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Chapter 352: Pakwan
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Tirana opened her eyes and removed the glasses —the NLD— from her head. Her copper blonde hair sprawled on the futon that with just one look could tell you how long it has been in existence.
Her room was empty. Not quite literary, but on the objective side of it.
A table was on top of her futon. On top of it were four things: a finger-sized pen —a mobile internet adaptor, latest release; an empty cup of noodles; a pair of earrings, a classic model Communicator; and then a [card] with a hologram display of how much U-Credits she has left in her bank account.
Beside the table was an electric fan.
Beside the electric fan is the bulky NLD Console.
The room was 2m across and 3m long. A door to the corridor is the entrance and then contrasting that is a window with a small veranda big enough, only, for putting a single clothesline; in that clothesline, by the way, were six underwears that have been basking in the sun to dry up, swinging along the arid winds of the 22nd Century Seoul.
If there was a ‘word’ for poor, she was that word.
In this small apartment that doesn’t even have its own sink and bathroom, she played RPG: Terroa for almost two years. Alone.
One could only imagine why she would even risk being naked in the desert and would treasure all of her equipments. She had survived alone in the world of Terroa and had done so for the past two years without asking anyone for help.
She was a capable girl, on her own right —though that ‘right’ doesn’t amount to much.
When she was logged out after dying, she could wait for an entire day before she could use the Insurance Policy she had painstakingly bought with her 1-year of saved up money last month.
She lay there on the futon, staring at the ceiling, feeling lost and at the same time, fulfilled.
“I can’t believe I had actually met him!” she was feeling excited. “Tomorrow, I’ll beg him to take me to be a member of The Company.”
Poor people don’t have the right to choose. She could endure the humiliation of begging because she has nothing to hold on to anyways. She was already used to the life of a poor lad and aside from her accumulated experience and the items—
“—ah! The items”
She hurriedly got up and went to the table, then in front of her Communicators, she wiped the air and confirmed that the items were on her offline account, on her Communicator’s local HD.
Only then did she lay back to the futon and put her left arm above her eyes, shielding it.
“I only have Terroa, nothing else.”
And that’s where she heard it, an email. She knew she had no friend and the only emails she received are either those news mails or promos.
She thought that it might be the latter.
When she opened it, she made a loud laugh.
“Too late for you… you won’t be able to find me anywhere else in Terroa.”
It was a TDT Newsletter saying that a world-wide manhunt was issued in RPG: Terroa and Julia has become an international criminal.
“Now then, I hope tomorrow comes soon… but I am waiting, I think I will have to change emails since I am starting a new life.” Back in the futon, Tirana rested her cheek on her knees as she read the contents of the Newsletter. “I wish Siva wouldn’t say no to me.”
After reading the newsletter, she fiddled with the [.itm file] of the Memory Orb on her fingers.
“Haaaah… why are the seconds too slow…” she had nothing to do. She was bored.
For a Pro Gamer, not being in the game was the worst possible torture.
*****
Meanwhile…
The reinforcements of The Illuminati Circle of Elites had already reached the area where Julia’s last attempt for a double death had happened.
Leading this group were twins with red hair and voluptuous bodies… Paak and Waan… they were FlowerLord’s closest friends in The Circle. Ever since the War of Two Powers, these two have been increasingly gaining their momentum and at one time, they were even featured in TDT with the interviewer being Brad Goldini himself.
Perhaps in the game, these twins are the most famous Gunslingers. Contrary to how they looked when they are around The Circle or inside a City, when on official missions, they wore their brand, the ‘Cowgirls’ uniform.
With a long-barreled, custom-build classic M107 LRSR .50Cal [Sniper Rifle] “Vulturs”, Paak smugly displayed her presence as she stood there with her towering chest, surveying the surroundings like a predator eyeing for potential prey.
The black and brown-painted rifle strapped on her left shoulder looked menacing —folded like a robot with its eye-catching edges that occupied all the space on her enticing back.
Because it was designed to deal fatal-sniper shots to monsters, it was twice bigger than the normal M107 Sniper Gun-model from the 20th century.
And the reason why she chose to copy this model is because it was easy to physically modify —with her playing style kept in mind during the process.
On the other hand, Waan is heavier-dressed just like Siva; her double barrel Gunslinger-style was meant to be Paak’s ‘decoy’ during their missions.
If Paak, the Sniper, were dressed very lightly to compensate for the [Weight Limits] her “Vulturs” eats up, Waan was just like Siva’s ‘Volume Hunter’ Persona; a brown poncho hiding the equipment she was wearing underneath, with her two healthy chests sticking out like sore thumbs on her body.
In general, “Gunslingers” are already rare enough due to the fact that designing your own ‘Gun’ is a must, even if you buy a blueprint for reference, the fact remains that the Guns’ blueprints themselves are really very expensive to rent.
Then, there was hunting necessary resources to actually build one.
Being Gunslingers, for many, may have been a dream but only a few are truly capable to be one.
And yet, being Gunslingers doesn’t warrant you the right to be part of this Circle of Elites. The reason why Paak and Waan became part of this elitist group is because they are a rare breed of Gunslingers themselves.
They are also Wizards and Martial Artists.
While looking down at the sight of the battle, they looked really sad seeing the empty avatars of their comrades.
“To think she could deal this much damage to us.”
“Sis, I feel that even if Julia is dead, the ‘Orb’ might have been lost with her.”
Paak, the older of the twins, sighed, “Pity.” She said and tapped on her right ear, “So, did you find anything helpful?”
One of the men investigating below, looked up to two two’s location and while Paak could see him talking from her location, his voice was conveyed to her via the Communicator on her ear.
After hearing the report, she heaved another sigh again, “I see.”
“So that’s what happened.” Waan only needed to look at her sister to know what the report held.
The two exchanged glances. There are obvious signs clash here and there but the crater was the sign that it was the end of the struggle.
After that, there weren’t any other signs of a fight as blood and gore were everywhere, messing up the scene. If not for the fact that all of them have their settings to the very lowest, they would have vomited at the sight of this bloody setting.
This is how important the game’s visual rendering [settings] are.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“It’s a suicide attack.” Waan murmured.
“She must have been either crazy or must have been very desperate.”
“Considering she is part of that group, yet no one came to help her… I’d say she was abandoned.”
“If that really is what happened, then even I would think of pulling off the same stunt that she did.”
“Poor girl.”
“And to think she had been portraying as a guy to escape our detection this whole time. No wonder we can’t track her down after all this years.”
“I wonder how she plays though.”
“Yep. Indeed, her paying style is unique. She’s like a modern-age Black Widow.”
As the twins talked by themselves, the concluded report was finalized: there are no more signs of battle elsewhere and there are also signs that the desert monsters have been here before them, eating the remains of the people, thus the bloody scene and the messed up investigation result.
“In the end, we didn’t recover the Memory Orb or even a single thing to salvage.”
“What a mess. The Boss wouldn’t be happy with this report.”
“Not like we could do something about it. Just the fact that we managed to track her down after all this time is proof that Alice had done a meritorious deed for the circle.”
“True. It was pure chance.”
They concluded their investigation and went back to the city. In the end, these eight’s deaths were all just in vain.
*****
Siva, despite the root cause of a girl’s trouble and The Circle’s problems, remained unperturbed on his and Scion’s little courtyard.
When the clock hit 12noon, Siva stood up from his chair and called in for Scion who had just made her way towards the kitchen carrying the trey with the empty plates of food.
“It’s time.” He murmured.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Siva thought for a moment and then recalled the housekeeper, Scarlet, “Bring six people. We’re going to meet with that Draco.”
“Yes sir.”
Scion wasn’t there last night so she was unaware but Scarlet was and given her position as Head of Security of the entire Grand Mansion, she was at least smart enough to be able to patch the strings together with what she saw and heard last night.
With just a single gesture, Scarlet changed her housekeeper uniform into that of High Magistrate and walked towards the door to the ‘house’.
“Rex?”
“We’re picking up some items. It was given to us by the superior of that bastard who wanted to pick a fight with me over you.”
When she spoke to here, Scion blushed and even if half her face was covered with a mask, the beauty of a flower such as her was still captivating without restraint.
Siva could feel his heart strings being plucked in a violent manner and he couldn’t help himself to mildly caress Scion’s right cheek with a hand.
“I won’t let anyone take you away from me.”
Scion closed her eyes and slightly angled her head to savour his glove-covered hand.
“I’m yours.” She replied coyly. “I’m yours. Truly.”
Siva’s heartrate hastened seeing that blushing girl with a naturally demure and reserved personality declare who owned her body and soul.
—she’s really testing my limits!
Siva pulled all his might to peel his hand away just before his mental reins went out of control and make him do something too early.
Just at the right time when Siva pulled his hand, a group of seven people led by Scarlet Carmine stepped out of the door to the courtyard and lined up there in front of him.
All of them knelt as Scarlet spoke.
“We’re ready, sir.”
Siva, again, sighed. “Please stand up.” and then gestured in the air as seven [faceless] armors in white-themed colors appeared in front of him. In the next instant, the armors ‘disintegrated’ in the air and then merged to everyone’s body —piece by piece, plate per plate, they became the seven as if they were ghost who possessed their hosts.
“This is…”
The shocked High Magistrates looked at their body and were surprised by the change.
“Sir, this is…” Scarlet expressed her prompt.
“This is the uniform of the Magic Knight Corps. I am borrowing your presence to portray my men as they are in a separate mission somewhere by the Grand Elder Mage’s arrangements.”
In truth, these armors were hastily created since last night and were planned to be installed with the improved [S-Generators] which, by the way, only has two that’s been finished in his inventory.
Right now, he was in the middle of installing one of the [S-Generators] to the ‘ninja’ [Mage], as the other was meant for the [Destroyer].
With these, Siva officially has 8 [S-Generators] with four of these installed on the Four Persona.
“Take note. Just by these armors alone, you are all useless as you cannot get far away from my nearest 100m. I pulled these armor out because I need you all protected. These armors have the power to physically protect you against a vulcan’s barrage, with the weight that can crush just about anyone you stomp your hand into.” At this point, Siva looked at one of the knights and told him, “If you don’t believe me, I will lift up my ‘permission’ on your armor and see what will happen.”
As Siva spoke to here, the man stood up with a relaxed posture.
CLANG!
With a sound akin to a metal locking with each other, the man’s body…. froze where he stood.
“Huh? Wait… I can’t move!”
The man’s posture remained relaxedly standing but not a single muscle on his body was moving no matter how much his head portrayed that he was ‘trying’ to move his body.
“You.” Siva pointed to someone else, “Try to lift a single part of his body. See if you can.”
“Yes sir.” The man followed the order and went beside the struggling team mate. He moved with no retrained just like how he normally does with no armor.
He stretched out a hand and tried to lift the man’s arm but stopped as if he encountered an immovable obstacle.
The man tried again and again, but to no avail and the rest of the members of team was surprised.
“As you can see,” Siva explained, “This armor is a very special armor that only Magic Knight Corps is allowed to wear. Aside from providing supreme protection to almost anything, it can also serve as a restraining prison for anything that is not bigger than 20m in size.”
“Prison”
“Anything?”
“Not bigger?”
“20m in size?”
Siva understood their confusion. “To use this one function of the armor, all you have to do is to point you index to your target and say [Seal]. You, try it.” Siva pointed to another man.
The man followed it and pointed his index to the High Magistrate furthest from him and said the keyword to activate this function, “Seal.”
SHOOF!!
The armor he wore, in but a single breath, flew off from his body and slammed against the man he pointed his finger to 15m away.
The man was blown off a meter back, destroying his defensive posture, and with clacking noises, the armor forced the man to kneel, stretch out his body, lift his head… and then he was bound and immobilized down to his fingers.
(A/N: Doctor Strange, prison armor, please)
“I… I can’t move…” the man was astounded.
“As you can see, adding the weight and durability of the armor, this armor can restrain anything that has the size not exceeding 20m.” Siva told them and gestured, “Now,” with another series of metal sounds the frozen man and the locked up man, and the armor that locked the latter, all came back to what they used to be in the next moment. “As I have explained, these armors are meant to serve as your protection and as well as your weapons against anyone and almost anything with malicious intents towards our group, as where we are going is not on a friendly territory. Do you understand?”
“““Yes sir.””” their collective answer.
Then, Scarlet raised a hand, “Sir, what if the thing that will come against us is more than 20m in size, what then?”
“Good question.” Siva said. “All you have to do is point together into one target. Those armors you wore are designed to automatically work together and add up their limits. A single armor is limited to a 20m target but two armors can capture and also restrain a 40m target. Three armors can contain a 60m target, and so on and so forth.”
There were nods on the group. But Scarlet still has a question, “Last question sir… what is the limit of the thing that we can restrain?”
Siva smiled behind the mask, “Good thing you ask so let me say this straight on. One armor can stop and immobilize a Lapis Lazuli without problems. So if by the off-chance that we encounter some unforeseen issues in our destination, if you are not confident to restraint something with just one armor, then use two… that way, you can be sure.”
A wave nodding spread in the group.
“Any other questions?”
No one raised a hand. Siva nodded then faced the intently listening Scion. With a thought, space fluctuated behind her and there appeared the [Smasher] as well as the [Destroyer].
The two’s hulking figures radiated coldness and indifference but they bowed to Siva like a real servant and not a subordinate.
He told her, “If I have a choice, I really don’t want to bring you along but I also want you to know of this world’s darkness and the boundaries of men and their ego. In case of emergency, pull out the [Tower] and [Smasher] will protect you at all costs as its priority. [Destroyer] will serve as your last line of defense and in the grimmest of situations will use himself to save you first. That is his main and only objective.”
Siva didn’t want to tell Scion that they were just puppets and that aside from the [Smasher], the [Destroyer] is yet to run on its own since it is yet to be installed with an [S-Generator].
Without Siva, the [Destroyer] will run towards an enemy and detonate itself with a strong blast.
Reluctantly, Scion could only nod. She knew that Siva is teaching her how to handle situations and how to act in emergencies.
Siva had given her [Erebus] and as well as a few hundred Stun E-Grenades and Plasma Smoke Screen Grenades, teaching her how to use them and how they can be used effectively.
FlowerLord had inspected [Erebus] down to its very basic [forms] and taught her how to use and capitalize on it as a means to protect herself.
Still, she warned her that [Erebus] was meant as an anti-personnel weapon and so only in the most and highest moment of emergencies is she only allowed in using it.
“I understand.” She affirmed him.
“Good.” Siva nodded and then faced the team. “I have already given you guys the instructions so I will now tell you the objective. Simple: we will only take a few things, as per agreed between me and Grand Knight Draco. But if this transaction goes a miss, there might be a battle so I want you guys to be prepared.”
Scion understood this and as well as Scarlet. All of them gave him their affirmations.
“Well then, let’s go.”
*****
After leaving the gates of the Grand Mansion, 50m away from the main road that Siva’s “floating” group is taking, a normal civilian-looking man gave them a cursory glance as he tapped his left ear and whispered, “Sir, it seems that he is still going towards the place.”
After he spoke, he eyed Siva’s group again and then, bidding a courteous farewell to the store’s owner, picked up his ‘grocery’ and tailed after the group as he blended in the surroundings.
Not one person glanced his way as he looked just like any other commoner in the city.
But, if one looked carefully, his pacing and speed wasn’t something a civilian is capable of. With just one step, he traversed a large space without any kind of hassle.
“They’re going in a normal pacing, sir. Not hurried in the slightest.”
[Are you being left out?]
“No sir. In fact, I can even overtake them.”
[Maintain your distance. Do not expose yourself.]
“Yes sir. By the way, I can see that he brought the Archmage along.”
*****
“Is that so?” in a round table in a secret room, the Council of Elders members sat with their tea cups in front of them as they smiled gratifyingly at the lady’s group led by Eleanor.
Draco, who received the report, was relaxed as he sipped on his tea and pretended to listen to the Council Head reporting about the pursuit of Julia and the result of the ones who came in first on its completion.
He whispered, “Keep an eye out for the target.”
[Yes sir.]
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What are they planning?
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Next Chapter: the true face of the Magic Knight!!
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