Reincarnated Hero System - Chapter 1217 - 1217: A Meeting in the Park II

‘Just what in the world could he possibly be thinking?’ Rosaline asked herself.

As that thought passed through her mind, Ferrid, once again showing the patience he’d developed through long experience with Rosaline, chose to completely disregard everything she had said and instead demanded what he had come for, clearly intending to leave as quickly as possible to avoid being further irritated by the woman.

“Did you repair the item I told you to repair? Where is it?”

At those words, Rosaline’s hand, which had been gently rubbing the fur of the wolf resting on her lap, stopped moving, prompting the wolf to open his eyes and look up at her.

Then, as if he understood why she’d paused, he turned his gaze toward Ferrid, his mouth parting slightly as a childish voice echoed in their ears.

[Rosaline, should I kill him?]

The Wolf of the END understood in that moment that Ferrid was the source of Rosaline’s foul mood, and it wanted to remove that source entirely.

Ferrid, however, ignored the wolf’s question, and Rosaline, sighing softly, simply patted his head and said, “Don’t worry about him, Ulf. Go back to sleep.”

The wolf continued to stare at Ferrid, not merely at the Demonic Hand member through whom he was currently speaking, but directly at the real Ferrid through his eyes, before finally turning his head away and returning to his slumber.

“So, where is it?” Ferrid demanded once more.

Rosaline wouldn’t have answered that question if she could’ve avoided it, but she had no choice, since the Command Mark Ferrid had used to give her that order was still active.

“I kept it in your little lab on Calnola,” she finally said.

The ‘Calnola Islands’ were a small but mighty nation, listed among the World Powers of the planet, and they were where Ferrid conducted the majority of his experiments aimed at creating Fake Heroes to occupy the planet’s available Hero slots before the real Heroes could awaken and claim them.

Those experiments were currently suspended due to the immense losses his Fake Heroes had suffered when he deployed them years ago to attack the Heroes he had already identified. However, he hadn’t abandoned them entirely, and he intended to resume them eventually, which was why the laboratory was still fully functional.

“Is that so? Good.”

Once Ferrid said this, he rose from his seat, and immediately, Rosaline asked, “What do you intend to use that thing for?”

The item in question was something that Rosaline considered dangerous enough to pose a threat to her, even at her current level of power.

But, when she questioned Ferrid about his intentions, the man simply turned toward her with a raised eyebrow and asked in return, “Hmm? You are curious? Well, I am not going to tell you. You do not need to know, after all.

Besides, were you not the one who refused to take up the task and forced me to use a Command Mark to order you to repair that item when you eventually left this planet?

You did not seem to care what I wanted to use it for back then. Why do you care now?”

Rosaline did not answer that question, and Ferrid was not expecting an answer either. Regardless of what she might have said, he had no intention of telling her what the item was meant for.

Ferrid was a meticulous man. He had suffered many losses against Evan, but that was mainly because Evan possessed information about the future, information far more accurate than anything Ferrid could obtain through his fate manipulation skill.

Evan knew who would be where, when, and why, what they would do once there, and how they would go about doing it.

Ferrid, on the other hand, did not have that many details. He could only glean fragments, important bits and pieces of events related to himself or matters connected to him through fate in some manner.

But Evan’s knowledge of the future, while his greatest advantage against Ferrid, was also his greatest weakness.

In Aidos Online, all Eight Disasters had been complete successes, and the player was forced to deal with their aftermath.

Encounters with the Ten Fingers of the Demonic Hand, the organisation’s Executives, mostly occurred after the Disasters while addressing their consequences. If they occurred during the Disaster events themselves, then they were encounters the player could never win, no matter what actions were taken.

Defeat was inevitable.

That was how things had played out in Aidos Online during the player’s first encounters with the Fourth, Third, and Second Fingers of the Demonic Hand.

Returning to the main point, all of the Disasters organised by the Demonic Hand had been successes in Aidos Online, which was based on the most likely future of Aidos gleamed by the EOTD.

They would have been successes in reality as well if Evan, who knew nearly every detail about those disasters, had not existed on the current Aidos and had not possessed the identity he did in the present, starting as the son of a Duke, and not just any Duke, but an influential one within a Major World Power nation.

However, even in the original future upon which Aidos Online was based, Ferrid had not only planned the Disasters themselves, but also prepared contingencies. He had backup plans, plans that, while not at the level of full-scale Disasters, would still inflict massive damage and feed substantial energy into the World Formation.

Some of his backups were even worse than Disasters, but he’d ultimately kept them as contingencies because he’d been chasing efficiency in feeding the World Formation, and despite being more destructive, they were nowhere near as efficient.

Ferrid had never executed those plans in that future because all eight original Disasters had succeeded, with the Eighth even resulting in a mount for the Demon King upon his eventual descent onto the planet.

But now, in reality, matters were different.

So far, only three of the Disasters had actually been executed, and all three had ultimately failed, failing to reach even a tenth of the energy output Ferrid had originally projected to be fed into the World Formation.

One of them hadn’t even started in the first place, as Evan had removed the key component of that Disaster from their original location.

Now, four Disasters remained, and Ferrid was not foolish enough to assume that Evan lacked full knowledge of their details. As such, going forward, Ferrid intended to change things up in the execution of the remaining Disasters.

More importantly, some of the backup plans he had never used in the Aidos Online timeline, plans Evan had no knowledge of whatsoever, were now going to be put into motion.

One of the requirements for those backup plans was the item he had ordered Rosaline to repair outside the planet Aidos.

That item was critical to his strategy, so critical that Ferrid had expended a Command Mark to order Rosaline to make sure it was repaired properly.

That was the fourth Command Mark Ferrid had used on her, the one command Evan did not know about.

As Evan was currently informing the leaders of the nations that had united to form the Tarse Defence Coalition Force, he was only aware of three of the four commands Ferrid had issued to Rosaline using the Blood Oath’s Command Marks: to join the Demonic Hand, to become the Second Finger of the Demonic Hand, and to oversee the Wolf of the END disaster.

He knew there was a fourth command, but he did not know that it was to repair an item, a relic from Aidos’ Intergalactic Hegemon Era.

Having obtained the information he wanted from Rosaline, Ferrid didn’t hesitate to cancel his possession of the Demonic Hand grunt.

The man snapped back to his senses, staggering and nearly falling, though he managed to regain his balance before he could. He looked around, and upon seeing Rosaline seated nearby, he silently bowed before quickly turning away and making himself scarce.

Left behind, Rosaline continued to gently stroke the wolf’s head as she muttered, “Now, now, Mr Evan. You said you wished to expand your activities to the Beta Continent. I do hope you exercise due caution, as your enemies aren’t going to follow whatever future script you have.

It would be quite unfortunate if you were to die before we had the chance to meet again, would it not?”