Chapter 138: Talk in Sky
———Karra———
<1: 34 pm>
“It’s certainly impressive, and I love the free food.” Qyunda said. “...How wealthy is the person running the school anyway? Even if parts of this ship use magic to run. Just all the materials needed to construct it probably took multiple millions, right? It has a bunch of fancy compartments.”
“I mean. If we go off old tropes of immortal or long-living people. Probably hundreds of years of accumulated wealth?” Jennla said. That probably makes sense. Though that just makes me wonder how they have been hiding that they lived that long. We still don’t really know who is the actual owner of this place.
It’s not like official documents will help. Those are probably the first thing they obfuscate. I think if there was any obvious discrepancy we probably would’ve had more ideas on… a lot more things, probably.
“Kind of a boring answer. No… I don’t know, uncovering secret treasures? Blackmailing the government?” Qyunda replied, not really satisfied with the mundane solution.
“Those kinds of people are probably the ones with secret treasures in the first place.” Malk pointed out.
“And where do you suppose they even get the treasures? It had to come from somewhere.” Qyunda replied. Are they about to get into a fight? This isn’t the best place for them to waste energy.
“They could’ve dug up some rare ores or other valuable natural resources for all I know. At that point you could say that nature itself started the trend.” Yeah. I think they might be arguing for a while. I think I’ll leave them alone and go talk to someone else.
I wonder if Wiina is finished with that… debacle of hers. She said it shouldn’t take that long and it’s not as if she doesn’t have one of her body right here to keep track of us.
Kinda ballsy that the duplicate she sent off takes only a small portion of her strength even though it really should be the other way around.
As for this trip… I can’t imagine a lot happening? It’s just one class in the ship this time around, but from how I understand it there are multiple ships for multiple classes. Since it is a lawless zone, it’s not really a place where we can all just split and walk around by ourselves. Each of our class is assigned with a guide, and this time around, it’s…
“Seems like those two are going at it.” Rico remarked as she walked over, noticing the commotion I am no longer focusing on. She held a pizza in her hand and watched the two argue while slowly eating it.
“Pfff! Ahahaha!” Meanwhile Kenni is looking at her phone and is laughing her ass off.
“Rare for you to laugh that loudly.” Gregori chimed in, clearly a bit annoyed at how loud she was being. “The hell are you watching?”
“Oh! Nothing important. Apparently something happened around the White House. It’s a funny read.” Oh. So Wiiina is already done with that. It hasn’t even been that long since she started. Barely an hour.
“What the heck are…” Gregori is understandably quite confused at what Kenni is trying to imply, so he whipped out his phone and checked the news himself.
His reaction says a lot despite staying silent. Visibly confused and unsure of what took place. I haven’t actually checked it myself, so let’s see it as well.
…Whoa. That’s a lot more excessive than I thought. Did she… kill someone? There is a lot of talk about the place being all destroyed and stuff. At least it doesn’t look like there’s any confirmed casualty? But people were definitely injured and a lot of equipment and other government assets were destroyed.
I think this is probably the most amount of damage and commotion she has caused since that fight with her just above the cruise ship.
I gotta ask her about the details later. It looks like a lot of people who were summoned there are now stuck in the area with no one to really take them back home. Some must’ve traveled since yesterday or maybe midnight, if the report of nearly a hundred adventurers being summoned there is to be believed, and I do trust her estimates.
So the building, which was large and overall non-descript, seems to be the meeting place, or rather, was. Looks like it was razed to the ground, almost like it has been glassed.
‘It was said that a blinding white light engulfed a large portion of the area around it, which caused a lot of disturbance to anyone living many miles out from the remote building.’ So it looks like she did something at the end to call more attention to the place. Bright light would certainly do that.
“Who in the world? Can’t possibly be one of those warlords, not enough gore to go around…” Gregori muttered as he seemed to be theorizing.
“Heh. Warlords? Those tryhards? I don’t think those guys would be able to stop themselves from yapping to save their own life!” Kenni said, mocking those guys. She sure isn’t taking them seriously, despite the kill count.
“...Fair enough. They aren’t known for being discreet.” He said, calming down a bit. “Still. This isn’t something that happened unprovoked… Was there something I missed?”
“Who knows? I sure don’t know.” Kenni said with the least subtle smile, making him all the more suspicious and confused.
“Indeed, who knows?” Rico mumbled, returning with a full pie this time and seeing that the couple was already done arguing, so she is now focusing on us.
“...Do you know about the meeting?” I asked her just outside of their earshots.
“Yeah? It’s not like that’s hard to uncover. I got a pretty large group chat and some of them already mentioned it.” She casually stated. What kind of group chat is she even talking about?
“...You sure have a lot of connections.” I pointed out. “For a kid of the owners of a philly cheesesteak shop, you sure have a lot of baggage.”
“What in the world does that mean?” She said with a bemused smile.
With Rico, it’s basically impossible to come to any other conclusion other than her actually being someone who was just… born strong in this era before the Eclipse even happened. Yet she seems very well-acquainted with others who are of more dubious origins.
Miss Wana and Mana don’t really have birth parents as far as we can search, and the others are from far away so trying to find information on them is a lot tougher. With Rico, her story is completely solid. Her parents are still up and around, for one.
Meanwhile with Jennla who sat down not too far from the two of us look rather uncomfortable. She isn’t in the middle of those two arguing anymore, so what else does she have to worry about?
“Hm? Got a real negative vibe from you, what’s up?” Rico called out to her, having the same impression as I do.
“I-It’s nothing.” She said, very unconvincingly.
“Just say what’s on your mind. No one here is gonna judge. In fact, they’re out doing their own thing in different parts of this place. We have plenty of time to talk until we reach the designated Fantarban Realm.” Rico said to make her lighten up a little.
“Y-You won’t get mad?” Why is that her main concern? Does she have rude thoughts about Rico or something? Even if that’s the case I doubt it’d be anything severe. Hell, earlier I just called her someone who on paper should’ve been a footnote in a story at best.
“Just say it, girlie. We don’t have all day.” Rico said, most likely more frustrated by her reluctance than whatever she was planning on saying.
“Got demon vibes from you.” She finally said it. That’s it? Of all the things she was afraid of saying? Even I could say that. She uses a bunch of dark magic and all, so that ought to be brought up at some point.
“Heh. What a funny thing to say. Is that seriously everything?” Rico said, clearly mocking her attitude. She had been more skittish since she came back. I guess the experience of whatever she did on that side still haunts her. “Relax, there won’t be any other demons laying their fingers on you or your friend.”
She doesn’t look like she’s going to bother elaborating as she keeps eating the pizza and then slowly walks away. I don’t think I’ve ever questioned how much food she can stomach.
“You really ought to go play games and read stuff like you used to do.” I said to Jennla, seeing her regaining her composure.
“Sorry. It’s just that… I guess I just need more time.” She said while looking away. It hadn’t even been a week yet. Of course she isn’t fully recovered.
Thankfully she wasn't a complete wreck by the time she came back. Things look to be completely fine otherwise.
Okay, I think I should go get more food. I haven’t been snacking on much so far.
Let’s see here… Hotdogs, pizzas, fried rice… Carrot cake? I guess I’ll take some fried rice and carrot cake. Where is Wiina sitting right now?
There she is. Just twiddling her thumbs on the phone. Still in the Jass disguise, but she had been making subtle changes to the disguise lately. Making it look less plain.
I didn't really say anything as I sat down at the same table. There’s no need for us to talk right now. It might’ve blown our cover if I say too much.
Let’s just eat and wait while she is scrolling, probably looking at the reaction people have to her actions.
———Kenni———
<1: 46 pm>
“As alarming as this attack is, the fact that there are no reported casualties probably means the attack itself is closer to a warning than anything actually damaging.” Orrel surmised. A building is still destroyed, as well as a part of the White House. I don’t think that’s ‘nothing’ in the grand scheme of things.
“The better question is why hadn’t there been any report of who attacked the place? Was it a remote attack?” Useph asked. I mean this one is pretty easy to answer.
“No way. A remote attack using bombs and such would’ve had way less control. It’d be impossible to not accidentally kill someone. Whoever the perpetrator was, it’s clearly done right at the scene of the crime.” Gregori chimed in. “The actual better question to ask is why hadn’t there been anyone asking for an interview with the victims, since they’re still alive.”
“Oh come on now. It just happened, right? All we really got is knowing no one died and the fight happened and ended quickly.” I pointed out. It was said in the report that it happened only a few minutes ago. It’s impressive they even got some sort of report out so quickly.
I already know who did it, but there’s no need for me to reveal it. It’s more fun to see them keep yapping.
“That doesn’t actually give us much to work with, no does it?” Orrel said, looking a bit lost.
“Maybe, but that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?” I said before walking away to grab a drink. Looks like they might keep talking for a while longer. I want to see what sort of wild things they’re gonna say. Alright, got me a tall glass of cola.
*Ding*
“<Alright, ladies, gentlemen, and all other stuff. We’re roughly twenty minutes away from the designated Fartarban Realm. Make sure to be ready!>” Edea’s voice rang out through the ship.
Well that’s something. Still a lot of time for people to keep yapping. Also it’s not as if we get to do that much in a place like this anyway. Unlike the dungeons this is a way less controlled environment.
“Hopefully it’s not a sign of things getting worse, at least.” Orrel said, hopefully about the incident and not the earlier announcement.