[LSB] Chapter 99: Finally Doing Quests But Still Not Checking the Guidance

“Hmm.”

They truly did clean it out. Julian was expecting them to stop, but the people from the Blacksmith Guild cleared their entire shop—they even took the armor that Juliet was making, and she wasn’t done with it.

For some reason, however, Juliet was sort of happy when they took the unfinished armor.

Her reasoning?

It meant that if they took it, they thought that it was the same quality as Julian’s works.

But after a few minutes, when the people from the Blacksmith Guild, as well as the blacksmiths who prevented Julian from fighting them, have all left, Juliet quickly sprawled to the floor, hugging the anvil and sniffling in silence.

She had been like that for a minute now, and Julian did not really know how to approach her at all.

He was about to earlier, but MEGAN told him to give her some space to process all of it. But after a few more seconds, Julian talked to MEGAN again.

“Was I like this when you sold all my things?” He asked.

MEGAN slowly climbed up of his shirt, ruffling it a little bit before she hung onto the collars. She looked at Juliet for a few seconds before shaking her head.

“Nah,” she said. “You practically didn’t care at all. My god, you were suicidal back then to the point that I almost didn’t know what to do. I’m supposed to be a navigational AI, Julian. Not an emotional support robot.”

“Hmm.” Julian couldn’t retort at all and just changed the topic, “Speaking of—who did you sell my things to?”

“It went with the house, Julian.” MEGAN climbed further up, using Julian’s neck as a hold even though she could just fly to his shoulder, “The new owners probably threw it away into space or something since they thought they were junk. But who knows, wouldn’t it be funny if your swords and armor became like treasures? Especially now that you’re like the most famous person on Earth?”

“I’m not the most famous person on Earth.” Julian hummed.

“Uh, duh?” MEGAN slapped Julian’s neck. She seemed to have taken a liking to doing that ever since she gained a pseudo-body, “Yes. Julian. Yes, you are. I didn’t want to tell you this, but a cult is forming around you. The problem with you is that you live in a bubble and everything else doesn’t matter, you’re looking at the world only from your perspective—But honestly, I think that’s a good thing… don’t let the fame get to your head.”

Julian let out a heavy sigh from MEGAN’s sudden sermon. He hadn’t really thought that she would be lecturing him here… in Artemia. But here they were.

Julian waited for another minute, and finally, Juliet rose up from the ashes… literally. Her knees were covered in ash.

“Boss!” The tone of her voice was hoarse, but there was a sense of determination in there that even someone as dense as Julian could hear. She pointed to Julian right at his face without saying anything after that, but after a deep, and very slow breath, “It’s time to get you a license! I’ll pack up our things, then let’s go immediately! I swear, these vultures only wanted to take your work for themselves, Boss! This is—”

“Juliet.”

“Boss!?” Juliet quickly paused as Julian suddenly called her name. She looked at Julian’s eyes, only to look away with her face slightly turning red. MEGAN immediately noticed this, and her eyes narrowed but she didn’t say anything.

Slowly, Juliet’s breaths started to calm down and she managed to look at Julian again, “What is it, Boss?”

Unlike her, however, Julian did not hesitate at all to speak, “Thank you for taking care of my body—me while I was on Earth.”

“Oh… that? Psh,” Juliet rolled her lips and waved her hand. She also took in a small gulp, and once again, MEGAN noticed that but she didn’t say anything, “It’s only normal to take care of each other, Boss. A…anyway, I’ll go pack up. Just make yourself comfortable there.”

“No. I’ll go back to Earth for a while and return in an hour.” Julian said, “I… have something to take care of for a bit. MEGAN… can you stay here for a while?”

Julian wanted to see what was going on on Earth before he went on another long adventure. Humanity Engineering said they would take care of everything, but he still wanted to check what was going on. What he did not want, however, was for MEGAN to see what he did.

He killed—no. He massacred people. Sure, they were also going to kill him… but he also knew that he was strong enough to subdue all of them. They would have gotten hurt, and broken several bones, but he could have let them all live.

Julian could explain that he wanted to make sure that MEGAN was safe as fast as possible, but he was sure she wouldn’t take it well. She already had to deal with processing the fact that he killed those loan sharks, he didn’t want this to weigh down on her at all… at least not now that she was having fun roaming around with her own body.

Fortunately for him, he didn’t have to come up with a reason why MEGAN should stay as she just said,

“Okay. There’s something I want to talk to with Juliet anyway. Wait… I can stay here while you’re back on Earth, right? Is that possible?”

Before Julian could even think to answer, the Avatar of Searadyn’s voice whispered into both their minds.

[Yes. As long as Master does not call you back, you may explore the world around him freely—but you can not go far.]

“Oh. Then just sit down somewhere here, Julian.”

“Hmm.”

Julian swiftly grabbed a chair and sat down, eager to leave before MEGAN could change his mind.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said.

With those words, Julian’s consciousness snapped back to his real body—only to wake up feeling weightless, as though he were floating in midair.

And he was. He could feel the gentle sway of a floating stretcher beneath him, carrying him out of the office belonging to the leader of the Hatter crime family. The familiar scent of Victoria’s perfume wafted through the air, completely waking him up.

“Mr. Winters, you’re back,” Victoria said. She noticed him stirring and raised her hand, signaling the stretcher to halt. She stepped closer, grabbing onto the stretcher as she spoked to Julian. “We were about to take you back to Ceres-9. It’s fortunate you returned when you did. I was just preparing to proceed with the narrative we’ve planned.”

“Slow down…” Julian muttered, clasping his head as he swung his legs off the stretcher and steadied himself. “What narrative?”

A faint smile crept across Victoria’s face. If Julian had been able to see, he might have caught the sharp glint that flashed across her glasses as she adjusted them. She remained silent for a moment as if waiting for him to press further. When he didn’t, she cleared her throat and began to explain.

“While you were asleep, we carefully doctored and placed traces of daemons throughout the entire building. Obviously, we were inspired by what you have already done previously with the loan sharks.” Victoria seemed proud of what they had done as she started walking around the room. Julian tapped his foot on the floor to get an image of what they did, and true enough, everything was completely different from how he had left it.

There were large claw-like crevices on the walls, and the corpse of the leader of the Hatter family, whose neck Julian crushed with his bare hands, was now split into several pieces.

“Hmm.” Julian hummed to commend Victoria for what they did, and she bowed her head in response. The smile on her face, grew wider as she explained her plan further.

“And since you were on Artemia, we were going to say that you fought to the point that you needed urgent care. But since you are now back here, I would have to change that.” Victoria once again adjusted her glasses as she chuckled, “Instead of a tired and broken hero, you would be stepping out of this building victorious against your battle with a Category 5 Daemon.”

“Vic…torious?” Julian once again spread his senses throughout the building.

“You do not have to worry about the corpses, Mr. Winters.” Victoria shook her head, “We have actors on stand-by to pretend that you saved them. As for the corpses, we’ll leave some behind—we are already in the process of changing their identities into model citizens. After all, it wouldn’t look good that you tried to save known criminals, no?”

“You can do all that?”

“Of course, Mr. Winters.” Victoria nodded, “By the way… why am I not detecting MEGAN?”

“She’s… rebooting. My therapy’s near and she does that every time as a routine.” Julian reasoned. A lie with a mix of truth in it.

“I see.” Victoria narrowed her eyes before turning around, “Well then, shall we meet the press that’s about to arrive here in 20 seconds?”

***

An hour later, after Julian had to do all sorts of things on Earth, he was now waking up on his clone back in Artemia. Surprisingly, before he could even open his eyes, he felt himself floating in the air again for the second time.

“What…” Julian slowly opened his eyes, only to see the back of the head of a seikrobos as well as a moving scenery in front of it. He had to process what was happening at first before he felt something soft and warm sticking to his back—and as he fully woke up, he recognized the scent behind him,

“...Juliet?”

“Ah, Boss! You’re awake… again!”

Juliet was currently holding the reigns of the seikrobos with one hand, while the other was hugging Julian to make sure he wasn’t going to fall off with how fast they were going.

“Did you… carry me while I was on Earth?” Julian asked, still slightly confused about what was happening.

“Oh… uh… that—” Juliet stuttered, and bouncing from the saddle of the seikrobos did not help at all. A few more stammered breaths escaped her lips before someone else answered for him.

“I asked her to just carry your ass, Julian.” MEGAN emerged from the fluffy neck of the seikrobos, surprisingly not burning its feathers even with the flames dancing around her body, “I also happened to introduce myself to the big beautiful lady.”

Juliet nervously laughed at MEGAN’s words, “That… you don’t know how shocked I was when I saw her, Boss.”

“We talked while you were away.” MEGAN crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes at Juliet, “It was very… fruitful.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Well—”

“Nothing!” Juliet cut MEGAN off, “We talked about nothing!”

MEGAN narrowed her eyes even further as she stared at Juliet. But after a few seconds, a faint smirk crawled on her face.

“Well…” She continued, “...It’s a secret, Julian. By the way, I checked the list of your quests since you don’t bother to do it.”

“Because all of them are vague, MEGAN.”

“Oh, tut tut. Don’t call me MEGAN while we’re here. I’ll go by Silvie whenever we’re on Artemia.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not even going to ask why I chose Silvie?”

“It’s a beautiful name, Silvie. It suits you.”

“Pssh…” MEGAN started scratching the back of her head, “...Stop it. Anyway, back to the quest—particularly the ‘The Bridge’ quest.”

“Hmm. It says that we can find more clues in the Gnarfolk territory.”

“Yes. And do you happen to know the city closest to the Gnarkfolk territory?”

“No.”

“It’s the Piathus city, Julian. Also known as the City of Blacksmiths—that is where we are heading.” MEGAN turned around and started climbing up on the poor seikrobos’ neck, using its soft fur-like feathers as a ladder to reach the top of its head.

MEGAN then pointed at the horizon, nothing but a wide field and a seemingly endless mountain range.

“So, I was thinking—why don’t we head there next after you get your license or whatever?” MEGAN smiled as she stared at the moving scenery in front of her, “Of… of course, you could stay in Piathus. That’s always been your dream to be surrounded by other blacksmiths and for your work to be recognized. But… you know? What do you think? I also heard Gnarfolk’s craftsmanship is better than hyum!”

Julian did not really need to think about it. As soon as he heard the excitement in MEGAN’s voice, there was only one answer that could escape his lips.

Throughout their life, MEGAN had to follow him. Wherever he went, whatever he wanted to do—although Julian listened to her, MEGAN didn’t really have any choice but to follow as Julian walked for both of them.

But now—

“Okay. Let’s… go on an adventure.”

***

Meanwhile, somewhere on Earth, a towering man in a finely tailored suit sat at the center of an expansive hall. The space resembled an office but was a thousand times grander and several times larger, its opulence overshadowed only by the thick haze of cigar smoke that hung heavily in the air. The smoke curled upward from the cigar clenched between the large man’s fingers, its acrid scent mingling with the tension that filled the room.

There were several other people in suits gathered around the man, but only he was seated on the floor and the rest were standing with their heads bowed down to him. The large man was holding a piece of paper—a rarity in the world they live in.

He was looking at something on the paper, his knitted eyebrows, trembling as tears flowed down his dark cheeks endlessly.

“Are you sure about this? They turned my boy, my son... into a monster?” The large man whispered, talking to the woman standing closest to him.

“Yes, President Thatcher.” The woman said, “We still have one person in Humanity Engineering, and she said that is what happened.”

“This man looks familiar. Where have I seen him before?” The large man continued to stare at the piece of paper.

“His name is Julian Winters. He is currently everywhere in the news.”

“And why haven’t you killed him yet!?” The large man roared, causing the smoke to ripple away from him, “He’s just a man! We can’t touch Humanity Engineering, but this Winters is a different matter!”

“I mean no disrespect, President. But Julian Winters is not just a man.” The woman shook her head while taking a step back, “He is believed, and now confirmed to be a mutant. We also can’t touch him, as he is protected by Humanity Engineering.”

“Then are you saying that I can’t avenge my son!? That I can’t get justice for my poor Vijya!?” The large man, who turned out to be Vijya Thatcher’s father, ripped the paper he was holding into pieces as he once again roared.

“If I may suggest something?” The woman took in a deep breath as she bowed her head down even further, “Julian Winters is part of the Otherworld Project. I know it would not provide the satisfaction you want, but you could—”

“Do it.” Vijya’s father growled, “I don’t care how you do it… but kill his clone and parade it for everyone to see.”

[LAST CHAPTER] <-----> [NEXT CHAPTER]

AUTHOR NOTES

For those who don't remember. Vijya Thatcher is the generic bad trope guy that belittled Julian a lot of times, only to be unceremoniously deleted and turned into a monster by Humanity Engineering. lol

Also... are we finally seeing other races!? Not before, of course, Julian slaps some faces in the Blacksmith Guild.