Congratulations on winning the Clan War, Humans of Pandora. You will be rewarded based on your individual contributions shortly. Please wait to be sent back to your city.
Another flash of light and the Abyss guild found themselves back in our HQ. All of us looked slightly stunned. Hell, even I was a little taken aback; I knew that we’d be facing an easier foe, but that? My best guess was that the Overseer was cutting his losses and hedging his bets on the fourth Trial because that was anything but a war.
“Wait, that’s it?” Noel muttered, looking exasperated, “But… that didn’t even take 15 minutes. Why did we go through that training if the aliens they sent were so weak? And we got like, nothing as a reward!”
“250 gold for 2nd place in the rankings and almost no experience points to speak of...” Vadeem muttered, “I could make more progress selling food out of my suitcase. What the hell was that?”
I didn’t get any rewards, as always, but if Vadeem’s claims were true, then that’s another indication that the Overseer was cutting his losses. He didn’t want to risk providing us with any further rewards or levels, and he just threw a bunch of fodder here instead. I didn’t think him the type with that kind of self-control.
The Regressor frowned as he sat down on his chair, his face concentrated in thought. “That… that was strange. There must be something at play behind the scenes because there should be no reason why we fought that particular species. The Tanni are known for their supportive capabilities, they only excel when paired with another Aspirant species. They have no ability to fight head-on as you all clearly saw; they were just sent here to die. This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe they screwed up and accidently chose the wrong foe?” I offered, “I mean, this whole place works on bureaucracy, and wouldn’t be the first time some intern or another made a filing error.”
"Or maybe these Tanni things pissed off the wrong guy and got sent in here as punishment?" Vadeem offered.
Jae-Hyun didn’t look convinced, but without any more information, he could only speculate. “Maybe… it would explain why they set up that grueling training if our original opponents were supposed to be stronger." He got up from his seat and shook his head. "There’s just too many unknowns though, so keep a look out for anything strange.”
Yoona looked devastated when she sat down. “Is this… is this how it’s going to be from now on, brother? Those little guys couldn’t even run, and we-”
Her brother gave her an uncomfortable look. “It’s…” He sighed. “It’s just how this world works, Yoona. I want to stop the people responsible for all of this as much as you do, trust me, but we’re not strong enough, not even close.”
“I know…” she muttered, still crestfallen, “I just… I think I need a moment for myself if that’s okay with everyone else.”
We all nodded. Something like this was inevitable, and I hoped that Yoona would come out of this stronger than before. We gave her the space she needed and watched in silence as she left for her dorms.
“I’ll speak to her when she is ready,” Marcus said, “She needs some guidance in a time like this, and it is best that this council comes from someone other than her brother.”
Jae-Hyun looked at the Father and nodded. “Thank you.”
He looked away in guilt but didn’t say anything else. He knew that it was pointless to try to shelter his sister any further, although I wasn’t quite sure why he trusted the priest so much. I mean, I wouldn’t trust this dude with anything other than being creepy, much less guidance, but the Regressor trusted the bloat fly priest, and it was his sister we’re talking about. But putting my biases aside, I have seen Marcus work with individuals, and I’ll reluctantly admit that he was very good at calming people down and making them see the bigger picture.
“Look,” Vadeem said, breaking the awkward silence “Let’s just be thankful we got through that unharmed, we lost, what, like two people total there?”
“Five,” Jae-Hyun corrected, “All from friendly fire, I’ll have to address that.”
“Five, whatever,” Vadeem continued, “My point is, let’s not look at the gift horse in the mouth and just be glad we got out of there with almost no losses. Whatever’s going on in the background is clearly bad for the people in charge or our alien enemies, which, in my books, is good for us.”
“That’s not necessarily the case,” the Regressor corrected, “But I get your point. Let’s focus our attention on the real issue.”
We all sobered up then. The fourth Trial was to be announced in only a handful of hours from now, and if the Regressor was right and I didn’t screw up the timeline too badly, the actual start of that Trial’s set 24 hours after. We didn’t have a lot of time to rest, let alone strategize, but thankfully Jae-Hyun was here to do all the tedious work for us. He’d figure out how to sort our survivors while Marcus was in charge of placating any dissenters.
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“Everyone,” our guild leader continued as he addressed us, “Get some rest while you can, I know all of you worked hard these last few days, even if the war itself wasn’t straining. Our real battle starts in less than two days, and I’m relying on the four of you to do the heavy lifting.”
“One versus a whole bunch, we know,” Noel shrugged, “We’ll be fine, boss. You’re the one who’ll need the rest after getting all of those peeps sorted out. Take care of yourself, okay?”
Wow, the Regressor must have been working overtime in the last few weeks if even Noel’s worried about his health. Shit, I’ll need to read up on the stupid doppelganger’s diaries to get caught up on what just happened. Speaking of which, I’ve been neglecting reading those horrible, dull volumes for a while now, and I didn’t have an excuse to avoid them any further. I should bite the bullet and get it over with before I say something dumb because I was missing crucial info.
“In that case, I’ll head back and take a nap,” I said first, “I don’t think I’ve had a good night’s sleep since we got back, what with all the crap that’s happening one by one.”
“Good point,” Vadeem agreed, “I’ll hit the gym myself and get some food.”
Muscle A: We will go with you.
Muscle E: You promised us some food!
The big man chuckled. “Let’s heat up the grill first then, let me show you two my world-famous BBQ!”
“I’ll tag along as well,” Noel added, “But only for the food. I’ll give Vadeem one thing, but he does know how to cook.” She turned to address me. “You sure you don’t want to get some hotdogs and burgers before your beauty sleep, little bro? We still have plenty of time since we finished that war thing so early.”
I shook my head and smiled. “I’m good, thanks though. Let’s have a proper sit-down meal with everyone once all of this is over.”
Vadeem grinned. “I’d be glad to dust off these old grilling muscles and show you some of the real good stuff if I have time to prep. Some things need days to marinate alone, but it’s worth it, let me tell you!”
“Oh oh," Noel added, "We should go to the beach! I think I saw some water near us when we rode that dragon thing! It’ll be our first vacation! How about it, boss?”
Jae-Hyun grinned. “I think it’ll do the entire guild some good, so sure, why not? But let’s not forget that we all have to survive the next Trial.”
“Eh,” the redhead shrugged. “We’ll be fine! We’ve gone through worse, and I have full trust in everyone here minus Vadeem!”
“Hey, what does that mean?”
She ignored him and continued. “I’ll make a list of stuff to bring to the beach! Oh, it’ll be great!”
I allowed the others to chit-chat before making my way back to my dorm. As nice as it would be to join the inane chatter for once, I still had some dull-as-hell reading to do. I sighed one last time before making my way to the dreaded desk. On the beautiful table was volume after volume after volume of notebooks, all neatly arranged, and every single one of them exceedingly tedious to read.
It wasn’t just the fact that my doppelganger would document everything, but his brain didn’t seem to comprehend what was and wasn’t important. I even tried to interview the stupid thing to get the highlights of the Training, but that had been more frustrating than it was worth. Even the most direct of questions, like what rewards did Vadeem get, would be prefaced by almost half an hour of exposition. My attempts to try to keep the stupid thing on track just led to even more exposition, and the damned clone would make the saddest face imaginable if he even saw a hint of discontent on my face.
I gave up trying to squeeze information out of him directly and reluctantly chose the lesser of two evils: the books. I picked the first volume up and flipped through it, allowing Noe to do the heavy lifting.
I did this for four hours.
You know, I thought that just doing nothing but flipping through page after page of notes was the worst that could happen, but no, because even after my system summarized everything of note, I knew close to nothing useful out of those 15,244 pages. See, the fucking worthless pile of goo didn’t understand what I would consider pertinent information, such as the abilities of my allies or even what they did that was noteworthy in the Training. That meant that he didn’t bother writing any kind of description down. Just worthless notes like “Jae-Hyun killed two creatures on X day” and the like filled the notes, but when it came to activities that had even tangentially had to do with me, he’d cite fifteen different Arbiter W documents and write entire essays on why he chose to act the way he did.
In other words, if I wanted to know exactly what the clone thought about me at any given time, then these journals were a gold mine, but if I wanted to know anything about anyone else, then they were less than worthless. By the end of Noe’s summary, I wanted nothing more than to shove those piles of paper down Q’s stupid creation’s throat.
No, let’s not be mad. He did his best. He just… had a different outlook on Aspirants and that was no fault of his own. He’s used to being around literal gods, so why would he bother writing down the descriptions of mere mortals? It’d make more sense for him to report on his acting since that was what I asked him to do. Let’s… let’s calm down. You didn’t waste your time and missed out on delicious hotdogs, Walter, you just… found out that there’s exactly 103 Arbiter W documents floating around. That’s fucking useful, I’m sure!
Zen Walter, Zen.
I got up from my seat, purposefully not looking at the piles of paper, and slowly headed to my bed. Sure, I had to find out on my own about what Jae-Hyun and the gang did during the Training, but I could easily ask the Director when I could. All’s not lost. Let’s just rest my brain for a moment-
Jae-Hyun: Walter, I hope I’m not waking you up, but the announcements are starting. Come down to the lobby when you can.
Fuck!
Lady Awesome: We saved you a few burgers! They’re real good, still warm on the grill!
Walter’s Fine: Thanks, I’ll be down in just a moment. Let me wash up first.
Jae-Hyun: Take your time. The announcement should just restate what I’ve already told you, so you won't miss much even if you’re not here, but it’s best to come down just in case.
I sighed one last time and got up. Man, that beach trip was sounding nicer by the second, but now’s not the time to complain. Let’s take things one step at a time and see if the Regressor was right about the next Trial.