Chapter 202: Bloodly Flashback
———Karra———
<11: 47 am>
“...So what are we all even doing here?” I asked as we all sat down in this virtual space. It’s been a while since we actually entered one of these rooms.
“Just chilling. We can modify the scenery to be whatever we want.” Gregori said while he laid down on one of the sofas. “I don’t think any of us feel like fighting or getting active, at least no one that came here.”
“Yeah. Can’t imagine Emmie or Kenni not raring to go right now. They’re probably duking it out in one of the practice rooms, I bet.” Jeyst chimed in, also laying down on their sofa. We can just spawn them infinitely so everyone can get one. “We’re just chilling until we see the next match. Nothing important going on for today, that’s for sure.”
Let’s see here… There’s Useph and Orrel, and no one else. Malk and Qyunda definitely ain’t the type to stand still so they are probably fighting each other somewhere as well, or simply walking around instead of staying idle.
Anyway, I guess I should also lay down and simply relax. Not that I have even been doing anything that is even remotely exhausting. I guess I could just take a quick nap before going back to the arena.
The field of glowing blue flowers with a clear night sky that is deep blue instead of black. It’s quite a dreamy atmosphere, even when it’s fake.
“The lineup so far has been interesting, but it really makes it hard to tell who is gonna come up next.” Gregori spoke up. That is a fool’s errand, not worth talking about at all. “...Hey, Karra, can I ask you about something?”
“What?” As long as it’s not something super secretive I have no reason to not answer.
“What happened on Saturday? I have been hearing rumors about stuff happening where you were seen posting food pictures.” …Oh. That? I didn’t actually expect anyone to make a big fuss out of it when there was only one ‘victim’.
“Can you be more specific about which part?” I said just to be sure he’s talking about what I’m thinking about.
“You know the one. Online stalker shit.” He gets to the point and answers. Guess there’s no avoiding that topic, kinda surprised no one confronted me about it yesterday.
“...I guess I can talk about it.” I can just not be very specific about who it was, just to be coy and string them along, that’s what Wiina would want anyway.
<<< 2 Days ago <<<
<2: 12 pm>
“They all look extremely colorful…” I can’t help but mutter while I take pictures. Desserts have always been like this, but it feels like it’s getting a bit more ridiculous each time. The internet really does things to people and items.
“Yeah. Definitely excessive, but it is what it is. Even in the past they kept making food look extra fancy no matter what.” Wiina said with her arms crossed, sitting there clearly uninterested in the sweets. “So are you going to eat all of that?”
“No way I can stomach all of these. Maybe like half at most, after that point I’m definitely gonna vomit.” I did buy way too much with Wiina’s blank check, they even need to bring an extra table to fit all the stuff I buy without worrying about something falling off. Also, I’m pretty sure I don’t even like everything on here, some new stuff definitely has weird experimental flavor just because that’s how it tends to go with trendy stuff.
“...You can deal with that. I’m gonna go outside and deal with a few things.” She said ominously before walking off, I can see a few people outside the shop through the glass wall. Have fun with that. I have a few pictures to take.
Oooh… There's a cute mascot on it… Is it edible? It should be, right? You can mold sugar into basically anything. Heck, there are people turning solid blocks of broth into teddy bears.
…What is Wiina doing outside? I’m seeing her grabbing someone by the neck with a few other guys surrounding her with weapons out. The staff inside this shop are all rather scared. I don’t think they need to worry.
———Wiina———
<2: 15 pm>
“Well? What got all you gathered around here?” I asked while I kept this guy who rudely tried to block my way lifted up, he can’t resist unless he wants his neck choked tighter than it already is. “Where’s all the bravado earlier? Aren’t you guys gonna say anything?”
“Just give us the girl and no one gets hurt.” A guy with a gun pointing at me said while I feel like my vision is turning red. Looks like someone doesn’t understand the position they are in.
“You’re not in the position to bargain.” I said while I squeezed the guy in my hand tighter and caused his body to convulse.
“You’re asking for it!” The guy with the gun pointed at me said.
*Bang* *Flick* *Pierce*
“Huh…?” He seems rather confused that flicked the bullet away, right back towards his right leg, in fact. “AaaAAAHHH!!!”
The other mooks tried to join in and ambush me. Kind of a bad place to do it considering we’re in front of a shop. I’d rather not disrupt their work.
Now where could I go? In the middle of the street is a no-go. I shouldn’t put them in front of any shops either. There doesn’t seem to be a park or anything similar nearby that I can see.
At the very least, I should compensate the shop owner for the disturbance even if it’s not really our fault. I can just distract information out of these guys and drain them of all their money. I’m pretty sure that’ll work. Maybe if I just pay the shop owner all the money I looted out of them they wouldn’t be displeased if I painted the nearby area in red for a bit, right?
*Swing* *Slam*
I swung the guy I was holding towards the group of people trying to shank me with their knives, letting go of him and letting him tumble onto the ground and on top of the others who collapsed from impact. That left a few more guns unaccounted for.
****Bang****
Four bullets shot straight towards me. Now what do I do with those? I don’t think I should reflect any more of these because of the tiny chance that these bumbling fools will get hit by them.
*Catch* *Clink*
I catched the four bullets with my hand and dropped them down to their dismay. Not even a single scratch on me as I attempted that.
Whoever is making these guys do this, they’re definitely not smart or competent. In this world of magic, do they really expect their old tricks to always work?
Just thinking about what these guys might do to others makes me sick, maybe I should make them suffer a lot more than I initially planned.
“There’s way too many people forgetting about magic, it seems.” I can’t help but notice the lack of spellcasting. Guess we’re still not quite there yet.
*Grab* *Smash* *Kick*
I grabbed one of the assailants and smashed him into another guy, then kicked both of them across the street.
*Grab* *Spin* *Smash* *Smash*
I then grabbed two guys by their arms and spun them around and swung them into the ground and into their teammates.
*Lift* *Grab*
With all of them already damaged and bruised I lifted all of them up into the air and left only one out of the pile. I grabbed him by the hair and lifted him up to meet me at eye level.
“Alright. Who sent you?” I asked while he was clearly still in a lot of pain. Most of them are definitely in a lot of pain right now from all the punishment, but from what I’m seeing, they won’t suddenly drop dead. “You know how this goes. Easy way? Hard way? You decide.”
“Argh! Ugh!” He still tried to resist despite his body being quite limp. Alright then, the hard way it is. Let’s see how far I can break him.
“...Your choice, not mine.” I said before dropping him on the ground.
*Grab* *Bash* *Scrape*
I grabbed him by the back of his head and made him eat the pavement as I dragged him across it, his face turned bloody and the skin heavily damaged and torn. Can’t quite have that, so let’s fix it up real quick.
*Shine*
“So? Who sent you?” I said while holding him to my eye level again, his face is pale in contrast to how bloody it was a second ago.
He remained silent, perhaps still contemplating what to do. Is the person in charge that scary? Considering this place hasn’t been taken over, I found that hard to believe.
“Wrong answer.” I said once enough time has passed. If he thinks being silent is a good enough answer then he is dead wrong.
*Thud* *Kick* *Stomp*
I dropped him down and kicked his head, stomped on it and pinned him there. Does he really think being all quiet and scared would make me back off?
“Maybe you’re just not the right person for the job.” I said while not letting him stop eating the ground. He is definitely not getting away easy just because I have other candidates to interrogate.
I then start moving the other assailants around in the air, lining them up as a row.
“Alright, who among you is willing to snitch before everyone gets hurt?” I asked as I displayed them in the air and let me get eye contact with all of them. “...No answer? That’s the wrong answer.”
*Swing* *Slam* *Swing* *Slam*
“Well?” I asked once I slammed the row into the pavement twice, once on their face, once on their back. They are all seriously hurt from that with bleeding, but that can quickly be fixed. “I could repeat that all day, you know?”
*Shine*
I healed them up to make sure none of them are actually at risk of dying. It’d be a blemish to let even one of them lose their lives.
“Want to go for seconds?” I asked with a smirk as I watched their terrified faces. “Or maybe you want a close-up of this man’s head popping like a balloon? He’s useless since he can’t even talk anyway.”
I apply more pressure to the man below me while I lowered the height the other guys were being suspended at so they could get a better look of his suffering. It certainly doesn’t help that I didn’t properly close the wound on his leg. Ain’t that a little bit of an accident by yours truly.
They certainly don’t seem all too confident now, are they? They all look extremely terrified. Come on now, surely you don’t want to see a human head being squished into a pancake.
“I… talk…!” The man below my feet finally spoke up. Took you long enough.
“Oh? Then let’s hear it then.” I said while lifting the pressure off his head while the others are still suspended in the air.
*Zap* *Block*
“Real funny.” I said with a smirk as I blocked the one magic spell he did and he actually had the gall to try to run with one of his legs not working. That’s just pathetic at this point. “You must have a lot on your hand, to simply try to leave like that.”
“Urgh!” He groaned after I simply walked in front of him and blocked his path, he was in no shape to run even if he was going up against a regular pedestrian, let alone me.
“I guess I need to convince you a bit more.” I said before lifting him up with a levitation spell, not letting him move even an inch. Best for him to not do that anyway with the hole in his leg.
I create a bunch of weapons floating in the air, all of it aiming right at him while he helplessly tries to resist being suspended in mid-air.
Does he have a fear for sharp objects, I wonder. A big knife, a sword, a spear, an axe, anything sharp are hovering around him and slowly closing in.
“Your last chance to make yourself useful, you hear me?” I said with a smile while my eyes darted at the big lump of guys still hanging in the air, all of them obviously terrified as I made them watch this, not even letting them close their eyes. They do know that confessing is on the table, right? Anyway, the guy with a hole in his leg isn’t talking… “Guess you need more incentive then.”
*Stab*
“AAAAAaaahhh!!!” He screamed out as I let one of the sharp objects actually dig into his body, specifically his other leg.
“Come on, speak up already. You’re wasting my time.” I said while moving the sharp thing lodging in his leg to move and jitter to get more reaction out of him. “Come on, just talk and nobody will get hurt.”
*Stab* *Shank*
“You’re seriously losing a lot of blood, you sure you wanna continue? Are you a masochist or something?” I asked as I started stabbing him some more and pumping healing spell into him so he keeps regenerating from all the punishment.
Hmm… Nothing is coming out of his mouth… Oh, I know!
*Zip* *Stab*
“AAAAAAA!!!” I conjured a butter knife and sent it right towards one of the guys in the row and stabbed him right in the eye.
“Remember, you guys can also talk.” I said while looking at them with a soft smile to reassure them that this isn’t a classroom. You don’t need permission to talk.
“I-I’ll talk!” The guy suspended next to the one with one of his eyes mangled quickly spoke up. Took you long enough.
>>> Present Time <<<
———Karra———
<11: 51 am>
“Do you know anything specific about her… persuasion technique?” Gregori asked, looking slightly disturbed.
“No. I couldn’t get a super good look at it from the angle I was looking from. There was blood drawn and the people inside the shop were terrified and looking away.” It’s probably for the best that I don’t think about it. I hope the last time she did stuff like this it wasn’t actually that bloody. I mean, did that troll ever recount extreme violence at all? I should probably go check on that later. “Anyway, she dismantled the entire organization and left them in the state that was shown. I don’t know anything beyond that.”
“Huh… I see…” He muttered to himself. “Well I hope that shop got compensated for it.”
“Don’t worry, I compen… Help them out a bit and they let it slide.” I almost blurted out the fortune Wiina gave to them to make amends. That would’ve raised quite a red flag. “It’s probably a bit more graphic than what I said, but that’s the gist of the incident.”
…Thinking back on it, does Wiina really need to go out and destroy another gang the next day? I guess I shouldn’t really try to think too hard about that when a good thing is being done.
“That’s good to hear.” He replied without saying anything else.
…I guess we’re just doing nothing then, outside of lazing around inside the simulation for a while.