Chapter 442 - Something real like that

Flashback - Tess Hansen

The tall blonde girl patiently listens to her mom, who is yelling. There are a few bruises on her face, but her mom dismisses them as she always does. Instead, insults are thrown at the girl, and gradually her mom starts shrieking louder and louder.

There is no point in explaining, no point in justifications, the girl knows. Her mom just wouldn’t understand.

“You will stay locked in your room until I tell you to leave. And I swear to God, Tess, if you get to another fight in the school, I don’t know what I will do!”

With these words, the mother leaves, slamming the door behind.

She doesn’t wonder why her daughter fought.

Even before, when her daughter kept trying to explain, she didn’t listen. She didn’t take seriously that her pretty blonde daughter was often bullied by other girls. Picked on for her height that was larger than some upperclassmen. For her, it was just a kids doing kid stuff.

“Blondezilla,” Tess whispers and giggles. A new nickname one of the girls gave her.

Already sure it will spread through her class by tomorrow, Tess lies on her bed and touches a bruise on her cheek. Even then, there is a satisfied smile on her face; the other girls ended up worse.

After checking the clock, Tess sits down on the soft, expensive-looking rug and moves to the floor-to-ceiling window of her apartment, pressing her face against the glass. As usual at this time, she notices a group of five young people gathered in the park below.

Two girls sitting on the bench and three boys nearby. The girls talk with one of the boys while the other boys joke about something, gesturing wildly while they do so. That small group of 5 meet there after school every time, no matter the weather. Even if it’s too bad, they go into a small gazebo nearby.

Often grounded in her room, Tess had watched them many times.

She saw them fight and then make peace. She saw one of the boys crying, and his friends provide comfort for him. She saw them having fun together and come and go from the small place that became something like their base.

It always fascinated her. Just how did it feel to have people to rely on? How were they always friendly when a few days ago they fought and shouted at each other? What did the girl say to make the boys laugh for minutes straight till it annoyed even her and she started kicking them?

Why did they come out even during that heavy storm, and being drenched to the bone, they still giggled while sneezing under the gazebo, then went for a few days probably because they caught a cold?

She never experienced something like that.

The things she often read about in books or saw in the movie not that long ago where a group of people went on an adventure together. Fighting together, crying over a dead companion, and suffering to the point of total exhaustion to finish their grand quest.

Then when everything seemed lost, they still pushed through to accomplish their goal.

They meet afterwards, shared something no one could take away from them. An great adventure no one would understand, just a few people who went with them.

Just once in her life, she wanted to feel something real like that.

***

POV Nathaniel

The blue brothers try to run away from us.

The dumbasses try to use teleport.

The assholes forget how they messed with my anchor.

The douchebags end up similarly to me.

Using kinetic energy, I get ahead of Group 4, and a few minutes later reach the two blue brothers who lay on the ground, their bodies torn, bleeding, sometimes even bones poking through.

“Fuck, crazy human, you got us this time.”

“How the hell did you do something so nasty to our teleport without us noticing?”

“Even we weren’t so evil when we messed with yours.”

There, I interrupt them, “You redirected it into white sand.”

“As if we could! We just made it so your anchor would burst open, and its end point must have ended there.”

I watch them squirm on the ground. Nearly without mana they collected over hours by probably some passive or whatever it was. I'm still curious about that, but they refuse to tell me.

One of them, Dravor or Drekar, looks at me, “At least say something, crazy human.”

“Something.”

“...”

“...”

I then move closer and squat on the ground next to them. “To be honest, I don't think we need you. What keeps you alive is my promise to Tess and her thinking we can use you. But at some point, the amount of trouble you cause will outweigh your usefulness.”

Grabbing a few small rocks, I throw them at the two thylarin, each rock hitting their heads.

I reach to grab more stones and continue to throw them while talking, “You are trying to betray us, you waste mana of our healer, you could ask the Champion guy to turn against us. Maybe you are even hiding… well, most likely you are hiding some things from us. And now this pathetic escape attempt.”

The stones keep accurately hitting them, and neither of them tries to defend themselves.

“I have yet to see anything useful from you, and even though our group keeps our side of the deal, you two keep fucking around.”

I add a bit of mana and surround stones with it, making that mana resonate, and as the stones hit the two brothers, they start causing wounds, drawing red blood that flows on the blue skin.

It would be easy to add more mana and boost the stones with kinetic energy. Something the two, at some point, wouldn’t survive.

“What do you want, crazy human?”

I stop my pastime and stand up.

“I will ask questions, you answer to your best knowledge.”

They exchange looks, and then one of them nods, “We could do that. Ask, crazy human.”

“Tell me about crowns.” I point at the one over my head.

I can see they want to start laughing but smartly stay their mouths.

“[Crowns] belong to the equipment type of skill, crazy human. There are [Crown], [Mantle], and [Ring]. They are the most well-known, but there are more. We heard rumors about [Sword] and some sort of [Armor], but it’s not something we saw with our own eyes.”

“Well, we saw only [Crown] and [Mantle] and none of the others.”

“What’s the difference between [Mana Crown] and [Mana Mantle]?”

“We don't know, crazy human, and I’m not lying. As far as we know, [Crown] type of skill serves as a battery and helps with fine control over that stored aspect.”

“I heard about attribute crown, and there seem to be others like [Lightning Crown]. What are the differences?” I ask.

“Not much, attribute crown allows you to store strength, dexterity, vitality, or mana. [Lightning Crown] allows you to store lightning. Attribute crowns are one of the rarer ones, and to get them you usually need a lot of things to be put together. The requirements are quite high.”

His brother continues, “Things like certain skills, no one knows exactly, but high allocation stats into mana. They also seem to be most common for someone with Mana Amplification as their attribute upgrade.”

I interrupt, “They are rare for Regeneration or Potency?”

“Yes, crazy human, the system strengthens your build. It doesn’t cover its weaknesses.”

“As my brother said. If you go for a lot of mana, the system gives you options for more mana. But if you go for regeneration, the system won’t give you [Mana Crown] to cover your weakness.”

“But it can happen, brother!”

“Yes, anything can happen, but it’s rare.”

“What about [Mantle]?” I ask.

Another voice interrupts, “There you are,” Tess joins us, the rest of Group 4 and other groups following not that far away.

“I'm gathering some information.”

“I see.” She nods, and looking at the thylarin brothers, she doesn’t say anything.

Yet there is a clear message in her eyes.

“We had to try,” one of the brothers smiles.

“And we didn’t even try to hurt anyone, lightning human, we just ran away. Your friend probably told you already, but we also have our Pride, so it’s a bit difficult to be in a situation like that and…”

“Tell me about [Mantle],” I interrupt them, feeling presences of more people coming closer.

“It's just our theory, but it forms a localized energy field that can mask its aspect and create phase interference to disrupt that aspect when it touches its surface.”

“So [Mana Mantle] would be able to mask your mana and disrupt external mana that touches it or mana based attacks?”

“It's just our theory based on unreliable rumors we've heard. Crazy human, you really love to simplify everything.”

I throw a few more stones at them in response, and then we wait for the rest of the group to reach us.

***

We move ahead a few minutes later, after some planning and Lily restoring the bodies of the two thylarin brothers. This time I notice a missing finger on her.

The rocky tunnel is still giant, and at some point, I think it might be even becoming wider. Even so, it’s still tilted downward, so we head deeper underground, surrounded by pitch-black darkness lit by our skills and items, and our steps and voices sound as if they don’t belong in this dark, quiet place.

Tunnels, it’s always tunnels where we find ourselves.

Ant tunnels, tunnels under the old capital, tunnels on the 3rd floor, some bunkers too. Nearly everything cool so far is just buried underground.

But this time, there might be a good reason.

After walking a few miles deep, I start thinking that this Champion was either trapped here by an Absolute, who spent a few minutes doing this, or by a group of high-level people who could spend weeks or months preparing this place.

The sand is still a mystery, and I’m of the opinion that an Absolute made it, but I can imagine a highly motivated Champion being capable of doing so.

I also already have a few ideas of how to try to use it. The ideas I’m stealing from others who talk through our link.

(Or maybe Nat could melt the white sand with thermal energy. It doesn’t seem to trigger that sand, and if he turns that sand into glass or something else, it could be usable,) Min-Jae blabbers excitedly.

It’s about something I already thought of. Yup. I did. Long ago, even before we learned about Mana Desert.

Min-Jae continues, (I would love to use it for my projectiles. Maybe we could try to use one of the plates on Deathtrap, bend it, and store sand inside of it before closing it air tight. We could come up with ideas to use it later or just use it as bombs against people, opening and throwing it into strong monsters.)

Dennis giggles, (Or you could go nude and all physical stats while covering your body with armor infused with that sand.)

(Wouldn’t that hurt you as well?) Aaron asks?

(Maybe?)

(I want to use it to make a golem out of it with the Golem heart,) Sophie gestures at the piece of clay, the damaged arcane item she currently holds.

(Fuck that would be scary,) Dennis mirrors my thoughts.

(There is a question if we will be able to bring it out of the desert,) Tess cools down their and my excitement and points ahead, continuing out loud, “A few dozen dead, people from Deathtrap.”

One of the thylarin brothers laughs out loud, his eyes shining in the light of my orbs. As before, there is already a little bit of mana has collected inside of his and his brother’s body.

“Treasures are what they hoped for, items belonging to the Champion sealed here together with him, an array leading out of this place, an opportunity to free the Champion and have him owe them.” Dravos says while keeping that smile on his face.

Drekar continues after, but he isn’t smiling, “But they will find nothing like that. This isn’t your usual prison. This place serves only one purpose. To keep the Champion here and kill him if he tries to leave.”

“I didn’t tell it to you humans,” casually stretching, there is a glow in Dravos’ eyes, “But even if a single speck of white sand touches the Champion, the entire Mana Desert will rush in to kill him. Isn't that fun?”

This looks more like punishment than anything else. Locking the Champion in this place. Leaving him to starve, to be unable to use his powers. Just how would it feel for someone like a Champion. Anyone reaching that rank is a powerful person who worked years and years to develop themselves.

Yet there he is. Most likely crippled, without any mana, and surrounded by most likely multiple layers of defenses that would kill him.

So would you stay in and endure, in hopes of someone helping or coming up with a way to escape? Would you end it or risk getting out?

Well, it’s an interesting thought, that’s all it is.

It’s also good there is a single grain of white sand inside of my body, constantly charged and moving around, damaging me and piercing my flesh while my passive heals me and my kinetic energy tries to contain it in a small spot.

Something I did to examine it.

Just that single grain of sand is enough to cause me so much trouble. Even two would be too much to contain and would require all of my attention.

But at the same time, it’s good it is here.

If the Champion tries anything funny, I will make sure he goes down with us.

***

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