Chapter 71: I Did Not Start The Trouble
Days before the auction starts — 3.
Four days had passed since I started looking for a way to the first segment.
“Get back here, you pest!”
And it was very safe and infuriating to say, I still had found no way up.
“Catch them!”
So in the end, the last four days have been pretty much nothing but walking in circles.
“How come none of you losers haven't hit her yet?!!”
“Shut up! You haven't managed to do shit yourself!”
“‘Cause I’m coordinating the whole attack!”
"Well, if that’s the case, then it is your fault we haven’t hit!”
“No, it’s not you damn bastard!”
However, my peaceful, lovely, non-hostile, prance around the city was rudely interrupted by some absolutely dickheads.
Sigh… why did this have to happen?
(" The only one you have to blame yourself ”)
No, I bloody don’t. This is not my fault.
When it was four days before the auction started, I was just having a casual stroll around the city for the umpteenth hundredth time. When I just happened to walk through an area of the segment that just so happened to belong to a local hunting guild.
The first thing they did when I happened to walk by, was try and demand money from me. Of course, I had no money to give, but they didn’t care about that, they wanted money. Honestly, they were more of a gang than a hunter-guild. I was surprised they hadn’t been squashed by the hammer of the law by this point because they weren’t that strong.
Maybe I should just knock them all at once… because it is getting really hard to not just kill them.
(" Do it ”)
You are just having fun watching the chaos explode around me.
(" That I am. I’m glad you noticed ”)
After they initially demanded money from me, I just knocked one of them out and ran away, aiming to leave the apparent super obvious ‘zone’ they had. However, once I kicked the first guy in the face, every person in the guild became alert and popped out of every bloody window and door available.
This started thirty seconds ago.
(" I can’t believe you managed to fuck up sneaking to this extent ”)
Fuck you too; I didn’t do shit besides kick one dude in the face. That is barely an inconvenience for someone who was trying to rob for no reason; there is no such thing as a damn toll in this area anyway.
(" It was still your kick ”)
If I find out you somehow did this, I swear to the stars I’ll blow up your mountains.
(" I wish I could take credit for this ”)
If there was only one person who was attacking me, then I would just knock them out, but there were literally a hundred people trying to shoot me. Everything just happened way too bloody fast.
Blots of mana from the mages and blasts from the guns shot out in every direction.
There was one bald dude wearing an overly large vest giving the orders,
But it was the flying of waiting to just squash an ant trying to bite you. You could try and pick it up and move it off your leg, but smashing into muck was so much easier and more rewarding.
Sadly, I was insane enough to be doing that today.
Epsr, I’ve looked around, but I can't see any recording equipment nearby. Can you?
("Because you are just asking for a confirmation, I will give it to you, you are right, there is none nearby, they have all been successfully removed long ago ”)
Okay then. Well, let’s do it this way.
I used [Star Mapping] to locate every annoying bastard in the vicinity.
“Time to say good night.”
“ARGH!”
I sent a blast of soul pressure to knock them all out. Most fell over without much issue, but a few of the ‘higher level’ ones had a good scream before then smacking headfirst into the ground.
“I should’ve done that twenty seconds earlier.” The situation could've been resolved if I acted sooner, but I was just trying to check for security equipment while dodging attacks. Realistically, it might’ve been better to just tank the attacks with a shield; well, my armour would be able to handle most of them, I believed, but I didn’t exactly want to test that. Because that would not only destroy my clothes, but I wasn’t exactly 100% sure how durable my armour was after the self-repair.
(" I’m glad you didn’t ”)
Thanks.
Espr was still enjoying the series of events, so that was good for them. I wasn’t too mad cause they had actually been helpful of late. Even though I still didn’t fully trust them to not do something shady.
I jumped a few more times and landed in another quiet spot on a platform near a service tunnel with a nice view of part of the city.
“Ha… argh…” I verbally groaned as I sat down as a pain spike erupted. I had been feeling the pain surge for the last few minutes, which had been making me more irritated.
“Fuck this stupid soul pain.” The pain in my soul still wasn’t gone. It still hadn’t fucking gone away. I could deal with pain, I had dealt with pain, but soul pain was searing, tearing, grinding pain that was constantly around. It had technically died down a bit, but it honestly just changed from a constant level of medium pain to a normal level of small pain, where infrequently it reached high to extreme levels of pain.
I stayed in the spot, watching the city and stars as I waited for the pain to die down.
Then, after a while, someone exited the service tunnel and, with a shocked voice, said, “Lux?” And a familiar woman had decided to show up.
How did I land in the one spot where I met someone who knew me?
(" You have been around the city one hundred and six times; if there was someone you knew of this segment, it was going to happen eventually ”)
“Oh, Sara? What are you doing here?” I didn’t bother standing up.
“Umm… just walking around? I used to live around here for a period of time, so I just wanted to get a view of the area before leaving.”
“Fair enough, but I’m surprised you noticed it was me. I’m wearing different clothes and a mask; from your perspective, though, you wouldn’t even have seen those when you exited the hatch.”
“I’ve been around you for too long; it was your silhouette and your absolutely terrifying presence.” Sara paused for a moment, wondering if what she said was correct to say aloud.
"Well, I can’t say I expected that, but thanks, I guess. Where is George?”
“At the docks, we are planning to fuck off this station by tomorrow.”
“I am surprised you were able to make it up to the second segment so easily.”
Sara shrugged, “We have our ways, though it was mostly thanks to the fact I’ve lived here. Honestly, I could ask that question to you.”
“Well, if you want an answer, you will have to force it out of me.”
“Anddddd! I value my life, so no.”
I asked after she was done overreacting, “So, are you ready to move on from the pirating life now? You seem much calmer.”
“That just might be the overly strong headache pills I took, 'cause, oh boy, I am dealing with a mad one right now.” Sara sat and stared at the city herself. “But yes, we are going to make a couple of stops first but we are heading to Earth.”
“Good choice.”
We didn’t say much more. I watched Sara fidget a few times with her head tilting towards me as if she wanted to ask more questions, but she held herself back each time.
Finally, after a while, she simply left, saying a simple thanks and goodbye.
(" I was expecting you to ask them about trying to sneak you to the first segment ”)
I thought about it, but I got other plans.
(" Oh, really? ”)
Yep, I kept thinking about it, and I don’t actually need to reach the first segment.
(" Pardon ”)
I will be able to watch the auction from here, and in the worst case, I can simply fly up if anything bad happens.
(" I’m just going to say. I don’t think that is a good idea and doesn’t that mean your multiple days of searching were for nothing? ”)
Yeah… don’t remind me.
(" Nevermind, it’s a great idea, your genius is once again doing wonders ”)
Bloody hell Espr.
The rest of the day wasn’t going to get any easier.
tftc
But it was the flying of waiting to just squash an ant trying to bite you. You could try and pick it up and move it off your leg, but smashing into muck was so much easier and more rewarding.
Sadly, I was insane enough to be doing that today.
Indeed.
I will be able to watch the auction from here, and in the worst case, I can simply fly up if anything bad happens.