"Won`t this make him stronger? Not Leel. The system, I mean," Lucy asked.

　　"Yeah, I think so. But to be honest, we`ve been batting 1000 against the kind of stuff he`s been throwing at us lately. And the alternative is sitting still. Our best bet for getting strong enough to actually take him down in any real way is here," Matt replied.

　　"I still think we should have done some dungeons first."

　　"Right after this, we can go do some dungeons, eat some weird stuff, and see if we can`t get a lead on things. I promise."

　　"Fine. But if the Gaians give us anything less than a system-annihilating ray gun, then right after this, we go to a dungeon. No questions asked, no delays."

　　"Deal."

　　With Lucy temporarily satisfied, Matt started feeding the repair stones into the plinth. From the outside, there was no way to tell what effect it was having on the broken holograms inside. There was still an enormous way to go in terms of durability points before the museum would be fully fixed, but Matt was irrationally hopeful that this small contribution would make a big difference.

　　Once inside the museum, he and Lucy decided to sit through every exhibit again. They had seen all of them, but Matt found that both of their appetites for entertainment were now relatively easy to satisfy, given that the alternatives were either mind-numbing nothingness or constant near-death experiences. The museum was definitely closer to the former than the latter in a good way, and represented a medium ground Matt found calming without being entirely mind-numbing.

　　After exhausting every educational reel in the place, Matt and Lucy set off for the resist the scourge exhibit. The same man appeared, gave the exact same speech, and radiated the same kind of earned authority and competence he had the first time they had seen him. Matt had a moment in which he wished it had been the man who was reincarnated rather than himself. This was a guy who had worked his way up through sheer competence. Matt suspected that, given the same power set, he would have got a whole lot more done.

　　The man finally finished his speech, then froze as he always had.

　　"Do you think he`s still broken?" Lucy walked up, reached her arm into the air, and waved her hand in front of the hologram`s face. "He`s the only show that doesn`t disappear after the show ends. It`s a little bit creepy."

　　"Maybe. This place is still pretty messed up. It`s possible the first time was just a fluke. We can always repair it more."

　　Suddenly, the hologram swiveled its head, and stared straight at Matt with an expressionless face. Lucy, who was standing directly in front of it, almost jumped out of her skin.

　　"Reincarnator," the man said.

　　Matt gulped and walked up to the hologram. "Yup. That`s me."

　　The man`s mouth moved wordlessly, like he was struggling to speak. "Reincarnator."

　　"Yes, I am. What& what can I do for you?" Matt prayed the thing wasn`t on a loop.

　　"Trust& the system."

　　Lucy immediately sprang back from the hologram. "Shit, Matt. The system got to him somehow."

　　"No! How? It said it couldn`t see in here." Matt was panicking. If the system had corrupted this place, they`d never know what the Gaians had left for them. "We can`t trust any part of this now. It`s ruined."

　　The hologram was still staring at Matt.

　　"Reincarnator. Trust& the system."

　　Matt pulled his shovel off his pack. "No, I`m sorry. I don`t. Not happening."

　　Lucy stopped Matt from approaching. She looked apprehensively at the hologram.

　　The hologram`s voice was still flat as it continued speaking. "Trust& us. The system& ruined Gaia. We saved work against&. the system."

　　Matt let out a breath he hadn`t realized he was holding. "Yes, we`d like to work against the system too. How, though? How can we beat it?"

　　The hologram suddenly winked out, then came back, scrambled. Its mouth worked wordlessly again, as if searching for just the right thing to say in a tough situation. Finally, it became fully solid and clear again, if only for a moment.

　　"Maps. The maps."

　　And then it was gone.

　　—

　　"I don`t understand, Matt. Any maps would be long gone. Even without the scourge."

　　"Maybe& I don`t know, maybe they stored them. In a bunker or something."

　　Matt and Lucy had been through every single exhibit again, looking hard for any maps that might have clues. There weren`t any maps that went into more detail than the general shape of Gaian continents. Wherever the maps the hologram was talking about were, they weren`t here.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

　　"I wish that stupid exhibit would run again. It`s the only one that`s broken, now," Matt said.

　　Matt had dragged Lucy back over to the Gaian war effort exhibit several times, only to find that the room was apparently permanently frozen in place. They couldn`t pick the hologram`s brain for more clues.

　　"It`s possible. But as much as I like treasure hunting, that can`t come first, Matt. You promised."

　　"I did. And we will do dungeons as soon as we get out of here."

　　"Can we do that now?" Lucy looked towards the exit with an impatient expression.

　　"That bored?"

　　"Not that bored, Matt. That worried. Leel`s out there, and the system might already have called down some new kind of hell. We need to be working to get stronger, right now. We`ve already been in here long enough."

　　Matt wanted to argue, but Lucy was right. Between seeing all the exhibits twice, the better part of a day was already gone.

　　"Okay, let`s go."

　　As always, the yo-yos in the gift store were un-claimable. Matt contented himself with grabbing more Gaian victory seeds, since whatever supply of them the Gaians had put aside still hadn`t run out, and he had no shortage of places to plant them. He had even noticed some variance in the things they grew, like occasionally different seeds had made their ways into the pack. He figured it was the closest he was going to come to reintroducing the original Gaian biome, so he was happy to roll the dice on getting as many varieties as he could.

　　It wasn`t until he had one foot essentially out the door and was regretfully glancing back at the door to the museum that he saw them. There were containers after containers holding different posters, some of Sarthian scientists or science concepts, some of various agricultural implements, and some of plants. But one of the containers, and only one, held posters that were without exception different kinds of maps.

　　—

　　"Truly a fool. Really and truly a fool. If I had anything like my normal resources, he`d be dead a dozen times over. And you, system, have really and truly made a mess of things by letting him run wild."

　　Leel was pretty good at mental deflection, and had no intention of reflecting on the fact that the system was trying very hard not to let Matt run wild. In fact, the world-class level-appropriate wizard that the system had called in was failing to do much of the intended purpose. But Leel didn`t sweat those details.

　　Rather, he was reflecting, rather thoroughly, on his humiliation. He, Leel, was the fourth adoptive son of the Cavelar of Ammai. There was no fifth because Leel had been deemed sufficient, had taken to magic like a fish to water and had worked well beyond what the system intended from its magic system. The previous three adoptive sons, reincarnated to the Cavelar`s care as infants, were no more. Their failure stood as a warning to all, just as Leel felt his own success stood as an inspiration.

　　For someone of his caliber to be defeated by what seemed to be little more than a servant-class idiot with a shovel was horrifying. And Leel meant it when he thought of Matt as an idiot, even after being caught by traps he had laid. Even though Matt now held the Star of the South and several marks in the win column in matches between them, Leel did not doubt the man was simple. For who, after all, would fail to check a defeated opponent for hidden items or weapons? Only an idiot.

　　Leel had not accomplished much on his trip to Matt`s estate, but that wasn`t to say he hadn`t accomplished anything at all. Reaching into his robes, he removed several different plants, including some root vegetables and flowers. Carefully, he arranged them into a small pile on the ground.

　　He thanked his lucky stars that he had thought to recover his paint before leaving on his mission. He hardly had the mana to do it now, and otherwise he`d be forced to eat these plants as-is. His arcane senses weren`t enough to reveal exactly what it was, but something was wrong with them. Deeply and fundamentally wrong. He was glad to have better options.

　　Carefully, Leel laid out his formation. Every place, every planet, and every realm has a history. And just as Matt had apparently found some incredible, reality-defying artifact of Gaia, no world`s history was ever truly and utterly lost. Chronomancy was a delicate, chaotic art, but Leel was as good at it as any, and he was prepared to make full use of it here.

　　Of course, no-one could actually travel back in time. The past became the present, for lack of a better way to put it. Everything that had been was in some way what now was. They left their marks on the world. Some things from the past left deeper shadows or echoes that reverberated into the future, and could be put to use, if one knew how to see them.

　　Leel did not, for the record, know how to see these shadows. But that didn`t mean he didn`t know they were there. On a place called "The Garden Planet", they must be.

　　Ding!

　　Quest Discovered: STOP STOP STOP

　　The system thinks it has an idea of what you are doing, and it wants to inform you that it`s a very, very bad idea. What substantial rewards it can offer you for simply abandoning your plans are currently tied up in your previous failed quest, but&

　　Leel stopped reading.

　　What horrifying manners from a system instance.

　　The system instance on Leel`s world was a beautiful if somewhat kept thing. It was always polite, knew perfectly well what kind of rewards were acceptable for the few who were allowed to claim them, and was above all stable and consistent in all things. This system instance, on the other hand, was none of that. It was as if its time on this planet had driven it partially insane, a condition that seemed to be worsening the more Leel interacted with it.

　　As if, he thought, I would actually listen to it after the botch job it`s made of this entire affair. As if a man stranded on a dead planet, unable to use his bountiful supply of knowledge and skills, would feel bound to listen to the words of the same system that had so very thoroughly ruined everything.

　　Leel finished drawing the circle and began taking steps to verify it, to make sure it was without flaw and would work correctly. Everything looked in order, even under close inspection, but he`d only have one shot at this. If that idiot could farm, so could he, but the fool did have some advantages Leel did not. Good soil, for one. Water sources. The works.

　　The trick to what Leel was planning was one he couldn`t have pulled off without the stolen vegetable matter. By introducing biological mass to the chronomancy spell he had in mind, he could trade the diseased turnips that he otherwise would have had to eat with similar living mass from the echoes of the past.

　　It wasn`t a spell that would work on anything much more complex than a plant, or on anything with a soul, but Leel was reasonably confident he could pull something hardy enough to make up for any farming advantages he lacked. Something productive enough to survive in this hellhole, he hoped.

　　After all, this planet used to be a garden. It must have had at least one particularly hardy plant.