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SIS Book 4 Chapter 51: Killer Arrow and Tracker
🕑 Added 2020-07-10 22:10:21 +0000 UTC
Daz's vision faded out and was soon replaced by a scene of the future.
"To think even more foreigners are invading our homeland... You're sure he'll be back soon, Hsin-yi?" a handsome Taiwanese man in his early 30s asked.
The young woman stood next him playing on her phone peeked over its screen to answer, "Yeah. I already told you he will. Stop doubting my God-rank skill, sheesh."
She stretched her neck and looked over at the bear-like man lying down on the grass of the hill they were all on which overlooked Yilan City and said, "Kun-kun can be such a dick, huh, Chun-chun?"
The large man turned his head to look at her. "Stop calling me that. Kuan-yu too. You know we don't like your stupid nicknames. He has every right to doubt you when you get unclear images at best."
"Boo!" Hsin-yi responded as she returned her gaze to her phone.
The fourth person present stirred from his prior stone-like state. He was a short boy of about 15-years and next to him wagging its tail was a husky dog. "He's back."
Kuan-yu glanced at the only female of their group and smirked. "See? Why are Pai-han and John so much more accurate than you?"
"Because John's a super dog!" Hsin-yi protested. "Of course he can smell a massive fuck-off Yaoguai from a billion miles away."
Kuan-yu chuckled before he looked back at the large man who had now gotten up on his feet. "Ready, Chun-hung?"
The man nodded. He held his hand out and shook his wrist, resulting in one of his many bracelets starting to glow.
The next moment it had transformed into a 7-foot-tall longbow made of pure metal. Even the string itself seemed to be made of some sort of stretchy alloy.
He shook his other wrist resulting in an arrow that resembled a missile just from size alone. Chun-hung nocked the arrow and focused his senses. "Ready."
"Great. We'll show these foreigners that Taiwan isn't theirs for the taking," Kuan-yu said with anger and indignation filling his tone. "We've been walked over enough."
The 4 of them waited patiently as only the sound of John the husky panting filled their ears. 20-seconds later a tiny black blur became visible in the distance.
Almost immediately Chun-hung let his arrow fly. Less than a second later he smiled very slightly. "Hit."
***
Daz's golden eye stopped shining, returning it to its normal lacklustre hue of grey.
Sweat covered him but he naturally didn't care for that. A frown made its way onto his face as he mumbled, "I was hit? That arrow definitely struck me right in the heart. How did my halo not avoid it? Was it not a fatal wound? How?"
Daz had so many questions but a few were far more pressing than others. "Is that future unchangeable?"
This thought had lingered in the back of his mind ever since he had felt himself enter a trance of sorts when he lived through the vision he had seen of Crusher healing Rose during the level-2 awakening of her esper power.
Another question bothered Daz somewhat. "Does me seeing the future actually change it or does it change nothing?"
Thus far he had looked into the future twice; once to see how his sister did during her awakening and the other time to determine why he needed so many merit points. Both times his future self hadn't shown any signs that they were aware they'd seen the future.
"And we're back to the trance again... It's the only explanation." Daz held his chin in thought as he pondered over the topic.
"But if it changes nothing... Then what point does Future Vision have? Why does it exist? Surely in the non-life-threatening environment that Earth was before the system, Future Vision was the reason the Hamilio family was so powerful despite having such a non-combative esper power..." Daz felt he may be onto something.
"Perhaps... there's more to the ability than meets the eye?" he whispered in wonder.
All that made sense to him right now was trying to alter the future he had seen only moments ago. "Yaoguai," he called with his voice now raised.
"Yes, King Daz?" the beast answered as it continued to run back towards Yilan City.
"Chang-" A massive jolt a pain coursed through Daz's body as he tried to speak. He felt his Hamilio bloodline begin to suck him dry of all of his remaining Internal Energy.
The Yaoguai, as well as Dorian, Crusher and Master Merit, noticed Daz's odd condition. "Are you alright? Humans and the additional child of the system, is this normal?"
Master Merit shook his head as he walked along the massive creature's back. "Absolutely not. I've never seen him like this before, in truth. Though perhaps Mr Elkwood or Miss Crusher here know more. They have been with His Majesty for longer."
"Never seen him like this either," Crusher shrugged.
"Me too," Dorian answered honestly.
Crusher approached Daz and supported him with one arm. "Can ya speak, Uriel? You gettin' attacked or something?"
Her words were casual but her tone was serious. Her free hand was gripping her warhammer tensely. If someone as strong as Daz was put in this state by another person then Crusher felt she was justified in being incredibly worried.
"I'm... fine," Daz spat out at great effort.
He raised a hand to hold his head only for his palm to get covered in sweat. "Great... even... Yaoguai, stop... us... here. I... need... time... to... recover..."
"Of course," the demonic bear replied before slowly lowering itself in the field they were in. The monster then proceeded to curl up into a ball.
Master Merit stroked the right twine of his long moustache as he smiled. "Does this perhaps relate to that time you claimed you had almost killed yourself in the Mercenary Guild, Your Majesty?"
"Yes... and... no. I'd... rather... if... you... didn't... ask... further... questions... until... I've... regained... my... strength," Daz said rather pointedly and with very little patience.
"Ah, my apologies," Master Merit responded with a slight bow after taking his top hat off and holding it at his chest.
Daz nodded and closed his eyes in an attempt to focus on recovering as much of his internal energy as he possibly could to make the pain he was experienced lesson at least somewhat.
Soon 10-minutes had passed with no visible improvements to his condition. Seeing that this might take a while, Dorian got himself comfortable again and began fiddling with his mechanical arm.
Master Merit stood at Daz's side though his eyes seemed unfocused. He was likely busy asking the system questions. About what, only he knew.
Crusher, on the other hand, was amusing herself by running her fingers through Daz's halo. She'd claimed she'd always wanted to but either couldn't find Daz, was busy herself or felt it'd be a nuisance.
Daz couldn't care less about her playing with his Halo of Absolute Judgement but the spirit of a certain demon princess certainly wasn't best pleased.
'Ignorant Fool! Get her to stop this instant! That is our bed she is so haphazardly manhandling with her sausage-like fingers!' Reika yelled in protest.
Daz sighed lightly. Trading one headache for another, opening his eyes and looking at Crusher, he requested, "Crusher... stop... it... would... you?"
"Haha, sure, Uriel. Interestin' as fuck though how its incorporeal like that," Crusher commented before she stopped supporting Daz's back and instead laid him down on the Yaoguai's spine.
Reika puffed out her chest in victory as she watched the 8-foot-tall Titan lumber over to Dorian's side. 'Hmpf! Of course he would side with us, foolish woman! He is our contractor, after all.'
Daz closed his eyes once more as he shook he head lightly, choosing to rest instead of humouring Reika any further.
***
Daz groggily opened his eyes. 'Did I fall asleep? I must have since my body doesn't feel like it's on fire anymore. System, what time is it?'
[Confirmed. The local time is currently: 6:34PM.]
"Huh..." Daz lifted his body up to sit in a cross-legged position. "A little over 4-hours..."
He could feel the creeping chill of the evening slowly spreading through his body even if he was highly resistant to such a thing. 'Whoever changed the weather in America clearly did it on a global scale. It's basically the same temperature here as it is back in Fort Home. Why would someone waste a worldly sovereign alteration on that?'
Daz was curious about this but he had more pressing things to investigate right now. Firstly, he looked inward to his internal energy reserves.
'... If I had to quantify it... I guess it went from... 10 to 11? It's hard to tell really... Is this what it feels like for a person who is either gaining or losing weight? It's hard to really determine if it is happening at all on such a small and slow scale.' Daz had an idea to fix this.
'System, can you detect my internal energy and quantify it for me like my other energy resources?' he asked.
[Confirmed. The system can do such a thing as Earth's [Internal Energy] is not unique, however, the ability to see Earth's [Internal Energy] as a quantifiable number will require the host to purchase the [Internal Energy Tracker] personal upgrade.]
'Okay, and how much does that cost?' Daz questioned internally.
[Confirmed. The [Internal Energy Tracker] can be purchased from the system for [100,000] Merit Points.]
Daz narrowed his eyes. For a simply tracking upgrade that was rather expensive. Far more expensive than the clock upgrade or the upgrade to allow mental communication with the system.
'... Is the tracker not limited to only myself, system?' Daz asked curiously.
[Confirmed. The [Internal Energy Tracker] grants the host the ability to check the level of [Internal Energy] of any system-sanctioned host and track the [Internal Energy] of up to 5 other individuals at once.]
'Shit. There is no way that Father doesn't have this already. Rose likely knows of it but didn't bother getting it since she's saving her points... Damn you, system, for needing me to explore you to benefit from you,' Daz cursed half-heartedly.
He'd come to expect such passivity from the system at this point so getting legitimately upset at it seemed counterproductive to him. 'I'll buy it and confirm the purchase, please.'
His instincts tugged at him to not spend his money but he ignored them. A sum of 100,000 merit points was large to the average person but to Daz it was easily regained so he felt the loss far less than his esper power apparently did.
[Confirmed. The total merit balance of the host is now: 420,276,261 [-100,000].]
Collectively, amongst what he took with him and had in his 2 bank accounts, Daz owned almost 3-billion merit points now.
'My wealth has really grown recently... It's only been 2 Mondays since I spent the week with Mu yet I've gained so much. The power of interest is rather... interesting. It has to be how Father is still the holder of the number one ranking on the overall merit ranking list,' Daz concluded before using his new upgrade on himself.
[Daz's Internal Energy Amount
0.21/0.45]
'I have no idea if that's a lot or very little at all. Context clues would suggest it isn't a significant amount given that my current cap seems to be a decimal place,' Daz thought a bit sarcastically.
He nodded lightly in spite of his negative internal remarks. 'Still, this is helpful. I can detect people with esper powers now and I can actively see exactly how much I've grown in regards to my internal energy, which is nothing but helpful. The vagueness of it before was a bit of a bother. The system sure can be helpful at moments like this.'
With that out of the way Daz now turned his attention to the greater issue at large - his would be attempted murderers, the apparent group of Taiwan's champions - Gǒng.
"Sorry for taking so long to talk after waking up, I had a few things on my mind," Daz said to his three companions and the Yaoguai.
Crusher shrugged uncaringly while Dorian nodded in acknowledgement. The demonic bear didn't seem to mind the wait since it got to rest during Daz's unconsciousness.
"We all assumed you have something more pressing to ponder over, as is usually the case when one immediately begins muttering to oneself upon awakening," Master Merit teased in good humour.
"Right, well, I suppose I have a few questions to answer then immediately after that, we have a few people to introduce ourselves to," Daz said with a small smile on his face.
Naturally, he'd come up with a plan to, hopefully, entertain a peaceful discussion with the people that, according to his Future Vision, wanted to end his life.
