Insomniac Player

Jeremy returned in three hours and forty-one minutes.

He looked less polished than before. His sleeves were rolled higher, three strands of hair had escaped their careful arrangement, and at least twenty windows floated behind him.

"I have a plan," he said without greeting them.

John checked the meeting timer. "You saved nineteen minutes."

"We will spend them."

The world map appeared again.

This time, sixty-four storage sites flashed across twenty-one regions. Some were grain silos beside farming towns. Others were sealed warehouses connected to aerial freight stations. Seven belonged to bankrupt merchant groups. Nine were available only through long leases. The rest could be purchased if the current owners accepted within twelve hours.

"We do not buy all sixty-four," Jeremy said. "We submit controlled offers to fifty-two and expect twenty-five to thirty-five acceptances. If more accept, we prioritize by preservation quality, transport access, and distance from projected swarm routes."

"Projected routes?" Damien asked.

"Ordinary locust behavior adjusted for system-scale spawning points. It is an assumption, not prophecy."

"Good."

Jeremy highlighted hundreds of small commodity lots.

"Existing dry corn is available through exchanges, farms, feed companies, and regional reserve auctions. We divide purchases among eleven certified local buyers. No buyer receives more than five million gold. Orders begin small and increase only after storage contracts lock."

John examined the allocation. "You reserved twelve million."

"Transport, inspections, preservation services, failed contracts, and unexpected costs."

"Twelve million for unexpected costs is a large expectation."

"We are attempting a hundred-million-gold operation before a secret apocalypse."

"Locust event," Damien corrected.

"If you lose a hundred million, the vocabulary will feel apocalyptic."

Jeremy opened the final agreement. Every condition from their conversation appeared within it: confidentiality, distributed purchasing, verified physical stock, emergency priority, restrictions on the deliberate creation of scarcity, and authority to reject criminal sellers.

The system displayed the risk in red.

➤[Warning: High-value commercial contract.]

➤[Maximum authorized capital: 100,000,000 Gold Coins.]

➤[Returns are not guaranteed.]

➤[System certification verifies contract enforcement, not commercial success.]

➤[Accept / Decline]

Damien read every clause.

John read them more slowly. Jeremy waited without pressuring either of them.

"If the patch is harmless," John said, "how much do we lose?"

"Best case, eight to twelve million after reselling property and corn. Worst reasonable case: thirty million if prices fall and purchases must be unwound quickly."

"Worst unreasonable case?"

"The System turns corn into hostile monsters, and our warehouses attempt to kill us."

John looked at Damien. "He has learned humor."

"It may be a warning."

They accepted.

➤[Commercial Management Contract registered.]

➤[Stock agent assigned: Jeremy Choo.]

➤[Capital access authorized.]

Jeremy’s expression changed the moment the contract became active. His hesitation vanished. Windows opened around him faster than Damien could follow.

"Phase One begins now."

Offers left the joint vault.

The first warehouse was accepted within forty seconds.

➤[Property acquired: West Hallow Grain Storage 4.]

➤[Inspection Grade: A-.]

➤[Capacity: 82,000 tonnes.]

➤[Preservation Array: Active.]

John watched the balance drop.

"I have killed monsters more comfortably than this."

A second property was accepted. Then a lease. Then three sellers rejected their offers and demanded higher prices.

Jeremy withdrew from all three.

"Why?" Damien asked.

"They increased within seconds. Either another buyer was competing, or they sensed urgency. Paying teaches them the urgency is real."

He redirected the capital elsewhere.

For the next six hours, the lounge became an unofficial trading center. Property inspectors sent reports. Appraisers confirmed grain quality. Transport planners reserved aerial cargo capacity for ordinary commercial reasons. Jeremy rejected two warehouses with damaged preservation arrays and one silo whose listed corn existed only as a forged inventory record.

Damien watched the stock agent work.

Jeremy did not predict the market through magic. His class sharpened his comparison skills, highlighted irregular terms, and allowed him to coordinate more information than an ordinary person could process. The decisions still required intelligence.

It reminded Damien of the Broken Road investigators.

The system gave people tools. It did not replace the mind holding them.

By midnight, seventeen storage contracts had been secured, and the first corn shipments were moving.

➤[Verified corn acquired: 1,840,000 tonnes.]

➤[Capital remaining: 71.3%.]

The number was vast and still far short of what an entire world would need.

"We cannot save everyone with this," Damien said.

Jeremy did not look away from the windows. "No private purchase can. The purpose is to create one protected supply network, not replace global agriculture."

John brought coffee for himself and Jeremy’s projection out of habit. He stared at the untouched cup, realized the problem, and drank both.

Messages arrived from the others.

Imran confirmed military reserves were being distributed. Martin reported that the government had secured seed vaults and prepared area-effect extermination teams. Daria’s family network located additional feed stores. Doctor Smoke had filled hospital inventories. Hamari sent a photograph of herself wearing the cursed helmet beside several bags of rice.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

DeluluGirl_404: Prepared for famine and fashion criticism.

Madam Marvel: Only one of those threats is real.

Naked Nun: Flamethrowers approved.

Doctor Smoke: They were not.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

At three in the morning, Jeremy froze one transaction.

"Problem," he said.

A warehouse chain owned six high-quality sites near major freight lines. Its official owner was a small logistics company created eight months earlier. The company’s directors had no commercial history. Its purchase funds had passed through four shell guilds.

One of those guilds appeared on the Neva Order briefing map.

Damien contacted Martin through the secure channel.

The Field Marshal answered immediately.

"Do not purchase those warehouses," he said after receiving the records. "Send the complete ownership trail. Intelligence will handle it."

Jeremy removed the sites from his plan.

"Coincidence?" John asked.

"Possibly," Martin said. "The Order owns legitimate logistics assets. It does not prove they know about the patch."

"But if they begin acquiring grain?" Damien asked.

"Then the Nova Corps may receive its first target sooner than expected."

The call ended.

Jeremy resumed buying.

Morning arrived. Corn prices had risen by two percent: noticeable, but not enough to cause panic. News commentators blamed seasonal manufacturing demand. Other stock agents began placing larger orders, though none appeared to understand the entire pattern.

The countdown continued.

➤[Patch Deployment: 28:00:00]

More warehouses accepted.

More corn moved beneath system seals.

Damien used Shadow Imitation once during the afternoon and Shadow Dash once after sunset, unwilling to abandon training completely. John accused him of treating a financial crisis as insufficient danger.

At ten hours remaining, Jeremy had deployed eighty-seven million gold coins. Thirty-one storage sites were under their control. Existing dry corn filled some; shipments approached others.

With one hour remaining, the government issued a calm, worldwide advisory recommending that households maintain a 7-day supply of food and remain indoors during deployment.

Markets exploded.

Corn offers vanished. Wheat prices jumped. Long lines formed outside stores across Viremont. The warning had come late enough to limit prolonged panic and early enough to move civilians away from open fields.

Jeremy stopped buying.

"Anything now would be price chasing," he said. "Our work is finished."

The joint vault held slightly more than nine million gold coins for operations. Everything else had become buildings, contracts, transport, and mountains of yellow grain.

John stared at the figures.

"I feel poor."

"You own thirty-one warehouses," Damien said.

"I cannot wear a white shirt."

"Rahul would try."

They moved to the balcony as the final minute began.

Viremont had become unnaturally quiet. Aerial trains rested inside stations. Roads emptied. Protective barriers shimmered over government buildings and hospitals. Far below, the last civilians hurried through closing doors.

Damien held the parchment.

The sky shall learn hunger.

The countdown entered its final ten seconds.

➤[00:00:10]

John stood beside him with his mace resting over one shoulder.

➤[00:00:05]

Jeremy remained connected through the lounge projection. Martin’s emergency channel waited at the edge of Damien’s vision. The four members of the Nova Corps showed up online.

➤[00:00:01]

The world turned blue.

➤[Patch deployment initiated.]

➤[Version 1.3.10 installed.]

➤[New global event detected.]

➤[Event Name: The Devouring Summer.]

➤[Survival Condition: Preserve 30% of Earth-69’s active agricultural production.]

➤[Failure Penalty: Global food production reduced for one year.]

➤[Event begins now.]

For one breath, nothing happened.

Then the western horizon moved.

A black band rose beyond the towers, too wide to be cloud and too dense to be smoke. It climbed across the evening sun, spreading upward in countless flickering pieces.

The light over Viremont dimmed.

Something struck the balcony glass.

A locust the size of Damien’s hand clung to the surface. Its wings were veined with gold, its jaws opened sideways, and a red System marker glowed above its head.

Another struck beside it.

Then ten.

Then hundreds.

John slowly lifted his mace.

Inside the lounge, Jeremy Choo stared at the darkening world and whispered, "You were right."

Damien watched the sky become hungry.

"That remains to be seen," he said.

The first swarm reached the city.

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