RMLLD: Archipelago

Sector SanJuNi: Cave of Indigos

I rode Hikobi on the way down from the fourteenth floor of the Tower of Babel, where our training area was. My Cave of Indigos was still there, unchanged even after months of no reviewing on its state.

I walked into the cave where I had carved out using a limited-time skill that I obtained from mining, so now there are tunnels to the multiple caves that I used for a few days while residing in this place with Luffy.

As I walked into the first tunnel, a shocking sight was carved into my eyes: There were footprints, not mine, but some other human's.

I quickly dashed towards the room full of Indigos, and found a few people who were picking my flowers out of the ground, including ones that were not fully grown yet.

"What are you doing?" I confronted the thieves, who turned tail and decided to run into the next room through the series of tunnels.

"Why do you run? It's useless." I said as I opened a portal beneath their feet as they shrieked on their way down into the new subspace I created.

I then jumped down with Hikobi on my shoulder, and landed in the space, where the thieves looked at me in fear.

"Let me ask you again, what are you doing?" I said menacingly, releasing 0.1% of my aura at them.

"We, we thought that those Indigoes did not belong to anyone! Anyways, they also fetch a ton of Argents, so we decided to pick them." The short guy in front replied to me as Hikobi gave out a snarl of dissatisfaction.

"So you never considered the possibility that these could belong to someone? For instance, me?"

"No..."

These guys were beyond help. I sighed as I turned to face the three of them. "To be honest, I was going to abandon this part anyways. But, stealing is still unforgivable, so you would have to do me a favour. If you can help me, the Indigoes are yours."

"A favour?" The tall one at the back said, confused.

"Yes. I am on my way towards the Twinprint Archipelago, and my 《Analyze》skill tells me that you guys are merchants. So," I held out my hand, "care to join me on my journey and help me sell some stuff?"

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I gotta say, those merchants/thieves are amazing.

They have a vast knowledge on how the market and economic system of this world works, so that benefits me. And since I am nice, they now have their own luxurious room down on floor nine.

The only weird thing about them is their names.

You wouldn't believe it. I thought they were joking.

Their names were Tic, Tac, and Toe.

Congrats, because they're now our judges for any game we play, shoved into their current positions by Subaru, who decided it was a good time to give everyone a role.

I also have to say that Subaru's timing with everything is just too great. I guess it is because he has the skill 《Victorious Timing》, but the benefits of his skill are just too great.

With the merchants now on my side, we continued our journey towards the Twinprint Archipelago.

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After a day or so, the merchants had earned our trust, so I decided to put them to a little agriculture work on floor six in the meantime.

To this day, the Tower of Babel's structure still baffles me, and Sipiosa's directions usually lead us to some other place. So, with the ton of spare time I had, I worked out a map with Subaru to give ourselves a clearer vision of our own residence.

Floor one is the entrance, along with several storage rooms filled with stuff that the Tower of Babel generates everyday from pure manaki. A set of stairs leads the way up to floor two.

Floor two is a bunch of cages, stored with various types of animals that we have decided to breed to keep ourselves full and eradicate the possibility that people could die of famine.

Floor three is a valuables' storage. Inside the vaults are filled with many rare metals and gems, so people could choose to come and buy things later in Twinprint if they wanted to. A retractable staircase that was modified from the original structure was built by Touya. The staircase allows merchants to walk into the third floor directly without the need to cross through the first and second floors.

Floor four follows the pattern of shopping, and various food stalls will be set up later when we have enough crew for this. Yes, recruitment for work is also a goal for when we arrive in the Archipelago.

Floor five will be the floor that sells infrastructure pieces, like pieces of iron bars our wooden frames that Touya can create from 《Chiseling》or I could just make some from 《Memory Recreation》.

Floor six was the agriculture rooms, and floor seven was the library. Floor eight was our kitchen that the spirits work in, and also the factory that produces goods from pure manaki.

From floor nine and above was a lot of stuff and our residence, so I'm just going to leave that out. I rarely go to the top floor, but sometimes it's a good place to relax.

I later called everyone to the dining hall, including our new workers, since we had successfully just arrived in the Central Region.

"Man, was that Felric Mountain Range a tough place to pass." Tic said as he told us about some troubles that the spirits faced while controlling our mobile fortress. "The weather was not a problem at all, but the steep terrain is really a pain! Good thing we are in the Central Region now. There are no mountains at all here."

"Really?" I blurted out in surprise, before realizing my lack of knowledge on this world's geography.

Everyone looked at me in surprise, including all my Outerworlder friends. Before long, they burst into laughter at my ignorance.

"OH MY GOD YOU GUYS!" I yelled in frustration. So much for a good start into the next region.