chapter 140
POV: Fourth Colosseum Captain, Baron Treinsorn
Just a few more days, and it will be over. Pulling up the list of available loot brought a smile to my face, but also a sense of worry. The contribution points had been distributed, but we did not have enough for the main prize.
If it comes to that crystal needing to be cut in half, I do not know how I can face my Duke. Such crystals are required for each of the eight main capital shield generators that make the battle barges such defensive powerhouses.
My Duke is not stupid, so while flying around finding fighters is our official mission, joining a fleet that is to tackle a high-ranked space portal to continue increasing the number of battle barges in service, thereby improving my Duke’s position in the galaxy, is the real reason.
One of the hardest materials to find are crystals that are good enough for capital shield generators. Even with us finding it inside the mothership, giving us a bit of a discount as we were the ones to retrieve it wasn’t enough.
Our contribution was nearly 54 million, yet we were about 6 million short of claiming it entirely. Only the top ten could post a contribution score of over 6 million.
The Adventurer Guild contribution system is something everyone uses. It’s monumentally fair, yet aggravating at the same time. It assigns value to both the loot and each participant, and while arguments often happened, in the end, everyone sticks to the distribution.
We were currently in one of the sitting rooms, with me sitting on the highchair flanked by my right-hand man and my niece, who isn’t exactly what the stories made her out to be. It will be good to get her away from that brother of mine; otherwise, he will continue to corrupt her beyond rescue.
Not everyone had yet made it to this meeting, although there was still some time. This was only for the top 10 contributors; each of us would be claiming a large majority of the loot in terms of its value. What surprised me was how many smaller crystals there were; it seems that some had taken looting seriously.
Sensing the power in this room was strange. Currently, I am at B-rank. Many of the battleship captains were of a higher rank, but there was a reason why I had a title, and they didn’t. Rank didn’t mean that you were powerful; it just noted how far you had reached in your potential.
My Duke was S-rank, but there were millions of S-ranks in the galaxy. He could probably defeat a thousand of them all by himself. Some just seem to have an aura above others, and none of the captains here came even close.
Finally, the three remaining captains walked in almost at the same time. Quickly, I was informed that this was a coincidence. That was good news, because if some of the captains worked together, they might try to claim the prize by themselves, but none seemed to be too cordial to one another for that to happen.
One of the captains seemed more powerful than the others. And yes, I could confirm that he was second on the list of top contributors. Yet my eyes only lingered on him for a moment, as they quickly moved on to the weakest-ranked individual here.
Captain Remy Graves. A relative newcomer with only a frigate to his name. Yet he was number 5 on the contributor list with almost 20 million points. There were some oddities in how he operated his ship, as they had survived the swarm when they should not have, but none of that mattered right now. Because even though he was the weakest amongst us, he still felt dangerous, while almost none of the others did.
Then there was the fact that he looked like an elf, but there was something wrong with his ears. If he were part of the Dominion, even with his mutation, there might be a chance that we could get that crystal without the hassle.
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I looked toward my right-hand man. He understood immediately, which made him not hurry, but still quickly make his way towards him. A small giggle from my niece distracted me. As I looked toward her, she explained.
“He’s not what you think, and not a part of the Dominion.”
Her words made me curious, and I could see shock on the face of my right-hand man as he made his way back toward me.
“Baron… he’s not an elf. He’s a human.”
His statement confused me. “Like from the stories?” I asked, unable to keep the astonishment from my voice.
“Uncle, you really need to start reading the Dominion’s general missives. Humans entered the galaxy not too long ago after their planet became uninhabitable.”
My head snapped to my niece, trying to understand what she had just said. I took a moment to process everything. So, humans joined us, the elves and the dwarves, amongst the stars. Change was coming; I could feel it in my bones.
I looked towards the human and gave him a nod. He returned it without any sign of worry, although I was certain he could feel the strength I possessed. He made his way toward his assigned chair without seemingly noticing the stares everyone was giving him.
So, he was one of those humans that were above the rest, leaders or villains that could and would change all that’s around them. I had grown up with the stories of the three races, and their interactions be them good or bad. We shall see what this one is.
“Let the claiming begin.” I nodded to everyone, and almost immediately, people started to use their points to claim the different loot available. Not just the people here but every participant. Of course, many picked the same things, and arguments started almost immediately.
As soon as I picked up the main crystal, silence permeated the room. And then it started.
“Not enough points?”
“We must cut this into multiple pieces; that is the only option.”
“This contribution point system doesn’t take into account the value of things! That main crystal overshadows everything!”
And so it continued and continued, minutes turning into nearly an hour. My right-hand man spoke for me, pointing out how much value the crystal would lose if it was cut. It would lose so much value that cutting it in half would be a crime, which everyone seemed to agree with. Yet no one wanted to give us the crystal.
“I have a suggestion,” the human said, who had been quite quiet up to this point.
“Baron, if you’d humour me. I believe you would use this crystal as one of the components to make a capital shield generator?”
How would he know that? But I guess it wasn’t a far-fetched guess. I inclined my head, not knowing where he was going with this.
“From what I can tell, you would need to cut away about 34% of the crystal to make it into the right shape, mostly at the top and bottom.”
I looked towards my right-hand man, who gave a nod. It seems once again, the human was right. This time I didn’t nod, but he continued anyway, seemingly satisfied with my non-answer.
“I would be willing to part with the little over 6 million points you would need, if I got those pieces that you would cut off. If you can do it in the following few days, and those pieces that were cut away were kept as big as possible?”
I didn’t react to his words, but I could do the calculations. The pieces that would be cut off would still be quite big, well above the worth of the 6 million contribution points. He was coming away well ahead in this deal, and I could see the other captains seeing that as well. Some even smiled, seemingly satisfied as it would be a worse deal for me.
I looked toward my right-hand man. As I didn’t know if we could cut it here or not, but he gave me a tiny nod. We would be getting what we wanted, even if it would cost us more than expected.
“Very well, Captain Remi Graves, captain of the Forward Horizon, you have a deal.”
With that done, all I had left to do was sit here as others argued over the remaining loot. The human was quite interested in getting more of the bigger crystals, spending basically everything he had left on a few medium-sized ones found aboard the frigates, with everything else left spent on the tiny ones.
As everything came to a close, all of us looked around, wondering what other loot everyone else had managed to hide away before they were officially reported. All of us knew that we had done so, but none of us had any evidence. I wondered who had made it out the biggest.
We did manage to hide away one large crystal, which was about one-third the size of the main crystal, but still something incredibly valuable.
“With this, I call the raid completed. We have but a few fighters that we have kept alive, and we will be killing them in exactly 48 hours. By that time all of the loot should be distributed, and we should be leaving the portal. But after we have left the portal, I would like to invite you all back here for a celebration.”
I got some confirmations, some shoulder shrugs back, which were to be expected. To the human, I motioned him to stay behind. As everyone else left and he was the only one remaining who wasn’t off the battle barge, he approached.
“It might take us a touch longer to finish cutting the main crystal. But I will oversee the cutting myself,” my right-hand man explained to him. He didn’t seem to mind the extra wait.
“If you would excuse me, I have some loot to bring back to my ship.”
“Before you go, I would like to ask, do your species also have stories of ours? Do you know of the strange connections between us?”
He turned back around. There was a teasing smile on his face.
“Oh, I do. Perhaps more than most. But I have already shared the knowledge I have, which is probably being verified as we speak. It will be interesting to see what comes of that.” And just like that, he turned around and left, leaving us all with more questions than we had before.
My niece had a strange smile on her face. But I could understand why, as this human was quite curious.
My Duke would certainly be interested in seeing what a human could be capable of in the fighting ring. If any of the stories are true, I would bet that we will soon have a few joining the ranks of the fighters on the battle moon.