Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 874: What happened?

I watch as Izzy smiles and waves excitedly as we make our way closer. She nimbly jumps up and towards Blackie, who’s now completely encased in red armor. She lands on his arm, and he swings it, launching her at the speed of a bullet.

There’s something to be said for the acceleration she experiences, which would’ve probably resulted in the instant death of anybody from Easy difficulty, as I watch her fly through the air.

As she starts to slow down, she hits the sand, sliding and flipping through a few somersaults to slow her momentum until, at last, she comes to a stop just a few steps in front of us and jumps up to her feet with her arms spread out to her sides.

Lily and Dennis begin to clap while Izzy beams with pride.

Is… is this normal? What happened while I was gone?

The first one to receive a hug from our empath is Dennis, and she even goes so far as to give his head a few pats before rushing on to give hugs to Lily and Tess. When she stops in front of me, I allow her to read my surface emotions, as usual, and get a hug of my own as well. Tacita gets just a wave, and the mute girl standing further behind and to the side tilts her head as she watches Izzy.

Not one to be left behind, Noodle slithers out of Izzyʼs sleeve and coils around her arm, stopping when his head sits at the same level as Izzyʼs eyes. The pearly white snake still rocks two sets of three green eyes, but after taking a bite out of the baby wyvern, there have been changes. It’s not even like it made him any more like the wyvern in appearance. Rather, there’s a new shine to his scales. It’s not always obvious, but when the light hits them properly, I can see a blend of blues, greens, and purples shining through.

Noodle gives me a polite nod when he catches me looking at him and keeps staring expectantly in my direction. Even as Izzy moves around to speak with the others, his eyes remain fixed on the same point, perfectly locked onto me.

I create a mana orb like the ones he enjoys and, taking into consideration that he’s likely gotten stronger now, I spice it up before flinging it at him.

His head shoots ahead as he snatches it from the air and eats it with all the speed of a puppy devouring a Lego figurine as its owner shouts for it to “drop it”. All six eyes close in deep satisfaction, and the snake gives me another very polite nod.

That’s about the point where Sophie arrives with Blackie as well, and I look over the reanimated corpse of the demon Champion, now encased in its red armor. The armor looks like a heavy medieval style composed of red metal plating, though I notice there are certain spots with lighter shades of red, almost fading to a somewhat yellow hue in places.

“Well, I didnʼt know your favorite color was red,” I say to Sophie after she finishes greeting the others.

“Crimson Forge is fucking expensive, you know. Even with all the discounts they gave me and that was after barely avoiding them tripling the price when they realized I was a mind mage, it cost a lot. So I didn’t bother with surface modifications, leaving it at the base color of the material, which was, as you can see, mostly red,” Sophie answers.

“I like this color!” Izzy says. “I think you look cool,” she adds, patting Blackie’s arm, who just stands there motionless in response.

Izzy doesn’t let it bother her in the slightest and taps his arm again. Looking at it, I guess we’ve effectively settled the question of how to stop that incredibly powerful kinetic reflection trait from constantly activating.

“How are the stats?” I ask Sophie.

“Fucking high.”

“Why are you so annoyed? Be nice to me for once. I recommended you to those guys.”

“No.”

“Izzy, do something about your older sister.”

“I donʼt want to. I like Soph as she is.”

“Typical mind mage, I guess. So?” I ask Sophie again.

She rubs her face with her hand before combing her hair. “It was probably too much for me to expect you guys to take this floor change and that damn terrifying domain making me shake in fear seriously.”

“It’s always been like this, Soph. We joke around a bit and make ourselves content with just being around each other before we have to get serious later. Just go with the flow, it’s faster that way,” Tess says in my place.

“I guess I don’t have any other choice,” our mind mage says and turns to me. “The body is probably near indestructible to almost anyone below Champion rank. Trust me, plenty of people in Beyond have tried to kill me. His Strength and Dexterity are also very high, but this is where Blackie’s hit a bottleneck, he’s not able to make use of it all. And the kinetic reflection trait is a nightmare for anyone fighting him melee. And a nightmare to me if I let myself get too close, of course.”

“And the armor?”

“Low pristine. I spent all I had and signed some contracts I’ll have to deal with later. It’s not anything special durability wise, it just serves to hide what’s under it and has an absorption layer that stops the trait from triggering.”

“Release mechanism?” I ask.

“Yes, there’s an encrypted connection keyed to this,” she says, lifting a necklace with a silver medal inlaid with a small, red droplet. “I can trigger it and cause it to fall off near instantly, and no, I will not be doing it now. The armor is heavy. Like heavy-heavy, and putting it back on without triggering the reflective trait is a pain in the ass.”

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“Well, I bet I’ll be getting a chance to see it soon anyway,” I mutter sadly.

“Don’t jinx it, and what the hell did you do? What happened to the Exploration Rankings?”

“The Boys happened.”

Sophie looks at me almost angrily and absentmindedly reaches and grabs Izzy to pull her closer and hug her from behind, in response to which Izzy twists her head up to look at her sister.

“Just tell me, they’re offering a ridiculous amount of shards for the information. With me being a member of your group and coming from me, it would be taken seriously, and they’d gladly pay me off,” Sophie says.

Scratching the back of my head, I think of it and ask, “How much?”

“Starting at 500 thousand and rising to over one million in places. Mostly from information guilds planning to sell it on further.”

“I bet you could get more.”

“That is what I want to try. I might be able to push it to 2 million if you returned to Beyond and did something fucked up to bring more attention to yourself, and people get reminded of these rankings.”

“If Savant or Brich don’t sell it before you. I’ll tell you, but I want 50% of any shards you will make, and obviously, I won’t be giving you all the details.”

“30% because I am too tired to negotiate further. And wonʼt Morwag or Weslin try selling it as well?”

“Deal to 30%. And I don’t think so. Both of them should’ve finished their tutorials. Brich, I think, a month or two after Nyssa, who should be finishing up in two months.”

With a sigh, Sophie does what I take to be opening the community while letting go of Izzy and muttering, “I’ll send a message to Savant and see if he’s planning to sell and possibly make a deal with him. Expect your cut to be smaller if I’m forced to split with him. When I get to Beyond, I’ll try to check in with Brich too.”

“If you call him Brichant, I think he’ll be more inclined to negotiate,” I say, getting one more weirded out look before she shakes her head and returns to her community window.

When I feel a tug on my clothes, I look down into Izzyʼs green eyes. “What?” I ask her.

“Is this floor your fault again?” she asks me.

“What do you mean again? Obviously not. You can blame Lissandra and her wyvern.”

She tugs on my clothes again.

“What?” I ask her.

“What did you do?”

Under her eyes, I cannot even look away, so I just snort instead, “Maybe I helped Lissandra make a dagger. But help might be too powerful a word. I just gathered and compressed a little bit of mana.”

“So little, even an average Hell difficulty attendee would’ve been able to channel it?”

Instantly, I feel offended and defend myself, “Not a chance in hell some casual would be able to move that much mana so quickly. It would melt their feeble bodies. Those guys couldn’t even fathom...” I pause there and look at Izzy. “Okay, maybe it was a bit more than a little bit of mana, happy?”

“Do you like Lissandra?” Izzy asks me out of nowhere.

Somewhere in the background, the Lustdozer freezes as I think over my answer before saying honestly, “Probably?”

Izzy quickly asks as if there is a danger hanging over our heads, “Like like? Or like?”

I tilt my head in confusion, “Do you mean romantically? No chance in hell. I just like her determination and admire her skill, don’t tell her, but it is a little bit cool.”

“See?” Izzy says while looking somewhere behind me and then back at me. “I was just curious why you helped her. That is why I asked.”

“Obviously, I didn’t help her just for that. We made a trade,” I say, explaining the obvious.

“Didn’t Lissandra have a grandson, and didn’t you kill one of her descendants on the second floor?” Dennis asks, already chewing on something that looks like dried up fruit.

“Something like that,” I nod as we begin making our way to the next place the compass is leading us, towards Min-Jae and Maya.

The group stays rowdy with conversation quickly swapping through multiple subjects, and eventually even Sophie gives up and decides to wait until we’re all together before starting to plan what to do next.

On our way there we stop by one of the barriers holding Easy and Normal difficulty attendees. This one is full of 30 or so demons. It’s my first time ever seeing an Easy difficulty demon, and honestly, it’s pretty hard to comprehend.

An Easy Difficulty. Demons.

Just how? You get born with a Demon heart and a natural connection to primordial energy in most cases. Some even get a second extra trait and yet... Easy Difficulty?

When some of them start calling to us to come closer or share some water with them, we move closer.

“What do you mean ʼgive us water, humanʼ?” Dennis asks as he stops in front of the barrier, “You should ask nicer if you want something.”

“You’re just a human,” one of the demons snorts, causing Dennis to quickly get annoyed.

“Just a human? Unlike you coughing babies, we’re in goddamn Hell difficulty! Most of us are Beyonders!”

Even that doesn’t seem to shock the demon as he laughs, also moving closer to the barrier, just like the dozen or so demons around that also decide to start shouting at Dennis and challenging him to a fight.

“I bet I could take you on in a fight!” The demon hits his chest three times with a fist, generating more kinetic energy.

The others begin to roar as well, and a few even kick or attack the barrier as if they want to push through to Dennis, who stares at them with wide eyes.

“I’ll just fucking break the barrier, and you’ll all melt in the heat! My guy over here can break it if he tries!” Dennis threatens and points at me. He then presses his face against the barrier that squishes his cheeks as he stares down the demons with wide open eyes.

The cute lunatics being kept in the barrier for their own safety start shouting in excitement. A few of them start attacking the barrier with the attacks bouncing and hitting other demons, which causes even more fights to start.

Meanwhile, the demon that started it all presses the face against the other side of the barrier opposite Dennis and starts cursing at him.

We leave ten minutes later when Dennis and Aaron run out of insults.

The entire time as we walk away, the group of Easy difficulty demons keeps shouting after us and calling out their victory, while within the barrier, some of them are still fighting each other.