I rose from my sheets with the usual dry taste. The curtains blocking the slight sunshine from the outdoors were still as a stone. As I took a peek outside, it seemed like the two siblings were already up. Guess I’m still a heavy sleeper… As I walked through the hall, I was attracted to a nice earthy smell coming from the kitchen. Vale’s golems were busy, preparing what I’d assume to be breakfast.
“What’re we having this morning?” I asked, shouting from across. Vale tilts his head towards me after pausing his conversation with the other two.
“Jestrio eggs, some toast and a few other things. Make sure you have room for it. Should be ready in a couple minutes.”
“Gotcha! I’ll keep that in mind!”
I glanced outside the windows and admired the outside. It was calming to see the rather chaotic and depressing atmosphere melt away into a refreshing ambiance that I can’t quite put my finger on how to describe it. Think of that feeling you get after a slight shower, but if that brisk air came from a bright frost season… Nevermind that.
From last night, I was thinking of how to plan today. It almost kept me up all night thinking about how this’ll turn out. From my inexperience, to my lack of control, it’ll be so damn easy to fuck up anything. Not to mention this shit can cost me my life. Kina’s plans to raid the Zox seem pretty well thought out, so I could try to follow her methods. Shit! But I might have to improvise if it all crumbles… I already know a few self defense techniques my dad taught when I was little, so that shouldn’t be an issue, but the main problem comes with how I’ll be able to approach a situation as intense as that… FUCK! I CAN’T THINK STRAIGHT ANYMORE!
Breakfast is served! Let me know what you think, Ranku!
Oh! Grace again! Jeez she really appears when you least expect it, huh? Well, I’ll hold this off until Liberus wakes up…
“Mm! I didn’t know you could cook the jestrio eggs this way! How’d you come up with this?”
Our teacher taught us how to. Albeit we’re definitely still not up to his level… He’s a whole different kind of chef!
“Yeah? You guys aren’t self taught?”
Well of course not! After all, we started out small until he showed up and trashed our cooking… He was quite a brutal but caring man.
“That’s nice, that’s nice.” As the last thing I reply before digging into my breakfast some more. Grace didn’t seem to leave by my side though. Instead, she took the seat beside me and slid a note underneath my plate.
As I unfurled the paper, it read the following: I understand you might seem a little stressed right now, which is why I was to lend you something. Meet me at the back after Liberus is awake.
Before I could respond, she left to talk with Vale some more about something to do with menu changes for the day. Seeing her message though made me feel a slight bit more relaxed and less tense after waking up. It was warming…
After some time simply relaxing and trying to ease myself, Liberus finally woke up. Him and Grace took their sweet time to greet each other before he glided to the seat in front of me.
“Early riser eh?”
“More like a heavy sleeper for you. Those two take that title.”
“Hm. Well, are we ready to set off? I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty amped up if I do say so myself!”
It did appear that way. He was bobbing up and down in the air, appearing like a little kid to me, excited for a piece of candy or something.
“Really? I thought you were heavily against violence…”
“Meh, I mean they’re bad people so I don’t hold the same morals towards them. What about you?” He waved his ribbon as he questioned. Guess I won’t have to use the elixir that Kina gave me… But it should be useful nonetheless, no?
“I’ve been a bit antsy about the whole thing. Stealing is one thing, taking lives is another.”
“At least you’re saving me from all that mental anguish! I’ll just watch you go ham!”
“Yeah, no. YOU are gonna help me. I can’t do this all by myself!” I point, making Liberus widen his eye.
“The fuck you think I can do? Wave my ribbon and act as a distraction?”
“Well, you could maybe act as a scout to look from above? After all, you have the privilege of being able to FLY.”
“Fine. Get everything sorted. Don’t take too long! I want to leave NOW!”
“Yeah yeah. Have some patience for once!”
And here I thought he seemed at least tolerable after what we shared yesterday, but I guess not… Fuck, man. Where are mom’s goggles… I could’ve sworn I placed them on the nightstand… No… Not here… I swear this room doesn’t have any places for them to hid-
“Looking for these?”
I turn to the doorway to see Vale with them… And swinging them around his finger… Wait… How the hell does he have them?!
“Give me that!” I shout and snatch out of his finger. “What the hell were you doing with these… Could it be that you-”
“Don’t jump to conclusions. One of my golems simply retrieved them after a quick cleanup of the room. By the way, you might want to take a look at what my sister did.”
As I was holding on to the leather straps, the glass glistened underneath me, revealing some new extensions that weren’t there before. Now, I had absolutely no idea what any of these did. But I must admit, this looks so… damn… cool!
“Oh, apologies if you didn’t want it to be tinkered with. Grace just felt bad seeing that you had to leave early without much practice done.”
“No! No! I love it! I’ll go give her my thanks right now!”
I rushed out to the main dining room to express my gratitude for her, and I wanted to compliment everything she added, but she rather had a somewhat shocked look on her face, then to anger..?
“Uh… Grace..?”
One second. It seems like my brother doesn’t understand the concept of a surprise…
“What’s she so pressed about?” Liberus shouts from the table. I was just as confused as he was at the time… But then out of nowhere I heard a large bang that took both of us by complete surprise. Only then did I see Grace walking out with a rather… burnt scent embracing her…
Sorry, that's what I wanted to see you for earlier this morning… Too bad my idiot brother had to spoil it…
“Y-yeah..! Don’t worry about the surprise! On that note, what do all of these little extensions even do..? Seems like they’re only in the lens, right?”
Grace makes a gesture, asking for the goggles back, and after carefully inspecting them, she told me to only wear them in battle, and that I’ll figure out what they do… Very helpful, but I guess she really just loves her surprises…
After some time preparing our bags, we finally set foot outside of the Drunkard. Still, roaming the streets is probably still dangerous as of now. So we have to be quick on our feet. Or… my feet I guess…
“You still that paranoid?”
“Well obviously! There are so many times where I encounter those stupid cops. It’s ridiculous at this point… “
“Didn’t you see two of them yesterday? They hardly recognized you!”
“ ‘Cause I was actually wearing something nice and maybe… I don’t know… Changed my entire appearance..?”
“To the point where you got hit on? HA!”
“WHA?! HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?!”
“May have overheard it, may have not. Who knows!”
Does Vale have that bad of a habit? First the goggles and now… whatever… I’m hoping he didn’t tell Liberus about the whole ‘fake name’ thing.
As Liberus flew back into my bookbag, we set off to find the facility. Kina let me know that the place is somewhere to the edge of the Slum of Slums, yet the building isn’t as deteriorated or as poorly built compared to the residences. The Drunkard wasn’t terribly close to the place… But damn… I really didn’t want to walk across a quarter of the city to get there…
“You don’t have to be so paranoid… It’s literally a couple blocks away. Ok look. Look at the map real quick.”
Him resting in the bag didn’t last very long. There goes my peace… He flew out with his ribbon tied around the map.
“Well don’t just stare and keep walking! Open it! This is the only ribbon I have!”
“OK! OK!”
I snag the dusty map from Liberus’ grasp. I could tell this was decently new though. The map wasn’t crackly or browned, but it was clean-
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
“Say, isn’t your last name Anchria? ‘Cause the cartographer who made this… This your mom?”
“Yeah… It’s nice seeing her works distributed across the country like this. She was truly ahead of her time…”
“She’s totally like, dead, isn’t she?”
“Couldn’t… Couldn’t you be ANY better at your wording?” I ask with my fingers pressed up to my eyebrows. Is it impossible for this guy to even read the room? At all?
“Wha?? What are you even talking about? I’m trying to be considerate..?”
“So are we being genuine or are we tryna gaslight now?”
“GENUINE! I THOUGHT WE WERE COOL FROM YESTERDAY!”
“Alright, alright. Sorry then, just please think about the shit you say next time…”
“...”
“And to answer your question, we don’t definitively know. My dad surely thinks she is though…”
“Definitively?”
“I don’t want to go too deep into it but… Things happened and she went missing. Me and my brother still believe that she’s out there… somewhere…”
“Wait… Why’d she disappear?”
“I said I don’t want-”
“Right. Right. Sorry. I won’t pry further.” He waves his ribbon in apology as he flies back into my bookbag.
Things went quiet again for about half way through the walk there. I’ve gotten used to not acting overly suspicious as to what Liberus told me. I have to admit though, he was right. It was so much less stressful and I could ease up my mind a bit…
…Which was quite short lived when Liberus kept asking me so. Many. Fucking. QUESTIONS.
“Soooo… Do ya know about how like… the history of this countr-”
“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, HOW MANY DAMN QUESTIONS DO YOU HAVE TO ASK???”
“You know that I’m new to this damn place! Hell this entire time I’ve been trying to get a hold of how this world works!”
“And you trust me to be your source of knowledge?”
“Absolutely not!”
“Then why-”
“Having at least one, albeit questionable source, is better than having none. You gotta make due with what’s presented to you y’know?”
“Yeah. Questionable. Ok.”
----------------------------------------
Well, looks like we’re here! And holy shit, this place is HUGE! Not to mention it’s all made of some type of reinforced metal. Reminds me of our family trip to Fiole with all of that technology and all. I circled the place in search of the entrance that Kina mentioned and sure enough, there was a single entrance with three guards. Ok. I think I can take them on if I stay swift and silent. I’ll wait for the perfect time to strike, when one of the guards is left alone, I’ll dispatch them. Then for the other two guards, I’ll do the exact same thing-
“What’s stopping you from just… Bum rushing them right now! They look to be half-asleep anyway!”
“Huh? Wait what are you doin-”
“HEY YOU THREE! SOMEONE OVER HERE IS THINKING OF STEALING ALL THE FIBIKO FOR HERSELF!”
“W-WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!”
“Go get ‘em girl!” THIS GUY JUST WINKED AT ME AND GAVE ME A THUMBS UP. ARE YOU KIDDING?!
Shit! They’re charging straight at me! I swear to god this WOULDN’T BE HAPPENING IF HE SHUT HIS TRAP! I MEAN WHAT THE HELL IS HE THINKING?! Fuck, I gotta focus now. Thankfully, it was just those three who noticed Liberus’ taunt. I was getting really tense now. It’s happening… I’m about to duel these three, most likely to the death… My confidence surely didn’t help either; The only damn combat experience I have is playing knights with my brother.
Regardless, I called forth the sword from Liberus, which I had gotten somewhat of a control over and readied myself in stance. The three didn’t halt though, and instead, they threw their attacks immediately. It was hard to describe the amount of pressure that was surging into my legs and head, as if there was a force pressing down on me. I felt… so damn heavy…
I flew back, regaining my senses. These three were relentless… Leaving me no time to even breathe… Their techniques were so much more honed… I had to strike back… Staying on the defense like this will get me killed. I need to act. Now.
I lunge forward, aiming for the frontmost guard. He acted as fast as I did, immediately prepared to defend. Hopefully I’ll be able to gain some even ground to compensate for my inability to fight, yet when our blades connected, a loud warping sound vibrated across our ears. His sword was sliced cleanly in half!
“WHAT?! AN ACCUMULATION USER! STAY CAUTIOUS, BROTHERS.”
With some gained confidence, I swiftly took care of the other weapons that they wielded, instantly dearming them. But I really don’t have a way to take care of them permanently… It’s a good thing Vale tested on whether or not this sword of mine can affect others. Oh! Let’s see if this’ll work… Maybe they don’t know about the principles like he does. It took quite a lot of courage to blurt out what I’m gonna say, but here goes nothing…
“T-They say a weapon reflects their wielder, huh? You three! Leave before I make that statement a reality!”
Please listen… I seriously don’t think I’ll win against three men hand to hand, even with my pocket knife… I’m even waving my sword towards the floor to scare them off even more.
“...”
“Whatever. I don’t get paid enough for this anyway…”
“Yeah, same. Wanna grab some grub? Heard Debilis has a new menu item.”
“Debilis is so overrated. Let’s go for some Scor’s!”
----------------------------------------
“YOU. ALMOST. FUCKING. KILLED. ME.”
“C-could you stop v-violently s-shaking me?! Besides, the plan worked! Kina’s on a deadline, don’t forget that!”
“...”
“WHAT PLAN?! YOU SHOVED ME OUT THERE LIKE I'M SOME GLADIATOR READY TO BE FED TO!”
“HAHAHA! Ok ok, I’ll try not to do that in the future. We good?”
“Don’t try that shit again.”
“Alrighttttt…”
What kind of motive would a person have to even do such a thing in the first place? Isn’t his sole purpose to side with me in whatever quest these Omni-Whatchamacallits gave me? As much as I keep mentioning it, why the hell choose me? We’re probably doing nothing but goofing off in their eyes…
Past that thought, I cut through the locked door and we both took our first steps in. Right away the place had a very distinct and sharp smell as we walked in. It kind of reminded me of the stuff made from Fiole with all of their advanced technology. I don’t know… That’s probably the best way I can put it… As per what Kina mentioned, the crates of what I assumed to be the drugs were the first to greet us, and there were a LOT of these crates. I’m talking about hundreds of them.
“Holy shit! Is this city THAT sad? I mean just look at all of these!”
“Well, have you seen some of the streets? Let’s just say the higher ups are… y’know… dumbasses…”
As I walked over to one of the crates, I took hold of my sword and pierced through the lock. Inside were around four to five bags of flowers, which I’d assume to be the Fibiko. It was tempting to not snag a bag for myself to sell later… But man… One of those bags could sell for so much-
“You were totally thinking of selling one of those for yourself just now, weren’t you?”
“A-uh… Maybe..?”
Liberus let out a large sigh afterwards. “You’re hopeless… Quick, let’s get going now. These guys aren’t gonna kill themselves, y’know?”
Walking past the crates, It got me really thinking: Once we take care of everyone here, what’s gonna happen with the Fibiko? Are we just gonna let them sit there and rot? Or do I report this to AEGIS? The latter is definitely off the table, but perhaps I could ask Grace or Vale to do that for me. Oh but wait, wouldn’t that cause some more complications for them..? I don’t want to cause them more trouble than I already have…
“Let’s just burn the crates afterwards. Even though Kina didn’t explicitly say it, let’s just cinder them. Just in case.”
“Seriously, how the hell are you doing that?”
“What can I say? You can call me a wizar-”
“No thank you. I’m fine, thank you.”
“Tsk. You really have no sense of fun…”
The two of us continued to share conversation as we walked through the facility. Seriously… Wasn’t this place meant to be more packed? It’s as dead as a ruin here… The only areas of notice that we came across was some knockoff “Board of Behest” and the high level of technology here. Eventually, however, we came across a flight of stairs that led to a basement of some sorts, to which we followed. The air as we descended became slightly more humid and resembled that of a fresh garden. The floors and walls also started to change in quality, going from a furbished metal, to a bleaky concrete.
“Yeah… As I expected… This is where they harvest them, huh?”
“Mhm… It almost smells like fresh flowers to me. To be honest it really isn’t that bad!”
“Agreed-Wait, you don’t even have a nose. How the hell are you getting all of this?”
“...”
“Good point… What the fuck-”
Out of nowhere, a loud clanging came from the other side of the hall. I immediately assumed position for battle.
“WHO’S THERE?” I shout, making sure my voice reaches the end of the basement, yet no one answers. Just the response of a chain, clanking and creating even more of a noise. Me and Liberus both agreed to slowly approach the source cautiously.
“Slaves. I figured as much coming from a place like this…”
I had Liberus check the rest of the hall, before the number of cells finished.
“There’s a total of eight over here!” As he confirms, flying back to my side.
“Shit. Now we really do have to inform the authorities… We can’t just burn the place down…”
“What’s stopping you from just… freeing them right now? I mean… that sword of yours can do some serious damage to objects.”
“Bad idea. They’ll be caught again by other masters. Best we keep them here for AEGIS to take care of this.”
The sounds of chains were heard again, but this time, one of the slaves seemed to want our attention. I knelt down, doing my best to at least lend an ear.
“Food… Hungry…”
I reached into the leftovers I saved from the Drunkard and reached my hand out. He took it without hesitation and inhaled it. I didn’t want to show too much sympathy, but those fucking sick bastards. I can see why Kina wants them dead now.
“Let’s go, Liberus. We still have yet to explore the entire place.”
“Aye aye captain!”
“For the love of god can you stop saying that.”
“Aye aye cap-”
“STOP!”
“Sheesh! Just tryna lighten the mood!”
Eventually, the basement led to an over the top doorway, which didn’t look like anything else that I’ve seen before… It did feel quite intimidating, but with nowhere else to go, I pushed with all my might. The doors let out a slight mist and a gust of wind pushed me back every so slightly. The room was… Well it was quite weird… There was a large slabbed platform to the center, and many seats towards the left and right.
“This some sort of arena?” Liberus questioned.
“It does appear like that to me, yes…” As I respond with mist from my breath. He’s lucky he doesn’t have to feel this cold…
“CHALLENGERS?” A rumble was heard from the very back of the platform. Shit! So someone was here after all! Unsheathing my sword from Liberus’ pages, I stood tall.
“IT APPEARS I DO! WELL THEN, LET US DUEL TO THE DEATH!”
This is… This is really happening isn’t it..? Holy shit he’s fucking HUGE! Not to mention, that sledgehammer of his… and that bloodied mask… I HAVE TO FIGHT HIM? AND TO THE DEATH?
“BEFORE WE BEGIN, MAY I REQUEST FOR YOUR NAME, YOUNG MISS?”
“R-Ranku… Anchria'' I reply in a cold sweat. His presence made me want to vomit… I think… I’m experiencing fear… True fear for the first time…
“ALRIGHT RANKU! LET THE SHOW BEGIN