Chương 52: (51) 2.4. What Are Friends For?

After nearly two hours of weighing in on the many disputes that had made their way to the council's desk, Vin was finally free of his duties as a councilor. Apparently taking a thousand people and throwing them into such an unusual situation was a lot trickier than doing the same with only a hundred. Yawning, he walked with Alice out of the command center, nodding at Greg and Abby as they made their way over to the mess hall for the lunch they'd both missed.

Vin had been busy with his map earlier, and Alice had been helping instruct some of the second wavers on how to make traps. They'd never be able to hold a candle to her own Trapper class of course, but the knowledge of how to make even simple traps would be invaluable.

"I have to admit, when Spur asked me to step up and join the council, I thought things were going to be a bit more exciting than that," Alice laughed, waving at a few people she recognized as they walked by.

"Just be happy you weren't a part of it back when Patty was around," Vin grumbled, ignoring the stares and whispers he was getting as they grabbed their food. One of the downsides of a high focus was that he couldn't help but keep overhearing his name being whispered by many of the second wavers when he walked by.

"Spur and Patty were like two little dogs barking at each other any chance they got. Still, I'm surprised Spur didn't seem to care when I brought up how Patty was murdered. I'd thought he'd want to try and figure out who killed her."

"She had it coming," Alice frowned, obviously still upset about the way Patty had used her powers on her.

"Once the truth came out about what she'd done, there were more people in the first wave that wanted her dead than not. I doubt Spur's nifty Traitor-bane trick would even work in this case, as you could argue killing Patty was for the good of the camp. Unless they end up murdering someone else who isn't hated by just about everyone, they'll probably get away with it."

"I guess…" Vin let the topic drop, focusing instead on lunch. Rather than more sqerret, it looked like the chefs had prepared hearty salads made from a mix of strange looking greens and some sort of eggplant-like chunks. Thankfully they'd managed to put together a delicious dressing that made the meal far more appetizing.

"You know with these chefs making food for over a thousand people three times a day… I wouldn't be surprised if they became the highest level people in camp by the time wave three rolls around," Vin mused, crunching into his salad. He moaned in pleasure at the discovery of tiny, sweet berries hidden under the greens, each one doing wonders to mask the earthy taste from the plants.

"I can think of worse classes to amass power," Alice laughed, digging into her own salad.

"What would that even look like anyway? Would they just dump all their points into dexterity and turn into some sort of ninja-chef?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Vin shrugged.

"Anyway, how are things with you? I didn't get the chance to ask earlier, but I imagine after the battle you must have shot up in level, right?"

"You could say that," Alice grinned, leaning in closer and lowering her voice.

"In fact… I'm level 14 now! Fourteen! Can you believe it?"

"Damn, four levels from one battle," Vin whistled, leaning back in amazement.

"That's quite the feat."

"Can't say I didn't earn it though," Alice said with a proud smile.

"I'm just happy I was able to make such an impact on everything that happened. Speaking of people who made an impact…" She paused, giving him a strange look.

"... Is Alka with you?" Before Vin could answer, Alka drifted sideways out of him, appearing on the bench beside him as though she'd always been sitting there. The ethereal, green girl looked as tough as always, and Vin felt like she should have had a tankard sitting in front of her to complete the picture. Alka gave Alice a big smile, nodding respectfully.

"Those were some impressive traps you had in place. Thanks to you, I knew any monster that slipped past me would be taken care of, and I was able to focus on my own fight."

"Are you kidding? You practically held Section A all on your own!" Alice argued, her eyes widening at Alka's sudden appearance.

"You were so fluid and graceful that watching you fight was like watching a choreographed dance. I've never seen anything like it!"

"Slayers are trained to be flexible above all else. There's no end to the different types of monsters one may encounter, meaning you have to be ready for everything," Alka said, eyeing up Vin's salad longingly. Realizing he could actually help with that, Vin coughed, holding out a hand toward his companion.

"I'm not planning on getting into any life or death battles today, Alka. Want to borrow my body for a minute and try the salad?" Grinning, Alka ignored his outstretched hand, shooting back into his body and activating his Human Vessel title. Letting it happen, Vin suddenly found himself observing his surroundings as if he were watching a movie, unable to command his limbs even if he wanted to.

The sensation never really got any more comfortable regardless of how many times they did this, but seeing Alka's enthusiasm at having a physical body again made it worth it. Not wasting any time, Alka grabbed his fork and immediately began shoveling the greens down their throat. She only had sixty seconds after all, and she wasn't going to waste a single one.

"God, this stuff is fantastic!" She moaned, making sure to scrape the dressing off the side of the bowl once she'd run out of salad.

"You should take some to go before we head out!"

'That's not a bad idea actually… I'll see if the chefs would be willing to make some travel rations for us,' Vin said.

"That is so weird…" Alice muttered, carefully watching as Alka finally gave up on scraping the dressing off the bowl with their fork and began just licking the bowl clean instead like a starved animal.

"And you can just do that whenever?"

"Yeah, but not for long," Alka got out between licks. She managed to finish up just in time as Vin suddenly snapped forward, finding himself holding a completely polished bowl with a few dozen people staring at him like he was insane.

'Woah, close one!' Alka laughed inside his head as Vin sighed, disregarding the strange looks and placing the bowl down. People had already been watching him before he let Alka take control, so it really didn't make much of a difference.

'Thanks for that by the way. Getting to feel things again really helps make all this more bearable.'

"Let's try and do that at least once an evening then," Vin offered, knowing how hard Alka had it.

"The uses reset every day anyway, so it's use them or lose them." If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

'Sounds good!'

"It's a shame that's something only you can do," Alice frowned, playing with her salad with her fork.

"I'd happily let Alka borrow my body for a bit each day if I was able. No offence, but I bet she'd be happier with a girl's body than a guy's."

'Damn, why didn't I think of that? Here, give her the sword, that's a much better idea.'

"Alka…" Vin warned, rolling his eyes at the cackling going on inside his head.

'Don't get your panties in a twist, beanstalk, I know you're my best bet at finding someone capable of actually killing me. Besides, I don't really mind the fact you don't have tits. So long as you can hold a sword, that's good enough for me.' Hearing Alka's words, Vin couldn't help but glance down at his missing arm, his phantom hand twitching in his mind.

'Oh crap, Vin, I didn't mean-'"It's fine," he said, standing abruptly and nodding toward Alice.

"It was good to catch up Alice, but I need to round up my crew and head out. Want to make it to the stone village before night falls." Not waiting for a reply, Vin dropped his tray in the area designated for return and made his way out of the mess hall. The stares and whispers seemed to follow him as he wandered around camp hunting for his companions, but where earlier all the attention had just seemed annoying, now it felt almost smothering to him.

'Vin, I'm sorry, you know I-'"I don't want to talk about it right now Alka, I just want to find Shia and Scule and get out of here," Vin snapped, growing more frustrated by the minute as he wandered about. Their camp was still barely large enough to be anything more than just a few clusters of buildings, how hard could it be to find the only elf and petian in the entire fragment? Finally, Vin realized he'd overlooked something obvious, and he made his way out of camp entirely.

Heading over to the closest forest, he spotted three people huddled behind a large rock, muttering amongst themselves as they stared into the nearby treeline. Based on their still rather clean grey military fatigues, they had to be second wavers. Clearly able to make out what they were looking at thanks to his higher focus, Vin sighed, walking up behind them. He really didn't feel like dealing with people right now.

"She can hear what you guys are saying you know," he said, causing the three men to jump and spin around, looking at him guiltily.

"Her ears aren't just for show, and her focus attribute is probably three times your own." The largest of the three, a guy that had already torn off the sleeves to his uniform in order to show off his tattoos no doubt, grit his teeth, taking a threatening step toward him. He had at least a solid foot on Vin, and looked like he could unbend a horseshoe if he tried hard enough.

"Oh yeah? And who are you to-""Kyle!" One of the other two hissed, grabbing the big man's arm.

"What?" Kyle snapped, glaring at his underling.

"That's the guy," his minion hissed again, his wide eyes taking in Vin's missing hand and the sword hilt wrapped in black leathers attached to his hip.

"The one everyone's been talking about!"

"Who? This guy?" Kyle asked, laughing and shaking his head.

"Seriously? You're the guy that tied up General Lones' goons with your magic powers? The one who strangled a giant snake to death with your teeth? Who apparently controls the undead to fight for you with a wave of your hand?" With each statement, Kyle's voice grew more and more mocking. Clearly the larger man didn't believe any of the claims that had been floating around.

"Are you kidding? Forget that, I hear his dick's as large as I am!" The three men jumped back in surprise at the sudden voice and Vin sighed as Scule finally revealed himself. Apparently the petian had been hiding practically beneath their feet the entire time and they'd never noticed. Naturally, that was a level 20 plus Rogue for you.

"What the hell is that thing and why is it speaking French?" Kyle shouted, clearly caught off guard by the sight of a six inch tall man with a black cape standing there with his hands on his hips.

"Damn, I hate it when people can't understand my witty jokes," Scule muttered, frowning at the cowering giants.

"Vin, would you mind getting on that sooner than later? It sucks being the only one in the group that only speaks one language."

"I'll do what I can… Speaking of, how are you understanding them in the first place?" Vin asked, suddenly realizing Scule was without his translator.

"That would be me," he heard Shia faintly whisper, as though her lips were pressed right up against his ear.

"Gya!" He jumped, spinning around in search of the invisible elf. Once he realized she wasn't there, he felt his face start to heat up as Scule began laughing.

"Don't feel too bad, she got me with that at first too," Scule chuckled, waving his hand dismissively toward Kyle and his two goons.

"Reginald, take care of these three for me, would you? I think distilled frogal extract will be enough for the likes of them." Before Vin could ask what Scule was planning, a small brown blur shot out from behind the boulder and each of the three men yelped in turn, jumping on one leg as if they'd been stung. Within seconds, each of the men began shouting and scratching at their legs as a nasty red rash slowly spread up from their ankles.

"Scule…" Vin warned, preparing himself to carry the three men to the infirmary their camp now had before the petian held up a hand.

"Relax, frogal extract is an extremely fast acting irritant, but it wont spread farther than a couple of inches. And because of how fast acting it is, it'll only last an hour at the absolute max." He paused, looking thoughtfully at the shouting men as he scratched his chin.

"... you know, unless they're allergic." Thankfully, each of the three rashes had already stopped spreading at the bottom of each man's calf. Granted, none of the men seemed all too pleased about that. Shooting Vin and Scule a rage filled glare, Kyle turned and hopped back toward camp with his two goons in tow, struggling to walk while scratching his lower leg. Once the men were gone, Reginald popped back out from behind his rock, looking a little too smug for a rat in Vin's opinion.

The tip of his tail was covered in some sort of tiny looking spearhead, and Vin realized the rat now had a few small vials of varying colors attached to his saddle.

"Like the upgrades?" Scule asked, patting Reginald's head and motioning toward his tail.

"After someone got their grubby little hands on Reginald and threatened to eat him, I realized he needed his own method of defending himself."

"Grubby little hands?" Shia asked, finally stepping out of the forest and raising her eyebrow at the Rogue.

"I'm impressed you can say that with a straight face seeing as my hands are bigger than your entire body."

"Oh you know… metaphorically little," Scule said dismissively, waving his hand.

"Anyway, what's up Vin? Haven't seen you in a bit. Finally done sulking?" Immediately after the words left the Rogue's mouth, a portion of Reginald's tail that wasn't covered in a spiked tip smacked Scule in the back of the head, causing the petian to stumble forward and trip over a rather hard blade of grass that hadn't been there moments before, sending him sprawling face first into the dirt.

Before he could get up, Alka shot out of Vin's body with sword in hand, carefully placing the blade blunt side down on top of Scule, trapping the small man against the ground. The entire sequence of events happened so fast, Vin barely had time to register what had happened.

"I give, I give!" Scule called out, slapping his hand against the ground as Alka leisurely sat atop the blade, giving a thumbs up to the elven Druid and reaching out to give Reginald a ghostly high five. Staring at the ridiculous scene before him, Vin could do nothing but burst out laughing, his laughter coming so hard tears welled up in his eyes.

He felt another chunk of that dark storm cloud that had been drifting over him since the recent battle dissipate under the grins of his companions as Scule cursed and threatened to steal everyone's shoelaces once he got free. Wiping the tears from his eyes, Vin grinned at his strange assortment of friends, realizing things were going to be alright. They hadn't known each other long, but they'd journeyed across world fragments together and fought for their lives beside one another multiple times already.

Yes, he'd lost people he'd been trying to protect, and he'd even lost a physical part of himself. But he would grow stronger and make sure nothing like that ever happened again.

"Alright guys, let him up," Vin chuckled, grinning at the muttering petian as he patted himself free of dirt.

"I hope you guys are ready, because it's time for us to head out. I have an overdue rock to return."