Getting Serious

[Museums are not a common thing among worlds. In fact, hardly any worlds have them at all, and the ones that do tend to be insufferable.]

'Gee, way to insult me after I was all sappy and sweet. That'll really teach me.' 6 thought, rolling his eyes.

[You are welcome. It is, inevitably, my own negligence that put you in the situation, even if it is a situation you want to be in for some strange reason. Nothing indicated that this nest would be so dangerous.]

'Ain't no problem for me. I get shiny new stuff for it, if I play my cards right, so it's all cool, it's all cool.' 6 thought. 'What's up with your intelligence though? Did you even know about Folrost being Erver's sister land? Plus this whole thing with the nest...you seem to be kinda lacking in the intelligence gathering in this world.'

[The nest was merely an oversight. Previously, there was no town located this close to the site of the spider nest, however. Folrost likely moved their town to be nearby, to investigate the loss of their sister land.]

Outside of the cavern, 6 explored the various passageways while running away from the spiders that followed him out of the cavern. It didn't take him long to lose then, though he took the opportunity to kill another small group of spider while doing so, which gave him the pleasant surprise of new reward.

[Collective Reward]

That was all the reward itself explained, and after 6's last experience he wasn't about to open it until he was somewhere he knew he had no risk of losing whatever it was.

After asking Trivrium, she explained that [Collective Reward]'s are one of the most common and basic kinds of rewards you can get. Basically, killing a high number of anything can give you the reward, in a sort of compensation for killing a lot of something.

The stronger whatever creature you massacred, the less kills it took to get one.

It was like a replacement reward for taking out one stronger enemy.

Probably meant for people who specialized in killing lots of things as once rather than one big target.

Which was the last thing 6 wanted to be.

Still, it was nice to receive a reward, no matter what it was, and it cemented his plan to stay in the nest until he milked it for all it was worth.

'So is that why you sent me to Folrost?' 6 asked Trivrium.

[No. I did not know where the nearest town was. It was an exchange of knowledge between this planet and myself, then shared with you. I, like every Domus planet, cannot possibly personally monitor each and every planet in my domain.]

'Ah, ah, I see. So you communicate with the planet here to get the info I need. Gotcha, gotcha.' 6 responded.

6 took Trivrium's silence for confirmation, and focused on the task at hand.

While exploring the rooms of the passage he found himself on, he ran into a rather large spider. It wasn't anything special, but it did take more of his attention than he had been spending on any of the spiders he had killed in the past few hours.

He dispatched it shortly after, however, only to receive no reward, which disappointed him.

Cheering himself up by reminding himself that he just recently received a reward, and that he shouldn't have expected another so soon with his wishy-washy luck, he quickly went back to bothering Trivrium while he had her attention, which he was sure he would lose once he was done in the nest.

This was a valuable time to get information from her that might be hard to come by later.

'And what about the spider corpse? Why'd you want that? Follow up question, how much would I have been losing out on that deal, compared to have received the skill I got from it? I mean like, value-wise.'

[Compared to just the ring you got, you certainly would have made a profit by taking the mace, if you were to sell both. The corpse was certainly more valuable than the mace to me, however. In the end, skills like the one you received are expensive. Skills are always better than other items, especially ones that deal in a percentage like yours.]

'Right, right, I expected that' 6 thought while nodding, having already guessed that his skill was more valuable than the mace. 'Give me a comparison, how much would I lost in your velvs currency by taking the mace instead of the skill?'

[The skill was likely worth several times over the mace, but I would recommend auctioning skills rather than directly selling them. Hence, it is hard to judge the value.]

'Wow. And what's up with the war? Are you fighting another Domus planet, or is it something else?'

[Is your mission here not to investigate the nest?]

6 nodded with a proud smile on his face as Trivrium's words appeared in front of him.

[Why, then, are you investigating me instead?]

'Oh, oh! I'm a double agent for another Domus planet, here to gather intel about you in disguise, so that we can backstab you if you get in a winning position in the war.' 6 thought excitedly as his smile grew.

[I would expect as much from someone that was born in your world, but unfortunately I am fully aware that you do not have the capability to be doing that. Aside from that, you don't even know about the strict rules that a Domus planet must abide by when warring with another Domus planet.]

As soon as the words referring to his homeworld appeared in front of him, 6's smiled completely faded.

He had no idea why she would directly jab at that, but something didn't seem right about it. It was like she went out of her way to bring it up, to bring something to his attention, but he had no idea what that would be or why she would do it.

With how much care she put into making sure everyone's home on Trivrium was something that would remind them of their homeworld, he doubted she would jab at his for no reason like she did.

'Yeah, yeah, you wouldn't believe how many times I've heard people say stuff like that about our world, and they were actually living on it. It's like there was something strange about it, or something.' 6 said, probing to see if she would share more information.

[Or something indeed. Perhaps many worlds have some strange issues with them, in some minor way or other, and yours just happened to have something stranger, but who knows.]

Catching onto the hint, and the roundabout way she was talking, 6 realized that there was indeed something off about his homeworld as he had expected, and that she probably couldn't say much about it.

It could very well involve whatever entity she had gone out of her way to mention to him several times to day, the one who granted his adventurer's blessing. He would have to find some way to find out more, some way around whatever was preventing her from sharing information about it.

'So, can I consider all this kind and lovely attention you're giving me as repayment for putting me in danger?' 6 said, taking the initiative to change the topic for her.

[Yes and no. On one part, it is because I have to take this nest much more seriously than I previously did, and much reside over the investigation in a greater capacity than what was previously required. The other part is so that I may better protect you.]

'I see, I see. So as I suspected, this is only a larger amount of your presence, and not all of it, right?' 6 asked, getting straight to the point.

Trivrium remained silent at his words, either not wanting to answer or silently confirming them.

6 had no clue which one it was, so he just let that matter rest.

'Y'know, you really don't gotta focus on keeping me safe. It's not even really your own fault that the mission was misjudged, this world is the one that provided the intel, wasn't it? Make it pick up the slack somehow. Ha, make it throw in some extra reward for me.'

[An interesting idea. I should have them compensate you somehow. I will see what I can do.]

Surprised that she agreed, 6 quickly thanked her, not turning down the opportunity for more rewards.

'This whole experience in this nest is probably the most human and unforced interaction of my life.' 6 said. 'Actually, scratch that, that time I died was a very genuine interaction as well, plus it came first. I'll have to hand that spot to the thing that killed me.'

6's goal in saying this wasn't just to bullshit, as he usually does, but to turn the conversation back to his homeworld in a way that might allow Trivrium to be able to share more information, beyond whatever is constraining her.

[I see. Do you have a will then? I see that you did not make one before coming here, and given your track record from your last 'human' interaction, it looks like you'll have to die for some strange reason.]

'Psh, you and Nameless both, absolutely no faith in me. You think I'm dying when I've got so many interesting things to do?' 6 scoffed, rolling with her joke.

Reading between the lines, however, she seemed to be saying that the 'strange' thing she hinted at about his homeworld was the reason why he, and by extension, the rest of his homeworld, had to die.

The big question was what was that strange thing, and why did he have to die because of it.

[I would have had an inkling of faith prior to seeing your suicidal behavior in this nest, but you stomped that faith out that it was a glowing ember and you were a pyrophobic.]

Unable to argue, 6 remained silent after Trivrium's words.

This wasn't because what she said left him speechless, but because there was a horde of spiders in front of him, crowding around something disgusting, twisted and downright wrong.