Shovels In Spades

With his phone to his ear, Daz attentively listened to his sister's words.

"So, obviously, Grandmother is a descendant of Korea's most powerful living esper bloodline, the Ho bloodline. That family has been around even longer than the Hamilio one but I don't have any specifics since while, yes, espers have been recording their history for thousands and thousands of years - long before the concept of recording history was even founded by Herodotus who I suspect to have been an esper himself. Anyway, got off topic there, the esper families squirrel their own knowledge away like hoarders," Rose said.

Daz nodded as he stayed silent and continued to listen.

"If you want more knowledge of the Ho bloodline you'll have to get it from the ancestral home, wherever the fuck that is. Old world internet only had so much info on espers and the system has even less, oddly enough," Rose claimed.

"Language. We may be continents apart, little lady but it would take me less than 5-minutes to go to Guishan Island and teleport back home to flick your forehead," Daz warned.

"Fucking try me," Rose snapped before Daz heard her whispering into her phone's microphone. "I've been with Vanessa for over an hour and it's driving me mad. Put up with me a little bit, would you?"

Daz sighed. "You should really just confess. Even if she rejects you, so long as you work against it things won't get awkward and you'll have planted the idea of romance in her mind. Who knows? Maybe the gods smile on you and she's a lesbian too? For all you know she might just say yes and ask you to wait a few years for you both to grow up a bit."

"You're an idiot, both you and Maddy. Anyway, Grandmother, yes?" Rose asked impatiently, clearly keen to switch topics.

'You're the one who brought it up...' Daz shook his head. "Yes, Grandmother. Do you know anything about her strength or her motives? How did you convince her to try to ally with me when possible and should I be on high alert when I meet her?"

"First question, her weapon was originally a pen since she was doing paperwork when the apocalypse struck but she has since acquired and used a class change token - I don't know how. Her weapon is now a Jang Chang which is pretty much just a long spear. As for her motives, I don't know if she has hidden ones but she's likely motivated by the desire to keep me happy so I don't screw her over," Rose explained.

"Second question, I revealed to her that our grandfather, Lorenzo Hamilio is still alive despite her presumed successful assassination of him. She tried to kill him 21-years-ago and he apparently went along with it. I only know he's still kicking thanks to some very deep digging through the old military networks I could get my hands on with a bit of help from my guessing skill and the system," Rose said.

"Final question, yes, be cautious. She claims to hate the Hamilios just like you do but as far as I know that hatred could extend to both you and me. Use her, don't trust her," Rose said a bit too coldly for Daz's liking.

'Is that what I sound like most of the time? It certainly is unsettling,' Daz thought as he nodded. "Thanks, Rose. I really appreciate you helping me like this despite it being so late over there."

Daz could practically hear the shrug coming from a lack of care through the phone as Rose replied, "Eh, it's fine. By the way, what kind of agreement did you reach with the local champions? Also, any interesting champions? I never did get enough time or resources to investigate them too deeply."

"Eh, champion of bows here, champion of bubblegum there, nothing too strange or powerful. All champions of lesser gods. I had a meeting with them last night at around seven o'clock. I asked them to work under me and help me unify Taiwan under my kingdom. I put it more eloquently and I'm sure my skills made it sound more convincing but regardless, four of the six champions agreed, the other two don't seem to be fans of democracy ironically enough and challenged me to combat to prove my worth. Smart, honestly, since they were painfully aware that they wouldn't be able to gain control any other way," Daz detailed.

Rose hmmed loud enough for Daz to picture the girl tapping her chin in thought. "Smart but dumb. It would take an army of champions to defeat you realistically assuming you weren't pulling your punches."

"What's this I hear? Could it be... No, that's impossible. A compliment from the one and only Rose of New Earth? My ears must be malfunctioning," Daz said in a particularly dry and sarcastic tone.

"Ha-ah... You can be insufferable at the best of times, Daz," Rose claimed. "Anyway, did you really just wait, what, 19-hours to call me?"

"Yes, I did. It was five in the morning for you when I was done so I instead spent the day training my internal energy," Daz stated.

"Oh? How's that going?" Rose asked curiously.

Daz smiled faintly, happy to have his sister's interest. "I don't know. I need to talk to you and Maddy in depth when I get back to determine if I'm doing well, okay or poorly. For now though progress feels good."

"Okay, well, I should probably go. Uh, t-thanks for calling me..." Rose stuttered.

Daz could sense the cheeks of his precious little sister turning red and that made him happy. "You're welcome, Rose. Talk to you soon."

A second later the call had been disconnected. "Well, training overview then the conquest of southern Taiwan, I think," Daz decided as he pulled up his internal energy tracker.