Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

The shadows surged forth. Just like all the times before, the darkness covered Mathew's vision, locking him out of what he considered to be his reality.

'This is really taking a while,' the young man thought, bored to the hell out of his mind while waiting for the shadows to complete their job.

Thankfully, the time that Mathew wasted for the subspace to establish itself wouldn't influence the passage of time in the real world. After all, no matter how long he would spend within the merchant's subspace, barely any time if any would pass in the real world!

"It's good to be back," Mathew muttered once the subspace finished forming. And just like all the times before, there were only a few pedestals with the few items the local merchant offered.

"I don't mean to be rude," Mathew muttered silently, somehow sure that the merchant would hear him anyway. "But do I really need to go around all three merchants in this location to find out which bonuses they offer upon establishing the fortress?" Mathew asked out loud this time.

For a moment, the shadowy realm remained as silent as it always was.

"User can request the list of potential bonuses provided by the location of the fortress core," the usual, metallic voice announced.

"How much would it cost?" Mathew then asked. 'It might be stupid to suggest a fee in the first place,' he thought, raising his head around the place out of boredom, 'but knowing what happened so far, it would cost some cores anyway.'

"User can receive such list free of additional charge," the merchant's robotic voice replied, taking the young man by a surprise.

'No fee?' he thought, stopping his mouth from opening up. 'Well, since it's free, I better not suggest imposing a fee over it,' Mathew thought, rolling his eyes. 'Or does it even matter? I could always just go around and manually check it all,' he realized. 'I guess it's just a natural convenience aimed at not making me hate the merchants.'

"I wish to see this list, then," Mathew announced.

'If it's possible, then I would rather not waste even more time just going around the area to check it,' he thought, right as the merchant got to work, producing yet another window for Mathew's system.

"So that's how it is," the young man muttered under his nose as he glanced over the possibilities. "Just like before, I can improve one aspect of the fortress," he continued to whisper to himself. "Productivity and defense ability I can understand," he continued to mutter, only for his eyes to lay down on the last option. "But what the hell does capacity means?"

"Capacity describes the maximum daily output of the local industries," the merchant's robotic voice replied, taking Mathew by a surprise once again.

'So you are not going to withhold the information from me, now?' the young man thought along with raising his right eyebrow.

"How is it different from efficiency, then?" Mathew asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Efficiency describes the ratio at which the industries turn materials into products," the merchant replied in its usual voice.

'So that's how it is,' Mathew thought, gritting his teeth. He then took a deep breath to calm himself down as he looked up towards the area where the shadows were the densest. "Is there any chance I could get some numbers?" he requested. "It's hard to decide which bonus is more important if I don't know their range."

And then, Mathew waited. Yet, as seconds started to turn into minutes and minutes into what felt like hours, he had no other choice but to accept the fact that the unusual informativeness of the merchant had its limits.

"Which of the merchants offers the efficiency bonus, then?" Mathew asked, ready to get this entire topic over with so that he can move on.

"Efficiency bonus is tied to the merchant user is connected to right now," the merchant announced, speaking about itself in the third person as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"I wish to take out a thousand worth of cores from the storage, then," Mathew ordered without any further hesitation.

A window, exactly the same one that floated to the side of the hood of all the merchants Mathew met so far, appeared within the shadowy realm. This time, however, rather than reaching out with his own hand to pull out the goods, the window opened on its own only for a huge, shiny core to fall out of it and then float towards Mathew, suspended right at the height of his chest.

'So that's how it looks,' Mathew thought, not expecting his request to be fulfilled in this way. Yet, rather than wasting time adoring the piece, he simply took hold of it only to raise it in his right hand and close his eyes.

"I wish to..." he said... And hesitated.

'Back at the compound, all the bonuses appeared to be more or less equal in their overall worth,' he thought, going back with his thoughts to the options he could choose back then. 'Not a single one of them appeared to be underpowered or redundant...'

For a moment, Mathew simply froze in his weird position, with the shiny crystal raised high above and ahead.

'And that means...'

"Is it possible to establish a fortress here with the bonus from a different merchant?" he then asked while opening his eyes.

The area of the thickest shadow suddenly compressed only for its shadowy entity within to coil around.

"It is possible."

'It's a bet... But following my guts brought me pretty far already,' Mathew thought, closing his eyes for yet another moment, only to open them up and reveal the fresh bout of determination that filled his pupils.

"I wish to establish a fortress in this area with the bonus to its capacity!"

"Processing the request," the merchant announced without any delay. "Please, vacate the subspace so that the process can continue."