Beyond M-Eclipse: Easy Mode LIVE

———Karra———

“You know, I never really expect them to give us that much preferential treatment.” Wiina remarked. I wasn’t actually suspecting her to be in cahoots in that regard, since that would’ve put more scrutiny on us if the words ever go out, which I doubt she wants in the first place. I think they are all aware of that, just some are more… willing to risk it more than others.

“Yeah, I understand.” I said, not having any reason to doubt her on that front. “...You know, I was tempted to jump off the ship once we got close to the lake. Was gonna film myself doing it.”

“...What?” She turned to look at me with confusion.

“Talking to you first, of course.” I quickly added. I was gonna have her help me with the fall so I don’t just splitter into a million pieces. “Pulling a stunt like that and posting it. It’ll probably go quite viral.”

“...Yeah. I guess it would. Maybe another time.” She dismissively said. She should be able to create something similar to the floating ship, though I don’t know how much power she’ll end up using for it. Considering she didn’t dismiss the idea she is probably confident that she can make one that’ll last for more than long enough.

*Click* *Tap*

“Huh.” She mumbled to herself.

“What are you looking at right now?” I asked, not feeling like getting out of her bed while she sat at her computer.

“All the incidents related to the trip today. Sounds like there are incidents of violent thugs trying to make examples out of them. They’re mad that we’re taking reservations.” She casually said. From her tone, it seems like nothing bad happened on our end. “There are a ton of people involved. Where did they get all of them?”

“So what happened? How many incidents are there?” I asked, since she seems rather surprised by the numbers.

“There are over twenty.” She answered… That’s quite a lot. “It seems like there is no one in our school that was seriously injured, but there seems to be casualty on their end.”

“Seriously? How violent did it all get?” I’m confused as to why it even happened in the first place. Shouldn’t things be a bit more civil? It’s just one day.

“Enough for there to be gossip of murder, but it is not substantiated.” Yeesh… That’s grim, real grim. “It also delays those classes by quite a bit. Good thing they have a teleport option to go back to school right away, or else they’ll return at night.”

“That’s the first I’ve heard of that.” Why is there such an advanced function in the buses as well? There were a ton of them too. “Just how advanced are the people running the school?”

“I guess the best way to explain it is… like those ancient precursors in fantasy and sci-fi stories. Weirdly advanced for their time, maybe they use magic, maybe they’re not. It’s not a level of tech people in our current time and replicate at the moment, or at least, the amount that can do so can be counted on one hand, maybe two.”

Edea is probably one of said persons, unless they somehow turned out to be an ancient being somehow. Seems unlikely, there were records of them during their younger years, so unless they go out of their way to find two people to raise them and know how to de-age themselves, that is just impossible.

“So is that also why we have no casualties? Were the buses that advanced?” I asked, wondering if that’s the easy explanation for everything.

“I mean. Those things can easily tank attacks of all kinds, and I doubt those thugs can tank a bus ramming into them. From the looks of it some groups preferred to get out and negotiate, none of which worked, while the others used the mechanisms in the bus for the trick, or just tried ramming into them, leaving no room for negotiation.” She explained. So some groups didn’t even rely on all the tools at their disposal… Probably Rico, Elrik, and Wana, at least. They are more than strong enough to get rid of even a hundred thugs. “Hmm… There weren’t many who recorded the exchange between the two sides, and one of them seems to be… Huh.”

“What is it?” I asked, wondering if there was something so surprising even amongst the outcome.

“Looks like one area was covered in complete darkness. A sphere of darkness that consumes everything. Once it disappears, a lot of people do so as well.” Well that’s plenty terrifying, is that seriously the aftermath of one of the skirmishes? Who would even do something so scary?

Actually, let me look through the articles as well… Wow. She wasn’t kidding. This photograph from quite far away shows the whole area covered in a black sphere. People would naturally expect the whole area to be destroyed, but in reality it seems like it just sucks in the assailants. Which is still rather unnerving. After all, what happened in that darkness? There are a lot of people skeptical about what is actually happening. Rightfully so. It is by all accounts an absurd outcome no one saw coming. Most people who posit the idea of brutal murder or other gruesome fate were met with skepticism. Why would they do something so monstrous? Many do think it is some sort of smokescreen spell, but no one really knows what actually happened to those that disappeared. Some even think it’s similar to that stunt Wiina pulled off against a guy trying to threaten me for information. Of course, I am very doubtful that that’s the case.

“This is probably gonna be talked about online for a bit, since this trip involved so many places.” Wiina remarked. I would probably need to talk about it as well on stream. Though I did get a different experience and it would be a bad idea to talk about it so… I don’t really know, maybe. “...By the way, Karra. Next Thursday.”

“Yeah. I still remember the tournament.” I said, feeling pretty excited about going there and seeing everything in-person. It’s gonna be a fun watch, just like it always has been.

“Too bad the others can’t also come along, but most of them aren’t fans of the game anyway.” She said while her eyes are still glued to the screen, looking through more articles if I were to guess. “Hmm… There have been notifications on your accounts, right?”

“Yeah. Had to set it so those notifications won’t flood my phone. I already skim through it, just a bunch of impatient mentions.” Can’t these people wait for a while? I’m feeling pretty low on energy today so I don’t feel like streaming. We travel pretty damn far so everyone got hit with jet lag, some worse than others. Not exactly a fun outcome, but hey, at least we weren’t doing jack anyway. Emmie and Kenni are the ones ballsy enough to be where the action is… “By the way, Wiina, did you know about the dragons…”

“About them having a human form? Of course.” She said with a lower tone. “An intelligent race with their own civilizations and innately great powers. Just one of them is enough to bring a country to either prosperity or ruin… They tend to see humans as curious objects or insignificant insects not worth their time, and yet they possess the ability to mimic them all the same, which by all accounts seem rather odd, like some sort of design flaw. Sure, they aren’t particularly weakened when they shift forms, but the act of imitating something much weaker is no doubt perplexing for many. It’s like a built-in self-humiliation technique.”

That’s one way to put it, though at this point we all know about it by now. Obviously no one really pointed out where such an ability even came from, since it is so specific.

“I probably shouldn’t hesitate. No matter what, they don’t care about what we do or think, only seeing us as toys.” She bitterly said. “When they were in their normal form, it was easier to push those hesitations aside, just thinking of them as mere beasts. When the last one shifted, it really reminded me that by all intent and purposes, they are on the same level as us.”

Rather eloquent and somber. I might come up with something similar if I am the one put in her shoes. I’m not the one with the responsibility to fight them off, or ever consider myself who would one day fight another sentient being, someone that we could talk on equal ground. I don’t really have anything profound to say in return, but I do think she is at least justified this time around and shouldn’t beat herself up over it.

“It was necessary. I don’t know how you really feel at that moment, but from how I see it, you did the right thing.” I said, trying to be firm in my tone, be very clear with the fact of the matter.

“Haa… Thanks.” She said with a small smile, probably expecting that kind of response from me already. It’s probably one most people would come to anyway. “Hmm… Now that is something.”

“Did you spot another weird article?” She seems to be scrolling through a site at the moment, wondering what caught her attention this time.

“Yeah. Kind of. It seems that there have been people posting about the various things happening to us. Not that they know why or how it came to be.” She explained. So stuff like the giant squid creature, the dragons, and more… I never really asked about the former, did I? We kinda ignored it since we were going to the dragon mountain and THAT happened.

“Say. What is it about that giant squid? No way that was just gigantism.” And from what they were saying. That thing seems to be an ancient beast of some kind.

“It is an ancient sea monster that has been slumbering for a very long time. It is very powerful and stays at the bottom of the ocean where the sun doesn’t reach. From the looks of it the Eclipse causes them to start becoming more active.” She explained. So it is something magical. Though that is easy enough to figure out. Not that it really explains why something that specific exists, or why it is so powerful. I can’t gauge its strength at all, not from the lack of trying but because it is so vast it is hard to measure against anything else.

“Why didn’t you intervene at that time?” I asked, since that thing seems even stronger than those dragons.

“There wasn’t a need since it fled, not to mention it wasn’t that aggressive towards us. If it was then it’d be a different story.” She explained. That thing did flee from a single good hit on its body. That lightning arrow looks like it could turn me into ashes if it connected, and yet all it did was scared it off. So many scary and powerful things that are just up and about that I can’t compete with at all. Good thing the others are there to make sure we don’t end up in danger.

I do have to wonder. Why did they even show us all of these things? I know most of it was just by chance. They probably wouldn’t forcibly wake up or lure a giant sea monster or tinkering with a gate that summons a bunch of powerful mythical beings.

“Speaking of which. Can you actually kill that thing?” I know she is strong. I mean, she did just slaughter the dragons like it was nothing, but that thing was stronger.

“Of course I could. It seems like a bit of a shame to kill something so old and fascinating though, but it is not the only one of its kind.” She casually answered, not really elaborating on how hard it might be. “Ah. Here is a more detailed report of the aircrafts Able shot down. More like a sighting, no way in hell the higher-ups are going to come out and say their air force was easily dispatched.”

“We never figured out why they even attacked us, did we? They said something about clearance, and from the sounds of it they go against that?” It was certainly shocking to see so many jets coming at us. Never would I ever imagine a scenario like that ever happening.

“Seems to be a miscalculated assault on their part. They probably have a similar motive to the ones obstructing the trip, sending a message and possibly getting a few hostages for leverage. They never realized how out of depth they truly are.” Wiina theorized. “We need to remember that it hasn’t even been a year. Some people took way too long to realize what the state of the world is like. I guess these people at the top still have their heads stuck in the clouds, either that or some disobedient underlings are stirring things up and they couldn’t be bothered. That happens sometimes.”

“I feel like one of you three could’ve easily snatched a pilot or two and interrogated them.” I said that without even thinking about it. Did I just advocate for interrogation and possibly torture?

“Maybe, but it sounds like a pain in the ass. There are prison cells on the ship, but then we’d have to make you aware of it.” Ah. I see. What else is even on that ship? I don’t think we really ever know the full extent of it, since we’re mainly in the lobby. “Also, would you really like to see someone being thrown in jail?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t. Maybe Kenni might.” I jokingly said. She has always been one to adapt and find any situation funny.

I get up from bed and take a better look at what she is looking at right now… Is she looking through DieChan!?