Caelus didn't answer Sampo. He simply pulled a pistol from his backpack—one with an eyeball on top of the barrel—and suddenly aimed it at his head.
Sampo's hands flew up in a conditioned reflex. He shrank back into the boat, his hands raised even higher than when he had the lumps being knocked onto his head.
"Big bro, don't shoot! Kneeling isn't enough? How about I kowtow a few times for you?"
Caelus ignored Sampo's pleas, his full attention on the Rating Pistol in his hand.
Ever since he'd acquired this pistol from the Curio collection room on the Herta Space Station, it had been gathering dust in his backpack. Back on the station, he had tried to use it several times, but the Rating Pistol had stubbornly refused to give him a score, its eyelid shut tighter than a clam, impossible to pry open.
But that was on himself. What about on someone else?
Just then, the large eyeball on the Rating Pistol cautiously cracked open a sliver. Its eyelashes trembled, and a small sliver of its round pupil peeked out, darting left and right within the slit.
It was confirming who was in front of it. Upon realizing it was not Caelus, the Rating Pistol's eyelid snapped wide open. Its entire eye was now perfectly round, and the eyeball spun around three times, scanning up, down, left, and right.
Then it stopped, its pupil dilating to its maximum size. It held the pose for a full five or six seconds before deflating as if all the air had gone out of it, its eyelid slowly closing.
"Unable to determine!"
After shouting that one line, the Rating Pistol's eyelid shut tight, and it went completely still again.
---o---
Sampo was startled by the sudden shout, staring blankly at the pistol in Caelus's hand, which was now playing dead.
"...Big bro, your gun is, uh… quite unique… it's got personality…"
Caelus was also staring at the Rating Pistol. He could accept it not wanting to rate him, but why couldn't it even give a score for Sampo?
Caelus mulled it over for a moment, then walked over to the beds with the Rating Pistol in hand.
March 7th was sleeping soundly. She had kicked her blanket down to her knees, and one hand was resting on the edge of the bed, her fingers slightly curled.
Caelus first reached out and pulled the blanket back over her before aiming the Rating Pistol at her.
The eyeball on the gun opened once more. It scanned March 7th for a few moments, the eyeball spinning twice.
"Unable to determine!"
It shouted and closed its eye again. The same result.
Caelus turned and aimed the Rating Pistol at Dan Heng, who was asleep on the other bed.
The Rating Pistol opened its eye with painstaking slowness. It looked at Dan Heng for a good three or four seconds, its eyeball rotating much slower than before, as if with a certain seriousness.
"88 points!"
Finally, a normal result!
Caelus flipped his wrist, immediately turning the muzzle toward his own face.
The moment the eyeball on the barrel met Caelus's gaze, the entire eye shrank violently. The eyelid slammed shut with a snap, and its eyelashes trembled like a leaf in a storm. The entire pistol quivered in Caelus's hand.
Forget giving a score, it didn't even dare to look at him for more than a second.
Caelus sighed and stuffed the Rating Pistol back into his backpack.
Out of three people, two were un-rateable, one got a normal score, and he himself didn't even qualify to be looked at. Was this pistol really worthy of being in Herta's Curio collection?
With that question temporarily unanswered and Dan Heng and March 7th still unconscious, Caelus walked back to Sampo, baseball bat in hand.
"Do you have an antidote for your knockout smoke?"
Sampo put on an obsequious smile and shook his head like a pellet drum.
"Big bro, this smoke is my lifeline! It's specifically for dealing with people chasing me. How could I possibly prepare an antidote for my pursuers? Wouldn't that be like delivering myself to their doorstep?"
Caelus listened and found that it made a certain amount of sense.
He still whacked Sampo on the head with the baseball bat.
Wincing and clutching the new, third lump on his head, Sampo retreated into his boat, not daring to make another peep.
Caelus put the bat away and sat down by the campfire.
---o---
He had no idea when Dan Heng and March 7th would wake up, and he couldn't go anywhere until they did.
Mining was out of the question. Leaving this house would mean throwing two defenseless people to the blizzard and a Masked Fool.
But just sitting around idly was too boring. He had to find something to do.
Caelus took a stone axe from his backpack, squatted down, and swung it at the wooden plank beneath his feet.
The plank shattered, revealing the frozen ground below. He dug a little further, pried out a block of dirt, and placed it on the ground beside him.
When he was breaking blocks back on the Herta Space Station, the proficiency for his Auxiliary MOD had increased, but he'd never stopped to think about one thing.
What were the exact conditions for gaining proficiency?
Did he have to break specific types of blocks? Or did it count for anything that the Minecraft system recognized as a block?
Caelus reached out and tapped the block of dirt. It crumbled at his touch.
[Auxiliary MOD Proficiency +1]
Caelus stared at the notification that popped up in the corner of his vision, the corners of his mouth unable to stay down.
So that was it. The proficiency check wasn't based on the type of block, but the concept of a block. As long as it was something recognized as a block, it would all contribute to proficiency!
This opened up a lot of possibilities.
In Minecraft, things like snow, grass, and leaves were all 'blocks' that broke in a single touch.
And how much snow was there on the ice-covered Jarilo-VI?
Caelus felt the grin on his face was about to split his cheeks, but he forced the thought down.
It would be better to wait for March 7th and Dan Heng to wake up before grinding proficiency outside.
However, not going out didn't mean he couldn't grind.
He glanced at the dirt block in his hand, placed it back in its original spot, and then shattered it with a few more taps.
[Auxiliary MOD Proficiency +1]
Place again, break again.
[Auxiliary MOD Proficiency +1, +1, +1...]
Caelus found his rhythm, his movements becoming faster and faster. Place, break, place, break… He squatted by the campfire alone, repeating the same set of motions, the frequency so high it looked like he was kneading dough.
Sampo, sitting in his boat, watched with his jaw agape as Caelus repeatedly slapped a mud pie on the ground, smashed it, then put another one down to smash again.
He opened his mouth, but swallowed the words that came to his lips.
Has this guy gone crazy? Playing with mud in the middle of a blizzard?
Forget it. I won't ask. The answer would probably be beyond my comprehension anyway.
The campfire crackled. Outside, the howl of the blizzard was muffled by the wooden walls into a low, dull roar. Caelus squatted on the floor, slapping mud pies one after another. Sampo huddled in his boat, warming himself by the fire. Dan Heng lay quietly, while March 7th had rolled herself into a blanket burrito, with only a tuft of pink hair sticking out from the top.
He didn't know how much time had passed, but a sound came from March 7th's blanket burrito.
A pink head emerged from the roll of blankets. March 7th squinted, a drowsy confusion still on her face, her hair sticking up in every direction.
She turned her head and saw Caelus.
He was squatting less than two meters away from her, endlessly placing a block of dirt, smashing it, and then placing it again…
March 7th stared at this scene for a full ten seconds.
She pulled the blanket up to her chin, blinked twice, and her lips moved.
"Are we still asleep?"
---o---
Author's P.S.: A reader pointed out an issue with the description of the Path of [Finality]. My apologies, my writing and understanding were a bit off. My original intention was to have Herta hypothesize the general concepts of various Paths, but I wrote it poorly. Sorry about that, I have already revised the previous content. Thank you to that reader for pointing it out!