———Karra———
<1: 59 pm>
“<Huh. No wonder there isn’t any mission about that.>” Qyunda pointed out as we looked through the list of videos of the incident. Most of them are in pretty low quality with how panicked the recorders seem to be. “<It’s like one of those gags where characters just burst into guts and gore on contact. Pretty gruesome to see in real life.>”
“<Why the hell are they even allowing this to be posted? This is some bullshit you’d find on the dark web.>” Useph chimed in.
“<Beats me. Feels like they’ve been allowing more of that nowadays, with warnings, of course.>” Kenni said in response. “<This one is a bit more graphic it feels like, probably because they’re not filming this from the next town or city. Crazy how that works.>”
“It’s certainly brutal, but what was the story again?” I doubt she did this unprovoked. What the heck even happened there?
“<Wouldn’t it be nice to know, too bad we probably won’t get to know what from the horse’s mouth.>” Kenni replied. I think we all sorta know who she is, what her real name is. I still call her Lrem just out of habit.
“<How strong is she again?>” Malk asked as the video continued being played over and over in the background of the group chat.
“<What? You think we can use her display of power from back then to compare to us now? None of us have come in contact with her in… the last week? Somewhere around that line.>” Kenni gives us reasons why we shouldn’t even try to think about that.
I believe she is… If she is still diligent with her training, then she should be behind Emmie and still ahead of all of us. That’s what Wiina told me with her prediction. She sits somewhere between Kenni and Emmie, which in the grand scheme of things is absurd for someone that Wiina described as relatively normal, at least when it comes to raw talent.
“<At the very least, it looks like her current strength could easily level a town in one fell swoop. It’s obviously hard to tell from the footage, but there’s a sluggish feeling to her movement that suggests that she is holding back immensely. Back then her movement was way more smooth when facing off against an opponent of her equal.>” Orrel pointed out. “<Mind you, the power they both display at that point was greater than most of us at the time, and now we reach a similar point where we can accurately taste its full destructive capabilities. It’s fair to say that she could glass the entire town if she needed to.>”
“<You seriously still remember how strong she was back then?>” Kenni snarkily replied. “<How do you even write something so vague down into your brain?>”
“<I don’t need an accurate reading to know that we have already surpassed the strength she has shown off at that point.>” Orrel said without actually giving us any concrete methodology. “<Regardless, I don’t think that assumption of her strength was really off the mark. Everyone in that tournament showed strengths comparable or greater than us, and even back then we could theoretically glass a town, even if at great expenses.>”
“<Speaking of that. Leb and Cevin seem to just not care about showing off?>” Kenni remarked.
“Cut them some slack, they are sticking to their career paths, let’s leave it at that.” It’s like me sticking with streaming, not that I have been doing that for a while, a lot of things came up so what are they gonna do about it? I also still have school so cut me some slack. “...By the way, what were we talking about before this breaking news? Heard you guys were talking about something different before I joined.”
“<We were talking about cakes.>” …About what?
“<...More specifically we were talking about how we can turn monster ingredients into different substances. Their form is actually quite malleable compared to normal materials, so we thought conversion wouldn’t be too difficult. Since there’s really only ever meat and vegetables that we can get out of monsters, we wonder if we could go all the way to something sweet like a cake.>” Orrel clarified. Okay, that… make some sense? I honestly think if they were just talking about normal cakes it would’ve been fine. I don’t think I want to know how toxic a cake made almost entirely of magic ingredients will be.
“Okay then? Do we even have time to figure that out?” We don’t even keep those monster meats with us, anything perishable is low value anyway.
“<I doubt it’ll take long. Orrel, you can get a formula for that, right?>” Kenni asked.
“<I can, by tomorrow afternoon we should be able to start experimenting. You’ll be the one to provide the ingredients, however.>” He answered.
“<And I’ll be the one eating it.>” Qyunda quickly chimed in.
“<Oh shut it. We’ll all get our share. You’re simply the guinea pig, the first one to go.>” Malk corrected her statement. Honestly this doesn’t feel like something I could bother getting involved with. If I want a cake I can just ask Wiina to get it for me.
“Okay… Good luck with that.” I don’t really have anything to add, honestly. Maybe it’ll be a good… “Where are you doing this, by the way?”
“<No idea, we were workshopping that.>” Kenni answered.
“Well hopefully you get that sorted out. Hopefully not out in public for people to muck it up.” I said while hoping that’ll nudge them to think about it quickly.
“<This sort of experiment needs a controlled environment, we already make sure to keep that in mind.>” Orrel said. Hopefully that remains true. “<I think one of the labs will be a good place to start, but we can discuss which one we’ll use later.>”
“<...Hey. Karra. Where’s the souvenir?>” Kenni suddenly spoke up about that.
“I’ll give it to you guys tomorrow. Don’t worry about it.” That’d be the most convenient anyway. I’m in no rush. “...So the killing game?”
“<Uh huh, what about it?>” Kenni quickly spoke up at the provocation.
“I was just asking how you’re all feeling about that.” I said, trying to feign ignorance of the whole deal like Wiina didn’t give me an insightful rundown on the whole thing.
“<Okay, don’t start anything now. I don’t even think Karra would’ve been that useful anyway.>” Qyunda chimed in with quite a remark.
“Where the hell did that comment even come from?” I didn’t even really start anything. I was kinda planning to, but I haven’t actually started. “If a help from me can’t help then I guess you’re screwed either way ain’t it?”
“<Oh yeah? Maybe you could’ve been good as a distraction or something!? Run circles around her or just ram into her and break all your bones!>” Qyunda gave quite a lame comeback.
“<”Please don’t cause a scene already…>” Orrel protested before the quips really started flying.
“<Shut it Orrel, you didn’t even do that much!>” Qyunda then turned her aggression towards him. “<Jeff did more than you, Jeff! The guy with a suicidal move!>”
“<My job wasn’t to play it risky like he does, I believe you should know that by now.>” Orrel calmly replied.
This is getting heated quicker than I thought it would, to be honest. Last time they were bantering this loudly was about the Ice Sword stuff.
———Lynda———
<2: 06 pm>
“You met her?” I said in shock at the bombshell being dropped.
“Indeed. It wasn’t too long ago today, casually walking up to my table like nothing is wrong.” Luik elaborated further. “From what I can gather, there is no grand purpose for her to approach me.”
“I mean, honestly, if she has something grand in mind she probably wouldn’t even let herself be spotted…” Not that I know enough about her to say anything. The most I can make out is that she is very rarely seen roaming around. It’s like she was always there even if that doesn’t feel like the case at all. Another enigmatic figure.
At least with Wiina it felt like there’s some logic to her appearance. Sure, she showed up randomly a few times, but usually she made herself known during certain crises. It’s hard to tell if the same is with Navi or not.
“From what I get out of the conversation, it does sound like there is nothing to worry about at the moment, but in the grand scheme of things it’s not exactly that revealing. This place isn’t really under any threat.” Luik gave me a bit more info.
“We can just sorta assume that already…” I said before scratching my head. “...What did she even do anyway?”
“Just eat some cheesesteaks. Nothing out of the ordinary.” She answered. “Made me order it myself, at least she gave me some money in exchange.”
“Weird thing for her to do…” Is it a flex or something? What’s going on there?
“She probably wants to keep her interactions minimal. Perhaps she’s not even an outgoing person, but that’s not something I can be sure of.” Luik speculated. “I’m certainly not pushing my luck even if she’s not antagonistic, so I only get a bit of insight on her character.”
“We’re not expecting to figure out that kind of mystery anyway. I think it’s best that we don’t try too hard with that.” There are probably a lot more things we could try to figure out if we want to be productive. Like, we could maybe do another mission or two, but then again I don’t think either of us are in great condition for that.
“...I can at least say that she is incredibly perceptive. Even the wound from yesterday that’s nothing more than a light bruise at this point she can see without me showing it.” She suddenly dropped that tidbit.
“She sees past those big sleeves of yours?” I remarked. “...Huh. I guess some sort of vision-based ability is on the table.”
“We can already enhance our eyesights to better navigate the darkness and see further with clearer detail, it’s not really a new concept.” Luik pointed out.
“I guess… Still, I wasn’t expecting people to specs into that.” Seems kinda impractical in isolation compared to punching people or blasting them with explosives.
“She probably has more than enough metaphorical skill points lying around for it then, which just makes her look like a more formidable adversary.” Luik pointed out.
“Luik, freudian slip.” I pointed out her error at the end there.
“No matter. She’s most likely not eavesdropping on us anyway.” She boldly proclaimed. “And don’t be mistaken, I’m not crazy enough to try to challenge her. It’s simply a thought experiment.”
“...Of you getting brutally maimed?” Doesn’t take a genius to realize how out of depth she’d be even if Navi goes easy on her.
“Indeed. It’s always good to have something in mind when peril comes.” She said with a straight face. It’s hard to be snarky to someone who said things like that with their whole chest. Could’ve been her bluffing to not seem like an idiot, but I don’t want to test that out.
“...So what are you looking for here?” I asked, since she’s not an enthusiastic reader, last I checked. She must’ve come here for something specific like I am.
“Books on magic-related psychology.” She answered. “Navi said something about it and I want to investigate it a bit further.”
“I thought the basics were covered by now?” I asked in confusion. I think we know more than enough at this point, right?
“It was, but I want to double-check a few things. She may mention it off-handedly but it never hurts to look into it a bit further.” From something she said? I guess I do get that feeling of something certain individuals were saying being more important than what it seems.
“...Alright then.” It’s hard to argue when I also come here from time to time due to certain peculiar comments. We’re in the same boat in that regard. Just looking through this massive library that probably has a lot of answers to this world of magic, all of it staring us in the face without us being fully aware of its implications.