Jane was very worried. According to the men their 'agent' had 'rescued', they were in for a rough everything. Their enemies could be anyone, from a passing old lady to any soldier in city. There was a solution to that, however. They just had to find the psyquic that had eliminated their source of information. This ment that the only two people with a chance to resist hypnosis and illusions were sent on patrol to find the disturbance. THIS, in turn, ment her partner was a nut job that was barely invested in looking.
"Are you done with your coffee run?" She asked as he entered the standard civilian vehicle with a paper bag and cup.
"After i eat, but if you just want to turn the engine on then drive like madmax, go for it. The apocalipse is coming and all that anyway. Roaming around won't be so useful, just stick to a route far from support and turn off the radio like i told you, then we will be golden in ten minutes tops." He said with nonchalancy before starting to slowly drink his medium sized cinnamon capucino.
"That's against protocol." She muttered and drove the car out of the small parking lot.
"And why haven't you told me the protocol to dealing with mind readers and reality benders?" He questioned with mocking eyes.
"Reality bender? Why didn't you mention anything of the sort in from of command?" She asked, ignoring his jab and frowning a bit.
"They don't trust me. I'm a weapon after all, one that they cannot perfectly use. Besides, we might have a spy. Either the psyquic was brought close enough to pass through the shielding on the cell, or he had a reality bender make any problem we put on the way irrelevant. If they had a specialised team made to support said mentalist, then your top brass would have already started dropping like flies at defined intervals dependent on their importance." He mentioned, taking a bite of a chocolate filled donnut in the bag between his legs as they stopped on a traffic light.
There was silence in the car as Jane wordlessly started driving towards the outskirts of town. By the time there was no other sign of traffic around, Aki had already packed all the trash into a compartment in front of him, ignoring the guns inside.
"How are you so confident?" She really didn't know.
"I'm crazy and egocentric." His smile seemed genuine for once. "But i mostly just think of how much i hate failing, specially in things i'm good at. Even i have people that would be sad with my death though, so i don't allow myself to get into situations that i don't know how to deal with beforehand."
"So you know how to deal with this?" Scoffed a man that was behind them. Looking at the car mirror, Jane sweat cold as she saw the small dark form and the well dressed caucasian man in his twenties sitting on the car's back seat.
Her hands would not reach for the guns in her combat vest however, as they kept to the weel, the car navigating a series of streets with buildings she swore were repeating themselves.
"Have you given her candy yet?" Aki asked, his arms crossed and expression calm like a glacier.
*RUMBLE*
"What, of course we did! She will get even more of it after we deal with you villains too!" Exclaimed the man in what seemed to be a worried voice.
"Lemon or pineapple flavor? She doesn't like when they're too sweet or too sour."
*RUMBLE*
"The master will make even more, better candy after she's proven herself, you don't need to worry!" Sweat could be seen in his forehead now, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at the back of the young man in front of him.
"I think she would like my candy more though." He said with pride obvious in his voice, slowly taking out what seemed to be a translucid golden orb with a stem on top, similar to what seemed to be a fusion of an apple, a cherry and a pomegranade.
"You shouldn't be taking candy from strangers sweety." Said a female voice coming out of nowhere.
"She can have a bit after taking that medicine hon." Answered Aki, in the voice of an older man.
Then the fruit was in her little hands. The world stopped as she took a bite. One moment, she shone a golden light, then with a smile plastered on her face, she let it fall from her weak hold, glassy eyes letting tears fall. She was free.
The psychic died, every hole in his head dripping blood as they came back to the parking lot in the middle of nowhere, finding two corpses in the back seat. Aki sighed.
"What the...."
*****
"....And several mental connections were deestabilised as he was phisicaly teleported, his own ability being overextended as the reality bender experienced what i consider to be the sweet bliss experienced at the moment of obtaining freedom, killing herself as she accepted that as her own reality and her power made it so. That explains it to every body? This is the fourth time i'm saying all this, it's getting boring." Aki said to the tablet, turning the call off when one of the officials seemed to become irritated at him. Then he put the thing inside his storage ring. "Don't ask about it." He told the girl sitting on behind the weel.
She seemed to want to say something, but ultimately just sighed and turned the car engine on again.
Instead of asking where they'd be going, Aki just opened his status page. He'd gained two points in spirit and inteligence, plus one in vitality. He could also feel that several of his skill had received small boosts, though none leveled. This had been the second time consuming essence had allowed him to increase his status, the first one being Vanes, though this time he'd indeed emptied the corpses of any blood they had by manipulating it down his gullet.
The diference between a normal human and an esper was... pretty much indescribable. Like comparing the cake made in the bakery around the corner and one done by a four star one specialised in that recipe. Worse, they literraly made him more fit! It was like the universe was telling him to eat himself to death.
It wasn't like he had some kind of sure fire way to receive the abilities of those he defeated, but what players didn't posses at least something a bit special about them? Which dungeon didn't have a myriad of idiots trying to kill you because they thought their divinity/drugs/forbidden ritual or whatever power would give them an advantage?
Obviously, not everybody would be an idiot and come and battle face to face, but those were exactly the kind of people he'd be finding in dungeons with a higher rate of dificulty. They would also have a much higher chance of improving his parameters after death too.
The essence of some random crafters weren't going to do him much though.
" 'Well, you guys can just keep proving your loyalty to someone else then, I'm sure most of you aren't rapists and...' Seriously, that worked quick. Everyone else's good to go, do all the drugs and stupid inventions you guys want later on, these guys also don't care as long as you can speak in money. Peace, you won't be seeing me again." Aki said, leaving the seven other espers on the base that'd previously housed the psiquic and the little girl, the men with a spiked club shoved inside and then out of their anus bleeding out by the huge hole that let several tipes of fluids and solids in the ground as they screamed in pain. He'd simply asked them with a bit of hipnosys and they basically pointed out each others crimes.
Most were addicts and arsonists, plus one little boy that had cleptomania, so he honestly didn't care what else was done with them since the governament was not stupid enough to simply throw away resources. Sans imediatly invalidating the one guy he wanted to kill. Now all he could do as he waited was hunt down politicians and officers on the other side of the civil war.
He had orders not to kill them, sure, but that was about how far he was going to obey. What mattered to maniacs with underground dungeons if they suddenly turned tetraplegic and could only survive through expensive machines?
Sure, not all politicians were utter piles of shit, some were simply incopetent, which was fair enough, but Aki did not have a good view over the profession. He'd much rather make deals with recidents of hell even.
*****
The last days had not been anything special, no. Having mostly fought and reinforced military vehicles, Aki had ussed these days to practice his skills, getting close to journeyman with briliance and umbra, but mostly getting his weapon related abilities to level up, some even at senior level already despite him ussing them exclusively with his body.
There had not been any such incident where he'd been able to raise his stats with blood either, since his enemies were smart enough to notice throwing people at him was simply not effective if they didn't even have a proper action plan. Even after a week of roaming the country, which was pretty close to a big puzzle piece with tens of jagged ends, he had not actually seen or heard about the big bad evil he'd dubbed 'monster king'.
As they'd not really focused on it through, it ended up with a high amount of 'leverage' being thrown at the carpet of the conservative party of 'the country Aki refused to refer to as anything but square', had finally reached a tiping point and conquered their adversaries, allowing for them to increase their influence and spread calm again, though the young man in question had only taken down a few private militia in the process, never ten thousand strong with heavy war equipment, which, ironically enough for someone of the XXI century, was about the equivalent of the magically strong soldiers with bows and axes he'd taken down on the last dungeon. Something to do with the title not being able to improve against weaker enemies.
It was not that Aki didn't think of separating from his partner, who actually quite liked 'Unlike pluto', 'Billie ellish', and some other songs with a similar feel, though she was pretty extreme and random with the lyrics, mostly focusing on melody and 'vibes' or what she tried to describe and such, which was the kind of contradiction that allowed the young man to understand some novel characters that complained about their women on a more personal level... Anyway, he simply didn't know how to get to the terrorist cell full of juicy espers.
He did, however, know to visit important sites, such as the equivalent to the grand canion.
"And you will finaly tell me why we are actually here?" Asked Jane, who had driven then there since she didn't want to let the maniac touch the gas pedal.
"Sure. There's a good chance that besides the things you already categorise as monsters, certain creatures will keep evolving until they become something resembling mythical beasts. Like a badger mole, but spiritual, a fish that's the actual size of a wale, a giant ape that like to kidnap pretty mayors..." He said as a set of stairs formed on the wall of the canion as he stepped down. "And you might not want to come down with me, can't garantee your safety if i am right about their danger level." He said, realising that he should probably jump and use the walls for support instead before actually doing so to the sounds of what seemed to be a worried young woman screaming his name.