Chapter 128: Problem solved?

The walk to Xilvia’s place was… well…

Enlightening?

“What the fuck happened…” Tyler said.

He hadn’t seen or realized it yet. I had. I was sure Konohora had. I understood B-Rank was where the real limiters came off from the few books I’d managed to read between arriving and having to train, actually fighting Vanessa and her air control bullshit, and talking with the caravan guards and Konohora’s own experiences over the course of a month. And if all that hadn’t been enough, fighting someone able to summon building sized energy balls and able to implode a few city blocks worth of area hammered it home.

And yet… this was still somehow above what I had expected.

There were holes everywhere. A fight had broken out, singular. The streets were ruined, the park was ruined, and it looked like mother nature itself had tried to fight back against a tsunami of… blades. For a moment, at least. There was a lot of new growth and most of that growth was sliced apart. Trees and vines that just weren’t there now were all around the city. But some of that growth had wide gaping holes in it, ending in carters. With a rough clear line of sight through a dozen massive trees, ending with the one in the skyscraper tree. It was like someone Rinkaru had shot a dozen person sized laserbeams everywhere while the city tried to kill them. I almost couldn’t believe it despite the evidence.

Apparently neither could Riary.

“They were thrown…”

“What?” Tyler asked.

“The… breaks and holes. They’re in a line… I think Xilvia… or whoever Xilvia was fighting… threw them through the foliage.”

Tyler stopped, mouth gaping open, looking at the scene of destruction anew. Riary was half wrong though.

There was absolutely no way Xilvia was the one thrown. She had bodied someone through freshly grown trees, into the ground, around the city at speeds that made me feel faint given the direct lines between the holes. Xilvia had gone on a rampage ending with whoever she was fighting being… punched? Into the skyscraper tree… and being blown through it for good measure.

“This…”

“The control was amazing.” Konohora suddenly said.

We all turned to look at her. I hadn’t noticed whatever she had, apparently.

“What?”

“The craters don’t seem to land on any houses. Some of the crater's origins must’ve been through alleyways and others just over the tops of the roofs judging by the shattering but they never hit any of them.”

I took it in anew, realizing she was right. Despite what I firmly believed was Xilvia beating the shit out of some plant controller… the actual destruction was almost neat and tidy. A battle between B-Ranks could destroy a good portion of any wide area, let alone this city, and the only damage where I’d immediately be worried someone actually got hurt would be the skyscraper tree, if it had been hollow. It very clearly wasn’t though. Unless someone had been unlucky to be in the path or had been hurt from falling from the branches, it almost seemed like a telekinetic god had slammed someone around at the speed of sound with, like Konohora said, amazing control.

“...Is this even possible?” Tyler asked, seemingly more to himself than anyone else.

I was feeling the same way. Especially since I thought I’d seen the ‘limits’ of B-Rank with Rinkaru and Vanessa. I was quickly moving my initial estimation from ‘stupidly overpowered person’ to ‘Hulk levels of potentially monstrous’. It made sense though, I hadn’t actually seen a physical B-Rank fighter till now in action. Well, not even now really. This was just the aftermath. Tyler and Konohora had described their fight and how their armored opponent had been strong enough to break multiple bones in their body with a single hit, break the ground, and launch them flying. I’d even seen Konohora, at C-Rank no less, throw a massive spear like a pillar from God.

Physical B-Ranks are fucking scary…

I frowned and remembered Rinkaru’s energy blasts again and Vanessa’s telekinetic air ability bullshit.

Alright, all B-Ranks are scary…

Our walk continued and the destruction just kept going and going. In fact, the amount of craters were starting to overlap by the time we reached Xilvia’s house and yet the house was undamaged in the slightest. She’d clearly kept whoever she was kicking the ass out of around this area. The second, the moment we came into sight, the front door of her brutalist tree house opened and there she stood, not a hair out of place. Her dress, however, was now a deep ruby red. I had to strongly resist looking over at Riary. Her red hair and flaming eyes were red too but not like that. It… it almost had to be magical. No, it was definitely magical. How else would her Emerald dress have not gotten any blood on it? This was a new dress but it was similar, looking like it was two pieces of fabric with only lines connecting the back and front, showing off her entire sides from arms, torso, hip, and legs. It was almost indecent, an area of skin showing on her hips that you’d usually never see unless someone took off their underwear, confirming for me instantly that she was currently going commando in that thing.

Xilvia always seemed to dress for a ball regardless of where she was.

She had a very pleased expression on her face, her short black hair framing her face beautifully. It felt like it’d been six months since I’d last seen her, not… how long had it been? A month? Were we really down there for a month? That seems-

“Derek, your gaze is cloudy.” Xilvia said, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“Ah, sorry.” I answered, snapping back into focus.

“Come along now young heroes, we have much to talk about and yadda yadda.”

I nodded and began to walk forward while Tyler just seemed to be blinking in shock while mumbling ‘...yadda yadda?’ Yeah, Xilvia’s nobless bearing and speech, yet nearly indecent outfits, and strangely direct word choice were a lot to roll around with sometimes. I was starting to feel they were all a particular theme I wasn’t really getting.

A quick follow and some ‘Oh’ and ‘awesome…’’s from my party about her extremely richly decorated home later, I was once again seated on a couch, sipping tea, while Xilvia did the same across from me. Riary was staring at the coffee table like it had personally offended her, no doubt somehow seeing the spatial magic in it. No idea why she was frowning about it but-

“This fucking table… must have cost more than the whole house…”

“You’d be surprised.” Xilvia replied. “I have a lot of money and a very nice house.”

Xilvia gestured at the other teacups, the ones no one else was drinking, and I half understood why. After all, all their focus were on the six bags in front of us. My Ability was being… annoying again. I was running into a new problem. Power was like a pressure wave and from those pressure waves I could see… a lot. Almost like a sphere of perception around me, at times. But with its god damn focus on my own fucking body… and my new levels of power, seeing mundane materials that had almost ‘no’ power, was kinda… hard.

So it took me a moment of focus to ‘unclench’ my power and see what were in the bags.

I nearly dropped my tea. What the fuck?

“Ah, no spoilers Derek.”

“...right.”

Everyone looked at me but soon, everyone took the hint and began drinking their own tea. It wasn’t like it was poisoned… maybe. Probably right? It was really hard to care about that kind of thing right now…

“So uh…” Tyler finally broke the silence, like a bull rushing through a china shop. Which, surprisingly, are actually extremely graceful in china shops apparently. So that is to say, Xilvia lightly smiled at Tyler being the one to talk first, happy as can be. That was strange, she didn’t strike me as the one for power plays.

“Yes, idiot hero?”

“W-What?”

Ah. Ah. Oh.

Oh. Oh that’s not good.

Riary had nearly spat out her tea and was now glaring, but I could already tell this conversation was going to go in a wholly different direction than anyone was thinking.

“After all, what else can I call a Hero who leaves enemies behind, to plot his death?”

Tyler grimaced.

“I… I didn’t know Rhicontinu was going to-”

“Oh, is that what happened to the little princeling?”

I blinked.

“I killed a prince? Tyler, you never said he was a prince.”

“He wasn’t! …I think? He said his uncle was King though…”

“A lie. His father was king and died in the war, same as anyone else who went to that fight unprepared. He died, his brother took the throne in secret, said that the brother of the king died to preserve the dynasty, blah blah. Classic noble bullshit and politics. However, this does mean you left multiple enemies on the field of battle. Well, at least that one is dead I take it?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “He tried to ambush us in the dungeon. That ambush was at least easy enough to take care of…” I said, bitterness in my throat.

“Oh? Well before that, let me start with my side of the story to move forward more expediently.” So saying, Xilvia smiled lightly and finally lifted up the cloth of the middle object on the table.

Revealing an Elf’s severed head.

Emotions ran very high, very fast. Riary had been angry at the interrogation Tyler was getting, flames dancing in her eyes, only to suddenly go from ‘Angry’ to ‘In Danger’. Flames pooled around her, damaging nothing, but ready at a moment’s notice to unleash hell.

Konohora’s brow furrowed and a straight out grimace of disgust crossed her face. Clearly, she was not a fan of seeing severed heads any more than any normal human being was. Especially not when the look on the elf’s face was one of absolute agony, even in death, dried blood running down her tear ducts.

Tyler was hit with shock, then panic, then fear, and then he strangely looked green, like he was going to be sick and throw up at any moment.

“Don’t you fucking dare throw up on my carpet.”

“What on earth is the meaning of this?!” Riary roared, slight amounts of panic beginning to set in.

Ah, I wasn’t the only was still affected by our near death experiences. Riary was clearly on edge and unable to determine friend from foe at the moment.

I sipped my tea. Loudly. All eyes turned to me, as I finished it off, and set it down.

“Are you done having your fun now?”

“Oh? It’s almost a pleasure to meet a student adapting to my sensibilities so quickly. A shame it’s far more annoying than pleasurable.” Xilvia sighed at my lack of reaction and then began to take the cloth off the rest of the heads.

The rest of the heads, everyone recognized.

“The B-Ranks that were following us…” Tyler said, still looking like he was fighting down his breakfast.

“Yes. The Guild leader and her most trusted spies. Hired by a third party to aid a high level B-rank team to help specifically kill you four. A surprising amount of animosity, money, and connections went together for this. I knew you had kicked a monster’s nest but to piss off a kingdom like this is still a surprise. In fact…”

Xilvia looked up, staring and talking directly at me this time.

“I had assumed you were all dead.”

Collectively, I felt like our breathing froze and stopped.

“I know this team. I know who is in it. It was one of a few dozen teams I immediately began to keep track of when I realized who my newest student was going to be and who was most likely to kill them. So imagine my surprise when, instead of being a four month journey away, were already in this city. In the dungeon. And had been for a few days. And were being aided by the local Guild Leader, who had already tried to have this idiot hero killed once before.”

Something was in Xilvia’s voice, a new emotion. A strong emotion. It took me a second to place it.

Fury.

“You should all thank Kasandra when you see her again. If it wasn’t for her legendary gut feeling, and standing right at the entrance of the dungeon where she knew you’d come out…’

“There would not be a city left for you to return to.”