EmEs_etherious
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Chapter 139- An Uncertain Future
🕑 Added 2024-02-22 23:59:01 +0000 UTCArthur’s trek back to civilization took a little over two hours. As opposed to the blistering speed he’d travelled at to first get to the locus, he returned home at a slow walk. The outskirts of the city had changed a lot since the system’s arrival. Too far from the city proper, many of the buildings he saw had been abandoned, the power of ether enhanced plantlife meaning nature had claimed them already.
A two-hour walk was a perfect way to clear his head, and every step he’d taken felt lighter than the last. It might have been messier than he hoped for, but the forest fight had come to a satisfactory conclusion. Despite his meandering thoughts, Arthur kept a sharp eye on his surroundings. Two days ago- the amount of time that had passed in the real world, during his month-long trip to the locus- he’d seen signs of squatters when he walked between these houses. The fact that it had been so early in the morning at the time had stopped him from meeting anyone, but it was nearing evening right now.
True to his fears, there were three people blocking the road in front of him. A woman armed with a very nice compound bow, a man with a massive Warhammer that looked like it had been plucked out of a history book and a final man armed with nothing. Arthur immediately deemed him as the most dangerous.
“Sorry to bother you, but if you could just answer a few questions, it’d help us out a lot,” the hammer welder asked, his voice gruff but polite. A quick use of Homunculus Eye put him at level 91 and Arthur felt himself immediately relax. The man felt like the strongest of the group, which meant they posed as much threat to him as a group of kittens. "As long as it doesn't take too long, I don't mind talking,” he replied cordially.
The group visibly relaxed at his words, but they didn’t let go of the tight grips they had on their weapons. The woman, in particular, looked like she was on a hair trigger, a split second before she’d explode into motion and put an arrow through his eye. Or at least try to. “Great,” the hammer welder said. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t shake your hand though. The last time I did, the man decided it’d be a great idea to set my hand on fire.” He chuckled loudly but the blackened flesh on his arm told Arthur he wasn’t joking.
His boisterous laughter did at least lessen the tense atmosphere a little. “The name's Jack, by the way. Behind me is my sister, Susan, and her husband Harry. He’s a wizard by the way.” Jack added, wiggling an eyebrow. The man in question didn’t visibly react but Susan’s eyes narrowed in frustration, though a twitch of her lips showed she was used to her brother's antics.
“Name's Arthur,” he introduced himself. “I’m trying to get back home by nightfall. So I hope we can keep this conversation short and sweet.” As cordial as Arthur wanted to be, he wasn’t in the right mental space to entertain three strangers, no matter how friendly they may be. He was honestly surprised he’d managed to be so friendly. If the group was affronted by his gruff tone, they didn’t show it, which bumped them up a few points in Arthur’s books.
“That's perfectly fine with us.” This time it was Harry who spoke. “God knows no one wants to be outside after dark right now.” That was news to Arthur, and his confusion must have shown in his face. “You must’ve been in that forest for quite a while if you don’t know what's going on. As of yesterday, a curfew has been put in place. No one's allowed out after 10 p.m. Ever since Hell's Rising, dimensional incursions have increased by four hundred percent.”
“Some vampire cunts decide to send their thralls over and they tend to get active at night time. Yesterday, forty-two people went missing. The Hunters Association- we think they’re a branch of the government that decided to rebrand themselves, cropped up recently too- decided it’s best to keep people indoors until the problem sorts itself out. They’ve got the government's support, and they’ve got the strongest people backing them. The frozen princess and Kazi Alukai if you’d believe the rumours.”
Arthur digested the information. Parts of it weren't surprising- the hunters association had been in the works for a while now- but he was surprised to hear that Kazi Alukai supported the group's formation. The man had remained aloof ever since his first appearance battling the harpy queen but it looked like things had changed recently. Hells rising. Arthur didn’t need to be a genius to figure out that this was probably the great threat Ayesha had seen coming, but the grand name and the fact that it had gained such renown in only 24 hours didn’t paint a pretty picture.
Primes were supposed to be nigh-invincible on their home planets. It was the power they received in exchange for giving up their freedom to leave the world. If Kazi Alukai hadn’t gone after the problem directly, it meant the situation was too difficult for him to deal with alone. Either that, or he simply didn’t care which Arthur highly doubted since Ayesha's seer had said it was a GLOBAL threat. It would devastate his country and people if he allowed it to fester.
The group looked at him expectantly and Arthur realised he’d spaced out for a little too long. “I have a lot of questions, but I’ll get my answers once I’ve got a stable internet connection. So what was it you wanted to ask?”
Arthur walked away from the trio in a lighter mood, happy that for once, the strangers he met were decent people. They were, as Jack had explained, in a race to get to level hundred as fast as possible. Living at the edge of civilization was a good way to fight powerful monsters but they’d run into limitations with strategy pretty fast. Now they were planning an expedition into the forest and Arthur had shown up at a convenient time to tell them what they should expect. He hadn’t been too helpful, what with the forest monsters avoiding him like the plague, but he had been able to give them a little information he knew, that might be enough to save their lives. Arthur didn’t want to be a pessimist but he didn’t put their chances at survival very high.
He’d seen several creatures prowling around that looked like they’d undergone their evolution at level 100, monsters that the trio simply weren't ready to deal with. Arthur had said as much but he didn’t think they’d heed his warnings. Looking down at his watch, Arthur saw that it was approaching 9 pm, an hour left before he’d be punished for staying outside. Travelling at a leisurely pace, whilst certainly pleasant, wasted far too much time. Instead of being worried about that though, Arthur was more surprised his wristwatch had survived this long. Sure, G-shock was a brand known for its durability and he had taken it off during all of his fights, but Arthur literally moved at the speed of sound now.
I guess mundane objects are finally starting to get enhanced with ether now. It was a phenomenon that took place when planets evolved to the next tier, though it was far too early in Earth’s timeline for the effects to be noticeable already. Either G-shock really was that great or the planet's development had been accelerated. On second thought, his clothes and his shoes didn’t disintegrate when he moved so it led credence to an accelerated development speed instead of an absurdly robust watch.
As Arthur entered the more populated parts of the city, he saw an increase in how many people walked around, though still far less than the crowds he was used to seeing just forty-eight hours ago. Men and women looked down as they walked, casting furtive glances at shadows and each other. It was then that Arthur realised just how terrifying vampire thralls were to ordinary people. Whilst he merely considered them an annoyance, the weak monsters posed a significant danger to ordinary people.
Vampires in this dimension were a strictly regulated race and constantly under heavy scrutiny, at least according to the many forums he’d browsed since the system’s inception. There were hundreds of laws limiting how and whom they could make thralls of and even then, the race was disliked by most living kinds. With thralls coming out of a gate from another dimension, however, with no such laws in place, the people of Earth certainly had reason to fear. Even so, Arthur doubted that the great threat both Ayesha and Alyssia had warned him of was referring to an invading vampire coven.
Whilst they were powerful creatures, unless a Vampire Lord was attacking with their entire coven, they didn’t really constitute a global threat. Those monsters would hardly find the blood produced on a tier-1 planet attractive. Not for the first time, Arthur cursed the fact that he hadn’t brought his phone to the locus with him. All the answers to his questions were literally a single Google search away. With curiosity hastening his feet, Arthur made his way through the now familiar streets, taking a moment to greet an old lady who seemed to recognise him. He couldn't be certain, but he did vaguely remember her having a granddaughter around his age who was always running a lemonade stand in the summer. Cursing himself for being too polite to ignore her, Arthur sped up even more, still walking, but now fast enough that most people would have to run to keep up.
He was so distracted that he didn’t notice something was wrong at first. It started off with people giving him strange looks, as if he’d done something mildly unpleasant. That didn’t raise any red flags immediately but when people he recognised from the neighbourhood pointed at him and started whispering, Arthur realised something was wrong. Sure he’d been an oddball, but it didn’t warrant this level of curiosity. Suspicious now, Arthur turned into his street, carefully scrutinising everything he could see. It took him three seconds to realise what was wrong.
Parked just a block away was a black van that looked about as discreet as an elephant in a supermarket. If that wasn’t suspicious enough, the man with the baseball cap and couple loitering around practically screamed spy. Who they worked for was anyone's guess, but Arthur would bet his left nut the government had their fingers in this pot. They have me under surveillance.
People had already seen him now, and Arthur couldn’t be bothered going somewhere else so he approached his house seemingly without a care in the world. They broke in, he idly noted. The bastards hadn’t even had the decency to pick the lock. They’d just gone and broken it. At least now he knew why people were looking at him strangely. They probably thought he was some sort of criminal with how the military were searching for him. Cursing the buffoons again, Arthur let himself in and closed the door behind him for all the benefit the useless thing provided.
The first thing he did was grab his phone, which had to obviously be out of charge. Moving onto his laptop, he quickly surfed the web and found out all that he’d missed over the past 48 hours. It wasn't hard to find, what with it being plastered over every headline. Hell's rising, the world called it, the day the dead started to walk. Arthur grimaced as he read through the article. An unleashed lich queen, an estimated level beyond 290, most probably beyond the class barriers and pushing past level 300. With enough power to create an entire city out of ice and over ten million soldiers at her command, humanity looked well and truly fucked.
Sighing wearily, Arthur made his way to the kitchen and put some frozen food in the air fryer. It’d take thirty minutes, which was ample time to go and have a shower and finally feel human again.
Unfortunately for Arthur, it didn’t look like he’d get to enjoy his meal. He was halfway down the stairs, hair still wet from the bathroom when people started banging on his door. If that wasn’t bad enough, the words they were shouting just made an already terrible day worse.
“Open up Mr Ward. you're under arrest.”
On the bright side at least they’d had the decency to at least let him clean himself first. Sometimes, all you had to appreciate were the little things in life.
Comments
tethra
They are use to dealing with him while he was under the soul strain and was willing to roll over, gonna be fun to see how they react to him all healed up.
Benjamin Collins
I enjoy the writing and the story it's awesome really. But 2100 words ( 3 pages maybe?) of walking home where nothing happens isn't really a chapter. This whole chapter is just Walked, talked to to people about nothing important, got home took a shower. And then throw in a sum what cliff hangar in the last two sentences. The last last chapter this chapter and prolly the next chapter should all be 1 chapter
