Chapter 1366 (2/2)

During the entire meeting, Randidly hadn’t said a word. What was even more disturbing was that when the Ghosthound moved, which was infrequently, it was with an exaggerated slowness.

At one point Richter from Zone 1 had asked a question directly of Randidly, but the leader of the Order Ducis and creator of Kharon hadn’t responded with words. At that time, Randidly had been sitting with his eyes closed. At Richter’s question, Randidly’s eyes slowly opened, revealing a bright emerald light.

Then, his body moved at a glacial pace as he raised his head and simply looked at Richter. Perhaps luckily for the Order Ducis, the slow speed generated a great amount of tension and weight to the gesture. The man had paled and perhaps would have collapsed had he not already been sitting in a wheelchair. After Randidly slowly closed his eyes once more, Tatiana stepped forward and spoke into the awkward silence to continue moving the meeting along.

Perhaps to others, it seemed like Randidly found Richter’s question insulting and not worth his time. But the Ghosthound’s subordinates knew better.

Helen tried to control her expression but ended up just glaring at Randidly despite her best efforts. “Is it truly so agonizing…? Don’t you have methods to deal with this?!? You are a recognized Commander at the frontlines. Just go there and get involved in a battle with Nether to eradicate the Aether Mines.”

Randidly moved more quickly than he had when everyone had been on his island, but he was still rather reserved. The corners of his mouth slowly curled and shifted as he looked over at Helen. “...there are methods to deal with the Aether Mines… but its a matter of risk tolerance. I’ve tested it in several ways, and everything has consequences immediately. The Special Investigator always moves no matter what I do. Better just to wait a few more days and deal with everything at once…

“Besides, the pain isn’t nearly as bad as you think.” Randidly flexed his right hand and every joint popped loudly. After about ten seconds of his face gradually shifting, he looked down and frowned at his hand.

Helen waved her hand. “Fine then. Suffer in silence. See if I care. I suppose we will just be on our way and you can continue doing whatever the hell you do up here…”

Randidly chuckled. His jaw popped in the process, causing him to stop and carefully stretch the joint out. But then he raised his hand as his subordinates began to turn away and said. “Wait, I have a request before you go. I need you to gather something for me.”

“What is it?” Tatiana asked curiously. She seemed to take Randidly’s strange behavior in stride. Helen just folded her arms across her chest. Naffur truly seemed too exhausted to care.

Randidly smiled widely, his mouth seeming to seep outward like a spilled liquid. Honestly, his slow movements were starting to seem rather creepy to Helen. “It might sound strange, but can you get some corn starch for me? A lot of it.”

“How much is a lot?” Tatiana asked quite seriously.

Randidly seemed to think about that, gradually bringing up his hand to rub his chin. The whole process of the movement took almost a minute. “Maybe a couple of barrels full…?”

“Just because you need to move slow doesn’t mean you think slow,” Helen snapped at Randidly.

His eyes brightened with amusement at such a constant pace for thirty seconds that Helen wanted to punch him in the face. Then he chuckled, long and low. “Actually… I do need to move slowly right now. It’s an image thing. I pushed my heart rate down to about two to three times a minute, and I’m slowly my movements down establish a baseline… so when I speed the heart rate back up, everything will speed up.”

“Is the pain really that bad?” Naffur asked in a low voice.

Randidly twisted his arms. His elbows came down and his palms gradually went upward. It was only ten seconds later that Helen realized he was throwing his hands up in the air. Then he scowled slowly around at the three of them, his head turning like a millstone. “Why does no one believe me when I say the pain is manageable?!?”

“Maybe if you were honest about the pain, we’d believe you.” Helen growled.

Randidly gave Helen a mild glance. At the beginning, she was determined to hold his gaze, but very quickly that ominous heaviness around him began to worm its way into her mind. Within a few minutes, Helen was gritting her teeth. Before five minutes had passed, she snorted and turned away. “Fine then, whatever.”

The three subordinates floated back down to Kharon in silence.

Both Naffur and Tatiana kept casting glances Helen’s way, but they weren’t willing to approach her before she was ready.

For that, Helen appreciated that. Her expression softening, she turned and glanced over her shoulder at the floating island, wreathed in silver mist. Cobalt bolts of lightning periodically snaked their way around the island. After hesitating, Helen began to speak. “Do you really think that he-”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Perhaps because they were so close, the noise was especially grating. Helen’s expression quickly hardened. “WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING UP THERE?!?!”

She swore to herself that if the noise didn’t stop by tonight, she would head up there and see how well his slow movements handled a spear thrust.