Beyond M-Eclipse: Easy Mode LIVE

———Lerim———

“What do you think? Quite pretty just like me, right?” I said while caressing one of the plump tomato fruit still connected to the main body.

“I guess?” Evari said while scratching her head. “I thought you’re a germaphobic type.”

“What does that have to do with anything? Just so you know, I made sure to keep these babies clean and healthy.” Does she think I’m just going to let them get bitten by those disgusting insects all the time? As if that can even happen here. “How can they even get inside this greenhouse!”

“When did you even get a greenhouse? I could’ve sworn you didn’t have such a large backyard in the past.” Evari then chose to ask another question instead.

“What the hell are you talking about? I always had a big property. I made sure to save up every last penny for this place because it’s so big.” The greenhouse wasn’t always there though, that’s a pretty recent addition. “...Did you think I was poor because I was frugal? Come on now.”

“Well you certainly act like you have zero cash in your pocket!” She argued.

“What do you think frugal people act like!?” I snapped back. “The last thing I need to do is boast about how much money I saved up!”

“And yet you continue with the pity parade…” She mumbled in frustration. “Whatever, so you seriously want me to take some of these off you?”

“Yeah. I got more than enough as is. It’d be a waste otherwise.” It’s more so because I was playing around with the spells yesterday and they began to bore fruit after a bit too much tinkering. I don’t think I should abuse that kind of spell since I probably can’t replicate it perfectly every time. Who knows if it’ll contaminate the fruits in some way as well.

“...Alright. I ain’t turning down free stuff.” She said before looking around the greenhouse to see what it has to offer. “...They look a bit more beaten up than I would’ve thought.”

“Commercial stuff prefers aesthetic over taste, alright? Who cares what they look like as long as it’s fresh off the stem.” I said to her while giving her a few bags. “Go get whatever you want. Don’t even think about roughing those plants.”

“I get it. No one can afford to piss you off.” She said before she started picking out a few vegetables fresh off the soil. “...This place is really quite big.”

“Yeah yeah, just keep picking.” I said while continuing to observe her. I know her character well enough to say that she ain’t a miscreant, but a healthy dose of caution never hurt anyone.

“These things are so big and fat.” Evari commented as she picked up the last few vegetables and fruits. “Hopefully I have enough room in the fridge for this. What the hell did you even use to grow these things?”

“Couldn’t be bothered to explain, to be honest.” It was something I was chatting with Idea about and they suddenly pulled up a document about ancient gardening stuff. Where did they even find a record on that? “By the way, how have you been lately? This place has been relatively peaceful for a good while.”

“Thanks to you that it’s that way. Are you fine with all those videos going online?” She asked in response.

“Nothing I could really do about that. I made peace with it.” What else is there for me to even do at that point? I think I just have to bank that phenomenon of people not recognizing celebrities in public because surely they’re off doing something important. I don’t think there’s a name for that phenomenon… At least not one that doesn’t reference a specific media.

“For someone who always gets mad at us for calling you a musclehead, you’re surprisingly introspective at times.” And why the hell is she saying that?

“Hey, you have a death wish?” I asked while letting my power loose for a moment, causing her to flinch and instinctively lean away from me. Even just a momentary release is enough to scare her straight, and yet she continues with that disrespectful tone of hers.

“I swear, this must’ve been what feeling the shockwave of a nuke felt like.” She commented as she calmed down and continued gathering. “It felt like such a massive overkill having so much power to yourself.”

“Don’t start sounding like an idiot again. There’s no reason for me to stop and chill out now.” It’d be nice if I could actually passively gain power, but that sort of trait simply isn’t a privilege that is up for grabs. “It’s to maintain this perfect body of mine and make sure I can keep up with all the nonsense going around. As you know the current world politics isn’t exactly what one would call ‘stable’. It felt like conflict could manifest at any moment. It almost did if I wasn’t around, as you’re aware.”

“Yeah yeah. I heard that plenty of times, but what kind of monsters would make you be so vigilant?” She asked.

“Plenty of them. Remember that collab stream where I was involved with?” That’s probably one of the better points of reference.

“You mean the one with a bunch of crazy strong streamers and absurd production value?” She wants some clarification before assuming anything else.

“What other streams am I involved in? Of course it’s that one.” Does she think I’m involved with other strange businesses? I am trying to keep a low profile when it comes to the more supernatural matters.

“In that one… They all look pretty darn strong, but how strong are they actually?” She asked, having zero clue.

“All but one are not weaker than me. Either relative or eclipse me in strength. The only one who isn’t is the streamer that the main host rescued during the first period of dungeon streaming.” I don’t quite remember her name. I should go check that later. “I doubt they were slacking since then, so a similar hierarchy should still be in effect. Also, that mousegirl is also definitely stronger than me. If I have trouble with her then for you it’s like an ant going against a storm.”

“…Haven’t you said something like that before?” Evari asked.

“Probably. It’s a pretty effective metaphor, isn’t it? It’s not an exaggeration either. You will die.” I said with a straight face to emphasize my point. “But I guess that does make me sound like a broken record, so maybe we should shift to a different topic.”

“Like what?” She asked. She finished picking out stuff a while back and she still wants to chat?

“How should I know? You’re the one who keeps yapping.” I pointed out before pointing at her bags. “How about we put this on hold for now. Don’t you want to hurry and stuff those in the fridge?”

“I guess.” She said while looking at the bag stuffed with valuable ingredients. “Alright then, guess we’ll talk later. Maybe at the guild or something.”

Both of us got out of the greenhouse and she quickly made her way out of my property and walked away. Overall a rather simple transaction.

As for my schedule, I have nothing planned. Any modeling gigs I might get… I will probably have to wait a long time before someone dares to contact me. Too bad that guy is still on house arrest, maybe I could’ve harassed him for contact with better managers, he certainly can’t be trusted with anything as is anyway, might as well pawn me off to someone else.

Hmm… I wonder if there is any news worth talking about for the group chat…

Discussion on synthesizing and more utility-based spells. I guess Karra’s stream did go viral, so there is more buzz on that particular topic. The talk about the utility of magic has been on halt lately, probably with all the people fighting so everyone just focuses on that. They aren’t talking about stuff like using monster parts as catalyzes for spells like growing food or making potions. You’d think a miracle cure would’ve been seen as very important to replicate, especially with all the killing going on.

What else is there to look through… Ah. The situation in Russia hasn’t gotten any better, or in any nations with massive riot that happened to the entire country. At least right now we’re mostly concerned with government takeover that we still don’t know how that’ll actually go. Probably a change in routine for a lot of people or something, but with how things are, that threshold might not be reached for a while.

…There seem to be more reports of people appearing out of nowhere and slaughtering people. Disappearing just as quickly with not a single soul knowing where they went… I know where they came from, but I ain’t going to parade that fact and get into trouble. That school probably has some enemies left that are waiting for the perfect opportunity. I know a whole country got dismantled from provoking it but with how things are there are definitely lunatics still having funny thoughts. I can already imagine it. Causing trouble on purpose with a massive army and hoping to jump the student taking the mission and torture them for information and whatnot. Within the town they can’t be touched at all, so this is the only way to come into contact with them without dying one second in.

I mean, for all I know an organization would probably try that even if they don’t quite understand what is causing fighters to appear out of thin air. With a large enough sample size they’re going to at least figure out a possible cause and replicate it.

My source does say that they have a way of scanning the area where the mission takes place and how many people are waiting to ambush them, so it would probably be a fool’s errand. Only someone confident about plowing through getting jumped would’ve accepted such a mission, and those people are… not very merciful.

I think a lot of these points were already talked about in the group chat. We’re seriously running out of things to impart with how it just keeps coming up due to the current state of the world. It’s going up and down in terms of violence and who knows when the cooling down period will arrive. At this point and time it looks like that is quite far off, which is going to be bad for some of our members effectively being in an active war zone. Not much I can do about that when I want to keep myself away from conflict. I still remember the swath of people aiming to kill or capture me for some reason. It might be months by now but it’s hard to forget that hot mess. Stuff like secret organizations and robots doesn’t come up as often in conversation despite being some of the elephants in the room.

Oh right, how was the town next door doing? The one where I kinda… uh…

…I mean from the few articles I’m seeing they seem to be doing fine? Crazy how that works. I guess I was better with pulling my punches than I thought. They seem to quickly fix things up and according to the report there shouldn’t be any crazy ambitious plan from the new leaders. Guess they’re not up for revenge at the moment.

I walked back into my room and opened up all the fans inside making it look like I’m in the middle of a storm. I’m just going to keep reading the news on the computer.

Hmm… A few spectacles are happening at the moment. There are some pictures from social media supporting the reports and it’s nowhere near here, and as far as I’m aware no one in the group chat lives in these areas. I can at least relax with that.