I watch as Izzy smiles and waves excitedly as we come closer. She nimbly jumps up and towards Blackie, who is entirely covered in red armor. She lands on his arm, and he swings it, launching her at the speed of a bullet.
There is something to be said about the acceleration she takes on, which would likely instantly kill someone from Easy difficulty, as I watch her fly through the air.
As she starts to slow down, she hits the sand, sliding and making a few somersaults to slow her momentum until, with the last one, she stops just a few steps in front of us and jumps up on her feet with hands spread to the sides.
Lily and Dennis begin to clap while Izzy beams with pride.
Is… is this normal? What happened while I was gone?
The first one our empath hugs is Dennis, and she even pats his head before rushing to give a hug to Lily and then Tess. When she stops in front of me, I allow her to read my surface emotions, as I am used to, and get a hug as well. Tacita gets just a wave, and the mute girl standing further behind and to the side tilts her head as she watches Izzy.
To not get left behind, Noodle slithers out of Izzy's sleeve and coils around her arm, stopping when his head is at the same level as Izzy's eyes. The pearly white snake still rocks two sets of three green eyes, but after the last time when he took a bite of the baby wyvern, there are changes. It is not like it made him similar to the wyvern in appearance. Instead, there is a shine to his scales. Not always, but when the light hits them properly, I see a mix of blue, green, and purple shining from it all.
Noodle gives me a polite nod when he catches me looking at him and keeps expectantly staring my way. Even as Izzy moves around and talks to the others, his eyes stay in the same spot, perfectly locked onto me.
I create a mana orb like the ones he likes to eat and, taking into consideration that he is likely stronger now, I spice it up before flinging it at him.
His head shoots ahead as he catches it from the air and eats it at the speed of a puppy devouring a Lego figurine when the owner shouts at it to drop what it is eating. All six eyes close in deep satisfaction, and the snake gives me another very polite nod.
That is about the time when Sophie with Blackie arrives as well, and I look over the reanimated corpse of a Champion demon that is now entirely covered in that red armor. The armor looks like heavy medieval style made of red metal plating, though I notice there are certain spots with lighter shades of red, almost going into a slightly yellow hue.
“Well, I didn't know your favorite color was red,” I say to Sophie after she greets the others.
“Crimson Forge is fucking expensive, you know. Even after all the discounts I got from them and after barely avoiding them tripling that price because I am a mind mage, it cost a lot. So I went without surface modification, leaving it at the base color of the material, which was, as you can see, mostly red,” Sophie answers.
“I like this red color!” Izzy says. “I think you look cool,” she adds and pats the arm of Blackie, who does not react at all and just stands there unmoving.
Izzy does not let it bother her in the slightest and taps his arm again. Looking at it, I guess it has settled the question of how to stop that incredibly powerful kinetic reflection trait from constantly activating.
“How are the stats?” I ask Sophie.
“Fucking high.”
“Why are you so annoyed? Be nice to me for once. I have recommended you to these guys.”
“No.”
“Izzy, do something about your older sister.”
“I don't want to. I like Soph as she is.”
“Typical mind mage, I guess. So?” I ask Sophie again.
She rubs her face with her hand before combing her hair. “It was likely too much for me to expect you guys to take this floor change and that damn terrifying domain that makes me shake in fear, seriously.”
“It is always like this, Soph. We joke a bit and are happy just from meeting each other before turning serious later. Just go with the flow, it is faster that way,” Tess answers instead of me.
“I guess I have no other choice,” our mind mage says and turns to me. “The body is likely near indestructible by almost anyone below Champion rank. Trust me, plenty of people in Beyond have tried to kill me. Strength and Dexterity are also very high, but this is where Blackie is a bottleneck, and is not able to make use of it all. And the kinetic reflection trait is a nightmare for anyone fighting melee. And a nightmare to me if I find myself too close, of course.”
“And the armor?”
“Low pristine. I spent all I had and signed some contracts I will have to keep up with later. It is not anything special durability wise, and it just serves to hide what is below and has an absorption layer that stops the trait from triggering.”
“Release mechanism?” I ask.
“Yes, there is an encrypted connection towards this,” she lifts a necklace with a silver metal and a small droplet of red color, “I can trigger it and cause it to fall down near immediately, and no, I will not do it now. The armor is heavy. Like heavy-heavy, and putting it back on without triggering the reflective trait is a pain in the ass.”
“Well, I bet I will get a chance to see it soon anyway,” I mutter sadly.
“Do not jinx it, and what the hell have you done? What happened to the Exploration Rankings?”
“The Boys have happened.”
Sophie looks at me almost angrily and absentmindedly reaches and grabs Izzy to pull her closer and hug her from behind, to which Izzy twists her head up and looks at her sister.
“Just tell me, they are offering a ridiculous amount of shards for the information. With me being your group member and coming from me, it would be taken seriously, and they would pay me off,” Sophie says.
Scratching the back of my head, I think of it and ask, “How much?”
“Starting at 500 thousand and rising to over one million from some people. It is mostly information guilds that plan to sell it further.”
“I bet you could get more.”
“That is what I want to try. I might be able to push it to 2 million if you return to Beyond and do something fucked up that will bring attention to you, and people get reminded of these rankings.”
“If Savant or Brich won't sell it before you. I will tell you, but I want 50% of the shards you will make, and obviously, I will not tell all the details.”
“30% because I am too tired to negotiate further. And won't Morwag or Weslin sell it?”
“Deal to 30%. And I do not think so. Both of them should be done with their tutorial. Brich, I think, a month or two after Nyssa, who should be done in two months.”
With a sigh, Sophie does what I think is opening the community while letting go of Izzy and muttering, “I will send a message to Savant and see if he plans to sell it and possibly make a deal with him. Expect your cut to be smaller if I am forced to split with him. When I get to Beyond, I will try to check on Brich too.”
“If you call him Brichant, I think he will be more inclined to negotiate,” I say, getting one more weirded out look before she shakes her head and returns to her community window.
When I feel a tug on my clothes, I look down into Izzy's green eyes. “What?” I ask her.
“Is this floor your fault again?” she asks me.
“What do you mean again? Obviously, it is not. You can blame Lissandra and that wyvern.”
She tugs on my clothes again.
“What?” I ask her.
“What have you done?”
Under her eyes, I cannot even look away, so I just snort off, “Maybe I helped Lissandra make a dagger. But help is possibly too powerful a word. I just gathered and compressed a little bit of mana.”
“So little, even an average Hell difficulty attendee would be able to channel?”
Instantly, I feel offended and defend myself, “Not a chance in hell some casual would be able to move that much mana so quickly. It would melt their feeble bodies. These guys cannot even fathom...” I pause there and look at Izzy. “Okay, maybe it was a bit more than a little bit of mana, happy?”
“Do you like Lissandra?” Izzy asks me out of nowhere.
Somewhere in the background, the Lustdozer freezes as I think of the answer before saying honestly, “Probably?”
Izzy quickly asks as if there is a danger hanging over our heads, “Like like? Or like?”
I tilt my head in confusion, “Do you mean romantically? No chance in hell. I just like her determination and admire her skill, do not tell her, but it is a bit cool.”
“See?” Izzy says while looking somewhere behind me and then back at me. “I was just curious why you helped her. That is why I asked.”
“Obviously, I did not help her just for that. We made a trade,” I explain the obvious.
“Didn’t Lissandra have a grandson, and didn’t you kill one of her descendants on the second floor?” Dennis asks, already chewing on something that seems like dried up fruit.
“Something like that,” I nod as we begin to walk where the compass points next, towards Min-Jae and Maya.
The group stays rowdy with conversation quickly changing through multiple subjects, and even Sophie gives up and decides to wait until we are all together before we start planning what to do next.
On our way there we stop by one of the barriers holding Easy and Normal difficulty attendees. This one is full of 30 or so demons. It is the first time for me seeing an Easy difficulty demon, and in a way, it is hard to comprehend.
An Easy Difficulty. Demons.
Just how? You get born with a Demon heart and a connection to primordial energy in most of the cases. Some even get the second extra trait and yet... Easy Difficulty?
When some of them start calling to us to come closer or to share some water with them, we move closer.
“What do you mean 'give us water, human'?” Dennis asks as he stops in front of the barrier, “You should ask nicer if you want something.”
“You are just a human,” one of the demons snorts, making Dennis to quickly get annoyed.
“Just a human? Unlike you coughing babies, we here are from goddamn Hell difficulty! Most of us are Beyonders!”
Even that does not shock the demon as he laughs, also moving closer to the barrier, just like a dozen or so demons around that start shouting at Dennis and challenging him to a fight.
“I bet I could take you on in a fight!” The demon hits his chest three times with a fist, generating more kinetic energy.
The others begin to roar as well, and a few even kick or attack the barrier as if they want to push through to Dennis, who stares at them with wide eyes.
“I will fucking break the barrier, and you all will melt in the heat! My guy over here can break it if he tries!” Dennis threatens and points at me. He then presses his face against the barrier that squishes his cheeks as he stares down the demons with wide open eyes.
The cute lunatics kept for their safety inside of the barrier shout in excitement. A few of them start attacking the barrier with the attacks bouncing and hitting other demons, which causes the fights to start.
Meanwhile, the demon that has started it all presses the face on the other side of the barrier opposite Dennis and starts cursing him.
We leave ten minutes later when Dennis and Aaron run out of insults.
The entire time as we are walking away, a group of Easy difficulty demons keeps shouting after us and calling out their victory, while within the barrier, some of them still fight each other.