Ultimate Gamer System: Factory Must Grow!-Chapter 40: Erect!

"Fucking finally!"

Theo’s arms were in as much pain as if someone had soaked them in gasoline and then set them on fire.

His breath was ragged, labored, coming from the movement of his entire body rather than just his chest alone.

The young man’s face was a mess, covered in a thick layer of oily sweat infused with dirt and sawdust from all the trees he had felled.

By every means and judgment criteria possible, Theo was one hell of a mess.

And yet, his eyes were full of jubilation. All because right now, rather than standing firmly on the ground, Theo kept only one of his feet on a stable footing while using the other to step down on the trunk of the fallen tree—the last one in the long, circular line marked out by the faint glow of his system’s making.

Stepping down on the massive log like a modern hunter would when posing for a photo with their hunted-down prey, Theo momentarily forgot he was on a strict schedule.

And it was all because of the fact that with the fall of this tree… the color of the glow marking the space for the construction of his wall had now lost its slight reddish hue, turning into the pristine white that matched the color of the construction strings that would appear to transport the required resources around!

In other words, three hours after he started the task of cutting down those trees… Theo was finally done!

"I don’t think I’ve ever worked as hard ever before in either of my lives…" Theo whispered to himself… only to step off the log and then bring his axe down on it again, first splitting it into chunks before then brutalizing each of them into quarters that he then promptly put into his inventory.

"It’s not like I’m lacking wood… But this wood in particular, I’m not going to just let rot away," he muttered to himself as he quickly retreated to the inside of the circle marked out by the pristinely white light.

Theo then brought his hand up to the sky and, caring not for the possible consequences, shouted out from the bottom of his lungs.

"SYSTEM!"

Theo’s scream carried through the air. Yet, judging by the lack of changes to either of his threat detection abilities, he did so to no detrimental consequence.

"I wish to construct the stone wall!"

What came next, by every means, was just more of the same.

A set of white strings suddenly cut through the air. A faint glow that marked the construction area now expanded upwards, turning from just the marker to a see-through projection of the whole construction.

At the same time, however, nothing was the same.

No glowing string of light shot out from Theo’s chest, with all of them coming from behind his back, the direction of Theo’s manor.

The projection itself was pretty much nothing like anything Theo had seen before, stretching as high up as his manor itself, four meters thick… And, judging by the distance Theo cleared out—around a damned kilometer long!

"Ugh…" Stunned by the sight of the massive projection, Theo couldn’t help but take a step back. Yet, even after doing so… and then repeating it three more times, he still failed to grasp the sheer magnitude of the project before his eyes.

"Yeah…" he weakly muttered, "there’s no way just those few thousand stone blocks would suffice to erect something that insanely huge…"

Having nothing better to do in the face of such impossibility, Theo could only gulp his saliva down while standing in stupefied awe of his system’s potential.

Updat𝓮d from frёewebnoѵēl.com.

"Hey, system…" he silently whispered, suddenly scared of the magnificence of the entity capable of manipulating… No, CREATING such a mass. "For all that I complained about you in the past," Theo gulped his saliva again before clearing his throat, "I’m really sorry, okay?"

For a few more moments, Theo just… stood in place, admiring the sheer scale of what was slowly turning from a projection to an actual reality.

Then, however, his eyes drew to the one thing that had the ability to anchor him back to reality.

[12:36:25]

"Not good."

All of a sudden, Theo’s mood sank down, allowing him to push aside his shocked awe.

"Right, now that this part is done, it’s time to go back."

There was absolutely nothing more Theo could do in this place. And so, rather than wasting even more of his precious, limited time, he turned around and rushed straight back to his manor.

By the time the trees still growing between the stone wall-to-be and the palisade hid away the see-through projection, Theo’s jog turned into a run and then a dash, as if a devil itself was chasing after him. This mad rush didn’t cease all the way up until Theo crossed the wooden gate and then saw it close behind him, allowing the young man to regain some semblance of sober thought.

"Okay, the wall’s pretty much done. What next…" Leaning down with his hands resting on his knees and his entire upper body arched forward, Theo allowed himself a moment to both rest and gather his thoughts.

"Right, the towers…"

A quick look through his inventory and the upgrade list, Theo rose up before stretching his hands out.

Now that the task of cutting the trees was all but over, he could feel a strange kind of weight lifting off his shoulders. It felt as if a considerable chunk of the weight that had been pressing him down had finally vanished.

Not disappeared in its entirety… but still, partially lifted.

"Between all the stone I mined out since I planned the whole thing up, the discount of the constructor’s office, and then all the stone I’ve expended on the wall and the mining guild…" Theo quickly did the math. "Five towers, huh?"

Initially, when Theo first planned out his defense of the manor, just two towers already felt like a lot. Now that this number swelled to more than twice the original, however… It no longer felt impressive at all.

After all, while the number of towers Theo could make appear grew, so did his perspective when he realized just how massive this stone wall of his would be. And with over a kilometer of the wall to keep protected, having just five towers… Somehow, it no longer felt like all that much.

"Yeah, there’s no way I can defend this whole wall. Not when those towers only weaken the enemy rather than actually attacking them on the approach," Theo sighed, having no other choice but to face the harsh reality.

But accepting the unfavorable terms had absolutely nothing to do with giving up. On the contrary, it had everything to do with Theo opting to just look at his situation with a sober, pragmatic mindset, taking in the challenges instead of ignoring them, and, most importantly—making the most out of the limited means he had.

"I guess that means we are back to just baiting those bastards out, huh?"

Shaking his head, Theo turned his eyes right back to the gate he had just closed. Yet, he didn’t need to step back to recall just how that forested area looked.

"I guess I could arrange all five of those towers in a circle, dig the trenches with bunkers on top between them, and create a kill zone in the middle while still having the ability to shoot in every possible direction out…"

Theo’s face changed now that he moved from absorbing the harsh truth about his situation to actually planning how to take advantage of what little he could still do or achieve.

"Yeah, that seems like a sound plan…" Heaving a long, exhausted sigh, Theo resisted the desire to just sit down on the ground, opting to turn his steps back toward not the mansion, but the hole in the ground leading all the way down to his mining base.

"For now, however, there’s no doubt what should come next," he sighed to himself as he started a slow descent down the steps, taking proper care not to let his burning exhaustion be the reason behind a potentially fatal slip down this long staircase.

"It’s been roughly three hours since I went to get rid of those trees, so I should have quite a bit of ore stacked up by now," Theo muttered, upholding his habit of having conversations with his very own self to keep himself from going absolutely insane. "And once it’s all smelted down…"

Theo suddenly grew silent when his foot slipped on the dirt, nearly leading him to fall down the circling steps of his mining staircase.

"Once it’s all smelted down," gritting his teeth, Theo repeated himself, refusing to let the most hopeful and, at the same time, the most important part of his plan be left unsaid, "I’m finally going to get that damned industry up and running!"