Chapter 114: News of the Safe Base
Moira was unwilling to sell the Sea Pearls at a discount, and seeing that they weren’t selling well, she decided to temporarily take them off the market.
After delisting the remaining Sea Pearls, Moira started listing food items, Soldier Food Vines, and Repair Aloe Vera.
She wrote especially detailed descriptions for the Soldier Food Rattan and Repair Aloe Vera.
This was her way of building brand awareness in advance.
The Azure Shrimp and Blue Shrimp Seaweed she had collected earlier needed more time to grow.
As expected, once the various food items were listed, they started selling much more quickly.
Moira bought a machine from the System Mall that could automatically handle listings, freeing up her hands.
’Oh, right.’
Moira opened her shop’s backend, and just as she’d expected, a message from Redlight was at the top of her inbox.
Just as Hugh Finch had guessed, the military had plenty of Space Buttons, but they weren’t bringing much back. They weren’t familiar with Planet Aelmar, didn’t recognize most of the items, and were preoccupied with their missions.
Even when someone got lucky and found an Isle Turtle, they either didn’t climb onto it, or they did and still couldn’t identify anything of value.
[Redlight: Boss! Boss! Do you have anything good for us this time? Do you have any whole Soldier Food Rattans? And the Repair Aloe Vera—how much is left? We’ll buy it all.]
[SoySauceDrunkard: Don’t call me ’Boss.’ I kind of miss the cold, aloof you.]
[Redlight: ...]
[SoySauceDrunkard: I’m out of Soldier Food Rattan and Repair Aloe Vera for now. I do have something else, but it needs to be processed before it can be used.]
[Redlight: What is it?]
[SoySauceDrunkard: You’ve seen the Isle Turtles, right? They’re known as Planet Aelmar’s natural treasure troves. Their feces have immense medicinal value.]
Moira didn’t bother hiding it. It was the kind of thing that would come out sooner or later, so she might as well be upfront about it.
[Redlight: Are you sure?]
[SoySauceDrunkard: What would I gain from lying to you? I’ll list a piece in the shop. You can take it for research.]
[Redlight: Okay. But, um... are you sure there’s no Soldier Food Rattan or Repair Aloe Vera?]
Redlight still hadn’t given up.
When they saw the description for the Soldier Food Rattan, their eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
With the current weather, all the crops had died from the heat, and seeds were contaminated by some unknown pollutant, preventing them from sprouting. The Soldier Food Rattan’s Attributes were practically tailor-made for their current situation.
[SoySauceDrunkard: Not right now.]
’I don’t have much Soldier Food Rattan myself,’ she thought, ’and I want to see if I can propagate it.’
[Redlight: Okay...]
Redlight was disappointed but didn’t press the issue.
Besides, SoySauceDrunkard hadn’t given him a hard no, just said "not right now."
’Not right now’ didn’t mean ’never.’
After Redlight reported back, Chase Shepard was somewhat disappointed, but there was nothing else they could do but wait.
"Go and redeem that Isle Turtle dung now," Chase said. "Quick, before someone else snags it."
Hearing this, Redlight didn’t dare to delay. He quickly opened the [Don’t Miss It] shop and immediately saw the new product listed. The item required for the trade was three of Redlight’s hairs.
Redlight: "..." ’So you could use the shop like this.’
Wincing, he plucked out three hairs and submitted them. A second later, a dark green object appeared in his hand.
If he hadn’t known beforehand that it was poop, Redlight would have thought the object was actually quite pretty.
Chase Shepard glanced at the object in Redlight’s hand. "Since SoySauceDrunkard says it has immense medicinal value, send it to the research institute immediately."
"By the way," Chase Shepard added suddenly, "have those people contacted us yet?"
"Those people" he was referring to were, of course, Shane Rhodes, Kai York, and Hugh Finch—and possibly Moira Lynch as well.
After the last incident, they had thoroughly investigated this group and found nothing out of the ordinary.
However, Moira Lynch had never shown her face during that incident, so Chase Shepard’s attention was focused mainly on the three men: Shane Rhodes, Kai York, and Hugh Finch.
If Moira knew what Chase Shepard was thinking right now, she would have been grateful for her own foresight.
The moment she acquired Patience, she had it delete her spending records, both domestic and international—especially the international ones.
"Not yet..."
Before he could finish the sentence, Chase Shepard’s phone rang. It was Shane Rhodes.
Meanwhile, Moira was processing various Energy Fruits into energy blocks. She sorted them by type into different boxes before storing them in her Space Button.
After she finished processing all the Energy Fruits, Shane Rhodes came out of the guest room, phone in hand. He had clearly just ended a call.
A few moments later, Kai York and Hugh Finch also emerged, having changed into clean clothes.
"I gotta say, Moira, that shower gel you gave us works wonders. The stink was gone instantly, and it smells great."
As he spoke, Kai York sniffed the back of his hand, clearly very pleased with the result.
After drifting at sea for the past few days, he felt like he’d been pickled in brine.
"I just got off the phone with the higher-ups," Shane Rhodes said. "They’re sending someone to handle this tomorrow."
"Also, I got some other news from them."
"What is it?" Hugh Finch was the first to ask.
"They don’t know how long this disaster will last, so the higher-ups have decided to build safe bases. They asked if we want to join in exchange for more secure housing."
Moira was slumped over the table. "The best housing they can provide? That can’t be cheap."
Shane Rhodes nodded. "It’s not. They’d cut our requested trade items by half, and we’d only get residency rights for one year."
Anyone else would have rejected such an obviously unfair trade. In the current situation, supplies were far more important than just a place to live.
Especially for only a single year of residency.
This was especially true since Moira and her friends were living quite comfortably. Compared to before the extreme heat, the only real impact on their lives was that they couldn’t go out whenever they pleased.
But even that problem had been solved with the appearance of Water-cooling Stones and Chimefin scales.
Shane Rhodes and Kai York both looked toward Hugh Finch. He was the reason they’d chosen to move to this residential complex in the first place.
It had turned out to be an incredibly wise decision, because it was here that they had met Moira.
It was safe to say that without Moira, while they might have managed to live well, they would never have been as comfortable as they were now.