The Insider System

Chapter 368: The Deal Pt.4

After the arm disappeared back into the sky, Lake was about to get back to trying to find a place to sell his loot but before he could he saw a cloud in a color he recognized. It was very obvious it belonged to the Demon Lord and this made him grateful that he wasn't anywhere near the Metal or Holy Domain at the moment.

He did want to know what was going on though but that would have to wait till he got back. Finally getting the Insider to level one would help him in whatever situation he would be going back to so it made a lot of sense to continue with what he was doing currently.

He did need to at least watch what was happening right now because it would be a good clue to use to try and guess what was going on before he returned. After a while Lake saw the cloud disappear with nothing having happened and guessed whatever had come through had been too small for him to see.

That made him think it was probably just a normal sized person or Demigod. Soon after the Demon Lords cloud had completely disappeared the other lights started to go too before none were left. "That means it's over right?"

He didn't expect an answer to come from the Insider when he asked this because it never said anything unless it was important so he just went ahead and turned around to leave knowing it would stop him if it wanted him to continue watching the skyline.

...

"It looks like it's over so I'm going to go back to sleep." While Donny said this he didn't think there was actually a good chance he would be able to sleep after seeing something like that; not when there was so much to think about. He just wanted to be somewhere that Fendis couldn't ask him questions constantly.

He considered Fendis a friend because of how long they had been together at this point but the man could be kind of disruptive if you were really trying to think about something. Getting back onto the rock he had been sleeping on Donny could hear the others outside discussing what had just happened but tuned it out to focus on his own thoughts.

The first thing he did was replay the only part none of them had really understood which was the part at the end where the Demon Lord opened his cloud for a few seconds before disappearing with seemingly nothing happening. It wasn't hard for them to guess that something had happened but they had just been too far to see if but the amount of time it stayed open did give another hint.

He could be wrong but it only being open for a few seconds could mean something had only come through or entered the cloud not both. If that was true he could probably make up a story based on that that was pretty close to what actually happened.

...

Lake had kind of already stopped thinking about what had happened because trying to figure out how the Insider had known for him to turn around. He guessed it made sense that the Insider could be doing things like using his skills at all times to gather information about what was going on around him but he didn't have a skill that could have told him about the arm he didn't think.

The only skill he could think of that could have been used to do something like that was Detector but that was only in its magic compass form since the arm had been so far away and the Insider would have had to set it to the right thing just by chance. This kind of made him think there was something else going on with the insider like it had the ability to look all around him or it had received information from something.

Obviously he would much prefer if the Insider wasn't in contact with someone without him knowing but if that was true nothing bad had happened because of it so far so it was probably fine. There was also just a chance it had thought he hadn't looked back in a long time and the arm had just happened to come out of the cloud in the time it had made him look but he didn't like thinking it was just a coincidence.

The timing had been almost perfect because he didn't think the arm had been out for very long before it had made him stop and turn around. It was even possible that the only reason he had missed the beginning of the arms' emergence was because it had taken him a few seconds to get somewhere that he was able to see the sky.

...

Donny had been able to put together a loose idea at what might have happened in the last few minutes. It was very loose though and he still hadn't been able to figure out why it had seemed so peaceful. When they all saw the God of Metal's arm they had all assumed it was him fighting back against the Demon Lord but now he was pretty sure they had been wrong.

It was much more likely that they had just seen the beginnings of a truce or deal between the two sides. Donny didn't like the thought of being forced into a peace before they got a chance at revenge but he could understand the God of Metals choice if he was right because it would save whatever was left of the people that lived in his Domain.

...

After Lake had been thinking about the Insider and what it might be doing behind his back for almost a half hour He had to come to a stop again because it showed him an image of a pile of gold. He guessed this was the Insider trying to change his train of thought but it did give him a hint at what it wanted him to do with the gold once he finally had it.

He had wondered for a while now if owning one million gold would be enough for the mission to complete or if he needed to have it all in one place for it to work but now it seemed the Insider thought it was time to tell him. This was a good time since it seemed he was extremely close to getting the gold all at once from a single transaction.

This fact really made light of everything he had done till now and made him feel like he could have made the gold weeks ago if he just made himself focus on nothing else. He had let himself get caught up in too many things but hopefully he would remember this from now on whenever he was asked to do something.

...

After he hit a dead end on trying to guess what had just happened Donny had switched over to ideas to make money. The man from earlier had said he would go looking for his shield which probably meant he would be heading to the Metal Domain like they were since the shield should be with his brother.

This made Donny think he didn't have that much time before the man would come looking for him after completing the job and he didn't think the gold he would be getting from helping the Metal Domain during the crisis would be enough to cover whatever amount the man asked for.

It was too bad he couldn't try and use this time he had while they were on their way back to try to figure out how to use the looking stone since it was probably going to be his best bet at getting the money he needed. "Hey are you actually sleeping?" Donny wasn't surprised to hear Fendis' voice because quite a bit of time had passed since he had come in here to think. "No."

"Good. I wanted to get your opinion on what the consensus is on what we just watched." Donny had vaguely heard everything they had said but he hadn't been actually listening so he just let Fendis start to tell him what they all thought had just happened. "We think the God of Metal might have handed something over to the Demon Lord like a trade."

Donny had considered a similar thing but had decided it wasn't what had happened because the God of Metal wasn't allowed to do that by the laws of the world unless he was trying to protect people from something that could cause real harm to the entire world. He guessed there was a chance he had been given permission to do it by the other gods though which had been the reason the other gods and Demigods had been there to watch during the whole thing to make sure nothing that hadn't been agreed to happened.