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Chapter 1425: Chapter 1425 Coal and Diamonds
Chapter 1425: Chapter 1425 Coal and Diamonds
--- Kat ---
Kat looked around the briefing room. She had Lily in her arms and all that was left was for Kamiko and Hunter 23HX443 to show up. Well, them and whoever was doing this last briefing.
Lily had managed to write a whole bunch of notes to be ready for the mission and Kat? She'd found herself spending time with Vivian, Callisto, and Sylvie whenever she could. Kat did keep up a small amount of martial practice to ensure she was in top condition, but no more than an hour a day. She did ask for some technique ideas, but she hadn't tested any of them.
It was entirely to have a few more cards just in case.
The next person to walk in reminded Kat of that time she was doing punishment duty for Greed. The woman in question looked to be a walking hessian bag but she had quite a few differences to her male counterpart. Instead of gold, her eyes appeared to be entirely made of diamond. Every step she took sounding like the grinding of rocks.
This was made worse by the fact that if you looked into her mouth through her wry smile it proved she was made up of coal. Somehow.
On Lily's end, she was more concerned with the woman's hips. Perhaps, if she was anything else, Lily would find the woman more attractive… but despite having hips larger then most doors things just seemed to look wrong to the lesbian. Lily could hear the rocks moving inside the woman, and she looked completely disproportionate.
Her legs much larger then her torso, which looked horribly thin in comparison. In truth it was closer to 'normal' sized, but compared to her lower half it was nothing.
She technically had breasts, but they looked like somehow had stapled a bag of rocks to her chest. Which, was sort of the case. The fact that the woman wore so clothes didn't help. It was a light sleeveless dress that didn't even cover half of her ass, leaving essentially her entire body on display.
[Ok… but like. What the fuck?]
*What's the issue?*
[I mean… how does she even… function? Like are her organs ROCKS? Why is she a bag of rocks! How does this even work?!]
*There was the other one I met at the Greed warehouse and he was made up of gold. Did you forget about him?*
[No I didn't… but I never probably considered how fucking weird that was! I don't understand how she functions in the slightest!]
Lily didn't get a chance to further question the impossibility of the demon's anatomy because Kamiko walked in from the side door. As soon as she saw Kat and Lily, her eyes started to shine, literally. There was really light coming from them as she dashed over and gave them a big hug. Well, Kat more than Lily. "I'm so glad you're here to help out. I'm sure we'll save the world if you're around!"
*Ok, I can almost understand why this happened with everyone back at home… but why is Kamiko all aboard the 'Kat can totally just save the world' train. Don't get me wrong, I'm not so worried anymore, but I also don't think it's going to be an easy thing. Where does her confidence in me come from?*
[Gotta be honest Kat? I really don't know. Maybe she's not properly thinking of the consequences? If she was told the only reason she needs to come along is because she's been to the world before perhaps she hasn't properly internalised the fact that if we fuck up a world could end.]
*That does seem very reckless… on the other hand it might be because she does more hunting Contracts then me. They're basically every second contract for her.*
[Oh yeah… that could also be it.]
"It is good to see you have all arrived, my name is Fulgentius, but for ease of communication you may call me Tia," said the demon now identified as Tia. Her voice was somehow both light and heavy. It had a breathy quality that marked her as a woman but there was an accompanying grinding of rocks on most of the words that seemed to give her words an extra weight.
Of course, those words just triggered confusion in the 'three other' people in the room. Kat and Kamiko shared a confused look before Tia sighed and pointed to one of the shadowed corners.
Out of the corner rose a lamia, one that was much smaller then the only other lamia Kat had met. Hunter 23HX443 was a lithe woman with a small scar under her left eye. Her arms were wry but looked to be packed with muscle. Her stomach had abbs that you could grate cheese on, heck you could probably grate STEEL on them.
She was only wearing a bra band, some bracers, and a small skirt that covered the part where her skin and scales merged. She had a large rifle slung over her shoulders. It had glowing neon lines running along the length of the barrel and a large crystal as the scope. Smaller crystals seemed to grow along the top of the barrel but none got so large they obscured Hunter's vision.
As Hunter 23HX443 walked towards the centre of the room Kat was struck by just how… silent the lamia was. Even looking directly at the lamia, with Kat's ears straining for any hint of sound there was just… nothing. Kat could barely believe her eyes that someone was there, that anything was there. It was… all too silent the way Hunter 23HX443 moved.
Tia decided everyone had enough time gawking at 23HX443's stealth skills, and said "Four storage rings are being provided for the journey. The storage rings are expected to be returned at the end of the mission, or purchased if you so desire. The supplies inside of them? Completely expendable.
We do not expect anything within the rings to be returned, Do not waste them, but do not treat them as valuable. If all four rings are completely empty when returned we do not care, even if that means you casually burnt the last of your supplies before the end of the mission for some bizarre reason.
"Inside you will find enough food for two years out in the field. Each. We do not expect it to be necessary, but there is plenty of space in the rings. You have also been provided with a total of eight two person tents, with four of them being lamia sized. For water, you've been supplied with four endless water bottles.
It's not actually endless, but it's close enough and takes at most minutes to recharge from 'empty' to full. If necessary you can easily keep ten people going with each of those bottles as long as you stagger their use a bit.
"There are a number of other miscellaneous items that may come in handy but it would take forever to go over them all. Once you've put the rings on you can spend some time familiarising yourself with their contents if you so wish. The only other thing I think is worth mentioning specifically are the heavy-duty shackles.
They will complete remove the targets ability to use matter… but they do NOT restrict demonic energy use so no, they won't help against the drake you're being sent out to kill.
"Which is the elephant in the room. We have a lot riding on this. Even though we have backups upon backups, ultimately? It is on YOU four to ensure that the drake is destroyed. Do not treat the backups as something to rely on. We know it's quite possible for you to take it out, and we expect you to do so.
The backups are because if you DO fuck it up? We need someone to pick up the pieces because I world CANNOT go down on our watch. Understand?"
All four women gave a firm nod at Tia's question. Nobody was going into this without at least some understanding of the stakes. "Good," agreed Tia. "I am glad there's no hesitation here because it's already too late. Everything is queued up and you're all about to be sent off into the world.
"Now, you won't be too close to the drake for two main reasons. The first is that you're still technically being summoned. You've been given the cover story and I expect you to stick to it. The second reason? We don't want the drake beelining either towards you, or in the opposite direction. Giving it a sense of urgency will inevitably mean corpses in its wake and we do NOT want that.
"From what info we have been able to gather it's content with monsters for now. It doesn't have any hatred for the sentients on that world specifically, it just wants power and monsters exist in large enough numbers that it can simply devour them wholesale. Well, that's going to end within the month, so we expect results before then.
Doesn't matter if you haven't killed it, but you do need to at least TRY before that. Understood?"