Gacha Kingdom Building

Though the kingdom is filled with oddities, it\'s unreasonable to complain about the impossibly beautiful scenery that it offers.

Even the recent forest that suddenly spawned here also makes the whole place feel more alive... well, it literally makes it more alive thanks to the monsters that spawn in it, but the point still stands.

The only thing I\'m lacking right now to make this perfect is a pretty girl...

Anna, Beatrice, and Mia went to the forest to gather wood. Ellie and Claire are busy training and Licia is currently taking a bath...

It\'s actually pretty disappointing to think that any of them would manage to improve the mood, and yet, none of them are here...

And to add salt to injury, of all people that I could be sharing this moment with, it just had to be the fucking Merchant.

Merchant: "Are you worried about the monsters spawning in the forest?"

Miwen: "No.... we can handle them."

Merchant: "True... but then, why did you send a small party there? Wouldn\'t it be nicer to share this view with a cute girl?"

I really don\'t need him to remind me of that, no matter how true it is. But it seems like he\'s got the wrong impression of me.

I get that he\'s trying to dig as deep as possible into my character in the limited time he has, but it\'s not like all actions a person takes have a deep meaning behind them.

This one for example is quite simple...

Miwen: "I can trade some points for tents, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to camp here tonight."

Merchant: "And the fact that it helps you keep a closer eye on the forest, watch how the monsters act at night and what they do when there\'s a bunch of strong forces nearby, doesn\'t have anything to do with it ?"

Miwen: "That\'s just a bonus."

To be fair, I did think about advantages such as the ones the Merchant presented, but overall, they are quite minimal and weren\'t a deciding factor for my decision. I truthfully thought this could be good once in a while.

The monsters as of now aren\'t really something we have to worry about since we can keep their population pretty low by ourselves and nothing outrageous has spawned.

I don\'t like that we have to hunt them to begin with, I much rather we go back to when there wasn\'t any other entity in here, but, it\'s by no means the end of the world either.

Merchant: "I see... I feel like I understand you better and better by the day."

Miwen: "I wish I could say it goes both ways. The more I ask you, the more questions I\'m left with. Ones you purposefully refuse to answer."

Merchant: "You gotta trust me when I say it\'s better this way."

Trust...

Now that\'s something I\'m not very good with. But I might be beginning to warm up to it one way or another.

However, in this case, I don\'t really have a choice. The Merchant holds the answers but thinks it\'s better if I don\'t get them now and without knowing what it\'s all about, I can only accept his judgment on the matter.

Well, as far as intent goes, he probably means well for me and the girls. I mean, he\'s already an honorary member of the kingdom as far as I\'m concerned.

Not only is he doing his best to help out, but he\'s fun to be around and as an ally, I cannot think of anyone more reliable.

Even if his reliability comes with a price, and even taking into account that he would be way more reliable if not for his personality to begin with.

Merchant: "It will start to get dark soon, I think we should start with the roll. I take it I can do 17 this time?"

Miwen: "Yeah. What are you going for this time?"

Merchant: "Last time I got some pretty useful info. So I want to test something now, and I\'ll need you to get something big and physical."

I don\'t like where this is going and his enigmatic way of talking doesn\'t make it any better.

In the end, though, his request ended up being quite simple, but I don\'t see how this is going to work.

Miwen: "You wanna do the [Ships Banner]? Why?"

Is there any good reason for going for specifically this one? I get that they are something physical and big, but... so were the monsters we summoned before. Can\'t he test it out by doing the same one again?

Well, there\'s merit in testing out a bunch of banners, I might\'ve even done the same if they weren\'t so integral to my prospects in life.

Merchant: "Vessels sell for a lot."

Yeah, maybe I\'m the idiot digging too deep for reasons, but then again...

Merchant: "Also, it would help me out a lot to get a big ship. You see, I\'m currently dealing with a problem, so if I get at least that to show for my absence, it will be all worth it, and everyone we think I\'m actually incredible."

He\'s referring to his own group... I never dug too deep into what is currently going on with them, and since he\'s using the same vagueness he uses when he doesn\'t want me to know about something, it\'s obvious to me that he won\'t speak further even if I ask.

To start with, he doesn\'t even need to justify if he doesn\'t want to, I\'m willing to just follow the deal we made.

Well, if he wants ships... I\'ll give him ships.

Miwen: "I can try to get them on the river if you want to?"

Merchant: "No need, I\'ll be sending them away either way."

Miwen: "Alright, here they are..."

The river was kind of small to fit 17 ships, even more so considering we didn\'t know what size they would come in.

Normally letting them rest on the ground would be pretty bad, but since the Merchant will deal with that, I don\'t have anything to worry about.

As expected, in front of us ships of all sizes and forms appear, there\'s even one that-

Merchant: "...What is that?"

Miwen: "...I believe it\'s... a warship?"

There were a lot of wooden ships in front of us, I\'m not really good with ship types, but I could recognize what seemed to be some caravels and some transport boats.

Among them, a few stood out as really large ships filled with rows of cannons that looked ready to dominate the sea.

Well, if not for the giant monstrosity made of steel that stood out like a sore thumb among them.

Merchant: "...Am I supposed to laugh? That thing is nothing but weight! Forget about sinking at the sea, it might even sink the very ground it\'s standing on!"

A fair point, even wooden ships have to worry about their weight, so a ship made entirely of metal does look like a bad joke.

But that just goes to show how incredibly developed naval engineering is on Earth.

It also raises a suspicion...

Miwen: "You lived for a long time. You must\'ve seen a large amount of worlds... have you never seen a ship like this before?"

Merchant: "Never. Is it from your planet?"

Miwen: "That\'s a very good question... I\'m beginning to think so..."

It\'s hard to say... while I\'m not good with wooden ships, I\'m even worse when it comes to modern ships. And that is already assuming it\'s a modern ship.

As far as I\'m concerned, it might be from World War 1, or I might just see news tomorrow about a ship that suddenly vanished into thin air leaving the crew lost on the open sea.

Hell, this thing might even be from the future or another world that the Merchant just happens to have never been in.

Although... the chances of the latter are looking pretty abysmal right now...

From everything going around on the internet, what I could gather from the girls, and now this situation with the Merchant, I\'m beginning to think that Earth just might be the only planet to have developed technology so much.

As for the reasons why that might be, there\'s a bunch that I can think of, like for example-

Merchant: "I can\'t wrap my head around this one. It doesn\'t make sense at all."

Miwen: "That\'s gold coming from you."

The Merchant was still in awe as he tried his best to come to terms with what he was seeing.

No matter how many times I told him that this was as good as any other ship in here, he just couldn\'t believe it.

More importantly, though, Licia had finally finished with her bath and asked to join us.

Seeing as there wasn\'t any problem with that, I let her.

Licia: "...Miwen, honey..."

Miwen: "Yes dear?"

Licia: "I believe I only left for like, half an hour?"

Miwen: "More or less."

Licia: "...Then can you explain why there\'s an entire fleet in our backyard?"

Miwen: "...That would be... the Merchant\'s fault."

In all senses. It was his idea to begin with. And he failed to do away with the ships as he kept mesmerizing the warship.

Licia: "And what is that!?"

Merchant: "Believe it or not, it\'s also a ship."

The two of them kept in denial, but when I told the Merchant we could explore the warship today with everyone he finally started to send the ships somewhere else using his power.

I can\'t really prove to him that the thing works, but it will probably be fun to take a look around either way.

And so, when everyone reunited, we took some time to explore the ship.

Of course, this took me back to the time when everything was new to the girls and they always reacted surprised, so I made sure to bring a camera and register this moment.

Getting a photo of the Merchant as amazed as a kid is probably the biggest loot of today. If I had to guess, it\'s probably worth an entire planet or two.

Lucky for him, these photos and videos are simply priceless, as I have no intention of ever trading these moments for anything.