Chapter 52
Necessities
Ethan withdrew a blood sword from the guts of a dying zowolf, digging into the creature’s corpse for a moment and taking out a small crystal, putting it into his inventory. Tian had informed him of the roamer that he’d spotted when taking Layla on one of their many excursions into the woods. It didn’t mean much–not really. It could be that there was a Tunnel somewhere nearby but it could also just mean that the zowolf in question was a random roamer.
Returning to the lodge, he found Ronald back on the project the boy had started as soon as Elijah left–expanding the lodge. Ethan didn't think the boy would stick to it, but it had been five days and it looked like he was committed. It wasn't as though Ronald had any experience building things before, which was why most things took forever, and still didn't really look all that good.
The boy’s plan was to expand the lodge with two new rooms–one for him and Elijah to sleep in so they finally could stop sleeping on sofas, and another for all the gadgetry he thought Elijah could pick up in the city before coming back–like a washing machine. Ethan didn’t have the heart to tell the boy that it was a hopeless quest, so he just let him be.
“Hey,” he greeted the youngster who was currently busy measuring a thick log of a tree that he’d cut down from nearby.
“Hey,” Ronald greeted back without looking away from the log.
“Whatcha doing?”
“Trying to figure out how to get this from, well, this into a usable plank of wood."
“Yeah,” Ethan mumbled. “I’m pretty sure they have machines for that.”
“... ah, silly me. You’re right. I should just plop back into my workshop with all those amazing woodcutting tools–oh, wait, I don’t have one.”
"..." It was strange, Ethan had noticed, the habit Ronald picked up–replying to his somewhat stupid questions the same way Tara would. Electing to not read further into it as it was a pothole he wasn't willing to explore, Ethan shrugged it off. "I was going to–hmm?" Ethan frowned as he swung his head backwards–not toward the city, but in the opposite direction. For a moment, he felt an insanely overpowering flux of Mana–in fact, it was so harsh, that even Ronald stiffened and stood up, looking in the same direction.
“What the hell was that?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Ethan truly didn’t know. Many, many things could be sources of a massive discharge of Mana, few of which were even beneficial. Quickly whipping out his phone, he loaded into the latest news and, within minutes, got his answer–about six hundred miles from them, a beam of burning light appeared from the sky and crashed into a mountain, leaving it covered in dust and debris. For now, nobody knew what was happening. “Ooooh,” Ethan mused in acknowledgement. “So, this is what that was.”
“Huh? This was what? What are you talking about?” Ronald glanced at him.
“It’s a Relic Hunt,” Ethan said, taking a moment before continuing. “Throughout the whole ordeal, every once in a while, we’d get these events. They were often rather difficult, but the rewards were quite… delicious, in proportion to the difficulty. This one, specifically, is called a ‘Relic Hunt’. The insides of the mountain where the pillar of light crashed have been morphed into a maze. Whoever can get to its heart first, obtains a Relic.”
“Wow. Sounds good. Should we go?”
“Nah,” Ethan shrugged. “The Relic’s good, but none of us can use it. In fact, I’m pretty sure nobody in the world can use it just yet.”
“What do you mean?” Ronald asked.
“The Relic’s called Noble Soul," Ethan elaborated. "It gives some pretty ludicrous boost to stats, but very situationally. Unless you are fighting for someone else, or helping someone, the relic does nothing. However, if you are doing something for selfish reasons, it nukes your stats into oblivion. It's an item fashioned for wannabe heroes."
“... wait. Wouldn’t that fit Elijah perfectly?” Ronald frowned.
“No,” Ethan shook his head. “He’s associated with me. With you. And that’s a strike. As I said, there’s probably nobody in the world that can use the Relic for now. In fact, to my knowledge, there was only one person in history who got to wield it in the end–Luna.”
“...”
“What?”
“You can’t just dangle a bait like that, man. I’m not a fish! C’mon, who’s Luna?!” Ethan chuckled at Ronald’s reaction before explaining.
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"I don't know," he said. "Honestly. Nobody really knows. She would become better known as the 'Night's Saviour' since her whole spiel was stalking the streets at night and helping people left, right and centre. It got so bad that a whole-ass religion was made worshipping her which forced her to come out of hiding and disavow it."
“You don’t sound like you wanna recruit her.” Ronald said.
“Would you?” Ethan scoffed. “Imagine Elijah, but imagine if he had zero moral flexibility. What a pain in the ass. My head hurts just thinking about it.”
“... yup. I can see that.” Ronald nodded. “What happened to her?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest,” Ethan frowned, trying to recall back the distant memories that had all but faded. “My memory’s a bit murky since she disappeared before the ten-year anniversary of the Descent. Chances are that she got killed, most likely by people as she rarely went into Tunnels. Save for her, though, I didn’t hear of anyone else using the Noble Soul.”
“Since you’re being so chatty,” Ronald said. “You feel like sharing your actual plan with Elijah?” Ethan glanced to the side and saw the eyes of someone that he was beginning to respect ever so slightly. Something changed inside Ronald–deep inside of him–ever since they came back. While Tara’s death was definitely a catalyst for that change, she wasn’t the reason. Not the only reason, at least. This was him, deep down, all along, bogged in the caprice of a chameleon.
“There’s nothing hidden there, I’m afraid,” Ethan said. “The hope for security feed was that I’d get to see a place that will become very important in the future before the changes. Alas, I doubt it’s gonna happen.”
“You don’t think they’ll give you access to the feeds?” Ronald asked. “Even when it gets bad?”
“Nah,” Ethan shook his head. “It would mean relinquishing control. And the thing about control freaks, Ronny, is that we don’t like that.”
“So, why the whole charade? Why send Elijah in there knowing it will never work out?”
"Because people are suckers for good-nurtured kids," Ethan chuckled. "That kid will buy me enough goodwill to get a hold of something else entirely. Or, rather, someone else."
“That Sarah chick that you wanted Tara and me to kill?” Ronald immediately recalled the somewhat distant memory.
"She's a separate issue altogether," Ethan said. "I'll deal with her soon enough. No, the person in question is your future younger sister."
“... yeah. That might yet be the creepiest thing you’ve said.” Ronald frowned.
“She should be about twelve years old now, no?” Ethan mumbled, stroking his chin. “She’s crucial for a lot of my future plans.”
“Why?” Ronald asked.
“She’s already Awakened to perhaps the most broken Class anyone ever gained access to,” Ethan continued. “Combat-wise, she’s a dud. She literally cannot fight. Outside of combat, though, she’s irreplaceable.”
“A healer?” Ronald shot off a guess.
“... we’re Vampires, basically. Come on, dude.”
“Right.”
“No. The Class’ name is Voyagebinder and, like mine, it's Unique, in the sense that only one person in the world can ever have it. Long story short: she can open and build temporary and permanent portals that connect any two points on planet Earth or in any of the Tunnels. Yes, you can then go back to the Tunnels even after you’ve closed them. She’s integral to my future plans of item-hunting. Not to mention that she eventually gets the ability to literally construct dimensions of her own.”
“... Jesus,” Ronald mumbled in disbelief.
"Tell me about it," Ethan sighed. "She was the bedrock of the entire world's new-age government. So, naturally, when she's so close, I have to get her into our ranks. The issue, though, is that I only know she lived in the city at this point in time with her parents and what she roughly looked like. I figured, if I could enlist the military's help in searching for her, it'd be easier than weeding through the entire city's worth of people."
“And you don’t think the military would be suspicious of you wanting this one particular person?”
“Oh, they definitely would be. But it wouldn’t matter. I would burn the entire military complex in order to get her.”
“Right. Don’t share this story with anyone else, Elijah especially. Hunting down a girl with parents for a long-term plan of exploitation? Yeah. Not a good look.”
“... suits me, though. No?”
“...”
Ethan, as always, hid a few details from the boy. There was a reason he was confident in being able to ‘get’ the girl so long as he found her. The man who went on to become one of the most influential people in the world and the one who headed the main council of the global cabal, Aiden Robinson, was the first man to have ‘found’ her–and saved her. Her gratitude ran eternal, the kind that could never be bought.
Shuffling back inside, Ethan put on a pot for some coffee, wondering whether there’d be any changes to the victor of the Relic Hunt. Though it would become a military base, people were still allowed inside so long as they were ‘partied up’ with a soldier. The eventual winner was given grand honours and nothing else as the military took the Relic for itself.
It didn't matter to him, though; he was mostly biding his time until Elijah worked his magic. He wasn't impatient, however. Delilah wouldn't be 'discovered' for another two years, all through which she honed her Class all on her own. In a lot of ways, she was like Elijah–innately genial, though externally dependent. While Elijah wasn't dependent on a person as much as he was dependent on his naive desires, she very much needed a crutch. And though his motives may not be noble, his idea for the girl's future was better than her current reality, and even the alternate future where she became a government's dog, creating portals everywhere and at all times. By the time she died of Mana Sickness, there were an estimated sixteen thousand portals spread across the Earth and various Tunnels. Sixteen thousand pairs, actually. A terrifying thing, well beyond the measure of reality. At least, with her death, the cabal began to collapse. They still held on by the time Ethan returned, but they were at least six-seven years removed from their absolute peak.
Though he, too, wanted her mostly for her ability to open up portals, he didn’t need every inch of the world covered–in fact, he only really needed eight portals to specific places in the world that were close enough to most events he wanted to be a part of, while the extra portals into the Tunnels would just be a bonus.
Sighing, he cracked his neck and wondered just how smoothly his future plans would go. After all, soon enough, all of the changes would pick up pace–Tunnels would be appearing daily, various events would be almost a weekly occurrence, and he would have no luxury to spend time loitering about in the lodge, doing nothing. This was a vacation, perhaps the last one he would ever have.