Chapter 752: Establishing the Away Team
Warning.
The following chapter is going to be a bit…sappy.
That is all.
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[So what do you guys think? Think Miss Punch Buggy will tag along with us or stay here with Cadet Candied Limbs and their mama?,] Hurricroak asked her fellow kaijin.
[Punch…Buggy? Candied…limbs?]
[Nicknames, big guy, nicknames.]
[Pardon me, Hurricroak senpai. But aren’t nicknames supposed to be shorter than the subject’s actual name?,] Screamira asked.
[That’s what I said!,] Razorstella added in order to further annoy Hurricroak. [I can already tell you and I are gonna get along great.]
[Huh…on the one hand, I feel like I should be insulted by your bluntness…on the other, you called me senpai and that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside for some reason…,] Hurricroak said with a hesitant tone of respect. [All that aside, nicknames can just be shortened versions of someone’s name, but they can also be terms of endearment. Hence why I sometimes call Frosttusk, “big guy” or Nepherage here “big sis”.]
[Those are nicknames?,] Nepehrage asked.
[In certain languages, they’re one word like…aniki or da ge.]
[Isn’t that last word supposed to have tone marks?,] Spring Brawler pointed out.
[How the hell did you notice-]
[WAIT, I JUST REALIZED SOMETHING!,] Razorstella suddenly interjected. [Hurricroak, you missed a super obvious joke/nickname for Kit.]
[I did? What joke?]
[Cadet Kit Kat.]
[…]
[…]
[…MOTHER FUC-]
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“I think I want to-”
“Hold on a moment, please!”
“Huh?”
“Oh! You two are no longer dazed! Yay!”
Just as Rodenia was about to share her desire on staying or going, the missionary couple had finally snapped out of their dazed state and had this look of strange determination to them.
Zhen Liu had a a decent idea as to what they wanted to say, but kept quiet so that they could express themselves.
“Zhen…Master Zhen Liu, if it’s alright with you, can the two of us continue being the ones to watch over Rodenia? Or at least, is it okay if we come along with her no matter what she chooses to do?”
“Really?! Yay!”
“I don’t see why not,” Zhen Liu replied. “But why? Aren’t you two supposed to head back to Opal Scale Valley or something? You finished your pilgrimage to that shrine, did you not?”
“It’s true, we did,” Isa answered. “But our own pilgrimage hasn’t ended yet.”
“Hmm?”
The two pilgrims stood a little taller as they began to elaborate on their answer, not only to convince Zhen Liu of their conviction, but to convince themselves as well.
“After travelling with Rodenia for so long and seeing how she just gets so…amazed by everything we’ve seen, seeing the pure wonder in her eyes, the two of us have realized that we’ve kind of squandered our ability to just…live in the moment I guess?,” Leon partially explained so that Isa could elaborate further.
“The two of us have been so ingrained in the church, that we gradually began to shove out and ignore everything else. We were so focused on just finishing our pilgrimage and going back home that we failed to realize just how vast and strange the world truly was. How can we become the next generation of priests and priestesses of the faith if we don’t understand how others can live outside it?”
“Interesting…so you two wish to tag along with Rodenia because she can protect y’all while you go on this journey of self-discovery and knowledge then?,” Zhen Liu pointed out while hiding his left hand behind himself.
“N-no! Well…actually, that’s part of the reason…”
“Alright then, what’s the whole reason?”
“We owe her our life,” Isa answered. “Multiple times over.”
At this point in time, the two of them looked at Rodenia with the most genuine display of appreciation and respect that Zhen Liu had seen a while…so much so that he had to hold his left fist a little tighter.
“We were saved once when she fell from the sky like a miracle, we were saved multiple times during our journey to the sacred shrine and when we fell into despair in learning what had happen to our holy land, how it was tainted by greed and malice, she saved us again.”
“One lifetime isn’t enough to repay her for all that she’s done for us, so the least we can do is try and help her in whatever way we can and accompany her wherever she goes.”
“D’awww, you guys!,” Rodenia piped up at these heartfelt statements while walking over to the two of them. “You two don’t have to worry about something like that.”
Once she was close enough to Leon and Isa, she proceeded to bring the two of them into a bear hug with all four of her arms.
“You two gave me a name and helped guide and teach me about the outside world in your own way! If anything, I owe you guys for showing me just how beautiful the world can be.”
“Rodenia…,” Leon and Isa said in unison with tears forming at the corner of their eyes.
‘Well…I think I can see what their answer is going to be,’ Zhen Liu mentally concluded with a sigh.
As he did, he felt the [Desire Core] in his left hand finish forming, moments before it was absorbed into himself.
…
=Strong desire detected…correction, two sources of the same strong desire has been detected.=
=Dual consolidation activated.=
=Consolidating…confirmed.=
=[-Dualistic- Core of Gratitude] has been created, please use at your earliest convenience.=
∆A dualistic core? Damn, haven’t seen one of those for a long, long time! It must’ve been back when the drunkard was alive, right?∆
=To be fair, Pathos, such cores are rare because not everyone has the same interpretation of the same desire. One man’s greed is another’s altruism, one man’s unjust wrath is someone else’s righteous crusade. Mortals are funny like that.=
∆Yeah…but that’s why we can’t help but to hang around them, right?∆
=Indeed.=
…
“So is it safe for me to assume that you won’t be heading back to Stampeding Bison with us then?”
“Nah! I’m gonna hang around here with Kit and explore Roaring Tide with my friends when I can! Thanks for giving me the chance though!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t put it like that…I do have one request for you and Kit if you’re going to be staying here in Roaring Tide though.”
“Oh? What kind of request?”
“For starters, I’m going to need a piece of paper and a pen…”
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“Hold the hell up, you mean to tell me that he managed to convince his entire family that two of his kaijin were nothing more than disciples of some ‘mysterious master’, he made up and had them become employees of the Zhen Clan?,” Jinju Ren asked in disbelief.
“Yup, literally showed up with Rianna here, ‘Aranea’ and ‘Lucille’ with a letter stating that they were to help out our clan’s patriarch due to Moka’s betrayal and as a ‘token of appreciation’. Aranea became a clan administrator and teacher for the younger disciples while Lucille proved herself to be an equally good teacher but handled the messier things like dismantling. I was still cross that Zhen Liu went and almost got himself killed while sneaking out again though.”
“What did you do when you found out he snuck out like that again?”
“Smacked him upside the head with a frying pan.”
“Wow…”
“And that’s precisely why I call her, big sis,” Rianna added while eating a jelly candy. “These Turkish delight things are great!”
While Zhen Liu was busy dealing with kaijin stuff, Jinju Ren, Jin Fang and Rianna had decided to spend that time doing two things.
First, they used that time to get to know each other better since they were going to be living with one another for the foreseeable future.
Co-habitation situations can break down very easily if problems and habits aren’t addressed early on.
Second, Jinju Ren had used this opportunity to be caught up on everything involving the kaijin, Zhen Liu and what exactly all of that entailed.
This was, technically, her first real relationship with someone that wasn’t family and she wanted to make sure she didn’t do anything like bring up some latent trauma with an erant comment. That may sound weird, but this was a bit of dating/marital knowledge that Jinju Ren picked up over the years while watching the dating life of her siblings.
Either way, it didn’t hurt to be prepared at least.
“Well, now that we have covered recent events…would you mind telling me what Zhen Liu was like before he became the kaijin lord? Because, I’m not gonna lie, while he clearly has an insane amount of power inside and has literally demon warriors at his neck and call, he doesn’t act like it. I get that he was crippled before he got like this, but…what did that even look like?”
“That…hmmm.”
Jin Fang was just about to regale Jinju Ren with everything in regards to Zhen Liu’s past, including how they were childhood friends turned lovers.
However, the more she thought about it…the more she noticed how dramatic the change was between then and now actually was.
‘Its just in my head…right?’
As this thought dancerd across her mind, her eyes wandered over to the kaijin.
