Volume-1: Chapter-11: Time to get going
Harry’s Base in the Great Demon Law Forest:-
Time flew by.
The lives of Harry and the siblings continued without anything too out of the ordinary.
The system had applied some sort of a cloaking field on them and their base, so no cultivators or immortals came to attack them again.
In the meantime, the three of them kept growing in strength.
Shin broke through and reached the peak of the Limits-Shedding Realm’s Beginner stage.
Qing ended up reaching the peak of the Mortal Realm.
And as for Harry, he ended up reaching an equivalent of the peak of Limits-Shedding Realm’s Intermediate stage if his strength was only taken into consideration.
Combined with his fighting techniques, his true level was above the peak of the Limits-Shedding Realm. Meaning that he could defeat about 2 cultivators at the peak of the Limits-Shedding Realm.
With all his weapons, his strength would be much, much greater.
Unfortunately, his growth had been very slow recently.
He could feel himself approaching the limits of the human body.
He would probably be able to reach an equivalent of a level 3 Beginner in the Immortal Realm if he trained to his limits and his strength would be able to reach a little ahead of the peak of the Limits-Shedding Realm.
If he were to describe this feeling, it would be like bringing the same poles of two magnets together. He could feel his body starting to refuse to grow as much as he wanted it to. Like the force applied by the other magnet’s pole increasing as the first magnet gets closer to it.
He’ll probably need to figure out something in the future.
But for now, he didn’t have to worry about that.
The cultivators at the levels which were too much for him were too busy cultivating towards Godhood to pay any amount of attention towards him.
He had bigger things to do right now.
He was 23 and his 4 years were almost up.
And he had only about a week left before he would need to leave the forest.
Harry planned on leaving the forest before his time limit expired.
There was no way he would be able to explain to Qing and Shin why everything they had just broke down one day.
That’s why he planned on vacating the place early.
He had been doing a lot of exploring in the forest to find a safe route to exit the Great Demon Law Forest.
It had taken him a long time, along with some help from the system to finally plot out the path.
He had almost run into the ultra-OP bosses of the forest a couple of times before the system alerted him.
He had also plotted out a physical map of this route along with a few other routes in case some unexpected changes happened in the first route that made it unusable.
He had also planned on setting up some bombs to wreck the base beyond recognition in case someone stumbled upon it in the future and managed to create something dangerous after studying the broken equipment that Harry left behind.
He was not taking any chances.
Cultivators were already over-powered. And he was not going to let them get stronger than himself any more than they already could.
He had also gone on a huge killing spree recently.
He needed to kill off any remaining demon beasts who had become stronger due to his interference. Because if allowed to live, they might end up taking over the continent pretty quickly.
“Elder brother, we’re ready! But do we seriously need to leave this heavenly place and all these heavenly things behind?”
Qing said to Harry in a dejected voice as she came out of her room with a travelling backpack on her pack.
“Yeah Harry, can’t we at least take the A/C’s and the heaters along?” Added Shin who was standing behind his younger sister.
‘This guy wants to take that big air conditioner along in all the things in the house? Seriously!?’
Harry thought while shaking his head.
“Guy, I have told this to you multiple times! The things here are very old and barely maintained by me in their current conditions. Who knows when they will break down completely? That’s why I decided to leave them.
Otherwise, you might wake up one day and find that your precious little air conditioner, which is in no way ‘little’ by the way, is broken and beyond repair when you wake up! It’s better to leave them before everything breaks down.”
Hearing this, both of them zipped their lips and started walking towards the door.
But in the instant that Harry had mentioned about their A/C breaking, a look of absolute horror had passed over their faces. And Harry noticed it.
‘Damn! These guys got addicted to a/c’s to this extent!?’
The three of them stepped outside.
The only place they had made other than the base was the fighting arena. And Harry had already trashed that place to look like some demon beast had rampaged there.
Harry and the others rechecked their bags.
Guns… Check!
Daggers… Check!
Ammunitions… Check!
Clothing… Check!
Food supply… Check!
Induction stove… Check!
The stove and his guns were the only pieces of tech that Harry could carry. They were included in the starter pack. So, the system allowed him to keep them.
But he would need to do proper maintenance now that the forest stay was over.
Even his bullets were limited now. So he decided to not use the guns unless necessary.
“All right guys! You guys go on ahead towards the Southwest. I’ll just do some final checks inside the place and quickly catch up with you guys, okay?”
Hearing Harry, Qing and her brother nodded.
With a quick look towards the sky, they proceeded forward.
Harry had already plotted a route to the biggest country he found in the Wastelands using the map function of the system.
Harry couldn’t possibly gather enough people to set up his kingdom from scratch.
But the system required him to get a kingdom.
His next best option was to take over a country that was already established. And which country was better than the biggest and the least managed country in the Wastelands.
The Nobunaga Kingdom was the biggest country in the Wastelands, made up of non-energy users from both the Malonia region and the Wangxiu region.
And due to a large population along with a useless king from the Wangxiu region, the place was horribly mismanaged.
A perfect place for Harry to take over.
As for the “final checks” that Harry had to do, it was just setting up remote explosives to wreck their base.
“Hey system, can you at least give me some bombs to blow this place up? I don’t want any useless cultivator profiting off anything left here.”
Harry said as he walked inside the base for one last time. It hurt him a lot to leave this place, but he had no other choice.
[This system has something better for the host.]
“Something better? Why so generous?”
[The host has decided to leave this place early, although only by a week. And because of this little “sacrifice” along with the wish to remove all traces of any technology taken by the host, this system has decided to help the host.]
“Oh, is that so? So, dear system, care to tell what ‘help’ you have in store for me?”
[This will be providing the host with miniature black hole type implosion bombs. These contain a very tiny black hole, nothing that can pose a threat to the planet, that sucks up a lot of things from its surroundings and reduces it to atoms.
After this, the scraps of the things sucked in are ejected at high velocities, causing more damage to the surroundings. If the host follows the system’s instructions while setting them up, the host will become capable of achieving the objective of destroying this base.]
“Woah!! Such an awesome thing! I didn’t even think that this could exist out of something like Star Wars!”
[The host needs to keep in mind that, currently, these charges can only be used for the destruction of the base. Attempting to hide any charges for future use instead of utilising all of them for the current task will result in severe punishments for the host.]
“Yeah, yeah, I get it… Now gimme those sweet pieces of tech!”
After receiving the explosives in his inventory, Harry placed all the charges as instructed by the system.
After looking back at his home for the past 4 years, Harry rushed out while suppressing his urge to cry.
It was one thing to leave something precious behind.
But there was another level of sorrow in destroying everything you left behind with your own hands.
Harry made sure to fix his face before quickly catching up with the siblings.
“Ah, Harry! Everything in order back at the base?”, asked Shin when he saw Harry approaching.
“Yeah! Everything seems to be good. We have packed everything necessary for the trip. Though I’m sure that you guys would already be missing your dear air conditioners…”
“That’s only elder brother Shin. I want the heaters more!”, shouted Qing almost instantly.
This made Shin and Harry laugh a lot. Qing also blushed from embarrassment when she saw their reaction and realised what she had said.
These two had started behaving more like children recently.
Especially Qing.
And Harry was happy to see that.
After all, a 16-year-old girl like Qing, though nearly an adult, was still only a teenager at best.
No need for her to behave like an old woman or anything.
Harry now took out a world map that he had bought from the system.
He did need to pretend to be a little normal in front of the siblings.
He couldn’t go around saying that he knew the exact route to a location of a place he had never visited before.
Those two considered him godly enough already based on his earlier feats.
No need to fuel the flames.
Otherwise, they might even start a cult-like religion based on him.
The three of them together exited the forest.
The walk till that point wasn’t exactly easy.
They had encountered a few of the improved demon beasts that had managed to hide earlier.
Those creatures thought that Harry and his group were fleeing because they had become weaker or something and took this opportunity to try to kill them.
Of course, they failed miserably.
But this did give Harry and his little group some amount of extra food to take with them.
And this kind of looked like the Great Demon Law Forest version of a farewell too.
This thought got all of them laughing when Shin mentioned it a few minutes after they left the forest.
And this time, the system informed Harry that all of the “improved” demon beasts were finally all dead.
Not a single one was left.
‘Yay! Crisis averted! The world is safe!!!
Now on to the tend item on my list…’
Harry thought while smiling as he gave the system a command.
This was to activate the explosives back at their ex-base.
[Explosives have been successfully detonated. All traces of habitation have been thoroughly removed from the forest.]
The system replied a few seconds later.
‘Now there’s nowhere to go back to…
Well, that place would have become useless in a week anyway. Better today than later.
And it’s better being done by my own hands than having the system forcefully yank it away from me…’
Harry shed a tear in his heart at this loss.
Harry thought that the siblings were correct about one thing.
He sure as heck was going to miss the A/C and the heaters!
‘But then, those things were too big for us to carry with us on our trip anyways unless I used my inventory.
And I sure as heck don’t want people to know of my system…
If they don’t worship me, they will surely try to kill me or dissect my body to research the origins of the system.
So, no crying over spilt milk!’
Harry reminded himself.
He had to move on.
There was still so much left to do in life.
Even if he could remain in the forest, there wasn’t much else left to do in there.
His routine had become repetitive, he was about to hit the limit on growing in strength and there was one more thing that was there.
The most important thing among everything else for Harry.
There was no anime in this world!
Since Harry wasn’t currently allowed to watch the stuff from his previous world, he would have to make some of his own.
And this surely would never happen if he remained sitting in the middle of a forest, acting like a very buff looking Bear Grylls! (He wasn’t bulky looking like all those bodybuilders back on Earth. His muscles had started to contract inwards as he approached the limits of his body, leaving him looking rather thin in comparison. His muscle density was very high, but the volume was very low in comparison.)
Harry had to step out into the world and develop it to the point that he can make anime!
As for what he did after achieving this dream, Harry figured that the world had enough new or old problems that it could throw his way to keep him busy.
That’s why he’ll make his kingdom, develop it like anything and make anime.
Other things came later.
And anyone or anything standing in between him and this goal will be beaten to the point that death will seem like a blessing.
For now, onward to the Wastelands!