Chapter 113: Interlude in the Vehicle
The truck had been moving for several minutes, gliding silently toward their next target. The group had settled back into a relative calm, each member going about their post-mission routines with gestures automated by habit.Some cleaned their weapons with obsessive precision, rubbing away invisible stains, checking mechanisms that were already perfectly maintained. Others updated their tactical data on the wall-mounted screens, their fingers gliding over the holographic interfaces like virtuoso pianists, compiling information, refreshing statistics, adjusting parameters with intense concentration. The screens projected a bluish glow onto their focused faces, transforming their expressions into spectral masks.
Isaac, meanwhile, remained seated in his place, arms crossed, observing this routine with a forced detachment. His mind replayed the events of the dungeon, searching for something he might have missed, a neglected detail, an ignored sign. But he found nothing, and that very absence of discovery fueled his frustration.
Lazare, still standing at the center of the cabin, maintained his balance effortlessly despite the occasional movements of the vehicle over uneven terrain. He stood there, perfectly stable, anchored to the ground like an unmovable mountain. Isaac noticed that even when the vehicle took a sharp turn or crossed an obstacle, causing slight imbalance among the other passengers, Lazare remained perfectly still, as if his body instinctively adjusted to these disturbances before they even affected his posture.
The guild master observed the holographic sheets projected at mid-height in a corner of the cabin. Data scrolled rapidly, listing the next dungeons to visit, their known characteristics, reported anomalies, and listed creatures. His eyes moved with supernatural speed, absorbing quantities of information that an ordinary mind would have taken hours to process.
— "Next portal in six minutes," he announced without tearing his gaze from the data. "Level D- confirmed. Possible presence of ’fungoids,’ parasitic spore classification. Nothing dangerous."
His tone was sober, factual, devoid of any emotional inflection. He delivered the information like a particularly well-calibrated machine—neither alarmist nor disdainful just precise.
Naesha, sitting silently next to Isaac, was checking her daggers with methodical, almost hypnotic movements. She ran a gloved finger along the curved blades, not to test their sharpness that would be an insult to weapons so perfectly maintained but as part of what seemed to be a personal ritual, a form of tactile meditation. Isaac noticed that the blades did not reflect light as they should have. They seemed to absorb it, creating the illusion of slits in reality itself.
One of the men the one who had been suspicious of Isaac since their first encounter let out a heavy and deliberate sigh. His body language betrayed a growing irritation that he no longer sought to conceal.
— "Ten low-level portals in sight. Ten quick missions. And not a single anomaly," he articulated, shaking his head slightly.
— "We have to start somewhere," replied the red-haired sniper calmly, without pausing her meticulous calibration of her weapon.Her tone was conciliatory but firm, that of a veteran accustomed to tempering team frustrations.
— "We’re mostly just wasting our time," the skeptical man retorted, crossing his arms in a defensive gesture. "I’m not saying this guy is necessarily lying..."He threw a sideways glance at Isaac, evident enough to be intentional.— "...but if all we’re getting are epileptic gnomes and brainless spores, we can seriously start questioning his story."