Chapter 9

“Umm… how much is fifty million?”

We left the store. It would take a while before the full results came in. I probably should be putting in a plan in case I get tricked, but what am I supposed to do anyway? I'm just a university kid.

“The average instant cup noodle is around five to six thousand Rupiah.”

Elerina paused for a moment, her finger on her chin.

“That's like… umm… ten thousand?”

“If you eat three everyday, you'll survive for maybe ten years.”

“That's crazy!”

“And very unhealthy.”

Wouldn't want to introduce her to cancer.

She stared at me, as if I was lying. If someone said that they could feed me from just one gold cup for ten years, I wouldn't believe them either.

“And that's just a quarter of the proposed value.”

“Wow… just wow…”

“We wouldn't be using it all for food, though. I could buy some equipment that you may find helpful.”

“Equipment? What kinds of things?”

“You'll see.”

Our first destination would be an electronic store. The thing I was looking for came in the form of a small box, with a lense and two screens on it. I showed it to Elerina with the phone camera.

It cost five million each, still within our budget.

“What does it do?”

“It has the same function as the tablet, but with better quality and smaller size.”

The action camera also allowed her to keep moving, possibly fight without worrying about anything large to slow her down.

While in the same store, I bought two smartphones of the cheaper class, each costing around three million. One would be used for backup, just in case she lost one. I also bought two power banks, that way, I could keep her equipment alive as long as possible.

“All of these cost eighteen million.” Never in my life had I expected to play around with that much money. “Onto our last equipment.”

“I'm excited.”

I left the store with a bag full of stuff and headed toward a drone shop. There, I picked up a drone set for around sixteen million. The final count lay around thirty four million. I then head home with my loot.

•••

We spent the next hour or so setting up. Since I bought a lot, it took a while to set everything up.

“Email address? Would I even be needing that?”

“You would, when you come here.”

“Well, okay then. The name, huh… Elerina?”

“How about elerinamonterez1?” I showed my screen to her.

“I can't read… But sure, that sounds nice. Why the one, though?”

“There's a chance someone already used that name, so I added the number one as an extra measure.”

It's also helpful to make sure you're not emailing the wrong person.

“Alright, let's go with that.”

I went through all the setup process. Luckily, a new email doesn't need any identifications, because she wouldn't have any.

“Let's see… phone number? You probably wouldn't need any. We can skip this… and this…”

“That looks complicated…”

“You'll get used to it, eventually.”

“Are those important to live in your world?”

“As important as magic, probably.”

You could live without them, but life would be really inconvenient.

“Actually, that made me curious, just how important is magic over there?”

As someone that lived without magic, it isn't important to me. Lighting up a fire without a lighter sounds convenient, but not being able to do that isn't the worse thing ever. But I couldn't imagine myself living without my phone.

“It's… hard, to say the least.” Elerina let out a wry smile. “Anyway anyway, I'm curious about the other things!”

She pointed toward a random corner on the wall, away from where I put all my stuff. Her face turned red upon noticing that she was pointing at the completely wrong direction. I let out a giggle. She meekly turn and pointed to the right direction.

“If I had turned off the call, you wouldn't have realized.”

“... Meanie.”

She lightly hit me on the side. I went to the side and showed her the most expensive thing I bought.

“We call this a drone. It's a device capable of taking to the skies.”

“Like a dragon? But no, that's much smaller.” She took a look at the drone. “I have never seen anything like this.”

“It's fairly new technology, actually.”

“Ah, so it's new even for you?”

“Yes.”

The components that allowed it to exist had existed for a long time. Helicopters, computers, remote control, but its widespread use had only begun relatively recently.

“What do you use it for? Can it breath fire?”

While some drones are capable of unleashing fire, they weren't sold in the mall. Even if they were, I doubt they were small enough to be transferred over.

“Nothing like that. See this part here?”

I pointed toward the camera lens. The small, round part looked as if it was staring back at us.

“Its eye?”

“I guess you can call it that. Through its eye, it sends you what it sees, and you can use that to scout the area.”

“Ah, like a scouting unit.”

“I guess?”

I think people often use airplanes or even satellites to scout out the battlefield, but I assume the scouting units she mentioned must use some kind of dragon. Riding a dragon must be nice. The breeze, the view… I wonder if they have safety belts out there, or maybe some kind of magic that prevents them from harm if they fall? That sure sounded neat.

“How does it work?”

“Let me read the manual real quick.”

I didn’t hang around the store for long. I couldn’t move freely because of Elerina being there, and I couldn’t ask Elerina to move a lot, either. Wouldn’t want to risk a monster accidentally picking up her sound.

And, to be honest, I don’t really understand how one could casually spend that much money. If it was me, I would spend weeks or even months researching in advance, second-guessing myself. I feel like whatever I do, I would just look suspicious. So I decided to spend as little time as possible and grab the drone then ran out.

Luckily, the operating procedure for this drone is straight forward, and it came with easy-mode for beginner operators.

“You press here, then here…” Upon pressing the button, I realized I made a grave mistake. The drone let out a loud beeping noise when it started. I had expected noise from the air, but once it was airborne, it’s still stealthier compared to a dragon. On the ground, however…

Elerina saw my concerns, but she took it differently. “I think you should operate it. It’s expensive, isn’t it?”

“But its your money?”

“Still, it’s wasteful if we lose such an expensive equipment.”

I guess she had a point.

“Besides, you could use it to guide me from the air.”

“You’re right…”

That does help with the beeping noise. If I turned it on here, then we wouldn’t need to be concerned with the noise. The drone became a lot more silent when it was already on. You could still hear it from up close, but the monsters would probably think of it as some random noise.

“We should try testing it.” All of this would be pointless if it couldn’t be used. “Are you in a safe spot?”

Elerina looked around, then gave me the thumbs up. I let the drone go full power, before handing it over to her. The drone operated normally once in her hands. She stood up and walked somewhere, I assume an empty spot where she could let it fly. Once she let go however…

The screen that had once been showing footage of the abandoned building she stood next to went blank.

“Try touching it.”

She grabbed the underside of the drone. The footage connected once more.

“Ah… When you let go of the drone, the drone is entirely in your world. When that happens, it can’t connect with the remote. Here, try touching the remote.”

I ended up holding most of it, but Elerina held a small portion of the right side. The footage returned.

“This is tricky…”

“Yeah…”

Unfortunately, either Elerina learned how to fly it, or she needed to be touching the remote at all times to keep the connection. I could only hope that it didn't bother her too much. I reduced the drone’s altitude and let her return it to me.

“Let's continue on. We'll figure something out later. I still have some gizmos to show you.”

“Okay.” She chirped. I couldn't help but think that my wife is very adorable.