Chapter 729: Ordinary Everyday Adventuring (Patreon)

Jason’s team had been expecting the emergence of elemental-infused messengers to accelerate the plans of Jes Fin Kaal. Instead, they heard nothing as they continued taking and fulfilling contracts, Shade picking up new ones as he delivered their reports. For the first time in a long time, the team were all together for some ordinary everyday adventuring.

Jason’s time on Earth, fighting in monster-filled proto-spaces and later, full-blown monster waves, had allowed him to reach the wall that was the fourth stage of silver-rank faster than his team members. Once he reached it, however, Earth’s lack of powerful threats had stalled him out. Through proto-spaces, monster waves and transformation zones, Jason had killed more monsters and other threats than the rest of his team combined. Even so, his progress had been limited by the threat those monsters provided.

Jason had reached a point where few silver-rank monsters were a genuine danger, even in massive numbers. He'd been throwing himself at whole herds or not using various powers to try and push his limits, but once he hit the wall there was little progress to be made on Earth. The few gold-rank threats were too few and too dangerous, as Jason was only willing to take on specific monsters of that rank. If the match-up was bad for his powers, he was still unwilling to take them on.

The monsters of Earth had not been the greatest challenges Jason had faced on his homeworld, but those other dangers were not ones that he could resolve with just his essence abilities. He was forced to wield powerful artefacts, wade into dimensional anomalies and develop spiritual powers he barely understood even now. His understanding of the soul, reality and the wider cosmos expanded, laying out a pathway that would carry him into the distant future. In the immediacy, however, his essence abilities were left fallow, without growth.

Jason’s need to rely on spiritual strength continued with his return to Pallimustus. Although his essence abilities did resume a glacial upward trajectory, Jason was again forced to rely on his strange new abilities, and at no small cost. While he convalesced from over-taxing himself, his companions continued fighting their way through the monster surge, slowly but surely catching up to him at the advancement wall.

Clive, Humphrey and Belinda, had an inherent advantage in the form of intrinsic human gifts. Their essence abilities advanced at a slight but measurably faster rate than others, too slight to be of value at lower ranks. Now they had hit the wall and every measure of growth counted, it gave them a slight edge. For Clive and Belinda, this gave them time to pursue magical study without falling behind the others. For Humphrey, it meant that he could be slightly ahead of the pack, which gave him confidence as team leader.

As their non-stop adventuring entered its third week, Jason was the first to take an ability beyond the fourth level of silver rank, but only by a matter of days. As the team ploughed through roaming monsters and cleaned up contracts, Jason’s perception ability finally crossed the line just two days before Humphrey’s.

Gary, Farrah and Travis were not taking part in the flurry of contract work. They were in Jason’s soul realm, using the advantages it offered to advance their various professions. This left the team eight strong with the semi-permanent addition of Rufus and Taika. Rufus would resume teaching but was in no rush, having rediscovered his love of adventure when not burdened with the leadership role. As for Taika, his goal was Earth and the people he had left behind there. His passage home, however, was entirely reliant on Jason’s ability to forge it.

Having shifted their base of operations in anticipation of new contracts, the team watched Jason’s cloud flask produce a new cloud palace. They did so from the edge of a mountainous plateau, the cloud-stuff sliding down the cliff to form buildings hanging off the face.

“You have a lot more control over the camouflage version of your cloud buildings compared to Emir,” Rufus said.

“Emir never uses his camouflage versions,” Jason said. “His are always big and flashy. But yeah, my deeper soul connection gives me a lot more say in the structural details. Hey, who won the betting pool?”

“What betting pool?” Belinda asked.

“I know you make bets on me,” Jason said. “Who had me down for the first one to get an ability moving past the wall?”

“That’s not really the kind of thing we bet on,” Belinda told him. “It’s more like what country will declare war on you personally.”

“What god you’re going to offer a sandwich,” Clive said.

“Which diamond ranker you’re going to hit on,” Taika added.

“When you’ll love up Humphrey’s mum,” Neil said.

“Neil…” Humphrey growled.

“I can’t have been the only one seeing that dynamic,” Neil said.

“Jason’s like that with every powerful woman he meets,” Rufus said. “We really should do a better job of keeping him away from princesses.”

Shade emerged from Jason’s shadow.

“You have the next batch of contracts?” Jason asked him.

“Not as yet, Mr Asano. I decided to postpone their acquisition as events appear to finally be going into motion.”

“The messengers?”

“There is more activity than we have seen in the last few weeks,” Shade confirmed. “More pressing is that Lady Allayeth asked that I convey a message. She is ready to meet with you and a representative of the church of Liberty.”

“Does she have a time and date?”

“She has designated a location far from Yaresh or any other population centre.”

“I don’t suppose she setting us up for an ambush,” Belinda wondered.

“That’s why I’ll go alone,” Jason said. “If we misread her and it’s some kind of ambush, I have the best chance of getting away.”

***

Jason was using Shade as a vehicle to fly only a few metres over the jungle canopy. Shade’s form was that of an Earth vehicle, a personal flight device that amounted to a chair in a roll cage with a series of drone-style rotors for lift and propulsion. It was, of course, all black, looking more aggressive and sinister than the vehicles it was based on. It also had more speed and the flight time was essentially infinite.

“I know what you’re doing, Shade.”

“I am conveying you through the air as directed, Mr Asano.”

“You’ve been increasingly using Earth-style transport as I’ve been coming to terms with my time there.”

“Magical vehicles are, for the most part, less practical than technological ones,” Shade pointed out. “Obviously, living mounts and vehicles stylised in the form of living creatures are not as practical as purpose-designed vehicles. Even the more practical vehicle designs, like skimmers, demonstrate a level of inefficiency only seen on Earth when hooligans modify their own cars. Utilising magic to overcome the technical drawbacks of ordinarily non-magical vehicles offers the best of both worlds.”

“That’s well-reasoned,” Jason said. “But we both know that’s not the primary reason. You’re acclimatising me back to Earth with demonstrations of what’s good about it. As I become less emotionally distraught about my time there, you’re introducing the Earth elements you knew better than to pull out when I first returned to Pallimustus.”

Jason snorted a laugh.

“I sound accusatory,” he said. “I’m sorry, Shade; what I’m trying to say is thank you. You’re always looking out for me.”

“I’m glad you can face this with equanimity, Mr Asano.”

Jason sensed the presence of a priestess from a good way away, the distinctive whiff of divine power hanging in the air around her. It had surprised him to discover that other people found divine power almost undetectable unless they were looking for it with intrusive perceptual probes. To his senses, it lit up like a beacon.

The location was a town, destroyed and abandoned. The jungle had reclaimed it to the point that there was nowhere to land even the small vehicle. The flight device exploded into a cloud of shadows like a magician's trick, Jason's momentum carrying him out of it to plunge through the air, angling his body. The shadows trailed him as he conjured his Cloak of Night that spread out like wings, turning his controlled fall into a glide.

A massive grin split Jason's face. A few weeks of doing normal jobs with his team and helping out people in need had done more for his mood than all the brooding introspection in the world. Sailing through the air, he was able to appreciate just how amazing the life he was living could be.

"I've got to stop saving the world," he muttered. Although his words were snatched away on the wind, Shade heard them perfectly.

“We both know that you won’t step away, Mr Asano. Perhaps you should simply enjoy the moment and leave tomorrow to tomorrow.”

“You’re a wise man, Shade.”

Although Jason had sensed only the priestess, two people were sitting on the low remains of a brick wall as Jason descended towards it. Allayeth turned to look in Jason’s direction, the woman with her following suit. Jason swooped in, reducing his weight at the last moment as he landed on a soft-looking patch of moss that could still have hidden some awkward footing.

The two women stood as Jason dismissed his cloak to reveal a simple, casual suit underneath. The fabric was light and breathable, the effect enhanced subtly by magic to be comfortable even in the muggy heat. Jason mentally thanked Alejandro Albericci and his expert tailoring.

The priestess with Allayeth was not a gold-ranker but a silver, meaning that she was not the high-priestess. Allayeth nodded at a section of road not too badly overgrown and they converged on that point. Jason looked around, seeing an incongruity in the ruins.

“What happened to this town?” he asked. “The remains of this building have been weathered about right for the monster surge, but this looks like years of growth.”

“Guess,” Allayeth told him and he took another look around.

“Plant monsters?” he postulated.

“Something like that,” Allayeth told him.

“You didn’t pick this place because it was the closest point that was both convenient and discreet,” he said.

“Later,” she told him. “For the moment, allow me to introduce Priestess Raelia Cass. Priestess; Jason Asano.”

“G’day,” Jason said, shaking her hand.

The priestess was human, compared to the elves far more common in the region. Her dark hair was wavy and long, setting off her typically attractive silver-rank features well. She looked like she was barely twenty-one years old and Jason guessed her to be close to his own twenty-nine.

“I’ve been warned about you, Jason Asano,” she said, her voice curious, not hostile.

Jason glanced at Allayeth who shook her head.

“Not by me,” she said.

“My Lady,” the priestess said, referring to the goddess Liberty, “likes to keep a wary eye on Dominion’s favourites.”

“That makes sense,” Jason said. “I don’t suppose you know how to get off that list?”

“I do,” Raelia said. “I fear it is beyond you, however.”

“Oh?”

“What Dominion likes in you is not the autocratic tendencies you consistently demonstrate,” she said. “It is the fact that you rarely regret them.”

“Ah,” Jason said. “It’s hard to be penitent when you feel no need for penance. I fear I will never be in your lady’s good graces.”

“While you have definite tendencies that she does not care for, Mr Asano, she knows that freedom is an important principle for you, despite your inclinations. More importantly, she respects that you are willing to act on that principle.”

“How much do you know about these ‘autocratic tendencies’ of mine?” Jason asked.

“Nothing at all,” she said. “My goddess has only told me that you have them. That you have a habit of deciding the way things should be and then moving the land and the sky to make it so, whatever anyone else might think. Or how they might be affected.”

“That’s true enough,” Jason acknowledged. “But you do know what I want, right?”

“Lady Allayeth has made things clear. My goddess has qualms about participating as she cannot see into the astral space you are holding them in. She is all for freeing these people as any form of incarceration is unacceptable to her, but she also does not want invaders let loose to rejoin their kind’s oppressive invasion. She would like to see the leader of your prisoners for herself.”

“That’s one of the reasons we’re out here, then,” Jason deduced. “So I can pop out a messenger or two outside of Charist’s primary perception area.”

“Yes,” Allayeth said.

Jason didn't fuss about and immediately brought out Marek Noir Vargas. The messenger answered a lengthy list of questions, ranging from his intentions to his current state to the history of how he landed in his current situation. There were more questions about Jason himself than he was entirely comfortable with. Finally, the priestess allowed Marek to return to Jason’s soul realm.

“The goddess is satisfied,” the priestess announced. “She will aid you, but the important work must be undertaken by you, Mr Asano.”

“I’m not afraid of a little hard work.”

“Good. These messengers will need to be released into the cosmos, not just this world, and accomplishing that falls to you. When you do achieve this, the goddess will hide your actions. No one will see or overhear, even should they be in a position to directly observe. The goddess Knowledge will not learn of it, even from your mind after the task is done.”

“You can hide things from Knowledge? And keep it hidden?”

“Gods have the ability to overrule other gods when it comes to their own area of influence. Freeing people from your custody, having already freed them from bondage of the soul places this issue very much under Liberty's authority.”

"I see. But until I figure out how to set them loose, she won’t do anything.”

“The gods exist to help and guide our actions, Mr Asano, not to act in our stead.”

“I’m very onboard with that stance,” Jason told her. “Any tips on how to gate these people out into the cosmos? I have some other interests in dimensional transgression that might dovetail nicely.”

"No," the priestess said sternly. "On a wholly unrelated note, she wishes me to convey that choosing to claim the messenger’s study was a very wise choice.”

Jason’s personal condition for working with Jes Fin Kaal had been the sealed study of the dead diamond-rank messenger.

“Good to know,” Jason said. “Is that everything from your goddess? Can I turn my attention to whatever reason Lady Allayeth wanted to meet over?”

“You may. And if I may say, Mr Asano, you were far less difficult to deal with than the rumours have suggested.”

“I’m a perfectly reasonable man.”

“We just had such a good meeting, Mr Asano. Let us not start lying now.”

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