571. The Deal
Frost moved into the flas, walking past the corpses of the Anids as went to retrieve her bullet. A giant ball made from the curling of ten spider-like fingers was half-buried into the soul. The pallid eye that once resided within popped like a balloon, its mbrane coiling in response to the heat.
The Pentanids were not spared either.
They crumbled away the mont the Decanid perished. They were the first to reduce to ashes, revealing red blood within before the flas burned away the blue strings that originated from an unknown origin.
“Level 80 in only one hit. If I rember correctly a Decanid has around 15,000 HP. I don’t think I put that much strength into it shot. But looking at you, you probably didn’t recover from your fight with the previous Decanid. Good riddance. And here I thought leaving the old one was a mistake…”
Claw marks matching the claws of the Pentanids ran along the body of the Decanid. The previous one didn’t go down without a fight.
“Haaaah. In the end you’re slaves to instinct and hunger. What was the point being sentient if you can’t even make your own choices?”
Since there was no other reason to remain here, she made her way back to the others with a small, pleasant smile now that the Anids were exterminated for good.
But unbeknownst to her, that calm smile was like the grin of a demon to the survivors.
A pair of ominous, golden orbs erged from the fog from their point of view, followed by her immaculate form.
“Alright.” She reached down to offer a hand to the apprentice mage. “Hey! Sorry about the explosion. They got under my skin, so I just wanted to teach them a lesson. Are you ok?”
Hopefully this doesn’t scare them too much.
“You’re in full pendulum mode now Frost.”
As in?
“Are you daft? One second you’re at their throats, and the next you present yourself as a saint.”
“W-We’re…” The apprentice looked around. The world was blackened by the flas, and by so miracle, they were left unscathed. “… Fine now. Thanks to you. I can’t even move my legs… Shit. We really… should’ve died just now.”
“But you didn’t. That’s what matters the most right now.” Her words were spoken casually, but they ant everything to girl who finally found the courage to stand. “By the way, I hope you didn’t forget about our deal.”
“Directions? I can… Hold on… One mont… I’m sorry Agh… It’s… hard to breathe all of a sudden.”
Her complexion went pale as she struggled to speak. She was on guard against Frost all of a sudden, averting direct eye contact at all costs.
“Here. Sit down. Take deep breaths. You all should too.”
A panic attack imdiately swooped in from out of the blue. The girl was visibly traumatized by the ordeal to the point where Frost couldn’t leave her alone.
“I thought this was a common sight in Grandis?”
“It is… We’ve all seen worse than this. Normally you just… you just die.” She panted as Frost rubbed her back pleasantly to help calm her down. “It’s… getting better. T-Thank you again. I just thought you were going to bleed the answers out of . That’s why I’m all shaky.”
“We made a deal though?”
“High Ranking people like you don’t often get the shortest straws like we do. It’s normal for stronger people to get more than what they agreed on. S-So – Um… Information! Directions! What do you need to know!”
The girl’s crimson eyes began sparkling all of a sudden as she looked… down at the shorter Frost.
“Let’s see. I’m looking for a city called Frontier.”
“I thought you were from the Bellum Empire? Are you actually from the North?” The girl tilted her head, her long, wavy, autumn hair tumbling to one side.
“Yeah. I’m from the North.” Frost played along.
“That explains the giant stick you have up there… J-Just Frontier? So you want to go to the Capital of the Bellum Empire.”
The girl began drawing on the floor with broken plank.
“Bell… Um… Emp… Pire… To the West.” She said, drawing a make-shift map for the mont since her map was burned up during the blaze.
“Oh, wait – before that, I’m also heading to Paradise.” Frost nearly forgot to include the most important part, causing the rchants to stare at her like she was a lunatic.
“… Ah. Yes. I see. Paradise. Let just… Wait, HUH!?” The girl finally reacted, ssing up her drawing completely. “P-Please. That’s not even funny if it’s coming from our savior!”
“Did I say sothing wrong?” Frost blankly blinked, wondering if the reason why they reacted so violently was because they thought that Frost still believed Paradise existed.
Or…
Is it because there’s sothing going on there? We all know the lands belonging to the Kingdom of Puritas are pretty much sterile. Could have a Corrupted claid it as its ho?
“Why do you sound so happy about that?”
Because if we end up finding another Main Sequence Corrupted there then we’ll be saving so much ti.
“Wrong? Are you seriously considering it? That place is so lawless that it makes Grandis look like a joke! But… maybe you’ll fit in well? Don’t tell , you’re actually a murderer!?”
“Do I look like the kind of person that would kill soone on a whim?” Frost sighed as the sa rchant she threatened to off trembled. “Besides, I just asked for information not your concern. So, do you know where I need to go to find these places? I know Paradise is south. That much I know.”
“So why did you ask?” Was written on the girl’s face. “Aquagale Solitude. That’s the city we’re heading to now. We have a Patron of the Highway Branch located there, so if it’s not a bother then I can give you one of our maps as paynt for saving us. Does that count?”
What she offered was far better than oral information. If the Triplets’ maps weren’t so outdated, then she wouldn’t have needed to take this route in the first place.
“Much better than what I was expecting. Alright~”
It also didn’t help that the ban on Brandar extended to the Beholders too so there was quite literally no one in the Nexus who had access to a map of Grandis. Frost considered consulting Hellen, but she figured that she needed so more ti to be alone with Alice.
She had heard that Hellen was utterly distraught during Alice’s disappearance.
So Frost had to ask Nav a question as the others futility scavenged what was left of their belongings from the ashes.
Nav. Why did everyone’s map of Grandis disappear?
“Your guess is as good as mine. Whatever it was, Iscario may have played a part in it. It would have significantly slowed down any advances into Grandis.”
A war of information, huh. I rember a story from Earth. Well, not a story since it actually happened. A country sent their forces to invade the shores of another thinking it was all flat. Little did they know that the terrain had changed since then, and huge hill was there. You can imagine the carnage that a whole line of machine guns was able to cause…
… I’m getting off the rails, but you get what I an. Of course sending the Triplets was a good idea. They’re residents of Grandis. But that was thirty years ago too. Haaaah…
“You’re curious too. About what we may find here.”
Yep. And we’re already off to a good start.
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