Optional Music to Accompany the Chapter:
Most Powerful and Dramatic Classical Music - The Untold
https://youtu.be/U-iHnbPb60Y
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Chapter 28: Understanding
Late Afternoon - Early Summer : Year 0 | Month 1 : Arlington, Virginia | East Coast United States
World: Earth | Rank: 6 | Population: ~1,893,120,000
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"~Haah...~" Passing a heavy breath, Michael looked into the sky as if to echo a prayer through the universe before grabbing his hands behind his back and straightening himself with force. "~Right...~" Darkness overtook his tone instantly, "~'He' would never let us face a wall with no means of surpassing it...~" Closing his eyes in a moment of pause, a surge of guilt dug into his expression before his head fell, palms pressed into one another, and lips moved in silence.
He was speaking, but not to me or something else nearby...
Rather.. it was aimed into the sky as if to send it into the universe itself.. as if to echo a message to something an unimaginable distance away.
But upon releasing himself, I had to question if it was truly just a prayer.
Opening his eyes as his palms parted, the cloudy edges of his form steadied, the turmoil in his eyes vanished, and a mix of warmth and calculation was left to fill the void.
But the warmth wasn't meant for me. "~I will choose to heed your word for now, Lady Lestir.~" Lowering his gaze to me, the warmth vanished behind the lifeless chill of thought. "~From this point forward, we administrators will lower ourselves among God's children, and do what we can to help you so long as it benefits Earth's prosperity.~"
The stiffness in the air eased more with every passing moment, but his skepticism never faded.
Locking eyes with me, his tone sharpened with a burst of formality, "~If at any point you show a glimpse of deceit, or fail to follow through with your word even once, you will find yourself the target of beings you cannot possibly fathom.~" Lowering his gaze to my stomach, the glow in his halo intensified with a blinding flicker, and a chill rippled through my core. "~Do not test the limits of Heaven, Evren.~"
It wasn't a threat, it was a vow akin to the deepest of prayers.
Before such an impassable wall, he should have had no choice but to take my hand.. but somehow, his words made my stomach tighten.
Though, it seemed to fade quickly.
Lowering his head with a shallow bow, he continued with more ease. "~I apologize for initially presenting myself with such an unsightly fluster, but...~" Closing his eyes and passing a silent breath, calm rippled through him. "~I suppose I was no different from any other lost lamb after the setting of the sun.~"
Seeing him forcefully straighten himself up, I looked over his figure with a subtle squint, recognizing the sudden, jagged twists of turbulence beneath his firm and defined exterior...
Initially, I thought it was because of me, but the longer I watched, the less that seemed to be the case.
But despite knowing what I was thinking, he never addressed it. "~In any case, after becoming an administrator, I'm sure your needs have changed, correct?~" Sighing as if preparing for more trouble, he opened his system with a wave to the side. "~Shall I call someone to walk you through all of what you can do with the new panels? It would be quite convenient for me to know what you can and cannot do without my direct help.~"
I was quick to nod. I didn't plan to ever use it to assist my strength, but like storing food for Bella in my inventory or using the map to look around for monsters, it had some conveniences I had no reason not to use. -So long as I don't take them for granted, at least...- "That'd be helpful. I do still need a mage though—the same as before."
"~She should already be on her way, though it may take a few days.~" He was quick to navigate through a number of panels.
But, seeing him moving with an accelerating haste, I interjected, "Before you go, I also need your help finding someone."
His hand froze.
"When the enforcers warped everyone away, my companion got warped with them."
His wings gently futtered as the feathers on them flared like hair on an alerted dog. "~I wasn't aware you had a companion...~"
"She was a servant robot that got dragged to Leviathan with me—looks like a black panther, stands around the height of my thigh, has blue claws, and bleeds blue blood."
His suspicions instantly curdled with confusion. "~What robot bleeds..?~"
"One with flesh and a soul." Looking out into the city, a smile unknowingly crept onto my face. "She's quite a fascinating thing, isn't she?"
Staring at me with a waterfall of questions falling behind his eyes, the stiff emptiness in his eyes flickered with a glimmer of humanity before he shook it off.
"Anyway, her name is Bella. She was the one that killed that human over-" Looking toward where it was, my eyes landed on a molten crater. "Well.. was over there..." Looking back up at Michael, I tried to explain. "She can't control herself if she isn't with me, so I need to find her before she accidentally kills someone else."
Pausing to pass another silent sigh, the light in his eyes emptied. "~You think she was warped with the mercenaries?~"
I nodded as the image of her 'unregistered' system panel came to mind. "She was granted a System panel on Leviathan, so I'd assume so."
His gaze thinned again. "~You seem rather familiar with enforcers...~"
Knowing what he was implying, my expression emptied, matching his before scoffing and lightening again. "Hah, you underestimate how long I was in the System." Looking away, I spoke in a moment of reminisce. "If you knew how many enforcers I killed just to get off worlds that wouldn't let me progress the mission, you'd pass out..."
The silence thickened like slime before Michael broke it with what could only be described as a grimace. "~I have never seen a human so capable of making me question my judgement...~"
I could only smile. "I'll take that as a compliment."
"~Please don't.~" Finally breaking out of his stun, he returned to his system—each tap laden with hesitance.
But with enough time, it seemed to ease.
...If only slightly. "~Well.. I think I found her. She seems to still be unregistered.~" He waited for my nod before continuing. "~I doubt you will let yourself be bound by Earth's laws, but I hope you can be cooperative with them until the mage arrives.~" Finally pulling away from his panels, he held his hand toward me. "~Don't try to clean the mess yourself.~"
But that was the moment a black speck appeared in front of my face, my pupils thinned, and I bolted back in a blur. *Vwoo-CRACK*
A wave of half-molten rock instantly launched over the city before the splintered rock around where I sat vanished into a small gate. *—oop*
My eyes locked on Michael instantly. "I'd rather run to her myself, thank you."
He was trying to warp me there, but I didn't have such trust in him just yet. -He wants to warp me a couple kilometers, but not the mage or Bella to me?- It was too illogical for me to accept.
Though perhaps that was because it was merely a test. "~I see. Forgive my rudeness.~" Speaking coldly, he waved away his System before motioning in front of me and manifesting a long beam of light. "~Follow that vector for three kilometers and you will find her. Just don't break anything rushing too fast. The mercenaries there should be ready for a fight, they can last a few seconds.~"
Tracing a path down the line through my head, I felt an amalgamous mass of presences some distance away. -That must be it.-
"~I'll send someone to teach you about the administrative privileges at a later date. Until then, just control yourself and your little experiment. I'll keep you updated if we figure anything out about that elf you dragged back.~"
"Alright." The tension filling my body finally eased as I straightened up and brushed myself off.
But Michael hardly waited for another second. *Woop* Vanishing in a blink, time rebounded with an audible warp, and I made haste over rooftops.
It was only a few kilometers, but keeping my speed low as to not damage anything else, it took a few seconds.
Seconds I didn't think were as precious as they were.
*CLANG-CRUMBLE* Hearing a metal plate ring like a gong, a plume of concrete dust bellowed ahead of me before I skidded to a halt on a rooftop overlooking a smaller, but infinitely more crowded road.
Though the crowd was dispersing.
Seeing hundreds of people fleeing into alleys and buildings, a wide space opened around a dark, growling figure.
"RRRRR!" Her growl was deep and strained, with her claws drawing blood from the back of her scalp as she pressed her head into the ground trying to cope with pain and avoid attacking someone else.
But it seemed it was too late for that.
"AAAGH-!" Hearing a separate, deeper growl, I looked up toward the cloud of dust bellowing from a hole in the side of a building before a tall demihuman with a tower shield forced himself up from the rubble with other bloodied mercenaries following suit behind him.
They were in rough shape, and the paw print denting in his shield told the story.
"F-FUCK!" Screaming a curse, he dropped his shield and grasped his arm, hanging limp as a mix of purple and black washed over it.
Bella was.. a lot stronger than I or Michael could have expected. -Is it because what little flesh she has is basically the flesh of a monster on Leviathan?- Jumping down before another person could approach, I pulled her head up by the skin on her neck, watching her pupils widen again before I shoved another chunk of meat from my inventory into her mouth. *Squish*
"Everyone be at ease!" I spoke without standing or looking up, keeping my focus on Bella to monitor her condition. -Her paws are mangled.. but the bleeding has stopped...-
An audible shudder rippled through the crowd as the panic paused.
"This little creature is my companion. She won't attack so long as I'm with her." I tried to speak with both volume and haste. "We were split up after being warped here, I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner."
Conflict was unavoidable though. "S-She killed m-MY FRIEND!" Gripping a sword with a quiver, a younger man stood at the edge of the clearing with tears flowing from his eyes like waterfalls. "D-Don't think you'll get away from this easily!"
Looking up, I kept my posture relaxed and filled with openings. "I plan to take responsibility however I must."
But my ease only echoed through a small portion of the crowd.
-Shit... How can I explain...- "We fell from that airship that crashed in the inner city, and barely survived the fall. The pain from the landing sent her into a frenzy, I hope you all can be understanding."
The expressions of the crowd shifted in a blink, some with confusion, others with bewilderment, before chatter and gossip erupted.
Many questioned how we could have survived such a fall, while others still expressed worry that Bella would lash out again.
But that was when I picked up on something different... Chatter about a subject.. no one on Earth should have known about.
"Could even the strongest mercenary cause quakes like that with their strikes..?" It was knowledge of enforcers...
"Everyone got warped to this street, didn't they..?" And I wasn't an entirely separate matter. "That woman.. came over the buildings..."
"That woman.. came from the direction of the fighting..." They were actively tying me to it. "She.. wasn't warped by the enforcers..."
Their knowledge wasn't shallow in the slightest. -What the...- And it wasn't just a single group...
Echoing from dozens of people around the crowd, questions related to enforcers rang out like they were obvious.
-Earth shouldn't have any experience with enforcers...- Though they were a rather common occurrence for me, that was only because I regularly ran through worlds at the limits of what was possible. -The first world I learned of them on was Rank 4.. and even then it was a one-off incident...-
Staring over the crowd, questions drowned all reason.
-How.. do people here know...-
But I didn't have time to dig into the matter then. "You're rather armored for a monster tamer." Pulling my attention with a calm, steady, and mechanically loudened voice, I found a man donning an advanced, desert-colored suit of armor lit with an orange glow.
Holding a large staff, it was easy to recognize his class. -A mage?-
He wasn't weak either. "I suppose you're a multi-class? That's quite rare." Remaining calm, he scanned over the crowd like a machine before turning back to me. "Regardless, you can't escape the law if your companion killed someone."
Thankfully, he didn't seem to be connecting to me like the others. "I understand that." I responded simply, and bluntly.
But after a pause, the man just twirled his staff and stood. "Good. Normally foreigners aren't so easy on us. I appreciate that."
*Wowowoom* Feeling a number of electrical pulses through the ground, I looked down the road to see the crowd being parted by a huge, heavily armored vehicle floating down the road. -That must be the military...-
The black mass of metal wasn't alone either. Feeling movement in the projection in my mind, I felt numerous large masses scattering through the city's outskirts, with some stopping in the relocated crowds, while others continued into the evacuated space the enforcers left.
Though I hardly had the room to follow them for long.
*Tsssss-Wooosh* Coming to a stop amidst the crowd, the sides of the vehicle lifted to let out a number of black-armored, almost mechanical-looking soldiers with metallic thuds.
*Crackle* The air rippled with static as their long railguns lit blue with charge and their barrels were raised into the crowd, reserving one for me, and one for Bella.
In a blink, the street had become a cage, not just for me, but for everyone the enforcers moved.
With every passing moment, the soldiers spread through the crowd like a sieve, dispersing into buildings, clearing every alleyway, and aiming at everyone at least once as if to document their presence.
It was clearly a practiced security protocol, but looking another kilometer past the vehicle the first group jumped from, I found another machine akin to mounted artillery aiming a much larger set of glowing rails down the road.
It was a good reaction for something akin to a breach of the city walls.. but just the same.. seeing soldier's begin singling out people and locking their guns on them as one had me, my suspicions flared.
It was.. too good of a reaction... -They aren't looking for monsters or the injured... They're looking for people they don't recognize...-
And the mage knew it. Raising his voice, he waved his hand toward the inner city. "If a soldier stops on you, it means you are going to be coming with me to be questioned. Please comply and be at ease. We will not hurt you if you don't hurt us.
He spoke casually—his tone reinforcing it—but his stance was anything but. He stood like a coiled blade with his feet angled, weight perfectly centered, and staff gripped with a deliberate form.
He was clearly ready for a fight.. ready for someone to move...
But no one, including myself, budged before a well dressed, unarmored man stepped out of the front of the soldier's vehicle. "Those of you who have been selected for questioning will come with me to the ISO to verify your identity, and collect testimonies. Those who have not, please make way for those selected to return to the transport carrier."
Turning my gaze to the soldiers with their guns still set on my head, I paused before firmly lifting Bella into my arms.
But almost instantly, every scattered soldier turned and snapped their rifles to me, and a hush settled over everything.
Even the mage grew tense. "Until a soldier moves you, you are to remain still."
But the suited man waved him and the soldiers off with a suspicious squint almost instantly. "No." He was the one truly in charge.. and he wasn't letting his eyes stray from mine for even a second. "I will guide this madam myself."
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