Chương 145: Chapter 141

It was currently just starting to be afternoon in London when Selena made another attempt to avoid her current predicament.

"Lady Illy, please be reasonable with this." She insisted, "My spear is a perfectly functional weapon, and travels with us. These weapons are highly unusual and-""And they hurt your giant ears, I know." Illy rolled her eyes.

"Tough titty, you're still gonna learn how to aim and fire a weapon proper. The yanks will eventually shove one in your hands and I swear on me actual mum's feckin' grave, no friend of mine is going into that shitehole without knowing how to defend themselves." Long ears waggled in pure distress.

"I am properly equipped to defe-""You're tied now to Earth." Staff sergeant Harrison said from his bench, watching the two ahead in the family gun range.

"Knowing how we fight and what to expect is now critically important for the future. You already learned you're sensitive to gunshot noises, that's something that would have crippled you earlier if you hadn't started training and testing different earplugs." The pair had shown up to his planned training workshop on time. It felt oddly nostalgic to him, seeing parts of Millicent's old self. The no-nonsense hyper-focused woman showing back up.

Only with that odd scottish accent she seemed married to now compared to proper english. But Harrison had never really cared much, there were far more important things in life. Thomas was sitting next to him, watching. The boy couldn't be held down, and unlike the rest of the family still bitching about his loss in the spar, Thomas knew Selena was a genuine elf with magical powers. Illy had barely tried to hide it from him, the little scoundrel.

She trusted her half-brother would know better than to go yap to the wrong friends about all this before it became public knowledge. If he did, he wouldn't have been worthy of inheriting the family name in the first place. And it would all be known eventually. Harrison trusted in people's expertise. He knew how to do his job, and he knew when something wasn't a part of that job. Little Milly out there helping a true lord-of-the-rings elf learn how to shoot a gun?

That girl knew more about political movements than he'd ever know about. It was what she was trained for. He had been the gym distraction. Frankly, he considered it a waste of her talents to be here personally teaching her handmaiden how to shoot. Harrison could do that for them both, while Millicent handled something more important. Unfortunately, they were all currently caught in the same traditional duty: Hurry up and wait.

Until Millicent's Father fully came here himself and saw firsthand what was going on, nothing was really going to start moving. And it was critical that things begin from him rather than anywhere else. The rest of the family were blowhards who had their hands in the civilian sector, and only used the family name to pretend at being tied to England. It certainly worked for marketing campaigns to rich investors who heard buzzwords and believed the stoic name of the family on a powerpoint presentation.

The brass knew better. The only one with any salt behind them was the true main branch of the Blackwood-Sinclairs. What Harrison was mostly suspecting now, was that Illy wasn't saying everything she knew about this other world. There were others from Earth over there, and a good twenty or so trapped in a doomed and damned city. Which meant she'd met them. And fought for them. And it also meant they were out here on Earth, right this moment. She should have already been in contact with them. Or gone out searching.

And yet not a single mention to him about that. Instead, she mentioned the yanks often enough, as if the Americans would be showing up eventually. Harrison didn't believe she was speaking of the US forces. She might have met an actual yank on the other side, and that's who she was speaking to. Or so went his instincts. He wouldn't know for certain, and he wasn't certain he should even know. If she was trying to keep someone on the other end out of the discussions, she had her reasons.

He saw her take her phone out and start sending a few texts messages, before she put them back and went on to continue teaching the poor Moonwing Elf how to properly shoot her marks. Those long ears hadn't been for show. And this was a simple sidearm routine. The rifles would probably panic the poor girl. Illy let Selena handle the next few shots, moving away from the sight of the drill instructor and her half-brother. Casually, she sent a few more texts. Not right now, still lots of eyes on me here.

Video call later. The profile image of a bear with aviator glasses and boxing gloves started typing out a message. She read through it swiftly, picking the pieces. Okey. You call when ready. Over here, they still talking about planning. You should meet them soon, very friendly. The girl reminds me of my little sister. You'll love her. Illy rolled her eyes. Only more of a spaz from what you described. Where's the demon butler in all this? Keep an eye on that one. Left to get chicken head and then boil skull clean.

For that potion. Absolute rocket scientists, overcomplicating everything. Boil a skull clean? Please. Go to a taxidermy shop you turnip, they'll have bird skulls in stock. Shoot a rat for the foe trophy. Quit being idiots. And tell the wanker to bring everything he's got for a long term stay in his fancy new tub. The bear icon showed typing. Then stopped. Then a single image of a dog laughing showed up. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Okay, maybe is better idea. Will send butler a message about it. Leon put his phone down, looking up at the assembled group.

"Illy sends us her love."

"Right. How many insults did she call us?" Wade asked. Leon only gave him a grin in answer.

"Oh, oh! Is this the girl you were talking about?" Medy waved a hand like she was about to miss a new york taxi.

"I want to meet her! She seems nice. Although little bit worried about working with a moonwing, they're the mercenaries you get when you're doing something under the table."

"She probably can walk under that table, da." Leon held a hand down to measure.

"Very smol. In headpat range."

"Focus." Bael grunted off to the side, taking his time to eat. If there was anyone in this makeshift brunch that had the jaw size to one-bite everything, it was him. And he wasn't interested in doing that, eating with far more refined manners.

"We have years to explore this new world and the mortals here. Wade's returning back to ours tonight. I gave my word to protect him, I will have him well equipped with knowledge and blade first."

"Right, sorry!" She looked straight back down at her current scribble that looked like an incredible work of art. If one was three. The scribble was humanoid shaped at least.

"Okie dokie, so Arcanaut suits really shouldn't be too difficult to put on. Like, five minutes tops. Sizing shouldn't be an issue for you either. Since most mortals on Azdrial are humans, elves, orcs and basically a bunch of similar sized humanoids, demonkind is like eighty percent fiends like me. Satyrs like Bael here are as common as actual minotaurs are."

"As in not common." Bael supplied, sampling a hardshell taco. It looked like a tiny chip in his hand.

"Yeah, so there aren't that many suits built for them. Usually they're brought as deathguards." As in deliberately unequipped and exposed, with the expectation they would die and be summoned back by their warlock. In the best case situation. As wade learned, Deathguard was a very well named role, and very feared by everyone, including the Deathguard themselves.

"It'll be fine!" Medy interjected, one arm high up in the air, asking to interrupt the lecture midway through her interruption.

"You should fit any of these suits peachy squeezy lemon… wait, I got that backwards. Anyhow! You can probably bring one back here." She scribbled out a few words, "Just look for these parts and also bring them with you, you don't need to maintain the suits, we can do that for you. What's important is one of the gauges on it." She tapped the center chestplate of the humanoid scribble above the to-do list.

"There's going to be a lot of gauges and knobs, but the one that's hanging off a metal chain by your chest is the important one, it shows you the mana density in the air."

"These suits aren't impervious to everything." Bael said, licking his fingers clean.

"They're rated for specific depths."

"Yeah, so every now and then give that gage a check. If you see the needle go anywhere near the red mark, just walk back. It means the density is too high where you are and it'll start leaking past what it can prevent. But you probably don't have to worry that much about it. It was almost to the bottom of the green part when I checked the pressure on those dead Arcanauts."

"The area's density has evened out and flowed away." Bael explained.

"Where did the mana flow to?" Wade asked.

"The arcane realm is vast and unexplored." Bael shrugged.

"Mana has been mapped expanding outwards overtime, but at a slow pace. The outer reaches grow too dangerous to explore past them. You begin finding ruins of the old civilizations there." New Fleeting Quest - Kill Your Maker's Tomb: Find and defeat a Nathir Arcanaut Suit. Rewards: Ten storefront coins. Platinum Lootbox. Negligible Leveling Experience. They really were everywhere, not just Hell. Wade looked over the quest, wondering what that all meant. It seemed... extremely strategic of the System.

There were layers to that quest and information it was sending, but Wade couldn't quite make guesses at why or what. But he could tell it would be a hard fight. A shame the System's experience cap was still in effect for fleeting quests like this. On the other hand, a platinum lootbox was quite the prize. Medy was already talking over his thoughts, nobody capable of noticing the quest itself.

"Anyhow, if you hear this like, clicking rattling metal noise from that, check the reading as soon as you can." Medy said, "You never know if there's a geyser or a sinkhole that turns hot. Changing pressure doesn't usually happen, but you know how it goes out there." She tapped the bullet list as if that was the answer. The new quest was still under his sight and mostly in his mind over all of this.

"Quick side question, how far away is the outer reaches?"

"Far." Bael said.

"And there are no shortcuts with the spirit realm. There is a maximum distance you can transfer into, the rest needs to be walked. If you even wished to go that direction at all. Again, few make it back." Ah. So he had almost no chance at all of completing this quest. This was the System passing him information about the Nathir. He'd need to mull that over. The list Medy had was now past fifty bullet points and showed no signs of stopping.

At this point, Wade was almost certain he'd need to just rely on the System shenanigans to help him survive the round, because if he'd been left on his own for a week, he would have imploded the Coffin multiple times over all by himself. Or died walking outside. But right now, he just wanted to bring back a shitload of mana crystals to Earth, and then get real rich here. He had options.

"Mortal, stay focused. After you've equipped a suit and managed to exit the Coffin without imploding it, then you can actually being thinking about mining crystals." Bael warned, giving Wade a stern look. Both demons here could feel, and feed, on the wisps of greed radiating off their human. Eh, you could also just tank it imo Wade had propped his phone on one of the concrete benches, facing the group. You got a blackrot bug left tied up inside a bag on the other side, probably exactly where Eri left it.

Get yourself infected. The coffin's got thick mithril chains, wrap one around your throat and you're good to go.

"Play, doesn't mithril melt when it's exposed to mana?" The demons here had spent some time telling him all the ways the different mithril sinks in the Coffin worked, and every single one of them ended with 'Don't let them melt.' Grab a chain chunk and put it outside to test. You saw your old collar, it only really went supercritical from that impromptu swim. You could also bring a bottle of water and keep splashing it to cool it down. You only need to last for nine hours you know what I mean (￢‿￢)"That's…

hey Bael, would that work? The area has really low mana pressure right?" It was still lethal pressure, but in comparison with the rest of the realm it was supposedly pretty rosy there.

"In that pressure, it would take… four to five hours for a large enough chunk to begin melting." Bael said, thinking it through.

"Longer if you keep it cooled with water and open surface area to vent that heat off. It will still be burning to the touch within two hours. Do you really wish to carry a burning metal chain around your neck for the next seven hours? Whatever powers you hold mortal, regenerating and enduring past that pain would be torture." That did sound painful. Yeh but you'll have the blackrot regeneration buff to tank it. You'll outheal the burn. Think of it like an extreme normie workout (b ᵔ▽ᵔ)b"It won't work regardless."

Bael said from the other end.

"There's a reason the blackrotten aren't sent to the mana mines any more than Demonkind is. The point of a collar is to prevent blackrot from reaching your head. The rest of your body will survive the pressure. Your head won't. Not unless it is equally filled with blackrot, which ruins the reason for a collar." Wade shook his head, "I see what Play's after here. It might work that way for you and everyone else in Azdrial, but for me and the System's game, blackrot ends up being a debuff and later a buff.

That means it applies to me everywhere. It's how I survived the first round." It was difficult to explain to the two demons here about buffs and debuffs, even with Market's Language blessing doing most of the lifting and context for the pair. But they did get a good idea in the end. It did not mean it was a great idea, but Wade considered it at least good to have a plan B in case something went wrong. Something always went wrong.

"Right, well." Wade stood up.

"I think we should take a break from this, get some fresh air and take a moment to unwind." That was mostly said to the group here, with Eri somewhere off already doing exactly that in the house while everyone here was eating. But Wade wasn't planning on relaxing. He had a boon he needed to stress test, and some rapid fire guns to pair with his Skyviper build, which equally required testing on which would be the most optimal to bring. That or shotguns. The birdshot shell kind.