“Do I even want to know how such a group went unnoticed until now?” I asked the [Knight] while massaging my forehead.
“We underestimated the number of idle agents hidden out of sight: We suspect that another unseen element, that might be still hidden away, must be aiding them from the shadows”, her response was delivered too quickly to not be rehearsed.
“You mean those [Hunters], right? I refuse to believe that their involvement was not accounted for”, I shook my head and looked her right in the eyes, challenging her to say otherwise.
My seriousness did make her pause for a second before she finally responded.
“Ok, we might have severely underestimated their readiness for battle, but I assure you that it’s still within manageable levels, and their numbers are still fewer than our own, so this is most likely a last-ditch desperate attack to get at you, so nothing that we haven’t prepared for.”
I thought about it, and the situation might not have been as bad as it first appeared: I have already fought against both Jeoff and the [Priests of Purity], and I have to say that both times they revealed to be a non-problem, almost akin to pushovers… except the last time since there was a single competent one among them… wait no, with the numbers they have they might be able to summon an [Avatar] of their [Demi-God] before we have the chance to interrupt them.
Actually, why didn’t they summon it in advance?
“My experience with Jeoff and the [Priests] does suggest that they shouldn’t be that strong, but how would we respond if they decided to summon an [Avatar of Purity]? And speaking of, why didn’t they summon one already?” The best way to know was by asking people who knew more about it.
“They know that the moment they try anything we’ll be on them faster than they can blink; for now, they’re only walking in a tight group, and while suspicious they haven’t broken any kind of rule, so until they act our hands are technically tied”, as expected the [Knight] was the one to explain the situation to me.
Not that I liked what I heard.
“Are you telling us that the reason you’ve always arrived almost late on the scene was because, even though it was clear that people had nefarious purposes, you could not act first but only in response to an infraction of some kind!?” Sheeno beat me to the punch, pun intended while squeezing her fist so tightly that probably all of her knuckles popped at once.
“Yes. Because that’s what we’re lawfully bound to do when [Priests] are involved. [Hunters] and the like are different matters: We’ve not let a single one bother you because their organization is known and recognized as a criminal organization, so we had solid ground for a preventive response in their case”, Prise did not like to beat around the bush, and even less when someone doubt her abidance to the laws.
Which, while fair, still stung a little all of these problems could be tracked to narrow-minded regulation that even Rubicon couldn’t do much about outside of ordering outright to ignore them in selective cases, which I’m sure would bring about more problems than it would be worth.
Sheeno probably knew that better than me, but maybe she was used to a different kind of ‘legality’, given that she was a [Princess], and all that it entailed.
“Ok, we get it. We just don’t like it”, I said while interposing myself between my mate and the wolf-woman. They just about looked ready to come to blows, and even Prise’s face looked more aggressive than it normally did.
They glared at each other for a bit but thankfully cut it out before they did anything that they knew they would both regret. Back to the vision of Jeoff, his lackeys, and [Purity]’s goons matching in a tight group, my mind kept returning to that last part: They were in a tight formation.
“…You know…” I started saying but slowly cut off when my mind kept churning with more and more ideas.
“Yes?” Undine asked, maybe a bit confused if going by her tone alone, when she noticed that I wasn’t going to continue without someone bringing me out of my mind.
“Well, I was just thinking… Prise, could the [Guild] maybe invest some materials in a little project of mine?”
“Right now?” She asked, clearly surprised. But when she noticed that I was dead serious she replied honestly, “on such short notice there’s not much that we could get, but it’s certainly possible, depending on what you need”.
“And, just to be clear, this won’t break any rules?” I asked.
“No.”
“Perfect: Then I’ll need as many [Mana Crystals] you can give me that are around the size of my thumb”, I wiggled a thumb up in emphasis, and to more clearly show the size intended.
She stared at my thumb for a long second, before nodding. “I’ll have them by the sack-full here in less than a minute.”
* * *
Sir Prise had overestimated how long it would take: maybe less than twenty seconds later the mustachioed speedster with the gentlemanly attitude dropped four sacks half as big as I was filled with the crystals that matched my request to a ‘T’.
I promptly grabbed one sack, heaved it on my shoulder, and sprinted for the lawn.
“Mind telling us what you’re doing?” Sheeno asked me, the other three sacks lazily hanging in her hands.
“APMs”, I responded, opening the sack a smidge and making the crystals trickle out in a slow stream. And on I moved, starting by going around the perimeter of our square mansion, right behind the wall that separated it from the outside streets.
“And are you going to explain what those are or…”
“The [System] didn’t tell you?” I looked behind me and three heads shook in the negative at the same time. “Oh well, maybe it leaves foreign acronyms to the person responsible for their introduction: APM stands for ‘anti-personnel mine’, which is basically a regular mine, but specifically designed for being camouflaged and blown up as soon as something around the weight of a person steps on it.”
“Ok… Didn’t you do something similar before without using all these crystals?” She tilted her head cutely to one side, like a confused puppy.
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And if she were ever to find out that I thought that I’m sure she would be all too eager to show that she could bite me like a fully grown mastiff.
“Yes and no: Yes, I did something similar before, but it was a single mine that required my attention or it would have dissipated after a while, which is simply unsustainable in a fight, and no, it isn’t the same for reason that should be obvious now”, I explained, not stopping a single moment from sort-of-evenly spreading the [Mana Crystals] around.
“Got it, I think. I’m just confused about how spreading unused crystals on our lawn like they’re seeds is going to help you make mines: Are you going to [Enchant] the entire ground and make the crystals as focal point of the explosive reaction to people stepping on it?”
“Now that’s an idea for when I’m more powerful: [Enchanting] the land itself! No, What I’ll be doing is taking advantage of those invisible threads that form whenever you interact with something, especially when you use [Aether] or [Mana] when doing so, as a link through which I will be sending instructions from a hub of [Runes]”, I said.
To show my point the sack in my hands flared a little bit with my [Mana], and all the previously dropped crystals, including those that were still in the air, responded in kind.
“Oh… yes, that sounds easier, but controlling thousands of tiny things must be mentally taxing, and wasn’t this idea of yours born out of a need to avoid straining yourself too much to fight? And when did you have the time to build this ‘hub’ you’re speaking about?” Sheeno was understandably confused, and who could blame her when I was keeping the most important details deliberately secret?
“Don’t worry about the little details, I’ve got it covered and that’s what matters”, I waved away her worries, unwilling to reveal my secrets in front of Prise.
And yes, only Prise was the problem: The walls of our villa were [Enchanted] enough that I was sure that anybody below Merga’s level couldn’t look within the perimeter. I shared most with Sheeno, so it wasn’t even up for debate that I’d share it later with her, and Undine was trustworthy enough that she deserved some of it.
Still, Sheeno obviously didn’t like being dismissed like this, and I could feel her anger building up, so I looked right into her eyes and sent her a pleading look and slight shake of the head, while silently mouthing a ‘no’.
I could almost hear her teeth clacking shut, and I was sure already that she would ‘punish’ me later for disrespecting her authority; Undine just seemed more interested in observing what I was doing than asking questions, so the only problem could be-
“Just make sure the materials you borrowed won’t go to waste”, the [Knight] muttered dismissively, and I couldn’t tell by her [Aura] if she really didn’t care, or if she was the ‘silently pissed’ type.
Anyway, an angry mob was incoming, I wasn’t even halfway through with preparing my defenses, so it was better if I left the consequences of my actions for a later date.
“Going back to what you said: If these are mines, does it mean that they’re all meant to explode?” Undine finally asked a question and, fortunately for her, it was actually one that I didn’t mind answering.
“Well, they’re all capable of exploding, if that’s what you’re asking, but for now they are inert: I’m meant to control each activation and effect later, meaning that I could have stuff that leaves people in statis, that release simple elemental blasts, and a bunch of other nasty effects, without leaving behind obvious signatures and making the crystals virtually undetectable through almost any means”, I couldn’t contain the tiny bit of smugness that seeped through my tone, especially when I felt all three of them were genuinely surprised that I had thought of something so ingenious in so little time.
“Well, this idea is actually born of an older idea that I had previously discarded, but innovation sometimes can be brought by recycling, right?”
“That seems… too good to be true”, the [Knight Captain] raised an eyebrow, or at least one of her eyebrows twitched enough to be voluntary.
“To be fair, I am cheating through means that I shouldn’t have at my [Tier], but what did you expect from a [Fulcrum]?” This time there was no need to hold back the shit-eating grin that blossomed on my face.
Being a [Fulcrum] had gone from being an inconvenience that excused others to inconvenience me to an excuse for whatever nonsensical bullshit I pulled out of my ass.
A lull in the conversation ensued, so I kept on spreading the [Mana Crystals] as if they were seeds to be sowed into a tilled farm, and, sack after sack, around and around the house we went. Thankfully the grounds of our villa were mostly just comprised of swats of short dark green grass, with a single tree of purple and sweet limes in front and a small pond with a single [Water Lily] in the back, locations that I steered clear from so that what I was preparing wouldn’t ruin them.
And who took care of such a cured garden, one might ask. And that answer was also the answer to the other question I knew was coming the moment I emptied the last sack.
“Ok, now that most of our garden has been littered with crystals, how will you keep our assailants from noticing the obvious trap?” Sheeno asked, her two left arms vaguely gesturing to the side, pointing out the very eye-catching glittering that could be seen in the morning light.
“This”, I simply said and snapped my fingers. A completely unneeded gesture, but I thought it made me look cool so I went for it anyway; meanwhile, a simple [Enchantment] modified by yours truly activated, and the shed built onto the side of our house, the one directly behind us right now, automatically opened its doors, and a bunch of rakes, shovels, picks, and other such things flew out of it and started cutting our grass into chunks, lifting said chunks, and rotating the plate so that the crystals on top would fall on the raw heart, were they were roughly raked into somewhat orderly lines, and then be covered anew by the still pristine lumps of grass.
As if like lightning, it suddenly struck me that I was just plagiarizing that old Disney musical where Mickey messes around with Merlin’s stuff and finds out that he would make a terrible magician.
“Here’s hoping that this doesn’t go as poorly!”
“If you had planned on doing this from the start, what was the point of us running around in circles around our house?” My mate asked with the tiniest hint of irritation in her voice.
“I needed to do all that because I needed to separately link each crystal with the ‘hub’ while filling them with my [Mana], you did that mostly because you were too curious not to”, I replied distractedly.
Thinking about the ‘hub’, most of my mind was still busy with that task. You see, what I keep calling ‘my hub’ doesn’t exist, what I’m actually doing is much more complex and I’m mostly doing it as a proof of concept: The tens of thousands of crystals under the grass are linked to the [Aurumons] inside my [World Within], almost with a ratio of three to one, with the rate in favor of the crystals, and since they are intelligent beings capable of making decision, but under my control, they’ll make decision by what I’d instinctively want them to do.
Obviously, doing that wasn’t easy, that’s why it was a proof of concept: After all, what better way to test the interactions between the new [Karmic Threads] I could now see and manipulate and the new [Combined Runes] I had just begun learning about, if not by having my [Repair]able minions act as guinea pigs?
“Speaking of guinea pigs, did they get brought along to this [Nexus]?”
No, unfortunately.
“What? Why not!? I loved the little furry things! They were cute!”
Because [Rattons] exist.
I did not want to think about the annoying species of rat-like [Monsters] that seemed to follow me wherever I went- Ah, maybe that was exactly the point: They were everywhere.
“…Are you seriously telling me that the [Rattons] have overfilled the rodent biotopes to the point that other species for the same spot are immediately perceived as superfluous?”
Got it in one.
“… not even bunnies or hamsters?”
We have [Jackalopes]. They are bunny-like, although more “murdery”.
“Man, I fucking hate [Rattons] even more now!”