章 12: Chapter 11. Inquiry
Reno and Hyde, the espers on sentry duty that day, were just on their way back to the outpost from the regular patrol when the detection device gave out a warning signal.
The device was made to detect miasmic beings, be they wraiths or beasts, up to a kilometer radius. It would send out an alarm and mark the location of the appearance. What made them temporarily freeze was that the warning signal beeped repeatedly.
Which meant there were multiple appearances of miasmic beings all at once.
"What, is it a horde? A stampede?" Reno took out the beeping device and they look at the screen closer, and felt goosebumps.
There were dozens of red dots on the screen, jumbled up so much that it painted the section where they gathered in a big glowing red circle. But what drained their blood was that those pulsing red dots were covering the area that was supposed to be their outpost.
They were so stunned that they stood rooted to the ground for a second, before immediately bolting to the outpost.
"Shit! What the hell is this? Do you receive any distress signals from Zen?" Hyde cursed. As much as they believed Zein had what it took to be considered an ability holder, there was no way he could face dozens of wraiths on his own, if even the two of them wouldn't be able to.
"No," Reno still stared at the device's screen even while they were running. "Should we send one—"
Suddenly, Reno stopped, which prompted Hyde to halt his step. He frowned at his partner, but upon looking at Reno's widened, astonished eyes, Hyde decided to save his scolding.
"What? Why are you stopping?"
Reno lifted his head, and answered with a confused voice. "It's gone," before Hyde could sound his own confusion, Reno showed him the screen. The red dots already vanished, leaving only a pulsing green—the mark of their outpost.
"What?" Hyde snatched the device from Reno's hand, and frowned even deeper. "Was it an error?"
"Let's just hurry," Reno shook his head, and started running again. Whether it was an error or not, the answer could only be found at the outpost, where hopefully their prized guide still safe and sound.
It took them less than a minute to finally had the outpost in their sight. Fortunately, the sentry box was intact, so they began to think that it was a device error—which would mean a problem in itself. But as they got closer, that theory was demolished by the leftover drying corpses of dozens of wraiths, leaving behind the reddish-black cores strewn around the sentry box's pillar.
"What the hell..."
While they were sinking into an equal mix of confusion and astonishment, they could hear a conversation from the sentry box, which meant their guide wasn't alone. Figured, since there was no way Zein could do all this with his strength alone.
So they climbed the outpost hastily, and saw their guide talking with an esper who was definitely not a borderland dweller. It was quite jarring, looking at a three-piece suit being worn in a sad, desolate land of the borderland.
"That's not up to me," they heard Zein speak dryly with his arms crossed. "Mission goes through the Captain."
The esper made a humming sound. "So if the Captain gives you the mission, you'll come?"
"I'm a mercenary," Zein shrugged, "it'll depend on the pay."
At that, the esper smirked. "That's even easier," he said, which made Zein roll his eyes. And then the esper turned toward them, commenting in an obviously not-so-pleased tone. "Your colleagues are here."
This time, they got stunned for a different reason. "Wha—"
"The Serpent Lord?"
Zein raised his brow at Reno and Hyde's reaction, watching the two scoot closer carefully, eyes wide and unblinking. They only walked as close as the pantry, however, as if they were too afraid to close the distance. It was quite funny seeing borderland mercenaries who walked a tightrope of death and wouldn't even flinch at dungeon outbreaks being so careful and nervous around someone.
Even Reno, who was known to be one of the calmest members, looked nervous. "Excuse me, but...you're Esper Bassena Vaski, right?"
'So that's his name?'
Zein tilted his head, glancing at the man, who looked at him with a smug, smirking face as if telling him: 'See, other people recognize me, unlike you!' which made him almost feel childish. Zein almost chuckled at that, thinking the man had an adorable side despite being so powerful and overbearing.
His face immediately hardened at the thought of calling an esper 'adorable'.
"Hmm, yes," Bassena answered with a better tone than before, but tilted his head after. "But why are you leaving a guide alone in an outpost?"
The two espers stammered. "Oh...uh, that..."
It wasn't like they were doing anything wrong, but explaining to an outsider that a guide had the capability of low-star esper was quite difficult. And that was why it was the guide that stepped up.
"It's how we do it here," Zein gave out a curt explanation, which actually explained nothing. He just effectively said 'it's not an outsider's business' to the face of the strongest esper there. "Don't make presumption."
It made Reno and Hyde quietly gasp. If the information they had was correct, then Bassena Vaski, as much as he was strong, was also that much rude and petty, not to mention cruel. The man wasn't the kind of celebrity esper who would try to maintain their image. He was someone who drove his own family to the brink, pushed them into bankruptcy, and threw them into jail. Rumors also said that the family members who were considered to be missing were actually dead by his hand.
That was why they were being so cautious before, because mere 3-star espers like them couldn't afford to offend someone like Bassena.
And yet their guide talked to the man nonchalantly.
To be fair, Zein talked like that—with hardly any interest nor consideration—to everyone. It was refreshing usually, since people could see he carried no bullshit or lies. And being Zein, he probably had no idea of who this esper was and how much influence he had on the Eastern Federation's sentinel community.
But really, Zein should learn how to be more tactful, sometimes—the two espers thought.
They looked cautiously at Bassena's face, ready to somewhat defend their guide should the 5-star esper take offense. Contrary to their worry, however, Bassena didn't look angry. The amber eyes just narrowed a bit, before he shrugged.
"If you say so," and the man conceded easily, just like that.
While the two espers still staring dumbfoundedly, Zein looked at Bassena and asked. "Why are you still here if your experiment's done?"
Startled, Bassena looked at him with a frown. "What experiment?"
"You're here to test that theory about aggravating the miasma or whatever, right?" Zein tilted his head, feeling sure that he finally found out the man's real reason for coming here.
'Because there's no way he comes all the way to the borderland to see me,' Zein thought. He might be one of the excellent guides on the borderland, but out there in the safer zone, there were a lot of high-class guides and even Saint and Saintess in the temples that were surely better at guiding than him.
"That's not—" before Bassena could make any retort, the special communication bracelet on his wrist beeped repeatedly, like an angry shouting. So much so that even Zein couldn't help but turned his sight to the device.
Zein didn't even know there was a commlink that was usable in the borderland.
"Ah, fuck—what?!" Bassena almost snapped, taking the call with a curse. "What? I'm doing my job…that's your role isn't it…you're so demanding now that you're brother's not around, huh?" he paused with a roll of his eyes, and then clicked his tongue. "Why are you bringing up Radia…fine, fine…fuck you're so annoying!"
After a flurry of exchange with whoever was on the other side, Bassena exhaled harshly with a grunt, that made the two espers secretly flinch. And then, with a sudden movement that Zein couldn't react to, the man leaned forward at the guide, lowering his head so their eyes were on the same level, and whispered. "See you, then."
And just like that, he was vanishing into scattering darkness, like a slithering, mystical snake.
There was a long period of silence before Reno coughed to break it. Now that the constricting presence of the dangerous elite had gone, they went straight to interrogate Zein.
"Are you acquainted with the Serpent Lord?"
"What happened to all those wraiths?"
Both of them had different priorities, but Zein just told them about the phenomena earlier and no, he was not acquainted with Bassena Vaski.
"Why would someone like me know him, anyway," Zein shook his head. That being said, he was quite curious now. Bassena wasn't the only 5-star esper he had encountered, but being in such close proximity—in literal zero-distance—and having some conversation made him quite intrigue about the esper. "Who is he?"
"Right, you wouldn't know," Reno sighed. But they were close enough with the guide to know how detached Zein was from the rest of the world. Him asking about other people's identities was already a rare enough occurrence.
It was Hyde that answered him, while making the three of them coffee. "He's just the youngest Saint-class Esper,"
"Just," Reno scoffed. "Short and precise."
"It was quite a headline five years ago, when he climbed the highest floor of the Tower of Ophiuchus when he was just twenty-one," Hyde came to the table and laid all three cups there. "People said he was just arrogant, but he managed to clear it in just a year."
"Hmm...he's that good?" Zein sat at the table and took his cup, pondering.
Different from guides that were classified by the capacity of their vessel and thus only needed to be measured with a device, esper's classification or ranks came from the tower's trial. All new awakeners were inherently labeled as non-star, or zero-star, no matter if their latent ability and magic power were at the bottom of the barrel or if they were the cream of the crop. They would only receive their star after they attempted one of the tower's trials.
All towers had the same five floors scheme, with each floor consisting of different sub-floor and trials. Each of cleared floor would reward the espers with skills and increase in their overall constitution, so the higher they climbed, the more powerful they would be.
But the fifth floor wasn't the highest. Each tower had 'the highest floor scheme', which was vastly different from the previous floors. Before, espers would not die inside the trials. They might experience death, but they would be resurrected at the base of the tower, so they could attempt the trial again, and grow stronger from it—although there would be a maximum chance an esper could repeat the trials.
The highest floor, or the Tower's Peak, however, had no resurrection. If they died on the trial, they'd remain dead, so not many 5-star would attempt it. After all, 5-stars already received the nobility treatment everywhere, so why would they throw it all away?
But if they did succeed, they would receive an unprecedented ability—the celestial blessing. It was this blessing that coined the term 'Saint-class' for the esper who succeed in the last trial, just like the temple's Saint and Saintess-class Guides who received the goddess's blessing.
And Bassena Vaski attempted this do-or-die trial at the age of twenty-one, becoming the youngest Saint-class esper at twenty-two.
"What a madman," Zein muttered a comment.
"He is a madman," Reno chuckled. "After his trial, there's a rumor that he would be the next Guildmaster of his family's guild, the Golden Viper, but he betrayed his family and formed another guild with Mortix Group's chairman."
"Ah, I remember that time. It's a huge scandal that lasted for a whole year," Hyde chimed in, reminiscing the time before he came to the borderland. "People called him the Betrayer, the Snake. He's in a war with his own family, and since the Mortix Group was behind him, there's a war between the Mallarc and the Vaski."
Zein patted his mask, remembering the confident face and the glowing eyes that he observed closely earlier. "Seemed like he won?"
"It was revealed later that the Golden Viper and the Vaski were trying to kill him before, hence the 'betrayal'. He gathered evidence of his family's misdeeds and sent them to trial. They spent a lot of money to cover their track, and when it didn't work, the penalty pushed them to bankruptcy."
"Whew..."
"Indeed. Since he was also a Vaski, and still using the name, there were a lot of negative views toward him."
"It's getting better now, with the Mortix's guild, Trinity, rising to prominence. He even gained his 'Serpent Lord' title, like mocking how people called him a snake before."
"But people still don't like him much."
"Eh—still won't change the fact that he's one of the strongest," Hyde shrugged. "And he's still twenty-six, so there's a lot of room to grow even more with experience."
"But...Zen," Reno suddenly turned his head at the guide that silently enjoyed their story while calmly drinking his coffee. "What's he doing here?"
"How would I know?" Zein shrugged, at the same time with a beeping sound from the Unit's messaging device. "Probably a guild's excursion like usual,"
Reno looked at the message from the Unit's headquarters and grinned. He lifted the device towards Zein. "Or it probably has something to do with this."
It's a summon from the Captain for the guide.
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