"W-what? W-why? H-how do they know our camp's location?"
"I don't know. But I heard someone tipped them off."
""WHAT?"" both Miya and Sho couldn't believe it.
"That's why we need to prepare."
"Why not go now?"
"You want to go? You don't even have enough energy to keep you moving until we reach our camp. That's why I'm giving you both two hours to prepare. Gather as much purified energy as you can. We need it so we can reach the camp as fast as we can."
"How about you go first?" Sho suggested. He was worried about the people in the camp. Most of them weren't fighters. They have children, elderly, disabled and pregnant.
"That would seem ideal. But if there's an emergency and I encounter other enemies, I won't be able to slip to our camp. It's better to go together. In case we meet an enemy, Miya can rush to the camp to report."
Indeed that seems more sensible. Alpha's power seems more of technique and brute strength. Miya would be better at escaping alone and scouting alone. But she has no energy to do that quickly. And if she would be the one going alone to report to the camp, she might encounter accidents. And being that they only got healed, she didn't have enough energy to go from where they are to their camp. It was far too risky.
"There's a better chance with the three of us together. I'll leave both of you to gain energy. I'll scout outside and see any movements there," Alpha was on the way out but suddenly stopped.
"Oh, before I forgot." Two sets of eyes pointed at Alpha. "Sho, you still have a GP, right? You should've extra from the clearing Zone. Unless you spend them all… but judging by your character, you would save them in case of emergency."
"GP?"
"God Points."
"Hm? Yes?" He blinked. For him, Alpha was a mystery who knew too much. Sho asked Alpha before and he said it was his first Zone. Their knowledge about Zones actually came mostly from Sho's experience.
*Was his knowledge came from his high ranking?* He doesn't know because Alpha didn't seem to want to share the reason. He respected Alpha's privacy. Everyone has their own secret. Even he wasn't devoid of secrets. He might have the biggest secret anyone could have.
"Buy Inventory. This way, you would be able to hide your weapon and take it out anytime you want. You can also store Potions later. It would come handy if we really have to fight the Savior Gang."
"B-buy Inventory?" He knew about the Inventory since Hikari told him about it. But his Inventory could only take things out. He couldn't put things in.
"It's only 10 GP. If you buy the first expansion of Inventory, you can have ten slots. You can store ten unique items at maximum. For example, you can put your *langes messer* into–"
"A what?"
"*Lange messer*. Also called a long knife. It's what I thought your weapon was."
"It is?" Because Soul Crusher was half the size of the sword, but was actually a knife, he didn't know what it was. Now, he knew it was called lange messer.
"It is. Well, you can put your langes messer into the Inventory or you can put three or more Healing Potions in the Inventory. Each would consume one space in your Inventory."
"It's just like a game bag storage…" He uttered.
He saw how Miya was both interested and disappointed at the same time.
"But I don't get it. I have access to my Inventory but I can't put things in it."
"I knew it. At first, I thought you just didn't want us to know that you have Inventory. But after fighting with Fenrir it was obvious you didn't have access to your Inventory. That's why you need 10 GP to buy the first expansion."
"Ah!" Because of earlier information overload, Sho's mind was working slower. He just realized what Alpha was trying to say. "I get it."
*Buy Inventory.*
*Upgrade.*
<10 God Points had been consumed.>
*Store Soul Crusher.*
Sho was once again awed as he saw his Soul Crusher vanish right before his eyes. When he checked his Inventory, Soul Crusher was inside.
"Thank you!"
"Seems like you succeed. I'll scout now."
As soon as Alpha went out, both tried what Alpha described.
Miya was visibly getting the hang of the gathering of energy. Because of her disappointment not owning her own Inventory, she got motivated in doing better with awakening her System Energy storage.
*Genius…* there was a pang of jealousy in Sho. But there was more admiration for Miya.
*I can't let myself lose. Even if I'm not a genius, I can top it with hard work!*
With that, Sho focused on gathering energy. The way Alpha described it and the way Miya was able to do it felt like it would be easy. But it wasn't.
Beads of sweat started to show on his forehead as he tried to gather the energy. He could feel the meshy bits of everything. But in it, he could also feel the energy he needed to purify. It was pure chaos, and only a bit was really used to be absorbed. He focused hard to gather those tiny bits of energy. He didn't think little of what Alpha said about absorbing chaos. From what he could feel on the particles around, he knew it would be really harmful to just let those messes come into him.
More sweat popped in his head as he tried to absorb each and every energy he could feel. It was like looking for rain in a forest. It was not rare, but it was not constantly there too.
Slowly, he picked the clear energy.one by one. Sho felt he was playing Jenga. One wrong move and the puzzle would fall. And the puzzle is his body. He couldn't afford to make any mistakes. After picking six blobs of energies, Sho let go of the feeling of the surrounding energies. He took too much time from each energy ball. It was almost twenty minutes each, and he still needed to refine those or else they would be like the potion he drank, slowly decaying without being used.
After refining that, he opened his eyes and saw both Miya and Alpha ready to go. Seeing him open his eyes, the two carried their backpacks and proceeded to the underground entrance. He hastily fixed his remaining items, put his backpack on his back and followed the two.
It was time.
[Author's Additional Note: Heeeey~ if you read this early, I did an update. I noticed while looking at my GP ledger that Sho actually spent 490 GP on his first day instead of 410 GP. I missed to add the info of him purchasing 2 Stats for his Luck which was equivalent to 80 GP. He was left with 10 GP instead of 90. I'm really sorry for this mistake. I'm still trying to improve as a writer who updates live instead of posting the whole story in one go Q_Q please forgive me... I'm already rolling in shame for this mistake huhuhuhu]