Chapter 364: Points Are Meant to Be Spent
Back home, Ryū changed clothes and took a shower, scrubbing off the faint blue-tinged blood still clinging to his skin. Once he'd changed into something clean, he settled down in the living room.
The Void Beasts were dealt with, Konoha had been restored by the Ancient One — as for whatever mess was left over, none of it was really his problem anymore.
The mountain range of Void Beast corpses, for instance, had simply been dumped somewhere out of the way.
The chat group's so-called "corpse recovery" only actually recovered the energy contained inside the bodies, as far as Ryū could tell — not the corpses themselves. Otherwise, the last group quest, back in the Saekano doujin world, wouldn't have left that entire pile of Void Beast corpses sitting there afterward.
Same story this time. The recovery had gone through successfully, sure, but the bodies themselves were still stacked up wherever they'd been dumped.
Which was why Ryū figured the chat group wasn't harvesting the corpses themselves, but rather the energy locked inside them.
Probably. Maybe. Something like that, at least — he wasn't entirely sure, honestly, since it was all just a guess on his part.
He didn't know the specifics, and he couldn't be bothered to find out, either — there wasn't much point in digging further.
If he had that much free time on his hands, he'd rather spend it gaming at home.
Looking around his perfectly intact house, Ryū couldn't help but marvel again at just how useful the Time Stone's power really was.
Just a while ago, Konoha had been a crater a thousand meters deep, without a single intact building left standing anywhere — not intact, not even rubble, really. Barely anything at all.
The only thing that had poked up out of the dirt was that Ichiraku Ramen sign. Possibly the one thing in the whole village that hadn't been destroyed.
Had to be Kishimoto's stubborn authorial will at work there. Ichiraku Ramen really did have a strange, protected existence.
Hard to believe that little ramen shop had somehow persisted through the entire history of Konoha, surviving disaster after disaster essentially unscathed each time.
And the real kicker: Teuchi, the shop's owner, had never once been seen aging — and never seen looking any younger, either. Like his age had just been permanently locked in place from the start.
Maybe Ichiraku Ramen in the Naruto world was just like Arale in the Dragon Ball world — something entirely exempt from the normal rules, blessed by sheer authorial favoritism.
Ryū pulled the beef out of the fridge — over two weeks frozen solid — and gave the rock-hard slab a knock, drawing a dull thunk-thunk-thunk.
He gathered Ki into his palm, and the frozen meat began softening at a rate visible to the naked eye.
Droplets fell one by one into the sink, and within seconds the whole thing had fully thawed out.
Truth be told, Ryū's cooking wasn't anything special — the kind of home cooking that was barely passable, at best. Fortunately he wasn't a picky eater; as long as it was edible, he was fine with it, so eating his own cooking had never really been an issue. No culinary genius required.
While the beef sizzled away in butter, Ryū let his consciousness drift into the Dimensional Chat Group. As usual, the chat was buzzing.
Every member lived on a different timeline in their own world, after all — it was the middle of the night for Master Roshi right now, while it was midday for Ryū. With that kind of spread across the group, there was never really a quiet moment in the chat, day or night.
The Ancient One: @Eternally Seventeen, I've uploaded the mirror-space spell to the Group Files — did I format it right?
The Ancient One: I haven't been in the group all that long, so there's a lot of functions I know about in theory but haven't actually used yet. Not sure if I did the upload correctly.
Eternally Seventeen: Mm, just checked — the formatting's fine. So this is the mirror-space spell? There really is some depth to it.
My True Form Is Cola: Whoa! It costs 10,000 Points just to learn the basics of mirror-space magic? Isn't that a little much?
My True Form Is Cola: Just looked at what I've got left — a few thousand Points, tops. Now I'm sitting here in deep, deep contemplation of just how broke I am.
Street-Corner Illustrator: 10,000 Points for the basics is admittedly terrifying, but considering you can casually open up an entire massive dimensional space with it, the price checks out.
Street-Corner Illustrator: If someone trained it up to some absurd level, could they eventually just — will an entire world into existence?
The Ancient One: Hmm... theoretically, I suppose that should be possible? Practically speaking, I couldn't say — no one's ever actually gotten that far, as far as I know.
Eternally Seventeen: Ahahaha, well, whoever's first to pull that off is absolutely going to be me!
Eternally Seventeen: I've already dumped everything I've got into mirror-space magic.
RawrSoFierce: Pfft... you sank your entire 140,000 Points into a single spell? That's a whole new level of reckless spending. Terrifying.
Admiral Kizaru: Does Mr. Admin ever feel like he's raising a spendthrift wife~?
Eternally Seventeen: Hm? Spendthrift wife? Sorry Kizaru, what was that? Didn't quite catch it.
Admiral Kizaru: ...My apologies! Someone hacked my account just now. Vile account thief, should be drawn and quartered!
Kaguya-sama: And there it is — the classic "hacked account" excuse. Yukari-nee's already run that one into the ground dozens of times.
Kaguya-sama: Kizaru-ojisan pulling that excuse in front of Yukari-nee specifically — isn't that a bit like showing off your axe-handling in front of Lu Ban?
Eternally Seventeen: Oh... hacked, was it? Well then, I suppose I'll be generous and let it slide this once.
Kaguya-sama: Eh?? He actually got away with it?! Am I dreaming right now, or something?
[Member "Admiral Kizaru" has been muted by moderator "Eternally Seventeen" for 30 minutes]
Senbei Is So Tasty: Nicely done! Much appreciated, moderator — with Borsalino muted, he can finally focus on his actual paperwork for once.
Edward Newgate: Gurararara, old Whitebeard dumped every last one of his Points into his physique.
Edward Newgate: Points earned are Points meant to be spent — that's the only way they're worth anything at all. Points left sitting there unspent are nothing but a useless number on a screen.
Eternally Seventeen: Couldn't agree more. That's exactly how I see it too — unspent Points are just a pile of meaningless digits.
The Ancient One: Same here, honestly... I've put every last one of mine into improving my command of the Time Stone.
Wandering Little Planet: Just jealous of you overachievers who don't even treat Points like Points.
Wandering Little Planet: This lowly member is trembling in envy all over again.
"..."
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