Every month, I would go to the stream and dump a container of pesticide. Six months into the experiment, I was beginning to see a drop in experience. And it wasn’t just a small drop, either. It was precipitous. My solution was to change the pesticides I was using and to get then in greater quantities. That led to a surge in experience, but it, too, dropped off after a couple of applications of the poison.

  At that point, it had become a sort of habit. I would dose the stream monthly with whatever extra I had. It didn’t matter that the amount of experience was negligible. It was an experiment, after all. It had been moderately successful, at that. A couple hundred thousand experience for very little effort on my part. The only issue was that I had effectively sterilized the stream and whatever it flowed into.

  Now that nothing grew there, there was nothing to kill and this no experience to gain. That was a problem. But not one I cared too much about solving. The farm I was working would be the main source of experience for the remainder of this life. Anything I got via my experimentation was simply a bonus, and maybe something I could chase next time.

  Two years passed the same as the previous two had. I farmed grain during the summer, gaining a good amount of experience at harvest time. My investment into George’s hardware store continued to pay dividends both monetarily and experiential. The pesticide project was basically dead—I still got a handful of kills a week, but it was such a low number it almost didn’t matter anymore.

  It was in the spring after I turned eleven when Grandpa Joe died. It had been on my radar for a while, so I had been communicating with him as much as I could to learn whatever valuable lessons I could. Most of them centered around survival, which had me wondering about what else I could do for humanity.

  Just like he had trained me, I knew that humanity needed its training as well. And yet, there was no way for me to afford the tutorial I had in mind with the amount of experience I estimated I would get. Not if I also wanted to fix some of the skills and features—like System Contract. No, it just wasn’t feasible.

  Well, there was a way, but I was hesitant to go through with it. The experiments with the pesticide had taught me that there was a way to get a lot of experience quickly. After all, there were trillions of creatures. All I had to do was kill them all. And therein lay the problem. Killing everything was both a monumental task and stupendously risky—not just for humanity as a whole but also for myself.

  I would be writing off an entire life for experience. Maybe that was what I had to do. But it was oh so risky. The wars that would start were likely to be catastrophic at best and apocalyptic at worst. I would have to not only survive that, but also complete my aim at getting enough experience so I could turn back time again before the demon of my own creation ate me up as well.

  That wasn’t the way I wanted to go. The slow and steady of the farming like I was doing now was a good base. I could supplement that by buying businesses—or at least investing in them. Like with George, that was a good use of my money and had a decent return of experience that didn’t require me to actually do anything.

  I snorted as I realized something. I finally understood why those rich bastards did what they did. Power was nice and all—though not something I cared for, personally. No, it was the ability to do what I wanted to do without even lifting a finger. That was the route I knew I would need to take.

  I needed to prepare people for what was coming, and placing depots of supplies around the world would be important. That meant dealing with politics. And there was one tried and true method that worked: money. It was the grease that lubricated every bureaucracy even if they claimed otherwise. That corruption would be my ticket to helping humanity one day. Machiavelli was onto something, as much as I hated to admit it.

  I went with Mom to Grandpa Joe’s funeral. She was even more down than she had been last time—if such a thing were possible. I did what I could to cheer her up, like taking her out to dinner after to spend time with her.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said.

  She was crying and smiling at the same time.

  “It’s ok,” she sniffled. “It’s just so hard. It was so sudden.”

  “I’m here for you. Tell me what you need.”

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Spend some time with me. Let’s go somewhere for a week?”

  “I can’t, Mom,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve got to plant the fields now, which means I don’t have time until after the harvest in the fall.”

  “You can’t delay it a week?” she asked.

  “Sadly not. What I can do is go out with you every week, if you’d like.”

  “I’d like that,” she replied with a smile.

  Mom wiped her tears.

  “I’ll also give you some money. Buy something nice, go on a trip, have some fun. It’ll take your mind off of things, ok? And maybe talk to someone—and I don’t just mean me.”

  “Alright. You’re growing up to be a wonderful son, you know that?”

  “Thanks? I mean, I’ve been at this for… a long time.”

  I laughed and she smiled.

  “I’ll always be your mother.”

  “I know that, Mom. I know.”

  “And don’t you ever forget it!”

  She was laughing with me now.

  We ate and enjoyed our night together.

  Farming took my attention and my efforts. I had promised to spend time with her—and give her some cash—so that is what I did. Every week, I took her out somewhere and left her with money for herself. I intended it to be a temporary measure so that she could get through the feeling of her father’s passing, but I also had a lot of money, so giving her some every week wasn’t a big deal to me. I just sort of kept doing it.

  Then in the fall—after the harvest—I saw two people poking about on my farm. Though both men, one was older while the other looked to be around Dad’s age. I wasn’t sure how they’d gotten into the farm field as I didn’t see a car nor signs of forced entry, so I went to confront them. Were they lost or were they up to no good?

  I approached from the equipment shed where I had been working. The two men didn’t see me until I got much closer. The younger one turned his head then poked the older man to get his attention. I waved at them.

  “Are you lost?” I asked when I was close enough for them to hear me in a talking voice.

  “No,” the older man said.

  “Then why are you on my farm?” I questioned them.

  “Government business,” he stated.

  “And what does the government want on my farm?”

  “Your farm?”

  “Yeah. I’m the owner and farmer. Me. The child. Dad helps from time to time.”

  “Well then.” The older man laughed. “We need to take water samples from the stream.”

  “And where is your warrant or permission to be here to do that?”

  “Brad, you’ve got it on you, right?” the older man asked.

  “Yeah,” said the younger man—Brad.

  Brad fished something from his coat and handed it to me. I opened it and read it over. It had the air of being official, but I called Al to confirm that it was what it said it was. I trusted his opinion more than I trusted these strangers.

  “Looks like you’re good to go,” I said after getting confirmation.

  I handed the papers back to Brad and returned to what I had been doing. Namely, cleaning my equipment so I could do the preventative maintenance they needed.

  My heart raced on the way back to the equipment shed. Now, the inspectors could be there because of routine monitoring, but I doubted it. I’d dumped plenty of chemicals into the stream over the last couple years. There was a large chance they were there because of me and what I’d been doing.

  Fears of spending time in jail bubbled to the surface. That was my worst fear. If I was behind bars, there was no way for me to actually earn an appreciable amount of experience. That in and of itself would doom humanity. Why had I been so stupid as to think what I was doing was ok? Was it just greed or something else? I didn’t know. Instead, I was just a ball of fears.

  My mind went back to Al. I knew his specialization was different, but would he be able to help me out of this? After thinking about it for a while—and letting all my fears swirl for far too long, I picked up my cell phone and called Al.

  “Hello, Eddy,” he said when he picked up. “How can I help you?”

  “I think those two men with the paper are here ‘cause of what I’ve been doing,” I said. “I’m almost a hundred percent certain.”

  “And what have you been doing to bring environmental inspectors out to your farm?”

  “Dumping pesticides in the stream.”

  “Seriously?” Al said, with a significant amount of distaste in his voice.

  “It was a test to see if it would help with the situation we can’t talk about over the phone.”

  “Mhm… and now the government is aware of what you’re doing.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, look, kid,” he began. “I’ve been putting up with you because you pay well and hadn’t—until this point—done anything too morally questionable. That contract? I get why you did it, but that put a sour taste in my mouth. Now you’ve gone and done this—purposefully no less. I’m sorry to tell you, but I will be terminating my representation of you as of now.”

  “Wait, why so suddenly?”

  “I’m not getting involved with the feds,” he replied. “Not my expertise. That, and what you’ve done really pissed me off. As a professional, I will recommend another lawyer you can speak to regarding this issue. Even without the contract, whatever you told me would have been kept confidential. That’s what it means to be a lawyer. Have a good day.”

  With that, Al hung up. I was astonished. Was what I had been doing so wrong as to elicit that kind of response? I hadn’t murdered anyone. What was so bad about temporarily killing some animals that would come back to life when it turned back time in a few years? Some people…

  I wanted to throw my phone across the room. Thankfully, I was smart enough not to. But still, the nerve of Al to quit when I needed him most! At least he gave me someone I could talk to to defend me against whatever was coming. I had a face too handsome for prison, so I was going to do whatever it took to delay it and negotiate it down to something else.

  A fine was, well, fine with me. I had the money for that. What I didn’t have was time to waste. As soon as Al’s email detailing the end of representation along with the referral to the other person—Melissa Rodrigues—I reached out to this new lawyer.

  From now on, I wasn’t going to dump any more chemicals in the stream. Not only was there little point—I wasn’t getting much in the way of experience anymore—but now there were inspectors. Keeping that up would probably make whatever issues I was going to have much, much worse. I was going to avoid that since I could see it a mile away.

  Discord!

  Patreon with up to 15 chapters ahead of Royal Road.