บท 343: Coincidence? I think not
After arriving at Hera's house, Leo had to take a moment to get settled. He had been traveling nonstop for several days already, and this was the first opportunity he had to rest properly. While he was happy to find a place where he could just stop, Hera was worried about her friend. Leo was different. His eyes were sunken, and his skin seemed dry, not to mention the number of calluses on his hands. Whatever happened during his time with the Crimson Coalition was clearly taxing to his body.
After a few minutes, Leo came back from the bathroom and asked for a glass of water, "Thanks. Man, that hit the spot."
"What happened? Did you have to run here?" Hera asked.
"Not really. I just got used to doing things in a hurry. Also, the way here was really annoying. I had to cross a bunch of rooms that had doorways really far from each other, and the schedule for any bus or trucks that allowed Tiger to be a passenger ended up being really tight," Leo explained after finishing his water.
"Hey, Leo! How are you?" Bonnie came out of the dining room to greet him.
"Hey, I'm doing ok. Dead tired today, and even more so for dealing with that mess in the doorway. One of the reasons I wanted my training to be over soon was to be far away from stuff like that," Leo sighed, "How about you?"
"Mess in the doorway?" Bonnie turned to Hera, who explained what happened with Tiger and the dwarfs.
"Ah, well… Try not to be angry, they just started dealing with humans, and they are very cautious about everything. Well, most of them are at least," Bonnie explained.
"I understand. Hera told me about this all in her text, but man, all that drama is tiresome," Leo slumped back on the couch.
"Why? Was there a lot of drama where you were?" Hera asked.
"Don't even get me started. Aside from stupid macho stuff among the platoon like, who can drink more, who can lift more and jock bullshit like that, and to make it worse, the entire room was such a mess."
"Oh, really?" Bonnie perked up, interested in the gossip.
"Yeah, there is a dungeon there that has a consistent drop of mana crystals, and someone found one that was like, coconut-sized could store hundreds of thousands of mana, but it was a weird element. Even so, he managed to sell it for two hundred thousand gold. Since the dungeon was easy and not dangerous at all, people started to line up to do some runs. The issue started because the dungeon is one of those with a limit of runs per day, and the guild set up a priority system where if you had a silver or a gold card, you had kind of like a reservation. When it was just that it was ok… ish, but then they added another exception. If you worked with the new dawn or any other organization that the guild had any dealings with, you also had another priority list. That's when people started to protest. Weirdly enough, there weren't many humans in the mix. It was mostly the other races that were around," Leo explained.
Bonnie chuckled, "I don't know if you saying that was weird is cute or sad."
"What?"
"Leo, more often than not, when a specific group gets pushed away from something, it's done intentionally," Bonnie replied.
"You really think so?" Leo asked.
"I know more about that than you would expect. Being from a powerful family only mattered when people knew about it. When they just saw me, I had to deal with that bullshit," Bonnie sighed.
"I'm sorry…."
"Don't worry. But yeah, if that is so targeted, it kind of feels like they did it on purpose. Then again, it could be just an honest mistake. I don't see people acting weird when they are around people that are not human. Well, aside from the initial shock for those who just came in the MAZE," Bonnie shrugged.
"That's not entirely correct," Helena came down from her room, "Hey Leo. Glad to see you and sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop."
"Hey, Helena. I mean, it's your house, right? And we are not talking about anything that serious anyway. But what do you mean?"
"Well, the guild had a history of giving priority to humans. Mostly because they kept hiding so much about the MAZE. It was hard to be fair to everyone when you have to actively swipe what they do under the rug," Helena sighed.
"Yeah, that is messed up. I still don't get why someone decided to do that. What's the problem with letting people back on Earth to know about other races?" Hera shook her head.
"The explanation they give is that after Khan broke the first wall, there was a lot of conflict between humans and everyone else. Mostly because, well… we as a society suck since always. Kingdoms who think that everything belongs to them, people who think they are better than everyone else. Not to say that the other races were any better, but it was one of those situations where two opposing forces collided. According to what the guild says, things were really bad, but after the great monster invasion, when Cyrus united all explorers under the same banner, there was a meeting where everyone agreed to hide their existence from Earth. The reason that we are told is that we needed a single organization to deal with all the politics inside the MAZE, and many of the kings and queens from Earth wouldn't even bother leveling up, much less coming here. So to avoid any trouble, people would pretend that other races were a myth, and information about the MAZE wouldn't be shared freely. Honestly, I don't believe that's the full story. There are too many holes, but even if we ask around, no one can tell us more about it," Helena explained while getting a drink.
"But that is changing, right? The guild is opening up about what happens inside the MAZE, so it shouldn't be hiding what happened with the other races anymore," Leo said.
"Maybe, but even so, it won't change everything in a day. What happened in that room is probably either a crappy old habit, or it was caused by a group that doesn't agree with the direction that the guild is going and is trying to push back," Helena came back to the living room with a bottle of wine, "Sorry, this type of thing really bothers me, and I'm drinking. You are all free to join if you want."
"I'm in. I honestly thought I wouldn't have to deal with this kind of crap here," Bonnie walked to the kitchen and came back with a few glasses.
The mood was sour for a moment, but Leo asked about what everyone was doing, and things started to get better. Hera talked about everything that went down ever since the first time she got in Boothudurn. She avoided telling him about Blue's legacy since it wasn't her secret to tell. She also avoided talking about the order or the legacy. Unlike Alex or Bonnie, Leo had left the party a while ago, and the Crimson Coalition was a very militaristic-focused organization. Hera had no way of telling if Leo was obligated to tell his superiors about any significant discoveries. It's not like she wanted to suspect him, but after seeing Shane call Blue a thief, her own paranoia was more evident. Luckily, it seemed like she wasn't the only one thinking that Bonnie and Helena avoided talking about the order completely. Bonnie even went as far as to send a text to the group chat warning everyone not to mention the Court of Heroes or anything like that. However, they did talk about the ruins in the Wailing Valley, using the excuse of an archaeological expedition and not the search for a legacy.
Blue and Alex arrived at the tail end of Hera's story and joined in the conversation. With everyone there, it was time for Leo to talk about his time in the Crimson Coalition. As everyone expected, his first days there were very similar to someone who had just joined the military. His schedule was very strict, waking up every day at 5 A.M. spending most of the day doing training drills and practicing combat tactics. Since he was a tamer, Leo was assigned to a specific squad after completing the basic training. This allowed him to learn how to fight along with Tiger and how to make the best of their partnership. Leo was among the most dedicated members of that group, and his hard work and skill were noticed by his superiors. Instead of just being part of a platoon, Leo was assigned to a different group responsible for finding potential new training grounds or areas that the coalition could use for its resources, giving them more freedom to travel around the MAZE alone as long as he gave regular reports. The job gave him a lot of freedom, and he could access a lot of the coalition's resources, but there wasn't exactly a path to raise ranks while on it.
Hearing that story, Hera couldn't help but find it suspicious. Leo was strong, but he didn't have any skills that would be particularly useful for finding a training ground, not to mention that it was a lot of freedom for someone who joined less than a year ago.
"By your face, I'm guessing you also find this weird," Leo smiled.
"How can you tell what I'm thinking about?" Hera asked.
"Don't get me wrong, sweetie, but you really need to work on your poker face," Helena chuckled.
Hera rolled her eyes, "I'm not a secretive person, but yeah, your story is weird. I'm not saying you are lying, just that the things they gave you seem… too much."
"I agree. At first, I thought it was because of my uncle. You know, a bit of nepotism. But the commander who assigned me to this job seemed a bit too eager to do so. I'm guessing they are trying to hide something from me," Leo nodded.
"Or they think you are a threat. Maybe whoever gave the order to put you on that group wanted you to get stuck at your current rank," Bonnie suggested.
"That's also a possibility. Then again, I can't do jack shit about all that right now. I'm too weak. I'm just level 17. Even if I wanted to become a captain or whatever, I need to be at least level 30 before doing so," Leo sighed, "Let's change the subject. You mentioned you recorded that snake person doing a weird fighting style. Can I see it? One of the things the commander said was to stay on the lookout for rare skills and old things that might help us now."
"Sure, I really don't expect that this remains a secret for long," Bonnie pulled up her tablet and started showing Leo the things they found in the Naga hero's crypt. They never took any pictures or videos from the things related to the legacy, so she didn't have to worry about that.
Leo watched the green naga doing some of the movements of its combat style, then saw the rest of the things the group had found. When Bonnie was showing some of the scrolls that were in the room with the yellow naga, Hera noticed something. When two pieces of paper overlapped, it showed something written on them, something that didn't match their language but matched something that Hera had gotten very familiar with.
"Stop, send me that picture," Hera asked Bonnie.
"Sure… why?" Bonnie sent the image but was a bit confused about the sudden request.
"I'm positive that this line here," Hera pointed at a point in the scroll, "Is something written by the same person who wrote that letter I have."
"Are you sure? Even if those scribbles are in whatever language that letter was, how can you tell it's from the same person?"
"You don't get it," Hera pulled up the original letter on her tablet and a reference of that language, "Whoever wrote the letter has such a bad handwriting that even a pharmacist would have trouble reading. Look."
Bonnie started comparing the handwriting, and Hera was right. The letter was a mess, with many of the letters almost unrecognizable when compared to the proper language. However, when looking at the scribbles on the scrolls she found back at the tomb, they were too similar. It was almost impossible to say that they weren't written by the same person, even if Bonnie originally thought that they were nothing but doodles.
"Ok, I agree, that does seem to be the case, but without matching the right pages, it will be hard to understand what they say," Bonnie gave Hera's tablet back.
"Didn't you take pictures for all the scrolls there?" Blue asked.
"Yeah, but I didn't focus on the edges. Most of those doodles are cut from the pictures," Bonnie sighed.
"Ok, then I have to go back and take more pictures, maybe some front and back just to be sure," Hera had a huge smile on her face. She just started looking into the tamer's legacy, and it seemed like she already had a new lead.
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