Bab 53: Chapter 15: Awards and Aftermath
Rydel has no idea how long he was out for, but when he woke, it felt exactly like one of those instances when he overuses the artifact and his body just gave out. But there is no way he could have done just that, right?
Rydel questioned himself as he sat up and looked down into his left hand, the color of the stripes are a nice and calm purple, a symbol of inactivity and peace. The lighting in the surroundings responded to his movements and was turned out gently. He is lying in a small secluded room with a sofa bed that was hastily set up, and Rydel looked down at the bed sheets only to see dirt, dusts and strands of hair. Trying not to think what happens in this room on the usual, he stood and turned on his personal interface.
It has only been a few hours since the end of the Pilotmania. The entire event only took about five or six hours in actuality, though it felt a lot shorter than that. He can hear faintly the noises made from the crowds and the electronic music playing in the background, so he exited the room and into a hall way.
He seemed to be in a sort of night club up in the space station. The floor is sticky though a cleaning droid works hard to undo the silly human's mistakes. Rydel cracked his back back and forth and started moving towards the crowded area. He has no idea why this is the designated destination, though he soon realized that's just where the party is.
And with low difficulty, he has spotted Roloni, at the dead center of the mob and swinging his arms around in what either resembles Dolon when she is unleashing the full might of the Chaotic Waves martial arts, or just an Aquarian dance. The crowd moves back and forth in response to Roloni's movements, and yells out his name as he snatches six little cups with his arms from the crowd and proceeded it send in through the mouth.
Rydel defined being late to the party. Seeing Roloni having such fun brought a smile to Rydel's face, though he personally isn't into such pleasures. He stumbled his way to the bar, and when prompted by the bartender behind the bar, asked:
'Um, I am the winner for the pilotmania, is there a reward ceremony somewhere, or did I just missed it?'
All of a sudden, the music stopped, and crowd went quiet, and Rydel realized he just spoke into a mic that was placed on the table, which he assumed connects to the ear piece of the bartender, not the speaker system of the entire club.
'Rold!' Roloni yelled after he finally spotted his partner, 'come over here!'
'Big crowds, great.....' When Roloni pointed an arm at Rydel, crowd instantly swarmed up as the music continued and started dancing around him. The movement of the crowd brought Rydel close to Roloni like a wave and Roloni grabbed him by the arm and gave him a big hug.
'Where have you been, man?' Roloni shouted into Rydel's ear, which has already started to develop a light tinnitus, 'you missed the award ceremony cause you were too sleepy!'
'Shit.' Rydel said, though the actual ceremony itself isn't what he deems the most important, 'But did we get all the stuff?'
'Yeah! Five hundred Wolf Credits, and ninety minutes on the phone!' Roloni shouted with an arm around Rydel's shoulder and one around his hip, a favorite friendly position his, 'I have spent fifty of them to get the drinks already, do you want some?'
'I am okay.' Rydel patted Roloni in the chest, 'Do you plan to use the ninety minutes? Cause I will give you fifty Credits for the time?'
'Deal!' Roloni slapped Rydel on the chest in return, 'check your mail box!' Then, he let go of the awkward human and addressed the crowd once again, 'I got even more credits, and drinks for everybody!'
It took Rydel nearly five minutes to break free of the meat barrage surrounding him, though when he finally freed himself, he is able to get everything in order. He is currently in a space station orbiting about the planet of the Academy, and from the look of it it's main function is as an entertainment venue in space, though he has never heard of this ship.
He quickly downloaded the layout of the station from the nearest interface. The station is indeed an entertainment vessel named Skyborn, and it traveled around the system to all the big events happening at each location, today to the academy for the start and conclusion of the Pilotmania. The station is divided into four sectors, with the night club sector being where Rydel was just at. Then there is a restaurant and food court, a communications and commercial court and an accomodations area, located in the four segments individually with the vacuum of space sitting in between.
'Good flying today!' Someone shouted at Rydel from the distance as he looked down at a projection of the station map as he started to move away from the club block and towards the communications block near the far side of the station. He is now walking through the glass aisle with a full view of the cosmos and the planets below, though Rydel has his eyes fixed on the general layout mostly. It was rather straight forward, so he then turned that off and logged onto the mail box, and the one unread email contained the five hundred wolf credits and the access code for the ninety minutes of communication time.
Rydel claimed two hundred Wolf Credits out of the stash, and also took away the access code.
Now, he can finally make his move, it's been so long since he has started his endeavor at the Absolute Academy, but today is when they decide the next step in the plans of action.
With the excited quickened steps, Rydel started a slow jog through the shiny aisle and into the food court. He didn't even stop for a second despite the hunger signals sent from his stomach, though the smell of deliciously cooked food almost turned him around.
The communications area is located right at the edge of the commercial and communications block, and with the access code Rydel offered, he was given a quiet and isolated single room facing the stars in the very corner. It seems like calling one's family after a victory in an event is a regular and normal practice, so nobody really gave him any odd looks.
Rydel took a deep breath in and out, then went outside to grab a glass of water.
He opened the general communications channel, and put in the code Cellica instructed Rydel to use every time he is going to establish communications in the wild region. He clicked enter, and a rotating loading symbol is projected onto the space on top of the table in front of him.
The symbol flickered a few times, and a blurry image of a beautiful blonde women showed.
'Establish secure transmission?' Rydel said calmly, 'give me some privacy.'
A small hum started playing in the background and started to jam all the possible eavesdropping channels before blending into the background noise itself.
'How are you doing?' The gentle voice of Cellica came through despite the blurry image, though Rydel can't make out the facial features, he can tell Cellica just by the blonde patches of hair and her perfect posture that outlined the hologram image, 'I can't see you clearly, can you hear me?'
'Yes! Yes....' Rydel reached out towards the hologram, 'audio is good, but it looked like this is the best visual we can get.'
'You can't ask too much from the wild regions.' Cellica said sympathetically, 'but it's good to hear that you are doing good. What's the time looking like?'
'I have ninety minutes of comms time, but if we cut it to three half an hour chunks it would be the best, I think.' Rydel looked down at the timer he set on the table, 'they reward untapped communication time for the competitions. Today's one was an obstacle race sort of competition.'
'And you won?'
'Yeah, but it was close, really close.' Rydel said, thinking nervously about the final part of the race and just the thought of it causes sweat to creep out in his palms, 'also got some credits, so I can get the things I might need.'
'Awesome, but if you really need something badly, let me know and I can coordinate with Zel for the drop off.' Cellica assured Rydel, 'just so you know, you are not in this alone. We will all help you.'
'Yeah well I have to say the social life here is a bit more colorful than that on Athena 3.' Rydel joked as he leaned back in his chair.
'Well, we will work on that, when you get back here.' Cellica seemed amused by the remark.
'How's the work in the Bureu anyway?' Rydel asked, 'And also what's happening with Zel now?'
'To answer your first question, everything is settling back to normal after the operation before, and the case was dropped by the director. I tried to convince them otherwise but to no avail, so whatever this is is off the books for me.' Cellica said with a sign, the bitterness in her voice more than hinted at the silent battles she has fought in the office.
'Right,' Rydel wasn't expecting much else to be honest, 'but best keep the reality altering weapons under the carpet, am I right?'
'For me, it's under the eyelids.' Cellica chuckled and bobbed her head around, 'Anyone suspicious of your left hand yet?'
'...I...don't think...so?' Rydel said hesitantly, 'I have not activated the powers of it for once, but I sometimes felt like it just activated on its own in certain situations, somehow. Like I felt the after effects of it, but I didn't realize what happens.'
'I will ask Ol about it.' Cellica said as she looked down, possibly noting what Rydel's saying down, 'by the way, Zel is in a period of radiosilence, but he will check in soon. Got anything you need?'
'Maybe later...' Rydel said as he pondered on the things he might need to get Dolon out of her current situation, though he has spent so much time here, he felt he wasn't much closer to her than when he first started.
'I don't think anything more exciting is going to happen to be for another little while, anything going to happen with you? No more teaching jobs?'
'Not for a long while, and things are getting boring here.' Cellica lowered her voice instinctively despite knowing full well that her technology is enough to ensure this conversation being as casual as it gets, 'the Galactic cultural festival in a few months, and then right after we have the big deal that is the pre-galactic election where there is going to be massive scramble everywhere.'
'Yeah, the election is still in about two years, right?' Rydel asked as he looked back to when the recruiter mentioned Absolute Being's interest in influencing it, 'I heard from the recruitment guy about how the organization wants to get its hands involved in it.'
'I doubt the GBI would do anything about it, since newly formed parties happen every single election. I want to know, though, what do you really think of the organization?' Cellica put on a serious tone all of a sudden as the conversation veered back towards the important matters at hand.
Rydel knew he could not give a full answer, let alone a satisfying one, but he is still going to say what he really feels.
'...and what I really felt over the past two weeks is that this place is just...complicated.' Rydel said, 'I cam expecting military training with a drizzle of brainwash, weapons manufacturing and shit, not classes in commercial development and economics...' As the flashes of memories became to come back into his mind like a vivid slide show, he continued on.
'The place is no where near as bad as I think it is, at least on this front. There are genuinely people here just to learn more and become better, and I have seen many of them. But there are also those with ambitions and wanted to move a step further...'
'All of the things felt like a front. It has it's glorious points and things going for them, but I believe the dark sides are there, in the upper echelon of this organization.'
'And the fact that they are working closely with the head honcho of the region, who is also one of the most ruthless warlords outwards against other forces within the region.' Cellica butted in as the devil's advocate, 'I agree all the things you are seeing might all just be a front to portray one particular image.'
'Yeah...To find what we are truly looking for here, I need to progress fast. I need to be a lot faster than my peers...' said Rydel, though he does not know just how it can be done. The progress of personal development is not something one can just hack.
'I am sure you can figure something out, but I will be here if you need anything.' Cellica said, 'I have a meeting soon, so I suppose this is where I have to cut it...'
'Ah, yes. I will transmit the recordings to you too.' Rydel said as he brought up the files of the video log he did the day before. Then, he wanted to say something more, but the words struggled to escape his mouth.
It seemed like the same thing is happening to Cellcia too, and there is a awkward yet speculative silence between the two, like two travelers carefully moving through thin ice, no one dared to break it.
'Well...I guess I will leave you to it.' After another hardfought battle on the inside, the formal goodbye is Rydel's best effort.
He wanted to say he missed her, but it seemed like he could only say it in the recordings, in a joking manner. When she is sitting on the opposite side of the transmission, he found himself too scared and nervous to say what he wanted to say.
'You be careful.' said Cellica, before the transmission terminates, and the timer set showed twenty nine minutes. Maybe in another minute, Rydel could have said it?
Is it really Cellica he liked? And is it really him Cellica liked? Are they just...friendly friends? Rydel wondered, she doesn't seemed to reciprocate his feelings, at least it seemed that way. He was never good with ladies, and he can never tell. The last days back on Athena 3 was so busy and filled with the preparations Rydel has to do to actually make it into the Special Forces program, and they have never sorted this out properly, and now Rydel is lost in space and left to his own devices in this turmoil of emotion.
'There isn't time for this, not now, not here.' Rydel kept trying to convince himself of this face, yet deep down he wasn't sure.
Perhaps he should have taken Roloni up on the offer to grab the drinks.
But for now, he simply came away with the realization that he needed to progress, and do it fast, but he just doesn't know how to do it yet. After sitting in the seat for a long while and staring at the planet down below, Rydel then stood up slowly and left the area.
The colorful overpriced food and confectionery items for sale in the commercial area seemed hollow, yet couples held hands and populated the entire area with laughter and joy. Rydel looked on, and wished that things are different.
He always felt the loneliest when he is supposed to be the happiest. The times of celebration and joy often reveals what he truly longed for. But there isn't time for that, Rydel realized. He has got work to do, so he needs to find a way to get off the space station.
But before that, he needs something to eat. He is absolutely starving, and the conversation with Cellica isn't exactly satisfying.
He walked as quickly as he could through the zigzag of the aisles towards the food and restaurant areas. If there is anything Rydel needs right now, it is a good, hopefully not too pricy, meal.
There are a surprisingly amount of options out here. The people in the wild space might be many things, but they sure know how to enjoy themselves. Apart from the array of food printers located near the edge of the area selling edible cheap meals, there are actual organic being chefs and actual restaurants located in the upper levels above the food courts.
Rydel looked up at the groovy atmosphere, and looked down at the plastic benches and tables with food stains still yet to be covered by the cleaning droids.
'Tough.'
He opened the personal interface, and pulled out the menu.
In terms of pricing, it goes sensibly from the cheapest coming from food printers, being one to two Wolf Credits per meal, three if one is extremely hungry, For robotic chefs and the mid-tier restaurants, the pricing goes up to around five Wolf Credits per meal, though some of the more complicated cuisines would cost about eight, not including drinks and other consumables. For the actual organic being chefs, the price then shoots up to ten and above, but Rydel felt like no matter what, it won't go above twenty Wolf Credits just by the look of things.
If he is honest, it won't be a bad idea to try out cooking done by actual individuals. Though the general vibe of the restaurant would probably be too depressing for him. If only he has someone else to go with...
'Are you...Rold?' A surprised voice came from behind, and then Rydel felt a small object pressing against his skull. Immediately his survival instincts kicked in with adrenaline suddenly being pumped out. He spun around quickly and tried to disarm whoever's point a weapon to his head, but he is too slow.
'Pew. You are dead.' Valerie said with a smirk on her face, and Rydel noticed a bruise on her chin, possibly from Rydel bodyslaming her earlier in the day, though it only complimented her tough girl look.
'Did you just try to...' Rydel was about to yell at her, but realized what's happening. He laughed dryly and shook his head, 'you know what, never mind...'
'What?' Valeria poked Rydel right in the stomach, 'what's so funny?'
'Where is your mean sister?' Rydel ignored her question and taunting.
'She's in the club with someone else, and I got bored of dancing.' Valerie said honestly, then she looked at Rydel right in the eyes, tilted her head to the side and finally asked the question she has been wondering about, 'The question is, why are you here?'
'Why else? I am hungry.' Rydel shrugged.
'Me too.' Valerie said as she started walking towards the stairs that lead towards the upper levels, 'Let's go get something to eat.'
'...Just like that?' Rydel was taken aback by the sudden suggestion and didn't know what to say.
'Yeah! You don't want to?' Valerie asked as she leaned against the handrails, 'I have been here many times. The food is at least adequate.'
'Oh...Sure.' Rydel found no reason to refuse, and followed her up. If not for the fact that they were fighting rather seriously this morning, Rydel wouldn't have felt anything, really. But at least the loneliness problem is fixed, temporarily.
Let's hope this doesn't end in another fight, Rydel thought as he followed the blonde, though deep down somewhere inside of him, he is glad that Valerie has showed up.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone