Chapter 364: See Relax and Resist

———Orrel———

<10: 03 am>

“Regardless of the danger, I would love to climb that mountain.” Malk expressed his interest in the matter.

“Ridiculous. If you have a death wish, you may go, but don’t bring anyone else with you.” Gregori said without mincing his words.

“Come on. Don’t act like you’re not interested in dragons as well.” Qyunda chimed in. “They’re dragons! You know? Everyone has a fascination with them to some extent.”

“I’d rather not be part of this suicidal plan. At the very least it seems like the mountain in question is teeming with unbeatable monsters, let alone the dragons.” Gregori still has a clear stance on that topic. “You three, help keep these two from doing anything like that, please?”

“Leave me out of this.” Jass said as he waited while staring at his phone. Can’t believe one of the few times he joined us in a gathering this kind of conversation happens. How awkward.

“Arguing won’t really change much.” Useph said while I nodded along.

“There are many reasons one would want to truly witness, converse, and potentially fight a dragon. They are among the most powerful races in existence. It’s the one race that people across the globe would conflate with authority and divinity.” I pointed out. It’s hard to not be deadly curious about such a creature. We did see them, but aside from Kenni and Emmie none of us have fought them, and most of all those were newly born spawns. They were actual babies with barely any awareness.

“Yeah, it’s going to be the closest thing we did to fighting gods, if you think about it.” Qyunda added with excitement.

“All the more reason to not go! Do you really think dragons being treated as gods was due to purely aesthetic? The ones you guys are thinking of probably can remove an entire continent off the map!” Gregori remains adamant on the matter. Both of us have read about this, and there are indeed dragons that are that strong.

True ancestors and dragons are considered two species at the apex of power. While the former can technically be categorized as a ‘secondary species’ due to how it works, it’s not relevant to the discussion. Even the books about extraterrestrial beings explained that only a very small minority of them can match those two in raw power. We don’t really care about them since they have even less chance to show up here than the two elusive species.

“Whoa! Now I wanna see that!” Qyunda said despite how much of a disaster that would be. These two are certainly not taking the discussion that seriously. It was a throwaway topic at the beginning. This is a very regular gathering with no big plans we want to discuss.

“...I really hope you seriously aren’t planning to provoke one.” Gregori said, sounding a bit defeated. He was a bit loud just now and the other patrons in MicKKaz are looking this way. Now that he quieted down a bit they stopped paying attention.

We seriously can’t be spouting these heavy topics so often even if it has been spread around by the students and their families. There is such a thing as moving too fast and too loose.

“No promises.” Qyunda cheekily replied. “Anyway, what we all care about more than the hypothetical expedition is the food. It should arrive in a bit, right?”

“It’s already here.” Jass said as he placed down the trays of food before walking to the counter to get more. I guess the heated conversation earlier drowned out the noise for most of us. He is the relegated quiet person in this current group. Sixson is usually the one picking things up for us while we keep talking, or Seni on the rare occasion she comes to one of these.

“Ah, sorry for having you carrying all of that.” Useph said as he came back with the rest of the food.

“They weigh nothing anyway.” Jass said before sitting down. It is certainly far from a burden.

“...Let’s talk about something easier to digest and not argue over. How was everyone’s trip yesterday? We were gonna talk about that earlier.” Malk asked. “We got some fun out of that town, acting as two drill sergeants for a bunch of grown adults. It’s hella funny, actually. Also a bit exhausting so we didn’t go anywhere else.”

“You did allude to that a little bit.” Gregori said, recalling the few secrets spewed in the group chat. Nothing too detailed, but at least that part was covered. “I didn’t get to see much, honestly. Kinda boring.”

“As for us, we did go to a few places. Useph dealt with most of the problems himself.” I said in his stead. “We didn’t have a clear plan like your guys’ visits.”

“Sixson and Jeff have the most clear-cut goal out of any of us.” Gregori remarked. “And they accomplish it smoothly if their words are to be believed. What are they getting that for?”

“It was for a favor of a fellow schoolmate not from our class. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was perhaps a throwaway comment that they took on as a challenge.” I answered, having come in contact with them yesterday. No one reasonable would ask two students to go to another state just to get a rare item.

“That does sound a bit more productive than what most of us did.” Gregori muttered before taking a bite out of his burger. “Mhpm… Mhm… I bet the fellow student is feeling quite good about getting it. It cost a lot from what I heard, right?”

“Yeah, but I already off-set the cost for them, no need to worry.” Useph added an addendum.

“The idea of traveling so far for an objective is pretty cool. It would be even cooler if we manage to travel to another country or something. Get special local products and such that would be too expensive or take too long to buy otherwise.” Gregori noted. “I’m talking about overseas stuff. Traveling across states is draining, but at least you’d have a hard ground to land on once you run out of fuel.”

“That is a different level of difficulty. We might be able to reach absurd top speed, but maintaining it for that kind of travel is suicidal at the moment.” I pointed out. In battles that usually only take a few minutes to complete, that kind of burst of speed doesn’t actually take that much out of us. A trip that can take almost an hour is another story entirely.

“If only there was some kind of magic tool for it…” Gregori muttered under his breath. “Hmm… Crafting with magic hasn’t really been a topic they teach despite the practical value. Using magic can help fix a lot of stuff that only experts can do, or make something of higher quality…”

“I thought you were out of that phase already.” Qyunda remarked.

“What phase? Crafting is an important part of my field. I’m not gonna be stuck only doing coding. I want to build something with my own two hands!” He argued. “I guess a musclehead like you wouldn’t think someone with a brain also wants to use their hands for more than typing and writing.”

“Hey!” Qyunda reacted, clearly annoyed at the snide remark but didn't provide a more verbose reaction.

“That aside, he is right to want to learn about the technique. We can heal our wounds and accelerate recovery for others at the bare minimum, but when it comes to repairing inorganic things we are completely out of our depth.” I chimed in with the conversation getting a bit tense. “It doesn’t feel like something we can experiment on easily either. Last time we did a magical experiment, THAT happened.”

“Come on, a freak accident like that wouldn’t happen twice in a row.” Gregori said. “I know we are known for doing crazy stunts nowadays, but something that is mostly luck is another story.”

“Yeah, if anything it shouldn’t be limited to just us to have something weird happen.” Qyunda said in agreement. Why does it feel like they are deflecting… Not that the statement is wrong, but it’s like saying something obvious to sound correct. “Is our lives even that colorful?”

“I would say that.” Gregori flatly said. “But it does feel super smooth and without much strife. It’s not bad but it also makes it hard for any one event to stand out.”

“Emmie is a walking bad encounter to look forward to, at least.” Malk remarked. “She hasn’t fought any one of us for a while now, but her presence alone is rather suspenseful.”

“Yeah yeah, the walking enigma who is still ultimately our pal. She’s not gonna randomly kill us… right?” Gregori jokingly said.

“...I think we have more pressing things to think about.” Jass vaguely said.

———Wiina———

<10: 17 am>

“It’s just two chicks! What the hell are you guys waiting for!?” One of them said as they were in a standoff with the two rabbitgirls. An odd duo with a small connection at best, and with a large gap in strength between them as well.

A joint mission for the two against a group of thugs harassing a nearby town. It has been happening all over the United States due to a certain event causing anarchy to poke its ugly head out.

“Hmph.” Luik looked at them with disdain while Haris had a normal neutral expression. The former has a more colorful look with her gray hair and green eyes, while the latter is rather plain with standard brown hair and eyes.

Meanwhile their weapons couldn’t be more different. Luik’s blade is slim and elegant, if simplistic in design, whereas Haris’ massive gauntlets are hard to look away from. They are adorned with massive claws that scream danger.

**Dash** *Strike* *Slash* *Swing* *Parry* *Evade* *Slice*

The duo close the distance between the two parties and start attacking them without mercy.

Luik’s swings were quick and clean, cutting through the enemies like they were made of butter. It was hard for those thugs to even notice their companions being cut down so easily since Haris’ attacks caused a whole lot of bloodshed, stabbing through their bodies and mangling them.

The other sides used improvised weapons without any sort of refinement, their movement was both slower and more clumsy than the pair, and their attacks were easily evaded or interrupted.

There is little to say in regards to battle. It’s simply two sides duking it out without much of a plan. One has the strength while the others have numbers.

Higher numbers means nothing in this bout. While there are over a dozen men on the invader’s side, the two of them greatly outclass them in terms of combat prowess and skill.

While Haris is only a bit above average when it comes to a student’s combat prowess, that makes her like a veteran soldier compared to these thugs looking more like violent teenagers without a clue.

Meanwhile Luik probably feels like an untouchable being for them. She doesn’t even really need to proactively block or avoid their attacks, they would do no damage to her with the massive gap in power.

This is a predictable outcome that I choose to come over to observe just to get a bit more data on the two aspiring warriors. The predicament this town is under isn’t of much consideration. Nothing really unique to dwell on or analyze.

*Slash* *Strike* *Bash*

“W-What are these monsters!?” One of the invaders said a common line as he lost the will to fight and is planning to run away.

*Dash* *Bash*

Before he could go far, Haris caught up to him and subdued him with a single punch of the spiky gauntlet. Unfortunately due to all the extra bits it was like slamming a bag of knives into the poor guy, not that the two are that averse to killing. It’s on the more justifiable side normally, but with them basically acting like sellswords due to them taking a mission is… Well, it is not actually relevant to my current observation.

Soon enough all of them were killed or incapacitated. The value of a human life has certainly decreased throughout the years.

Between this and the yapping on the other end, only a little bit of amusement. I could use some ideas from the latter event to plan something out. That’d be something for the body with the majority of the function to deal with.

As for this vessel. Time to go back to the town now that these two are done with their task. This one will look for anyone else going out of town for a bit of adventure.

*Zoom*