Severin let himself collapse onto the ground. A wave of desperation washed over him.

The sudden revelation to Severin was the difference between being stranded on a lonely island and being stuck on a small raft at sea.

Both situations weren’t optimal, but it was obvious which one would be preferable.

‘Okay, stay positive. Calm down and check things out first.’

Severin began to slowly crawl forward on the damp grass until he was able to once again peek down beyond the edge. Like that, he lay there for about half an hour focused completely on the dense wall of white below him.

“What are you looking at?”

Barely escaping a heart attack, Severin dug his fingers into the soft ground.

“Don’t scare me like that!” He had been too absorbed to notice the girl sneaking up on him. More than that, Em was already laying right next to him, also looking down towards the ground below the floating mountain.

That was indeed something Severin had been able to confirm. The ‘mountain’ part hadn’t been a lie. It wasn’t just a small, little rock he was now standing on, or rather laying. That at least meant that underground would be a tremendous amount of space left to work with; If the area on the surface should ever turn out to be insufficient, which, admittedly, wasn’t all that likely, to begin with.

Severin quickly recovered from his surprise.

“I’m trying to check whether we…move.” That was what had been bothering him. Once the words left his mouth, though, it felt a bit silly. If they were truly floating away, just like the raft, then, if it was apparent enough for him to detect the movements, in these past couple of minutes, with his naked eyes, then surely he would’ve been able to already realize that fact earlier. Not to forget that Sam and the others apparently never had a problem finding their way back.

“Ooh! That would be bad!” With a childish earnestness did she turn to observe the situation herself. The earlier discomfort seemed already forgotten.

‘Bless a child’s heart.’

Severin too moved back into his position. This time, though, he only pretended to observe his surroundings and was more concerned with analyzing his findings.

‘For the moment, I’ll just have to assume we’re somewhat stationary. Even if we were moving, it would have to be at an insignificant rate. So then the real question is…What does this all mean for me? Has anything even really changed?

I guess building a simple set of stairs to leave this place is out of the question now. As for trying to climb down this thing…’ Not even Severin was able to convince himself that this had ever been an option.

‘Well, that certainly makes the portal station a lot more attractive all of a sudden. Actually, establishing the thing would still require me to somehow leave this place in the first place, but only once. No need to invest in some flying artifact myself if I can just ask one of the guys. I would never be able to write such a thing off as a business expense.’

In reality, though, Severin already had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to invest in first. Still, thinking about flying artifacts, one certain wobbling basket appeared in Severin’s mind. More specifically, the crystals, which were located in each of the thing’s corners, made him think.

‘If I manage to get a hold of a large enough amount of these things, who knows if…’

The prospect excited Severin to no end. Suddenly he almost preferred being stuck on a comparatively small piece of rock instead of a fortress, as Em had called it.

‘Maybe the System can hel…’

Snort

‘As if that thing had any interest in making my life any easier.’

By suddenly reminding himself of the System and thinking back to about an hour ago, Severin managed to ruin his mood.

“That scamming piece of shit!”

“Eeeh?!” This time it was Em, who was now sitting right on the edge of the mountain, with her feet dangling down playfully, who had almost been startled into jumping down into her doom. She quickly crawled back and appreciated the safety of solid ground under one’s feet. Even if that solid ground was floating.

“What scam? Who? I didn’t…” Her first instinct was to defend herself from the sudden accusations. Then came the urge to hit the man.

The latter she managed to suppress. The former Severin preempted as he quickly proceeded to explain to her his recent findings and the cause for his dissatisfaction.

“So basically, once we leave the shop’s premises we feel as hungry as we normally would after going so long without any food. Or something like that anyway. I’m not entirely sure,” he admitted. “If it truly had unleashed all the accumulated consequences of not eating for all that time, I would’ve died right there on the spot.” He couldn’t help but shudder at that thought. What a sneaky, underhanded move by the System. “And in hindsight, I noticed that I wasn’t especially thirsty either. I most certainly don’t intend to pursue this matter any further, though. Certainly not without any food available.”

Emily didn’t seem nearly as upset as her boss. After she had agreed to be working in this place, she hadn’t planned to be leaving anytime soon. Why would anyone want to leave a place at which one didn’t have to worry about food? The idea was beyond her. Still, even she was a bit annoyed by the matter. The thing she thought she had finally managed to escape from, now reappeared in a different shape to once again pose a problem.

“What about establishing an inn,” she suggested. “That should not only complete the quest but also take care of the issue with the food, no?” Em’s eyes became dreamy as she thought back to the few occasions she managed to snatch some leftover goose-bones from the backstreet of an inn. It had been her spoils of war. As it was common knowledge that adventurers liked to splurge on their meals, after returning from a few days in the field or a dungeon, these areas were highly contested. At least in those districts that Em and her kind were actually able to enter. She dismissed the thought as quickly as it had appeared. She almost felt ungrateful for even thinking about the taste of food while being in her current position.

“Yeah, I guess that’ll be the next goal. But not because of the food. Take a look at the description. Requires me to have access to being a [Cook] to be able to serve anything more than just ale and bread, it seems.

No, my reasoning for considering going for an inn next is mostly so that we can finally start to offer some lodging.”

“Good point! Can’t have people just randomly camping in front of the store!”

“Ha.Ha. Right.” Severin decided to gloss over the fact that a certain group of three had been camping right on his doorstep for the last couple of months.

“But wouldn’t just some rooms be good enough in that case?”

“Like a motel? Maybe. Might very well turn out to be cheaper in the short run. In the long run, though, if we want to eventually build an inn anyway, it should be cheaper to just save until we can afford the real thing. Should probably even opt for the predesigned blueprints the store has to offer. Although we might have to expand on it later on.”