Chapter 879 - I totally forgot about

"If you think about it seriously, who else could she try to hit on? Everyone hates mind mages, and dating someone weaker than her would always feel just wrong. That does not leave her much choice if she wants someone from Earth," Dennis declares.

"But Savant?" Lily asks with wide eyes as she slurps on some sort of ramen-like soup.

"Who else?" Dennis asks. "You already put dibs on Nat, and I do not think she sees him that way. Maybe Jean? I heard from Tess that he got pretty strong, and some maniacs would love that enemies-to-lovers relationship."

"That’s true," Lily nods excitedly.

"Derick already has a wife, and Baek is weird, other than them, she is stronger than the rest of the kings," Min-Jae wonders, sips on the soupy liquid, and then chomps on the noodles.

(That is if you pair her with men only! How about the girls?) Aaron joins.

"I don’t think she swings that way," Lily shrugs.

(But imagine her with Victoria, Tacita, Leticia, or Klara! I think Gloria is also plenty strong!)

"And why not you?" Lily asks, causing multiple heads to turn to her.

(What?)

"I mean, you are a Beyonder, and your mental defenses are high. You probably wouldn’t have to worry about that."

"Lily, my dear, stop teasing," Dennis slurps longer than he probably should and pompously addresses the petite healer, "I know I am handsome, and Sophie is pretty, but… nope, not my type!"

"So only Savant remains?" Min-Jae asks.

"Probably?" Dennis gestures wildly. "I think if she truly wanted to be sure she does not manipulate someone unknowingly, it is only Nat, Savant, and probably Jean. And from the girls, Tacita, Victoria, Tess, and maybe you, Lily?"

Lily shakes her head. "I do not think my mental defenses are that good."

"So that is it, Nat, you aren’t interested, right?" Dennis asks.

I just shake my head and quietly eat my noodles.

(Savi it is,) Aaron says excitedly. There is that innocent joy in gossip I can hear. (He is powerful. He is handsome too and very patient. If you think about it, he is just a bit below Channeler and a better looker than Nat!)

"But I think Nat is also handsome," our healer comes to my defense.

(Better looking than the two of them?)

She hesitates. "I do not think so? Channeler is too ridiculously handsome, and Savant has a nice face, but it is also not just about the looks. It is more about a general vibe that is a combination of looks and personality? And Nat has a really kind smile."

Dennis, likely Aaron, Min-Jae, and Lily look at me while I do my best to continue to eat somewhat gracefully so as not to ruin my vibe.

"Nathaniel's eyes are cool," Min-Jae says with a nod.

"But he has that vibe where you can’t be sure if he would push you down the stairs or if he is just some quiet, nerdy guy with a troubled past," Dennis sighs. "But yeah, unfortunately, too many girls fall for the bad boy type, and his face, combined with his usual expression, looks great on posters and photos. Like, you know, that cool guy you just do not want to mess with."

"Yes! Something like that!" Lily confirms.

(What about us? Do you think we are handsome, Lily?)

"Huh? I think so. You cannot go wrong with blonde hair and blue eyes, and you have a nice face."

(Give it a few years, and we will leave Channeler in the dust. And Kim?)

The moment she turns to him, Min-Jae turns a bit shy, even blushing slightly, and after a second under her intent gaze, he looks away.

"Plenty of girls during the tournament told me he is cute. Now that he has grown so tall, there will likely be many more. And yes, I think he is also good-looking. All of us are!"

Hearing that, the Korean boy twists his head back to her in surprise, showing he had not realized it at all.

I am already almost out of food, even though I eat as slowly as possible to keep myself busy and use it to avoid questions. Even now, with just scraps at the bottom of the bowl, I pretend it is a magical, infinite sustenance replicator bowl of food and continue to chew the air in my mouth.

If you think about it, wouldn’t something like this be possible with the help of a little bit of spatial cache magic?

I will have to talk to Dili about a business the two of us could get into together.

An hour later, I get interrupted from my training by shouting and some flares of mana. Curious and done with this segment of mana shaping, I open my eyes and glance towards where five corporate ships are parked and where most of the Hell difficulty attendees from many planets gathered to cooperatively work on a base to put lower difficulty attendees into.

It goes on for a minute, so as someone who would totally stand near the river and watch it rise during a storm if it takes down some corporate offices, I stand up and head there.

As I get closer, I stop by one of the Hell difficulty thylarin who is also watching and ask, “What happened?”

Without even turning to me, he snorts angrily, “Some of the guys from a lumoran Hell difficulty tutorial, while digging, discovered what seems like a hidden storage. There, they found some talnium stored. One of the corporations instantly jumped in and said it was their hideout.”

He spits on the ground, “As if someone would believe such bullshit. Now they want to fuck off and store it on their mothership before the other corporations present get interested.”

“It must be a decent amount if they are acting like that,” I nod with understanding.

“Yeah,” the thylarin nods.

“And why is no one attacking them to take it back?”

“It is a powerful corporation. We do not know how they would react.”

“Questionable Assets Group?”

“No, Meridian Alliance.”

“I mean, won’t Diligence jump in in that case?”

“Who knows what someone like a Ruler of Diligence would do. Surely he does not have time for this kind of stuff.”

“I see.” I nod and take a step ahead, passing by him onto the landing platform.

The Meridian Alliance guys are already getting on a ship, and their leader is shouting at the lumoran attendees, but I can see that barely hidden smirk. He peacocks himself, pretending to be important, like he is the Meridian Alliance, as he uses their name. Yet he is just one of the many groups, hell, maybe even a subcontractor.

As the doors of the ship close, I watch it, curious, as it lights up and its weird-ass engines, using a proprietary mix of gravitational energy, some arrays, and crystals, lift up.

I let it fly a bit into the air before my vessel manifests behind my back.

It grows in size, creating just a half-figure that is made from the waist up, similar to what Adrian likes to use. Unlike his, mine mirrors all my scars, and instead of a smooth face, it has two eyes carrying my Preeminence Eyes.

The vessel turns dark blue near instantly, and with a speed reinforced by kinetic energy I send through it, it reaches into the air while still expanding. That hand grabs the corporate ship trying to fly away and holds it there.

As the engines increase the effort, my vessel continues to turn tricolored even as the ship fights back with EMP-like pulses aimed to disrupt mana, some corrosive defenses, and other trifling stuff I swiftly deal with. Some attacks pass through and slam against me, only to turn into shiny particles that bounce off the defensive layers I make on my skin. Another one hits my face, but the same layer makes it bounce into the distance.

A stream of concentrated heat surrounds me as it reaches in an unparalleled stream from the ship, increasing the temperature to the point that the sand around me turns to glass, but I just stand within it.

At my order, my vessel squeezes harder, making the metal of the ship groan as I pull it down even as the engines fight against me and the ship sways in my hold, trying to get out.

This time, I use a disruption that I send through the arm of the vessel and at the ship, whose engines blink and turn off before kickstarting again.

A bit surprised, I watch it and send a few more disruption waves, these ones more concentrated as I peer through my eyes.

More with brute force than mastery, my vessel pulls the ship back, causing the engines to cough like they are about to explode, and I slam it back into the sand, halfway burying it there.

While the ship is still held there, I move closer, letting blood drip from the wound I create on my palm and form it into the shape of a long sword with a slim blade. [Empyrean Lance] flickers nearby only to be broken instantly, and its remains surround that sword, almost without having to do anything, as if it is pulled to my ichor. I stab the sword through the doors of the hangar and carve a long cut there.

Right away, my vessel moves again, shrinking and compressing as its fingers stab into that cut and widen the hole.

From inside, multiple attacks shoot at me, but I either disrupt or tank them with my defenses as my vessel reaches in, searching for the crate I have located. There is nothing else with a comparable presence, so I pull it out.

That crate reaches half my waist and is made from some weird yellow wood, but what I feel from inside just must be talnium, as I can recognize the spatial component of the material.

While I cancel my vessel and pull that mana back to me, I jump up and comfortably sit on the crate, putting the sword on my lap while I wait.

From the torn hole, an angry human from Meridian Alliance gets out with two more men in full battle armor, and behind them, I see multiple more.

Before he can say anything, I talk, “Thanks for holding my crate of talnium that I hid there and totally forgot about.”

“What kind of bullshit is this? Do you even realize-” he begins to shout angrily.

That instantly makes me write him off as just some random goon and totally not an important or powerful member of that corporation. For a bit, I listen to his curses, and the more he talks and shouts, the better my mood gets.

I just watch him and feel my cheeks slowly rise up. When a vein bulges at his temple, I even smile a little and nod seriously to his complaints and explanations.

Yet, as much as he barks, he does not do anything. Due to Diligence’s message, he does not dare to put a hand on an attendee. He probably could have attacked me previously on the pretense that he feared for his life as I caught the ship, but now that I sit here peacefully? After he bullshitted that much? I truly do not understand an average Hell difficulty attendee falling for this.

“Got it,” I nod seriously.

The man breathes out, his arms shaking in anger. He tries to hide, but I can sense kinetic waves caused by his movements. His heartbeat, twitches of muscles, changes in temperature, it's all amusing to watch.

“I will overlook what happened, so return Meridian Alliance’s property to me,” he pushes through his teeth.

"Why?" I ask, confused. "There must be some confusion. I told you it is mine. I just forgot I hid it there."

"HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE!?" he shouts in anger as he finally snaps, "THIS IS THE REAL PLANET OF XYPHOS, NOT A TUTORIAL ONE!"

"I don’t know," I scratch my cheek and look to my left.

There are already many attendees gathering around, mostly just listening and curious. To prove that people from Hell aren't normal, some are already betting and making fun of the corpos. Some even seem to be getting ready for a fight. One of these is the demon standing to my left.

"Guildmaster Gwyn," he says with a smile and a short bow.

"Hey," I greet him back, though I have no idea who he is. I don't think he would be lying to imply he is a member of the Primordial Knights.

Curious, because it just does not fit a demon's personality, I ask, "You let them take it?"

"The lumoran that found it didn't want to share, so we stayed back and laughed as the corpos took it," he says with that smile. There are a few demons, likely from his group, and nearby, there are more of them; these ones are likely from different planets.

"Well, that makes more sense," I say.

"Are we going to fight them?" he asks.

"I do not think they will have the balls to attack us."

"I am also worried about that," he says, disappointed, his expression like he is looking at trash. "I can attack them first."

"No."

"Just a small attack to provoke them and-"

"I said no," I say.

With his words cut off, he looks back at me, eyes wide and heart beating in excitement, but all of it halts the moment he meets my gaze.

"Maybe next time," he says a bit sadly after that.

The Meridian Alliance human begins to shout again, and I listen to him for a few more minutes. I find myself really impressed by the bullshit he spews and the creative mind he must have. The talnium must be really valuable.

Then, as they leave without even trying to attack us, I jump off the crate. My vessel manifests behind me again, but this time with legs and as tall as an average velnar. It then grabs the crate, carrying it as I head back to our corner to find Sophie and Savi to look at what is so interesting about talnium.