Chapter 539: Can't Judge Meat by its Hide

A/N: The surgery went... I want to say well. I'll know more after my one week post-op tomorrow. Definitely seeing better--about the same as I did with my glasses, maybe a little worse, but the vision is supposed to gradually get better over the next month or so.

Writing is still pretty tough. Mostly because I have to be so close to computer screens to do it. I have to take a long break with eye drops after about ten to fifteen minutes of writing to keep my eyes feeling okay. Just means that chapters are taking a bit longer to write than usual and that editing is even more of a bane of my existence.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter! I'll see if I can start pumping out some extra ones once my eyes are up and fully running. It's so weird not wearing glasses after two decades of not seeing. Btw... my vision was 20/400ish before this. So... yeah... legally blind in my state. haha.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 539: Can’t Judge Meat by its Hide

Derek and Silvi broke through the void and closed it behind them as quickly as possible as they appeared inside Silvi Jaccobs’ bar. He knew that, according to his old acquaintance, the bar was located in Charlotte, which was basically the northeastern hub of the United States after the system invaded—that was, if he wasn’t counting Chicago II.

“W-wow…” Silvi said with a quiver in her voice. “I don’t think I would ever be able to get used to that feeling.” Her body visibly shivered as she spoke. “Just… what happened to you to cause all of that?”

“Drink?” Gerard walked by Derek and held out a big mug of what was most likely some kind of beer. Derek knew it wouldn’t do anything to him, as he was already at the point where the only things that could were highly toxic drinks, but he also knew that what Gerard was handing him was actual beer, and he hadn’t had a taste of the real stuff in such a long time.

“I would love some!” Derek quickly grabbed the mug and took a drink. He closed his eyes and let out an audible sigh. “It’s just as bad as I remember it! I love it!”

“Where’s mine!?” Silvi, from atop Derek’s shoulder, shouted through her communication crystal. Derek was happy to see that the crystal worked, even though it was created in another system.

“Oh…” Gerard stammered. He’d been acting pretty cool, all things considered, but having the bunny demand a beer seemed to have really caught him off guard. Still, the tank flicked his wrist, and another mug appeared in his hand, which he held out to the bunny. “How…” he started to ask, but then a Mage Hand popped out from Silvi, and she grabbed the mug.

Derek’s companion licked some of the foam off the top, then clicked her tongue a few times. “Mhm… nasty,” she confirmed, then continued drinking.

“She’s underage,” Derek said with a deadpan expression to Gerard.

“Oh!” Gerard’s eyes widened as he panicked. “I… I didn’t know…”

Finally, Derek broke out in a guttural laugh and even slapped the side of his leg. “Well… she is underage, but I doubt there’s anyone in this world who would be able to stop her from drinking. Once you’ve slaughtered an entire army or a few dozen Void Beasts, I think you deserve to have a little treat, don’t you think?”

“Army?” Gerard’s eyes widened even more, but the other Silvi caught a different part of the sentence.

“Void Beasts? Dozens?” she audibly gulped.

“Yeah!” Derek’s Silvi replied. “Make great food! Very tasty! Even though they don’t look appetizing. Can’t judge meat by its hide! Uglier the beast, tastier the feast!”

“What the hell?” Derek looked to his shoulder at Silvi. “Where did you come up with that?” he asked. “And aren’t you being extra chatty today?”

‘Have to leave good impression. May get ingredients,’ Silvi sent to Derek through Telepathy. Then she said, “All the chefs at beautiful delicious restaurant say stuff like that!” Silvi answered. “And it’s true! Dragons are ugly. But soooo tasty.”

“D-dragons?” This time, it was Gerard’s turn to be taken aback.

“Not dragons…” Derek shook his head, and Gerard let out a breath. “They were only wyverns.”

“Mhm…” Silvi agreed. “Dragons would be tastier. We should find one. Do you have dragons here?” The bunny took another lick from her beer, then licked at her lips—her tongue actually coming up and licking her nose instead.

“N-no…” the other Silvi replied. “No dragons here.”

“I figured as much,” Derek said, thinking about how Dave had described the two systems. If wyverns were considered legendary creatures in the Davenresh System, then it was only natural that the Universal System wouldn’t have creatures above that level. “Anyway,” Derek said with a shrug. “Tell me everything that’s been happening since I left.”

“Oh…” the human Silvi muttered. “Well…” she started, then began giving Derek and Silvi the details of her life since the last time she had seen him.

It wasn’t the greatest life. She started with everyone who was left leaving her, other than Gerard. Derek couldn’t help but give the old tank a nod at that—he appreciated the loyalty to her. After that, she detailed the agonizing bout of depression that she fell into and how she stopped adventuring, using what savings she had to open the bar they were currently in, just to get by.

The story from there wasn’t fun at all. She pretty much lived a monotonous life where she barely had any customers because of the stigma associated with the woman who single-handedly disappeared one of the strongest people on Earth post-system. This was also true when she tried to join an adventurer party a time or two. She was basically ostracized.

The woman spent day after day like a robot. In fact, according to his old acquaintance, she had been waiting for the day when she would also lose her bar and eventually end up on the street. It had only been a matter of time at that point.

However, what she told them next was what really got her attention. A bit over a year after everything, something changed. Just as the tutorial for Earth’s induction into the Universal System ended, she and Gerard met an odd human named Kelvin.

First, she described the man. Honestly, the description seemed to be somewhat similar to a few of the invaders that Derek had fought after the system came. He was human but had more of a red skin—kind of like an intense sunburn. According to Silvi, he also had very well-kept, short-to-medium-length blond hair. But to top it all off, the man sounded powerful.

“And you said he came looking for me?” Derek asked.

“As far as I could tell,” Silvi replied. “You were all that he talked about. Actually, he’s how I learned that you were still alive and out there somewhere. He wasn’t exactly nice, but he also wasn’t overly harsh or commanding. He just asked some questions with his aura leaking out a little. We…” she looked to Gerard. “We were scared, so I answered as honestly as I could, which is to say I wasn’t able to answer most of what he asked. But just before he left, he said that you were alive.”

“When he said that, I knew it was true. I didn’t have any evidence, and I had no clue who the man was, but I just knew that he was telling the truth. That’s what I needed. Just knowing that you were still out there allowed me to continue on,” Silvi explained.

“No,” Gerard cut in. “It lit a fire under the Miss. I’ve never seen her work so hard before. Whether that man was good or evil, I am thankful to him for that.”

“I see…” Derek said, rubbing his chin. If they came looking for me, then it had to have been someone higher up in the food chain. I wonder what kind of mess I made by leaving… other than causing the Universal System to begin hunting the Davenresh System. I wonder if they even know what is going on. Dave seems to, but do the administrators of the Universal System know? Those were questions that he couldn’t answer, so he decided not to think about them.

Finally, he looked back at Silvi and said with a smile, “Then you lived happily ever after?”

“Not even close,” Silvi replied with a chuckle. “It took forever to gather teammates that I could trust. I was still shunned and an outcast, but I eventually found a good group of people—those that you met in the dungeon. They didn’t care who I was, just what I could do and how I could lead.”

“Good,” Derek said. “Good teammates are hard to come by.”

“Yes,” Gerard said. “They are.” His eyes drifted to the bunny sitting on Derek’s shoulder.

“What about you?” his old acquaintance asked. “What happened to you after the portal closed?”

“Oh…” Derek waved her question away, but still answered. “Nothing much… just got trapped inside for a couple of centuries… no biggie. Went crazy a few times, pulled myself together, went crazy again… you know… the usual. Did you know?” he asked with a tilted head. “That inside the Portal skill… in the void tunnel it created… time and space flow differently? Like… way differently.”

“Just a little,” Silvi replied. “Just from what I read after everything happened. I realized how stupid of a mistake I’d been making the whole time I was using the skill.”

“Yeah…” Derek laughed. “I can only imagine if a Void Beast had come while we were all under-leveled back then. We all would have been lambs to the slaughter. You definitely got lucky.”

“Yes…” Silvi replied. “But… centuries? Alone? In the void?”

“Well, yeah…” Derek replied. “But I had my glaive and system messages… at least for a while. Eventually, I left the range of even that. That’s when the real battle inside my head started. But there really isn’t much to talk about there. I was trapped in the dark for a long time. I spent most of the time meditating. I had to do something to not feel the pain and hunger. So that’s what I did.”

“How did you get out?” Silvi asked.

“Pure luck,” Derek replied. “Would you believe that a Void Beast… I guess… running away from someone on another planet, broke into the void to escape, and I happened to be there? As soon as I saw the light, I was gone. I thanked the beast and left.”

“You… thanked a Void Beast?”

“Of course I did,” Derek said. “He’d untrapped me after years and years of suffering. Though… he had a pretty powerful handshake, so I didn’t stick around to do more than that.”

“But then… I was out,” Derek said. After that, he went on to explain what he could about his experiences in Cydaria afterward. He didn’t go too deep into detail, but he told her enough. He wasn’t sure how the systems would punish information being passed to someone from another system, so there were certain topics he avoided altogether. In fact, he wasn’t even sure if he should have told her that he’d left the range of the Universal System—which he didn’t ever call it in front of her—when he was speaking about his time in the void.

“That’s amazing!” Silvi replied after hearing the dumbed-down version of his adventures. “I’m so happy for you. I’m happy that you’ve found people that you care about. It’s hard to believe after knowing you from before. But, Derek… I really am happy for you.”

“Thank you,” Derek said.

“And to think that you would make such a close friend and name her after me,” Silvi said, looking at the bunny on Derek’s shoulder. “I’m flattered… even with the circumstances that caused you to name her after me.”

“It’s a great name!” Derek’s companion spoke up from his shoulder. “Strong name! Best name!”

“It is a very good name,” Silvi Jaccobs replied.

“Indeed, it is,” Gerard confirmed.

“You did leave something out, though,” Silvi said.

“What’s that?” Derek asked.

“Exactly how strong are you? And how did you get back here?” Silvi asked.

“Oh… that?” Derek waved her questions away. “I guess I’m pretty strong. You know… I’m able to fight wyverns and whatnot. There’s probably nothing around here that would make for a good comparison for you, so…” Derek shrugged. “I guess… I’m pretty strong. I would probably be a good match for that Kelvin guy…” he said. “And as for your other question… I have a skill that lets me travel to certain people who have left an impression on me. It took a while to get to you from where we were, but I could sense you. So, I decided to come give you a visit… thought you’d probably want to know that you didn’t kill me… not for the lack of trying.”

“I didn’t try to kill you…” Silvi muttered. “It was an accident.”

“I know…” Derek laughed. “I’m just messing with you.” He rubbed his chin, then frowned. “Speaking of people who have made an impression on me… have you heard from Jace?”