Chương 103: Limitless Path Chapter One Hundred Three

After some time walking, they moved through another door behind Jaq, coming out into what Beth could truly only describe as an underground section of a parking garage. The parking garage bit wasn't particularly strange, and it certainly wasn't the part that had arrested Beth's attention immediately. No, what had captivated Beth immediately was the large, sleek, red and black truck hovering in the air in front of them.

"Is that, like, a fucking hover truck?" Beth asked, gaping at the vehicle.

"It is, in fact, just a regular hover truck," Jaq replied coldly, causing Beth to give the man a double-take.

"Right, well, are we using the hover truck?" she asked. Jaq gestured to the side, where seven large crates were sitting on the asphalt. Beth walked over and looked at the crates before glancing in the back of the truck. The vehicle was a little over twenty feet long including the cab and not much taller than a truck of similar type. Beth did note the side, floor, and ceiling of the truck seemed fairly thick and heavy, likely armored, and that the truck's base was about eighteen inches off the ground.

Beth looked over at Sabs and Blood, who were conducting their own investigation of the vehicle, before shrugging and grabbing one of the crates. They weren't heavy, well, at least not for her, Beth able to easily lift the crate and hop into what she could only assume was Jaq's truck with almost no effort. She set the crate down next to the three that were already inside before turning and exiting the back of the truck.

Sabs was still investigating the truck while Blood was now sniffing the crates, and Beth scratched her companion quickly before continuing loading the truck.

"I don't understand, though," Beth said to Jaq after finishing the loading.

"I would be surprised if there were anything you did understand," he replied laconically.

"Yeah, yeah," Beth answered with an eyeroll.

"What I don't get is this: why the truck?" Jaq sighed as he adjusted his beret.

"Several reasons. Firstly, spatial items are extremely expensive and few people are able to afford one that offers more than a handful of cubic feet. For this reason, you're going to have to get used to working with vehicles for transportation.

"Secondly, most people or groups want both comfort and speed. The distance we have to travel today is trivial, but many people even with spatial items or skills will still use vehicles for convenience. Also, it is far more convenient for me, working out of a vehicle, as I don't have to spend the whole day with a thousand people pestering me a million times for access to parts or tools or materials."

"I suppose that makes sense," Beth replied, tapping her chin as she scrunched up her brows.

"You, as an elite solo operator, will move around and experience things differently than the vast majority of Wayfarers, even some other elites. Even so, you may one day find it convenient to acquire a vehicle, as they can also act as a mobile base and camp, providing a safe and comfortable second home," Jaq explained as he gestured for the group to move to the cab. Sabs and Blood hopped into the far side of the front cabin, followed closely by Beth.

As soon as she levered herself up into the truck, she found that the cab was larger on the inside than she had believed. There were two bucket seats in the front, but the space between them led back to an elongated area with two well-padded benches running parallel to the length of the truck. At the back of this dimensionally expanded cab space was what looked like a small workshop to Beth, with a bench surrounded by parts and pieces on the walls.

After shutting her door with a firm thump, Beth gave Jaq a narrow-eyed stare as he started moving the vehicle forward. Beth wasn't too busy glaring to notice that even under forward power, the truck basically made no noise at all, only the absolute faintest of whirring noises indicating that the vehicle was even operational.

"After receiving that eye upgrade, you shouldn't have to narrow your eyes anymore," Jaq commented acerbically.

"You gave me such a great little speech about nobody having any spatial tools, and that everyone needs to use some kind of vehicle. Then I climb in your truck and it's a fucking spatial tool," Beth let up the glare, but continued frowning at the Senior Enforcer as he maneuvered the truck out a garage door on the opposite side of the Hall as the front entrance.

"I am not nobody," Jaq replied coldly, returning her frown before he pulled the truck high into the air.

"Where is this village of yours?"

"It's a development, Jaq, not a village," Beth replied with an eyeroll.

"And it's northwest about six or so miles."

"I would tell you to hang on, but my vehicle is far too good to let you feel a lurch, nor am I an incompetent pilot," Jaq said, already piloting towards Beth and Sabs' neighborhood.

"Speaking of your eyes," said Sabs.

"How do they work, other than the heat vision? They let you see information on things?"

"I'm not exactly sure what you mean," Beth responded.

"They let me Identify beasts and people, and I have heat vision now. They give me some information about items, too, which is super nice."

"So, you don't need Identify anymore?" Sabs asked.

"Actually," Beth replied, "it's entirely gone now."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I don't have Identify anymore. The new eye power entirely replaced it." This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Oh. Is that normal?"

"It's fairly standard," Jaq interjected into the conversation.

"You will sometimes acquire skills that are more powerful version of lesser skills you know or incorporate a lesser skill into a more complex skill."

"I just wish I hadn't lost skill levels," Beth replied with a frown.

"My Identify was level eight or something, but my FrostFlame Eye is only Copper[4]."

"Higher tier skills are tougher to level," Jaq responded with a shrug as he brought the truck down in front of the small community center in Beth's neighborhood, to much gawking of the locals.

"The upgrade type I just mentioned will absorb whatever experience you have with the skill or skills it subsumes, but that doesn't mean it will be the same rank."

"Perfect," Beth huffed, pushing the door open and hopping out of the truck. Jaq had parked with the passenger side facing the community center, and Beth found herself in front of a growing group of the neighborhood's 'adults.'

"The hell is this, soldier?" Zack immediately barked, staring at the truck with some mixture of annoyance, anger, and awe.

"It's a truck," Beth replied adroitly.

"Beth!" said her mother in a warning tone as she walked up to the group, not impressed with her daughter's flippancy.

"It's your sweet, sweet parts delivery," Beth said with a wave of her hand as she moved to the back of the hover truck. She didn't open the doors, but waited for Jaq to move around and indicate that he wanted the rearmost crate brought out. Beth opened the doors and hopped into the still hovering truck with ease, grabbing the desired crate and hopping out with it before carrying it over in front of the community center.

Jaq had stepped up and began discussion about the work that was required, and Beth set the crate down before moving back and leaning against the truck. Jaq seemed to have everything well in hand, and quickly had everyone organized as well as had the outline of the plan for where everything was going and how. Beth settled into her role as muscle, helping Jaq for the next four hours as he essentially rewired and replumbed the entire neighborhood.

The kinds of things he could do between his high level, advanced technology, and engineering that had to be at least Master rank if not Grandmaster, were frankly quite scary. In half a day, Jaq had rerouted all the power in the neighborhood to be disconnected from the general grid, interconnected with redundant backups, and linked to a power generation system installed by the community center.

At the same time, he did the same with the plumbing and sewage, hooking the old piping to a new system that generated water through a system of runes, and disposed of the waste through a combination of technology and magic. The waste didn't disappear, but it was turned into essentially fertilizer and clean water. The neighborhood would, after a time, have to provide energy in some form to run the electrical grid.

Whether that was through beast cores, arrays or artifacts that gathered and output mana, or mana stones, that would be something they would have to figure out as they got there. Jaq used a few mana stones in the initial install, enough for several months of power, and also left connections open to hook up other inputs such as solar panels or wind turbines. Beth moved around gathering up the empty crates as Jaq was once again holding a discussion in front of the community center.

She stacked them in the community center in a corner, the handful of remaining parts and pieces being owned by the neighborhood. Well, they were owned by Beth, but she had bought it all for the neighborhood, and it wasn't as if she had any use for fifteen pipe elbows. She resumed her place leaning against the side of Jaq's truck as he was finishing his explanation to the rest of the members of the neighborhood.

She noticed Sabs standing with two people off to the side, not recognizing them at first, but getting the clue based on body language that the two were Sabs' parents. She remembered that Sabs had said her father had made it back from business travel a little while ago, thankfully not killed or stranded due to the changes. As she was thinking about it, the three approached her as Jaq droned on. She bent her right leg up, setting the flat of her heel against the side of the truck as they walked up to her.

Sabs walked up to her and turned to face her parents while standing next to her.

"Beth, these are my parents," Sabs introduced a little hesitantly. Before Beth could say anything, Sabs' mother stepped forward and hugged her, saying at the same time, "It's very good to finally meet you."

"Yeah, uh, same…" Beth replied a little lamely, returning the hug gently so as not to injure her girlfriend's mother.

"You're being awkward again," Sabs' father said, not unkindly, as he laid a hand on Sabs' mother's shoulder. He gently pulled her back from the hug before giving Beth a nod, saying, "Good to meet you."

"Yeah, same," Beth replied before picking Sabs up with one hand and setting her in front of Beth herself.

"Protect me," she said to Sabs in a stage whisper, earning laughter from all three of the others.

"It's fine, Beth," Sabs said, patting Beth's hand on her shoulder.

"They just wanted to officially meet you."

"Officially?" Beth asked, shifting side-to-side.

"Beth. Relax," Sabs said, firmly gripping both Beth's hands and squeezing.

"We were just interested in meeting our daughter's current love interest," Sabs' mother said quickly.

"And who she's been spending so much time with," her father continued on.

"Uh, yeah, that's me," Beth replied a little lamely, pointing at herself.

"Beth; you're a dork," Sabs sighed, her blush quite visible as her girlfriend fumbled to a truly ludicrous degree.

"I'm not a people person," Beth defended with a frown.

"It wasn't obvious," Sabs said with a roll of her eyes.

"It's okay to be nervous," Sabs' mother cut back in.

"We just wanted to get to know you a little bit. Sabrina told us that you've been spending a lot of time fighting. Why not tell us a little about that?"

"Oh, well," Beth smiled a little, straightening up some as she answered.

"I just got done with a few days in a location to the south of here, fighting kobolds. They're, like, these beasts that are humanoid but really furry, with big snouts and small eyes. They're, uh, hard to describe with words a little.

"Anyway, I was fighting them with my companion, Blood, for a few days. We entered a dungeon that's down there and didn't realize the only way out was to clear it, so we had to spend days fighting our way out. It ended with a huge fight against a giant, super strong kobold boss. Then there was the random guy that tried to kill me, but that wasn't part of the dungeon." Beth tapped her chin as her encounter with the lizardman came back to the forefront of her mind.

"Well, that's…uhm…certainly a lot," Sabs' mother answered a little obliquely.

"What was that part about someone trying to kill you?"

"Yes, daughter of mine," a very angry Rachel interjected, "what was that part about someone trying to kill you?"

"Oh, yeah, hey, look at the time," Beth mimed looking at a watch she obviously wasn't wearing.

"Can't believe we talked so long, but gotta run." Beth then attempted to dis-entangle herself from Sabs, which proved rather unsuccessful, as the smaller girl resisted her efforts. She thought about picking her girlfriend up and just absconding with her, but decided that kidnapping her own girlfriend in front of said girlfriend's parents wasn't exactly a brilliant plan.

She settled on the plan 'Use Girlfriend as a Shield Until There's an Opening,' executing said plan by peering over the top of Sabs' head and arguing back with her mother.

"Look, I got jumped by some asshole that was looking for trouble and I took care of it," Beth said with a slight frown.

"Somebody tried to kill you, Beth. This isn't something to take lightly," her mother frowned right back, hands on her hips.

"I didn't take it lightly, but the fact there's barely enough of him left to fill a plastic baggy helps a lot."

"What did you do to him, Beth?"

"I didn't do anything," Beth answered with a shake of her head.

"Okay, that's not true, I fucked him up pretty bad, but it was going south fast when Baelvyr and Jaq showed up. You remember Baelvyr, the nine feet tall guy wearing a planet's worth of armor?"

"Yes Beth, I remember your instructor in the fancy armor. It's a little hard to forget your first meeting with an ogre."

"Yeah, yeah, right. Anyway, he shoulder-checked the guy while running at, like, a hundred plus miles per hour. Baelvyr that is, the other guy was getting ready to attack me again. Well, he had been, but Jaq blew his arm off. Then Baelvyr hit him at what was probably only a jog but…well…have you ever seen that video of that baseball pitcher hitting a pigeon with a fastball? It was something like that, only a lot louder and a lot…messier…"

"Beth," said Sabs, squeezing her hands hard, "you're rambling. Slow down and take a breath."

"Right, a breath," Beth said, gripping Sabs' shoulders firmly while taking a deep breath.

"Is that why you were in such a state the day before yesterday?" Rachel continued, her frown only having grown deeper at her oldest's rambling explanation.

"Yeah, basically," Beth replied with a shrug.

"Hazards of the job."