Chapter 30: Brewing Issues
That night Shea was kicked out of the room with Yue and Hajime and sent to Selena. Like a good friend she encouraged her not to give up and sent her back to Hajime room an hour later and didn't return to her room the rest of the night. The following morning Selena got up first and went downstairs to collect breakfast for the party with the silver piece Hajime left on the table. As she was waiting for the food, she overheard some adventurers talking.
"Did your friend's party come back yet?" One gruff adventure said.
"No, but those monsters were not that big. I doubt anything went wrong."
"We should go to the guild and see if any news has been heard."
"Did you hear about the white hair kid with those…" At that moment, the waiter brought two trays of food. Her eyes scanned her to see if she was haggard from the night activity, having heard of their party the previous night.
"Here is the breakfast little lady. You must need a lot of energy," she teased, eyebrows wiggling.
"Yes it was a very long night, after all there were three of us." The waiter's face started to redden since she didn't think she heard that from her. At the reception counter the same girl from the night before was doing her dam to over hear them since she was very curious about it too.
Leaving the first floor Selena made her way back to the third floor, taking the two trays of food. 'The city is full of perverts I swear.'
She opened the door to their shared living room and saw no one was up just yet so went to their bedroom. Opening the door she saw Hajime sandwiched in between the two girls. He looked half awake since she made so much noise.
"Wake up guys, it's another beautiful day for an adventure."
He pulled both his arms out from the girls and shimmied away from Yue and Shea, who were doing their best to prevent him from leaving the bed.
"Good morning. Breakfast is in the living room. I ordered extra for you since you skipped last night" humming to herself.
"And whose fault was that?"
"Wish I knew." Smile all the while. He got up grabbing his food and with minutes passed by his mind already began to think about what he needed to do. Some time while he was getting his thoughts in order Shea and Yue sat to his sides making Selena smirk.
"Alright we got this room till noon. I need the three of you to go and get the supply we'll need and get Shea clothes. Those rags are going to get her killed."
"These are standard Haulia clothing!!!"
"Times are hard. It's okay Shea," Yue added fuel to the fire.
"UGH you two stop picking on me. What about Selena" pointing her finger.
"If you want to be an exhibitionist, who am I to stop you?" Not able to stop herself since she was brought into it.
"Waaa" Shea cried while hitting the table, "we're suppose to be partners."
"Sigh, you should get used to it. These two," Hajime points his fork at Selena and Yue in turn, "are at each other's throats."
"You're no better Haji. I mean the whole inn is talking about how you did us all. Hehe."
"God this isn't going to stop." His face scrunches up at the realization that he has a reputation already in less than a day.
"You're a man among men," Yue said. "I mean you did brainwash the Haulia tribe without using dark magic."
"Why Hajime, my family didn't do anything to you and made them killers!!!" Shea seem to be repressing those memories still since the wound was too fresh.
"There there, Shea," Selena said while patting her hand that was on the table "Hajime will take responsibility for that since they're his now."
"Ugh, don't remind me. We still have to deal with it when we have to go back to the sea of trees."
"I'll sit on that for later but the three of you get out and go get the supply we'll be needing," Hajime stated, trying to get back on topic.
"Actually while they're doing that I'll go to the guildhall and gather intel. When I went down I overheard something about a monster near the Reisen Gorge," Selena informs.
"Hmm, sounds good since we'll be traveling though. Maybe we'll hear about any demon attack. I mean, you had been attacked not too long ago. I'll stay here and work on a new artifact."
"Let's break for the morning." Everyone nodded in agreement.
XxX
After getting to the shopping area, Selena split from Shea and Yue let them get on their agenda.
As Selena walks into the guild hall, everyone's eyes turn towards her. Unlike last time, since she was alone, most of the adventurers couldn't keep their eyes off her. Catherine saw how uncomfortable Selena was from all the stares, and glared at them to back off. She then greets Selena with a smile, "Hello there, Selena. How may I help you today?"
"Thanks for that, I had goosebumps all over feeling those men eye me like a piece of meat."
"I'm sure you can take care of yourself. I'm just helping where I can" winking her eyes at Selena.
"While I was at the inn this morning I overheard something about a monster near the Reisen Gorge."
"Ah yes" snapping her fingers as she went through the paperwork on her counter, "it is no bigger than a dog that looks like an insect. They only recently appeared near the outpost, maybe one or two easy to kill. We sent two parties to investigate and see if they could get us more info on them since we hadn't seen them in these parts before."
"I see" when handing the sketch that she made it look to be an ant only bigger than what she was used to. "Mmm, are you sure only one or two?"
"Yes, why?"
"Umm back where I'm from, they tend to have numbers well over thousands."
"Are you sure about that" grew very concerned about what she might have sent two parties into.
"I'm not one hundred percent sure but more than likely what you've seen is scouts from the main group."
Catherine looked stern, "Should I call all adventure to deal with this likely invasion."
"Please don't, my party will take care of it for you. Just don't over blow it please."
"Now why should I believe you? I'm not trying to step on your group's toe, but you said that thousands would be there, and your only group of four."
Seeing they were ready to make this much bigger situation given the info she proved Selena let out a sigh. "Do you have a private training room?"
"Follow me please." Catharine calls another guild employee to take her place as they walk to the side room. As they walked into a private room for what looks to be an examination she stood near the door. "I like to see what skills make you so confident. I want to see if your small party can clear the mess that these new monsters seem to have gotten our outpost city into."
"Got it, I will show you something that'll knock your socks off." 'I don't think something big will do it. It has to be practical and I don't think showing her that I can become a literal blizzard will do it. There isn't enough water in the area too. Ugh it's so much easier to make more ice constructs when there's an available body of water.' All these thoughts were running as she walked calmly to the middle of the spacious room. She formed hand signs but she knew the norm was to chant. "Let the roar of the mountain be heard, we shall not be stopped and smite my foes." Selena had grown too used to having a huge body of water to create some of her stronger ninjutsu with the lake next to Oscar's house. Yue would hit her over the head during her practice to stop making her constructs out of her own mana source and utilize the environment to her advantage. Unfortunately it was still a struggle to drop it to a seventy-thirty split between her chakra and the water in the air to make her ice spears. So as she creates these ice spears, the chakra tries to catch the water to make the spears, but ends up still burning too much to make them compared to what Yue would make.
Catherine did not know what to think of the new party she had just brought in just yesterday besides having a gut feeling that they were very strong. So when one of them told her that they could take care of the problem that was just starting to brew, she didn't know what to expect. She watched Selena's expression and knew she was trying to impress upon her that her group could take on this disaster. At first she made some weird hand signs while chanting. The chant itself was hogwash, she never heard such a chant but the effect occurred around wasn't. She saw Selena's whole body start gushing with magic like it was going out of style and an uncountable amount of ice spears were hovering above her as if they were ready to strike. "I believe you. Shall we make a formal request to bring the head of this army for us?"
"That's great," she smiles, then cringes just a bit. "Umm where do you want me to put these?"
It was at this moment Catharine's face began to darken.
"Well, you see… I haven't gotten that far with my training. If you would believe me." she awkwardly scratches her head.
"I have a few water mages that will change the ice to water and add to our supply." Catharine was a bit exasperated to have someone so powerful be so childish but then again their group was very young and if she was already this strong how strong were the others.
As soon as they went back to the front, Catharine called a few water mage adventurers and had them go to the private test room to clean up the mess Selena had made. "I made this a personal request from the guild. I expect to see all of you in less than two weeks, given that the Reisen Gorge is huge. Finding where these ant monsters are coming from should take time, and destroying their nest will also be no easy feat."
"Can you really just make a personal request? I thought those had to be made by the branch guild master." asked Selena. She recalled Catharine had so much sway, but making a personal request should have been a bit beyond her station.
"A lady has to keep her own secrets. Isn't that right, Shinobi." A smile that wasn't really a smile appears on her face, giving Selena the chills.
"Umm... I... I'll tell my party we have a request to fulfill." She walked away briskly. However, just before she made it out of the door, two men stood in her way.
"Hey there beautiful, do you think we could go on a date today?"
"Hey, I was looking at Selena-chan first. How about if we..." The sentence never got to finish since Selena's eyes had changed into the Sharingan and she put them into a genjutsu. However, with barely any control over it, their noses started bleeding and they passed out, since she basically overwhelmed their minds instead of being more subtle. With one last look at them, Selena exits the guild.
"Oh my," exclaims Catharine, " Can one of you adventurers take them to our infirmary till they wake up?" Seeing that the whole guild hall had fallen silent, since they weren't used to seeing two people drop just like that. No one felt the same pressure that the eye patch boy, from the other day, was giving off from any of the girls that surrounded him.
"Did you see that? Not even a punch, and they were knocked out, just like that!"
XxX
"Damn it." Selena was heading back to the inn they were staying at all the while she was biting her nail. "I might as well throw out the notion that I know what's going to happen. First the rabbitmen were almost abducted and now these ant type monsters, ugh." letting a sigh out, she decided to just move on.
"Excuse me can I…" the man was knocked out with a look, since Selena wasn't in the mood to deal with adventurers trying to pick her up.
The people who were around were whispering to each other. "Is she a monster?"
"What do the men see in her?"
"I look better."
From that day on her nickname would be Cockatrice, much to her dismay. That day a good amount of the adventurers were scared of Selena and Yue since men just seem to drop like flies.
XxX
Selena returned to their shared room at the inn. Hajime was still working on Shea's hammer and it didn't look like the others were back just yet. "Oh, hey Selena how did the information gathering go?" Still wholly focused on crafting the hammer, since it seems to already be in full deployment mode at the moment.
"We are going to have a problem." Selena let out a sigh. She wished that things didn't get so hectic this early on before the second labyrinth.
"It won't matter, we'll just kill everything that'll get in our way. Anyways if you want, just have a seat, and when Yue and Shea get back you can let us know what's up." All the while he had the hammer on the table. Crimson sparks were flying off the hammer as he was adding the final touches. Selena sat on the couch using her Sharingan to watch how his mana was flowing into the hammer. "Those eyes are bullshit. They're just like my eye patch, that gives me mana sense, but they give you eidetic memory while you're at it."
"Haha, I just make it look so easy."
"Ha, I just hope it's enough". The mood in the room turned a bit gloomy and Selena wasn't in the mood to do anything. But the next moment Shea blew the door off its hinges.
"We're back!" as she puffs out her chest, showing off her new outfit.
Yue was just behind her, "You're lucky Hajime can fix that."
"I'm sorry it's just…" they started bickering and Selena couldn't help but laugh since Shea was just how she imagined her when reading about her. Hajime had already gotten up and began to transmute the door and the hinges back together, leaving it good as new.
"So, Selena, what did you learn at the guild?"
Selena began her tale, skipping over what spell she had used, and what happened to the men.
"So how did your spell casting go," Yue asked, her eyes squinting since Selena glossed over that part of the story.
"Well, umm, oh hey! How did the shopping trip go, Shea? Your outfit looks…" She was at a loss for words since she didn't think she could wear anything that revealing in most cases. Yue decided not to call her out for the moment.
"It was… something. We met a hulking girl? Monster? I'm not too sure, but she was very nice. I don't know how you move in all that" looking at her ninja outfit.
"So it helps your nimble fight style, Shea?" Hajime was just trying to wrap his head around the fact that Shea's new outfit was just not torn rags.
Ya also if anything try to look under my skirt, I'm wearing undershorts. Shea flipped her skirt, showing it off.
Ya that nice. Ignore the moves Shea was try on him. So we have to clear this nest of ant monsters. Thanks to Selena we are the only party taking on this task so we won't be hiding anything, but we should come up with a plan on how to deal with them since we're not sure if they will have dug in a network of catacombs or if they are still topside in a cave. Shea here I made this for you since we can't have you going unarmed" handing Drukin in its compact form.
She looked at the small object that was much heavier than it looked. "Um.. thank you, but what is it?"
"It's a hammer-shotgun combo. All you have to do is run your mana through it and it will transform into it's full hammer mode," Hajime explained. Shea ran mana into it and the hammer started to transform to its full form as Hajime was informing her about its features.
"Wow, thank Hajime-san! I'll make sure I protect you."
"Hmph, worry about yourself, worthless rabbit," Yue remarks.
Nodding his head, Hajime replies, "Don't worry about us. In fact we'll all cover you since training isn't like real combat."
"Why are you guys so mean to me?" Shea cry out at them.
"Don't worry, Shea. All you have to do is prove yourself when the time comes." Selena comforts her.
Shea jumps at Selena forgetting she had her new war hammer.
"Wait, wait." But it was too late. If she were to dodge, something else would break. So Selena took the tackle like a champ. The moment Shea landed on Selena, the couch she was on flipped back. Luckily Selena grabbed the hammer, so it wouldn't break the flooring.
"Aww that hurt." Shea exclaimed as Selena's hand chopped on her head.
"That's for almost breaking something else, you accident prone rabbit." all the while, giggling could be heard from where Yue was.
"Okay we got less than an hour, so let's get to planning." Hajime states, getting their attention, "I think if they were buried underground, we…"
Xxx
As the party was headed out of the city, they were getting weird looks. Hajime is confused, since last time it was looks of envy, but they were more mixed this time. Not at him but at the girls. "What did you guys do?"
"Nothing, people in the city are just weird." Yue said with a straight face. Shea looked anywhere but at him, since she knew Yue was the cause. "What did you do Selena? Hmmm?" Yue knew that Selena did not tell the whole story earlier.
"Men were trying to hit on me, so I knocked them out."
"Oh? How did you do it?" Yue asked, and Hajime seemed a bit interested since back in their world she would just walk away.
"Well, you know… oh hey it's the main gate we should hurry up." As she rushed to the gates.
From behind the rest of the group, they could hear whispering. "Isn't she the ball smasher?"
"Dude, shut up. You don't want your balls crushed, do you?"
"Selena wait up," Yue also thought it was about time that they got out of the city.
"These girls don't know how to keep a low profile," Hajime was exasperated about how they seemed to find trouble in a city they were barely in for less than a day. He smiled all the while since they moved forward, once again, after having a nice night of rest.
Shea grabbed Hajime's regular hand and said with an excited voice "Let's go! I want to ride on that bike thing again. Hehe, I love feeling the wind on my ears."
"Can't you ride with Selena?"
"Nope I'm all yours, Hajime," she squeezed her dangerous weapons on Hajime.
"Sigh, just remember this isn't a trip for fun, but a fight for our goals."
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