ALL NOVEL CH.494 Adventuring Tournament, finals … or not
[Brian POV]
Third day was here, and before the bronze match, Death Blade against Hunters Eyes, there was going to be another show.
This time something HomeBase isn’t actually involved in.
It was a dual showcase set up by two clans. The Wild Pack, a clan of mostly tamers from Bella Kingdom was showing off some of their rare tamed monsters, and you could even do things like pet them, or even mount them. No riding around, as the large beasts took up most of the arena already, so there wasn’t all that much space.
On top of that, Kitchen Knights, a clan focused on acquiring and cooking the rarest of meats, were showing off their cooking skills, and you could get anything they were serving for free.
I have to admit, it was quite the showcase. I mean, the Wild Pack had a literal cerberus with them. That is cool.
And while the Kitchen Knights didn’t have any dragon meat with them, understandably, they did still have meat from multiple different A-rank monsters, and they were quite skilled at cooking it.
Naturally I had to ask if any of them had ever eaten dragon meat. Because surprise, surprise, I have some amount of it in Storage. Because over time, I’ve gotten a lot better at using Mystik Wok.
In all simplicity, the Wok cooks the monster into something the activator can eat, while discarding everything they cannot eat. This is why, when I first began to use the card, I couldn’t secure the blood, entrails or the hide of the monster the card was used on. Because humans don’t usually eat that stuff.
But then I realized that a dhampir activating the card would be able to secure the blood.
And from there, as I got access to more races, I began to realize just how well I can use the Wok, if I just change my race.
As a dhampir, I can naturally secure the blood, as well as all regular meat. But as something like a Cat-folk, I can secure things like the hide and even the entrails, because Cat-folk can actually eat that stuff. I could even get the monster meat raw, because again, Cat-folk can eat it raw.
Naturally now with Wolf-folk and Wolf-kin, I can also secure raw meat with those races as well.
And because of that, I’ve ran a few monsters through Mystik Wok, securing their raw meat to Storage. Just in case I ever need raw dragon meat or raw Big Koala meat, or anything else like that.
So I asked one of the Kitchen Knights if they’d be willing to cook up some dragon meat for me, because I wanted to taste how it would taste after they cooked it.
I got more than a few looks, I don’t think they believed me when I said I had some dragon meat I wanted them to cook, but they did agree to cook the meat for me.
As the steak cooked on their portable griddle, the smell got many people to look our way. Yes, I know dragon meat smells delicious. Why do you think I love it so much?
Because of the smell, a line formed, people thinking they’d get some of my meat. Nope. I’m not a dragon meat charity. You’ll have to beg for it, if you want some. And I only gave him four steaks worth, it won’t be enough for everyone in the first place.
But as I was waiting for my steak to be ready, something began to happen in the arena. First, the barrier that was down for this showcase suddenly activated, which I only noticed because I was looking at the mana flow of the portable griddle.
Then a bunch of smoke bombs, or something like that began to emit tons of dark smoke, with some hints of red mixed into the smoke color.
Panic began to set into the people in the arena, as something was clearly wrong. I mean, for what other reason would there be random smoke bombs in the arena?
It was then that I realized just how bad things really were. Because the smoke bombs weren’t just smoke bombs. They had something in them, and that something was making the tamed monsters irritated.
(Laura!) I quickly called out to my System Support, hoping she’d be able to tell me something.
(Could be some kind of irritant gas. I cannot tell yet.) She answered.
That was when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see Janina.
“We should evacuate. That isn’t just smoke, it is condensed miasma.” She told me. “At the amount there is, it won’t affect people much, low level people may get sick, but nothing life threatening. But the monsters…”
As she said that, the tamed monsters began to trash around, while making all sorts of noises, from howling to screeching.
“They may go crazy because of the miasma spike.” Janina finished.
“Yeah. We need to.” I agreed, only to realize that the barrier that protects the audience was just activated. “Shit. The barrier is up. They won’t be able to get out.” I looked at Janina. “We need to do a few things. One, contain those monsters. If they start to rampage, people will die. Two, get this barrier down, or at least get a hole into it. Alice can take care of that part.” I quickly told her. “Will you help me contain these beasts?”
“Of course, dear.” Janina answered.
… yeah. I’m just going to ignore the fact that she just called me dear. She can do that if she wants.
Instead I lifted myself off the ground with Mana Flight, while I contacted Alice, Lua and Cailie with our System link. I told them what was happening, and gave them their instructions.
Then I turned to the tamed monsters that were on the brink of going haywire. I noticed that their tamers were trying to calm the beasts down, and the adventurers that were in the arena were forming a line, ready to defend the non combatants.
Not bad, but I have an app for this. Or a skill. Or two. So let’s start containing them.
I generated 10 Restraining Swords, splitting them between the monsters, and launched them. Then I repeated the same action again and again, trying to keep the monsters stunned.
Sadly they were all B-rank and above, so my Restraining Swords didn’t really do as much as I wanted them to do, but it did get all of the monsters to focus on me, so I suppose that is a good thing. So I added Dark Chain to the mix.
I didn’t want to use lethal techniques, so Restraining Sword Barrage and Dark Chain were my best options. And I couldn’t really use a card like Swords of Revealing Light, because it cannot fully hold S-rank monsters, like the cerberus. And even worse than that, Swords of Revealing Light would freeze up the audience, so they couldn’t escape.
Luckily, I began to hear singing behind me. Cailie was using Battle Song to boost the stats of the audience, and Alice had blasted a hole into the barrier with Erasure Magic, so guided by Cailie’s song, the audience was finally getting out of the arena, and into the protection of the colosseum building.
Good. We don’t need to buy that much more time.
I kept up my Sword Barrage, while also using Dark Chains to hold the more problematic monsters, until the immediate area around the monster had been evacuated. Lua and Janina did a good job of getting the people that were stuck on the monsters backs off of them, and towards the exit.
Now there was just one more thing to do. Knock these things out. And luckily, Janina said she’d handle it.
So one by one, she landed on the nape of their necks, placed her hand on them, and in just a second, the monster went limp and fell to the ground.
With the monsters now down, but hopefully not permanently, I landed on the ground, and calmed myself. I got a bit excited by the sudden development, but now it is time to return to analyst mode. What the heck happened and who brought miasma filled smoke bombs to the arena?
I quickly went around the arena, to the places where the smoke was the thickest. Guided by my Mana Vision, I followed the dark, corrupted looking ‘mana’, which is actually miasma, to a device, I think was the smoke bomb. It seemed to have been stuck to the underside of one of the tables the Kitchen Knights used to show their food.
I placed the device into Storage for analysis, as well as to act as proof, and then went around collecting them all from the arena. In total, I found five devices, but I feel like that is too few. Based on how many sources of smoke there were, there should have been at least eight of these devices, if not ten.
While we waited for the … I actually don’t know who we were waiting on. But during that time, Cailie used her Purifying Winds to clear the arena, the colosseum, as well as the monsters, removing the excess miasma that was hanging around.
Luckily that brought back the control of the monsters back to the tamers, so there was no chance of a further rampage, even though I’d barely call this a rampage.
Eventually a group of the local knights arrived in the arena, and began asking questions. I naturally answered as much as I could, and turned over four of the five smoke bomb remains to them. I did tell them I’m keeping one for my own analysis, and they agreed, as long as I showed them that it was the same as the others.
That was technically the truth, but admittedly, Tahlia had already analyzed all five of the smoke bombs.
The knights then escorted the tamers and the monsters out of the arena, towards the place they had stayed at.
Sadly, because of the mess made by the … can I call this a terrorist attack? Yeah, I think it is one. Sadly because of it, the finals and the bronze match of the tournament had to be postponed.
I had a chat, or three, with Wendy, as well as some other high ranking people in the Hero’s country. They were mainly about what happened, and about who may have been behind this.
I did have an idea, but it was kind of random. The most likely culprit is the States. Yes, I’m blaming a country for this. But honestly, who else could it have been?
At least I’m decently sure they were the source of the smoke bombs.
As for who installed the smoke bombs, honestly, it could have been anyone. There were tons of people in the arena who could have done it.
But when we returned to HomeBase, I learned who was actually behind the attack.
Because Laura had pulled a Laura, and gone way too far. Again. But like every other time, it was a good thing, so I had to forgive her.
What she had done, the part I knew about, was making drones based on Gradius' Option, Option Token and Thunder Option Token.
But what I didn’t know is the fact that the barrier access pass, you know, the thing we have so we can get into the Hero’s country without setting off alarms, apparently Laura had copied it and added it to some of our surveillance drones.
And as soon as the attack began, she had given them on order to set out from HomeBase, and to follow any people leaving the colosseum that moved in unexpected ways.
And that led to a party of about ten or so adventurers who headed out of the Hero’s country on that day, and then headed north, before having a meeting with another smaller group.
From there the now larger group continued heading north, until the drones ran out of operating range, and had to return to HomeBase.
I made sure to write a report about it, and added in an apology for copying the access device. I then sent that report over to Wendy. Hopefully they can identify that group and maybe get an idea of who they were.