Chapter 331: Calm Before

———Jeff———

<10: 14 am>

“The air here is quite nice.” Emmie said unprompted while this little guy was munching on the fruits. She has been doing this for a while now, taking it on a ‘walk’ and letting it eat stuff from the trees. I suppose it’s not toxic or has any side effects on this monster, so it might as well get to eat as much as it wants. We have other options.

It looks a bit bigger than the first time we stumble across it. No idea what we’re supposed to do with this class pet of ours once it has grown, but the school will probably do something about it, no need for planning on our part.

“So… What’s the plan for tomorrow? It’s estimated to arrive tomorrow, right?” I said while leaning on the back of the bench.

“Indeed. There isn’t much to be done, really.” She replied, sounding out of it while staring at the class pet munching on fruits. “You all can stand back and watch. There’s no need for anything else.”

“Really?” I said, feeling a bit disappointed at the idea. I mean, at least getting to look cool in front of a bunch of soldiers is not something you get to do every day. Just knocking them around for a bit is good enough for me, no need to do anything drastic.

“Naturally. All you have to do is relax and watch the show. No need to expose yourself.” She answered. I have no idea how she is even confident about that. She has always been weird, so it’s not exactly a new thing, but it’s the fact that we can never quite figure out why she seems to always be in the loop that makes her so weird.

“...So do you know what is going to happen, exactly?” I asked just to be clear that she knows what she’s talking about.

“Of course.” She said without elaborating. Is she planning something, doesn’t know, or something else? It certainly feels like it’s impossible to read her tone and expression most of the time. “...I believe you have read the group chat by now. Tomorrow everyone will meet up at Useph’s place.”

“Yeah? What was that about anyway?” Are they gonna shelter us or something? Or were they just throwing a party?

“Not my problem, but they do provide hospitality like a good host that they are, so none of you have a reason to refuse.” She doesn’t give an actual answer, simply stating a fact that all of us already know at this point. “...I think you can do me a favor. Bring this thing to the house tomorrow so it can be less lonely. I can go contact the teachers about it.”

“Huh? Oh, sure.” I accepted without thinking much about it. She’ll probably chuck it at me tomorrow before she goes to… do whatever she is planning to do.

“Good. Here, you might want this.” She said before throwing a card at me. I managed to catch it before it hit me right in the face.

“What’s this?” I asked, since it doesn’t have any text on it.

“A simple spell card. I inscribed my barrier spell into it. You’re the reckless type, but surely you can get at least one use out of a defensive spell.” She explained. Well that’s nice of her. I didn’t even get to act on her behalf yet.

“Oh, cool.” I remarked before seeing that the little monster had already eaten all the fruits Emmie gave it. “How can it even stomach all of that?”

“The fruits dissolved quickly, and you could say they are like cotton candy in terms of mass, but instead of air it’s filled with mana.” She explained. I guess it is a magic item, it can work differently than something that is… not magic.

“...Have you ever eaten those? Heard they can cause problems.” I asked just to keep the conversation going. It’s rare that she is willing to talk like this.

“They don’t taste like much aside from a hint of a fruity flavor.” She replied… So did she have a stomachache or anything?

“Were you completely fine?” She is not being specific with her answers unless we press for details, and it’s rare that she follows that up with anything actually related.

“Yes. I can’t speak for any of you, our constitutions are different enough for different reactions to be had.” …Well that was more informative than I was expecting.

“I see.” I said while standing back up and looking around, seeing that some of the plants do have fruits grown on them still. “Any reason you’re not making it eat those?”

“Not fully ripe yet.” She explained. “And the people here said to not let all of it be eaten. Left some of them for aesthetic purposes.”

“Why not even use fake trees at that point.” I can’t help but to point that out. They bring out exotic trees from a place closest to what Hell would’ve been like just for decoration and light snack?

“Because they can. Nothing more to it.” She answered, not sounding passionate despite being willing to talk for this long already. “For them it is like picking a potted plant from one house to another. The scale at which they can operate is something you should get used to soon. Lest we forget, the duration for this school to replace the old one is only a single night. That is the more blatant case of their power being shown off. The likes of the flying ships and teleporters pale in comparison.”

“What level is… okay.” I was about to ask her to elaborate, but she quickly left with the creature. Seems like I was pushing my luck a bit too much.

Alright, guess I’ll go… What is everyone doing right now anyway? Let me check if anyone else plans a hang out.

———Lerim———

<11: 19 am>

“What are those things?” Evari asked as the drones fly above our heads, having a design that is foreign to almost everyone.

“Defensive measures. We need those if we don’t want to be disturbed.” I vaguely explained.

“Right… How are businesses even running right now with an army marching right towards our doorstep?” Evari asked, noticing that the shops are open.

“Probably not realizing that they were being targeted. Obviously this is a ‘covert’ operation so nothing has been announced even now.” I explained. Does that do a disservice to not just the shopkeepers but also the large corporations that supply a lot of these goods? Yes, but they don’t seem to care right now.

“...So why are we even being targeted? We haven’t staged any uprising or anything, right?” She pointed out. The public consensus made it clear that they are targeting certain areas that are under such a label.

“...It’s just that the boss and I have been interfering for a bit too long, let’s just say that.” The matter of stuff like the secret government laboratories and other scandals that we know about need to be silenced, the distrust in them have only been increasing ever since those details began to come to life.

“For real? Do they really need to send out an actual army after you?” She said, probably not completely believing me on the matter. I suppose that might not be completely accurate, but that’s the only reason I can think of as to why they even came here.

“I am pretty strong. They can’t apprehend me with just a few guys with guns.” That’s all they really have at their disposal anyway, at least ones that wouldn’t cause questions to be asked.

“...So what are those drones gonna do?” She asked.

“Not much as of this moment. The device that erects a barrier to prevent entry will do most of the heavy lifting.” I explained while looking up at the sky, the few lines of light acts as a subtle display of the powerful barrier that envelops this place, barely allowing you to see the dome that has made this area secure.

“...Now what? Are we going to be under siege?” She said, still concerned about the trouble coming our way, even if they can’t actually reach us. “If they start cutting our electricity and internet I think I might go nuts.”

“Don’t worry, they can’t get that far.” I confidently said, there is already a system in place to prevent them from disrupting those. While it is all temporary to prevent anyone getting any weird ideas, it should persist for long enough where a siege is not an issue. “If it feels like they are blocking the way, I guess I can go confront them soon, but I don’t think we need to actually step in.”

“Why not? Won’t they keep pestering us until you two go out there?” She asked, lacking a bit of context that most people also lack. Thankfully I have someone who knows a little more about the plan, just enough to make a reasonable conjecture to let me slack off for now.

“If they can even afford to lay siege for long. Heck, they can’t even do so much as waiting outside doing nothing.” This is one of the smaller army being sent out, and as long as Idea and Karra’s town fend theirs off quickly then the morale will tank, and at that point they’ll probably scatter. If not, then that’s when I actually step in.

“...By the way, isn’t the guild funded by the government, why is the building still open? Shouldn’t it be the one place that’s informed about all of this?” Evari pointed out, since that is also still open. “And it doesn’t seem like anyone else quite realized that the guys with guns are coming our way.”

“Going through the motion, and some other safeguard in place so everything continues to run, no need to worry about that.” It’s not really worth explaining, especially since I don’t actually know how everything is running in the background. “...So what are you doing today anyway?”

“I don’t know. I thought we were gonna fight for our lives or something.” She said, almost sounding disappointed. While such a dire situation shouldn’t be anticipated I can understand wanting to be a part of something that sounds very unique and exciting, even if the result would probably be worse off for everyone involved. At least she’s not actually bummed out about it, otherwise I might need to find her some help.

“There’s no need for that. Let’s just go… I don’t know, at least not stand around, let’s get indoors.” I said before leading her to the closest building.

———Wiina———

<12: 04 pm>

“Can’t believe items that valuable are only for students! That’s absurd!” Someone said within my earshot. Looks like the news about that has finally gotten out. “You’d think they’ll sell those to responsible adults like us first, right?”

“I don’t know if risking our lives for only a few bucks each time is considered ‘responsible’.” The man he is talking to remarked. “But it is weird that we can’t buy those since we’re not in school.”

“What does that matter, why can’t we just buy it off them?” Someone else at the table suggested.

“As if they’ll sell something that valuable, besides, the item combo isn’t actually that useful for us specifically.” The second guy pointed out. “As long as we reach a checkpoint we can simply leave, and a skip isn’t worth much when we have to kill monsters to harvest the rewards and materials anyway.”

Many points to be made about the school selling those items. They have a pretty niche, but valuable enough to incentivise people to buy them.

While it might cause a minor moral panic, considering what has been happening the past few days, this topic is much more quaint in comparison. They don’t need to worry about the talk of troops being deployed to certain areas in the country. Those things will solve themselves in a very short amount of time.

Tomorrow is where the fun begins… for someone willing to step up to the plate. In reality, it’s going to be so miserable for so many people that it’s hard to say anything about it lightly, but that is something for us to act upon in the future and not right now.

In a page or two, and chaos will erupt, and what comes after… I suppose it is still not really our problem, but it will be significant nonetheless.