Chapter 52

Chapter 52 - Decision

"And you simply let her go without supervision?!"

"I had no choice at the time! I had to watch over Felicia while doing some other tasks! I was also quite tired and so my lack of judgment led to such an escalation of the situation!"

Having explained the trail of events, the Martial Artist could easily tell what had gone wrong in this situation. Before, Mage had been struggling to find something that could be of use as a special source power the last time when she was traveling throughout all of the mountain range where the dwarven empire was said to have fallen.

Taking so long and having no results, it was only natural that she would build up some kind of resentment. At that moment, if an easy and clear target like the Tree of Life happened to appear before her and have an easy method to solve that happened to allow her to destress...

Well, she was indeed planning on that. After forcing her to submit through threat of continuous tickling, she eventually relented and lead the two of them to her true lab. 

With a face overshadowed with resentment, she passed through dimensional lock after dimensional lock and eventually showed them a lab that she had been keeping rather secret. 

Inside was what you would expect out of a mad scientist type like her. Full of experimental creatures bound in a case full of all kinds of variations and changes.

"Fine, this is where I have some stuff prepared."

After saying that, she simply sat in the corner drawing circles in a depressed manner. Seeing the visible rainclouds deliberately made above her head, the Alchemist could not help but laugh. 

Then, she went to explain the situation to the clueless Martial Artist. More specifically, she explained what experiments were going on and pieced together the likely plan of events based on the preparations here and what she had shown before. 

"Looking at all of these experiments, we can see a large prevalence of lizard types of creatures. In addition, most of these modified creatures also happen to have. a lot of poison and other toxin based abilities. What I can presume is that she would take over a nearby swamp location and place all of her troops and act as if these guys had mutated and suddenly now revealed themselves to obtain resources from out of the swamp. She would probably choose to make the process longer and then have them all crowd towards the Elven Tree of Life to destroy them all."

"Quit vicious isn't it?"

Although they knew that these guys would eventually prove to be a danger, the Alchemist ultimately decided that the last clone should head on over so that they could all decide collectively what to do with all of it. 

So they called her with magic and after some waiting around a new clone of Alice had arrived to the scene.

"Wow, you guys were not kidding!"

Looking around with an interested glance, she eventually turned to look at the mage and showed a bright smile. Feeling a shiver up her spine, she stopped drawing circles in the corner and turned to see the visitor who had arrived and a chill ran up her spine. 

"You-"

Before she could even point, the clone disappeared from view and suddenly appeared wrapping her arms around the neck of the Mage clone and rubbed her cheeks with hers. With a pained and tired sigh, the Mage asked her what she was doing here. 

"Traveler! Why are you here?!"

"You don't welcome me? Little Mage?"

Tightening her grip on the Mage, she showed a slightly blackhearted grin as she then teased endplayed around with her long hanging hair.

"Get off of me! Unhand me!"

Obliging with her request, she then faded back in position and with her hands on her hips she started to lecture the Mage again. 

Compared to Magic, Alchemy and Martial Arts, the Traveler had no particular specialty in any subject. You could say she was a jack of all trades. But that did not mean that she did not have any tricks up her own sleeves. Compared to the others, the traveler could be said to be both the most experienced in combat, as well as the most skillful in fights and infiltration. 

Alice had split a bunch of clones to do things that she could not spend time on her own. For the traveler, she was to be her outside eyes and ears as well as a way for her to keep up with the goings on in the world. Acting as a traveling merchant with a bunch of clones in different appearances, she had built up quite the presence around the world recently. 

Mostly settling for exotic and rare goods, she travels around the world and different race with clones even of other races and with all kinds of miscellaneous skills trained up. 

Even so, all of this versatility eventually led to her finding some rather unorthodox and skillful ways of fighting and exploring. 

"That phase shifting is as absurd as always to see."

What the mage was talking about was her apparent ability to teleport, but is closer to a sort of different dimension projection where the user is located in another dimension that follows different rules and so movements in there would not necessarily correspond to movements here. That is how she suddenly appears in different places all of a sudden. 

Compared to normal Spatial Magic, it has its own charms including an almost zero consumption to upkeep. This was mainly due to an ability that the Traveler had incidentally maxed out and traveled further upon than any other known person has. 

"Oh, it's nothing. Just a trick of disguise and acting!"

"If normal Disguise and Acting could allow a person to take upon themselves the abilities and even soul traits of another being, than mimics would have no purpose in existing. There is now way that you can change the essence of your self through *just* Acting and Disguises."

Although she said that, it had already been confirmed to be the case so she could only end up sighing at these circumstances. 

"Aww, it's alright Little Sister~ I am the eldest so I should have some tricks up my sleeves over you kiddos!"

"Just because you were made first does not mean that you should be the Eldest Sister!"

Hearing the argument again, the two spectating clones could only sigh in response. This was something that was rather common early on. Because she was designated as the First clone to be given a purpose and role, she had put upon herself the role of the Eldest sister of the clones an treated all of us appropriately. 

Although the two of us, Alchemist and Martial Artist, had accepted this role, the Mage had obviously not. Part of the reason for her irritation could also stem from her wanting to subconsciously play a bigger role in Alice's main goal and thus get the opportunity to obtain the role of eldest herself. 

When asked if that was the case, she obviously denied it. But we could tell deep down that at least some part of her thought so. 

After some frolicking, we eventually waited for the two to simmer down before we got to tell the Traveler on why we were here and what we should decide to do with this army that Mage had prepared now that it is already so far completed. 

When she knew the full situation, we all decided that we would each put down our opinions and reasoning and then vote as a group on which person was the most persuasive. 

So we waited some time and the four of us eventually decided what to do with the situation and had us all proceed from creation listing order. 

First of all was the Traveler who coughed to gather attention before explaining her idea. 

"I think that we should keep the guys in stasis for now. If they are kept as they are, it would take too many resources to keep them combat ready and I think we shouldn't really waste such power. Who knows when we would require an army like this? It is better to keep these cards handy than to simply waste all of my little sister's efforts."

Rubbing her head in a doting manner, she eventually stopped when the Mage was about to explode as the remaining two clones nodded their heads at the idea. They thought that it was a rather pragmatic idea that was not too aggressive or wasteful and would overall not be too bad an option. 

Next up was to be the Mage clone and it was rather obvious what her plan and idea would entail.

"Of course you all should let me go to war! If you had not interrupted, I would have already been preparing for it already!"

"Were you preparing behind our back again?"

Hearing the Alchemist's questioning, the Mage had quietly turned her head to the side. Sighing, she shook her head and looked to the others. 

"Hey, I was not finished!"

Hearing that, we all then snapped back our attention and listened to see how exactly she would persuade us. 

"Well, obviously this plan would be the best since it is our greatest chance to find out what exactly is the hidden source within a race. Although I have experimented with lesser races, they have not had anything that outstanding. But a race like the elves must certainly be hiding some secrets that could help Alice with her ultimate transcendence experiment!"

Although she hated to admit it, Alchemist knew that she indeed had a point. At her current experiments on escaping the world, Alice had reached a sort of bottleneck. Perhaps if she understood deeper the hidden secrets in the world she might really be able to take a step forward in her research. Adding the fact that even we clones had long reached the limit of 100, it is no wonder the mage would be so confident in her idea. No matter how scary the situation, our strength is already a strong stabilizing factor that would prevent the situation from going haywire. 

It was just that, as an Alchemist, she thought that a safer and more prudent approach would be more effective at this current point in time. 

The others saw the pros and cons of the approach as well, but none of us ultimately had decided so we all looked to see who would be next. 

"I guess it is I next"

The Martial Artist said as she started saying her idea. 

"I think we could just get rid of the mess. All pf this thinking is making my head spin in circles."

A simple, yet far more maddening approach for Mage was uttered out of her throat. Such an idea was immediately discarded by the rest of us as she simply scratched her head and shrugged her shoulders. then she relaxed and laid back to wait for everything to just come in place. 

Since her idea would not work, she would just vote for the one with least effort. Finally it was up to the Alchemist who was the youngest of the clones here.

"I say that we should let them all go. Spread them all over the world. They are living and breathing creations. We should not simply discard them nor should we just let them live for war. They should get to live their own lives as their own species!"

Although she said it with much gusto, none of the others really stood out for the idea so she slumped down in her seat as everyone decided on which idea would be for the best for the beasts. 

In the end, the conclusion was mostly unanimous as it was voted that the first idea belonging to the Traveler would be the most prudent. Go figure that the most experienced of our bunch would have the most convincing and realistic idea. 

So against the Mage's best efforts we sealed all of the lizards and had them cryogenically frozen and ready for when we needed them in the future. 

Now heading out with a newborn fervor, Traveler brought Mage along and as they left, none of them realized that her lowered head had remained a small grin. What kind of chaos would the idea brewing in her mind bring? Well that would be a situation for these clones to later uncover. 

For now, the group all stayed for tea before they all departed with the Mage quietly looking a certain direction in a daze.