Chapter 227: Show Difference
———Lerim———
<1: 09 pm>
“Please wait here for the time being.” One of the men said before leaving me in this small room. What a great reception. A small cold room to myself. What else is there to expect from a place near the border?
There’s not a lot of buildings and structures separating this place from where the border is set, so hopefully nothing happened right now. I know that I’m not the only one being sent to help, people near the area probably got the signal as well.
It’s weird that I am now in the presence of a bunch of stuffy people in actual military uniform. Never like those things, some of them look fashionable, but they look like a pain to keep wearing.
This place looks rather understaffed, so hopefully nothing goes wrong before the fight breaks out. It’d be quite inconvenient if any important piece of equipment here were to suddenly break.
“Excuse me…” Someone in quite a fancy outfit walked into the room and sit on the other side of the table. “So. Lerim Hoslep, correct?”
“That is my name, yes.” His tone seems a bit awkward. Perhaps he isn’t expecting such a beauty like me to come to such a depressing-looking place. “I’ve come per the request of whoever is in charge of the defense here. I assume you are here for a briefing?”
“You could say that. You did arrive earlier than we would’ve expected.” He remarked. A rather justified reaction, since reasonably speaking I shouldn’t arrive so soon. While it was said that tomorrow is the earliest a possible invasion could happen, that was basically the most dire circumstance that could occur. From their espionage it seems that the other side is also gathering its forces. They shouldn’t invade that early unless they were an extremely reckless bunch with no tactical acumen.
“It’s best to be on the side of caution, so I came early.” I explained. “So what is the lodging like? I want to make sure there’s actually a place for me to actually stay in.”
“We already prepared extra rooms. It’ll be separated from the soldier’s quarters.” He answered. “We can’t provide anything extra outside of what we already have. Right now most of our troops are stationed at the edge of the border to keep watch and make sure the opposing side isn’t trying to sneak in, so we have a few extra rooms in the buildings.”
“I see.” Seems rather cheap, but from my understanding the requests to all the available guilds were done haphazardly after they realized how much of a pickle they are in. “In that case, you wouldn’t mind if we went there right now? Or do we need to have a brief mission briefing with only the two of us.”
“...No, you’re right. The briefing can come later.” Surprisingly humble. Perhaps the pressure of the whole situation got to him. “The other reinforcement should come tomorrow. Do you want a tour of the area first?”
“That’d be most welcome.” I replied. Let’s quickly get this over with and get comfortable with the place, not that I’m expecting anything remotely good from these people.
The place is already looking quite depressing as is, no doubt stuff like beds and the ventilation isn’t going to be much better.
Probably gonna have to sleep on a hard bed that’s bad for my back. Perhaps I won’t get any beauty sleep for the next few days.
———Messi———
<1: 24 pm>
“You didn’t receive any lasting injury, did you?” James asked.
“No. I was making sure I didn’t get hit. You don’t have to worry about a bone being broken or something like that.” A few close calls, but I didn’t actually get hit dead-on during that fight. “Surprised that there is someone that strong just walking around with no one noticing, what is his damage?”
“We might never know the answer to that.” He replied. “Probably some sort of twisted desire we can’t comprehend. The idea of using real human beings as target practice is twisted enough as is.”
“So… About that guy…” We talked about who he was, but I didn’t really get the status update.
“He’s dead. No way he’s living with his torso cut open like that.” He bluntly answered. “...I don’t know that guy personally, so I don’t even know why he even tries to copy my appearance. From my understanding he’s just a random guy who frequents the guild.”
“Gotta love a person in the guild doing some bullshit. As if common folks don’t look at us with funny faces as is.” The unjustified scrutiny is more or less why there aren’t more of us. It doesn’t help that these bad apples make the whole group look really bad.
“It is what it is. We just have to block out all the noise.” He said, not seeing it as something to focus on.
“Healer! We need a healer!” Someone shouted out as he barged into the lobby with a bleeding man in his arms. The staff members walked over to help escort him to the healing room.
“Great. Another incident.” I can’t help but remark. Guess they went into the dungeon and overextended. It happened to the best of us. “Just gotta love blood and gore in this house.”
“Hey, at least he should be alive with a buddy to help out.” James replied.
“That’s not exactly a lucky coincidence. Most people should go into the dungeon with at least one or two other people.” Not a lot of people go into a dungeon solo like him and I. “We’re a minority, and probably seen as freaks for doing stuff solo.”
“Can’t really blame them, can we? It is admittedly reckless, but as a general rule of thumb if there’s a big power disparity between team members things will get dicey the deeper you go, and having someone slow you down is a bad idea.” He pointed out.
“Tone got a bit cocky there at the end, ain’t it? Obviously you’re the strongest one in the guild, but not everyone is a true freak like you are.” I pointed out. Everyone here is completely out of his league, it’s a bit depressing.
Even that impersonator, even if he was significantly stronger than me, can’t really hold a candle to him. That guy was being strung along for a moment before being put down like a dog.
…Too bad he wasn’t there during that terrorist attack last year. It’s just so convenient that he was out of town during that time specifically. So lovely.
At least Wiina was there to bail us out, still no idea how or why. I got my hunch, but it feels rather ridiculous in a lot of ways with all kinds of implications, I’d rather not think about it.
“It's not my fault that all of you are lagging behind. You can’t possibly expect me to lift all of you up if none of you get the motivation.” He said without reservation. “I don’t have the foolish ideal of letting myself be dragged down just to give all of you a bit of a leg up.”
He really likes running his mouth once something he doesn’t like is being mentioned. Admittedly we did talk about this before, but does he have to be dramatic about it again?
“Yeah. Okay. Got the message loud and clear.” I don’t want him running his mouth while there are still a lot of people in the guild. If a big brawl happens because of it the guild might be shut down for a day or two. “What were you even up to last night anyway? Taking quite a while to show up.”
“I was getting ready for an early sleep. Too bad someone has to get into trouble, I need to quickly dress up and get out when I don’t want to.” He explained. “There I was, just hoping for a deserved break after hitting my new record on the floor counts.”
“Eighty something?” I didn’t really catch the number outside of that.
“Eighty nine. I would’ve gone to ninety, but the whole going back up to the surface business gets in the way of a perfectly round number.” He clarified. That is a pretty big deal breaker for a lot of people. If only we also get an easy way to get out of a dungeon like those folks did.
Karra having that teleporting circle to go instantly back up to the surface was such a massive cheat. I don’t think people talked about it enough.
Wasn’t that set up by Wiina? If that’s the case then someone who bit the bullet and learned about teleportation should be able to set it up, right? I know that topic is extremely difficult since basically no one except people in that area seems to even experience teleportation, let alone know how to cast a spell related to it.
“Rather unfortunate.” I can’t help but say, even if that probably came off as a bit mean spirited.
“It’s the little details inside the dungeons that are quite unforgiving. Unable to leave the place immediately is one thing, but inventory management is even worse.” He complained further. I still remember that ridiculous bag he carried back to the guild vividly. That thing looks insanely heavy.
“Too bad no such thing as a pocket dimension to store stuff exists. I guess that’d be too convenient, and kinda bullshit.” Thinking about it for more than a few seconds and you’d realize that such a thing would’ve caused an unbelievable amount of chaos.
“No kidding. Still, if there is a way to access it, even if it is extremely hard to get, would’ve been nice.” He remarked. I guess if there is a barrier to entry it would’ve helped a lot, but we still don’t even know if there is a way to gain such power. There have been people conjuring stuff up out of thin air, but those things are made from magic and have no permanence in the real world. It wasn’t taken from some sort of pocket dimension or something of that nature.
“No idea if we can even get that kind of technique for real.” I think some sort of reality warping has been happening. I mean, somehow the dungeons and its hundreds of floors don’t seem to overlap with anything underground that was already there. Some kind of shenanigans definitely happened that we don’t quite understand. “It just seems like something that… I don’t really know, it just feels extremely out of reach even though magic is now a thing.”
It feels absurd to say something is impossible when magic is proven to be real. Real, bonafide magic. Magic powers, monsters, probably some urban legend stuff being true.
And yet things like pocket dimension or teleporting still feels so far out of reach. It’s weird, it should be something achievable more than ever, but it still just seems impossible.
Maybe it’s some sort of mental block after believing for much of our lives that there is no such thing as magic or miracle.
———Lerim———
<1: 41 pm>
Hard beds, shitty pillows, all expected. It’s barely an improvement over a hard floor. It’s as depressing as I was expecting, and the other parts of the building doesn’t build up my confidence at all.
Great, and I need to stay here for who knows how long. I really don’t want to go to the battlefield with a bad back.
…There doesn’t seem to be anyone nearby, so let’s open up the bag and start setting things up.
…Reaching into the bag feels weird as all hell, but anything for practically unlimited storage space and not being weighed down is worth the feeling of one of your arms reaching out into a void that seems to greatly dull your senses in said arm.
Get a small portable fan. A nicer pillow. A nicer blanket. An incense. And then… Ah, no. That’s the sword, let’s not pull that out now.