Jacob looked at Marcus and Lucius.

Everyone behind them was already packed and ready to go. Every single inhabitant of Woodsea was ready to leave their place for St. Peter, no questions asked.

“How the hell did you do it?” he asked them.

Lucius pointed toward Marcus.

“It’s all him. Don’t look at me. He started bragging so hard about St. Peter and how strong he got that he convinced these people we live in a Paradise on Earth.”

Jacob’s eyes were wide open. He was hard to impress, honestly, but this was against every single expectation of his. To convince the people in Blacksoil, he had to leave Juliet and Epagogia there to finish the job. They had not been able to convince everyone yet, but Jacob wasn’t going to leave anyone alone just because they didn’t understand the risks they were taking.

“Aha! Boss, look at me! I am like you, like Mussolini!” Marcus said, quoting a joke that Jacob had directed to himself.

“For Christ’s sake, Marcus, don’t say that sh*t!” Jacob felt like crying. Some people, especially the older ones, sometimes had a very particular sympathy for the Italian fascist leader, and Jacob had no intention of enabling such beliefs. They would have to fight a superpowered nazi in the future if his and Epagogia’s prediction were right.

“But I did a great job, didn’t I?” the man asked with his trademark sh*t-eating grin.

“Yes, yes. You did. And you know what? You can start running all the way toward Blacksoil as soon as you and Lucius bring these people back to St. Peter. No rest for our dear Marcus. He needs to work his magic!” Jacob laughed sardonically.

“What? But can I rest a bit in St. Peter before going?”

“Nope, in fact. You have to run as fast as you can for Blacksoil. Once you are there, there is still one-third of the people being very reluctant to go. We need them in St. Peter to make sure they are safe and fed. Also, I finally found some Demonic Boar, and we’ll probably have big juicy pork steaks to feast on!”

The last part captivated Marcus, the biggest fan of Jacob’s cooking—alchemic endeavors.

“Wow, really, boss?! You finally found them?! Oh, man, I can’t wait to eat some. You told me they have the shortest life cycle, right? Two weeks and a baby can become a fully-fledged adult, right? In two months, we will have a near-infinite supply of pork!” the man laughed heartily.

“Marcus, it’s breath-taking how you can remember stuff like this, but you can run out of your house without pants because you forgot to wear some.”

Marcus blushed and glared at Lucius.

“It happened only once, you smartass!” Marcus tried to kick Lucius, but Jacob immediately intervened.

“Marcus, Lucius. People are waiting,” Jacob gestured to the hundred-something people. “If you have already explained how everything works to them, you can bring them to St. Peter.”

“Sure, Jacob.”

“Now, if you can come with me for a second,” Jacob asked the two.

Marcus reassured the people that they would be moving fast, and they went inside one house with Jacob and Lucius.

Jacob had arrived out of nowhere and immediately went up to them. He had barely interacted with any inhabitant from Woodsea; unfortunately, he still had to brief the two on what had happened in Blacksoil.

When he started recounting the events that had transpired during the past month in Blacksoil, both Marcus and Lucius frowned.

“I wish I could have cut one of those bastards down,” Marcus said when Jacob explained his choice of having the people who had come with them kill the criminals.

Lucius, instead, looked more uncomfortable with Jacob’s call.

“Some of the kids will be scarred for life,” Lucius commented.

“Probably,” Jacob nodded, acknowledging the truth, “but there is something more.”

Since the truth had come out in the inner circle, he simply explained about Epagogia and his past life. It wasn’t easy baring his soul like that, but he did it nonetheless.

After he told them he had reincarnated, he got a very unexpected reaction.

Lucius put one hand on his forehead, and Marcus…

“I KNEW IT!” Marcus pumped his fist in the air. “LUCIUS, TELL HIM, TELL HIM! AHA! I KNEW IT!”

Lucius groaned so loudly that Jacob thought the man had sprained a vocal chord. Marcus, instead, had the biggest beaming expression of gloating joy a man could ever get on his face.

“F*ck,” Lucius swore.

“COME ON, TELL HIM!” Marcus kept shouting.

“Tell me what?” Jacob had a bad feeling about this.

“Marcus, this fu**ing idiot,” Lucius said, “told me multiple times that you came from the future back to your old body, and that’s why you knew so much. I told him multiple times that it was bullsh*t and impossible. But he kept insisting that it was the most reasonable explanation.”

“F*CK, I KNEW IT!” Marcus kept hollering and jumping around, the happiest he had been in his entire life so far.

“Well, the guy’s a genius,” Jacob laughed too, partaking in the hilarity.

“See, the fact that you reincarnated is shocking,” Lucius complained, “but the fact that Marcus guessed it? Well, that’s upstaging you, big time.”

“Oh man, I wish you came back before the apocalypse. Imagine all the money we could have made with lottery tickets, boss!”

“I mean, Marcus, I come back from a world where humanity has gone extinct, but I do appreciate the interest in lottery tickets,” Jacob snorted.

“We should make a lottery in St. Peter! That way, if you come back again in the timeline, you would already have the numbers!” Marcus spoke as if possessed by the new genius idea.

“I think he just exhausted all the intelligent things he could say in one life by guessing right this reincarnation matter,” Lucius said with a grin.

“That does seem the case,” Jacob answered while looking at Marcus starting to plan the new lottery.

“Marcus, we can’t win the lottery if we own the lottery,” Lucius explained.

“Aha! Lucius, you are just too dull to get it! We can split every loot we get randomly, get a percentage that goes straight toward the lottery. That way, not even we would have control over it!”

“Marcus, you are suggesting a wide-spread gambling with the same resources that could save lives.”

Jacob was trying to explain why it was not feasible.

“Well, people love gambling, come on!”

And that was how Jacob and Lucius had to persuade Marcus to drop the lottery idea and how they didn’t get to discuss the matter of Jacob reincarnating, passing it as the most normal thing that happened that day after Marcus had made a guess worthy of Sherlock Holmes.