Chapter 290: Crow of Attention
———Kenni———
<11: 02 am>
“Yo! Mind if I join in?” I said to the four people in a deadlock.
All of them immediately turned their attention towards me with shock and bewilderment. They were obviously not gonna expect someone to show up in this area that was turned into a wasteland. You would think people either escaped or died instead of sticking around.
“Who the hell are you!?” The bipedal crocodile guy asked.
“Does it matter? It looks like you guys were having fun so I wanna join in.” I said with a smile before shifting to a serious face to lie straight to their faces. “Or rather, you ruin my vacation. You know how troublesome it is to move around borders and such these days? Seems like you guys can’t be considerate at all!”
*Rumble* *Crackle*
I let loose a bit of my strength, causing the whole area to shake and all four of them to be startled by the power on display.
A short man, a big bipedal crocodile, a lady in armor with a mangled face, and a guy in a trench coat. Some look more intimidating than others, but all of them are a nuisance I have to deal with.
Very quickly does the four immediately change their plan of fighting each other to all of them ganging up on me, surrounding me from all sides.
****Swing**** *Evade* *Strike* *Slap* *Kick* *Grab* *Throw*
I dodged their attacks and started hitting them and sending them flying with each counter attack. Backhanded, slapped, kicked, and then thrown.
It’s funny seeing them scrambling and confused at how easily I throw them all aside. They all look so stupid as they get up from the ground after getting schooled not even a minute into the fight.
“Awww… Are all of you gonna cry? Did I hit you too hard?” I said with the most condescending tone I can think of right now. “Come on. All of you were trying to kill each other earlier and now a little boo boo make all of you like this? Pathetic.”
“Graaahhh!” The crocodile guy yelled out as he got up and ran towards me.
*Leap* *Evade* *Kick*
He jumped at me but I kicked him away casually before he could actually begin attacking. That approach was way too telegraphed. What an amateur.
*Dash* *Swing* *Evade*
The trench coat guy then swung his fist at me, or tried to.
*Punch* *Launch* *Crash*
I punched him in the chest while I casually moved past him, propelling him away and making him roll on the ground violently.
*Zap* *Blast* *Clash* *Zap*
“Gruk!?” The armored lady threw a spell at me and I retaliated with my own, overpowering it easily and hit her dead-on, causing her to recoil in pain.
*Dash* *Swing* *Strike*
The short guy then ran up to me and I avoided the right hook coming my way and countered it with my own, hitting him right in the face and causing him to be knocked to the ground.
“Absolutely no team synergy. Then again, it was looking like all of you were going to kill each other, so that’s not a surprise.” Going at me one by one despite the power I displayed earlier was quite foolish. “I was expecting a bigger struggle than that, or did all of you blow out your reserves already, or was the city already on the verge of collapse before any of you began causing trouble?”
“Shut the hell up!” The crocodile man seemed quite upset by that remark.
*Blast* *Swat*
He shot an energy blast out of his mouth that I lazily swatted away, letting it hit one of the buildings still standing and cleave through its top half.
*Strike*
I walked up to him and struck him in the chin without anyone interrupting. No one seems to care about me beating this guy up. In that case…
*Punch* *Grab* *Throw*
I punched him in the stomach before throwing him high into the sky with enough velocity to send him past the clouds.
*Flap* *Zip*
I flew up high to meet him as he finally began falling down, making sure to keep up with his falling figure.
*Strike* *Kick* *Smack* *Punch*
I began throwing out attacks and throwing him around, making sure he is stuck mid-air and has no time to breathe at all.
*Punch*
“Guaohhh…” He yelped out in pain as I swung from below with a fist dug deep into his stomach.
*Grab* *Throw* *Zip* *Kick* *Zip* *Strike* *Zip* *Smash*
I then throw him back up high into the sky before I resume the punishment, kicking him around like a ping pong ball and racking up damage. Going at this for at least a minute or before I get bored. I think I’m seeing a trail of blood being drawn in the air with him going flying. I’ve been using nothing but my fists and legs and you’re already bleeding out? Talk about weak scales.
*Spin* *KICK *Crash*
To finish him off I spin around in the air before hitting his flying figure with an axe kick that sends him straight down to the ground and causing a massive smoke cloud from all the debris flying into the air.
“That’s one ugly mug down.” I said once I returned to the ground and saw the other three flabbergasted. Now those are some funny expressions.
The dust clears and the crocodile is more grounded meat than man. Maybe I did go a little bit too heavy-handed. I know the gap in power was big, but man he burst like a balloon.
Whatever. I wasn’t meant to keep him alive anyway. Technically I don’t need to keep any of these guys alive, but I want to draw it out and create suspense. I don’t have a time limit anyway.
*Slide* *Strike* *Punch* *Smash*
I made my way to the back of the short guy and peppered him with a bunch of attacks on his back before he could even react. Crazy how everyone looked so slow in my perspective. They’re like snails.
*Grab* *Slam* *Drag*
I then grabbed him by the back of the head before bashing him against the hard floor and dragged it on the rough surface for a good while with blood soon coming out of it.
*Throw* *Smack* *Crash*
I then throw him into the air and then smack him down to the ground to finish it off. He’s still twitching unlike the other guy.
“<Mission accomplished. Do you wish to return?>” The robotic voice from my bracelet rang out in my head. I think I’ll stick around for a bit longer.
“…Alright. I had fun. You two can leave.” I said to the two people still standing, clearly shocked at the brutality on display. I wasn’t exactly planning for it to be that bad, but I guess I just needed to vent about something and it turned out like that.
The short guy then started to crawl away slowly with one arm on his face, trying to stop the bleeding. The poor guy seems to not have healing magic at hand, how sad.
*Dim* *Slice*
I sliced him in half with a magic spell before he could get very far, with him having no time to register it before it’s too late, not that he can do anything in that state anyway. The other two were shocked by the execution with quite colorful expressions.
“…Huh? You two haven’t left yet? I said you two can go, right? Or are you two still looking for smokes?” I said with a smirk as I took a step towards them, and they flinched in response.
“W-We’ll leave.” The trench coat guy said before turning around and walking away with the armored lady following close behind.
I love how terrified both of them looked. That’s a fun sight to see before I returned.
*Zoom*
I returned the bracelet and checked my current points. Most of it still came from yesterday’s competition, since it gave out quite a large amount to anyone sticking around to that final day.
The shop still hasn’t opened up, unfortunately. I kinda want to see what sort of item is actually available. The in-game shop gave us a good idea but nothing concrete since it wasn’t really said out loud.
“Hm? Oh. Wasn’t expecting to run into you today.” I remarked as Emmie walked into the room and began scrolling through missions. “I would’ve thought you’d be satisfied with yesterday’s battle to not throw yourself into more trouble so soon.”
“Simply not enough.” She said before putting the bracelet on.
*Zoom*
And there she goes. I didn’t even get to ask what her mission was, but I guess she probably wouldn’t answer me anyway… or maybe she would. She’s impossible to read.
*Zoom*
“Hah?” It’s been a minute, why is she back already? “So soon?”
“They were a disappointment, so I killed them quickly and came back.” She said before looking for more missions. Just use lethal force right off the bat? Could’ve maybe let them struggle a bit, or cripple them, I don’t know.
*Zoom*
There she goes again. Hopefully a bit longer than a minute. Spooked me out at how fast that was. I know she’s not the type to drag out a fight that she doesn’t find fun, but that was still so fast it takes me out. You wouldn’t think she would be one for efficiency considering how she dragged out yesterday’s fight. She could’ve honestly ended it at any time, but she made it go on for over an hour.
Her priorities are different from mine, so it’s hard for me to be certain what her criteria for fun is and what would incentivise her to drag it out.
…It’s no fun trying to figure that out, so let’s just keep it at that. There’s fun in mystery anyway.
———Orrel———
<11: 57 am>
“You know, we really haven’t hung out in a large group in a while.” Jeff remarked while we waited for the order.
“If you mean outside the school’s campus and activities, then I guess it has been a while.” Gregori replied to that somewhat odd comment. “I don’t think it’s a big deal. What would you even want to do in a big gathering anyway?”
“I don’t know. Just hanging out?” He gave an uncertain response. “I ain’t no event organizer anyway, that’s Useph’s thing.”
“Hey, don’t suddenly rope me into this. I have nothing in mind at the moment.” He argued. “I think our modest little meetings like this are fine as is for the moment.”
“Still have some usual people missing though. When was the last time Karra showed up to one of these?” Jeff pointed out.
“A long while, but she had always been busy with her streaming career. Though I think that slowed down a bit.” I answered his question. “I think it’s the usual people who tend to not come to these kinds of meetings. Nothing really worth pointing out. Maybe if they want to pig out for the day since Useph can easily afford it all.”
“Even Jass hasn’t been around for a while. Even Kenni used to come around occasionally." Jeff pointed out.
“Do you really want her to come though?” Jeyst chimed in. “I think sooner rather than later she’s going to have a nasty reputation with how she’s been moving.”
“The media has been weirdly slow on all of that, ain’t it?” Nicks remarked.
“Probably because it all sounds like a big hoax. Unless she walks up to the camera and kills someone in cold blood no one is going to say anything definitive.” Gregori gave his guess. “Even the incident between her, Emmie and Jennla doesn’t cause as big of a fuss as it should.”
“...People moved on from that so quickly.” Jeff said in response to quite an important event. No one even really pointed out how Jennla was basically unpersoned for over two weeks.
“A lot of things in general are being glossed over because of how recent the Eclipse was. Relatively speaking, of course.” Gregori explained. It’s not even a year in and online there’s still a lot of unproven hearsay. It’s going to take a lot of time for the fog of disinformation and uncertainty to clear itself out.
“...Why are they so slow to adapt?” Jeff complained.
“Beats me, but let’s give the wider world the benefit of the doubt here.” Gregori replied. “Let’s just wait for things to play out. No need to rush or complain, just like how we’re still waiting for the food to arrive.”