The Morbid Equilibrium of Wealth

Ten minutes earlier.

'Thank god spatial storages are a thing or else I would have become a pack mule,' Allan thought to himself as he watched the bags being sucked inside Flavia's ring.

"We should buy a spatial ring for you later," she said to Marie as they exited the shop. The lamia was now wearing a dress that covered most of her skin. It had a style similar to Arabic clothes on Earth and was entirely white. "We'll also get you some more clothes from the First Plateau. There is far more variety to pick from there."

"Well, you just can't compare the technology of Black Steel to this town," Allan commented with his hands behind his head. "They probably make stuff like clothes in the millions of pieces per day."

"It sounds like an interesting place…" Marie remarked sadly.

"Ah…" The blond's expression sunk. "Sorry about that."

"No, it's okay. I can always see what it looks like through photos," she said with a small smile. The group fell silent for a brief moment and it was Tyran who broke the silence by sniffing the air. The fledgling Asura tilted his head and jumped down from Evelyn's arms.

"Ah! Tyran!" The small T. Rex seemed to not hear her as he ran straight to an alley.

"Hey, dragon wannabe! Please don't tell me you're going to eat random folks!" Allan shouted and ran after him. The girls looked at each other and shrugged before following after them.

After a minute of running around, Allan finally caught up to Tyran. He spotted him stooped over a corner of the street. "What're you doing, little punk?" He uttered whilst picking him up by his neck.

"Gah!" The T. Rex cried out and bobbed his head up and down to point at something.

"What? Is there somethi-!" The blond froze mid-sentence and tossed Tyran over his shoulder with widened eyes before dashing to the side of a figure lying on the ground. He crouched on one knee and grimaced.

It was an unconscious young boy wearing tattered clothes. He was visibly starved and dehydrated and he was a millimeter short of being described as just skin on bones. Allan put two fingers to his neck to feel his pulse and clicked his tongue.

"It's slowing down…" He muttered. "Oi, AI, would a healing potion help him?"

[Negative. Healing medicine would worsen his state. There is too much deficiency in nutrients in his body for him to be able to recover. However, a stamina medicine might help him survive a bit longer.]

Allan pulled out a yellow potion and poured it into the boy's mouth while Tyran watched. When he used all of the medicine, he checked his pulse again and grunted. "Not much…"

"What's wrong?" Evelyn's voice sounded from behind him and he turned around.

"Perfect timing! Do you think you can use Life Magic on this fellow?"

"Hm? Who are you talking…?" The succubus tensed and teleported from her position to the child's side instantaneously.

"Whoa!" Allan stepped back in surprise. "Was that Blink? That's a cool skill, holy shit. Did you have to use it for this though?"

Evelyn ignored him and promptly placed her hand on the boy's chest and invoked her magic. Many strands of green energy emerged from her palm and wrapped themselves around his body to form a cocoon.

"What's wrong?" Flavia asked as she arrived with Marie and Nyx.

"Well… Tyran ran to this street and I found him next to a sickly kid," Allan explained as he stepped back and let Evelyn do her work. "He was about to die and now she's healing him."

"A sickly kid?"

"Yeah, he was starved and dehydrated. At least, that's what it looked like to me."

"How did Tyran know where he was?" Flavia asked in confusion.

"Death force," Evelyn remarked. "When someone is close to their death, the life in their body, also called life force, will begin to turn into what we call death force or death energy. As an undead, it's more than probable that Tyran sensed an increasing amount of it."

Marie silently observed the cocoon for a moment. "Why… would this child be lying here?"

Nyx glanced at her. "You might not be used to it yet but… the world is just like that. Humans, among many other species, are never able to take care of each other. This boy is probably either orphaned or abandoned."

The lamia's mouth quivered. "But… things like starvation and dehydration shouldn't be a problem in the System, no? I'm sure there are plenty of water or plant mages that are capable of offering drinkable water and edible food at a high rate. Why would something like this…?"

"Locals rarely possess such abilities compared to Hosts," Evelyn stated as she healed the boy. The spell she was using was called Rejuvenescence. It used her own body's energy nutrients and to heal her patient. "Across every Plateau, there are too many people to take care of. Even a city like Black Steel is not spared from such treatment. A small town like this one is obviously not."

Marie lowered her head and gently kneeled next to the succubus as the cocoon of her spell began to go away at a gradual pace.

"Marie," Nyx spoke up. "Tell me, if you were to give unlimited wealth to someone living in a large and bustling city, would they be able to erase poverty?"

"…why would they not?" The lamia retorted quietly

The former goddess closed her eyes. "You're right. There is absolutely no reason why they would not be capable of doing it. But, does that mean they would actually do it? No. Most people would keep it for themselves. Others would use it to manipulate others. Some would flaunt it to the world and very few would decide to donate it."

"But the thing is, wealth cannot be properly priced if one has an endless supply of it. Do you think precious stones would be precious if they were as common as a rock on the side of the road? It's quite obvious that they would not. And what if one man possessed all of them? Others would covet it and make sure that they are not spread so that they can profit from it at their own leisure. They would kill, abduct, rob, and then share the spoils amongst them."

"Value always goes up and down. Possessions will always fall into your hands and eventually slip through your fingers. Wealth will forever be coveted and distributed by greed itself," Nyx paused and sighed. "There will always be people with everything… and people with nothing. Because for one to have it all, they need to take it from others. It's a balance that is morbidly never broken."

"I see…" Marie muttered right when Evelyn's spell was completely dispelled. The young boy had now a healthier skin stone and his body mass was slightly fuller.

"Ugh…" He groaned and slowly opened his eyes. When the boy saw the row of heads all looking at him, he cried out in fear and hastily crawled backward.

"Chill, kid. We're not going to hurt you," Allan uttered and Flavia smacked his head. "Ow! Why do you always do this to me?!"

"Learn how to talk to a child," the former teacher said and smiled warmly at the boy. "We found you lying here unconscious and this lady healed you," she said whilst pointing at Evelyn. "Can you tell us your name?"

The boy nervously looked at all of them and gulped. "R-Ramis…"

"Ramis? That's a nice name. Do you remember what you were doing before collapsing?"

He nodded hesitatingly. "I was… looking for… food… for everyone… then… nothing… AH!" He said and abruptly became agitated. He looked at the sky that was slowly getting darker, signaling the approach of the evening. "I have to go back!" He shouted and got back on his feet wobbling.

"Go back where?" Marie asked.

"Home," he said and limped out of the alley. The group looked at each other and Flavia ultimately went after him, followed by the rest of the group.

Ramis silently walked ahead of them with hasty steps. They didn't try to stop him and after a short period of one or two minutes, they arrived at a crude sandstone building. It seemed to be partially broken and had a large section part of the roof missing.

"You live… here?" Flavia asked and the boy nodded again. He jogged to the door and knocked on it three times.

"It's me," he said and a few seconds later, the sound of the lock was heard which was soon followed by the screech of the door opening.

"Ramis!" A skinny woman, appearing to be around eighteen years old, ran out of the building and hugged the boy. "Where did you go?! I was worried!"

"I'm fine… I just fell asleep…"

"That's kind of an understatement, kid," Allan whispered to himself and immediately ducked to dodge Flavia's hand. "Hah! I knew it-kuh!" He choked as a kick found its way into his stomach.

Evidently, the noise wasn't overlooked by the young woman and she pulled Ramis behind her back to face them. "Who are you?" She inquired with a cautious tone.

"Ah, sorry, we found Ramis lying on the ground and we accompanied him here to make sure he was all right," Evelyn explained. "May I ask what this place is?"

The young woman stared back with an unreadable look until Ramis tugged on her shirt. "It's okay, Nana. They're nice people. They helped me."

"…I understand. If Ramis trusts you, I'll do the same. You don't strike me as the kind that would harass people like us anyway," she said and pushed Ramis inside the building. "You can follow us if you want," she added before entering as well.

"Say, why are we even…" Allan droned as the girls readily took her offer. "Okay. Never mind. Let's go in, dragon wannabe," he mumbled and followed them with Tyran walking at his feet.

He closed the door behind him and inspected the interior of the building. As he had expected, the building was dilapidated and there wasn't even one decent wall. The second thing he focused on was the crowd of children ranging from as low as five years old to something along the lines of thirteen years old, Nana excluded.

Tyran sniffed the air and growled amiably before rushing off on his own. "I swear… can't you just stay well-behaved for more than five minutes," the blond grumbled and scratched his head.

He walked further inside and joined the rest of his group who were watching Nana distributing a small amount of food to each of the children. The thing was that the food looked no different than trash or rotten fruits.

"Wait!" Flavia raised her voice to stop them and Nana frowned at her. But before she could say anything, the Chaos Witch waved her hand and activated her storage ring. Several packs of dried food along with several water bottles appeared in front of her. "Here. Eat this instead."

The children's eyes sparkled at the sight but they all turned toward Nana as if to seek her opinion before doing anything. The young woman seemed to ponder for a moment and ultimately nodded.

"Go ahead and eat your fill." The second that she said that, the children swarmed over the rations that Flavia had taken out and began to share them equally.

"So… this is what this place is for?" Allan inquired calmly as he leaned against a broken wall. "You are like a wild orphanage or something?"

Flavia sighed as he eyed him. "You need to work on your tact when talking to people. Even Rakna isn't as bad as you."

"Excuse me? Are you sure we're talking about the same Rakna here?" Allan deadpanned.

Nyx chuckled. "He's got a point."

"Um," Nana said and they looked at her. She bowed respectfully. "Thank you for the food. This amount is something that we can't gather even by spending a full month scavenging or begging."

"Though, I imagine that what you lack the most is water, right?" Evelyn said as she handed some food to a child and stroked his head.

"Yes… the difficulty of getting water in the desert is always high. Even in a town like this, the only sources are the oasis in the central districts and through the Pavilion. But we just have no way of using any of these two methods. And we can't expect rain any time soon in this forsaken Plateau."

"Hm, I don't have much water. We would have to ask Rakna. He most likely has liters," Flavia said and brought out her friend list. "I'll send him a message to meet up- what is he doing?" She scowled at Tyran who was gathering mana around him and attracting some attention from the children.

"I'm not sure, he suddenly got into a happy mood when he heard 'rain' and then started doing this," Marie described what she had coincidentally seen.

"Hey, girls, is it me or it's getting colder?" Allan tilted his head and on cue to his words, a beautiful cold trident flashed into existence above Tyran, pointed at the sky through the open ceiling. "Wait, is that the spell that Rakna fed him earlier?"

"I think it is," Nyx nodded. "Does any of you know what it does?"

"Uh, I don't know. But don't you think we should stop him before… ah, shit."

Tyran fired the trident into the sky without warning. Allan and his friends looked up to see what was going to happen and widened their eyes in shock when the weapon fragmented quietly after reaching a certain height. Nana and the children were also paying attention to it and were perplexed.

Allan was about to open his mouth to say something when the roar of thunder suddenly echoed in the town. He almost jumped out of his skin because of how loud it was. He looked up again and watched dark clouds invade the sky. After a short moment, water began to fall and the blond let out a blank laugh.

"…are we even doing the same shit? How the hell does Rakna do stuff like this?" He muttered as his hair and clothes became wet because of the downpour. He then stopped looking at the sky and turned toward Tyran who was now letting out cute high-pitched noises at the children who had their palms open with dazed expressions. Even Nana seemed to be teary.

"Well, I guess it's fine to give a bit of novelty to these kids' lives," he muttered as the girls played and laughed with the children who were pointing at the sky excitedly.

"…Rak won't get mad at us for using his spell in the middle of town, right? I'll blame it all on Tyran if he asks…"