Holding a tray in his hands, Lars found a spot at random to sit inside the cafeteria. Considering that it was only the ten of them, which made up the entire team of abnormality users, with Rhys excluded from that count because she didn’t seem to want to sit with the rest and eat, the multiple tables capable of holding twenty people on a single one alone opened a lot of space to pick and choose seats. He noticed that the group wasn’t gravitating towards one area, either, so it was at his discretion.
The thought of being particular about it crossed his mind, since there were certain people with complexities to them that made themselves a tad difficult to handle; but then again, he realised: he didn’t really care. Lars’ number one priority was getting something to eat and enjoying it as soon as possible—table neighbours be damned.
Therefore, he sat down at random. It happened to be next to Ossian who was a reasonable person from what he had seen. Disregarding the knack to start arguments with Nia, which had been his first encounter with them, the lady hurling all sorts of nasty slurs to put even a sailor to shame, and even with the background of leading a gang as exposed by Jack, he was calm enough. It didn’t seem to be his penchant to cause trouble.
But perhaps, it was his specialty to get caught in it.
The moment Lars took his seat, Nia sat on the other side of him with a tray that showed no efforts of dieting. Even Siegfried didn’t far surpass her plate of seemingly randomly selected food. But attention there didn’t last long as she cooed, “What did you get, Lars? Y’know…? You can actually tell what kinda man someone is by what makes up their plate.”
S’pose you could… Lars idly considered the proposal. There was once an incredibly muscular guy in a unit of his, who no one talked to because they were afraid to approach him, but by chance, Lars had seen him very, very carefully picking apart his meal to separate the vegetables he didn’t like from the rest of it; mind you, only the ones he didn’t like, as some vegetables did remain.
Lars had lost some of the hesitance to talk to him because of that, and once took an opportunity to make small talk. It turned out that the man was both gentle and well-spoken; he enjoyed talking about his wife and child back home, and even shared photos from the time he spent with his daughter. Quite literally the gentle giant type.
“Huh… Really? What does your plate say about you, then?” A voice suddenly interjected. Surprisingly, it was Ossian at his side; he had made this remark without directly looking over or raising his voice excessively—simply enough so that Nia would hear.
Nia smiled, “I don’t know, Ossian, would you like to share your thoughts?” At the same time, Lars had a bad feeling. Although the guy wasn’t one to start arguments, from his impression of him, he also didn’t back down and in fact seemed to instigate them further. Lars’ bad feeling was soon proved correct by the response.
“Hmm… Well, it sort of reminds me of an animal. What was it again? The kind that will eat anything you put in its troth…”
At this point, you could almost see the vein bulging from her forehead. Nia’s smile became even more forced, as she asked again, “Ossian, I think you’re confused. You must be. That doesn’t sound like me at all… right?”
Ossian shook his head, closing his eyes and making an excessive gesture of massaging his temples, “No, no, I’ve nearly got it… keep talking, keep talking~ I’ve nearly remembered. I think it sounded like: oink oink?”
The sound of rustling clothes that came with quick movements came from Lars’ side briefly before he felt weight pressing down on him, which happened to be Nia standing up and leaning over his shoulder to face Ossian directly. “Hey, you fucking bastard…” she muttered in a grim tone, “I think you’ve gotten too comfortable lately. Rhys isn’t here to save your ass this time; are you confident? Huh? Feeling lucky? Think you can live long enough for someone to stop me in time??”
“I don’t think you’ll do a thing,” Ossian said as he calmly picked up food with a fork and put it in his mouth. “You’re on thin ice, Nia, you can’t keep causing commotions every little moment. Petty running like Natalya’s doing currently won’t be what you’ll get.”
“You think I’m scared?” Nia asked, pressing down on Lars more, who was now prioritising the protection of his food. “I’ll gladly be tied up naked and upside-down for everyone to see if it means wiping that smug look off your face.”
“That would hardly be a punishment. You’d enjoy that.” This was the last straw. As if signalling that, Lars felt something strange shift in the air. Something that wasn’t there a moment ago was now in his vicinity. It was difficult to see, however, with Nia limiting his vision and mobility.
Taking a moment to crane his neck ever so slightly, to look at where abyss walker’s intuition was screaming at him to look, he saw an ebony mane wrapping around him and hovering above Ossian. His eyes widened upon seeing a strangely terrifying horse head; the rest of its body was somewhere else, detached from it. A horrendously sharp row of teeth opened into a cavernous maw that was about to swallow Ossian’s head whole.
“This close, you can’t recite one of your shitty poems in time. What are you going to do, huh, Ossian? Are you going to apologise? Grovel on the ground? Piss, shit, and cry, maybe? I might just forgive you if you do,” Nia said rather uncouthly. She seemed dedicated to making at least a few of those really happen.
“You think I need my abnormality to deal with you?” “Wanna test that?” The two said one after the other. Meanwhile, Lars wasn’t sure what to do anymore. There seemed to be greater concerns than the safety of his plate now. His only hope before taking matters into his own hands was whoever else it was that was nearby and could do something.
Lars glanced forward. Unfortunately, the eyes he proceeded to make contact with were far from recognising the severity of the situation. It was the young girl, Julka, youngest of the entire team, who was known for remaining idle and impassive in every situation. Even so, his eyes begged for assistance, but it was to no avail. She looked back briefly before turning to her plate.
For fuck’s sake… Lars sighed. The absurdity of this was next-level, to the point he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In the end, it would come down to him to stop this. He looked up briefly and spoke from his compromised position.
“Uhm… Is this your abnormality, Nia?” he asked.
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Nia’s face wasn’t visible to him, but the shift in her body weight seemed to suggest she was looking down. She hummed slightly as if deciding whether to talk about it or show it off directly. Eventually, she replied, “Sure is~! He’s pretty, isn’t he? Oh, and so you know… he ain’t just a head. He’s got a full body and I can summon parts of it separately or the whole thing at once. Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
Lars tried to nod, but realised it wasn’t wise. “That’s unique, yeah… has he got a name?”
“Oh, yeah, he does; and you know what’s funny? He actually announced his own name when we first met. Sadly, he didn’t speak again after that… Embarr’s the name, by the way~” Nia explained. She seemed to have lost focus on Ossian, which showed some promise towards Lars’ goal. And of course, he employed seduction subtly, to achieve this.
Embarr… Lars repeated the name inwardly. Although he lacked the knowledge to know what the name represented, it sounded prestigious enough. His interest was feigned at first but there was now an urge to see the entire body of the dark horse.
As he had hoped, Lars felt Nia slowly shift her weight until she wasn’t leaning on him anymore. She returned to her plate and happily mentioned, “I’ll let you saddle on him if we ever end up working together. No idea why they keep pairing me up with that chauvinist, though~.” Of course, she didn’t leave it without making a snide remark.
When calm finally returned to the table, Lars noticed that Julka was looking at him. He didn’t make much of a point at returning the look but it did bother him slightly. Why was her attention suddenly shifted to him? When he was asking that, he caught her begin to mumble something. It was impossible to hear her but he was capable of lip–reading the words from her mouth.
She had mumbled: ‘he might actually be able to handle her…’ Lars only felt more confused, and thus decided to pretend that he never understood.
After finishing in the cafeteria, Lars went to visit Xi Yun’s office as he was previously asked. The check up went by quickly after assuring that his physical and mental state were both fine. As a regular measure for the team, he was also asked to come by once every two weeks to do regular check ups as well as a psychiatric evaluation. The issues caused around corruption, especially with volatile sources like the abyss, were taken very seriously it seemed.
And with that, the day was concluded, and Lars was shown to the room which was designated as his. It was neither big nor large, but it had most facilities a person could want for, even including a toilet and a shower stall for private use; this kind of luxury was beyond anything he had been given while in the army. There was even a phone for room service that could be called upon anytime to deliver necessities to his room whenever it was needed.
But before he retired for the night, Lars decided to actually take the opportunity and called room service to get more food. It turned out that he had underestimated the appetite that came with abyss walker and needed to eat a lot more than he was used to. A ravenous hunger overcame him, driving him crazy within a short time after it started; there was no weathering it out.
The next morning, he abruptly woke up to stomach cramps and spent some time in his room uncomfortably. Despite the fact that this was the first day and night with the abyss walker abnormality, it felt as if he was facing all the negative consequences and drawbacks simultaneously, without relief. Although he knew the use of it, since his triumph in the fight versus the original owner, Siegfried, wasn’t simple in the slightest, it still felt like he had received a white elephant and wasn’t seeing the benefits properly just yet.
Sometime after waking, the sound of knocking came from his room’s door. Lars nearly jumped at the noise from his bad memories of people knocking on his doors on the other side of the singularity, only to remember that he was on Earth, otherwise referred to as ‘the overworld’, and the same strange phenomena and other troublesome developments (probably) wouldn’t occur. Taking a deep breath, he approached the door and unlocked it, opening to greet whoever was coming to his room at this time in the morning.
To his surprise, it turned out to be Rika, who had introduced herself as the team’s manager. Greeting her briefly, he said, “Morning, Rika. Do you need something?”
“Uhm, I was going to get you when you left your room, but you weren’t leaving, so I came to check on you…” she half-mumbled, a bit awkward in the way she broached the topic, but coming off as honestly concerned. “Is it a bad time?”
“Ah, no—it’s fine. What’s up?” he asked.
Rika nodded a few more times than necessary, answering, “Yeah, uh, that’s good, I… Uhm, Lady Rhys wanted me to show you around and inform you on some stuff; and then I have the details on your first assignment… Th-That’s what I wanted you for.”
She’s a bit timid… but I can understand it. If she’s not used to dealing with odd people, and you put her in charge of guys like Ossian, Nia, Julka… even Jack with his—disposition… add to that the fact they have supernatural abilities. Tough job. Although Lars didn’t say anything, he inwardly praised Rika for holding her position when she clearly wasn’t the overly confident, charismatic, or boisterous type. But perhaps someone who can only ask others to do things was the kind of person these troubled personalities might listen to. Like a group of delinquents and an incompetent teacher, where they unexpectedly become caring and protective of them. And then, if that’s no good, there’s always Rhys with her iron fist…
Lars didn’t protest, “Alright, give me a second to freshen up and I’ll join you. Would you like to wait inside?” He then gestured inside. It was spacious enough with lots of seats to rest at. Instead of waiting outside in the corridor, he found it better to offer entry.
“Ehm, I… I—I, I’m good, thanks!” she bowed... for some reason.
“Okay. Suit yourself,” Lars gestured his thanks and went back into his room. He returned in less than five minutes, not really needing long. Rika had a strange expression on her face when he entered the corridor—but he didn’t think much of it.
Rika’s eyes met Lars as she exclaimed, “Alright then, uhm, just follow me and I’ll show you around. When we get outside, I’ll explain a few things you need to know and then tell you about your assignment. Is that okay?”
“No objections here,” Lars said straightforwardly.