Chapter 258: Jaded Judgment

I did eventually find the woman in armor. As the crowd thinned out and I retraced my steps, I spotted her standing on a dune, staring out into the distance. Once again, there were a few people milling about and gazing up at her, but I supposed it would make sense, considering she looked quite dramatic looking out over the horizon like that, like she was on some sort of mission.

I climbed the same dune up to the stop to stand next to her, and realized she must’ve been up here to try and find crystals in the distance. I could just barely see some shimmers of blue and red cropping up far out in the distance, but it seemed like she didn’t. Must’ve had a lower Dexterity than me, if she couldn’t see them—they were far enough away that nobody with the base 10 in the Stat would be capable of making out the tiny shapes. Which, considering how hard she could punch—even if she was making use of a Martial Art or Talent to enhance her abilities—it made sense the rest of her Stats would have to be kind of shit in comparison.

I watched as she turned her gaze to a patch of crystals much closer to her than the others—a patch that was completely untouched. These were, of course, the ones she went after in the previous timeline, where she got killed. They were surrounded by a massive pack of Sand Hive monsters, mulling about down in the valley the two of us overlooked.

“You probably shouldn’t,” I said, breaking the silence.

She turned to look at me, unexpectedly calm, considering the fact that a complete stranger just came up right behind her and started talking. “And who are you?”

“Just a man who noticed you seemed to be eyeing up the Sand Hive more than the average person should be.”

She looked back at the monsters. “I am greater than average.”

“But not greater than those monsters, unfortunately. I’ll admit I don’t know who you are, but just take what I say as a word of advice among many. If all you’ve ever heard are praises, you might wanna listen to the first warning you hear, right?”

With the slightest turn of her head, she glanced back at me. “You don’t know who I am?”

I frowned. She worded her question almost hopefully, like she wished more people said what I just had. “No, I don’t—new in town. I’ve seen a good few people looking at you, though .Should I know you?”

“I suppose you shouldn’t. Though I am left with a slight bit of curiosity at why you would take interest in a lone, strange soul such as myself on this fine morning. I would have to imagine you are quite busy looking to find some of these crystals, yourself.”

“I’ve already gotten all of mine, handed them off to a companion already. But I’ve had two scuffles with the Sand Hive at this point, and both times involved several people losing their lives. I would’ve been dead, too, if it weren’t for an extremely specific Talent of mine that happens to perfectly counteract a death by their hand. One which I can safely assume you don’t have. Other than me, I haven’t met one person who survived interacting with them, including people higher Level than me. And I’m no pushover when it comes to Levels, too.”

She was silent for a moment, like she was mulling over what I had to say. Eventually, noise came from inside her helmet. “Why would you do that?”

“I know, it was a dumb mistake to fight them. Just wasn’t familiar with the monsters, and I—”

“Not the monsters. Why would you hand over your own crystals like that? Whoever you gave them to could easily sell them to the highest bidder who wants to buy their way into the Tourney.”

“Hm? Oh, it wasn’t like I gave them to a stranger or whatever. Highly trusted teammates, yadda yadda. But seriously—”

“So you, too, are the type to take unnecessary risks, then? No matter how much you trust someone, they always have the capability of betraying you. So you understand why I might decide to attack some monsters I see in the distance.”

I frowned. That kind of sounded like the sort of over-pragmatic stuff Index would sometimes say. “Not sure if that’s equivalent, but alright. Listen, I’m not gonna argue with you or whatever, just thought I’d give a friendly warning. Wouldn’t want a stranger to die a senseless death that I could’ve prevented.”

She chuckled, then spoke softly in a tone I could only pick up because of my Stats. “Senseless death. And what of a senseless life?”

“What?”

“It was nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Just the musings of a confused girl. Thank you, stranger. I will take your words into account.”

“Uh, yeah. No problem.” I backed away, overall feeling pretty weirded out by the strange conversation. But as I turned to leave, I stopped and looked back at her. “Hey, before I go, what’s your name? I wanna look at the tournament qualifiers to see if you end up making it. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I kinda look forward to fighting you. You seem like a fun opponent.”

She chuckled, then broke out into a full-on laugh, bending over and placing gauntleted hands on her knees to support herself. Or, wait, that didn’t quite sound like a laugh. Was she…crying? I couldn’t tell because of the helmet, but it almost sounded like she was sobbing to herself. Eventually, she took a breath. “I do not think I will tell you my name. But yes, I look forward to seeing you in the Tourney as well. Thank you for speaking to me, and thank the fates for this chance encounter.”

I nodded slowly, keeping silent my thought that it wasn’t at all because of chance that I’d sought her out. “Okay. Uh, see you later.”

With that, I left, feeling like I’d been completely out of my depth for the entire conversation. I wasn’t entirely sure whether I’d even convinced her that the monsters were dangerous. But somehow, I got the feeling that her decision to fight them wasn’t based at all on how deadly she thought they were. Not that I really knew what it was we were talking about in the first place; most of what I’d said was just random vague shit I guessed would mean something to her based on what I’d heard her say in the previous timeline.

As I walked back down the dune, I noticed some people looking up at me, whispering back and forth between themselves in hushed tones. For a moment, I was tempted to just brush them off again—it made sense people would be muttering to each other after observing such a strange conversation—but after some thought, I decided it would probably be best to go confront some of these people about what they were talking about. This woman was clearly someone with an important name, considering she’d refused to tell me twice now, so maybe they were whispering about that.

At the very least, if I was going to be fighting this woman in the Tourney sometime soon, it’d be good to get an idea of who she was so I could prepare for the match. That ability to annihilate things with a single punch was pretty scary.

I walked up to two of the closest people, a woman wearing a bulky steel breastplate and a man with a brown helmet that glowed around the eyeholes, shining his face with an otherworldly light.

The man rushed to whisper something into the woman’s ear as I approached, then turned quickly to me, standing up noticeably straighter. “Um, good evening, sir.”

The woman elbowed the man and muttered, “It’s morning.”

“Er, right! Sorry sir. Good morning.” He cleared his throat. “We, um, we weren’t talking about your meeting up there on the hill, by the way. We were just talking about, uh…”

“The weather,” the woman said.

“Yes! The weather. It’s very…medium. Today.”

I stared at them for a good five full seconds as their faces continued to quickly cover themselves with sweat, wondering what in the gods’ names was going on. “Sorry, who do you think I am?”

“Oh, we’re very sorry sir,” the man said, glancing at the woman, “we don’t…Um, I hope you understand, all of your family’s suits of armor look so similar, it’s very hard for us to tell each of the iron titans apart, so we don’t know which you—”

The woman elbowed him in the ribs again, hissing in his ear, “Don’t call the iron titans ‘iron titans,’ you moron.”

“Wait, wait, ‘iron titan’?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

The woman paled. “S-sorry, sir, my friend here was just being an idiot and accidentally said a, uh, nickname that some of the lowlifes use for your family. D-don’t mind us, you know.”

“I think there’s some sort of mistake here. I’m not from whatever family you’re referencing.”

“B-but, your armor…”

I glanced down at my Dark Plate. Was there some ultra-powerful noble family that wore suits of armor that looked similar to it? Shaking my head, I looked back up at them. That wasn’t important right now. “Listen, can you tell me anything about that woman I was just speaking to up on the dune? I’m curious about her.”

“You…don’t know who she is?” The man glanced up at the woman as he spoke, then back at me, suddenly looking genuinely afraid. “How did you get that armor?”

“Can you please just answer my questions? Who is she? And what’s up with the armor? Who are these iron titan people?”

He just slowly shook his head and started backing away, soon followed by his companion, leaving me standing alone and confused in the desert.

I tried asking more people about the woman, but got the same response each time. They asked me if I was an iron titan, and if I said no, they’d realize their mistake in assuming and quickly leave. I tried saying I was an iron titan a couple times, but anyone I said that to just ran off even more quickly than anyone else, making up any excuse they could to get out of the conversation.

Why was I only getting these assumptions now, with these people? It must’ve been something about them having been the ones sticking around the armored woman whose name I still didn’t know—they were more familiar with whatever that group was, more quick to assume I was one of them just from seeing my armor.

After a few minutes, I just gave up. There was nothing suggesting this was a particularly important mystery to figure out right now; I just needed to succeed in the tournament. Sure, figuring out more about my mysterious competitor would be helpful in doing that, but it wasn’t the only way to ensure my victory. For now, it would probably be best to return to town and meet back up with the rest of my teammates.

So I turned around and started heading back toward the city walls. Once I left the immediate area of those groupies or whatever, I stopped getting so many weird looks. Though, now that I was on the lookout for them, I did notice some people staring at me sideways as I walked through the dunes.

I’d always assumed it was just the normal looks you’d get for looking as weird as Erani, Ainash, and I looked when traveling together, but now alone, I realized that they were probably staring at me in particular, and whatever it was that made them think I was part of some weird family famous for doing…whatever it was they’d done. Never got any straight answer from anyone about what these people were actually known for. Really, I just planned on asking Sylvie when we met back up. There was a decent chance she’d know, as a citizen of this empire.

But as I walked back toward the city, my heightened senses picked up footsteps coming from behind me. Since pretty much everyone was headed away from the walls and into the dunes, someone following me back toward Precipice felt strange.

Just as I was considering turning around and asking this stalker what their deal was, I felt a hand on my shoulder pulling me to face them. I let them turn me around without activating any of my very many defense measures, curiosity getting the better of me here. Towering over me was a baldheaded man with a square face of stubble and muscle piled across his entire body. His face wore a tight scowl.

“Heard there was an iron titan ‘round these parts,” he said, expression somehow screwing up into an even angrier one.

“Gods, here we go again,” I sighed.

“Don’t you dare act like this is nothing,” he growled. “I don’t care which of those flamin’ monsters you are, you’re going to pay for your family’s actions.”