Chapter 1245 (1/2)

Tatiana’s eyes drank in the reassuring palpable sense of weight that Randidly Ghosthound carried with him for several seconds as he used his bright emerald eyes to measure everyone in the room. Randidly’s black hair had grown rather long since he had left almost a year ago so that the long strands hung down to his shoulders; he likely hadn’t cut it at all. In comparison, it seemed like the stubble along his face regularly received the attention it needed to stay short

In addition, the bones of his cheek were much more prominent upon his return. He had likely lost some weight while he was away. But all it did was serve to accentuate the sharp lines of his face and body. Despite the fact that he was simply wearing leather pants and some sort of dark grey armor, there was something extremely dangerous in his balance and poise.

In front of Randidly Ghosthound, one could sense the violent path he had taken to arrive at this point. To Tatiana, who had known the dark side of humans even before the System arrived, there was something extremely reassuring about that violence contained in Randidly Ghosthound. But as she managed to drag her eyes away from him, she couldn’t help but notice some of the nervousness of the surrounding members of Kharon’s government.

I suppose it’s better to find out this way. This city was never meant to be a nest for individuals seeking soft lives...

Still, perhaps the most noticeable change on Randidly’s person was his left arm. The rather bulky stand-in limb of bloodsteel had been replaced by a sleek and glimmering obsidian arm. And as Randidly shifted slightly, considering the assemblage, Tatiana could see the way the small lines along the arm lit up when he moved it.

But all in all… there was something definitely different about Randidly Ghosthound after his most recent adventure. Wherever he had gone had changed him. There was… an aura about him. Something that hid in the dark and acted meek as he met them amicably, but some instinctual part of Tatiana still felt a thrill of fear as she stood there. That pervasive power was not the main reason that Kharon was here, but it was the reason why Tatiana never felt any real threat that she would lose her job in the near future. If Randidly Ghosthound was gone, they would have much worse things to worry about.

Yet even as she thought about speaking, that aura made her pause.

Perhaps Tatiana had been too deeply occupied with studying him because Randidly coughed lightly and spoke in a tone of forced dispassion as he turned to look at her. “How are things?”

With the connection of the Eidolon Crucible, he probably has at least some idea of what’s been happening with Kharon… Tatiana steadied herself as everyone slowly began to turn and look at her. Although Randidly hadn’t likely done it purposefully, his way of speaking had a… thoughtless pride to it. By speaking to her, Tatiana had been designated as someone on his level.

Meanwhile, Tatiana could feel some of the others in the room, those that hadn’t met Randidly Ghosthound before, pressing as far back into the walls as their physical body would allow. She forcefully resisted the urge to look at Antonio, the de facto leader of the newly arrived population. His reaction was the most controlled, which made her all the more worried.

But, that was all the backdrop. Which, if Tatiana was honest with herself, was what Randidly had her manage. So… start with news?

“...you’ve likely sensed it, but we’ve had a huge influx of population in the last two weeks. But the important point to note is that we’ve begun to encounter what we call ‘bubble cities’ out in the Wildlands; they are locations that were isolated when the System hit, but not frozen in time.” Tatiana folded her hands behind her back. “They are periodically attacked by large numbers of monsters, proportional to the size of the population. But based on the reports we could gather… it’s a much easier existence than the System gave us. No Raid Bosses, no Raid Dungeons.”

“We met our own demons there,” Antonio added with his voice pitched so low it was near a whisper. “Monsters are one thing… but humans with unparalleled power… that’s the true face of evil.”

Tatiana briefly examined Antonio out of the corner of her eye. His fists were clenched and he was looking at his own leather shoes, but Tatiana could tell his entire attention was focused on this stranger, this Randidly Ghosthound that he had heard so much about. About spending over three years working as a lessor manager underneath one of the fearsome Chosen who had monopolized Classes and hoarded knowledge about the System in his bubble city, Tatiana could understand why Antonio would worry that he had walked out of one hell into another.

She had no doubt that the wrong sort of behavior from Randidly would have the entirety of the rescued population fleeing in the night. Considering the unnerving actions of Heiffal’s group in the last few days...

But to Antonion’s interjection, Randidly just tsk’d lightly. “Troublesome. So they come out after having three years to learn bad habits. Then are all the bubble cities really cities?”

“As far as we can tell, yes.” Tatiana nodded. “We’ve encountered three so far and been able to determine the location of each: the Southside of Chicago, Mexico City, and Kolkata. And if I’m being honest, all three have been… dangerous. Mexico City was the most stable, but the other two were basically controlled by power-hungry despots. Helen cleaned up Chicago, while Donnyton dismantled Kolkata.”

“I assume to slow Earth’s growth, the largest population centers were cut off from Zones… interesting.” was all Randidly said. Then he looked to Tatiana to continue. After taking a breath, she shifted the papers in her hands and continued.

“We’ve worked with Ghost and created autonomous all-terrain vehicles, basically tanks, that track the moss spirits’ energy to zero back in on Kharon despite the distance. So although it’s somewhat slow, trade with the Zones has been reliably established. With some of our progress in metals, we once more control the high-end of the materials market. In addition, Kharon is basically a walking printing press from marking and harvesting the raw materials of the Wildlands. East End especially will buy almost anything to try and create elemental focai. At least for the foreseeable future, we have a surplus of cash.”

Essentially, we are operating at a ridiculous surplus. I want to pat myself on the back for creating such an immaculate budget, but the real drive is Kharon itself. The moss spirits find and locate anything valuable before we even need to send out a team… Even if we don’t gather any resources for a month, we will still have work to do processing everything we’ve gathered in the storehouse so far.

Again, Randidly simply nodded at the end of her explanation. Tatiana had to sigh inwardly. I suppose any more detail than that would be pointless. But I wish you would have asked a bit more about our surplus cash flow… There’s basically no one I can brag to...

So Tatiana glanced at Naffur and then shifted topics. “With the ten inductees into the Order Ducis, we’ve ceased the expansion efforts for the Order. Mostly, we poured resources into training and outfitting these ten and the prior three inductees with the best equipment. After passing every test we threw at them, they are ready to operate independently of Kharon. But we were waiting until you returned to talk about what those independent operations would be.”

Sensing the small signal, Naffur cleared his throat. “We’ve already had a few requests for jobs back by the Zones if there isn’t anything particularly pressing in the Wildlands. Most of them are requests from the border cities of the other Zones that we investigate weird activity, but one sticks out; we’ve been asked to be security at a football game in ten days.”

That finally earned a reaction out of Randidly; he snorted. “American Football?”

“American Football,” Tatiana confirmed. “Only a week ago, Theodora Greyman, President of Zone 1, announced the return of television networks and part of the grand allure of television was the return of sports. Also during that speech, she was assaulted by a five-story bloodbeast in the middle of the speech. She escaped with only an injury to her pride.”

Randidly tilted his head to the side. “Bloodbeast?”

“Powerful avatars of a Classer named Straud. Serial murderer, too. Drains the blood of his victims to form bloodbeasts. Hank Howard has spent almost a year and a half tracking the guy, and he’s the source of most of the information. But the bloodbeast that attack the President definitely proves that Straud is dangerous.”

“How powerful was the bloodbeast?” Randidly asked lightly.

Tatiana shook her head. “Hard to say. But the combined forces of Alana and Hank were the only reason that the President wasn’t killed. And although they destroyed the avatar, they weren’t able to apprehend the mastermind.”

Suddenly Randidly’s gaze sharpened. “The image of the mastermind… it’s related to blood right?”