Chapter 984: Quantum Locked, Sucka!
“Blazejudicator, I’m not nuts right? I should definitely be in a padded room for this next part?”
[Well…what does your gut tell you?]
“My guts says…we need to definitely move this significantly more padded. Logs, Pathso!”
<=Way ahead of you milord.=>
“Hallelujah.”
…
Meanwhile, back in Roaring Tide…
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The public auction for the ownership of the Blizzard Howler warrior was quite intense, due to the public demonstration from earlier, rousing up everyone’s desire to own such a vicious power. Plus, with that low initial starting price, it was hard not to get involved.
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Eventually, the monetary value of the slave’s ownership got a little too rich for most people’s blood, but then the slave merchant made an announcement that riled everyone back up.
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Once that announcement was made, the bids started to get really interesting.
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To a majority of people, a major Ethereal Aether art was rich enough that most medium size factions would only have a handful. Being able to just offer one up as an auction bid for a slave, basically signified to most of the people present that this guy wasn’t to be fucked with unless they had a bigger bid or a bigger backer.
The Shin Family was actually the name of the bigger factions in one of the kingdoms that were neighbors to the Blossoming Scales Kingdom, so not a lot of people were willing to challenge them.
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Well, not a lot of people except for one particular group.
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Standing out over the crowd was a mountain of a man with a bushy white beard, piercing blue eyes and an aura that made people think that they were staring at a mammoth or a walking natural disaster.
Accompanying him was an amazonian woman dressed in casual mercenary wear, and a young, sylvette woman with pastel pink and green hair. Altogether, they gave off the impression of an elderly father being accompanied by his daughter and granddaughter.
Had it not been for the absurd bid that just came out of the old man’s mouth, the crowd would’ve assumed that they were a normal family.
A majority of the people present didn’t want to interact with such a fellow, but that aforementioned bidder from earlier felt a mildly insulted that he got outbid…until they noticed that the old guy was radiating the aura of an Aether Lord.
Suddenly he was a lot more silent and meek.
Not that this mattered to the slave merchant since he was in it for the profits, and a World Grade Art was a nice and tidy profit.
If it was real that is.
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Without saying a word, the old man proceeded to produce an aether art scroll out of nowhere and presented it for the world to see and judge.
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Once everyone saw just how rich this moment got, a lot of people simply bowed their heads down and out of the way. It wasn’t worth the trouble of attracting the ire of anyone who was willing to put up a thing like that for a single slave.
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[Huh…starting to realize that we may be a bit more privileged than we realize…,] Rodenia commented.
[Because we have access to a near infinite library with a fuckton of knowledge that most people consider to be more valuable than gold?,] Kit pointed out.
[More or less, yeah.]
[Save comments for later,] Frosttusk interjected. [I need to confirm who this slave merchant is, and then we need to figure out what to do with the Screecher.]
[Screecher?]*2
[It’s what neophytes of the Blizzard Howlers are called.]
[Why do you know that?]
[Tell you about it later.]
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As a sign of a good deal being concluded, Frosttusk reached out a hand to shake the merchant’s hand. An action that was reciprocated.
…Meanwhile, in Stampeding Bison…
[Wait a goddamn minute! Are people cutting the line?! Assholes!]
[I think it’s just a free-for-all.]
Despite their best efforts to get to the front and make contact with the street cook, all so they could ask a simple question, Screamira and Razorstella found themselves absolutely flooded by people.
While they could’ve technically released a bit of their aether and cause everyone around to scurry like rodents, doing so would be considered a bit of a…social faux pas.
Unless there was an active war going on, or they wanted to paint a target on their asses, the disguised kaijin had to do all they could to maintain a low profile.
Well, lower profile.
They could feel the gazes, but that wasn’t important.
[Okay, seriously, how attractive are these cakes to people? Is this motherfucker sneaking in drugs or something?,] Screamira complained while having to push against yet another customer trying to muscle pass her.
[I don’t know, but I am about five seconds away from wanting to cut everyone down like bamboo-bah!]
[Razorstella!]
“Oi! You lads smell that! Smells good!]
Before Razorstella could make her displeasure totally known to Screamira a sudden rush of people came out of nowhere and knocked her forward.
In a moment of bad timing, the miners of the Digger Union had apparently all gone to lunch at the exact same time.
There was some murmur about a cave-in leading to an unexpected discovery, but that wasn’t important right now.
As such, the miners had flooded the plazas and restaurant districts in search of a good meal.
Unfortunately, about several dozen of them had smelled the taiyaki and had rushed towards the stall like flies to honey.
[Gah! I love attention but I hate this crowding bullshit!,] Razorstella complained as her lithe frame was knocked back and forth and forward.
Razorstella was about to lash out and probably take someone’s head off with a swift kick or a swipe of her claw, but then a miracle of sorts happened.
“Would you all kindly-bwah!”
“Whoa! Careful there, missy!”
Due to the flood of people knocking her about, Razorstella had found herself not only at the very front of the crowd, but had somehow been knocked to a point where she literally spun into the area where the street cook was making his taiyaki.
She would’ve been sent crashing into his burner set-up, had the aforementioned street cook not caught her in time.
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[Whoa! Razorstella, are you okay?]
[I think so…I fucking hate crowds now though, but at least I’m now…wait a minute…why does my skin feel tingly?]
[Tingly…how?]
[Like it’s rubbing against a source of energy that is neither aether nor Chaos.]
[Uh oh.]
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As soon as the kaijin made contact with the [slave merchant/street cook], the eyes of the latter glowed with a strange grey light before a strange expression appeared on their face.
“[Uh oh]/[Oh fuck me].”
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“Alright. Now that I’m settled here, I can-hrrk!”
Before Zhen Liu could finish his comment, he suddenly developed a splitting headache as Frosttusk and Razorstella made contact with their respective targets…which was weird.
Zhen Liu was used to seeing things and people fron multiple perspectives, due to sharing his senses with the kaijin so often, that something like this was…perturbing.
The moment his two kaijin made contact with the street cook and the slave merchant, the image of the two men suddenly overlapped in his head and created an image that his brain was having issues processing.
But then things got weirder when he started hearing voices.
“Oh man! This is exactly why I hate dealing with you [Chaos] types! You guys always lock me in place.”
“What are you-gah!”
The next thing Zhen Liu knew, a human arm suddenly came out of his forehead.
“OH WHAT THE FUCK?!”
“Oh great! I got confirmed in time and space, again!”
What followed that arm was a grumpy sounding young man who was in the process of removing himself from Zhen Liu’s forehead.
“Okay, I get that this is new to you, but it ain’t new to the thing on your hand. So would you mind?”
