Amazon Apocalypse 6: Chapter 28

Our teamwork started slipping after our little team argument. What had once felt like a smooth-running and well-coordinated group was now noticeably sloppier. Charlie’s position was off when tanking a monster, and I had to spend more time on the front lines.

I could distract our enemies as well as Charlie could, but I was less of a traditional tank and more of a dodge tank. My fighting style was not so much about shrugging off blows, but rather making sure I didn’t get hit. Slowing myself down to D-Grade speeds and trying not to do anything too flashy actually ended up giving me plenty of opportunities to pick up new points in my dodge proficiency.

Unfortunately, my ability to do Charlie’s entire job only seemed to strike another nerve.

“Were you holding back before or something? You can tank as well as I can,” Charlie snapped.

I shrugged and answered truthfully. “Yes, I was holding back. We had a new team, and I wanted to be in a position to save anybody if things went south.”

“Why do you even need me, then?” Charlie crossed his arms.

“Every team needs a tank, Charlie. I’m more of a damage dealer, but can take on the role for a bit of we need it. Besides, I’ve got quite a few levels on you. By the time you reach my level, you’ll be way better at this job than me.” I tried to place a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he stepped back and avoided my touch.

I sighed. So much for having a perfect team.

I shot a glance at the dead monsters around us and bent low to gather their cores and other valuables. I wasn’t too good at this part, since in the past I’d always just cast Dissassemble. I'd never actually needed to cut up a monster before. Thankfully, Suzie proved remarkably adept at it and usually took over, but this time I slipped a little something extra into the corpse.

“Hey, check it out! Look what I found.” I said, producing four experience pearls. They were low-grade, cheap things to me, but to any D-Grade, they’d be worth ten levels spread between race and class. To a group around level 40, these things were an incredible find.

“Are those... experience pearls?” Suzie asked, eyes sparkling.

“I think they are. Should we sell them? Or...” Abby looked at the rest of us.

“Use them! These things are like the experience points from a dozen life-or-death battles rolled into a little pellet! If we absorb them, our levels will skyrocket!” Suzie snatched one and held it up to the light and watched them glitter.

“But there are only four of them and there are five of us,” Meghan looked at each of us behind locks of curled hair.

“Each of you take one. I’m a bit higher leveled than the rest of you. Maybe you all can catch up to me.” I grinned. Each of the ladies accepted one, and finally, there was only a single pearl left. I held it out to Charlie.

Charlie reached out a hand, almost grabbed it, then flinched and stepped back.

“Come on, Charlie. You said you wanted to join the Adventurers’ Guild, didn’t you? That’s a month of grinding levels sitting right there,” Suzie said.

But Charlie shook his head. “This isn’t right. I didn’t earn these levels. Real levels should be gained in life-or-death battles fighting against the odds. I think I’m going to take some time off, guys. You can adventure without me for a bit.”

The girls glanced at one another and shared a shrug, but I had a hunch at where I’d find Charlie next.

***

Charlie had me in a bit of a bind. Truthfully, he had the wrong idea about me and Frank. I was half tempted to fly down in my real identity and give him a little lecture on why his impression of what Frank and I had done to reach our current power levels was both wrong and stupid.

Unfortunately, it would be a little hard to resume my current disguise after that.

“So what do you ladies think? Got any ideas?” I asked Bridget and Sakura. I’d been pacing the ground in my castle after a long day of adventuring.

Sakura glanced up from a pile of intelligence reports. I had her keeping track of everything that was happening on the New Kyoto front.

“Honestly? I’m not sure why you’re bothering with this whole thing. You should have just had some people gather the intelligence you wanted on the military guys. There are plenty of people in Crownhill willing to do spywork for you. How about Rick, the axe guy? He's C-Grade now, from what I've heard.”

I waved Sakura’s concerns off. “Then I’d be stuck doing paperwork and reading reports. I prefer to get my hands dirty and do things myself. Anyway, about Charlie...”

“I thought your mission was to figure out what the military guys are up to, not help random D-Grade adventurers.” Sakura gave me a look that reminded me a lot of when I worked for her as an employee before the integration.

“Well... but...” I struggled to come up with an explanation for focusing so much on my adventuring team, but I couldn’t find one. Truthfully, I knew Sakura was right. I’d built that team for a single mission, and the mission was over. Realistically, I should disband the group and move on. My time was a valuable resource, and spending it on a few random D-Grades was a waste.

But the more I thought about doing that, the more I realized I really didn’t want to.

Bridget saw my torn expression and wrapped a flour-splattered arm around my waist.

“Don’t let Sakura get to you. She just doesn’t like that there are three women on your new team. Who cares about your mission? You’re the one who made it. Follow your heart and do what makes you happy. And if that means helping your new friends, then do it.” Bridget stood on her tip-toes before planting a kiss on my cheek and returning to the kitchen, wobbling a little as she walked. She was less graceful than usual now that she had a visible bulge in her belly.

“Okay, you both make good points. Maybe it isn’t time to part ways with my team just yet. I think I’ve got another mission for them that’ll solve a few problems.” I stroked my chin and soon came up with a new plan.

***

The following morning, I hunted Charlie down alone. He’d taken to the wilderness solo in search of monsters to hunt. I found him face-to-face with a D-Grade Water Elemental, just like the one we’d taken down in our joint training exercise, though a few levels weaker.

Even though this was a monster he’d easily beaten as part of a group, now he was struggling badly against it. I crossed my arms, stood back and watched a bit to understand his strategy. He didn’t have Meghan to freeze the elemental with spells, and without that, he had no way to damage it.

Charlie might be hot-headed and eager for glory, but he wasn’t an idiot. He had to have some sort of plan to deal with this thing.

As it was, the water elemental was slowly overwhelming his defenses. It effortlessly wrapped around his shield, tugging it straight off his arm and tossing it to one side. His sword sliced through the water of its body and did nothing at all.

That was when Charlie pulled out what he no doubt thought would win him the fight. It was one of those modified grenades the military men had shown off. The improvised explosive instantly released a large amount of ice mana, no doubt sourced from an ice-aspected monster core at the E-Grade. It was a weapon reminiscent of my own original mana bombs, though more niche in its use and less powerful overall.

The explosion was small, but a grievous blow to the water elemental. It froze both of the elementals’ outstretched appendages, which Charlie slammed into with his shoulders to crack and break them free from the elementals.

He had effectively disarmed the thing, but that wasn’t enough to kill it. It formed two more limbs and wrapped around Charlie’s arms, effectively trapping them at his side. He tried to reach for a second ice grenade, but his eyes widened when he realized he couldn’t reach it.

I watched fear overtake him as he suddenly realized he was going to die. Sweat beaded up on his brow, and his jaw clenched as he prepared for the end.

Naturally, that was when I stepped in.

I shot a little ice spell using Mana Arsenal. Hopefully, he would be in too much shock to wonder how a swordsman had an ice spell.

My burst of ice mana froze both Charlie and the water elemental in place. From there, it was a simple matter of dashing in to slice the thing in half and free my troubled comrade.

“I thought I might find you here, Charlie.” I bent over and picked up his fallen shield and sword while he panted, wide-eyed and covered in freezing water on the ground.

I handed him his weapons while his eyes were wide and his heart thumped in his chest. I gave him a minute to clear his head before sitting down next to him.

“It’s disorienting, isn’t it? Coming that close to death?”

“Y-yeah...” Charlie muttered, still clearly shaken.

“I’ve never liked the feeling. That’s why I try to do it as infrequently as possible.”

Charlie nodded, shivering.

I clapped him on the shoulder. “I figured I’d find you out here. Luckily, I stumbled upon you just in time.”

“You saved me again. Sorry for the trouble.” Charlie hung his head.

I reached into my pocket and tossed him the experience pearl he’d rejected yesterday.

“Give that a go. Maybe you would have succeeded with a few more levels under your belt. Come on, let’s go. The rest of our team will be at our usual spot. I lucked out and scooped a special quest for us today.”

Charlie stared at the experience pearl a moment before absorbing it, then we returned to Crownhill together.

***

We were a bit late for meeting Abby, Suzie, and Meghan. They were surprised to see Charlie there after his declaration to take time off the previous day, but I soon distracted them with my big news.

I looked left and right as though checking for eavesdroppers before I made the announcement.

“Alright gang, I’ve got a big quest for us. One with substantial rewards. It comes all the way from the top.”

When I had everyone’s attention, I shared the quest with them.

New Quest Available!

Investigate the Military Base and its inhabitants.

• Go to the military base posing as potential recruits and carefully examine their forces for plans, anomalies, unusual behavior, available weaponry, and anything else of interest.

• When finished, submit your report directly to Shardlord Carter.

Rewards: Your choice of rare skill books from Shardlord Carter’s personal collection, entry into the guild of your choice, and 10,000 contribution points each. Additional bonuses may become available depending on what you discover.

“Ten thousand?” Suzie’s eyes went wide. To a D-Grade, that was an astronomical sum. Someone who had no plans to level further could retire and live on that sum for the rest of a normal lifespan. A more active adventurer could purchase the best weapons and armor Crownhill could produce, along with the resources to boost their level at or close to C-Grade, depending on how much adventuring they did. And the points were just one of several rewards.

“Hurry up and accept the quest,” I whispered, and one by one, my team all accepted it.

That was a good thing, since the rewards for this quest were way above average, given the listed requirements. If I’d left that quest up for more than a handful of seconds, hundreds of desperate D-Grades would have jumped at the opportunity. This sort of mission was the kind of thing that could be ruined by too many people trying to complete it. As soon as someone was caught, General Marshall would have his guard up.

“Are we going to become spies?” Suzie asked. Her eyes lit up like someone just told her that her childhood dream job wasn’t as far-fetched as her parents made her believe.

“Yes. This is a special quest, and it was issued directly by Shardlord Carter himself. I had to pull a few strings to get us this opportunity.” I grinned at my team while they stared at me in awe. They seemed quite impressed by my connections. If only they knew the half of it.

“Can we really do something like this?” Abby asked skeptically. “This seems like the sort of job that would only go to one of the major guilds.”

Charlie nodded along. He was still staying quiet thanks to his earlier brush with death, but he shared Abby’s sentiment.

“Guess we just got lucky. Anyway, it’s time to plan the mission...”

I hastily moved on from the subject of how I got this quest for my team. Digging into it too deeply would probably expose me. So instead, I took us right into what we were looking for and how we were going to find it. Most of it boiled down to going in with our eyes and ears open and pretending that we were new recruits.

“When do we start?” Suzie asked. I sensed more than a little eagerness coming from her.

“Tonight. I’ve booked us another joint training session. And once it’s over, we’re going to take our new friends up on their offer.”

<Note>

Shorter chapter today, but we'll make it up later. There just isn't a good place to cut later on.

Originally I thought Carter was going to go in with Mimiko and maybe Cyra, but since Carter has new friends he might as well use them. Anyway, I need to hunt down some mission impossible music for the next chapter. Although, depending on how it goes for Carter's crew I may have to switch to Spykids or Austin Powers music.