Chapter 398: Calculating the Collateral
=Hmmm. First an abomination and now someone who can use [Fate]…is this all just a simple coincidence or…=
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As the Blue Shadows retreated from the battlefield, leaving behind their fallen, the zakos went about scavenging their bodies. There wasn’t much to scavenge though.
During the conflict, both zako and shadow alike were slain in varying amounts, the casualties weighing more heavily on the latter than the former. However, something unusual occured when either side lost a member, their bodies would disappear.
It made sense for the zako’s bodies to disappear since they were technically masses of random junk inflated with the power of [Chaos] to take form, but it didn’t make much sense for the human bodies to disappear the way they did.
As soon as a shadow was slain, their bodies spontaneously melted into a nasty smelling vapor, leaving nothing behind but a ruined cloak and maybe a weapon.
While the zakos didn’t know what was going on, they didn’t exactly have the mental functionality to be able to deduce stuff, the kaijin on the scene at least could figure something out.
“Why do these cloaks smell like a mix of raw sewage and three week old egg yolks left out in the sun?,” Lacerage complained as she oversaw the zakos scavenging efforts.
Archanidame for her part contemplated quietly while analyzing the cloaks before finally settling on an answer.
“Hmmm…I recall reading a book in the Library about a series of powders and potions labeled as corpse cleaners. Perhaps these shadows kept one on their person’s for the purpose of removing evidence of their existences?”
“Powders and potions? As in multiple types?”
“Yes. Certain combinations of herbs and minerals have a tendency to produce similar effects, the differences varying in terms of effectiveness or side effects. Which in this case is smell. The particular smell you described is what happens when uses a mixture composed of Night Sulfur and Elder Hornroot powder. If they had mixed in a drop of Nether Rattlesnake venom, the resulting mixture would have smelled of lavender.”
“…”
“What?”
“Have I told you lately that you scare the everliving shit out of me?,” Lacerage asked with a weird look.
“Two days ago, after I taught the maid staff how to make tasteless poisons and prepared inert blast arrays in the estate’s front yard.”
“Statement fucking stands.”
As the kaijin and zako were looking over their gains, however meager it may have been, the guy in charge of them was dealing with another issue.
Damage control.
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Evidently, not a lot changed with Hurricroak, Nepherage and Frosttusk after they had escaped the [Five Shadow Kings] formation till now, due to the three of them still being paralyzed. It was weird, because they could still sense things around them and talk, but they’re limbs were somewhere between boneless and joint locked.
Nepherage and Frosttusk could handle this paralysis no issue, what with them being made of literally sterner stuff, but Hurricroak on the other hand…
[GYAAAAHHH! Where the hell is the maestro?! We’ve been laying her for HOURS!,] Hurricroak complained.
She wasn’t handling all of the inaction too well.
[It’s…been…five…minutes…]
[Same thing!]
[It’s…really…not…]
[It’s fine Hurricroak,] Nepherage assured her froggy counterpart, [the enemy forces have been routed and now all we have to do now is lay here and wait to be healed/retrieved.]
[Wait, the battle is over? All of the enemies are gone?]
[That is what I said.]
[BOOOOOO! I wanted to fight some more! We got knocked out of this fight way too early!]
[Not…our…fault…didn’t… expect…the…darkness…or the… deconstruction…]
[Still though.]
[Understandable, but it has already happened so let’s just…move on. We’re probably gonna be needed to reconstruct stuff anyways.]
[That’s worst.]
[It…really…isn’t…]
[Huh. So that’s what you guys sound like at this frequency. I can make out your voices a lot better now.]
[Razorstella?]
‘Hey guys, am I interrupting?’
[Milord!]
[Maestro!]
[Hello…jarl…]
The kaijin eventually stopped their conversation when Zhen Liu descend from above in a controlled manner.
This was technically his first time actually using the [Float] ability associated with Aether Grandmasters, and it was still a little weird.
To describe it physically, he felt as if someone stuck a million tiny wings all over his body.
It wasn’t until he finally made touchdown with the ground that the tingling stopped.
It was also at this moment that he could see the damage that was done to both the kaijin and the surrounding property alike.
It wasn’t great.
‘Alright, first off, let’s get you guys back into fighting shape, well, standing at least.’
[Thank you, milord.]
[That’d…be…nice…]
[Please, maestro! Help me to perform once more!]
‘Unnecessarily dramatic, but okay.’
[Side note, looking good Razorstella, like the new form.]
[Thank you.]
Sensing that these three were just, essentially, tapped of both aether and [Chaos], Zhen Liu went about fixing the trip by just channeling his own power into them, since he had plenty to spare.
‘I suppose that’s one advantage of having untraditional aether channels, I got plenty in reserve the heal the kaijin if needed.’
It was easy for Zhen Liu to supply the kaijin with aether since he could just make use of the innate connections with them and just…focus on that, but [Chaos] turned out to be a different story.
For reasons beyond his current level of understanding, he couldn’t push the [Chaos] through the connection as easily as his own aether.
Maybe because it was technically a foreign energy?
Regardless, seeing as he couldn’t just channel his aether like normal, he went about placing his left in the kaijin and just inject them with the energy “manually”.
Thankfully, it didn’t take too much time.
In total, it took about three minutes for all three kaijin to be back and action and ready to fight again if necessary…but not tonight.
Tonight was going to be less about destruction and more about reconstruction.
“Okay, we have accidentally caused a lot of collateral damage this time around, so it’s only fair we stick around and try to fix it as quick as we can,” Zhen Liu told the kaijin, “I’m going to make a loop and see just how much damage was done.”
[D’awww, but that’s boring!]
[It’s… necessary…]
[The round making isn’t necessary milord, Lady Jin Fang has already handled it.]
“Huh? Jin Fang?”
“Right here, Xiao Liu.”
“Bah!”
As soon as the aforementioned girlfriend was mentioned, she appeared behind Zhen Liu a bit like a ghost, with a clipboard in hand. Where she found such a thing was up to debate, but she probably stole it from somewhere nearby.
“Whoa, where’d you go?”
“Well, after you got blasted into the air, the fighting started to die down and since I had no idea how to heal an injured kaijin, sorry about that guys.”
“It’s…cool…”
“It honestly shouldn’t happen to us in the first place,” Nepherage agreed.
“You could have at least dragged me by my toes a bit!,” Hurricroak complained with a tone that made it unsure if she was joking or not.
“Anyways, after realizing my inability to help with their situation, I figured it’d be smarter to just keep track of what got destroyed in the fighting, since you seemed to care about that. Here’s what I found,” Jin Fang said as she handed the clipboard over to Zhen Liu.
“Oh. Thanks babe,” Zhen Liu said with casual gratitude as he accepted the clipboard. Evidently, he was so engrossed by the document that he failed to notice Jin Fang blushing a bit when he used the term “babe” so casually. She still didn’t know what it meant exactly, but she knew it was a term of endearment.
Clipboard now in hand, Zhen Liu looked over the damages done and his mood got worst per item.
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1 Destroyed warehouse.
27 destroyed barrels containing salted fish.
Several large holes in other nearby warehouses as a result of zakos and people being thrown into the them.
A wrecked ship in a dry dock caused by an errant attacked.
One unconscious yet mostly uninjured cabin boy who got caught in the crossfire during the whole melee. He is currently resting in the previously mentioned dry dock.
Multiple puddles of what we’re presumedly human bodies at some point.
Random bits of junk and bone that used to be zakos before getting defeated.
Estimated cost…unknown, I’m not an economist.
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=I think the number comes out to…one hundred thousand gold pieces, give or take ten grand?=
‘Not helpful, please tell me whether or not it’s possible to fix all of this.’
‘What?’
=How much unintended consequences are you prepared to deal with post repairing the damages done?=
‘What kind of unintended consequences?’
<=Well...=>
