A system prompt appeared in front of Quill's face just as he was putting the triggering mechanism down which startled him and caused him to accidentally set off the trap. He barely managed to get up a manifestation force field and armor as he was launched backwards from the ensuing air pressure explosion, right over the cliff and down into the water below. Thankfully he missed all the sharp rocks but he definitely got sea salt up his nose and that was very unpleasant.

  “You okay there?” Grey spoke up, trying desperately to hold back her laughter as he swam to the cliffside spitting out curses when he was above the water.

  “Fine! I'm fine.” he quickly scaled up the cliffside and back to the strip of land while growling. Leave it to the system to try and throw something at him when he was doing something that required his full attention.

  The resulting explosion left a whole lot of upturned dirt with much of the wind grass gone. He would have to make a note to apologize to Wind Cutter after all this ended as he’d likely destroy a lot more wind grass by the end of this quest.

  He moved to a safe area where there wouldn’t be any traps and sat down before opening the system prompt that was apparently so important that it needed to inform him while he was laying the trap down.

  An outpost has been established by Ssevinac for your faction.

  Outposts name “Quickly build local teleporter”

  He blinked at the notification and opened up his system menu and went to territories. Then he went over to The Outpost Tab and sure enough. It appeared he had an outpost called “quickly build local teleporter” he could even track everyone that was within the Outpost too. Which again felt like a major invasion of privacy. All of them were classified under his faction too. He even had a bunch of names that weren't rat kin in origin which was interesting.

  He had to assume this was Ssevinacs way of trying to communicate with Quill since they didn’t have any other means and were likely separated by a ton of distance. The teleporter was also probably their way of getting back in touch and contact which was great news!

  He then went over to the specialized buildings on his tab and looked at how much a local teleporter would cost. A D-grade local teleporter was million credits! This included the 75% off bonus he had which he felt was ridiculous! He decided to check out the lower grades. However the lowest you could go was F as apparently G-grade wasn't allowed to have teleportation.

  He could actually afford the F-grade teleporter now as with the discount it was only 67,252 credits. But would that be enough? He didn't actually know how far this teleporter was and for all he knew F-grade just wouldn't cut it.

  Meanwhile the E-grade, while more expensive at a whopping 442,543 credits, would probably stand a higher chance of getting Ssevinac and the rest to teleport to him. Or at least that's what he assumed Ssevianc plan was and not have Quill go to him. Plus with the Stampede only a couple of weeks away at this point, having more people to fight off potential monsters would be very beneficial.

  “Are you thinking about selling that Throne of gluttony????” Grey sounded eager in her statement and it made sense. When Quill had gone and sold those Cursed Sin hands, he was only expecting a couple of credits. He had not expected for each hand to be sold for over 10,000 credits a pop. Had he known they were so valuable he would have captured more of them or tried harvesting other body parts from the Cursed Sins. It did beg the question as to why they were so valuable but he also didn't care enough to look into it. Not that he could even if he wanted too.

  This of course led to Grey trying to convince him to sell the throne that he had in his storage ring but he felt it was still somewhat irresponsible given how it would likely lead to some kind of gluttony corruption or whatever. Still, if Ssevinac was in trouble he now had to wrestle with the moral conundrum of selling the thing.

  “Oh who cares about other people, if some dipshit wants to buy something that causes them to eat everything they can find, that's their prerogative. Plus, you need all the help you can get. Even if somebody bad buys it or some innocent person buys it. It should be no concern of yours. And if you feel really bad about it, maybe you can track it down on a later date and ensure that nothing bad is happening. Stop worrying about what can or can't affect others when they are all beneath you.”

  Quill bit his lip. He disagreed with most of what she said, but he did need help and running the risk of an F-grade teleporter not working due to the distance being too great was a real concern of his. But he would make a decision when he got back to his territory. He didn't have to decide right at that moment.

  He got up from the patch of dirt he had been sitting on and stretched out his sore muscles before following the carefully constructed path he made so as to not trip any potential traps. He had been very busy for the past five and a half months. Which also allowed him to confirm that the 50 hours of time for a full cycle between the sun and moon did count as a single day. So that gave him even more time to build traps then he initially thought which was nice.

  At first though things were somewhat slow going considering he could only make a single trap at a time. But then Grey, loath that she was to admit it, came up with the great idea of using his pseudo energy manifestation skill along with split thinking and mental focus to help construct his traps.

  He basically manifested elongated arms to work on various traps that didn't require precision or a delicate touch. Mostly pits but he did construct some sturdier and interesting explosives traps if he was being honest. He's actually quite proud of those ones too. Even got creative around the end where some traps would explode in various shapes or animals. Some even had paints or other chemicals in them to add a splash of color though he did go with the non toxic variety so as to not hurt the environment any more then was already going too..

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Still think it would be funny if you made at least one explosion in the shape of a penis.”

  He refused to acknowledge her comment as he went over his gains from all of this work for the past five months.

  He had gained a level in pseudo energy manifestation, three levels in mental focus and split thinking, five levels in explosive art, and a whopping seven levels in trap making. Every level in either of these things made the process move faster, easier and with less frequent breaks. He just hoped that it would be enough, along with whatever reinforcements he would be getting if he managed to bring Ssevinac and the rest of his people here.

  “That stupid ugly weasel is looking at you again. Throw a rock at it!”

  Quill turned his head over to the forest, needing his enhanced eyesight to actually see details and sure enough. There was that weasel just glaring at him at the edge of the E-grade zone.

  “Don't you do it. Your job is to kill the damn thing, don't you do what you are thinking about doing!” She sounded frantic as Quill took out a piece of nicely seasoned medium rare steak that he cooked over some charcoal to give it that good Smoky taste and flung it like a frisbee over towards the weasel. It leapt up and caught it in midair before devouring the thing in less than a second. Grey let out a frustrated groan when he did so

  “Why are you feeding him?? That weasel will kill you the moment you step out into the E-grade Zone. Hell, the fact that it tried to kill you before should be reason enough to put it on your kill list.”

  “ I don't have a kill list. And if the weasel tries to kill me again when I step into the E-grade Zone then I will deal with it. Until then, how can I not pass up on feeding a green weasel with weird shiny gems on its fur.”

  Grey just let out a harrumph and muttered something ineligible that he was pretty sure was just made up nonsense words as he continued on his way.

  The weasel naturally followed him along the tree lines glaring at him all the while. He had no doubt in his mind that the rodent would still try and kill him should the opportunity arise but he hoped against hope that he might eventually bring a truce to the animal. He certainly didn't want to try fighting it whenever the time did come around, assuming it ever did.

  As time passed while following his carefully laid path through this strip, he eventually came across his makeshift stone wall just on the inside of his territory's borders. He hadn't actually tested stability but it was better than nothing.

  A quick hook shot to the top, he propelled himself over the wall and began running towards his castle walls off in the distance. He was still impressed at how high those walls were, no matter how many times he saw it.

  “So have you made up your mind yet? Going back and forth like this isn't going to do you any good. Nor will stalling for time.”

  He looked up to the sky for a moment before letting out an exasperated sigh. “I think I'm going to sell the throne. I don't like it, there are just too many unknowns for my liking but I do need the help. I'll just have to hope that whoever does buy the throne will either destroy it or hold it in some safekeeping vault.”

  He could sense her approval which just made him feel extra gross about the decision but he did change directions to head towards the system store. Not happy with the pace he was going at, he quickly manifested his skateboard underneath his feet and began zooming across the plains since he didn’t really feel like using his beyblade at the moment.

  He did make a quick pit stop to check in on Wind Cutter though. For some reason that single blade of grass had been growing quite quickly and thicker than the rest of the pieces of grass. Because of this he felt like the blade of grass deserved some extra promotions and so now Wind Cutter was his leading General, an assistant treasurer, and the governor of this particular territory.

  After confirming Wind Cutter was doing better than ever, he continued on his way towards the system store while looking at his territory menu. There hadn't been really much development inside his territory seeing as most of his attention had been focused on building the traps. In fact, aside from the wall by the strip that was really the only new thing he had built. He mostly spent his nights sleeping on the strip with a makeshift camouflage cloak he had bought from the system store covering himself to avoid any bird attacks.

  As for his automaton guardians, he had three of the e-grades guarding the system store, three of the E-grades guarding the castle wall, one e-grade over by the edge in the direction of the graveyard, just in case some freaky zombies decided to start shambling in this direction. And the rest were patrolling/guarding the area where all the crabs and sharks were.

  He was actually quite happy about how that turned out. They really did reach some sort of weird equilibrium and were essentially both keeping their own populations in check. At least that's how it looked when he last checked 3 months ago. He had those automatons guarding/patrolling the area mostly to be safe as on occasion a shark or crab did leave the beach and wander into the territory.

  He soon found himself outside the system point shop and quickly entered inside and into one of its rooms before taking out his throne of gluttony and glanced it over

  Throne of the glutton- G grade (Damaged)- Upgradable

  (Rare)

  Once the Throne of the Soul King it has now been damaged and influenced by a cursed sin of gluttony due to it being used for an unintended purpose by some maniac. Any who would sit on or be around said throne will soon find themselves influenced into indulging in gluttony. Such a power could come at a steep price if one is not careful.

  This Throne enhances and strengthens Soul attacks by the owner of the throne. All Soul attacks have The sin of gluttony laced with its attack. This Throne continually projects the cursed sin of gluttony As a passive aura

  So that description was new and while he did hesitate a little bit longer he ultimately did decide to sell it. The system once again told him he could not sell it as is but could put it up for auction which he did. This time he set the time limit for 3 days since he was asked to build the teleporter quickly and hoped the funds would be enough.

  “You sure three days isn't too short of time?” Grey asked, likely already knowing he felt nervous about waiting so long already.

  “No, I'm trying to strike a balance between gaining enough money and not waiting too long. That is assuming the throne does sell for a lot. If it doesn’t then I will just have to settle for an F-grade teleporter and hope it will make do.

  “So what now? Are you planning on just making more traps for the next 3 days?”

  He took a deep breath and thought about it for a second. He had been doing nothing but making traps for the past five and a half months, discounting the occasional trip back and forth between the strip and the point shop store. He needed a break and hopefully with the added reinforcements he might not need all the traps to begin with. Or at least that was the lie he was at least telling himself just so he had us some moments to breathe. Yeah, he needed a break.