Novel Full Chapter 417: Important Meeting
Chapter 417: Important Meeting
I think I have already told you about the Key of Order in detail.
But I’ll give a rundown one more time.
As its name suggested, the Key of Order was a special key — special in that it was one of the many enchanted items bound to and scattered around the Ascent Isles.
It was a simple bronze key that could be inserted into any door, and if there was no keyhole, one would just magically appear.
When you twisted the Key and opened the door, you could exit to any room on the Ascent Isles, as long as you had an image of the desired room in your mind.
It sort of acted like a teleportation artifact, allowing you to ignore the sprawling layout of the Academy City.
There were twelve of these Keys—
Well, now there were eleven since I had lost one, along with everything else that was stored in the dimensional storage pocket of my robe.
Anyway, all of these Keys were in the possession of Cadets who were a part of the Academy’s secret society known as the Order of Twelve.
Whenever one of those Cadets graduated, they’d either pass down their Key to a successor of their choice (which was very rare), or hide it somewhere in the Academy and let fate find the next owner.
That was the norm, at least.
But some graduating crazy Cadets (like the barista I just met) would take it a step further and hand it over to anyone who’d fulfill some coincidental or impossible set of conditions.
They saw that as fate too.
For example, ordering a specific combination of specials on the menu.
That was why I bothered coming to this café as soon as I could. I thought about ordering the specials last night, but they weren’t delivering.
Whatever, I guess.
The café’s name was Brewline Bean, and in the game, it was from here that a player could make any other playable character join the Order.
The only problem was that since I had made direct contact with one of the Order members, I had already appeared on their radar.
If I didn’t join them myself now, they’d personally come to recruit me.
That was going to be a huge problem... since I didn’t want to be recruited into a cult of high-achieving overachievers run by some anonymous old fucks.
But that was a problem for the me of the future.
The me of the present was going to get home and enjoy some sweet, sugary, syrupy pastries.
•••
Michael and Juliana both woke up late in the afternoon. I shared some cream puffs with them as they discussed what to do about their lost luggage.
After their delayed breakfast was over, we moved to the living room and sat in the sunken pit, the electric fireplace crackling with a soft glow that felt far too peaceful for three people who had been legally dead forty-eight hours ago.
Michael was nursing a large cup of coffee and looking significantly less depressed than yesterday, while Juliana was twirling a kunai between her fingers like she wanted to use it to stab someone.
We were supposed to be watching the large projector screen that was currently muted and cycling through the latest reruns of the Ace Tournament qualifiers.
I had to admit, some of those new faces were very strong. And from the few glimpses of my sister, I could tell she had also not been sitting idly.
Thalia had always been a monster. Until my ascension, I couldn’t have even dreamt of fighting her fairly on equal grounds.
But now the story was different.
Now I was the one between us who held the upper hand in raw potential and attack potency, even if she still eclipsed me in formal technique. I was no longer the little brother whom she could dismiss without a second thought.
However, I couldn’t deny her progress either.
None of her matches lasted more than a minute.
Cadets with stronger abilities than her, Cadets with smarter strategies than her, Cadets who thought they could overwhelm her with raw power — they all crumbled one way or another.
I leaned back into the cushion, deep in thought.
I would’ve liked my friends’ input, but they were just as useless as ever.
Why? Because neither of them were paying attention to the screen. Instead, they decided that continuing to fuss over their missing stuff was far more important than scouting the competition.
Because who cares about rankings when your lush pillows are lost, right?
"I’m beyond angry!" Michael groaned. "All my notes and study material were in that dorm. Now it’s all gone to the deep storage! How could they even do this?! They call us heroes, don’t they? And then they throw our belongings away like trash?!"
Juliana clicked her tongue. "I don’t care about your notes. I care about the fact that some transfer girl is currently breathing on my silk pillows. The pillows here are good, but not as good as my old ones. And my personal items are in the deep storage too!"
She flicked the kunai, and it thudded into the wooden surface of the low table, vibrating inches from my knee.
Michael’s head dropped and his shoulders slumped. When he spoke, his shaky voice was barely above a whisper. "I... I had a family portrait in there. It’s the only picture I have of my mom and dad. I really didn’t want to lose that..."
His voice trailed off, but the hollow look in his eyes told us everything. It was no surprise he was scared of losing the last tether to his past.
Juliana didn’t speak for a while.
If she was capable of showing, or even feeling, genuine sympathy, she would’ve reached out to pat his shoulder or muttered some words of comfort.
She would’ve told him that she could relate, because as I’d later come to know, she also had a few photos of her family in her lost luggage.
But since she had a severely diminished capacity for empathy, she didn’t do any of that.
She just picked her kunai back up and said, "Michael. Stop leaking from your eyes. It’s pathetic."
Michael sniffled, looking up with a wounded expression. "I’m not leaking! I’m just... frustrated!"
"Good," she replied, standing up and brushing down her top with her fingers. "Come on. Let’s go."
Both he and I frowned at that, confused.
"Wait, go where?" Michael asked.
"Oh god!" I widened my eyes. "Don’t tell me you’re going to kill that poor girl for using your pillows!"
"No," Juliana rolled her eyes like I was being dramatic — as if it wasn’t something she would actually do. Then, after a pause, she shrugged. "Well, maybe later. For now, let’s go to the deep storage and get our stuff back."
...Yeah. That was not a good idea.
Michael shared my thoughts. "Hold on! That staffer said the lower wards are basically dungeons. Shouldn’t we wait for an official clearance or something? We already filed the request. They said a second-year Cadet would take the mission soon."
Juliana looked at him with the blank stare she usually reserved for people she considered a waste of oxygen. "Screw that. If we wait for official clearance from this Academy, our stuff would be fossilized by the time we get it back. Besides, the staffer said there are colonies of Spirit Beasts in there, right? So what? We’re hunters. We’ll just hunt those beasts down."
"Yeah..." This time, Michael looked convinced. His face slowly lit up. "Yeah, you know what? Yeah! You’re so right! We are strong! We can kill a few beasts. Surely these so-called dungeons wouldn’t be as scary as what we faced in the Noctveil Wilds!"
"Exactly!"
"Yeah!"
"Yeah!"
I wanted to facepalm.
These idiots.
There was a reason the Academy was issuing the request to second-years. The beasts in the lower wards were actually very strong. On top of that, they were highly territorial.
In the game, it was a side mission that took me three tries before I gave up on it.
Just to be clear, the danger wasn’t anything they couldn’t handle. It was just a massive waste of time, especially since they’d be exploring without a proper map.
But trying to explain risk assessment to Michael, who was fueled by sentimental longing, and Juliana, who was motivated by a vendetta against the Academy’s bureaucracy, was a lost cause.
So I let them be.
When they asked me to join, I just said I had something to do.
Juliana seemed a bit disappointed, and it scared me how much I was starting to worry about not wanting to upset her.
Regardless, I had to upset her this time.
Because I really did have something important to do.
Namely, I had to go meet Selene Valkyrn.
So, after my friends geared up for their impromptu dungeon raid and headed out, I began my own side quest.
Once I was alone in the villa, I walked over to my bedroom door and placed the Key of Order in front of its keyhole.
The head of the Key rippled like liquid before solidifying once again, changing shape to perfectly match the internal tumblers of the door.
Without any delay, I inserted the Key and twisted it.