Beyond M-Eclipse: Easy Mode LIVE

———Kenni———

“Dang. That’s quite a lot of dots in Russia.” I said as the area seemed to be covered almost entirely in red.

“Naturally. It’s nothing we should concern ourselves with, however. As it is we’re probably going to be met with nothing but angry peasants that wouldn’t be worth fighting anyway.” Sure doesn’t mince her words there…

“You’re not wrong. I think we let things boil over and don’t try to be hasty. We’ll get our own fun eventually, or at least you do. I don’t speak Russian, as a matter of fact.” One of the best things about riling people up is hearing their desperate pleas and shouts of anger, not understanding what they said is a bit of a letdown.

“Certainly a problem on your end.” She remarked. Yeah okay, is she gonna say she can read every language now?

“Aren’t you a smart little thing…” I’m a centimeter shorter than her, but it’s the thought that counts. “So why did we even come here again?”

“Because the mission room won’t ever generate a quest that is on our level. A bunch of boring fights or deescalation. In this room we can have a better idea of where we should go if we actually want to get into trouble. As it is, we’re not seeing anything of value.” She explained.

“Is that right? Whatever. If the state of the map is like this, I guess we don’t have much else to do today.” I said while still staring at the map. “...I guess I’ll go back home and sleep off the rest of the day then. See you later.”

———Lerim———

“Hmm…” I mumbled to myself as I looked at myself in the mirror. Doesn’t look like I gained any muscle over the last few days. Still a squishy face and tender arms and legs… Maybe legs aren’t that flexible right now, there’s a bit of resistance there.

No scars, no bruises, still a pretty face, my hair is all nice and smooth… About as good as I can be. Everything is in order, and… I don’t really know if I’ll get my modeling career going again. That guy I was in contact with was apprehended and… I don’t quite remember what happened, but I won’t be surprised if he was suspended from doing anything for a good long while. People are hella paranoid nowadays, they’re way more harsh with their judgement nowadays.

Kind of a sad state of affairs for a fair young lady like me to go into a monster den to make ends meet. So what if I have a bunch of money stored away and locked up nice and tidy, I don’t usually have that much cash on me.

Now onto something else I am supposed to do today…

*Ring* *Ring* *Beep*

“Hello?” Before I could think about that, someone called me up suddenly.

“” The boss asked. Great, is there more trouble brewing?

“What is it now?” I asked, feeling a bit annoyed at all the requests put on my shoulder.

“” He explained before suddenly ending the call. Seems quite urgent if he’s being that hasty. I guess with similar stories going around these past few days, it’s not something to be taken lightly, can’t go low and slow with it. Alright then, I guess I can do that as today’s assignment. I’m hoping for something valuable to come out of this. Looks like things can get quite bloody with how it’s going, so I better get some actual tangible compensation for this.

———Histon———

“Mom is gonna kill us if she hears about this…” I complained upon seeing the smug face with those words.

“Don’t be a snitch then! It’s that simple!” Uires replied. I’m surprised she wasn’t taken advantage of, even if they are all probably too afraid of stirring up any sort of trouble in this small town. Who knows what might happen, it’s been a long while since we’ve witnessed an incident.

“What did you even get out of that?” I asked while leaning back.

“...Exercise?” She said, completely unsure with her answer. Just great. She tried to do the same kind of thing I do but not even any real motivation on her end?

“Freaking hell.” It’s really feeling like she could get into a lot of trouble unsupervised.

“What’s with that tone, stupid.” She balked at me for that reaction. It’s her fault that I am having this headache right now. Dungeon is an actually risky business, I really wanna talk to those guys she tagged along with, but she’s clearly not keen on telling.

What a freaking headache, dude.

———Rico———

“Still enjoying looking at weird moving clouds, are you?” That hag’s voice rang out after a few minutes of silence. I just got here not too long ago.

“Yeah. Along with the nice cold breeze.” I said, feeling a bit… not drowsy, perhaps calm is the better word. I can’t really be in a drowsy state, not normally anyway.

“Hmph. I suppose with nothing better to do, all you can do is waste time.” She remarked before sitting down.

“Say, you got any insider info I need to know about?” While she had showed up with nothing to add before, it’s usually at least a coin flip. I should be paying some attention.

“Nothing. If anything else was done, then the resulting fallout would’ve probably culled over tenth of the world’s current population. At some point if too much is lost in such a short period of time the entire infrastructure would’ve collapsed.” She answered. As if we don’t have backup for that, but I guess she doesn’t want this era to end too abruptly. I have only been here for a while, so I suppose I am in that camp as well. Maybe we can let this ride for a while, just enjoying the current status quo that would’ve been slowly broken down no matter what we do from this point onward.

“Guess we’ll be stuck watching a campfire instead of a forest fire.” I remarked. There has been some skirmish like you would’ve expected from ancient humans, fighting each other nonstop for territory and expanding their little group, but with our system in place that shouldn’t be a big concern for the more peaceful humans.

“I know there is beauty in destruction, but your words remain concerning as ever.” She remarked. Give me a break, she probably has a similar thought in mind, even if she’s not saying it out loud.

“Whatever, just don’t complain once something big happens. It ain’t gonna be my fault.” I don’t even need to look into it to get a good idea that this is far from over. “Hmm… Maybe by the time those kids are out of school and they spread across the world, that’s when things will really get interesting.”

“Not going to happen. I’m sure you can tell, but even the most rowdy of them all don’t really cause much trouble. There are some exceptions, but those have had a rotten personality since birth, too fundamental to change without certain questionable methods.” Walsuna pointed out. Hmph, that’s assuming the few years they have here can influence them for centuries to come. Such a wishful thinking, but I suppose for someone who isn’t quite as cynical as me, that is to be expected.

“Think however you want, with the current state of affairs, the future is still uncertain unless you peek under the curtain.” Thinking that all of them will be a significant player at some point was already quite delusional. The hundreds of students compared to billions of people also don’t give much hope in terms of impact. Maybe if we throw them to the wolves more often then I’d be more confident with that assessment, but I got vetoed from influencing any more than I did, which is certainly a shame. We could’ve done quite a lot more even without needing to draw out the process. So many things that can be done so they can get a better taste of what’s to come.

“Certainly remain quite pessimistic, I see. For someone who should be younger than me, you certainly act like a disgruntled old man.” She remarked.

“And what of it? Humanity so far hasn’t given me a good opinion on them, even with the best it had to offer.” I know there are a few exceptional individuals not really influenced by the old ways, like that one guy that disarmed most of the nukes since his poor excuse of a mentor decides to go nuts and not do it herself, but that’s a topic for another day.

“Always just a nihilist.” She said in response to that statement.

“I wouldn’t call myself that. If I was, I would’ve left all your responses on read. Besides, those types tend to wither away quickly, not accomplishing as much as their power would’ve otherwise indicated.” They’re the type to fizzle out, at least the actual nihilists anyway. There’s a bunch of posers acting like they can’t care for anything anymore before doing the stupidest shits. “There might be a ton of stuff that could’ve ended the world multiple times over, but those will pop up anyway, so no point in caring about them specifically. I can care about smaller things, at least.”

“You’ve made that quite clear. That’s why you couldn’t be bothered to get rid of her at the moment of sprouting.” Walsuna responded.

“And for someone who should care more than me, you also left her alive despite being at ground zero.” I pointed out. If another factor that could cause catastrophe on the largest scale showed up, someone like her should’ve done more than that.

“Because she’s a good kid… At least she should stay that way. I am also conscious of the fact that getting rid of her wouldn’t have mattered in the long run just like you do. As it is, you’re a bigger threat to the world than she could ever be.” Oh, we’re pulling that card now?

“Hmph. Perhaps there’s some truth in that.” I’m not exactly opposed to doing some heinous things if I can get away with it, though I think I have been restraining myself pretty well as of late. I think I can let things play out and take a backseat for a while. “By the way, you know what this is?”

“Hm?” She mumbled before taking the thing in my hand. “Isn’t this something both you and I know what it is? It’s another attempt at creating one of those perpetual motion machines. This one seems like a dud.”

“I see. Looks like no matter where we are, someone is gonna try to create one of these. Can’t even say it’s impossible in the world of magic, since there ought to be some weird loophole in the mix, a flaw in the system to exploit.” I think we have found only two that came close to the goal of true infinite energy, both started by the same person, and the end result could be said to come from desperation-fueled madness of two different parties. Often the best stuff came from those who went off the deep ends in a way that can’t really be replicated intentionally.

“This does look like a pretty primitive attempt at it compared to everything else we’ve seen. What building did you raid this from?” She asked.

“Ehhh…” I kinda didn’t really bother to keep it intact…

“...Fine then. It’s not like the other places we raid giving much intel on the topic either. It’s like hoping to get actual insights from elementary students.” She said, dropping the topic before placing the cube down. “As things stand, we haven’t found anything rivaling the Monoliths just yet.”

“Perhaps we never will.” I think there are enough ‘functionally limitless sources of energy’ to go around anyway. We don’t need to look for another. “This thing though. Enough energy to destroy this planet, so let’s just…”

*Swerng* *Fizzle*

I use a barrier on it before causing it to implode, just normal procedure for dealing with something that could cause damage on a massive scale. I want to keep this place all nice and clean, and be a bit more restrained with how much damage I’m actually doing out here as of late.

“...So are you going to continue?” She asked while looking into the horizon of this dead planet.

“I’ll go back to Earth in… maybe a few minutes. You can go back first if you’re also not doing anything.” Why did she even come here anyway? Notice me playing around?

She didn’t say anything before silently leaving me to my own devices. A bit of silence will help calm my nerves…