angry that things ended up rushed forward!
"What kind of devious idea is brewing under that scalp of yours?" Once again, Ayda proved to be the most attentive and observant person I ever knew. Because once I suddenly managed to make a guess of Jeff"s motives, rather than despairing over the troublesome situation, I allowed all my deepest and darkest emotions to swirl around in hopes that they will produce some sort of plan.
"Trust me, I wish I had one. But as for now, I seriously cannot think about anything else. If I don"t go exploring more worlds, it will be only a matter of time before Jeff will become so powerful, that this entire faction won"t matter anything to him at all anymore.
Magic stones were a groundbreaking technology. The constant rapports from Sander that I continued to receive and diligently study only prove that point even further when some of his apprentices managed to construct the very first magical computer. Although pretty faulty and slow, as long as the limiting factor of the infant technology would be taken care of, they could potentially become stronger than any computer ever a.s.sembled before!
But between those magic stones of mine, financed with my own pocket and developed by just a handful of people, and the possible technology recreated from the sc.r.a.ps of future tech that I gave to Baskars all this time ago…
"Okay then, let"s not waste time any more. Rather than wondering whether it"s a good idea, let"s just do it." Suddenly sneaking out of my hug, Ayda looked at my face with a serious expression all over her own. "There is this time freeze going whenever you enter another world? If that"s the case, what"s the point of dawdling here?"