Chapter 99: An Unexpected Assistant

Lusac really wanted to look around as he walked out of the bunk tent where all fifteen volunteers would be staying for the night, but he knew that doing so would only make him seem more suspicious. Given he was holding his bag while leaving the tent was weird enough since they were supposed to drop off their belongings and then reconvene at the center of camp for the rest of their orientation.

He'd pretended to have an upset stomach and spent an awkwardly long time in a bathroom stall while he waited for everyone else to clear out. Now that he was finally alone, he had what might be his only chance to borrow a crawler and make his way to the castle and the artifact he was supposed to be retrieving.

Leaving now was going to make it really hard when he came back and wanted to catch a ride on the shuttle back up to the space station so he could take his ship and be on his merry way, but if he waited until they separated into groups and went to the different camps, he'd be facing a greater security guard to volunteer ratio, and he was assigned the most dangerous camp, so they'd have even more protocols in place to keep people underwatch.

And so Lus decided to take the risk in escaping now with hopes he'd come up with a good plan sometime later to convince security to let him back through.

The good news was that he watched Varyna leave the bunk tent behind and head to the meeting area which meant she wouldn't be able to follow him, giving him his chance to do this mission without compromising the Argo.

Now that he was farther away from the main tent area, he glanced around and confirmed that there was no one nearby, including security guards. He might actually pull this off.

He put all his concentration onto a single thought, activate [Dash].

[Activating Dash for 50 seconds]

The world slowed around him, and Lus took off at a run towards the crawlers. Now even if there had been someone watching, they wouldn't be able to stop him. He arrived at the vehicles and chose one at the far end to use. They would notice its disappearance, no doubt, but he figured it would be easier to get this one out of the complex than one parked among the others. Parking had always been a tough thing for even to master with crawlers, even after hours of practice with his dad back on Treft.

Of course the crawler was locked, but Lus had an easy way around that. He'd 'borrowed' the family vehicle a few times back in the day and learned a non-invasive way to unlock the vehicle using an all-in-cutter–one of which he happened to nab from a maintenance cart on his way to the bunk tent.

He activated the cutter to a low setting (it worked on his time instead of the rest of the world's time luckily) and placed it at a specific panel near the bottom of the front door. It took a solid ten seconds, but the crawler's emergency protocol activated, opening the door as a safety measure since it believed there was a fire inside.

Lusac dove into the now open vehicle, tossed his bag into the back seat, and pulled the door shut behind just as a new notification crossed his vision.

[Dash deactivating]

[Cooldown: 5 minutes]

The world returned to normal speed, but that didn't bother him as he activated the crawler and got it up from its parked position. The screens in front of him gave him a view of all sides so he could see that people had taken notice of the active crawler, but there wasn't any major alert going through them.

He kept one hand on the main control and the other he used to put the crawler into jump position, carelessly plotting his course. All that matters was that he got over the fence.

Once the crawler was prepped, he hit the release button, and the spindly legs pounced upwards, taking him well above the fence's height. The vehicle slammed into the ground on the other side, but the legs absorbed most of the force so Lus felt only a small tremor inside. He wasted no time using the small data chip he'd brought with him to plot the coordinates to the castle where the relic waited.

The crawler was fast as it crossed through the lush forest around him, the vehicle automatically avoiding trees as it went. Rocks, ditches, and logs were no problem for the crawler since it was designed with that kind of complicated terrain in mind.

Lus kept glancing across the screens, making sure he remained on course and checking to see if the security personnel were coming after him. So far, it remained quiet. They might not care enough about a single, rogue volunteer to chase him down given how dangerous the planet was supposed to be.

The scenery continued to be the same collection of green trees, bushes, and grasses as the journey progressed, and Lus found that as his adrenaline died down, so did his interest in the passing view. There was no sign of the rabid, rotted animals Tremt-Fusi had drilled him about back on the Argo, and the planet seemed almost… boring now that he was here.

Of course, he was in a big, metal vehicle, which probably scared off most of the predators in the area. Things might get a lot more intense once he was outside the crawler and searching for the artifact.

But maybe it wouldn't get too much worse. This might end up being a whole lot easier than he originally planned.

Something inside him warned that it would be a bad idea to get his hopes up, and he decided it was sound advice.

Taking a breath, Lus forced himself to refocus on the screens, refusing to fall into the trap of negligence just because it wasn't exciting anymore. Things could change at any moment.

***

The trip ended up being very uninteresting. It was just hours upon hours traveling in the crawler. Lus only stopped for a couple brief bathroom breaks, and even those were calm. It seemed people spent a lot of time dramatizing Sliaryt given how exceptionally normal it was so far.

The castle was only a couple of miles away when he took over for the autopilot entirely and slowed the crawler down. Supposedly a gang was in control of the castle, but his sensors detected no signs of life outside of the plants. Not even birds or insects.

Given how old the data on it was, he wouldn't be surprised if the gang had died out or moved on long ago. That optimistic part of his brain was trying to take over again, and it took a lot of self control to keep himself in check. He had to remain on alert until he had the artifact safely back on the Argo. Only then could he allow himself to relax.

Lusac carefully guided the crawler closer to the castle, watching out for signs of people or even animals in the area. About a mile out, he parked it in what he deemed a safe enough area, turned off the engines, and opened the door. He grabbed his bag and dug through it for what he thought might be helpful. It ended up being his single [Revelation Cake] since it was that, [Famous Chocote Chunk Cookies]–which would likely prove useful when he made his return to the volunteers at the base–or clothes.

He abandoned his bag in the crawler and exited into the cool evening air. The trees had thinned out, and he stood on a small hill which gave him a good view of the castle.

Unlike the image Cewi-Bano had shown him back on the Argo, this one was the opposite of stately. It was decrepit, with broken walls, fallen roofs, and plants overtaking almost every part of it. He still saw no signs of life, giving him hope the gang really had moved on. It would be a big enough project to worry about finding the artifact given there seemed to be a good chance he might end up having to do some excavation to get at it and he didn't have proper equipment for it.

"What I wouldn't do for someone else right now," he muttered to himself.

"Wish granted," a voice said from behind.

Lus spun around with his hands at the ready, and he sighed in partial relief and partial frustration as he took in the newcomer.

"What are you doing here?" he asked Varyna.

"I should be asking you that," she bit back. "What does a Runner want with this old castle?"

"That's none of your business." Lus crossed his arms. "I saw you leave. And I used [Dash]. How did you get here?"

Her eyes perked up when he said '[Dash]', and he cursed himself for being so careless. It probably wasn't a smart idea to go around telling people he had a system, but he supposed it didn't matter much with her given she already knew about Leviathan. Still, he needed to be careful so he didn't tell her that he made a deal with a Demon of all things. Being a Runner could land him in prison. Messing with Demons could land him the death penalty.

Varyna patted the crawler. "Same way as you, chef boy. Thanks for the ride."

His eyes narrowed. He'd been so careful. "You must have used a [Skill] for that."

"Yeah. It's called my brain. You're so predictable, it's almost funny." She rolled her eyes. "But like I said before, what are we doing here?"

"I'm here on a retrieval mission. Someone wants something that's in that castle." It wasn't like he could get rid of her easily, so he decided to give her part of the truth. Enough to make it make sense. "And since you're here anyway, I guess you get to help."

"I'm not your assistant."

"Then why did you come? It's not like you can arrest me."

"I'm going to bring you back to camp. And while we're on our way back, you can tell me about Leviathan and where you're keeping him," she said.

Lus walked away. "No thanks. Hang out here if you want. I'll be back in a while."

Varyna jogged after him. "I'm not letting you go alone. It's dangerous."

"Why do you care?"

"Because you're the only one who knows where Leviathan is, dummy."

He exhaled through his nose, doing what he could to keep his own temper in check. They walked down to the castle without saying anything else, which was just fine by him.

Lusac slowed down as they approached the toppled walls. "I still don't see any sign of the gang."

"What gang?"

"The one that I was told might live here. Or rather, I was told this castle was part of their controlled area."

Varyna stared at him with those intense eyes. "And? How big of an area is it? Do they patrol it often? I haven't seen anyone but us out here, and it doesn't seem like this place provides that great of shelter so I can't imagine anyone trying to use it."

He shrugged. "I don't have any more details than that. The crawler's sensors also didn't pick up anything. Maybe they aren't around anymore."

"Safe bet." She walked forward and stepped into the overgrown courtyard, with Lus following behind by only a few steps. It was mainly long grasses and wide bushes. He ignored it to head directly to the remnants of the castle.

He held in another sigh. The place was a wreck, whatever furniture it once had long since rotted or destroyed. There was no easy way to find the artifact piece in this mess. It'd take days upon days to dig through all the muck to track down such a small item, and he didn't think Princess COPS was going to be getting her hands dirty, which left it all up to him. Honestly he thought he might actually rather face the gang than–

A primal shout sounded from within the castle, and Lusac took a step back as Kremel walked towards him. Her once green skin was now mostly white, at least what was left of it. Nearly all of her arms and neck were simply exposed flesh, much of it rotten. The rot had reached her face, her lips covered in crusted blood and pus.

"Watch it," Varyna said from behind, and he turned to see two Nemarians approaching, both with similar levels of rot.

"I guess the gang hadn't abandoned it after all," he murmured. He immediately changed his mind about wanting to face the nefitis victims instead of digging through rotten furniture.

"What's the plan?"

"Run," Lus said. He bolted away from the Kremel, trailing Varyna. He thought of using [Dash], but decided to save it in case things became more dire. The nefitisians were quick, the two Nemarians pouncing in their way. Varyna launched her fist into one, but it hardly seemed to notice the blow.

"Run," he reiterated as he sprinted past her and her opponent, ducking the arms of the Nemarian. He looked back to see if she was following and discovered her still fist fighting the Nemarian like an idiot.

He looked forward just in time to see the unavoidable rocks in his path. Lus attempted to dodge through them, but he lost his footing anyway and fell to the ground.

A Human appeared on the other side of the wall and jumped on him. He tried to fight off his opponent, but a Kremel joined their fight, and the pair was able to grapple Lus and get his hands tied behind his back. The two Nemarians and Kremel dragged a captive Varyna up to join him.

"These two will feed us for a week," one of the Nemarians cried in joy.

The Human smiled. "Let's get them back to the boss."