Chapter 717 - What’s this quest about?

It is getting darker, and I’m losing my energy at a much quicker pace as I listen to Lily, who keeps talking excitedly about her training. That and a dozen other things she quickly chirps about.

For example, the ninth floor of the tutorial called The Pit, which they now suspect is something like a trashcan. A place where multiple planets dump the bodies of huge Champion grade monsters or higher that they either can’t or don’t want to deal with.

Imagine someone killing a beast that was attacking their country and that is five times as big as Godzilla. A normal person would get a bit excited. Just think of the materials, the knowledge you could gain from experimenting on it.

You might even start examining that body after the beast dies, and thousands of people build a small city nearby and begin working on the corpse. Then, a few days later, people start dying. Teeth falling out, coughing blood, thinning hair.

Maybe you knew it would happen and used people you could afford to lose to gain that little bit of knowledge or materials. Maybe you are that kind of dickhead.

Or maybe you didn’t know. You did your due diligence, checked the monster for mana radiation and that kind of stuff. You gave your people equipment and set up processes that only allowed people with a certain number of stats invested in constitution.

Yet, they still get sick.

You don’t give up right away. You send in stronger people. You can’t send your healers, since those jerks often have weak constitution themselves and you might have only a few dozen on the whole planet. So maybe you send disciples of your Champions, or the Champions themselves if you are strong enough to order them around. Or maybe your crafters prepare some fancy suits and equipment.

And so it continues. This time it takes a few weeks longer, but people start feeling ill again. Everyone except the Champion, and only that Champion remains there.

You set new processes. A kind of rotation where, let’s say, only people with constitution over three hundred can get near the monster for one week, and then you send them away. It continues for a few years. You gather what little information you can, and then you notice the underground water nearby has gained a certain spice to it. A nice taste, a certain bouquet, even. The kind that makes people die in pay after drinking it for months.

So you say, fuck it, and beg your Absolute to get rid of the body of that overgrown lizard fucker.

That’s how I imagine it goes.

Anyway, The Pit seems to be a place that for thousands of years–from what group four learned from the demon natives–has served as such a dump. Either to get rid of things or for some purpose we don’t yet know.

It makes me a bit more curious about that floor that I haven’t spent much time on because of the Beyond. Hearing all this, I should probably go there… sometime… after the tournament or something, so in three or four months.

I also bet that the native demon whose body Kindness used to talk to me and Lily was a future Ruler or someone important. I'm a pessimist at heart so I'm sure it is like this.

These thoughts keep me occupied enough to endure Lily’s one-sided conversation, but the least I can do is to pay attention to her, asking a question or two once in a while. I don’t tune it out, and still listen to her words. It would be too rude to ignore someone who talks so eagerly about things that interest them and make them happy.

Even I’m not that evil.

But during all that, I hear something else. A squeaky, bratty, whiny, howling from outside our residence. Even though it’s distant and not that loud, thanks to my kinetic senses I can feel faint vibrations through the air and against my chest. Possibly all being directed at me though some means I can’t properly sense yet. A noble lady's pet, indeed.

The barking and howling has been going on since it started getting dark, so for a few hours now. It continues moving in circles around the residence likely because of a sort of predatory instincts that spoiled beast seems to have awakened.

I know who it is, of course, and I’m willing to bet ten mana stat points on it. I would recognize that complain-y, pathetic bark turned howl anywhere.

It’s the noble lady’s pet Albacore Fish-Tank Velcro Del Taco en Lice Asteroid Vacuum Mandoline, also known as Fen.

I just knew that little asshole didn’t like me, feeling jealous because he sensed Biscuit’s greatness on me. Well, that feeling seems mutual, which surprises me a bit. I can’t help but wonder if my connection with Biscuit is what makes me dislike that thing.

“Give me a moment.” I put my hand on Lily’s shoulder to make her stop talking as I stand up and head toward the terrace glass door. I open it, which causes the squeaky barks to grow even louder.

Annoyed with the constant barking, I shout into the night, “You’ll just bark there, you little bitch!? Come here and face me like a man!”

“Rhaff-Rhaff!” the squeaky bark sounds louder than before. “Raaoww-Yap-Yap!”

“Fuck you too!” I shout back.

“Raaooooooooww!”

I shut the door again before turning to Lily. “Would you believe that shit?”

“Do you mean you being brought to the point where you’re about to start barking back at him?” She puts her hands behind her back as she teases me. Lately, she’s been doing that quite often, not just to me but to others in the group too. Lily is just playful like that.

Left with no other choice, I reach out and pinch her nose, but instead of letting go after a moment, I hold it and stare into her eyes.

“I cad hold by breaff for quide a while, so good lug there,” she says, her voice squashed and nasal.

I don’t say anything. I just keep staring at her the same way she looks at me.

For a while, she holds herself together well and doesn’t break eye contact or move an inch. Only when Savant comes downstairs and stops for a second to look at us does she almost break eye contact. Savant doesn’t say anything and walks away, probably searching for snacks.

“Eashy, I can do id all day!” Lily repeats, but I hear a weakness in her voice, like those words are meant more for herself than for me.

So I stay quiet even now, and a minute passes. Then I start curling my lips into a smile. I don’t make it big or show my teeth. I just lift the corners slightly and tilt my head, letting a few strands of hair fall over my forehead.

“What’s wrong, Lily?” I make my voice softer and let the smile echo in it as I lean slightly closer. “Why is your heart beating so fast?”

Her body tenses before she flicks my arm away and turns around to hide her face.

Once again triumphant over a foe foolish enough to underestimate me, I lift my chest with pride and give the back of her knee a teasing kick with the tip of my shoe. I hope for her to buckle at least a little bit, but of course, her body is stupidly strong, so it doesn’t move at all.

Still, pleased with the teasing, I use Focus to filter out the annoying barks from outside, then head to where Savant went. I find him in the kitchen cutting some fruit on the table, taking a piece to smell before biting into it.

“So, what’s this quest about?” I ask directly.

His chewing slows down, and then it stops as he makes an expression like he lost the will to enjoy the food and the taste has turned sour for him.

“We have to protect your healer while she will look for the cause of the epidemic that’s making people in the area sick, as well as for a way to get rid of it. The area has been cut off from the rest of the fief by quarantine wards, so no one else can enter or leave. We, however, have been granted permission to go inside with her. Apparently, the illness spreads fast and is highly contagious, and the local guards have already fallen ill. They believe it to be magical in nature, so she’ll be examining both the sick and the land itself for signs of corruption. Our main task is to make sure nothing happens to her while she works,” he says.

“Oh, so we’ll get the illness as well?”

“Possibly.”

“That sucks. Why didn’t they use their healers?” I ask him.

“They suspect it to be the work of one of their healers who is cooperating with an enemy kingdom. If they hadn’t stopped it and sealed off the area, that illness would have already spread across the entire kingdom, so it’s quite serious. Before taking drastic measures or paying what’s likely a good chunk of their treasury to hire this world’s healers guild, they decided to give the attendees a try. They likely heard about an incredibly talented healer currently in the tutorial.”

That said, the super talented healer enters the kitchen as well, already back to her usual self and seemingly unaffected. I can only praise her quick recovery from the damage. She’s truly getting powerful.

“My handler’s been trying to get me noticed and find good quests for me, and this one sounded great! I had no idea I’d get you and Nat, though,” she says as she pulls a bar chair closer and sits near me. “But I don’t mind it at all!”

Savant keeps slicing the fruit he tasted earlier, his knife moving with careful precision across the wooden board. Each piece is thin enough to nearly see through, the pale fruit glistening as he arranges the slices neatly on a plate. When he’s satisfied with the pattern that is surprisingly pretty, he slides the plate toward us without a word, with the faint scent of the fruit filling the air.

For himself, he doesn’t bother with presentation at all. He simply cuts another fruit in half, wipes the blade on the towel, and takes a slow bite, juice running down his thumb as he chews thoughtfully.

He says, “We don’t have many details about the illness yet, and so far it doesn’t seem that dangerous for people above level one hundred, but they’re worried it might be designed to turn more dangerous, once it spreads much wider. It affects both demons and humans, but each in a slightly different way. There’s a rumor it originated from humans and will later mutate to kill demons only, so that causes a lot of trouble as well.”

I take a paper-thin slice of fruit and put it in my mouth. It almost melts, tasting like a mix of banana and mango. With a hint of cinnamon too.

“Do you know how to cure an epidemic causing virus or something?” I ask Lily, who already started stuffing her mouth so fast that Savant starts cutting another plate of fruit for her.

Lily nods energetically. “I knew about the quest for a week or two, and my Handler gave me a mana stone to study for it. I worked on it ten hours a day. Then he asked a Local healer to give me a test, and I did that too. I think I would be fine even without studying! It wasn’t that difficult.”

Instead of listening to her, I glance at Savant, who senses it and looks up from the cutting board. “It’s VERY difficult,” he says flatly.

“It was easy, though,” Lily insists.

“Your delusions aside,” I say to her, “is this illness known to affect even minions?”

“Nat, sorry to tell you, but a minion isn’t a different species.”

“How preposterous!”

That makes Lily giggle. “So you plan to find Vega first?”

"Her and her gang." I nod, growing more serious. "I have a feeling my handler didn’t send me here just to meet her, but because she might be in trouble."

***

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