Chapter 601 (1/2)

Helen absently rubbed the scar that she had left on the corner of her jaw from the day she had killed her first Wight. At the time, it had served as a reminder of the vicious cost of the ongoing war with the opposition. Now though, it simply ended up being a nervous tick that she couldn’t seem to shake. Every time she stopped paying attention to her hard, it crept upwards toward her jaw.

“Does it have to be here?” Helen asked with obvious displeasure.

Leyalta, her lieutenant since her first promotion had landed her on the front lines, shrugged. “There is no reason that other portals can be used. But as you know, travel across realms is extremely expensive. The individual must be keyed in very exactly to the portal in order for them to come through without any… mishaps. Some hasty teleportations have resulted in particularly acute versions of Aether Sickness-”

Helen waved her hand irritably. The portal operator was standing there chewing a piece of jerky, taking his time to open his mouth wide enough for Helen to see the gory details of the mastication between every chew. It was driving her up a wall. If this had been on the front lines, she would have knocked his teeth out. As it was, Helen had no desire to get tied up by some municipal authority in the Northern Province when they had to leave very quickly in order to make it to the Central Domain in time for the explanation of what was to come.

But here was the only place where it would be affordable to teleport Randidly. How did Shal manage it on the first teleport?

Smiling slightly, Helen handed over the payment for Randidly Ghosthound’s passage to the world called Tellus. As she did so, Leyalta scowled so powerfully that his whole body trembled. Leyalta was a very overweight man, but in a way that made him simply large to the point of being oppressive. Helen never did understand how he managed to keep on all of that fat while fighting in the meat grinder that was the front lines. She certainly never gave him any downtime.

“I hope… this man will provide you suitable repayment for this sacrifice.” Leyalta said frostily. If I am not mistaken, that refined ore was the sum total of the reward you’ve been given for your significant accomplishments, with no small amount of assistance from myself. I would hate if this individual failed to properly respect-”

“Don’t worry about it. He won’t be paying me back anyway. Because he won’t know how much it cost to bring him here. After all, I won’t tell him.” Helen gave Leyalta a look. She smiled. “And neither will you.”

Leyalta continued to scowl but fell silent. There was a reason such a capable man never moved past the position of lieutenant.

“Would you like to send a message to the recipient before I begin?” The attendant drawled around a mouth full of beef jerky.

In one of the hardest moments of self-control that Helen had ever experienced, she didn’t gut the worthless man where he stood. She even had the iron clad control to calmly nod her assent to his question, and ignore the glaring provocation of his shitty bitch attitude.

Teleporting now.

K.

Helen looked at the reply message, furrowing her brows. All he responded with was K? And what world exactly was he coming from, that his teleport was almost impossibly expensive? Leyalta was right to say that it had almost beggared her to bring Randidly here, but she couldn’t explain to Leyalta that even with this, it was probably she that owed him.

In her chest, the flow of energy flowed forward without pause.

“Ready?” The infuriating man asked. It was even more annoying that he seemed to be mirroring her impressions so exactly.

“...yes,” Helen said before turning to Leyalta. “We should-”

Bam.

There was a flash of light and a loud noise. There was no sort of concussive force from the teleport, but Helen stepped back as though there was one due to the light and noise. Leyalta, perhaps predictably, reeled backward while shouting. His arms wiggles like independent entities, grabbing at his fleshy body in an ineffectual attempt to grab at his spear.

When she recovered enough for it, Helen shook her head sadly. Perhaps this was why she hadn’t been promoted past Sergeant.