Chapter 335: Talk for Updates

———Lynda———

<10: 14 am>

“That terrifying presence didn’t last too long.” Glery commented. We certainly only felt it for a short period of time. “If what Karra said is true, then that must’ve meant the army was wiped out.”

“I mean, that would be the only thing that makes sense. Anyone from the school can sense the battle happening and know that a slaughter is about to begin. Can’t believe it’s that fast though.” I replied. It doesn’t take a genius to know that this place is very important in many aspects. There is no way the amount of soldiers they sent here will be small. For the entire army to be wiped out in what felt like less than twenty minutes is nothing short of monstrous feats. They must not only be so strong as to shrug off the military-grade firearms and more, but have enough energy in reserves to maintain that level of strength while tearing through them so quickly. The list of people I know for a fact has that kind of strength is very short.

“It seems to be one person, but I think we’ll know for certain who it was sooner instead of later.” She pointed out. “I know that nothing will come out of the invasion, and yet how it ended was farcical. Not even so much as a single scratch on a wall.”

“It’s nice that nothing actually happens though. I doubt other places went unscathed like that.” I pointed out. We’re very lucky to live in a place so heavily protected like this one.

“I wouldn’t say that. I looked it up and it seems like the soldiers being deployed elsewhere have begun retreating.” Wait what? Really now?

“Where did you learn that?” I asked, since scrolling for a while didn’t get me any results.

“I was searching for reports on areas that Karra had talked about and been keeping tabs on them since yesterday. It seems that the soldiers were laying siege and had begun retreating not too long ago.” She explained. “It looks like nothing will actually happen.”

“Seriously? Not even try to attack one of the more wild areas?” Weren’t there some talk about certain places getting way too comfortable with making their own dynasty or whatever nonsense that was about?

“Something is preventing them from invading, it sounds like. There are videos of them fidgeting around before suddenly turning around and leaving.” She said before sending me the link. Let me look at this real quick before we discuss further.

…Yep, exactly as she said. They just left without even doing anything. “Odd, were they waiting for instructions?”

“There are talk of lines in the sky, which is usually a sign of a spell being maintained, so maybe it got something to do with that.” She speculated.

“Weird, you’re talking about barrier spells? Are we thinking that those are deployed everywhere all of a sudden?” This is getting more weird and conspiratorial.

“There aren't many other options to speak of. It seems like the phenomenon happened across multiple towns and cities.” She elaborated. “Seems like way too much for us to unpack. Let’s just say the military was unsuccessful and move on.”

“Let me check something real quick.” I said before standing up and walking out to get a clear look at the sky. Checking what I was suspecting before returning. “Yep, the barrier here does have lines.”

“Do you really need to check?” She asked.

“Just don’t want to assume things, you know? At least not something that can easily be checked like that.” I explained myself. It’s not like other topics where we literally can’t do anything but speculate and have very little to go off on. “...Oh right, what is even gonna happen afterward? Shouldn’t people be confused as to everything that is happening? The sight of armies retreating must’ve been concerning, right?”

“No idea about that. The voices online can only be so reliable, and videos that can be considered authentic are on the shorter ends.” Those damn things are such a plague…

“So we just… drop the topic for now then?” If there’s nothing to go off on that we can be confident with then we should move on to something else.

“I think we can ignore it for now. Wait for an interesting consequence to arrive. Maybe we can chat with others about it.” And by that she meant having me relaying her thoughts for her since she still usually clams up during a group conversation. “Hmm… Besides that, there's something odd.”

“Huh? What?” Is the act of wiping out an entire army not crazy enough already?

“The areas with the monsters. There have been reports of its influence spreading.” …Are we for real? That sounds way too important to ignore, right?

“Is it from one of those groups again?” I asked.

“No. It’s been covered by a few reliable sources, but the commotions surrounding the armies naturally drowns out the topic.” She elaborated. So what does that mean? I thought it would’ve been perfectly contained, just as… Who was it that did that? The same person who caused the Eclipse? We still don’t know if it was a one-man show or not. We still know absolutely nothing about it aside from unverifiable rumors.

“That seems… quite dangerous, right? That means more areas with a high density of monsters that we can’t wander into… They can’t wander into, I mean.” We have reached a point where those areas don't pose any threat to us, but for regular folks ain’t this a bit too much to deal with? Even the weakest of monsters can be quite a nuisance. “And here I thought things were dying down. Weren’t creatures from the depth going back to slumber? Or was that an entirely different thing.”

“I doubt those two things are correlated.” She suggested. “Regardless, there are things to like about the development, at least. It seems like whenever such an ‘update’ to the world happens, the environment gets a little bit better. Crops are blooming faster and soil more fertile than ever.”

“...They never touch on that, do they?” Isn’t that why food supply still remains somewhat steady despite all the chaos, not to mention all the stuff stockpiled for the year. Despite all the fear these events caused, all the upside was never brought up all that much.

“There’s not much for normal people to care about, maybe the environmentalists, but those seem to be in short supply ever since… a long time, really.” She replied. People caring about the planet are either lunatics or ignored, at least that’s how it felt.

“Well, regardless of the development, our schedule hasn’t really changed. Unless an incident that even those overpowered bastards can’t handle came at our door, and at that point we might just die just for being in the vicinity.” That sounds absurd, but the chance for such a thing is never zero, unfortunately.

“Please don’t speak such things into existence.” She said while sounding quite annoyed.

“Hey, I don’t think I have control of something like that happening.” I replied while shrugging my shoulders. A lot of things feel even less in control now despite the existence of magic making it feels like we could do anything. Weird how that works. It simply creates a bigger gap between everyone.

Obviously we are trying to not be on the bottom rung of that system, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are still places we can never reach.

“...Okay, let’s go get something to eat. I’m starving, are you?” I asked after a while. We are already running out of things to yap about.

“I do feel a bit peckish.” She answered.

“Then let’s go out and hang out… side.” I said before standing back up and preparing to leave. If there’s no need to stay indoors then we might as we go get a lot of fresh air.

———Lerim———

<11: 59 am>

“H-Help!” Someone screamed out as I searched around the area. Well then, time to see what this habitat business is all about.

*Leap* *Slash*

I jumped in and bisected the monster chasing this man with ease. The creatures here stopped posing a threat to me a long time ago. They are more like tiny annoying insects at this point.

“Hey, get up and explain yourself.” I said, noticing the man lying on the ground without a shred of dignity.

“Ah! Uh…” He finally realized that the danger had passed and quickly stood up and swept the dust off his body. “Umm… Who are you?”

“An adventurer from not too far from here. I heard there was some development around here, so I came to check.” I explained, seeing no reason to hide anything. This is the one closest to our town so I should come to see if it is indeed spreading.

“I see… Is it about this place creeping out?” Seems he knows about that as well. Not surprising, he is probably someone from around here.

“Yeah. I want to verify it before making any moves. Not that I can.” It would’ve taken too much effort for basically no benefits. I would need to upend the entire area which is not only impractical but the collateral damage would be too high. “So? I assume it’s true then? I remember that there should be a clear border between the normal and enriched areas.”

“Y-Yes! I came here to double-check what was observed a few days ago… I didn’t think it’d gotten to the point where even taking a few steps inside would’ve caused such aggression.” He explained. “In hindsight, it probably started expanding since it first appeared, but it seems that the rate at which it is expanding has increased over the course of a few weeks.”

“Interesting.” I said, not actually caring that much about specifics. “Do you have any ways of preventing its growth?”

“Unfortunately, no. We do not.” He said, clearly disheartened.

“That’s a shame. I suppose there is nothing to do aside from letting it grow.” It would no doubt cause some unrest amongst the locals, but it’s nothing worth panicking over.

“I-Is that really the best course of action?” He said, distressed at how dismissive I am. He probably thought I had a plan despite saying that I don’t earlier.

“Normally monsters don’t spawn in towns and cities. I believe the growth of these mystical lands might be under a similar limitation. I ultimately don’t know if it does or not, but I feel that jumping to conclusions and trying to do something drastic would simply be a case of causing the problem you were worried would happen.” It’s a bit of a leap in logic since the way monsters operate is based on logic that seems to exist for the longest time like it has any practical reasoning behind it, while whatever cause these areas to be so enriched with mana to create a somewhat-alien if prosperous lands filled with danger is probably from a person creating these areas for… reasons unknown. The exotic materials and monsters are plentiful and grow back quickly, it’s the type of area that should be fought for, but everyone is way too afraid of them to do so… I did come here to take some woods and rocks to see if they’re special, but I’m not an expert on those so I literally have no clue. I don’t have a… wood expert on my friend list.

“...Are you an expert on something like this?” He said, clearly skeptical. I might be beautiful, but it doesn’t correlate with looking smart or reliable for many people, unfortunately. If that were the case there would’ve been way less talk about me being some dumb brute.

“Not really. I have been dealing with enough supernatural nonsense to know how things usually operate. It’s an unspoken rule kind of thing.” If such a thing weren’t in place then I’m pretty sure most areas would’ve been decimated by now. “By the way, why are you even out here? I thought most people were huddled indoors at this time.”

“Huh? Um… I was just doing the usual survey of the area. It seems like there wasn't anyone blocking the area so I just came here.” He sheepishly replied, probably thinking that I found him suspicious. I guess the soldiers quickly retreating caused him to have the courage to come over.

“Well, I suppose that is true…” You’d think with that bravado he wouldn’t be caught off-guard by a monster like that, but bolder people exist, so maybe it’s not that surprising.

I still think everyone has slowed down due to the event at hand, so not much else is going to happen to take note of, this is probably one of the rare exceptions.