Chapter 892 - I can explain

“Nathaniel,” Lily says very carefully.

As she does so, my eyes move from the girl to our petite, black-haired healer, but I say nothing.

“I can explain,” she says.

“Go on,” I challenge her.

Lily looks at the girl and then at me before smiling, “It’s our-”

Before she can complete the sentence, I turn around, open the door, and close it quickly behind me. All of this is aided by a movement boosted by Lissandra brand body reinforcement.

Wraith Dance brings me through the hallway, and then I open another door to find myself in a room filled with the sound of industrial work, where adult kindred and a few elders are currently at work installing replacement parts for the train.

For now, I ignore them, passing through with another Wraith Dance and entering a new hallway. This one is lined with mirrors on one side, while the other has been left open to the outside without so much as a guard rail.

The flooring of this section is a mosaic of bright yellow, brown, and white wood, resolving into a pleasant pattern. Of course, even here, large sections have been painted over by the kindred children. It’s rarely used, though, as children aren't allowed into workshops and the adults use different hallways, so I take a seat and rest my back against one of the mirrors while looking outward.

What Lily did shouldn’t have been possible. I checked the arm, Sophie checked the arm, and Lily confirmed it just two weeks ago.

All objective logic says that it shouldn’t have been possible. The Corporation wouldn't have wanted anyone to have their own clone of Kindness, no matter how much weaker it is compared to the real thing. A corporation as big and powerful as theirs should have the best of the best to ensure that it remains impossible.

Sure, the fact that we’re inside the tutorial, cut off from the outside world, might cut off any possible connection, not to mention their long-range manually triggered self destruct signal. Yet, you would think things like these are straight up built in.

Just what is that black haired lunatic doing?

That is when I decide I need some time with my emotional support minion and use the second of my five communication tokens, having used the first a week or so ago.

“Use minion communication token,” I say out loud.

And nothing happens. Again.

With disappointment, I say it differently. “Okay then, use ten minute Disciple Communication token.”

Only then does the token disappear from my status.

This time, I only have to wait a minute or so before Vega accepts the invitation, and I find myself in the shared mental space.

With my experience, I quickly change the surrounding area, turning it into the city I grew up in. Or rather, I turn it into one of the nicer parks near my place. Well… the only nice park nearby, though it was never recommended for anyone to visit after dusk.

My very first minion appears on the bench next to me, and the first thing she does is look around with big eyes and scan the area for danger. Only then does she turn to me and give me a big, big smile. Her tiny pointy horns stab the bottom of my chin as she throws herself into a hug, and I put my arm around her.

It is very unfortunate to say, but she also suffers from an incurable condition. Hers causes her body to physically expand and grow in size, meaning she is just that little bit larger than the last time I saw her. We can only hope that one day we might find a cure for that, as well as for my mana deficiency.

Just like she was a week ago, she’s wearing black pants with a white shirt and no armor at all. There’s a dagger at her waist, and her hair now reaches her shoulders and has been tied into a ponytail so it doesn't block her view in a fight. She’s even wearing a ring, bracelet, and a necklace. All are items, and from the looks of it, quite decent ones, though we don't talk about where she got them from.

For a while longer, she listens to my heartbeats and continues to smile relaxedly before tapping on my chest and pulling back. Right after, she jumps off the bench.

I stand as well, and we start walking through the park towards the city.

“So, what’s happened since last time?” I ask her curiously.

“I went to check out that church just as you told me, and you were right, it was the priests poisoning the well, causing people in the village to get sick, and making money by healing them!”

“Classic.”

“Classic? Must be a regional insult, master! We also looked into their healing just as you said and found they couldn't heal at all. They were using some kind of potion to heal people instead!”

“They aren't even trying to be original.”

“I don't understand, but for sure, master! They destroyed all the potions and threatened to let people die if we didn't let them go.”

“How evil.”

“So I threw them all into the poisoned well after beating them up and forced them to drink a ton of the water. That rude dagger said it never saw people making a potion as quickly as them. One of them was pretty smart too, he made a different potion and tried to throw it at us, but Tykka killed him. She actually seemed to expect it. I didn’t think even they would be so cowardly!”

“Minion, you should always expect people to be cowardly and shrewd. Do you know why?”

“Because we are cowardly and shrewd too when we need to be! Especially if it's to piss off someone important or beat up some strange asshole!”

“Very good. The treasury?”

“As you said, master! We used Mini to find the hiding places where they put all the payments they’d received from the villagers and the things they stole or owned before. There was also a second, smaller secret vault Mini tried to hide from us and keep for herself, but I noticed her nervousness through my amazing kinetic senses and got it all, though I let her keep that pretty coin she thought I didn’t see her pocketing.”

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“Great job,” I say as we come to a stop on the sidewalk.

The city is entirely empty, there’s not a single other being besides us, and it’s eerily quiet. The sky looks like it is about to rain, and the wind is picking up. The city’s lights still work, glowing inside the rooms of buildings, and the same goes for the traffic lights and crosswalks too.

Though there are no cars here, I wait, and Vega waits with me, curiously taking it all in, just like she did the first time. She’s also learned when to cross the crosswalk, so when the green light blinks, she begins to walk across quickly, just as I told her, and I follow behind her, though at a lazier pace.

When I rejoin her on the other side, we continue past the closed shops and empty streets.

“How about Alby Phen-Toast Corinto-Vassal en the Bald Asteroids?” I ask.

“The emergency food still continues to follow us and sometimes joins our camp late at night. Master, he actually seems to be pretty smart. He always runs away when we set up to cook something for dinner.”

“He is a noble lady's pet after all.”

“The gray lizards I used to hunt for food were more noble than him.”

“That's the spirit.”

“But he lets me pet him in exchange for some leftover food, and I think that sometimes he kills the stronger monsters near our camp. Once, he brought this one monster corpse to our camp, and I think he wanted us to cook it for him, but it tasted too good, and we ate it all. He barked all night after that.”

“Minion… maybe leave him a piece or two the next time.”

“Are you sure?”

“It won't hurt.”

“I’ll do it then! And what about you, master?” Vega asks excitedly, turning to look at me as she spins and dances in the middle of the road with a huge smile.

I join her there, and we continue this way, in between the empty skyscrapers and the buildings, blinking lights, with no cars or humans to be seen. Part of me takes in this weird feeling. I thought it would feel somewhat normal and expected. Yet walking through the middle of the empty road is surprisingly strange, almost alien. It looks and feels so much different, like I’m looking at the city in an entirely new light.

It makes for a surprisingly interesting feeling that takes a moment to sink in.

“Me,” I mutter, “not much has changed from last time. [Selective Adaptation] is turning out to be a really nice skill the more I test it, and I think I’ve decided on another low pristine to combine with Cognitive Vector. Hmm, what else? I think I finally fully recovered from the thought acceleration training, and working with Sophie and Maya, we will set up some of our own. We can use my mind as a core that will be more accelerated than the others, and I’ll be able to kick them out according to how they handle it.”

“Master, you’re doing it wrong.”

“Am I?”

“You just need to make your heart stronger and-” She spreads her hands wide. “Kaboom!”

As she says this, a pulse of kinetic energy explodes from her, shattering all the windows in the area. I watch as they ripple, buckle, and then break into pieces that begin to rain down.

Vega expands her reach further, causing the falling pieces to slow down, and yet they still continue to fall.

Seeing her happy smile, I snicker too, so I grab her and boost both of us just high enough into the air to land on the tallest building nearby. From there, I can see the rest of the city, the taller buildings, smaller patches of greenery, the old dirty river, and such.

“We don't have buildings and cities like these,” Vega mutters, watching it all with that childlike curiosity of hers.

Yes, she is a child. I mean, she will stay a child forever. Everyone knows minions do not grow up, they stay as they are, forever dependent on their masters. Yup. Exactly as the system intended. No, actually, it is an ancient rule from before the system. Something the godkings themselves knitted into reality itself.

I allow thermal energy to gather in front of me just for a second before I shoot it out in a single, laser condensed stream.

It sweeps and cleanly cuts through multiple skyscrapers half a mile away in clean sections of superheated metal, glass, and concrete. I gather a bit more mana and do a 360, cutting through the city several times over, cutting through dozens of buildings, causing them to start sliding and falling down in clouds of dust with the twin sounds of shattering glass and groaning metal.

The dust annoys me, so I generate and send a pulse of kinetic energy through the city. Not enough to break anything, but it does push away all the dust and dirt, clearing our view of the destruction.

“More!” my minion shouts excitedly.

So I oblige.

The finger-thin stream of thermal energy widens, growing to the width of my body, and then further until it’s about as wide as a car. In an effort to increase the destruction, I up the output. Where I’d previously gathered enough behind the valve to cut like a laser, now, because of the thickness of the flame, it begins to pool, more like water behind a dam, and the flames shoot out with the excess speed and pressure forcing it forward.

The flames scream like a jet engine, reaching a mile long and sweeping through the city as I draw lines through the foundations.

I watch as glass and metal drip onto the streets, roads evaporate, and pools of lava form. Flames ignite across entire streets when I pull the flames back, and the roaring of the jet engine stops.

Hot air waves ripple over the city from all the heat when the mana I’ve been gathering breaks free. Not in a raw mana blast of Fuck Everything In That Direction Specifically, but through the mental image I form in my head.

This time, it isn't just falling sheets of paper sliding against each other. Instead, it is just one sheet of paper that sways and slowly falls until it lands with the entirety of its flat side at once.

Like a giant hammer smashing down, an entire city block disappears into a rectangle. Everything around and outside of that rectangle remains standing, but everything inside is deeply pressed into the ground, creating an almost perfectly smooth zone of devastation.

More of my mana floods out, and that sheet of paper quadruples in size and falls down once more.

Multiple other blocks disappear, and with them a few skyscrapers entirely, and then more. I channel my mana faster, firing the same attack over and over, in quick succession without any trouble at all, gathering required mana quickly enough.

It’s probably about as efficient as the government, but I was never one to care for efficiency, and it is only my reserves that slow me down rather than my ability to channel.

This is my mental space, so I could push more and restore my mana faster, but I like to keep it all as close to reality as possible, so I allow myself to stop. Outside, I could pull on ambient mana, use black mana to gather more if needed, or rely on my Ignition Heart.

Even so, this causes my minion to jump in excitement like some sort of evil imp, surrounded by the light of the burning sections of the city and the destruction all around us.

For the remaining few minutes, I show her a few tricks so she can do the exact same thing I did, and at the exact same scale, to the next group of those annoying flesh eating horses she and her group meet.

I, as her master, of course, cannot support something like that. So I scold her a few times until she understands.

“In a few years, I’ll be able to do twice as much damage as master did just now! I apologise for having such lowly goals unfit for me as your disciple!” she corrects herself.

“Well said,” I nod, messing up her hair and poking her horns despite her attempts to kick me. “It’d be a sad day if my disciple didn't dream of wiping the floor with me.”