Beyond M-Eclipse: Easy Mode LIVE

———Karra———

<12: 03 pm>

“Yeah… That whole spectacle yesterday was crazy.” Jeff said. “What the heck was that all about? I don’t think I have even heard any rumors about stuff like that happening.”

“That’s only because you haven’t been looking hard enough.” Gregori retorted. “I have heard a few rumors online, but they were only throwaway comments from a bunch of people without any real credibility. No one seriously thinks those mean anything until it has already happened.”

“Mhmm… Wonder why nothing like that happened around here.” Qyunda asked while in the middle of eating her pizza.

“Way too many deterrents. This school alone and the power and influence it has would curb any chaos coming the town’s way. Not to mention people like Wiina and Rico who could easily wipe out a crowd like that.” Orrel explained. “In the first place, is there even a reason to start anything up in that small town? I would imagine that most people are living rather peacefully. No need for quick and brutal social reforms.”

“You call it that, but it just sounds like hammering down prejudice from the other side. There’s no doubt that a few channels are vilifying demi-humans completely unwarranted, but this is a bit extreme, no?” Gregori chimed in. It is hard to root for them when things turn to chaos. I don’t really know the specific numbers but there were definitely some casualties there. The online sphere is in an uproar right now. As usual, people with the more extreme and less nuanced takes are the loudest and poisoning the well, so nothing productive going on there like usual.

“Couldn’t care less about that as long as it doesn’t happen near us. At least it’s not that group of people who love to cry foul and seething over just about anything. If it was that group I’d go there and smack them silly.” Qyunda said, making it clear she doesn’t want them to delve deep in the moral questions. I don’t think any of us want to really talk much about it. We’re here to have fun and exercise, and of course, take advantage of the free food on the ship. Obviously we can’t eat too much since we’ll get airsick otherwise. Not to mention moving around a whole bunch and hunting monsters for sports. Malk and Qyunda are gonna wipe a portion of this place completely clean by the end, that’s something that I feel like is definitely gonna happen.

“So, all of that aside. What do you guys think about doing down there? Can’t imagine anything like last time happening, at least.” Jeyst asked while laying down on the sofa. “I’m gonna do normal sightseeing and take some photos. Probably won’t fight too many monsters myself.”

“I wanna try nuking half the place and see what happened. I know there is some sort of power to keep the place maintained to some degree, but it must have limits, right?” Kenni answered out of the left field.

“There’s gotta be some sort of rule to prevent someone from doing that…” Jeyst said with a worried look before looking around to see if the adults are in the room right now. Edea is pretty focused on driving the ship so they probably didn’t hear anything.

“Eh. We’ll see. I wanna know what sort of destruction dark magic can really cause. It had some sort of gravitational property, right? What if it’s like a black hole?” She said with a grin.

“That will literally destroy the planet. I doubt an actual black hole will occur even if you put a lot of power into it.” Orrel mentioned. “At most, probably something similar but much less potent and destructive. I would rather such an experiment not happen in the first place.”

“Now that just makes me wanna do it more!” She said with a grin.

“Rico would probably put a stop to that before anything could happen, but you can still try.” Gregori said, looking significantly less worried.

*Beep* *Beep*

“Huh? Warning sirens?” I muttered out loud as the whole lobby screamed out.

“<Attention, everyone. A large alien spaceship has entered the exosphere, the current layer of atmosphere we are in. Please keep yourself seated and try to not panic. The event will be broadcasted shortly.>” A what!?

“A-Are they for real right now!?” Jeyst sprang up from the sofa after hearing that, naturally terrified at all the implications.

I didn’t even realize we are in the exosphere… Wait, isn’t that, on the edge of the atmosphere or something? We’re super duper close to the actual vacuum of space if that’s the case. No wonder no one is allowed on the deck. No wonder the outside looks weirdly dark right now.

Let me take a look here… What the hell is that!? Is that the spaceship they were talking about?

*Shine*

A screen popped up in the middle of the lobby, showing the event from a few perspectives and allowing me to get a good look of what’s going on outside of the view outside that’s way too far for me to accurately observe.

“A… rabbit girl?” Orrel muttered as we looked at what was happening right now. A lone rabbit demi-human with red eyes, white hair, and an oversized zip-up blue hoodie. She’s flying around and starts destroying parts of the ship with energy blasts and ramming parts of the ships that had flown off back in like a giant blunt weapon. “What in the world is happening out there? This feels almost like some sort of bit.”

“Oh, it’s real. Very real.” Rico said with a smirk as she walked over with hands in her pocket. “Some alien sightings are real, by the way. Most are hoaxes, some are real. That sorta deal.”

“...This feels like a bit too much to take in.” Orrel sheepishly said.

And now this rabbit lady is covering the entire spaceship in a massive bubble before pulling out a giant… isn’t that one of those hammers for making that Japanese dish?

And then she hits the bubble with the hammer and sends it flying out of Earth’s atmosphere and goes to who-knows-where… What am I watching?

Ah. She’s looking straight at the screen.

*Zoom*

“Alright, you two. What in the world are you doing here?” Suddenly she disappeared from the screen and a voice I didn’t recognize rang out in the lobby. I turned to look and it’s the same rabbit lady we saw on the video feed. “...Why in the world do you bring kids here? I thought you two are supposed to be responsible adults and bring them to one of those deathland or whatever.”

“Hey. I think it’d be nice to let people see Earth from this view once in a while. We still have plenty of time before we’re supposed to arrive.” Edea said as they walked over, no longer manning the ship. Can they just… let it go on autopilot that easily? “It’s just a coincidence that we saw you fighting another alien invasion.”

“Yeah, right…” She muttered bitterly. “Hey Rico, you know how large the bounty on your head is right now?”

“No? Is it enough to bankrupt most of those alien confederations?" She asked with a smirk. What in the world are they even talking about right now?

“I snatched this datapad from them before finishing them off. See it for yourself.” She said before handing over the weird-looking device.

“Huh… Hmm… What language is this?” Rico said while inspecting the datapad. “I don’t even really know the currency on display here. Doesn’t seem to be one of the universal ones…”

“The ship looks quite primitive, so probably one of those overzealous groups of aliens who underestimated us way too much.” The rabbit girl said. I wouldn’t say that a giant spaceship that looks like it could house a few thousand people is primitive, but I don’t really have a point of reference. “You’d think they’d think differently after seeing how much money is on the table.”

“It’s weird how that works, ain’t it? Probably because for them we are basically in the boonies.” Rico said while shrugging her shoulders. “Here I thought I caused so much damage that they’d know better than to mess around here.”

“Who really knows why they’re still trying. Probably a different mindset from us lot.” The rabbit lady said while shaking her head. “Do you two have anything to do or what?”

“Nah. We’re just hanging around here for the views. We aren’t actually aiming to ask you for anything.” Edea said with a handwave.

“In that case, I should probably go home and back to my shop. This is already taking way too much time for my liking.” She said with a frown before looking around some more, making eye contact with us. “...Aren’t these the nepobabies? Hey, kids, here’s my business card. Come buy stuff at my shop sometimes.”

She threw small cards at everyone. It has the name of the shop and the address… It’s not even in the state we’re in.

“Alright. Time for me to leave. Hope to see you guys at my place and spend all the money there.” She said before turning around.

*Zoom*

And she teleported away. What in the world was that encounter?

“You know, I wonder why they even let the spaceship get this close to Earth in the first place. It’s not like they don’t have the power to make an instant-kill barrier.” Edea remarked to Rico.

“Beats me. Probably just never crossed their mind because an invasion like that isn’t super common in the first place. The amount of people who even know where Earth is is very small, almost forbidden to know for whatever reason.” Rico replied. “...Alright gang, we’re gonna lower the altitude here, we got roughly an hour before landing. Hope you pull out your phones and record this view. It’s not one many of you are gonna get for a long time.”

I already recorded bits of it and I think that’s enough. If nothing else, I could just get Wiina to come here with me later on. She can do basically anything.

Alright, let’s get some food and hope lowering the height doesn’t mess with my stomach.

Hmm… Let’s get some chicken rice. There’s not a lot of opportunity for me to eat something like this. This smells lovely, and probably tastes quite lovely too.

And maybe some of this and that… That should not be too much. Don’t wanna get a full stomach before we land. Let’s get some cookies too.

Let’s go to that table and eat. It’s empty at the moment and no one should interrupt me in the meantime.

———Lerim———

<12: 47 pm>

“Supposedly, a ship should land there at one in the afternoon. Barely anyone has ventured there outside of yourself. I thought it was worth a mention.” He said as he sat down, not going back to his office immediately. He is looking at the boxes of food I have with me. Is he hungry? He doesn’t look like he is starving or anything.

“Is that so?” I said, not really caring about it. There shouldn’t be any troublemakers around here that might give those students grief. Maybe that guy, but even if we hadn’t found him yet, he is lacking his arms. That would probably make his life extremely miserable and left him unable to accomplish much.

…Why is he still eyeing the boxes?

“You want one?” I asked, still in the middle of eating the current box.

“...Can I?” He asked, sounding a bit hopeful.

“Why not? I got so much of it that they would all spoil before I could eat all of it.” Food waste would’ve been a shame, and he can stomach monster meats and such anyway. “Here. Take one. Don’t worry about returning the box and utensils.”

“Thank you.” He said before taking the box I randomly gave him. It’s probably full of protein that’ll make him full and complete his daily nutrients. “That’s a lot of meat…”

“Yep. Just stuff lying around, don’t complain and eat.” I said. “Maybe go do it in your office, I don’t think being seen with a slacking guildmaster would look good.”

“...If you say so.” He said before standing up and walking away with the food.

…Another box completely emptied. Now what? What is the news yapping about now, I wonder. I heard more than a few studios got wrecked yesterday. They’re really going after all the people spreading information.

…Oh. Right. I guess there won’t be any broadcast in that case. Seems like they got scared of covering anything at the moment, not to mention people just not watching TV that often anymore outside of those old jackasses with way too much money, so why even bother rebroadcasting old stuff.

“Can’t they just put random videos on Ourshow or something?” Someone muttered while talking to another person.

“Are you crazy? You know how much garbage is on that site if you just let things play out randomly!?” Another person scolded the first person.

Guess we’re not seeing anything on the TV for a few days then.