Chapter 100: Dinner over Call

Red crossed his arms and stared at the holographic map of the continent.

“I cannot scan the dirt for them,” Red told himself. “But I do not have to.”

He had two highly reliable compasses. The first method was archaeological. He needed his scouts to locate more ancient, world-ending calamity monsters. Any colossal fossil or mythological beast sleeping in the wasteland was highly likely to be guarding a piece of the puzzle.

The second method was much more direct. He just needed to watch the glitch. The Void-Eater’s virus turned mortal biology into a homing beacon. If he tracked the migration patterns of the feral humans and the spreading corruption in the north, the enemy would lead him straight to the remaining fragments.

’Although I now have full control over the eastern hemisphere of this continent, I don’t know about the rest of the continent. I can’t scan those territories. And the omni-web roots haven’t spread that far yet. However, even if they had, they wouldn’t have been able to locate or scan such things as it only detects sensory changes and guesses the rest.’

Red looked at the two ’???’ fragments.

“What should I do with them? Merge them and see the reaction? But what if it triggers something bad or maybe some kind of event. I don’t have the time for this right now. I can merge them later, too. For now, I have to focus on expanding my reach and take full control over this entire continent.”

“I guess… more wars will be coming soon. Or…”

Red stared at the glowing, corrupted mass of the Void-Eater slowly chewing through the northern edge of the map. The idea of letting the glitch wipe out the remaining rival gods was highly tempting. It would save him millions of Divine Points and years of brutal siege warfare.

But that was a lazy strategy. And lazy logistics always ended in total collapse.

“A fire doesn’t stop burning just because it runs out of your enemies,” Red muttered to the empty expanse of his domain. “If it eats the north, it will eventually roll south. And I have absolutely no firewall to stop it.”

He could not rely on the virus to do his dirty work. He had to assume the Void-Eater was a total continental wipe. To survive, his empire needed to expand faster than the glitch could consume the map. He needed the entire continent unified under the Red Spiral, producing massive amounts of Faith and raw materials, before the deletion wave reached his borders.

“I still don’t have much information about it and what it does. I know it deletes what it touches, but then wouldn’t it just spread to the entire globe and eat the entire world?”

Red sat in the dark expanse of the Void. The glowing light of the terminal illuminated his face as he scrolled through the encrypted data of the dark stone fragments.

He reached blindly to the edge of his console and picked up a steaming bowl. He had spent five hundred DP in the System [ KITCHEN ] tab for a basic synthetic noodle ration. It was completely flavorless and smelled vaguely of salted cardboard, but it provided the necessary caloric intake to keep his physical avatar functioning during a long shift.

A massive incoming video request hijacked his secondary monitor.

The caller ID flashed: [ GORR ].

Red tapped the accept key with his free hand.

Gorr’s holographic projection flickered to life. She was sitting in her own subterranean throne room, wiping black soot from her heavy jaw. She glanced at the screen, her eyes immediately dropping to the bowl in Red’s hands.

“Interrupting your feast, Rubedo?” Gorr asked, raising a thick, scarred eyebrow. “I can drop the link and call back later.”

Red swallowed a mouthful of noodles. He pointed his chopsticks at the camera. “It is fine. Stay on the line. Talking to a live person keeps me grounded. It beats sitting in the dark and going feral muttering to myself.”

The granite features of Gorr’s face shifted into a heavy smirk. “You know you can always call me when you feel bored up there.”

“I do not feel bored,” Red answered flatly. He pushed the bowl to the side of the console. “What is the reason for the call, Gorr?”

The stone Goddess crossed her massive arms. The sound of rock scraping against rock echoed through the feed.

“I wanted to know your stance on our deal,” Gorr stated. “You have your own mines now. You have reactors and a massive forge pumping out star-iron. Do I still need to send the hundred ingots every week? It is a very low amount of metal for you at this point.”

“We made a contract,” Red responded without hesitation. “You have to follow it.”

Gorr let out a deep, grinding sigh. A rumbling chuckle followed, vibrating through the audio feed.

“Fair enough,” Gorr conceded. “But tell me what you are actually planning, Rubedo. You are wasting so much of your DP reserves, raw material, labor, and time pouring these highways across the deadlands. Why?”

Red brought up the continental map on his screen. “It will decrease travel time. It increases logistical efficiency. It is simply a better way to develop this continent.”

Gorr stared at him through the feed.

“You are right about the ground,” Gorr said. “But the transport beasts remain exactly the same. They will not suddenly start moving faster just because the dirt is paved. A road might increase their speed by twenty percent at best, unless you plan to evolve them.”

Gorr leaned forward, her stone eyes narrowing.

“Unless you plan to create transport vehicles,” Gorr added. “Introduce fuel. Set up toll booths and road taxes. You would own the exclusive rights to the technology and earn DP through every traveler.”

Red looked back at her. “That is not a bad idea. But I cannot create cars like that. I would need help from dozens of gods to engineer the parts. By doing that, I will not own the exclusive rights. The System will split the patent.”

He picked up his wooden bowl, staring down at the noodles.

“The other gods belong to different professions,” Red continued, his voice lowering slightly. “They use their real-world knowledge and expertise to fast-track their civilizations. Meanwhile, we are all stuck in an undeveloped, dead part of the continent, working with stone and bone.”

Gorr nodded slowly, the heavy stone of her chin scraping her chest. They talked for a few more minutes about the border security and expansion before Gorr finally cut the feed.

[ TRANSMISSION ENDED ]

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep