Masteria Online: Shattering the Dark God's Grand Scheme-Chapter 85 - Eight hours

The Knights began to relax, given the break.

Zara strode ahead without ceremony. "If you have coffee, I would really love that."

Jin chuckled. "I think you’re missing the point of resting."

"I nap better with caffeine in my system." Zara replied. "It just works."

"That’s... not how it works?" Marcus tried responding.

Zara grinned. "I’m special."

"Yeah, she’s certainly special alright..." Elara muttered.

Johno waved over a few of the local researchers. "Prepare the guest quarters. And someone get Susie checked again. We’ll need her up before they leave."

...

Later, gathered around a long stone table, steaming plates of roasted shellback fish, dried sea kelp, and spiced root broth were passed around.

"This is delicious!" Marcus said with slight surprise, practically glowing from the warmth of the food. It was unusual for them to eat well while outside Herene.

"It’s what we eat." Johno explained, settling across from them with a tankard. "The sea provides much, even in corruption. We tried bringing some of the best for you all." 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Lumi was chewing slowly, deep in thought. As much as he would have liked to not waste time, even his player character required food and water. It was a body too, after all. "Johno, what have you heard about the penguin mining operation?"

"Penguins?" Johno spoke with surprise. "You suspect them?"

Lumi waved his hand away. "Not directly. I just heard a bit from one of the researchers, a large corrupted glacier? That sounds like something relevant."

Of course, Lumi already knew exactly what it was.

But not where.

Johno put his plate down, and explained. "Ah, that. I see what you mean. It’s not the same as this." He gestured over to the side. "I have some documents if you want to see them later. But it’s pure black ice. There’s energy from it, but it’s different from what we have here. Additionally, it wasn’t the start of the corruption. It’s still out of the radius, even. You likely only heard it mentioned because the penguins found a way to chip at the edges, and they found treasure within."

Lumi nodded along. "I see what you mean. Still, I’d like to see the documents you mentioned about it later. Just in case."

"Of course."

With a pause in conversation, Valeria leaned in to Johno, serious again. "What kind of magic does Mika use? I know you said you don’t know too much, but there must be a reason you call her a Darkwitch."

"Dark Magic," Johno said, brows drawn. "It’s true, we’ve barely interacted with her. But we have collected some information over the years. First, her magic is visually dark. Second, we know she is well-versed with curses. Third, she has used many incantations or rituals that require blood to activate. Most damning of all, she has magic to torture the mind or body."

He sighed. "I am not one to judge others simply because of their abilities. These abilities can be used for good. Despite what I have described, we have seen her commit no evil directly. Unfortunately, recent developments change this."

He further continued. "There is something. You’ve told me about the great possibility of an organization being behind this. Even Susie had an unknown assailant on her. And yet, we’ve tracked no ships leaving or entering her island. None."

"Or maybe," Elara said softly, "they didn’t come via ship. If she had a teleportation circle in there..."

A heavy silence fell across the table at that.

Lumi finally stood. "We’ll rest tonight, but tomorrow, we set out."

Lumi remained seated a moment longer, gaze thoughtful. He rose, nodding to the others. "You all rest. I’ll take a look at those documents Johno mentioned."

"Ah, let me help you get those." Johno followed, going straight to a specific drawer and sticking his flipper in just the right place and slipped out a couple papers. "It’s not much, but we didn’t record too much either. These are all the relevant papers."

"Well organized." Lumi praised. "I’ll take a quick look." The first thing he immediately looked for was the location. He found it quick.

Success!

Now he knew just where Rena, the Axe of Justice, was sealed.

...

After he gave the documents back to Johno and was free, Valeria came up to him.

"Lumi?" Valeria looked towards Lumi, confused. It was the afternoon, not night. They had time to do more today. "We’re resting already?"

"I need to." Lumi confirmed.

"Huh?" Valeria tilted her head. "Such a strange tone. What do you mean? Are you really going to not do anything else today?"

An adult tended to be awake for sixteen hours a day. With only eight hours of available ’playtime’, there would be a blatant discrepancy in activity that couldn’t be explained.

Lumi gave a small nod, and explained. "Yes, though you may not find me in my guest room if you check. However," he continued, "while I’m gone, you may continue assisting them at your discretion, Captain Valeria. However, do not go for Darkwitch Mika without me."

Valeria blinked. A second of silence. Two seconds. Three seconds. Five. And then. "Okay." Nothing more, nothing less.

Lumi let out a sigh of relief. As suspicious as it was, he was trustworthy. They were all technically his subordinates for now. Herene had many things, and discipline was one of them. If it was clear that information wasn’t for you to know, one would not harass a superior for it.

After making his way to his assigned guest room, he directly logged out.

...

Every time he woke up in the pod, he felt strange. He wasn’t quite sure why.

Neither did it matter.

He moved to check his messages. He had further planning to do. In particular, he checked his messages with Lucas.

He had met Lucas a few days before the game started, getting him hooked on the idea of Masteria way earlier than the original timeline.

After hooking him up with Gabriel and informing him about managing his class sales, Lucas had already begun to grasp his claws into the economy of Masteria. Having left a bunch of tokens with Gabriel, it was possible to sell them without his direct presence by setting up a small store in Herene by a hired NPC.

Lucas had already investigated and set up a proper exchange to buy currency. To buy Ems with real life currency.

Of course, Renan had a massive cut of the profits which he was about to claim the first batch of...