Chapter 512 (2/2)

“Even with the water, that-” Griffith was saying, but then the grenade went off, a geyser of superheated steam and water shooting upwards in the air. A shockwave of air hit the group, staggering most of them. Steam billowed outward, blanketing them all. Tatiana’s initial thought was that the plasma would eat through and drop on the apartment below, but then she stood and spun because the brother had come free. Griffith had let go when the shockwave hit.

The brother was aiming, but not at her. Her guard slackened, and she opened her mouth to warn Baloo, but the brother already fired. The bolt of plasma streaked towards the man…

...and he casually reached up and caught it, then tossed it to the side. Then, as if it stung a bit, he shook his hand vigorously, as if to dislodge any remnant pieces.

Did Baloo have… some sort of gauntlet equipment too…?’ Tatiana wondered. But then she snapped back into focus, and spear tackled Tooya to the ground before he could regain his balance. With her non-gauntleted hand, she punched him, hard enough to break his jaw. Just one, for the one, hit he landed on Kari. Then she stood.

Griffith knocked out the brother. Baloo stood there casually, seeming to ignore the superheated steam. The pool was a smoking crater, barely any water remaining.

It seemed the party was over.

There was a cough.

“So,” The woman Sonya said, swaying as she walked over towards them. “Who is up for a nightcap?”

*****

The bars that serviced the steelworkers were always open. It wasn’t Randidly’s first choice, but he was annoyed that the asshole Tooya had interrupted him from getting his fortune told. To his delight, Tatiana agreed to meet them for drinks, after she had checked in on the woman who had been hit. Griffith agreed to come too.

“It’s rough, out there,” Griffith was saying, as the group sat in the corner of the bar where Randidly had been approached about this party. They had gathered a small crowd of steelworkers, who were listening intently to Griffith’s story. “The monsters in the borderlands… they are made on a different scale. Before 50, each one gets stronger as they Level, but now they get smarter too. I don’t know how much you pay attention to Ghost’s quarterly information releases, but immediately after the borderlands opened up, he released a supplement confirming that monsters had Skills.

“Before, no monster had bothered to Level them. Now, it’s all they do. They were designed to kill.”

“Maybe,” A steelworker said, as Randidly flexed his hand underneath the table. “But the Tier 5 guys can handle it. This is what they trained for.”

Griffith just sighed. Surprising himself, Randidly spoke up. “...eventually, yes. Griffith isn’t saying they can’t, he’s saying that in the past, there were Levels, stats, and Skills. Levels could be adjusted, humans would have higher Skills, and monsters generally have higher stats. But now, the monsters have higher stats and higher Skills. Until the people can get their Skill Levels up to match, it will be hard. And as the difficulty of Leveling gets so high above 50…”

“Above 50…? Has someone reached it?” A young man asked, looking with bright eyes at Randidly. He opened his mouth, then closed it, shrugging. Well yes, someone had, but no one you would have heard of…

The discussion was about to resume once more when the door to the bar opened. Tatiana stepped through, looking exactly like a woman who wandered away from an opera into the wrong part of town. But despite the fact that she wore a cream dress covered in the prints of blooming golden flowers, she confidently walked into the bar, scanned around, and made a beeline for their table.

Feeling somewhat unsure, the steelworkers shuffled out of the way. She smiled at them kindly. “Please excuse me.”

It wasn’t that there were no female steelworkers, or that their steel town was so small and stuffy that there weren’t any pretty women here, but… Tatiana truly was at her best when eyes were on her. She had a strange ability to captivate. She was the perfect foil to Randidly, or perhaps the old Randidly. Begrudgingly or not, Randidly was slowly learning to deal with people. It was much easier now when the people here didn’t know him as the Ghosthound. Gave him a blank slate to start from.

After Tatiana sat, most of the steelworkers slowly started to drift away, giving her awed glances. Then their gazes turned envious as they looked at Griffith, Randidly, and Gregory, but still, they left. To them, it was probably clear that Tatiana came for a discussion that they wouldn’t be privy to.

And when the last person had drifted off, she started talking, and it wasn’t what Randidly was expecting.

“Thank you. Both of you.”