“Looks like the battlefield’s heating up,” Claud muttered, before pulling out a pyramid to check that it was still misaligned. His eyes switched back to a metal box — the artefact that they had spent a good amount of their time in the Celestia Ruins to retrieve — which was busy displaying an overhead view of the battlefield.

It had been a few days since the Moons descended, and the battlefield, which had been in Liquet Dukedom, which was directly north of the Istrel Sovereignty, had been pushed back to Lacuna. As a result, there was now something that looked like balance on this front; the three dukedoms of the Nihila Sovereignty had been split into Moon-controlled territory and Dark-controlled territory, with only Vacuos County as the main battleground.

Even the Lacuna Dukedom had been split up, and Vacuos, which was at the very middle, was now paying the price for it.

Was it coincidence? Or was there something else in the mix? Claud wasn’t too sure, but it sure felt like the advantage the Dark had in descending earlier had been completely stripped away. The only indicator that the Dark had managed to bag an extreme advantage was the huge disparity in percentages between the Moonlit Victory and the Shadowed Victory missions.

He looked at the screen of the artefact again, before nodding in satisfaction. This thing, the Reserve Echelon Command Observation Node, or RECON, was something that was apparently widely used to scout out locations. The metal box in front of him had five metal balls, which could take flight and position in a single position indefinitely. These balls, or probes, could then relay back what they saw in incredible clarity to this screen and to even the Second Shadow. Apparently, they came as a set or something.

Lily, who was reading a book about the latest developments on chemicals that could explode when looked at, raised her head. “What happened?”

“The Moons finally brought out humans. Mana-users and mortal soldiers,” Claud replied, fiddling with the thing the manual had called a mouse. As for why it was called a mouse…well, it sure didn’t look like a rodent, so maybe Celestia was simply odd. Either way, unless he squinted his eyes and got dead drunk, Claud was certain that this odd thing wouldn’t look like a rodent.

“Weren’t they doing that already?” Lily asked.

“Well, not on such a huge scale,” Claud replied, folding his arms. “But if you look here…”

Lily rolled over and bumped into him happily, before sitting upright. Her smiling eyes narrowed a heartbeat later, and Claud knew why. Before here was a truly combined force of Moonlit soldiers and human ones; the latter was no longer a small force of elites, but an army of human soldiers and elite squads of killers.

He fiddled with the console, and the screen moved closer to a well-formed battalion. The manual called this action ‘zooming in and out’, but as for why an action associated with running…

Claud shook his head and put aside the many odd things he had learned from the manual. The scene before him was far more important; this was the first time he’d seen human combatants in such numbers before.

“What do you think?” Lily asked.

“Given that everyone who has a status interface has the faction mission, I think it’s clear,” Claud replied. “But I don’t know why the normal soldiers are participating in this too.”

“Maybe they’re sub-folders who have full access to the status,” Lily replied. “Still, it’s a bit odd, though, now that I think about the entire process. What happens when people with high contribution are killed? I mean, these soldiers might end up killing a bunch of enemies, before being killed themselves. Where does their contribution go to?”

Claud paused. “Maybe…the contribution is returned?”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t make sense, does it?” Lily asked. “I mean, you can roughly tell the size of the enemy armies by looking at the percentages. On the side of the Dark, after deducting all significant targets, we are left with 33% of the score. Every one hundred thousand troops is worth one percent, so it seems that there are 3.3 million Moonlit soldiers.”

She paused. “Incidentally, after deducting your contribution, it seems that nearly five hundred thousand Moonlit soldiers have fallen in battle, but we don’t know who’s responsible. Anyway, where does your contribution go if you were killed?”

Claud touched his chin. “That’s a good question. Maybe it’s inherited by someone you designate? That sounds likely.”

“Hmm.” Lily hugged her legs. “That’s true. Okay, but what if that person doesn’t have anyone to designate?”

“You know that there’s no point in asking me, right?” Claud replied, rolling his eyes. “But it’s fun, I suppose. Maybe it’s given to someone randomly?”

Lily bobbed her head. “The pool of recipients isn’t that big too, although it would be funny if an old man who was a sub—folder and working faraway from the frontlines receive a percentage point or something.”

“Oh, that would be a great boon, wouldn’t it? 150 years of life…but still, this mission is going to take a very long time, right?” Claud folded his arms. “In my Second Tutorial, the war was still going on after two centuries. If it’s really inherited, there’s probably a bunch of random people who had absolutely nothing to do with this war holding on to a percentage point or two.”

“Part of a war they know nothing about, hah.” Lily shook her head. “That sounds ridiculous. It’s quite dumb, though. Surely someone will realise that too?”

Claud shrugged. “Just treat this as something that will never manifest and stay here. It’s definitely schmuck bait for people who don’t quite get the scope of the thing, and to be honest, I think I can get you more lifestones than the rewards given. I mean, you’ll need to kill one hundred thousand enemies for 150 years of life. Unless you can obliterate them with ease on a huge scale, there’s no point in actually doing all this.”

“It’s only due to Crown that we can say that, though.”

The two of them looked at the three shapes that were nestled together, and then smiled. Crown, Throne and Sceptre had been playing some weird game deep into the night, and were tired out as a result. Crown, however, never failed to throw out a Pure-Life gem every day, even when tired. Its ability to convert normal lifestones to Pure-Life gems meant that Claud and Lily had no issues with the quality of their lifestones.

Claud nodded. “Good point. I suppose I’m speaking from an extreme position of luck and privilege, right?”

“Right you are.” Lily got up and patted the RECON. “I’m sure there are lots of people desperate for more lifespan…or rather, more lifestones that they can actually use.”

Claud nodded. Not everyone had a steady source of Pure-Life gems, and to top it all off, Claud could use any lifestone thanks to Crown. He was the only one who didn’t suffer from restrictions on lifestone purity, which translated to him giving all the pure-ranked lifestones to Lily for her use.

“I suppose we should continue to count our blessings.” Claud extended a hand, and Lily pulled him up. “And I think we should make something nicer for those three little fellows. How does a little house sound?”

“A house? Like a toy house?” Lily asked.

“Yeap. The ones that kids play with all the time,” Claud replied. “I remember seeing one that had the pipes working and everything. Anyway, do you think they’ll like it if we made them a small home? It shouldn’t be a chore to carry it around anyway.”

“How small are we talking about? I don’t really want to try putting them into the storage ring.” Lily had a frown on her face. “It feels like something’s going to happen if you do.”

Claud nodded. “They’re little lives. I won’t want to do that either. But I can see your concerns…how about we make them a portable little room instead? How does that sound? Something we can carry around easily.”

“An actual room, instead of a little bed now.” Lily looked at the three little napping shapes. “Now I’m fired up.”

“Let’s bring them to do some shopping, then,” Claud replied. “They should have a say in the type of housing they prefer, right? We just need to conceal them a bit carefully.”

Lily poked the little box they were sleeping on. “Wake up, sleepyheads.”

“Meep?” Crown stirred, before rolling to its side. Before it could roll off the table, however, Claud caught the little box and nestled it in the crook of his neck.

“Don’t go around falling off, Crown.” Claud patted the little thing’s velvety surface. “Anyway, we’re going to bring you guys out for some shopping. Making you an actual room, see? How does that sound?”

The two little fellows on the table started hopping around immediately, before flying towards Claud and bouncing off his nose.

“Lily, help! I’m being attacked!”

After calming down the three excited shapes — which Claud left for Lily to take care while he muttered darkly about where he went wrong in raising his kids — the two of them, plus three sentient shapes, headed off to ply the streets in search of good material for making little rooms.

Some relaxation was definitely in order, after all.