Rune sighed as he looked at the corpse. It was crushing about three houses and some of the road and was too large for Rune to store. Apparently, it was “larger than storage slot” and he had to absorb it.

At the very least, he was able to store several scales, several teeth, and one eye. On closer examination, the eye he got was the one that wasn’t pierced by him and had a pentagram as the pupil shape. The pentagram was white with a black outline while the whites of its eyes were actually blood red.

The way he had taken them out was gruesome as it was, but they also dripped acidic fluids as he did so and he had to use some protection skills to take them out. The poison effect stayed in the body and they burned a lot of the sand. In fact, Rune had to quickly absorb the body before it melted a hole for it to fall through in the sand.

Rouna had seen him take it out and put it in his hand and she told him something important about it.

“Was that a magic eye?! Only some of the Hierarch dragons carry them! Apparently, the things that this dragon was doing was indeed special even if he was just one dragon with a village of Manticore people! I wonder what he was doing?!”

“Do you think it had something to do with those Water Weirds or whatever?”

“Ah!! Yes!! Precisely!! That must be it!! Otherwise, what else would he be doing?!”

“How am I supposed to know. Anyway, what am I supposed to do with this eye? Gouge out my own and modify this to fit?”

“Eww! No! That sounds disgusting!! Why would you think that?”

“Well, it is a magic eye…”

He stressed the word “is” and “magic”. Then he looked at the eye in hand and turned it to look over the eye. He had never seen an eye so strange looking and it was much larger than his head. He considered shrinking it, but he didn’t know of a magic that would do so.

“Why don’t you do that thing where you absorb something and gain its powers?”

He shrugged and absorbed it. He only had to touch something to devour it with his Gluttony’s Chosen title. He felt an immense power go inside of him and a sudden pain in his right eye.

“Oh!! Ow!! That’s my dominant eye!!”

He didn’t bother clutching it though because he didn’t want to be seen as someone with eighth grader disease, even if it didn’t exist in this world... yet. He just stood and flinched a little when he felt it.

Then his vision blurred in his right eye and he felt strange.

“Why don’t you try pouring magic through it?”

He did so, but didn’t feel anything. He tried again and nothing happened.

“I don’t think anything is happening.”

“What abilities did the dragon have?”

“Acidic bodily fluids, bad breath, and healing.”

“Than it’s probably healing. Try cutting yourself.”

He took out his trench knife and cut his finger a bit. Then he activated the eye and it healed instantly. The blood flowed back into his finger and the wound disappeared. He felt accomplished with this.

“Nice.”

He muttered under his breath and put his trench knife back in its sheath. His assault rifle was slung over his shoulder and he had a pouch on the right side of his belt that carried the ammunition.

Then he and Rouna walked to the crowd that was stirring and people were holding their heads. They groaned in pain and their eyes opened suddenly.

Every single one of them rushed over to Rune and Rouna and they started speaking.

“Thanks!!!”

“You saved us!!!”

“That fake god was terrible!!!”

“He killed Frank!!!”

“He did??!!?!”

They were praising his abilities and welcomed him and his group as guests. Ogyi was where the acidic blood was and had kneeled in front of it. Tears streamed down his face as he prayed that his father would be well in the afterlife.

Rune put his hand on Ogyi’s shoulder and Ogyi looked up at him. Of course, as a fourteen year old teenager, he didn’t hug Rune, but he put out his hand to shake it. Rune did so and looked around.

“So… Who is going to be the village chief?”

Everyone turned to him and remembered that the capital building was destroyed which also them to think that everyone in the building was already dead which they were.

As a group decision, the village decided to mourn everyone they had lost since the dragon had arrived, but they wanted to do it the next morning. For now, they wanted a feast.

It was already the middle of the night and Rune turned back into his human form. When Sophia saw him, she asked what happened to his eye and the strange aura behind him.

He explained the Cursed Assault Rifle and the magic eye. Then he stored his gun and knife and put on his regular clothes again as they had been replaced by armor. It was quite a hassle to do that every time he changed back into a humanoid, but he wasn’t precise enough to pull out clothes from his storage and immediately have them on his body.

Then the two of them headed off to bed as they were tired from the events of the day. Rouna retired to Elisa’s lap again and Riika had slept through the entire thing for she was too tired manning the radio.

Sadly, the shield and the hovering platform were destroyed by the acid of the dragon. Rune decided to make something much better than before and wanted to do it at the lab.

The feast was in the morning when everyone in the village was awake. The food had been partially prepared the night before, but was completed now. Rune and his group ate until they were full and talked to the village people about the new chief.

It was still to be decided.

The feast consisted of tasty monster meat that was covered in a tasty sauce. There were boar-like monster sausages and some steaks and meat kebabs. The vegetables were quite lacking, but they made it up with some sweets.

There was some bread that had a sweet, blue filling that tasted like sweet berries and everyone in the group except Rune, Nacht, and Lacht were surprised. The latter two had tasted it before, but still ate a lot of it and Rune had tasted something sweeter on Earth, but also ate a lot since he hadn't found any decent sweets in Arborea until now.

Afterwards, Nacht and Lacht were teleported back to their village and stayed in Rune’s party in case he needed to teleport back, but he also had the ship just in case. Then, Rune placed a protective barrier around the ship and took everyone who was on that ship during the ride to Hell’s Gate back to the school.

The barrier was made so that only Rune's group could enter, excluding Nacht and Lacht, and he also set up some defenses. The defenses were made up of some floating spears and shields that would attack anyone who stole or damaged anything on the ship.

Rune popped back into existence right in front of the mansion and several maids jumped at the sight of the group. They were welcomed back by the students who were passing by and Roxana leaped from the mansion porch onto Rune and he patted her on the head. Then Roxana hugged Sophia.

One of the maids walked up to Rune and handed him two bags. They were quite heavy and it was a mystery how she was able to carry both in one hand. There was also an envelope that was designated for Rune.

He pocketed the letter and took a peek in the two bags. He was happily surprised to find that both of them were filled with money. One had 1650 gold coins and the other had 20 platinum coins. He stored both of them in his storage as soon as he saw the contents.

The classes had gone well enough while Rune and Sophia were gone. They basically had to study from the books the Bastets had created for them. They were textbooks that just had words and some pictures and were much more boring than their teachers.

Some girls tried to hug Rune under the cover of welcoming him back, but they ended up just waving due to Sophia’s cold smile. Lisbeth reported that nothing was out of the ordinary and Rune walked to the lab.

He found Kelly and Jared working on the other side of the room and they joked about how long it had been since they last saw each other.

Since their bodies moved at the pace of the outside world, they only grew hungry during outside meal times and needed to use the bathroom rarely. They had been in the lab for quite a long time. Since 12 seconds equaled a day in the lab, they felt about 6,000 days go by which would be much more if they stayed in 24 hours a day. They took regular breaks and played around in the lab. They slept, ate, and went to the bathroom during usual times outside of the room, but their sense of days were messed up. For example, they wouldn’t feel hungry if several days passed in the lab, but they would feel hungry after several hours outside of the lab.

The time distortion worked by using the pocket dimension with the lab become able to only allow the soul and materials to go in and out. The physical bodies were still with them, but the pocket dimension lab made the bodies work at the time of the outside world or real world. Thus, after about 2.5 years in the lab, they felt hungry.

Also, it wasn’t problematic for one to stay in the lab for one day in the real world or 172,800 days in the lab. The mind was not affected unless someone grew smarter in the lab. The lab’s only downside was that their perception of time would be messed up quite badly and, since the lab had no windows, their eyes would strain for a little bit in the sunlight. This was due to the mind forgetting what the sun felt like on the skin and eyes.

Rune believed that he would go crazy if he stayed in there for more than a year at a time and he wasn't convinced that the two of them were fine. They didn't have any dark bags under their eyes and were getting along with each other better than ever. It was strange because most couples would fall in ruin if they were together for so long. It just showed how much the two loved each other. Of course, Sophia and Rune could stand it with each other, but they would likely become bored of the things in the lab if they stayed too long.

During that time, they had created many different things and Rune let them off the hook for a week after he saw that. Apparently, Tyler had some strange ideas.

There were automatons lined up on one side of the room and there were now three floors with the two upper ones having rectangular holes in the middle of them to see what was going on up there. There were two staircases for each floor and the room had gotten taller.

There were about 20 automatons who consisted of 10 female and 10 male forms. There were several missiles pushed against the side of the room that were next to a metal box that was labeled “Grenades”. On the second floor, there were different tables with tools strewn across the room. It looked like they were working on some sort of melee device. The third floor had shelves and racks of ranged weaponry.

There were different types of weapons such as different assault rifles, rifles, submachine guns, pistols, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, flamethrowers, and such. Rune turned around in the center of the room and took it all in.

“This is all amazing!!! How did you do all this?!!?”

Jared answered as he moved down the stairs from the second floor he was working at.

“It’s been, like, 16 years here.”

“How did you guys spend 16 years!?!? Wouldn’t you go insane?!?!”

“Yes. One normally would, but our bodies kept our thoughts in order and we were able to push past our limits!!!”

Rune face palmed then took a look at the room as he made his way to the third floor. It was amazing with all the technology that was around the room.

“We have created automatons that are able to take in a soul to maneuver it around like Cursed Armor. As long as someone wears the corresponding necklace, then they would be able to do so.

On the second floor, we have been starting production on the project known as Project Glacier. It uses Ice magic to freeze what the projectiles touch. It will be a series and we have already developed the flamethrower version of it and a hand cannon.

The weapons we have already created are the Monster Series, the Harbinger Series, the Horsemen Series, and many guns. In fact, we have almost finished the railguns!

We have also developed computer systems and they are now as good as the most recent touch phone from Earth that we had. We are working on the software and the hardware is slightly hard to come by, but we should be able to make due. The security system should be more improved once this is finished.

Tyler did say that he wanted to watch shows or something on a screen and so we have developed the recorder. It is quite large, yes, but it runs quite well. We have come up with plans to set up cell towers to allow for phone service. However, we have not yet actually made them yet and we can’t find any builders who would want to do it…

But we did start on the plumbing system instead of teleportation!! In fact, we will create a sewer system that utilizes the teleportation below a waterfall. The teleportation will lead to a waste conveyor belt that will make things fall into lava below, completely incinerating the waste and, in the closed environment, there will be several magic items to purify the air. It will be amazing!!”

“...Sounds like you plan on making a city... You want to do that?”

Kelly spoke up this time after finishing up a small project. That project was to smooth out the flaws with the phones with her soldering iron which she had created apparently. There were some minor drawbacks with the phones’ interiors, but they were fixed by her. The problem was that they overheated too easily, but she added in some enchantments and increased the memory and storage of the device and how fast it could run. The enchantment was a cool down enchantment and one to increase the amount of electricity it could store.

“Yes!! Please!!”

Rune nodded. Then he turned away and looked to the left and the right. He found himself a box of explosive chemicals which looked liked the safest thing in the room between the missiles and strange glowing chamber surrounded by pipes, wires, and tubes.

There was a sign on the green glowing chamber that said, “Please do not touch. You will die or get cancer and then die.” They were put up on all sides of the cylindrical base and the glass above it was see through.

He sat on the box and opened up the letter he had received. It said:

“Marquis Rune Samuv,

I am writing this letter to tell you that you have received the 150 gold coins that I, Baron Luxfreed, owes you. On top of that, His majesty has told me to inform you about a great many other things. One being that your school is greatly appreciated for helping the lower and middle classes to be able to go to school. He will provide as much support as needed to expand.

It would be great if you took in more people within the next year and more applicants will be sent after the current school year. He said that he will send a group of students that he deems necessary to educate, but won’t go to the Mage’s academy or the Knighthood academy. Instead, they will go to your school that teaches both subjects and education.

The second thing is that you are to send Elisa back to the capital and that you will be rewarded for the things you have completed. Your righteous acts will be noted and praised. You will receive compensation for it soon.

The third thing is that I am extremely sorry for my son’s attitude towards you and he will be properly punished. Please excuse this.

Thank you,

Baron Luxfreed”

It was signed with a seal that looked especially fancy with a wolf’s head and claws in the red wax it was in. Rune thought that he could use what he had just read for a new idea that he had proposed earlier. He could make the school larger and create a town around it under the guise that it was to help the school.

He turned back towards Kelly and Jared who were holding up a clipboard and scribbling things down. They were looking at the green chamber in the lab.

“It looks like we will have the funding to create that city sooner than we thought!”