1. From è: Who is the best girl, and why is it Urranrell?
2. Also from è (what the fuck): Why does Harrison have a balding fetish?
3. Do you think other species have a concept of music?
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.........…...
With this burden lifted, I began to happily gamble my savings away, first to round my EXP to a nice 100,000.
[Government spending: 362 EXP]
[Result (Information): 3% of the star field's population are considered to be addicted to gambling, while an additional 5% are at risk.]
I swear to God, if I get my hands on this system...
Still, I rubbed my hands together in excitement about what I could get from this as I internally decided how much I should bet each time.
[Government spending: 10,000 EXP]
[Result (Information): The lottery numbers for tomorrow will include 33, 19, and 1.]
I thought nothing of that, except that I would have to check. After all, three correct numbers in our lottery wouldn't even amount to 100 Enas. Normally, I would not be so wasteful as to leave money on the table, but I had big plans, and my image was worth more than money.
[Government spending: 10,000 EXP]
[Result (Information): There is an undiscovered Iridium mine 45 kilometers northeast of planet Scorvyn-X9's capital.]
Wow, this one could be useful. An Iridium mine would be the kind of resource that could change the price of a whole planet.
I quickly took out my communicator and searched for Scorvyn-X9. My geography knowledge was definitely top-notch, especially in our star cluster, but nobody could remember the name of every planet.
One of the pleasantries of living in a galactic civilization compared to Earth was that data was available instantly and in large quantities.
What was not pleasant, on the other hand, was that Scorvyn-X9 was owned by our neighboring enemy civilization. This information could prove useful nonetheless, so I noted it down mentally. Only an insane man would save information like this digitally after reading The Legendary Mechanic.
My search history could still be explained casually, but information that could only be explained by the supernatural or something extremely suspicious should be treated differently.
So, I loaded another 10,000 EXP into the skill, expecting additional mockery.
[Government spending: 10,000 EXP]
[Result (Skill): Cooking Lvl. 1]
What is up with this skill and cooking? First the tips for making crepes, and now the cooking skill? All in all, I was pretty happy with this, as it meant that in addition to fighting and gun shooting, I now had a third skill that would eventually grant me a potential point.
For non-mages and mechanics, these were way harder to come by in the first place—not to mention the restrictions on my ability.
[Government spending: 10,000 EXP]
[Result (Equipment): IX17 Standard Issue Pistol]
What appeared in my hand was a decently big and heavy silver handgun.
This one was worth around 400 to 500 Enas—a fundamentally decent weapon that the city police used too—but not really something even a somewhat affluent person or super would use. That being said, I was not disappointed by it, as you could always use a weapon, especially an untraceable one.
Not to mention the effort of finding a suitable buyer or even explaining its origin. For my image, it was more practical to just keep it and not worry about all that.
[Government spending: 10,000 EXP]
[Result (Information): The grass is green on Vril'okai.]
".!?!?.!.?,.?"
Breathe in
And breathe out
Such is the life of a gambler.
[Government spending: 50,000 EXP]
I took another deep breath before I clicked yes on the system and spent 50,000 at once. The only thing consoling me about this was my inner voice telling me that 50,000 would be negligible to me in no time.
[Result (Skill): Truthsense Lvl. 1]
[You have a 10% chance to feel if someone is lying to you. For every additional level, this chance increases by 10%.]
[Note: This skill will not work if you have lied in the last 24 hours.]
"Hahaha!" Another skill—jackpot.
And this one could be used for my work too, so essentially a double jackpot. The triple jackpot of a combat skill still eluded me at the moment, but no need to become greedy.
I was just about to click on the skill and use my remaining EXP to level it up as high as I could, but then I noticed that I did not have any remaining EXP at all.
.....
Buzz
"How may I be of service?" Verdalis asked as he answered my summons.
"We don't have any more meetings for today, do we?" I asked him.
"We do not."
"Fantastic. Sit down, then," I said as I pointed to one of the chairs in front of my desk.
I could tell he was going through the last few days and hours in his mind, wondering if he had made a mistake somewhere. Verdalis was a smart, capable man, but he did tend to overthink a little.
As a loyal subordinate and arguably my most precious asset at the moment, he did not say anything about it, though, and just followed my command.
"I want to practice something," I began explaining to him, not wanting to needlessly keep the tension up.
"You just need to tell me stories—or rather, statements. About half of them should be true, and half shouldn't be. I will then guess if the statement you told me is true or false," I said.
"If you want, you can see this as practicing lying while I practice discerning the truth."
To which he just nodded, clearly not too impressed with my reasoning.
…
…
…
"My favorite actor is Dralos Verlyyntar," the cute young girl sitting opposite me said with a big smile on her face.
"That's a lie," I said nonchalantly.
"Governor, how do you keep doing this?" she asked, looking defeated.
My skill was still level 1, but it had become a habit—or rather, a quirk of mine—to practice catching lies. I mean, sooner or later, I would get into a situation where I would have to lie, making my skill useless for a day.
"That's easy. You're a bad liar," I said, to which she looked genuinely offended.
"Don't make that face; it's good to be honest."
Speaking of dishonesty, the only way I could tell if my assistant, Verdalis, was lying to me was by using my skill. He was just too good a liar—which, fortunately for me, meant he was on my side.
After I noticed that, I simply ordered him to find me a few honest souls who could replace him in my little experiment—no need to start on the highest difficulty.
"How about this? Dralos Verlyyntar is a vegetarian," she said, undeterred, knowing that my knowledge of celebrities was pretty bad and hoping for better luck, I guess.
"Well, that would be..."
Beep Boop Beep
My communicator began ringing, which meant that someone from a very selective group was calling me. I had it set to "important only" mode, after all—or "slacking off" mode, as I liked to call it.
"I will need to take that," I explained—which was unnecessary, as she had already stood up and made her way out.
Beep Boop Beep
I knew who this was from the ringtone I had assigned him, as I had done for everyone who could call me in "important only" mode.
Two button clicks on my communicator later, and a face appeared on my computer screen.
"Hello, Father."
"Hello, Elrin."
In the last nine months since I became the city governor, I had neither seen nor spoken to my father. As bad as that sounded, it was not unusual. While my predecessor was attending school on Eozapter 1, he was often not contacted for many months at a time.
My father was very much a straightforward person—someone who would do nothing without a good enough reason—so I did not bother to ask him what he wanted. He would get to that.
"You must be wondering why I called you," he said.
I just nodded in response, knowing that this was a rhetorical question.
"Bring your affairs in order. We are leaving for Eozapter tomorrow. This will take at least two weeks."
"What's the occasion?" I asked, very interested, as I did not recall any instance of this happening before.
"This is classified, so do not tell anybody else. But it's for the public announcement and celebration of the Supreme Council finally gaining its 15th member."
This made sense. The Supreme Council was one of the highest institutions of government in our civilization. Its members were not elected; it simply consisted of every Grade-A Super. The only way to join was to become a Grade-A Super, and the only way to be removed was by betraying the civilization or dying.
There were currently 14 members on the council, and the last one had joined eight years ago. That was why I had never attended this kind of ceremony—I must have been 10 or 11 at the time.
That being said, a new Grade-A Super for our civilization was big news. They would probably spare no expense for the celebration.
"Do I need to prepare anything else?" I asked calmly, masking the excitement I felt at the opportunity to see our origin planet with my own eyes for the first time and potentially make some powerful connections.
"No. Adrin will come to pick you up tomorrow at 7:00," he said before promptly ending the call.
His attitude toward me did not faze me much. If someone had treated me the way my predecessor treated him, I would have been significantly less cordial.
Since I was on the computer anyway, I looked up the official government information on our Supreme Council. My father might have said that I didn't have to prepare anything, but that didn't mean I didn't want to be prepared.