Chapter 139 - The Unwanted, and the unwanted.
When everything was cleared up, Shara and Sideark went ahead to the forward group. Ryan and Zedart stood together in the tunnels, a corpse in between them. Zedart was staring intensely at Ryan and it was getting a little uncomfortable.
“What? You looking for a fight?”
The [Swordsman] shook his head. “No. It just feels like every time I make progress you seem further ahead.”
“Are you jealous of me?” For some reason, Zedart being jealous of him felt wrong. Though it was fair. “I guess with the apex title it’s not even close anymore.”
Zedart shook his head, “I wasn’t talking about that.” Then he looked behind him, towards where Sideark had gone. “I was talking about that.”
“What? Tricking Sideark?” Ryan waved it off, “That’s just basic negotiating, rule one.”
Zedart frowned and tilted his head, a little confused by the words of Barry’s very basic wisdom.
Ryan elaborated. “Figure out what they want most of all. Honestly, figure out what they’re afraid of too. Then use it to get what you want.”
“What about the rest of your plan with the Unwanted?”
“It’s the same thing. People want to feel good about themselves. There’ll still be idiots that don’t like them because of how they look, but you just need a good first image and most people will be on board. For the smart ones you just need to remind them about history and they’ll jump on board to be on the right side of it. After all, everyone wants to sound smart and right.”
Ryan paused, thinking a little.
“Probably only works because it’s peaceful though. I don’t know how I’d have done it if there was a war going on. It probably needed to happen before the next Realm expansion though.”
Zedart just shook his head in exasperation but didn’t comment further.
Ryan was still in his head thinking about the what-ifs of it all.
In a couple days the Tyrants would be challenging the highest Trial. When they completed it, a realm expansion would happen, and along with it there would be chaos and strife. If everyone was busy trying to solve that mess then the Unwanted might have had to wait for another couple of years.
If they had been causing chaos in the middle of a realm expansion?
Ryan kicked another rock at Rax’s corpse. He didn’t want to think about the what-ifs anymore.
“I’m surprised this bastard didn’t qualify for a system exchange. Don’t most portal enhanced monsters always come with an exchange?”
Zedart raised his eyebrow. “I do have the screen up. I just wasn’t sure if exchanging it was the right thing to do in front of Shara.”
Ryan scoffed. “I do most of the work and you get the kill credit? Stupid broken Trial System.”
“I do believe it’s because you didn’t actually do any damage to him.”
The body disappeared a moment later, and left behind on the ground was a white glove. Ryan snatched it first.
| Glove of Kraxxsken (R7, Epic): Enchantments: [Move Earth], [Stabilize Earth], [Activate Enchantment] Contains partial powers of Kraxxsken, the leader of the Unwanted. Only works with the hand that is using it. [Activate Enchantment] works best on Rax’s personal enchantments.
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