Chapter 240: Briefing Boxes
———Lerim———
<2: 58 pm>
“...This is all that’s left?” He said, rightfully sounding terrified.
“Yeah. Obviously I ain’t gonna open the box for you. You can look at it later.” I said before pushing it towards him. “For your information, there was no way I could really subdue him alive without causing an issue. Unless you suggest cutting his legs off as well.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, personally.” He said, clearly trying to retain composure and not ask too many questions. “It’s rare for your clothes to be so tattered. I could compensate for it, if you want.”
“If you so graciously offered. You ain’t using part of my paycheck for this, let’s be clear.” If he’s truly being generous that wouldn’t be the plan in the first place.
“I’m not planning anything of the sorts.” He said with a straight face, so he’s probably not lying. No weird movement from what I’m seeing. “You’re fine, right? Physically, I mean. You are certainly taking this on the chin.”
“Yeah. It’s not like she was actually gonna kill me. Once I run out of steam she just stops.” There was obviously no guarantee that she wouldn’t. From my source it seems like she had already killed multiple strong individuals without a shred of hesitation. There is definitely a factor to who got spared, but as long as I am not on the list, I don’t really care.
“…Last time the fight ended early, and now she won. Just who is she?” He muttered. Such a powerful individual who goes around challenging and killing people is definitely not someone you should ignore, but in this case, it’s probably for the best to not give him any details.
“Beats me.” I said, keeping my answer short. I don’t want to slip up. Not that I can really opt to say very little without sounding suspicious. “One thing is for certain. No one here can hold a candle to her. If she ever came back, don’t even think about attacking. In fact, just like last time, I won’t disclose any of her characteristics so no one could recognize and try to antagonize her. Hopefully Evari hadn’t spilled the beans already?”
“She hadn’t said anything.” He replied. That’s good. Lower the risk, the better. “Still, how much do you actually know for you to be comfortable keeping it a mystery?”
“Enough.” Being any more involved with Karra and her ilk already put a bit of spotlight on me as is. Not to mention how they all know my face at this point. I remember the first time that woman appeared, she was with someone else. Almost as strong, clearly a contemporary. Probably one of her other classmates if I were to guess. I’d imagine there’s a chance I became a talking point among them if Karra didn’t intervene in some way.
It’s not that I think they’re a group of crazy people. I barely know any of them, but as the stories had shown, a connection to someone extraordinary tends to lead to trouble, let alone a group of them.
“...Ah. Right. I already told the people standing guard already, but the first floor looks more like an obstacle course right now. Maybe wait for it to mend on its own if you’re not confident in your parkour.” Not that most people should have a problem with that, but I might as well give out a warning. Just in case.
“I see…” He doesn’t seem certain about what to do with that information. No matter. It’s not important in the grand scheme of things. I just don’t want people to be surprised. He then took a glance at the box I gave him. “Do you always have a box on hand?”
“Eh. Not really. That one I just made out of the debris from the fight.” Much like all other boxes I made, it’s just something I made using magic and don’t care too much about losing.
“Some sort of stonecutting technique… You never really talk about it.” He remarked as he put his hand on the top of the box.
“I wouldn’t call it stonecutting…” It’s something more akin to molding. Enveloping and analyzing the shape and properties of the object and changing it in a way that allows me to mold it like clay, even if it’s a normally inflexible material like wood or stone. It lets me create something that’s way more elegant and smooth in design with more precision… as long as I don’t mess up and break my concentration.
If I were to mess up the process, then things I would’ve never imagined could puff up into smokes and dust will suddenly do.
It’s certainly a hard skill to master. It takes a lot of practice and if it wasn’t for there being so few people in the dungeon’s lower floors, I might never get the time to practice it uninterrupted. Kinda hellish how much it takes out of me the more I practice, but the payoff is certainly worth it. It means I’m not really lacking in tools like utensils and containers, and I can even repair the walls and floor in my house. The latter isn’t exactly perfect, it’s nearly impossible to create matter that lasts from just mana alone, even an inch would cause me to slump down on the sofa for almost an hour. It might seem rather ridiculous that I put so much of my time into learning a skill that money can fix, but the less ways to lose money, the better.
“…Well. At least it seems useful. I guess that’s why you have so many lunch boxes lying around? I genuinely thought you were actually spending your money all on them.” He playfully remarked.
“No way I’m gonna spend my hard-earned cash on those things. You know how much I already spend on just freaking salt alone? No way I’m buying those things.” Maybe I should even try to figure out how to make salt if this keeps going, maybe turning some garbage into salt somehow. Alchemy is a massive undertaking, unfortunately. It’s a subset of mystic arts that I never dabbled into before, and the amount of time and dedication needed for that is too much for me to handle. I know that it’s technically possible to change the properties of something through science, but even that is extremely delicate, and I never even tried doing… picking out elements or whatever. Perhaps trying to learn how to filter salt out of sea water would’ve been more practical… Maybe I should just drop that for now in favor of doing something else. Maybe learn to perform a stronger attack, for one. I haven’t really been focusing on creating a power and elaborate attack for… maybe months? I have only been using the skillset I’ve developed a long time ago. Those big slashes seem slow in hindsight. They aren’t all that practical against someone actually on my level of power that is also cognizant.
It’s simply something I have to work on in the future. Right now, I don’t really have the energy for it.
“One of the few things that aren’t skyrocketing in price nowadays.” He remarked.
Yeah. So apparently the supply is starting to dwindle down and certain products are getting more pricey. I don’t really have a need to replace anything, and I have been focusing hard on learning melding and repairing spells. Still probably far from being able to analyze and repair complicated items that run on electricity, but even just fixing a cracked screen is already a godsend.
“Certainly sounds like things aren’t getting better on a global scale, but I’m doing fine personally.” Hard to not be when I am so strong and so beautiful. Who can really be mad at me and have me on their shitlist? “Anything else we need to talk about?”
“Not as far as I’m aware.” He said while looking at the box. “I’ll… try to handle this on my own. What’s going to be the story, exactly?”
“Let’s just say that he was mauled by a monster after him and I got into a fight. We should probably keep the fact that he was heavily modified and erratic in the story.” That last bit is also a convenient way of explaining why he needs to be put down either way.
“...I guess that could work. You won’t even bring up this third party?” He asked if I’m sure that I want to be the only person that appears in the story itself.
“It can’t be helped. It’d just led to more wild goose chase. What did you think is gonna happen if I disclose who his actual murderer is?” That woman was already annoying as is. Calling us non-stop like she owes the place.
“...Good point. I guess I’ll keep it a simple, if quite misleading, story.” He conceded. Best to keep it that way. No need to make it more complicated than it already is…
Speaking of complicated. There are these things…
“The fact that we have to bring up this particular point is already quite a headache.” I said as I opened up another box filled with mangled cybernetic parts. “Presumably, this is from the same group of people associated with those hidden labs throughout the country. The level of technology that is needed to make these things aren’t really available except to those guys, or the top military folks, assuming they aren’t related.”
“...We never figured out what their deal was, right? Most of the records in the basement were destroyed when the monsters broke out.” He asked, wanting a refresh on the story.
“Yep. Even the things we have were rather barebones, just simple observation logs with a lot of data conveniently missing.” For all we know, there’s some sort of failsafe in place to destroy the records just in case the place was discovered. Obviously a lot of the machinery was wrecked beyond repair, but there are still some that are intact and operational.
As it is we basically know nothing aside from it probably being a part of a shadow cabal on the tippy top of the government.
“It just seems like a dead end, unfortunately.” He said before taking a long sigh.
“Certainly a shame, but it was always going to be risky trying to figure it out.” And that’s not even mentioning where we’d start, if they are also under scrutiny from a different party, and so on. There are clearly a lot of moving parts underneath the surface, and I really don’t see a world where I tried to do so and ended up roped into a ton of unnecessary conflicts.
As for what I am going to do with all these junks… Hmm…
“In that case, perhaps it’s better to just say he got some prosthetics?” He said.
“Not a bad idea, though that would mean we don’t have a good story of why he attacked me outside of being a nutjob.” It’s gonna be rough trying to convey it to her in a way that won’t raise a stink. Even a more reasonable person would’ve been very livid at the idea of an unknown third party causing this tragedy, or the implication that someone they are close to is that type of person all along. “...I’ll just leave it to you. I really need a break, as you can tell.”
“You deserved it. I’ll handle the rest.” He said before I got up and walked out of the room.
“Hey. How are you doing?” Evari asked with a smoothie handed towards me.
“Yeesh. What did I do for you to be so generous all of a sudden?” I said before grabbing the smoothie and sitting down at a table. Mhmm… This one is sweet and sour, certainly a refreshing combo.
“Getting rid of that maniac, for one.” She answered. “Also, this is the worst you’ve seen in a long time. You got something to say about that?”
“...Remember the last time we saw that guy together?” I asked, just in case I don’t have to blurt out too much information for the others to pick up on. “It happened again, but this time he didn’t make it.”
Her change in expression made it clear she understood the message.
“...Was it you or…” She said, keeping things vague to anyone who overheard.
“That person. Cut him down the middle.” Zero hesitation in that kill.
“...Jeez.” She muttered, clearly afraid of imagining it in full detail. I think it’s pretty fair to leave the recapping at that. I really want to just shut up and take a long rest.