Chapter 472 (2/2)
It was only after Mrs. Hamilton spoke, that Randidly realized that he had been quiet this whole time.
“Have you…?” Her question hung in the air as if she was unwilling to finish it.
After a few seconds, Randidly blinked and realized what she was referring to. “...No, I believe I will save that for last. We can’t… we can’t continue doing this.”
Mrs. Hamilton nodded solemnly, asking nothing more. For which Randidly was very glad because he had no idea what he could say on the subject. Even now, the final test he needed to run seemed like a mess of old feelings and new problems that were growing to an irresponsible level.
“Well, in other news, I can’t say I would have made the same decision, but I understand why it is a good idea.” Mrs. Hamilton finally announced.
Randidly frowned at her, this time without a single clue as to what she was talking about.
Mrs. Hamilton shrugged and pointed upward. “Appointing Simon the Champion. He has an incredibly useful ability, and pushing a lot of the NCC’s towards illusions will probably pay long-term dividends. The issue is simply whether the boy has the backbone to hold up underneath the pressure of being Champion. After all, we only know the initial phase of the Champion’s role. It is difficult to tell what will happen next.”
Mrs. Hamilton continued on talking, heedless of the fact that Randidly’s lips pressed together more and more tightly. He agreed with her 100%, of course. And in a very detached way, Randidly was mature enough to think that Simon might have been one of the candidates he would have considered giving the Regalia to become Champion.
But he likely would have decided against it for the same reasons that Mrs. Hamilton just articulated. In fact, of all of the longshots for who to appoint as Champion, Simon would have likely been beaten bloody by Kiersty in the brackets. Although the girl was shifting towards a weirdly culty vibe, she at least dedicated herself to it with alacrity.
After several seconds of internal struggle, Randidly just said, “It… happened very quickly. For now, I hope that I can trust you to take advantage of the resources it provides us with.”
Mrs. Hamilton’s eyes flashed. The word trust hung heavily in the air between them. After a few seconds of thought, Mrs. Hamilton nodded seriously. “...Of course. The same way that I trust you won’t be… extreme, in your search for answers.”
Suppressing the sudden urge to bare his teeth, Randidly just flashed a tight-lipped smile. Well, she had a point that it would be for the best to keep from doing something as hasty as making an ultimatum. There was room for some give in his tests because Randidly wasn’t very good at running a Village. His strengths tended to lie in the direction of training and accomplishing very simple tasks with force.
Delicate diplomacy wasn’t how he rolled.
They both fell silent as their gazes went to the spiderlings, continuing their seemingly eternal labor of creating clothing. Whoever would receive the clothing would likely get a pretty decent defensive boost out of it, at least against bladed weapons. There was a certain amount of dampening of magic from the material, but powerful magic and pure force would still be dangerous to the wearer.
It reminded Randidly that he had to stop back and visit Sam to drop off his… almost completely destroyed Bone Cloak. So many links were broken that it was likely impossible to salvage anything from the remainder, but Randidly intended to ask for it anyways. Through his time in the Raid Dungeon, he had grown to quite like the intrepid cloak and its myriad abilities and bonuses.
“We can accomplish a lot when we put our mind to it,” Mrs. Hamilton said softly, her eyes on the spiders as they ran the Marrow Silk through the dyes. “But if you two refuse to-”
“The more complicated the task,” Randidly interrupted dully, his voice tired, “The more dangerous it is to have volatile elements moving freely, thinking they know best.”
Mrs. Hamilton said nothing as he got up and left her office, moving on.
Next… it was time to visit Donny.