Chapter 164: Roof Under Snow
———Lynda———
<1: 55 pm>
“Weird how some conspiracies are going wild because of what she did yesterday.” I commented while staring at the articles. Aside from the whole monster outbreaks that we don’t have to worry about, for some reason the media seems to paint Wiina in a more sinister light than warranted. Was the government paying them or something? Surely there are better uses of your money, like actually repairing all the damages she or the others did. Didn’t that one news studio get completely wrecked by a random guy? It wasn’t that long ago.
“They never have anything better to do aside from just stirring stuff up as if the ones responsible aren’t obvious.” Glery said while laying down on the floor. I get that we got a fluffy carpet here, but I think that’s not very good for your neck and back. “They could just scream into the sky and it’d be more accurate than whatever they’re doing.”
“Speaking of the sky…” I said while looking out the window, it’s snowing. “Hope you don’t mind staying inside for too long. It’s snowing heavily out there.”
“I’ll be fine staying here for the entire day, even.” She said while trying to sound dismissive. Did something happen that I wasn’t aware of? I should ask her about it later…
“Right…” I said to express my skepticism. She could try to be a little bit more convincing, but let’s not tackle that subject right now. “So the school trip is coming up in two days… Should we slack off on killing or what?”
“I’m fine either way, though I’d rather be on the safer side.” She answered. After last time, it makes sense she is a bit paranoid even though no one really gets hurt in the long run.
“Fair enough. Guess we won’t fight any of those big monsters then.” I said while reminiscing on it. What even is the point of those things outside of being roadblocks anyway? “By the way, you’re gonna drink the hot chocolate?”
“I like it when it’s a bit less scalding hot.” She answered. And here I thought snakes would’ve liked hot drinks. Those things can eat, right? Their bodies had to lead somewhere in her body.
“Could’ve sworn I let it sit for a while before serving. Maybe I should go grab an ice cube.” I said semi-sarcastically. “...So have you been doing anything fun? I feel like nowadays there aren’t many updates on shows and movies, or even comics. Even stuff on Ourshow seems to slow down outside of garbage contents.”
“Not really. I haven’t been doing much of anything, just sleeping and reading news.” She answered. Well that’ll explain why she sounds so depressed sometimes. She is probably trying to be a bit more frugal since it’s not as if her parents are willing to leave the area with all the violence going around. They mostly worked out of town.
“I mean, if you aren’t gonna do much of anything, maybe a dungeon run or two would do you some good. I mean, you do get money from that, no idea why they want those materials…” Now that I think about it, even if the payment is usually quite small, it probably isn’t an insignificant amount of money spent just to acquire all of these monster parts. Should the government even be buying them up if they don’t even look like they could manage anything else competently?
“I’m tired of dragging those materials around.” She complained. Right, that is one big limitation with the whole hunting business. There’s only so much space in our bag to go around. At some point it just becomes way too cumbersome and we need to leave even if we have stamina and mana left in the tank.
“Yeah, that is quite a problem…” I muttered, showing her some sympathy. Both of us can go deep into the dungeon and get more rewards like weapons and potions that are more valuable overall, but even then those take up spaces and we have to worry about potion bottles breaking.
If only there was some sort of bag that’s bigger on the inside. I mean those simulator rooms and functions used in the school might be applicable, right? Creating more space out of nothing… Isn’t the dungeon itself also something like that? I’ve heard it somewhere before. Despite how deep it goes it never intersects with anything else.
She finally picked up and drank the hot chocolate, her snakes recoiled a bit while drinking. Was it still too hot? It had been sitting there for a while now.
“Those things are pretty emotive.” I commented. I don’t think I ever ask if they have their own autonomy at all or not. Extra limbs are one thing, but heads? “How do those work, exactly?”
“I don’t really know.” She dismissively said. I know those things aren’t vital to her health, at the very least. Some get cut off when we fight monsters, but they regenerate just fine and don't cause much blood loss.
…I don’t think there are books on her specific subspecies? I haven’t read up much on stuff in the school’s library, but I do know that there are some books on demi-humans.
“Well, no need to stress so much over that topic in particular.” I said before laying down on the sofa. Mom and dad are who-knows-where, so it’s just the two of us. Who cares about looking a bit soggy and shaggy today. “Man, I kinda miss planes, to be honest.”
“Is the airship not good enough?” Glery suddenly asked.
“Ah. I mean it’s a bit different. It’s also sorta what I expected those VIP seats to be like, and… Well, you don’t really get the stress of it being something organized by a school. You always expect an assignment from anything they do.” It’s very fancy and treats us very well during the trip, and it’s not like they really have us do anything specific once we land, but there’s always a nagging feeling that it’ll add up to something.
“You worried way too much about that.” She replied. She had been staring at her phone for a while now with her earphones plugged in, what is she listening to?
“Ignoring all that, got anything interesting to watch? What are you even watching right now?” I asked the girl hogging our house’s internet.
“Just an old stream of Karra’s. She hadn’t streamed in a while since she’s preparing for that collab stream of hers.” She answered casually. It had indeed been a while. I think she did post something about her collab partners being revealed soon?
“Yeah, that thing. I do wonder how well it’s gonna go. She’s like, the only one with good setups for streaming in dungeons, right?” I said since I had seen the others stream inside one and most of the time it’s a blurry mess. She accumulated a few advanced techs to… Wait, was it ever clarified where she even got those?
“I do believe there were a few people who did, actually.” She suddenly brings up quite a juicy detail. Really? How?
“Seriously?” I said, finding it a bit hard to believe even if realistically there should be someone else with something impressive. It’s not like the world only revolves around this small town. I just… never heard of any of this before now?
“Yeah. I think the most prolific one outside of Karra herself is someone with the tag TerriQM, who seems to be some sort of monster tamer.” A… what?
“Monster tamer? Is that even a real thing?” I thought monsters are fundamentally human’s natural predators? Why would taming one be even possible?
“I know it sounds weird, but it seems pretty legit. Kinda. No one actually sees the monsters being brought back with her out of the dungeon, she always ended the stream before leaving. No one ever saw her with the monsters out in the open. I think the common theory is that she just kills or releases them after the stream is over and done with.” I’m surprised taming is even an option. I know their behavior isn’t all that complicated, but they’re still very aggressive overall. You’re telling me now that I can actually maybe turn them against each other?
“Even that much seems like a lot already. How long have you known this for?” I asked, since I never heard anyone else talking about it.
“For a few months, she’s one of the few people who are successful with her dungeon run streams.” So this isn’t even a recent thing… “By the way, people who seem to be friends with Rico like Elrik and Able are also one of those people with good streaming setups.”
“...Wait what? How in the hell did I miss that?” Not knowing about someone who I never met is one thing, but two of the teachers? How the hell did I miss that?
“To be fair, those two never mentioned ever having streaming, like ever.” Yeah, of course they haven’t… I just never think about teachers streaming, like, ever. Maybe making some educational videos, but that’s about it.
“...Is there any correlation?” I asked, since she seems to be the expert on this topic.
“Not as far as I’m aware, unfortunately.” She replied, sounding rather out of it. Doesn’t look like she feels like talking. She had always needed a lot of sleep, staying past midnight yesterday wasn’t all too good for her. “There are probably a lot that we still don’t know about them, or anyone else. We’re very much in the dark.”
“Like we’re in the darkest pit of hell. Feels like there’s so much we’re missing out on.” I said while staring at the ceiling.
“It’s probably for the best, considering all the possible harm coming our way if we knew too much.” She said somewhat ominously.
“Yeah, no kidding. Like could you imagine someone like Wiina or…” I said before catching a glimpse of someone outside, playing in the snow, it looks like. “Sorry, gonna go check something, be back in a bit.”
I walked out of the house and looked at the person making a large pile of snow. It’s already snowing pretty heavily, what do you need all the snow for?
“How was it done again…” The guy muttered while focusing on the pile of snow in front of him.
“Gregori, what the hell are you doing?” I asked, wondering why a guy like him would show up next to my house of all places.
“Ah, Lynda.” He said dismissively while still staring at the pile of snow. Does he want to get snow blindness or something? What is he doing? “I’m trying to make something, inspired by the… less than fortunate accident last winter, you know the one.”
“...Are you serious?” Making that abomination after all the trouble it caused? We still don’t even really know what led to it! Wait, does he even know how it was created?
“Just watch.” He said with a smirk while extending his arms out and gathering energy. Is he seriously trying to-
*Shine* *Whirl*
A strong pressure filled the area as the large amount of snow glowed brightly. No, seriously, is he actually want to create a-
*Flash* *Swirl*
A large gust of wind bursted out and a very small flash of light.
“I’m just kidding, I’m not making a sword. I don’t think I could make something that powerful at the current time.” He said before reaching for whatever it is that he created. The large pile of snow had disappeared, and something new was buried under the remaining layer of snow. “Jeez, it's cold.”
An… axe made of ice? It doesn’t look super clear and has a somewhat blue color to it, the head isn’t completely filled in and instead has a bunch of ice-related patterns filling in some of the blank space.
“Here, you can have it.” He said before handing me the extremely cold axe, what in the world do you want me to do with this thing!? Will it melt at some point or is it like that thing!?
Hello!? You can’t just leave right after doing that!
“Argh!” I dropped the axe down since it’s way too cold to hold for a long time, it’s solid ice. I need something wrapped around the handle area in order to actually wield and use it.
…For real though, did he really have to do that in my front yard? I knew I ran away during the incident, but like, anyone would!