Chapter 19: Inflation
[Edited by Arthur300000]
[Proofread by ArchmageNaoki]
[More Deathbricks]
I noticed that my sister got up in the middle of the night, though I was too sleepy to follow her. The tent felt colder after she left, but soon my consciousness slipped back into dreamland. I don’t know how much time passed when I woke up again. I had flopped around a few times before I got up. The bedding in my tent isn’t as soft and comfy as a real bed, but it’s not too bad either. The air outside my tent that leaked through the entrance is even colder. I wonder how other people fare against this coldness. The atmosphere outside my tent is quite lively. Fragments of sunlight are peeking out from the top of the trees, illuminating the area around the campsite. The cold morning breeze is a lot fresher than the damp air in the cave-like environment and made me shiver a bit. I finished my morning businesses quickly and found that my flow is lighter than yesterday; I think it’s a sign of my period coming to an end.
I happily skip to the dining table that Marcus's team set up around the center of the camp, drawn in by the delicious aroma coming from that direction. Today I'm wearing a white shirt with thick gray sleeveless one piece on top because I wished to blend in with the people around me. They wore heavy jackets or thick winter clothing. The clothes of this world are quite convenient; they could repair themselves, and when I store them in my bracelet for awhile they will come out clean again. However, the auto repair is too slow. After that explosion yesterday I had to fight the entire battle half nude. Luckily, no one saw me at that time… Except for that girl who drove the space shuttle, maybe that’s why she was staring at me. Anyway, with money I had from yesterday's battle, perhaps I should buy some armor for myself.
“Uhmm, Ms. Kuro, They don't sell armor anymore. The interference field and static wall from those close combat devices should provide protection better than those bulky suits. So people don't buy them anymore.” Marcus answered my question at the dining table while we waited for the soup to finish cooking.
“That and because of its heaviness it will slow you down. Moreover, like the shield that you picked yesterday, they are not so popular anymore because magic nowadays can come at you from any angle. Blocking those spells with that kind of equipment is impossible. The only advantage they have is in close combat scenarios which are happening less and less in the battlefield.” My brother joined the conversation when he arrived. His complexion looked a lot better than yesterday. I concluded that a good night's rest could heal everything.
“Although there are other countries like dwarfs who still produce something like power armor. It’s a big suite of metal which increase the wearer's physical power tremendously. I saw them when I was on the field trip to the Dwarf country. It was super huge and-” Marcus went on a passionate talk about the dwarf’s power armor. It’s interesting. Someday I might be able to visit one of the Dwarf countries and buy a suit of power armor. My interest being peaked, I listened intently.
“That dwarf’s power armor again!? You know what. This guy got duped by those dwarf who sold him a fake power armor blueprint.” Peter a lanky man, one of Marcus teammate, joins the conversation.
“Oh, c’mon Peter. It was only one mistake, and you haunt me like forever.” Marcus' face was like a boiling octopus. It’s funny, so I let out a giggle. What? Am I giggling? Damn, my body's influencing me again.
“Yeah, but one mistake and you lose the entire team's savings. And for that, I'm entitled to haunt you for the rest of your life.” Peter smirks while my sister walked towards us. It seems she's also recovered from yesterday’s sulking.
“-and because of that, we had to sleep in the stables. Can you believe that?” Peter still wouldn't let Marcus go. “Oh! It’s that legendary hoax. So it’s you guys? I never thought there would be anyone stupid enough to get duped like that.” My sister chimed in and landed a final critical hit on Marcus.
“But can’t you just tell the authorities about that?” There should be a law for that in this well-developed world, right?
“Nope, the dwarf's law is different. They have the mentality like “If you can't protect it you don’t deserve to have it.” So, if you get duped or steal something from you by those dwarfs you can only buy those items back from them. That’s why most cities don’t allow Dwarfs to enter. There were so many wars in history because some countries don’t know that and let those Dwarf walk right through their royal palace. You can imagine the rest. And the dwarfs always win, though. Most historians concluded that they already know that they would win the war before they start stealing something.” Peter shakes his head while he’s explaining this.
“Then I could steal something from them and ask for money in return right?” I am quite confident in my sneaking and lockpicking abilities. Oh, I can even take those power armor suits.
“Yes, It’s perfectly legal to do that in the Dwarf city assuming you are a master thief and can bypass all the security they have. But they will send their hired thugs after you before they open the negotiations, though.” Peter shrugged just before Vicky slapped his head from behind and said: “Don’t give her any dangerous ideas!”.
A few minutes later breakfast was ready. Breakfast today is Takto soup. Needless to say about the taste. The feeling of warmth from the soup is spreading through my whole body in the cold morning, while the sweetness and softness of the soup danced around my tongue, and combined with the aroma of the herbs and the sweetness of the Takto meat, the ingredients work in perfect harmony. Those things made the moment that I blow the soup on my spoon so tantalizing. No one spoke a word while eating this meal, the vapor from everyone blowing their spoons is covering the area around the table with fog. We ate quietly and happily until the whole pot was empty and we laugh at ourselves after that. Today is the last day of this assignment, but because I don’t have my close combat device anymore, my team decided to take it easy. We walk straight to the path that we used on the first day then backtrack our steps to the exit of the forest. When we arrived at the side of the road, we have plenty of time before the bus came. Vicky and Marcus's team are so understanding about this. They said that these things frequently happen, so they don’t mind ending their gathering a bit early.
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While the other people were using their time waiting for the bus productively, I play with my spells from Skyrim. To my dismay, I found that the ice I produce couldn’t be melted. It just disappears after being exposed to a fire spell. I looked at my brother for an answer.
“It’s not real ice.” My brother explained. “Because the energy that’s needed to create a few pounds of real ice from nothing could destroy an entire city, an amount of energy that no one has. So, to create something from nothing, those magic spells use a technique that’s called “superposition.” Take your ice spear, for example. Your ice spear is just a manifestation of ice which it could either exist or not exist in reality. Those magic casting devices help push that manifestation state to the “exist” side which we called the measurement of it as [spell integrity]. On the other hand, the [interference field] push the state of those spells to the “not exist” side. When the spells become “not exist” enough those spells will disappear.” Well, I kind of understand yet don't understand at the same time. I know that given this is an ice spear after a while it will just disappear, but when it lasts, it seems so real to me I could also feel coldness radiating from it.
“Then what about the spells that create energy from the real world’s matter like… you know, Oxygen and Hydrogen combined together then explode. Something like that.” I try to wrack my shut-in brain for some sloppy scientific knowledge.
“Yes, most modern spells are like that. Your explosive bullet spell, for example, is fundamentally the same as what you just described. That’s why their efficiency is a lot better. However, in the end, it’s still the manifestation of an explosion which could be blocked by interference field.” We discuss similar magic like that until the bus came with my sister and Sophia pitching in their knowledge from time to time.
When the bus finally arrived, we got on and noticed that it was already filled with people. People inside were loudly bragging about how much they got from this trip and their adventure. “It’s quite difficult, but with serious plan and effort our group took down 50 of those thunderwolves.” … Why are they bragging about that beginner monster? “Man, we almost died! Luckily we ran away just in time. Doesn't those wolves grow too fast? It’s impossible for us to handle more than ten of those wolves at the same time.” The second group of people was complaining because they couldn’t harvest any monster cores.
After I had listened for awhile, I noticed that most people had only fought around the outer region of the forest. So I looked at my brother after I realized that. He looked back at me apologetically. Well, some seniors had gone deeper into the forest like us, but none of them bulldozed their way through the woods like we did. What I heard from their stories is that they used a lot of sneaking, traps, and tactics. Some of them even use the [Drone] thing to lure those monsters before ambushing them. I felt like I need to re-evaluate the difficulties of those monsters I fought.
When we arrived at the school grounds, we lined up to show the monster cores we got for evaluation. I saw one of the instructors’ eyes bulge from their sockets while another one had her face twitching when we took out the monster cores we collected. I hope the oldest staff doesn’t have a heart attack because he looks like he’s having a seizure. Well, counting only small cores, my entire team collected more than a thousand small monster cores in total. Well, when other teams mostly have less than one hundred monster cores, our team seems so different. Moreover, most of the cores from other team are consisted only small green cores and below while our team had an abundance of red and black cores. When we took out another set of medium sized monster cores people around us murmured like crazy. “That’s insane! Aren’t they too strong for high school level!?” I heard something like that from the other group of people watching us. Because it took a long time to count and evaluate our monster cores, I was famished when they finished.
When they finally finished counting, I ran straight to the cafeteria. While thinking about what I'd like to eat, I almost dropped my tray when I heard someone screaming “très bien~” from the kitchen. I looked at the source of the commotion, and I saw burly cook hugging a poor girl from Vicky’s team.
“Fabulous! These spider bears are a rare ingredient, and you've brought us so much!” Oh, that three-headed six-armed bears is called a spider bear huh? Well, from their reaction I think we may have gone overboard. No matter, what's done is done. Let’s enjoy my meal~. I sold most of the cores I got to high school while I only kept the small black cores for my gun and medium green cores for my father’s car. Well, I still don't feel comfortable riding his car for free, so maybe he can use these medium sized green cores as a fuel. I couldn’t find those medium sized red cores like the one that he showed me, though. The result I got from the transaction was shown on my ID card.
Name: Kuro Age: 15 years old
Race: Human Gender: Female
Institution: Royal Adventure High School
Rank: 3B Score: 1740/4000 Points
Credits: 10,933 Energy: 9.364/9.364 KJuiz
The best news is that accursed last line on my ID card has disappeared. My energy also increased by another 2% from yesterday. And I've also gained a whopping 10,500 credits just from selling the monster cores. The thing I don’t understand is the rank and scoring system.
“After rank 2B is 2A then 3D, 3C, and 3B. So we just skipped four ranks in one go.” My sister happily counted on her fingers while explaining the order of the rank system. It seems we need 4000 points in each rank to move to the next rank and after we pass rank 4A, we can take an exam to become full-fledged adventures.
With all the good news from my ID card, I ate my meal happily. While I was enjoying the meal, the head chef had come over to personally thanks us for those ingredients. I don’t understand much of what he said because his way of speaking sounded weird. But I remember one thing … he has a lot of chest hair. He also gave me ice cream thing that looked like a parfait as special service. It was giant and tastes exquisitely delicious. I’m already full by the time I finished my meal, but I couldn't stop eating that parfait. I began to understand what it means when girls say that they have a separate stomach for sweets. Huh? Did I get it all wrong? Who cares! Next time I will go all out again. After we had finished our dinner, I was wobbling when leaving the cafeteria. I never knew that my stomach could stretch this much. I got to know later that parfait is for three serving... It was a little painful, but I have no regret.