Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)

After the extraplanar visitor left, it didn’t take long for other people to start trying to reassert order. The mayor of our village quickly herded everyone back into the village-bearing beast, while I saw other villages that had incurred casualties start to mourn and bury their dead.

Seeing their sorrow caused me to feel a bit worried, so I contacted my friends. <Nobody you guys know got hurt, right?>

<My neighbor got killed by an icicle, but I didn’t know her very well. It does suck that she died, but it doesn’t impact me personally,> said Felix.

<Nobody I knew got hurt,> said Sallia.

<My mother got a minor cut on the arm, but the extraplanar guy’s healing magic fixed up her injury afterwards,> said Anise.

I relaxed. Then I felt a bit bad about my relief. It was true that none of my friends had gotten hurt, but a lot of people had still died during this event. It felt wrong to feel happy just because nobody close to my friends or me had gotten seriously injured.

A few moments later, I finished climbing back onto the back of the village-bearing beast, before our mayor herded everyone towards the temple in the center of town. At first, I was baffled, before I realized that the mayor and a few other influential warriors were talking about a town meeting.

Meeting in a temple might not be the best meeting venue I had ever been in, but it was the largest building in town.

<Our mayor is dragging us to a meeting. What about you two?> I asked.

<Since a few neighbors died, we’re holding a funeral. I’m not going to be responding to messages for a while,> said Felix.

A moment later, I felt Felix’s connection to our communication bracelets snap off.

<My town is relatively unscathed, so our mayor is also dragging us to a meeting. I think he’s probably going to talk about what happened, and also maybe organize repairs? There was some infrastructure damage, though nobody died,> said Sallia.

I nodded.

A few minutes passed by as the town arranged itself inside of the church. It was a tight squeeze, since the building wasn’t designed to hold the population of the entire town, but we all fit inside, if barely.

To my surprise, the first person to speak wasn’t the mayor, even though he was ostensibly the leader of the town. Instead, the [Priest] was the first person to speak.

“As all of you have already seen, today we were graced with the presence of an extraplanar visitor,” said the [Priest]. “It has been many decades since we last saw an extraplanar visitor, and we were even fortunate enough to meet one that speaks the language of the Everfrost jungle. While he did not stay long, I think that we should give thanks to the first ember-keeper for his grace and blessing.”

I scratched my head in surprise. I had thought this meeting would be a practical one, but it turned out to be a religious meeting? That was more than slightly disappointing. I had seen too many different dimensions with different religions, and I had also died and seen the real ‘afterlife’ too many times. I had a very hard time believing in gods. The [Priest] led the townsfolk in bowing towards the giant statue in the middle of the temple once.

I sighed, but I copied the actions of the other townsfolk. Even if I didn’t believe, I could still respect the people who were in the temple, at least.

Afterwards, the [Priest] sat back down, and the other townsfolk followed suit.

“Now, on to the main business,” said the mayor. I breathed a sigh of relief. I had been worried that this would be a purely religious exercise for a moment. “As the honored visitor has already noted, apparently, at least one of the greater planes is at war with an external plane, and they are recruiting warriors of a certain level of strength to join them. It also appears that larger population centers received word of this several years ago, but due to our isolation, we did not receive this information until now. There aren’t many warriors in our town who have reached tier 6 in a skill, but there are still a couple. The greater planes tend to be quite generous with warriors who fight on the front lines and survive. Is it really wise to completely sit this out? If we could get even a single warrior from the town to greater levels of power, when they return, we might be able to strengthen our ember by a considerable amount. If we get it strong enough, we may even be able to settle down and stop wandering.” The mayor’s eyes shone with longing, and I resisted the urge to scratch my head in confusion. Was settling down extremely desirable in this world?

However, the mayor’s words were also interesting. It didn’t sound like our town, at least, was worried about the events earlier today. Instead, the people here were more worried about how to grow and improve, instead of worrying about the crisis. I also found it curious that the mayor simply said ‘one of the greater planes is at war,’ without worrying about the details beyond that.

Was it normal for the greater planes to go to war? What were the greater planes? I thought back to the first System message we had received when we reincarnated in this world.

Analyzing this world… Analysis complete!

Essences Present in this dimension: All four essences present. Manifestation and Binding essence are intertwined, and seem to form the basic structure of this world’s primary spellcasting system. Special notes: The local System of this world seems to run on a mixture of alteration and binding essence. It ‘binds’ certain actions or achievements to the user, then alters the body to fit those achievements. It is recommended that the transmigrator make good use of this local System to amplify their accomplishments and earnings in this world. Estimated tier: 6 (according to the Market’s standardized power evaluation scale) Special Notes: This world is not a single dimension - it is part of a large dimensional cluster, estimated to be linked to at least one thousand other dimensions. Dimensional Cluster appears to be at war with a major multiversal faction that the Market is on (Error) terms with. Please proceed with caution.

We were living in a tier 6 dimension, according to the Market’s power evaluation scale. However, that didn’t meant that every dimension in this cluster was tier six. It seemed like the more powerful dimensions were known as greater planes here. Based on the mayor’s words, I now had a slightly better understanding of how our dimensional cluster was governed.

Since the mayor had said that a greater plane was at war, there was probably no central government for our dimensional cluster. Instead, every single greater plane might operate like a nation that had achieved superpower status, or it might even be divided into a few smaller and weaker nations. These nations were probably much stronger than the clans, tribes, and nations in a world like ours, where population count and personal power were much lower - and as a result, they had some authority over what happened in our planes, much like how a powerful colonial power had some influence over continents where they had several colonies. They recruited from worlds like ours, but probably didn’t expect us to do much besides make up the numbers - after all, the odds of a real powerhouse emerging from a dimension like ours was quite low, given the low population count and limited resources.

“Well, the extraplanar visitor wasn’t wrong. Sending our few powerhouses to the front lines of an extraplanar war could be devastating for our clan. Even if we assume the best case scenario - where someone goes to the front lines, achieves miraculous results, and comes back with an incredible level and piles of resources - it’s too risky. Especially given how many people died in the aftermath of that battle earlier. A bad wave of monsters could wipe us out.”

The mayor nodded. “I agree - but you also forget that the visitor from another plane also stated that the war has been going on for decades already. If it has been going on for decades, odds are high that it will continue for a few more decades. Matters of the greater planes are often time consuming to deal with, after all.”

The [Priest], who had been sitting near the mayor, started to grin as he looked at us. “So are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

The mayor nodded as well. “At least in our town, I think it would be a good idea to take a few more risks. We could try to have a few people locate rare resources that can help people level up, and then feed them to the kids of town. Safeguarding the kids as they get to resources such as flare roots will put some strain on our manpower - but they can also help someone advance much faster. The longer someone has a skill, the better their odds of reaching high tiers in that skill by the time they’re an adult. So if a few children can prove that they have good skills or gifts, we can also try to stack resources onto them to create a few truly elite powerhouses. Then, if they want to go to the front lines, our town, and our entire clan, would benefit greatly. If they don’t want to go, they can still free up room for someone like me to go to the front lines while they safeguard the tribe. Either way, we could pave the way for a better future… if we take a few risks and things go well while fighting for the greater plane. It’s a gamble, but I think it’s worth taking.”

I listened to the mayor and the [Priest] start to ask the rest of the town for their opinions, and then grinned as I heard most of the citizens state that they were in favor of the plan. The town meeting itself seemed more like a way to for the mayor to gauge the response to his plan… and it was mostly positive.

I was also quite enthusiastic about the mayor’s plan. After all, Anise and I were children in our town who had power far disproportionate to their age, and who were eager to get out into the world and earn better materials and more Achievement.

This could be a golden opportunity to leap-frog ahead of the rest of our age group, have a legitimate way to leave the tribe to seek broader horizons, and perhaps end up with far greater rewards than I had ever imagined in this world. It was a gamble… but this was our last world before we had to fight for more lives. If we didn’t gamble now, I had no clue whether we would win the fight for more lives. Doing nothing was also a gamble.

I was going to make the absolute most of this opportunity.