There was one good point about the time flow between earth and Ayda's world returning to normal. While everyone thought that I spent yet another night full of prayers and chants in the heart of the crypt, I could genuinely relax in Ayda's loving embrace through the night.
Revitalised with her charms and energy and after a good night of sleep afterwards, returning to earth didn't seem like such a huge burden like it usually was. Especially with how I couldn't wait to see what effects would my previous actions bear.
Right after stepping through the doors of the Inn where I was staying with Ayda, I reached towards the small table in my basement where I left my recently purchased phone. Opening it up, with just a few clicks I managed to find a site that offered fresh news from the local area.
"Sarathe family debunks the claims of the newly emerging cult."
"Is Sarathe conglomerate stained with the blood of innocent?"
"New, local cult makes drastic claims about the Sarathe family. Who they are and where did they come from?"
Nearly all of the headlines on the site were filled with the material covering the clash from yesterday. But what drew my attention, was an article hidden a bit to the bottom of the scrollable list.
"Sarathe Conglomerate spokesman interview in regards to the Boruta's cult accusations."
Finally finding something that compelled me to click on the hyperlink, I scrolled through lengthy records of the interview. The further I went in the text, the brighter my mood became.
"Let's take a look at their roots. What many might miss, was how they claimed to be called, quote on a quote, Boruta's cult. While most of the people might be unfamiliar with this name, it actually refers to the old devil from the local folklore. Are we going to really take the claims of the devil worshippers as binding evidence?"
"The accident that we are speaking about was surely tragic, but let's not get crazy about it. Sad events like this happen. We will always ask ourselves, how could something that disturbing happen? In wake of those emotions, people will be inclined to point fingers at the first enemy marked and that's a rule that those cultists made full use of. Who knows, maybe they want to hide the fact that they were the ones behind this accident by pushing the blame on the conglomerate?"
Reading through the interview, I couldn't help but feel as if the spokesman of Martha's family really did his job properly. If not for the fact that I was the person most aware of everything that happened, both regarding the incident with my family and its development, later on, I might be even inclined to believe in the story that this spokesman crafted!
From the looks of things, Martha's family official narrative was perfectly aligned to what the government was claiming to be the official course of action. While if asking a random person, following the government's narrative seemed to be a better choice when it came to not poking their soft spots. But as powerless as I new felt regarding implementing any change to the official narrative, openly pushing the blame at Sarathe still seemed to be a better option for me.
Because no one bothered to believe in what the government wanted to feed them in propaganda anymore. The pile of corpses that its forces created wherever they appeared made short work of the remaining trust that population had in the government ever since its changes after the apocalypse.
"Eh… They are really going to make things hard for me…"
Ultimately the words that I just whispered to myself outlined the general diplomatic situation that I was currently in. With government keeping its hand close to its chest, Sarathe family now openly stood against me.
At this point, I couldn't help but wonder. Given how Martha furiously denied the notion that Krist, my previous self was dead, I could see what was going on in her head. But even if everything that happened was just an unfortunate set of events that she unknowingly set in motion, even if she would spend the rest of her days plagued by the thought that she was responsible for my death, there was nothing that I was going to do about it.
Because for now, saving her soul from the possible torture of guilt would sabotage my very own attempts at staying alive and well on earth!
"Wait, the earth?"
This single notion made me quickly change the train of my thoughts. Starting with how I wasn't really as scared as Baskar given how I saw with my very own eyes how Sarathe elites got devastated by the attack of the military, I didn't really mind making them my enemies. But as I thought about the main source of their real strength getting greatly weakened, I couldn't help but realise that with everything that happened over the last few days, I completely ignored the aspect of my own cultivation!
With the burden of my previous identity, incapable of cultivating, now gone, there was nothing that would stop me from reaching greater heights in this earth standardised method of personal growth. Even if I could achieve far more by learning magic or using the tools from the apocalypse world, I still had to find a way that would allow me to shield all of those unusual abilities of mine under the cloak of exceptional cultivation ability of mine.
And that meant, that outside of dealing with all the extremely time-consuming tasks that my multiverse system granted to me, I had to find some time to actually diligently train in the stupid ways of the local cultivators!
Ping, ping, ping.
With both my thoughts and focus already trying to come up with a schedule that would fit all the things I had to take care off, the sound of my phone notifications going off barely managed to wake me up from my trance.
Looking down and reading the few words that Pavlo texted me, I could feel all the stress from the tough decisions that I had to make suddenly lifting from my shoulders. Now that the last piece of the puzzle was in place, it was time for me to get things going!
Glancing once again at what the letter contained, I allowed a slight smile to appear on my lips.
"The things that you ordered finally arrived. Get them off the warehouse before the secretary will eat me alive pls :C"