SLV Chapter 3: Walking Source Stones!
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Aint Translations
April 12
Lin En heaved the large clay urn to the doorway with great effort and wedged it against the door then he picked up a thick, long wooden staff.
He was making ready for the night ahead.
On his very first night after crossing over, a skeletal undead had barged through the door.
This body was already malnourished to begin with, and before crossing over Lin En had been an office drone with no combat experience whatsoever, someone who had barely set foot in a gym.
Five or six years without any exercise, and then crossing over into a world where the first thing waiting for him was a brawl for his life.
He had given everything he had, and only barely managed to smash that skeleton to pieces.
A hard lesson well learned.
So this time Lin En had made sure to prepare thoroughly before sitting down to study the catalog in his mind but when Milya saw him pick up the staff, her body tensed up all over again.
"Is Master going to punish me?"
She stared at the staff with a face full of dread, already imagining how it would feel landing on her body.
There was even the possibility of... crueler forms of punishment.
She kept her eyes fixed on it until Lin En set it down on the table beside him.
Only then did Milya dare to breathe.
As time passed, Milya gradually realized that Lin En was not tormenting her the way she had feared.
"Master... is preparing to fend off the undead that come at night."
At that point, reason finally won out over the fear brought on by timidity. Thinking back on what Lin En had just been doing, Milya suddenly understood.
"Master is a kind master, who gives me food that freemen eat."
A pang of guilt washed over Milya for having misjudged him.
When Milya quietly glanced at Lin En again, nearly all the fear in her gray-blue eyes had faded away.
At that same moment, the score displayed on Milya's entry in Lin En's Slaveowner's Manual gave a small jump but Lin En didn't notice, because he was focused on the reward screen on the final page, waiting intently for the title draw to resolve.
A spinning wheel appeared on the page. Lin En was using his non-source-stone reward, the title draw.
He watched as the rapidly spinning wheel began to slow, and he could make out what was written on it.
[Indulgence Title]
[Decadence Title]
[Slaughter Title]
[Conquest Title]
The categories on display left Lin En somewhat baffled.
Still, he had more than one draw waiting for him, so he wasn't worried about missing out on any particular option.
He only hoped he would draw something that could help him get through the blood moon.
The wheel slowed further and finally came to rest on [Decadence Title].
Text appeared once more on the yellowed page.
[Title Acquired]
[Thrifty Slaveowner]
Thrifty?
A Decadence Title starting with "Thrifty Slaveowner," what could that possibly mean?
[Title: Thrifty Slaveowner]
[Attribute: Decadence]
[Effect: Upon slaying an undead, you have a 10% chance of obtaining a quantity of source stones, determined by the strength of the undead.]
[Description: You always find a way to save a bit of wealth in the most unexpected places.]
The moment Lin En read the effect, his eyes lit up instantly!
Killing undead drops source stones?!
That was something that simply should not have been possible in this world!
Source stones could only be mined from scarce source stone veins.
Those veins were monopolized by the sovereign, and slaveowners could only obtain source stones from the sovereign on tribute days by exchanging grain for them.
Source stones were directly tied to survival itself.
Water could only be obtained by dropping source stones into the heart well. The defensive structures on an oasis also required source stones to maintain and operate.
Source stones were the hard currency of this world, and the lifeblood that kept a slaveowner's oasis running!
The undead at night had always been nothing but a burden on slaveowners.
But now, for Lin En, the undead had become... a resource!
A resource capable of producing precious source stones!
If he could make good use of the two nights before the blood moon, tonight and tomorrow night, then a flood of source stones would surely flow his way, enough to repair and reactivate all the ruined sand spirit arrow towers on his oasis.
"Awoooo!"
At that moment, a wolf howl rose from outside, followed by a chorus of howls answering one another.
Desert wolves would howl together as a pack when dusk gave way to night and darkness swallowed the desert whole.
With no time to look further at Milya's slave entry, Lin En hurried outside.
Only two nights remained before the blood moon.
He had to make the most of every moment, gather more source stones, and strengthen his oasis.
The desert sun had fully sunk below the horizon.
Only the faintest traces of light still lingered.
Lin En looked over the ruins of the three sand spirit arrow towers and walked toward the one with the least damage then he began pulling out the source stones he had just received, still warm.
One after another, he slotted them into the source energy obelisk at the tower's base.
The sand beneath his feet seemed to come alive in an instant, surging toward the tower.
At times the sand moved like a vast swarm of ants, at other times it coiled together into a great serpent.
3 stones.
...7 stones.
...9 stones.
Lin En's hand froze, the last source stone in his grip.
Repairing a sand spirit arrow tower could require anywhere from 1 to 20 source stones depending on the extent of the damage.
He had deliberately chosen the least damaged tower. Surely it couldn't be in that bad a shape.
His heart sank, but there was no turning back now.
Lin En slotted in the final source stone.
Under his anxious gaze...
At last, a rustling, grinding sound began to resonate!
A great wave of sand surged in from all sides.
The sand spirit arrow tower rose more than three meters in an instant.
The hulking structure was no longer the blurred ruin it had been before. It became a sharp-edged triangular prism.
A white orb of light formed at its peak, blazing brilliantly against the pitch-black night sky.
A radiance the same deep blue as source stones traced clear curved lines that swept swiftly downward from top to bottom.
At that moment, the last embers of sunset were fully extinguished, and an eerie darkness swallowed every corner of the desert.
Lin En heard the sound of something bursting up through the sand in the distance.
A bone-white skeleton emerged from the desert floor and wandered aimlessly across the sand.
"It's within range. Why isn't it attacking?"
From the fragments of memory he had inherited, Lin En had a rough idea of the sand spirit arrow tower's attack range but the automatic attack on undead that he had expected simply hadn't happened.
Then, at that very moment, another skeleton broke through the sand, spotted Lin En standing exposed outside the shack, and began rattling and clattering in that distinctive way skeletons communicated with one another.
The first skeleton heard its companion's call and quickly locked onto Lin En as well.
Watching two skeletons shuffling slowly toward him, Lin En felt his scalp start to prickle but he didn't give up. He forced himself to think hard about what step he had missed.
The furrow in his brow finally smoothed out.
When Lin En had crossed over, all the sand spirit arrow towers were already destroyed, and he had never operated one himself.
He had finally dug up a detail in those inherited memories that he had overlooked.
Activating a sand spirit arrow tower required one additional source stone!
He was one stone short!
And he happened to have exactly one left!
Lin En immediately pulled out the source stone, the very one he had resisted spending earlier when he was thirsty. He had saved it then, and now it was about to earn its keep.
"Master... come back quickly... you'll die!"
Just as he was about to drop the stone into the obelisk, he suddenly heard a frantic voice behind him, laced with something almost like pleading.
Lin En turned around to find that Milya had run out of the shack and was tugging at the hem of his clothes.
"Go!"
He hadn't expected Milya to come running out to call him back.
Lin En dropped the source stone into the obelisk, scooped Milya into his arms, and sprinted toward the shack.
At the same time, the sand spirit arrow tower surged to life, its white orb blazing brighter than ever.
A long hum of charging energy rang out, and then a sand arrow coalesced along the tower's body and shot out with a sharp whistle.
The moment Lin En pulled the door shut, he heard the crack and clatter of shattering bone.
He climbed onto the table and peered through the ventilation gap near the top. He could see the second skeleton had already been blown apart as well but the desert night was never short of skeletons.
They kept erupting from the sand in an endless stream, and the sand spirit arrow tower kept cycling through its charge-and-fire loop without pause.
The corners of Lin En's mouth curled up slightly.
In this moment, the skeletons no longer made his scalp crawl the way they once had.
There was even something almost... endearing about them!
Especially watching those skeletons advance toward the sand spirit arrow tower, their pale, slender legs striding one after the other.
They were almost adorable.
These weren't skeletons at all. They were walking source stones!
[NEXT CHAPTER]