Chapter 55 - Explosive Cat Fight

It has been about an hour since I posted that note and since then I took the time to go buy some clothes. The only thing I have on me at the moment is my armor and I think it would be really awkward to go on a date in it. As I'm walking through the streets you could say the scenery is rather distorted.

For every building that's intact there's another one that looks as if it's been burned to the ground or demolished in the rebellion. I guess it wouldn't be out of place to see vines and foliage start to overtake some of the buildings here in Artry. I come to a stop in front of a store called "Artry Outfitters" and I walk inside.

"Hello sir, what can we help you with today?" asks the store clerk.

The clerk has on this trench coat and mafia hat on. He's rocking a handlebar mustache and a monocle. For some reason this person reminds me of my little mafia group back in Yrden. Could this be… one of my people?

"Hey you wouldn't happen to be a part of Corona, would you?" I interrogate.

"What?! How did you know?! Are you part of the government here to arrest me?" he says as he pulls out a tommy gun.

"Whoa! Hold up! First of all, I'm the one who named that mafia gang," I say as I take off my helmet.

"Boss? Whoa it really is you! I should have known when I saw the airship, but I don't remember it having 4 cannons attached to it," he says.

"Yeah, those are new."

"It's a pleasure to meet the new boss, the pictures only had you without your helmet. I'm Henry and welcome to one of our new business ventures outside of Yrden. We have tried expanding our influence in other ways now that we destroyed the drug running business. We pretty much control all of the red light district now and we are experimenting with setting up different kinds of institutions all over the empire," he says.

"So Giacomo is doing well then," I remark.

"Yes, thanks to him we've realized that gaining true power is gaining massive economic control. We don't do illegitimate things like drug running to make our money anymore. Soon we'll have a stake in almost every major business type in the empire. The amount of money we've been making is insane," Henry says while rubbing his mustache.

"Wow, all that happened in two months while I was away. You guys work quickly. Well either way you could help me out with something. I'm actually going on a date and I need something more appropriate than armor," I lay out.

"Oh the boss is being a player I see. Let me see what I have in the back. I have quite a few outfits," Henry informs.

Suddenly I hear something that sounds like a huge explosion go off in the distance. What the heck was that? It sounded like it came from the direction of the knights' tower. Could there be some sort of attack happening there?

Wait. On second thought it could just be Ryder and Nerva doing their thing. I should be concerned, but I've grown somewhat desensitized to hearing explosions, unless I'm the one who's in the center of the explosion. Henry comes out of the back with a few outfits.

"Boss, I have returned and did you hear a loud boom go off in the distance?" he questions.

"Yeah don't worry about it. It's probably someone I know doing their thing again," I respond.

"Okay then. How about this imperial suit? It looks rather fashionable if I must say so myself."

"Eh, too formal. I'm looking for something more casual."

"Hmm, then how about this outfit? This collared shirt and checkered pants is often a popular style amongst the aristocracy."

"Nah I don't want to look like a rich pompous bastard."

"Yes I know indeed. For you are one of the common people. Hmm, this is a new style of clothing we are experimenting with, but how does it look? We are calling it the clothing of the future."

He pulls out the last outfit from his stack and it surprisingly looks similar to one the clothing style from my world. It's a plaid black and purple button up shirt and you are supposed to wear a black t-shirt inside.

The lower half consists of kinda ripped black jeans. The only thing that looks out of place is the foot wear which are black boots. From a medieval perspective it makes sense to call it futuristic clothing, but to me it's normal. I've decided to usher in a new era of clothing.

"I think I'll take that one. It's kind of nostalgic in a way. I like it. You should name it after me because I have a feeling it will blow up," I predict.

"Ah I see. I'll keep that in mind," Henry notes as he writes something down on a piece of paper.

"So how much is it?" I ask as I pull out a coin purse from my pocket dimension.

"Oh no no no we can't charge the boss for something like this. You can have it free of charge. Your opinion on this new clothing brand was more valuable than anything else."

"Thanks, I guess."

"No, thank you, sir. And good luck with your date."

I put on the outfit and decided to walk towards the restaurant that Luther told me about. As I'm walking towards a building with the giant harp near it I can see that the moon is blood red again. It's really ominous yet kind of pretty in some way.

I remember when I asked Vasavir about it he hypothesized that everytime a blood moon would occur it would end up creating a dungeon somewhere out in the world. I'm not sure if it's true, but then there must be quite a few dungeons out in the world since the blood moons tend to happen every 20 days or so.

I come up to the restaurant and see that no one is here yet so I sit down on the bench to wait. In the meantime I pull out one of the cursed books I stole from Quincy and attempt to learn more about magic. I stole every book Quincy had about elemental type magic because I was curious as to whether I could learn something other than void and air magic.

I'm sure Quincy won't notice a few books missing out a thousand so it's fine. At this rate I should probably steal the rest of the cursed books since he doesn't seem to take much of an interest in them anyway. If anything he's only interested in the history section that he took a rather excessive amount of from the library in Colonus.

I imagine that there's a bunch of poor saps out there who can't do their homework now. I open up a grimoire about learning lightning and about three minutes pass by until lightning starts shooting out of the book zapping everything nearby.

A small lighting bolt zaps a black cat and it runs away in shock. I quickly close the book before I end up causing more disaster. Jeez, I guess it's a lot harder to learn elements that you don't have an affinity for. The books on space and wind I could go for about five minutes until something bad like that happened. I take a short nap on the bench right outside the restaurant until I'm abruptly woken up.

"Hey Will wake up, I'm here for our date," someone I know says.

I open my eyes to see Remi looking all battered as if she was involved in an explosion or something. I recall hearing an explosion go off when I was at that clothing store two hours ago. I bet Remi must have been in the center of it.

"What the heck happened to you? You look like the victim of one of Ryder's escapades," I said.

"It's kind of a long story. Shit happened," she sighs.

Two Hours Ago

After hearing that Manchester had gotten beaten up we decided to all go rest up in the soldier's barracks downstairs. I walk into the bathroom to find a note attached to the bathroom mirror. I take the note off and read it. Huh, so Will didn't forget about our date. Good. Otherwise I would have to beat him up later for forgetting. A restaurant with a giant harp and swan lake. It sounds kind of romantic.

There's a line in here that makes it seem as if Luther just forced this on him. It seems he really wants to avoid this date. Well there's no way I'm going to let that happen. We are going on this date and Nazuko is going to pay for it.

Now the hard part will be how to sneak away from the rest of the party without telling them about the date. Otherwise stupid little Nazuko might find out. I'll just have to make something up in the meantime. The next thing I know the door opens and Lilith walks in humming.

"Oh hey Remi how're you? What's that note you're holding" Lilith questions while casually walking to the sink to wash her face.

"Oh um nothing, it's just a note from Will. He's umm… asking for me to go train with him tonight," I lie.

"Wait what? That's my job! I think you mistook that note when it was actually addressed to me," Lilith speaks up.

Oops, I should have said we were going to go buy dinner or something, not go train damnit.

"No! Umm… it was directly addressed to me. It even has my name in the note," I argue.

"What? There's no way, let me see that," Lilith demands.

"I can't do that!"

"Why not?" she asks as she tries to grab the note out of my hand.

"Because reasons," I say nervously as I try to keep it away from her.

"Give it! I want to see. You're acting suspicious," Lilith says.

"It says that Will's going on a date with the person he likes," says Nazuko as she reads the note behind me.

When the heck did she get in here? It's the worst person who could have been here!

"A date. Now there's no way that could have been addressed to you," Lilith says.

"Yeah! Obviously it was addressed to me," Nazuko interrupts.

"No you idiot, did you even read the last line of the note? It says don't bring Nazuko!" I yell.

Suddenly Lilith grabs the note out of Nazuko's hand and reads it.

"Clearly I'm the one who's being addressed in this note. I'm his fiance and I'm going," Lilith says with a possessive tone of voice.

"More like fake fiance," I mutter.

"Fake!? How dare you," Lilith gasps.

"Yeah faker. You forced him into that relationship just so you could go adventuring with us," I bring up.

"I might have done that, but I have to be the one who's addressed in that note. Now I'm going to meet him to confirm that fact," Lilith says.

"Not if I do it first," Nazuko jumps in.

"What!? No I can't let you two leave this room, you are going to stay here in the tower," I order.

I muster up a bunch of magical energy and channel the water in the pipes to burst out. I send all of the water in the room to both Lilith and Nazuko, fully submerging them both.

"Curse you Remi!" Lilith says as water overtakes her.

"Ah not toilet water! Mffhh, ahhhhck," Nazuko gurgles as toilet water fills her mouth.

About half the room is filled up to the ceiling with water when Anastasia walks into the room.

"Oh perfect, I know you probably have to pee, but please freeze this room right now. Umm take this coin purse as a reward," I ask her as I put the coin purse in her hand.

"Noooo, don't do it!!!" Lilith desperately yells.

"...." she says.

"Oh I owe you more for this. Well here, have some more money," I say as I bring out some more coins.

Anastasia shrugs, takes the money and freezes half of the room then proceeds to go into one of the unfrozen stalls.

"Yes, victory!" I celebrate as I throw my arms up in the air.

Scylla then comes into the bathroom and looks at what she sees before us in shock.

"What the hell happened in here?" she asks.

"Don't worry about it and don't unfreeze them please," I plead.

I walk out of the bathroom and begin to walk towards the exit of the knights' tower when suddenly I feel a surge of magical energy building up in the room behind me. I turn around to see a large fireball destroy the bathroom wall and an angry wet Lilith walk out.

"Oh, I am so gonna get you for this," Lilith threatens.

"Hah you can't beat me without your sword. Your gear is still in the barracks in the other room," I say mocking her.

"I don't need my sword to beat you up!" she says as a fireball starts to form in her hand.

"Then bring it, girl!" I incite as I summon my wolf.

I send my wolf to charge right at her and Lilith shoots off a large fireball in response. My wolf dodges it, but the fireball ends up destroying another section of the bathroom wall revealing Anastasia sitting on the toilet. Lilith's fireball from earlier unfroze Nazuko, but she's currently lying on her knees coughing out the toilet water. Lilith charges at me and we start to engage in a fistfight.

We both exchange punches, but it feels like Lilith's are stronger. I hit her with a left jab, but she counters with a right hook to my face. What the hell is with her and her gorilla-like strength? I remember walking into the shower room one time and seeing her naked ripped body. I think I'm starting to feel bad for Will whenever he has to go out and train with her.

No wonder he's been trying to avoid training with her alone, this girl hits like a dragon. I decide to retreat and let my wolf do the fighting. It comes up behind her and tries to munch on her leg. However due to her aura she's strong enough to grab the wolf by its mouth and proceeds to punt it through a nearby wall. The flying wolf crashes into Adam who happened to be passing by. But it doesn't end there, the wolf and Adam fly through yet another wall, falling out of the tower.

"Holy crap," I say as I start to retreat.

"Come back here, Remi!" Lilith yells.

Now that the tower has quite a few broken down walls I'm starting to worry about the structural integrity of the building. I still feel that my wolf hasn't disappeared yet so I use my beast-like agility to run through the destroyed part of the tower to get away from Lilith. I run down a floor and meet up with Ryder and Azura. This gives me a perfect idea.

"Ryder bombs now! Give me everything you have!" I order.

"Ok sure why not!" Ryder says as he gives me a ton of grenades and all kinds of explosives.

"Wait! No! Don't just give her deadly explosives. Remi, what do you even need those for!" Azura questions.

"I'm using them to defeat Lilith, don't ask why!" I answer as I run away with the bombs.

I run outside of the tower and quickly spread a ton of bombs in the rubble. Lilith runs out of the tower and approaches me.

"I've got you cornered now," she threatens.

"No, it is you who is cornered," I say as I whip out a detonator.

"What! Sto-"

Before she finishes her sentence I hit the detonator and set off all the bombs that Ryder gave me. A huge explosion goes off that could be heard from miles away. As the smoke clears I see that those bombs caused a huge hole in the side of the tower. It's a wonder how it hasn't fallen over yet. I can even see Quincy sitting down in a chair reading his book. He looks out from the huge hole in the tower, waves to me, then proceeds to go back to reading his book as if nothing happened.

Even though I feel bad about the amount of damage I caused, it was still kind of fun. I think this party is influencing me a little bit. As I walk around the rubble I can see that there's a plethora of unconscious knights lying as a side effect of the explosion. I'd probably get knocked out if a portion of the tower landed on top of me. Hmm, if anyone comes up and blames me for this, I'll just say Ryder did it.

Anyway as long as the main target got taken out everything's good. I walk around a little longer to see Lilith lying unconscious, but for the most part she seems perfectly fine. If anyone's hurt then they can go get healed by Adam and Azura. In the corner of my eye I spot Nazuko trying to sneak away. Oh no she doesn't, I remember what Will said in his note. No matter what happens, Nazuko isn't coming! I use up the rest of my aura to quickly run up to her and knock her out.

Back to the Present

"Jesus! Why couldn't you have just talked to Lilith about it? You didn't have to freeze her and Nazuko in the bathroom then blow up a part of the tower. Well at least you did the most important part correctly. I hope you didn't hurt Nazuko too badly," I sigh.

"Hey, it's not my fault that your fake fiance is so possessive. And don't worry about Nazuko, I'm sure she's getting used to being knocked out by now," Remi retorts.

"You don't get used to- whatever. It's fine, let's just go eat now," I say in a defeatist manner.

We both walk inside the restaurant to finally begin our date.