The mindless beast has unlocked its binding chains, setting itself free from the metal cage. What was holding it back has disappeared without a trace and offered nothing in return. Blood cry howled across the stage as the screams of the audience grew. Daniel wielding Licht, sliced through multiple people in one swing.
Celeste, standing at the center of the arena, was keeping an eye on him while she finished her area on the opposite side by controlling her flying platform and rammed it up on the uppermost row of stone seatings, decapitating all the heads like a flying slice of cards.
She redirected it back to her, quickly vanishing by the time it reached closer to her fingers. Celeste held her left hand out in the open, and the platform dispersed once it touched her palm. Her eyes turned to Daniel and saw him vividly traveling through the splashing bloodbath.
Before she could react, he barged right at her with his fixated inhuman eyes and wielded Licht, about to strike a slash at her. She resummoned her platform, knocking Daniel off missing a few inches of his sword from striking her head. Leaping into the air, Celeste called for Solomon. He flew at tremendous speed, swarming past her. The sledgehammer grew beyond the height of the wielder, extending beyond the stage’s circumference.
“Daniel! Relax!” Solomon yelled, twisting the handle of the sledgehammer. Celeste’s led platform traveled around the arena, picking up its speed and swirling around the surface of the walls. The appearance became blurred, and within a blink she couldn’t see it anymore, relying on her qi control and sensation.
Stay with me. She deeply exhaled through her thin mouth while coordinating her fingers to keep in contact with her flying platform. Three. Her eyes watched when the face of the sledgehammer was heading for the strike. Two. Celeste bends her fingers, feeling the abruption from the platform beginning to slow down. The face of Solomon’s sledgehammer generated sparks and fiery flames around it as it reached Daniel’s arm. One. The eyelids were forced back, and her vision went hyper followed up with one hand-slashing gesture, bringing the platform right aligned with the center of the sledgehammer. It clashed with the opposite face of the sledgehammer, providing the extra force accumulated from the speed.
“Wake the hell up!” Solomon yelled, and his hand jerked to the left along with the movement, bringing it right at Daniel’s arm and igniting the entire area. The contact caused an abrupt burst of light to spew out of the zone. Solomon and Celeste were blasted away from the shockwaves, regaining their composure midair. They descended back to the floor and were met up by Sally who was returning from the hallway that led back to the chow hall and their locker rooms.
“Is he out of control?” Sally asked.
Celeste sighed. “Yeah. What a poor guy, very emotional behind the façade—”
Sally’s head wobbled. “No, it’s not a façade. All of his expressions were real and not acted. However, I’m curious about his longer backstory as he never told us any of the specifics.”
“Eventually, we will. His night and day will take effort to understand. I don’t care how long it takes, but as long as our relationship gets stronger, so be it.”
“Don’t we all. We got a man to take care of.”
Solomon turned around as if he was eavesdropping and heard something odd. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Nothing…Anyways, Daniel is coming down now.” Celeste said, hand gesturing to her platform carefully with him on top.
They saw him sitting flat with his one knee up, holding his right elbow. He rubbed his head and appeared bewildered at what had happened. The platform descended, hovering around knee height. Daniel turned around, looking at Celeste first. His mouthplate slid open. “Did I screw up?”
“You almost did.”
“Well, you tried to attack her,” Solomon bluntly said, pointing at Licht, who was lying by Daniel’s side.
“Please tell me I didn’t hit you.” Daniel anxiously asked. His furrowed eyebrows raised as if he was in distress partially opening his mouth, and he subsequently raised his finger. “I’m serious. This better not be a joke.”
“You stormed right at me,” she replied, pointing at the platform. “If I didn’t summon it again to nudge you off. I would have been toast.”
He didn’t say a word, rubbing his face despairingly. “Who stopped me?”
“I took you down with the sledgehammer and she did the rest,” Solomon said, moving away. “Now, that’s enough rambling. Sally, what did you find?”
“It’s all clear. We pretty much vacated the whole place.” She whirled her fingers, illustrating the entire arena’s seating. “Only four of us remain.”
“Well, what a relief for us then. Come on, we got one last job to do.” Solomon exclaimed, running up the stairs to the hallway. Sally sprinted behind. As Celeste was about to leave, she sensed Daniel hadn’t moved. Once she turned, he suddenly rose from the platform. “Excuse me,” he muttered, going up the stairs.
Oh, Daniel don’t tell me you are acting what I think you are. Celeste took his action out of curiosity as his movement went past by the side, not returning eye exchange. Quickly picking up the premises, she followed up, and the platform returned to her.
22.2
The metal door flew and crashed onto the wooden floor and screeched along the surface, sounding like a whistling scream. Solomon, being the current lead, stepped inside what was Lord Buhne’s office. Quite spacious. His first reaction was while glancing around the fairly organized room. Only until Sally opened one of the drawer cabinets, causing an entire mountain's worth of paper to tumble down.
“Whoops,” she said, kicking it carelessly.
One of the papers slid right to Solomon’s foot. At first, it appeared to be scrambles of written work, and as he lifted his foot, he saw the small picture of his face enclosed in a format box as it captivated him, taking the paper to an empty table. Thrusting one of the chairs for him to sit, he analyzed one of the papers.
He completely ignored the commotion around him as Daniel, Sally, and Celeste ransacked the entire office, wreaking havoc among the furniture. His eyes zoomed on a few paragraphs, describing the vicious plans they were going to carry out under him. “Under the orders of Thora,” Solomon mumbled. Whose Thora and what is horseshit they are using us for?... Oi, what on earth, overthrowing figures of power.
There were a couple of writing utensils lying on the table. Solomon took a mechanical pencil and began underlining lines that were considered bizarre and maliciously motivating. One underline turned to three and went to double digits. Continuous underlines took him under disarray and startled him more when there was a back page. It’s like a stack of dominoes. The beginning seemed bearable and then further down it escalated on privacy, and the intentions became so absurd that it started to connect to the main purpose behind the scenes. Which was right at the bottom of the back page where the corner was written: Continues on articles D-1, C-1, and S-1.
“Oi!” Solomon called the three, who were exhausted and lay on the floor with piles of papers on top of them. Good gracious. Argh, fine… I guess I’ll look for them myself. Is this Lord Buhne’s desk?
The desk doesn’t appear to be lavish and further behind the office appears to be a section cut off from the rest of the room with windows as the wall, permitting Solomon to see the section’s interior. From the scene around him, neither Daniel, Sally, nor Celeste went further into depth. Not missing the opportunity before they carelessly ransack it, he lifted his stout body from the chair and sauntered into a passageway that led to the door opening into the office.
The chocolate-colored theme painted everything that's based within the enclosure. Smells like one too. Solomon summoned the anvil and created a charcoal smell to disable the whiff of lingering chocolate. Much better.
He headed over to the table, finding the nameplate with Lord Buhne’s name engraved in Englisc. Heavy slump on the seat, the desk revealed four even drawers with two at each side. Solomon dragged on his left first. The upper drawer revealed an entire stash of flashing gold. Like a kid desperate for sweet food, he took his backpack and stuffed a hoard of gold in. He knocked on the glass to signal the three awake. Like a flock of birds, they ran all at once to the office.
“Yeah?” Sally yawned.
“You three went too crazy. Office isn’t the same as fighting. Back on topic, I found something for you all,” Solomon stated, yanking the entire drawer out of the table, and throwing it on the carpet. “Heavyweight.”
“What the hell, that’s too much value within this!” Celeste tumbled violently to the floor, observing the stash.
Daniel, on the other hand, stood silently in a gaze and took a couple bars and one ingot to put in his backpack. He then walked away, touring the entire room unfazed by the charcoal smell.
“You don’t seem into it,” Solomon noted.
“I’m not fully settled yet, so two bars should be enough for me. However, the space here is what interests me more, and I’m sure you’re not calling me for just the gold, right?”
“Which brings me to my second point,” Solomon said, pulling all the drawers out and spreading each across the table. “The document I was reading earlier had all my information and some of the things written there are written as if I was a test subject.”
Daniel’s eyes squinter. “Test subject?! What would they even test about? That’s some twisted mindfuckery I’ve ever heard.”
“I don’t understand what you mean—”
“It’s slang, another way of expressing confusion. Do you know the purpose and how many were involved in this?”
Solomon took out a hardcover folder that appeared like a big book. “That’s why I’m in here and I think I found the treasure.”
He placed the folder flat on the table’s surface, right on page D-1. “Oh, here’s you,” Solomon said, taking it out and handing it to him.
Daniel took the paper, blurting his thoughts aloud. “Hmm…subject to berserk manipulation, including leading an army of overthrowing the allies of Raal,” he looked at Solomon with a confused shrug. “I don’t understand one bit what they mean by allies of Raal. Weren’t they all fighting against Kriegshan or something…like a global war?”
“‘Allies of Raal’ term has been overused to the point where there’s no legitimacy as not one nation has proven themselves at all. Either a civil war or just escalation of what’s been damaged.”
“Gosh, even more problematic…wait a minute I should be used for Lord Buhne and Thora to take over the leadership,” Daniel muttered in disbelief. He went to Solomon, wondering if there were any more documents related to the rules.
“That’s gonna take a bit—”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Whatever you got, find it. I’ll look around the shelves and anything in here needs to be studied.”
22.3
There’s no process of time when scavenging for something that could hold significance. Daniel’s mind was congested with a river of words, and he had a pile of papers stacked from the floor up scrambling through thousands of words per couple of pages each minute.
--
Stamina: 67% -> 78%
--
Anything useless worth of words was thrown out to the other side of the floor. It was a costly time of measure. Celeste and Sally could not have been any more careless after witnessing the bars of gold. The two slumped to the floor and slept again. Solomon’s face palmed, having enough of their troubles, and ignored them.
“I was asleep like that?”
Solomon nodded. “You never did that before until today.”
“Maybe I was relaxed for the first time. At least I’m excused.”
“Oh, you’re self-excusing now?... Alright, well you’re doing your part, so I excused you…What you got for me then?”
Daniel tossed another paper to the floor and pulled an entire table right closer. He grabbed a few that were neatly placed on the table and handed them right to Solomon. “Here’s the situation of how Thora and Buhne are using the global war as an opportunity to fulfill their own selfish deeds.”
“So, this underground arena was just a scam by creating an entire hidden simulation when in reality the whole thing has been defunct ever since the last one,” Solomon muttered his thoughts upon reading before jolting from his seat, angrily tearing the paper. “Shame on those bastards!”
“Which was how long ago?” Daniel asked.
“Before Kriegshan was destroyed, we were still…well up there.”
“And I told y’all how now it’s underground ground when I first arrived. This is ridiculous, and I think Thora and Lord Buhne are taking advantage of this with all of these secret profits.” Daniel pointed to the gold in the drawer. “Otherwise, how the hell did they receive this many reserves? After all the expenses of establishing this entire trap.”
Solomon coughed, handing him another sheet of paper from the folder. “I found the answer to that.”
Another hit? Daniel read what Solomon highlighted. “David? You mean the engineering guy?”
“That’s what they called him? Wow…I knew this guy before reading the couple of paragraphs that were written on that paper. That bastard was no engineer. He is just a money-focused businessman who used engineer as a title. The money comes from him…Read the last line.”
A yearly gift for your cooperation and the satisfaction where the numbers have been proven gave the confidence to grant you a gift of monetary value. In this chest are twenty gold bars worth around Eight Billion Thalers. “I thought Gold, Silver, and bronze coins were the main currency.”
Solomon shook his head. “Technically it is but it’s an outdated form of currency. The transition is too sluggish. Bastards!!”
Woah, he’s not in the mood. “In the grand scheme of things, Kriegshan was able to mask so successfully that the troubles are for the keen eye. That’s fucking sneaky…” Daniel commented. He decided to grab the rest of the documents he had placed on the table and slammed them down on Solomon’s table. “Do you think all of the government is involved in this too? And how much is eight billion Thalers worth?”
“Three hundred thousand is retirement for ten years at most in a budget…I have no doubt the government could have some involvement, but I recommend keeping that thought behind for now.”
Damn, way less than back at Colemond. Thirty thousand compared to fifty or eighty thousand per year is a huge difference. “Four of us share a portion of the world’s economy with those piles of gold bars. Eight Billion is like an entire community.”
Solomon pondered. “Only a fragment to break the truth. Speaking of what are you planning to do with yours?”
Daniel pulled the chair right up next to the desk, “Uhm…I’m not sure, maybe build an organization,” he paused, thinking about the wealth. “Before I do though, I want to get back to David. We need to get all of his connections and where the gold bars originate.”
Solomon smirked. “No worries. It’s on that paper too if you glance down further.”
“Ah. The bank is involved in this, and the assets of Elefantstahl. Then a bunch of redacted mentions. Well, that’s a start. Can we agree that they should be eliminated?”
Solomon stood, packing up his bag. “But we need information from them though, right?”
“What does Thora even have to say? David’s more concrete and economical role is more significant. Lord Buhne is dead, and Skoltor was inserted into my eye socket because of David. Hence, I want him alive.”
“Then that’s settled…Time to go,” Solomon agreed, tightening up his backpack with various folders and papers away.
Daniel went to the snoozing pair with a bottle of water and poured a drop over them, startling them awake.
Celeste’s eyes flickered and jolted up from the floor with her head spinning around momentarily like a bird. “I’m up!”
“Pack up, we are leaving.”
“How long was I out?” Sally asked while appearing a little drowsy.
“Not that long, now hurry we gotta go.”
The two quickly packed their gold bars into their bags while Daniel and Solomon examined the remaining papers at the last minute. Not long after, Daniel swirled all the items away from the desk like the party was over, shattering multiple pieces of furniture. The three departed the room and office as he self-took the role of the bulldozer. He summoned Licht and unleashed barrages of slashes across the entire space.
He rejoined the three as they were back at the arena.
“That stairway, run!”
--
Stamina: 78% → 100%
Mission completed (2):
Discover the depths of the Main Street.
Underground Bloodbath Derby
Rewards are listed on a separate window
--
As they returned to the entryway, Daniel stood halfway up the stairs viewing the vacated arena. He inhaled all the air until his chest bloated like a balloon, and the strands of swirling winds generated mid-air flowed into his mouth. The pressure forced his eyelids back open like they were clamped. To his surprise in thought, it wasn’t irritating. In a flash, he felt a surge from the center of his chest and quickly it spewed past his esophagus.
Daniel partially bent his back downward, firing a heat ray from his mouth. Debris and rocks ascended from the floor according to the force of the blast. Shortly with enough firing, a bright blue light flashed in the distance. He swiftly turned and accelerated up the stairway and zoomed through the hallway, grasping all three like an eagle hunting its prey of fish in a body of water.
He didn’t slow down, tore the cave walls, and went for a hard landing in order to not crash into the rocky dead end. The three felt the impact in a slim and got back on their feet.
“Celeste, if you would put a barrier, please,” Daniel requested.
Celeste inclined. “Piece of cake.” She did a slamming gesture, summoning it in a flash of light.
“Where’s the door?” Sally asked, staring at the dead end.
Daniel tapped it as if there was a door. “Should be right here…”
The rumbling noise only just reached into the cave followed by the vibrations throughout the cave walls behind the barrier. Certainly, the shockwave smoke from the blast had overtaken the hallway connecting to the cave. The gasses rubbed along the barrier’s surface giving a peculiar view while Daniel repeatedly aggressively tapped the cave’s dead end. Elizabeth, where are you now?
Finally, the scraping of the bricks reached into his ears, prompting him to move away. He pulled Sally back as she was leaning her back on it. And everyone stared as it then descended down to the depths beneath the floor.
At last, I’m free. Daniel saw Elizabeth standing behind the disguised door, standing looking bewildered like a child. Behind her was someone who stood at the spot just like he was before entering the cave. He took note of the slip the young lad was holding in his grip.
“You guys go, I’ll deal with this mess behind,” Daniel told the three and turned around.
“Auf Wiedersehen…” he mumbled beneath his lips. That led to Elizabeth crying out, grabbing his shoulders.
“What are you doing?!”
Yinhai! Daniel restrained from launching Licht in a nick of a second. “No, more like what are you doing?! You could have got yourself hurt!” He forcibly removed her grip, revealing to her the lingering smoke behind the barrier. “Have a look. It’s just smoke.”
Elizabeth turned to the young lad. “But—”
“You know what, stay back. No one’s coming in here anymore.”
He returned next to the barrier, thrusting the blade into the cave wall in a shank manner. Twisting the hilt generated the force that flowed right back to his right arm from the inside. Subsequently, he let the blade go from the cave and the sword dissipated into his hands. Heaps of rocks crumbled from the wall and collapsed onto the floor, forming a wall-like structure adjacent to the barrier.
Daniel shooed the two still standing right on the entryway as he sprinted and went for the button, pushing it hard. He kept it on hold until the wall door closed.
--
Danger incoming
--
Daniel smoothly dodged his head to the right barely hovering over Elizabeth's chest. He doesn't know. He jerked the left side of his head right at the young lad’s clenched fist, shattering his masked ego covering his entire body. The headbutt to the side did the trick, and Daniel scooted away, letting out a sigh.
“I was gonna give you money worth more than that fraud advertisement. And you ruined that chance,” Daniel disappointedly said.
The young lad howled in cry while Daniel turned to Elizabeth, opening her hand, and giving her 3 gold coins. He whispered, “Have this.”
“I can't take this.”
“No, it's the least I can do.”
Elizabeth grimaced. “Why are you looking worn out?” She viewed his face like a concerned nurse, wondering what happened to his face. “I’ve only been away for almost half an hour, and you came back with terror.”
“Huh? Half an hour?!”
“Yes, did you watch the time?”
“Uhh…how do I tell you this? It's been more than a year,” Daniel awkwardly said. Unsure if she would understand.
“I'm not understanding…”
“I’m being literal. Time here doesn't matter what's in there. It's very fucking weird.”
Elizabeth nodded, kind of getting the picture. She quickly moved to the next topic. “You are back, so… deal still suffice.”
“Finally, I'm free”, Daniel muttered. He then folded Elizabeth's filled hand. “Don't try handing me back the coins. It's extra.”
“Are you sure?”
“I'm certain.” Daniel's stomach gurgled. “Ooh, sorry. The smell here has seeped into my ruined stomach.”
Elizabeth directed him out of the kitchen where the group was waiting. She made all of them convene at the sole large table.
--
Mission completed (3):
Discover the depths of the Main Street.
Underground Bloodbath Derby
Escape
Rewards are listed below:
General Class Meter ↑
Translation ↑
Conductor ↑
Regeneration ↑
Qi Control ↑
Daily Calories limit raise: 5000 ->7000
Level UP!
General Class (LV.1) Meter: [99.5%] -> General Class (LV.2) Meter: [1%]
Class Bonus created: +5% Stamina; +5% Durability; +5% Endurance; +15% Power
Translation LV.1 -> LV.2
Conductor LV.2 -> LV.3
Regeneration LV.2 -> LV.4
Qi Control LV.2 -> LV.4
--