Chapter 859 (2/2)

Randidly agreed immediately it was a foolish promise. One made from a strange being to an honest and bright young woman who fascinated her. But despite how foolish it seemed to him, it was a promise that Neveah fully intended to fulfill. As tiring as that truth was. “Neveah doesn’t make empty promises.”

To that Tia sighed. “Can you tell her something from me?”

Randidly finally realized the strange feeling he had in his chest as what he was; it seemed like he had somehow stumbled into the middle of some far-flung soap opera for the System-era. Were they being recorded?

But in spite of that weird bemusement, Randidly assented with a nod.

“When she gets back from wherever she is… I’ll meet her for dinner. As friends, of course. But…”

After saying a short goodbye, Randidly departed. And this time, he made a beeline for Donnyton. He actually hadn’t spent much time with the two tasks given to him, and he certainly learned something from both of them. But that didn’t mean he now wasn’t very curious as to what Neveah was dealing with that was so pressing that she couldn’t spare a few hours to do these tasks herself.

Besides, Randidly wanted to talk to Sam. His experience with the police officers left him slightly bitter. After all, for all that he was dressed… well, as a dirty, wounded soldier, he was Randidly Ghosthound. It was the modern world; shouldn’t everyone recognize his face?

His faux vanity aside, Randidly couldn’t help but wonder when he would completely lose touch with normality. He couldn’t deny that already, his life was probably far from most people’s daily existence. After all, once Randidly departed the Orchard and joined up with his two riders, be began to streak across the countryside with such speed that he was gaining ground with the train he was running parallel with.

These days, most of his activities were training or addressing impending threats. Very few moments were like his time wrestling with Arbor, ones that allowed him to simply enjoy living. Not that most people lived in some idyllic sort of wonderland where these peaceful moments were pedestrian; everyone had their own struggles.

But Randidly’s struggles were a bit less personal, as a rule. And a few orders of magnitude higher on the ladder of capability.

Oftentimes Randidly did his best to avoid thinking about his own growing capabilities, but his memory of challenging Donnyton’s Squads brought it back to the fore of his mind.

If he did it again, would he be able to overcome them?

He was inwardly torn. He had obviously seen some of Alana’s fight against the ogres. Although he missed most of it, he had a fair assessment of Alana’s strengths from what he had seen. She was weaker than Helen was, back on Tellus, but not by much. Most of what she was missing was a powerful edge to her images.

Randidly had impressed on Donnyton the importance of images, but that wasn’t enough to teach the way the upper echelon of Tellus could wield the simplest image like a blade to sever the lives of those weaker than them. It was something that would take a while to get the hang of, but Alana’s strength would increase by leaps and bounds if Randidly trained her for a time.

Her high Level and Skills would see to that. All that was missing was the proper application of the mental component.

But a squad of 25 people working together…? With all of the strongest of Donnyton working together against him…?

Randidly surprised himself with how much he was looking forward to the prospect. Even though at the back of his mind, he almost worried more that he would win. What would the population think, when their worshipped squads were defeated by a single person?

What would it mean for Donnyton?

...what would it mean for the common person, to know he held so much power?

Then a weird truth occurred to Randidly. Instantly, his thoughts back to Earth. Not because of the reactions from others, but because of one factor which he had forgotten to consider: Helen.

Randidly sighed. There is no way that she would let such a large fight going down without insisting on being a part of it. The only problem is… which side would she be on…?

Then Randidly shivered as something else occurred to him. Better not let her back into the Soulskill for a while. If Azriel finds out…