Rael descended into the streets of Celestara and glanced around, finding that there were many more people than usual. Among those people were some Rael recognized from before.

It wasn’t that he had met them personally, but since Korea had its time frozen for quite some time, and the avatars of most of these people remained the same even 20 years later, Rael felt a bit happy to see this many familiar faces.

Too bad his usual gang wasn’t here. He remembered there were two idiots who thought he was some overpowered NPC and begged him to give them chores. He did, obviously. During his journey to the Depths, he had given them plenty of cleaning around the shop.

Speaking of the shop, Rael was surprised that his Platinum Boutique had a queue despite it not being... Oh? It was open.

Upon closer inspection, Rael realized that Dust Trooper and Dirt Vader were sweeping the floor along the entrance, Xavier sat at the reception, and Bob, one of the builders he had created, was fixing all the cracks in the floor. Evidently, he had the most chores, since despite going through a complete renewal of the store, Rael didn’t change the flooring.

Oh, but there was also one more being that seemingly ran everything. It was Sweepus Prime. It had been so long since Rael had seen him or any of the others. Even the original Chop-E and the new Chop-E... There were so many constructs, so, so many.

Right, I did have some constructs build me a city back in the Depths too while I was gone. I didn’t check up on them when I went to help out Seryn and Aria. Maybe I should’ve? Speaking of... I wonder how Seryn is doing?

He had always talked about his wife so lively that Rael was honestly impressed by his devotion. Even more so, by the fact that the two of them had been in a long-distance relationship for over 20 years. He admired it, he really did.

So when he was more free, Rael decided that he would pay him a visit. Until then, though, Rael glanced over at the mess in front of him. Gaia was good at these types of encounters, since she was used to dealing with children.

And since she wasn’t human, she considered most of these people children. Even those who had beards and were walking with canes. She was a bit silly in that regard, but Rael respected it.

Seeing Rael approach, Gaia tilted her head slightly. He had told everyone that he’d message in the group chat when he was back, but for him to arrive so soon... Did everything go well?

She wanted nothing more than to go into his mind and find out everything, but there was also one more problem...

"You’re slacking again," Evelyn said, her brows furrowing. "If you don’t want to be serious and make some money, then I’m perfectly happy to go back to my shop and leave you hanging."

That’s right. Gaia wanted to do something nice for the people, but Evelyn wanted money. In the end, they decided to sell some fruits and vegetables for cheap. She didn’t hate it by any means, but she’d much rather give everything away for free.

To be fair, she already was, in a way. She had been giving free food to the children while Evelyn wasn’t looking. It was a nice gesture, and most of the people who saw it, especially the players, went ahead and recorded it, giving Gaia more and more publicity.

In a way, that was why there were so many people now. After all, there was one very interesting detail in Sketa Online. Whenever someone ate food in Sketa Online, they felt partially full in the real world too. The scientists tried their best to debunk this in the past, but they weren’t able to.

How could they? Someone ate food in the virtual world, and while that food wasn’t in their stomach or digestive system, they had received the necessary proteins and everything else they needed. It was magic at the time.

Nowadays, people had much more creativity, so they likely figured out that this was just another world by now. If not, they were stupid.

Rael watched for a bit from the side, then approached them. Evelyn, who saw him, immediately narrowed her eyes. It wasn’t that she was pissed, but she knew that with such a cheapskate as Rael in town, he would directly tax them.

In simpler terms, that meant less money.

"Rael, it’s nice to see you again after so long," Evelyn said with a wide and warm smile.

Seeing through her, Rael replied,

"No need to blow smoke up my ass. Just dealt with a stalker, so I’m feeling generous. Ah, on that note, you should probably learn to evade taxes, since I’m planning to reduce taxes for the poor and tax the rich a little more."

Hearing that, Evelyn felt her heart drop. She already knew how to evade taxes. She had been doing it ever since she started working... But this? This was bad. If he found out how much money she had hidden from him, she’d be gutted and stripped of everything she was worth.

Gulping anxiously, Evelyn proceeded to continue her work, not knowing that Rael was reading her surface thoughts this entire time. Not to mention, he was also teasing her. Remaking the tax system would be a pain in the ass and barely needed, since he already had enough money to turn Celestara into the most solid super city in all realities.

But there was one thing that he wasn’t quite happy about. It was the fact that despite being nearly 5 or 6 months pregnant, Zafira was still moving around so much. Didn’t she want to rest even a little?

He knew that Gaia would just tell him she wasn’t human anymore, but still... It was a bit hard to accept, if he was being honest.