Chapter 143: Catching Ride
———Lerim———
<3: 41 pm>
“Never said I never did anything for you, got that?” I said while he is still slumped down, looking dejected and tired. Must’ve seen some real messed up stuff… Well, he definitely did. Those articles popped up at breakneck speed, it’d be hard to not see them. He was just there to witness it.
“Yeah, as if I would ever say that.” He said while still sounding defeated. He really should’ve called in sick or something instead of actually going, heck, he used that for the person who should’ve filled in my shoes, but it’s not like I actually know how much things would escalate. With hindsight it’s pretty obvious that he should never go there even if he was ordered to. “Sorry, for almost bringing you into this mess.”
“Well, at least you didn’t actually drag anyone else along. Could’ve used the sick excuse with yourself as well.” I pointed out. Better than what other guild leaders had been doing from the looks of it.
“I can’t really do that without sounding like I’m dodging responsibilities. You should’ve seen the atmosphere of the meeting room before it all went to hell, it’s tense and uneasy. I don’t want to know what would happen if everything went smoothly and they start dishing out threats.” He said, still with a depressed tone. Come on now, he at least does the smart thing in not engaging and scurry his way out of there. There might’ve not been any reports of people dying, but I doubt that they are all perfectly fine, many will be hospitalized and some might even end up paralysed. If anything he should be glad to really stick to his guns for once and not try to be helpful even in such a pointless situation.
“Just be glad everything went south and they probably need to allocate their resources to fixing things up. No one might’ve died, but a lot of things that were important were probably destroyed in the attack.” I pointed out. I mean, I don’t really know what his home life is like, but there shouldn’t be any of those jackass agents trying to mess with him or anyone else for a while. “How did she even get inside the building and into the room undetected anyway? You guys can detect energy, right?” I said just to keep the conversation going. This platform doesn’t have music you can play anyhow… That’s what people do when riding a car, right?
“I don’t really know. She suddenly appeared behind the one organizing this meeting and everything quickly went to hell. I don’t really know how she got in, and I doubt she would ever tell us the real answer.” Yeah, she always maintained a rather stoic and rather mysterious person. Obviously I have a way of getting in contact with her through Karra, but I’d rather not push my luck for such a trivial question in the grand scheme of things. There are better things for me to contact her for.
“I see… Well I guess we can’t all really predict when or where someone so powerful could just pop up at any moment.” No one really knows the full scope of power that woman has, but if she had anything to do with the sudden rebuilding of the local school into multiple giant skyscrapers, then it’s obvious that she can do a lot. “Honestly, I can’t imagine that she is the only one with that type of power, it’s good that it was someone who doesn’t kill indiscriminately."
“Yeah. I guess I can at least take solace in that.” He replied.
“...By the way. I know you didn’t fight her, but I’m sure you at least witnessed the battle from afar. Tell me, what does the fight look like to you?” Whenever I saw her in action, it was more of a brief snippet. She barely had to exert herself in any of the fights. From what he is alluding to, this is a much bigger fight than any that she had partake in.
“One-sided to the extreme. Not once had anyone got a clean hit on her. Barrages of magic and explosives don't even so much as give her a small bruise. Anyone trying to get up close and attack were swatted and thrown away like mere toys. It’s like they are trying to fight something that has no limit, if that makes sense.” He explained in detail. “I don’t really know how much stronger she is compared to them, but I can’t imagine it being less than hundreds, if not thousands of times stronger.”
…Honestly, it might be even more than that. I just get this feeling that we are so far above the scope of what she is working with that it stopped being funny.
“Well, what else can we really expect? It’s foolish to come up with a plan to apprehend her in the first place, without a solid idea of her powers and all other possible leverages they can muster.” I guess there is Karra. I don’t really know the full extent of their relationship, but they must be close friends at least for the message to be conveyed so quickly. Then again if the online harasser who tried to threaten her for information on Wiina is anything to go by, she might legitimately go for the kill if that ever came up. That guy got off easy with all his belongings completely trashed, including all his accounts and official documents being erased entirely, and that’s not even mentioning being sent to a different state hanging on a pole. “...Then again, trying to exploit those and she might actually start killing people for real.”
“...I hope it never comes to that.” He said, sounding a bit spooked out.
“Yeah. I mean I wouldn’t really mind these people being forced out of their position one way or another, but the potential collateral damage would be massive.” In fact, if it weren’t for the truce between all countries that are in conflict, that kind of attack would’ve led to the US being pinched by every other nearby country and maybe even collapsing. Kind of a disturbing thought, so let’s leave it at that. “Also, how would everyone else even get back to their states in the current condition? I don’t think those in power are all too happy about what happened. You got me to ferry you back home, but what about the rest?”
“I don’t really know about that myself. They probably planned on some kind of lodging as this is meant to take place over multiple days, then someone to ride them back. But as it is right now, that is all in the garbage. They might need to find a nearby hotel to settle in if those guys can’t come up with anything to compensate.” So he doesn’t know either. Guess they will be stuck there for who knows how long. I sure as hell am not going to provide everyone with a free ride. I’m only giving this guy a ride because he’s someone I know, and I could squeeze favors out of him later. Of course I’m not going to demand anything out of him now, I might be frugal and seeking all sorts of ways to get more money, but as it is he can have his grace period.
The cold winds brushed against us during the trip, and it hadn’t died down. Hopefully neither of us catch a cold here. I think I’ll be fine, I’m wearing thicker clothes today, but his is rather thin.
“...Are you fine with doing this the whole way?” He suddenly asked.
“Come on now, do you think you could manage any better? Or even at all? Let’s be honest with ourselves here.” I replied, mocking his attempt to help. This isn’t a spell anyone could just try to maintain even if it had already been casted.
This is a rather delicate spell that needs a lot of mana and concentration to maintain. We are both too far apart in terms of power and skill for one to swap in for the other.
“Have you made anything float like this before?” I asked as he remained silent. Try levitating a small pebble before creating a carpet of light that can fly. He is the deadweight here since I have to carry him back as well, not just myself. “No? That’s what I thought.”
“...Is this for all the time you’ve been called a musclehead?” He suddenly spoke up with way more sass than I would’ve liked.
“...Say something like that one more time, and you walk the rest of the way back. Are we clear?” I don’t need this guy trying to rile me up while I’m doing him a favor.
He silently nodded in response. Good, that’s what I thought. He better keep that mouth shut from now on.
———Jeff———
<4: 39 pm>
“So it seems that there were a total of four Titayant killed in the two hours period. That’s quite a number.” Edea remarked as we all sat down and the statistics were being shown off. They were seriously recording all of this? When? “There’s no actual rewards for any of this by the way. Like we said at the start, this is all for fun, same with the stats… We’ll publish this on a site you can watch later though.”
Heh. I bet we did a hell of a lot more than the other classes, not that it’s that impressive at this point. More boring than anything. They ought to step it up.
“One warlord? The heck?” Gregori muttered, looking weirdly alarmed at the stat at the bottom, seemingly separate from the others.
“Oh! Right! We have to really talk about this one, don’t we?” Edea said while sounding slightly mischievous. “Rico, you tell them. I’m just an observer.”
“Sure. Just make sure to accompany my explanations with that giant screen of yours.” Rico said before moving forward. Everyone else is paying attention but many are also enjoying themselves with the food and drinks. “While most of you have been going out there moving about, hunting monsters and even larger monsters. Some of you guys were hanging around close to the ship. Not slacking off or anything, just conversing and hunting some monsters… And then suddenly.”
The screen then showed a giant wolf man with a really intense glare.
“This jackass showed up and tried to steal the ship, so Karra, Malk, Qyunda, and Seni all fought him and tried to stop him from doing so. It’s an even match, but since they don’t feel like putting their all in, I had to step in and actually kill the guy. You know, cutting him in half and all that.” She said while a morbid photo of her making a thumbs up with a bloodied hand is shown with what seems to be the corpse of that guy blurred out in the background. Is showing this kinda stuff even allowed? “...Actually since I got the final blow it shouldn’t count. Edea, erase that statistic from the board.”
“...What’s a warlord again?” I asked Gregori, seeing as he is one of the smart ones.
“Basically crazy strong psychopaths trying to conquer the world. There ain’t any that are even in the neighboring states, so no wonder you’ve never heard of those.” He explained. Well if that’s the case then there’s no need to worry about our teacher killing the guy. “I heard that they are only called that if they are roughly 500 men in strength at least.”
Wow. That many? Then how much are we worth in men anyway? Probably a really weird question to ask, but I’m a bit curious.
“It’s kind of a shame. Just Karra alone would’ve been enough if she had been a bit more ruthless… Unfortunately the school’s terms mean that I’m not allowed to egg people into killing. Not really allowed to do that unless I want to get fired.” Rico said with a shrug. I mean can you really blame her? That is a really big line for a lot of people.
“Stop it with that devil’s tongue of yours. Get outta here.” Edea playfully remarked and Rico silently walked away. “Alright you guys and girls and that one, enjoy the rest of your day on the Starai Cruiser. Enjoy the sights and the food. We got plenty.”
And then they walked off with the screen sliding back up into the ceiling. How does that thing even work? It’s not like it’s a flat rollable surface for the projector.
“So that’s what it was all about…” Jennla muttered. Guess she got a feeling something was a bit off when those guys weren’t anywhere to be seen for a while. As for me…
“Alright! Let’s go to the game room!” I said before walking off first. We didn’t even get that many games in on the last game we played!