CH.214 Showing Lua the Secrets of the Factory
CH.214 Showing Lua the Secrets of the Factory
In the morning, I met up with Lua in the factory. Now that she is my significant other, I have a few places I want to show her.
“Let’s start with this place, as we are right here.” I said, taking Lua up the set of steps that leads to the control platform. Previously she couldn’t access this area, as we had prevented everyone except Laura, Tahlia, Fantasia and myself from entering. Just because this place can directly influence some of my skills, like Storage, Dungeon Founder and Pack Opener. It also holds some administrative power over the factory. Sure most of my monsters are good and I don’t think Lua or Mia would ever mess with anything, but better safe than sorry. And some of my monsters do have … chaotic personalities, so they might do something just because.
“Wh-what is all of this?” Lua asked, looking at all of the monitors, displaying the inside of the factory, the dungeon as well as my surroundings in the real world. I have no idea how they can pull the images from my eyes when my eyes are closed, but it works, so I don’t care.
“I call it the control station. Here, take a seat.” I said, pulling out a chair for Lua.
She did as instructed and I sat down next to her.
“I can use this place to control some of my skills. All of these video feeds you see are made possible by integrating my Dungeon Founder skill with my Different Dimension Factory.” I explained. “These are from inside the factory. See, that’s Vampire Kingdom, there are the ocean rooms, and that is the fairy Sanctuary.” I said, showing her rooms she might recognize. “While these are from the dungeon. You might not recognize it, as it has changed a lot, but yeah. Here, the core room. I think you should recognize that.”
“... yes. I think I do.” She said. “And that?”
“That comes directly from my eyes. It is the roof of the room I’m staying in. It is always displayed in that movie theater room, but Tahlia or Fantasia must have put it up here as well. Also, I have no clue how it sees through my eyelids.” I explained. “Then here, you can control things like permission in the factory. It can limit where certain monsters can go, and so on.” I continued. “And here you can manage my Pack Opener. You can even use it to open packs, if you want.”
“... I see. Brian. Can I ask you something?”
“Of course. What is it?”
“Why are you showing me all of this?”
“... because it is the way I can show you how much I trust you. I want to show you that I trust you with my life, with my skills. I don’t want you to think that I agreed to be your boyfriend just because. And this is the best way I think I can show it. Just five people, well, one system support, two skill avatars, and us two, can access this area. Even Mia isn’t allowed here. But I want you to be able to come here, because I trust you, okay. … I might be bad at showing you how much I lo… I like you, but I hope this will suffice.”
Why? Why can’t I say it? I want to, but … someday.
“.. I see. Thank you, Brian. This really means a lot.” Lua said, likely just to try to show some appreciation, but I might be wrong.
“... anyway. Let’s get back on track.” I said, before I could get lost in her eyes. “Here is one thing you should definitely know. By using this terminal,” I said, as I pointed out the computer Lua was sitting at. “You can access my Pack Opener’s collection. There, you can see all of the cards I have.” As I said that, I navigated the menu and opened up my collection.
A giant list of cards, with a small image to the side appeared. In total, I have 1507 unique cards. As in, when you count just original, non altered Yugioh cards. But with all of the different entries that the collection uses, like the same card from different sets, cards that have sleeves, cards that have toploaders, and cards that have installs, the number in my collection was well over 5000.
“Wow… I had no idea you had this many…” Lua muttered.
“It is a lot.” I admitted. “Here, I’ll show you how you can search the cards in there.” I said, showing her the search functions of my collection.
Sort out monsters, spells and traps first. Then you can pick between different sub-types, like continuous, counter and normal traps. Or for monsters, you can sort between normal, effect, flip, fusion, etc.
Sort by attribute, dark, light, all of that, you know.
Or by subtype, dragon, fairy, spellcaster, etc. You get the drill.
Of course you can even sort by level. And even search out words in the cards' effect text. That is nice when I’m looking for cards that can heal people. I just search for a card with an effect to increase life points, and boom.
Yeah. You can search in so many ways.
“So, if you ever want new cards, you can look through this and ask for anything. Or if you meet a monster in the factory that you like, just ask for their card name, and then tell me you want it, and I’ll give you one.” I said. “And if you don’t feel like sorting through it yourself, you can just ask me for anything. I’ll hopefully find something you like.”
“... wow. You are spoiling me already.”
“No. That is nothing. Honestly.”
After a bit more time explaining the control platform, I led Lua to the goblin bank. I wanted her to see my money factory after all.
“... this really is a bank, huh.” Lua muttered.
Actually, do they have banks in this world? They must, considering what she just said. I know this place is loosely based off of the Gringotts bank from Harry Potter, but I don’t know how accurate it really is. As in, how historically accurate the bank's insides were, when compared to a historic bank. Or like a medieval bank.
“What do they store here? Your cards?” Lua asked.
“I don’t think they have those. Well, they have some of them.” I said, referring to the goblins using some of them, like Good Goblin Housekeeping to manage my tokens. “But mostly, it is money. Come. I’ll show you.”
We walked to the person, goblin, in charge of the front room, and asked if the manager was ready for us. I had warned him about our visit yesterday, and asked that he leaves at least some Upstart Goblins so Lua can see them. We were then led into the managers room.
… is it wrong to call him the manager? He is kind of the owner. Well, I guess realistically Tahlia and I are the owners. And he is just the one in charge of the day-to-day operations. So I guess general manager isn’t that far from the truth.
“Master, we’ve been expecting you.” He greeted me. “Lady Lucia as well. Welcome.”
“H-Hello.” Lua responded, being a little taken back by the muscular hobgoblin wearing a three-piece suit.
“Hi Greed. … I shouldn’t call you that. How about a name? Do you have one?” I asked the Goblin of Greed.
“I don’t mind being called Greed, or you can give me another name, if you wish.” He responded.
… great. I should have considered this beforehand. I’m not good at coming up names on the spot. Greed… G… oh. That will work.
“Then from now on your name is Gary.” I said. No, I didn’t name him after Gary Oak. … okay, I totally did. But really, they are kind of similar. In a way. If you look up the lore story of Goblin of Greed, he has some nice backstory. Both start off with a jerkish personality, but learn from their mistakes. … okay, let’s be honest here. Goblin of Greed never learned. But I’ll hope mine never reaches the point where he will try to steal from me, because at that point I can and will just sack him for sleeves. I don’t care that I will have to waste the sleeve and toploader he is in to do that.
“Gary? Yes. Thank you, Master. I shall go by the name Gary from now on.” Gary accepted his new name.
“Well, I’m happy to hear that you like it. So, Gary, can you show us what I requested?”
“Yes. Of course. This way, please.” He led us back to the small hallway that was between the front room and his office, instead of into Tahlia’s room.
We entered one of the rooms in that corridor and were led to a small-ish room with a large window. We looked into a different room, where a group of 8 Goblin of Greeds were working, activating Upstart Goblins, Pot of Greeds and other cards that they could. On the tables they were using as work tables were Spirit of the Pot of Greeds, one for each of the four tables. There was also a Goblin King watching over them. Probably some sort of ‘Don’t even think about stealing’ watcher.
The one part of the operation that I didn’t know about was actually a separate table with two Blindly Loyal Goblins activating Goblin's Secret Remedy. I quickly pulled up my Storage inventory and found Goblin Herbs there. But there were only just over ten of them, so they must have just started that today. Maybe Gary added that to impress both Lua and I.
Now I feel like I should look into the other potion cards I have. My storage can hold liquids just fine, even without a container. And my potion making cards come with a container. And as my storage can freeze time for them, they shouldn’t spoil.
I think Lord Poison or Poison Mummy should be able to activate Poison of the Old Man. At least based on how Goblin of Greed can activate Pot and Jar of Greed, but something like Goblin Calligrapher can only activate the Goblin spells and traps, like Good Goblin Housekeeping.
Well, that is something I can look into later.
“So, what do you think?” I asked Lua. “Impressive, isn’t it?”
“... yes. But what exactly are they doing?” Lua asked.
“Plenty of things. Those guys are activating Pot and Jar of Greeds.” I explained. “They get me more pack tokens.” I showed her a Pot of Greed. “That table is using Goblin's Secret Remedy to make healing herbs. And those two. They are using Upstart Goblin to make me money.” I said as I showed her a grayed out Upstart Goblin.
Lua read the effect of Upstart Goblin and her eyes widened a bit.
“... wh. How many?”
“Two hundred and thirty-three.” I answered. “And each of them is activated once per day. Each copy gives five coins, and there is a 40% chance to get a cold coin, 30% chance for a large silver and 30% for a small silver. So on average I get 466 gold coins each day. And 350 large silvers and 350 small silvers. And considering the rates between the coins, that is 571 gold coins per day.”
“... wow. That is … amazing.” Lua said. “But how do you get the money out of here? Didn’t you say that things here … aren’t real?”
“True. But the money that appears here isn’t real. The real money they make is directly deposited into my storage. The same goes for every other card that makes physical objects.” I answered.
“Then why would..?”
“May I answer that, Master?” Gary asked.
“Sure, go for it.” I gave permission.
“We use those coins to motivate ourselves. We simply enjoy handling money, so having it feels a lot better than not having it. There is also one other thing, if you don’t mind following me.”
He led us back to the previous corridor, through a different door, down some steps, and we reached what looked like a giant back vault door.
“Master, would you mind? I cannot open it outside of the dedicated times given to us by Lady Tahlia.” Gary said.
“Sure.” I took a step forward and scanned my hand on the biometric scanner. Another thing these guys pulled out of nowhere. Actually, Tahlia probably made it. She is some super advanced storage AI thing, so she probably knew about it.
After I scanned my hand, Gary spun the handle on the door and pulled the door open. Inside we saw a massive pile of gold and silver coins.
“This is the factory’s money vault. It holds a coin for each coin Master has in his storage. It is a way we see how much we have been able to help Master.” Gary explained.
I, of course, knew about the amount of money I had in my storage. … there is a lot of it. But seeing it all out in the open like this really just brings to life how much money it is. Hearing 10,000 gold coins is something, but seeing it is something else. Not to mention the piles of silver. Honestly, I’ll soon be Scrooge McDuck with enough coins where I can start swimming in them.
“... that is … Brian, are you planning on buying a country or something?” Lua asked.
“No. Why would I? A mansion, maybe, but why would I ever buy a country?”
“... I just… that much money… I don’t think I could ever use that much.”
“Well, we can try. Want to go on a shopping spree?” I joked, knowing fully well that because a lot of things here are custom made, instead of being ready made, it would be extremely difficult to use that much money quickly. We would be waiting for tons of orders at that point. And during the wait, my money factory would more than make up all the money we would have spent buying all of that stuff.
“I … yes. Let’s.” Lua agreed to my idea of a shopping spree.
I wonder. Is there a black market auction somewhere? I kind of want to go to one now. Pick up some treasures that cost way too much money. Most isekai stories have some, so maybe. But I might have to head to a bigger city with more nobles so I can find one.
Fly over to the capital and look there? I guess we could. It shouldn’t take that long with Big Core and with Gradius, I can fly at even faster speeds.
After taking a look at the vault, we went back to Gary’s room. I asked him to slide the bookshelf and reveal the door to Tahlia’s room, scanned my hand on the panel and entered the room with Lua.
“... what is this place?” Lua questioned, as she looked at the super futuristic servers and computers all around us.
“Tahlia’s room. Or in a way, the core of Tahlia. She is the avatar that can move around, but this space could be said to be her.” I explained, as I understood it, as I led us towards the table she was sitting at. “Tahlia.” I called out. “We are here to see you.”
She put her book down and looked at us.
“f-Father! Please warn me before bringing others here.” She said, as she noticed Lua. She stood up, before her avatar disappeared and reappeared, this time wearing her dark blue circuit board pattern dress. Has she never shown herself in front of Lua in her pink onesie? Maybe she hasn’t. She does usually wear her dress when outside of her room or the control platform.
“Lady Lucia, please forget my previous appearance.” She said, as she bowed slightly to us.
“... alright.” Lua responded after a second. I wonder, did she lie? She must have used that second to burn the image of Tahlia’s pink onesie into her brain.
“Tahlia, as you heard, I took Lua as my girlfriend. I won’t force you to give her access to this room, but I would like it if you did.” I told her. “Also, make sure to treat her well.”
“Yes, Father.” Tahlia gave a forceful reply.
“Don’t worry. I don’t need access.” Lua said to Tahlia. “I’ll be happy as long as you don’t hate me.”
“... yes, Lady Lucia.”
“Please, just call me Lua.”
One more stop. Fantasia. Finding her is always a fun spot the Fantasia game. Usually it wasn’t that difficult, as I only needed to find a place where my monsters are unusually close together, as they like to gather around Fantasia, but sometimes she can hide decently well.
Today, she was in the Harpies' Hunting Ground. She was flying on the back of Eagle Eye.
Interestingly, the Harpies' Hunting Ground had become a generic area for my winged beast monsters. I think that is because Mountain, their LOB field spell is also the field spell for dragons and thunders. And with dragons having taken over the mountains on the outskirts of the tower room, and thunders roaming the Mountain room, my winged beasts seemed to have escaped here instead.
I teleported us there, so we could speak with Fantasia.
“... wow. I didn’t know you could do that.” Lua commented, after the teleportation.
“It’s just factory cheats. Well, I’m trying to learn space magic from Cosmo Queen, so I might be able to do that outside at some point.”
“Space magic? That is … is that really something you can just learn?”
“I think so. I can ‘cast’ it inside the factory. But I’m still struggling to do it outside, because the mana control is … not so easy.”
“You can’t do it, even with Laura helping you?” Lua asked. Considering that she has a system support of her own, she must know how much it can help with casting spells and mana control.
“Yeah. I think I’m getting there though. And as soon as I get the skill for it, I can level it up. But isn’t it the same with you and light magic?”
“... I guess. But I’m almost there. Just a day or two more.” Lua said.
“Well, a race it is then. Which one of us will have the skill first?”
“Sure. I’ll beat you for sure.” Lua agreed.
I placed two fingers into my mouth and whistled. Honestly, I can’t whistle, but it doesn’t matter in the factory. I can just imagine the result and it will happen. To an extent.
Because of my whistle, the winged beasts flying in the sky noticed us and turned to head for us. If I didn’t know them, this would be terrifying.
The birds and harpies landed before us, and Fantasia jumped off of her eagle. She wore what looked to be a modified version of Cyber Shield.
I was going to comment how that kind of armor is not something she should wear, but at the same time, I really don’t want to, as she did have a full bodysuit under it. And at least it wasn’t the outfit of the other Harpie Ladies. Maybe the Harpies had the sense to point that out to her and offer her a Cyber Shield instead.
“Papa! Good morning!” She said as she ran up to us.
I took her into a hug, altering her clothes into a copy of mine instead of what she had been wearing. Not just because of the previous reasons, but because the Cyber Shield had large spikes and I didn’t want them stabbing me.
“Good morning.” I said to her. “I’m here with Lua today. You did hear that I accepted her proposal yesterday, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Cousin Lua is now mommy Lua, right?” Fantasia asked.
“m-mommy?” Lua was a bit taken back. “I- I guess so.”
“Yes!” Fantasia called out, and tried to break free from my hug. I let her go, and she rushed to hug Lua instead.
Lua crouched down a bit and took Fantasia into a deep hug.
“So, we will be there in … probably bit more than an hour. I’ll see you then.” I said to Lua, as we were both leaving the factory.
We had spent a bit too much time here, and I was running late. Ria had already entered my room and had tried to shake me awake, before realizing that I must be in the factory.
“Yes. I’ll be waiting.” Lua said.
We both left the factory and I got ready for the day.