Beyond M-Eclipse: Easy Mode LIVE

———Kenni———

“Hey… Hey…” I poked the mouse girl on the ground, her body buried deep into the corpse of one of those giant monsters but still clenched the scythe in her hand tightly. I don’t think she’s unconscious. She got beaten up pretty badly, but it’s not like it was anything too devastating. She even got this thing to cushion her fall.

She silently pulled herself out of the corpse of this weird stubby beast, her whole body covered in blood and other gross stuff. Good thing she wasn’t wearing her dress, otherwise she’d be even more pissed. And by that, of course I meant she threw the dress at me before engaging in combat against that giant sword lady. Probably best to not give her the dress before she could wash herself off. There should be a pond somewhere in this habitat. She could also just use water magic. That shouldn’t be too hard.

“Whoa there buddy old chum old pal. You got a bunch of blood and gore on you. Go wash that off, will ya?” I said before she could get close to me. Did she not realize how dirty she is right now?

*Splash*

She cast a water spell on herself, washing off all those nasty bits before shaking her head. I need to take a few steps back so I don’t get soaked like she is.

*Sizz*

She conjured a wall of flames that only exists briefly to dry off. A rather flashy spell ultimately used for something so mundane.

She silently extended her hand, reaching for the dress. Well, here you go, missy.

“It’s like you know you’d get your ass kicked.” I remarked as she took the dress. I mean she usually doesn’t bother to take it off even against strong opponents. I don’t think her excuse of it getting dirty due to the dense foliage really holds up.

“I’m no clairvoyant, you’re giving me too much credit.” She said with a hint of sarcasm. Her tone is always rather tryhardy, so noticing quirks like that is quite easy. “What a strange catch. I can tell she was strong, but to defeat me decisively… Rather rare…”

“Okay, stop being weird for a bit.” I said before she could continue her tirade. “So she ran off with the guy you called your prey. Even though there shouldn’t really be any objection on your part, did you really need to provoke her like you did?”

“If it meant getting to do something remotely more fun, then why not? I don’t sense any malice from that woman anyway.” She casually stated. This woman and her intuition. While I also get the ‘I’m just doing my job and don’t really have ill will towards anyone’ kinda vibe, I wouldn’t bank everything on that. I mean for all we know she might be someone who doesn’t have a no-killing rule. Was I maybe being a bit cynical with that kind of mindset? This is a no man’s land as far as everyone else is concerned.

“She certainly didn’t go easy on you, that’s for sure.” I remarked. She mostly uses the flat side of the sword and it still looks really brutal. She also isn’t afraid of using the environment as well, kinda aggroing all kinds of monsters to attack them both to cause a lot of confusion.

“I wonder… Is she one of those…” She muttered. Ah, she means those guys?

“If you mean Ahdeid, who really knows? If we can get as strong as we did without being part of that group, some other schmucks we don’t know about are probably in a similar boat.” I pointed out. I mean that so-called dragon on the news is probably one of them, right? I’m pretty sure most people who would be classified as Ahdeid wouldn’t even do something so boisterous, not to mention losing so spectacularly. That just seems kinda unfitting.

“Hmm… I suppose there’s no way to know as it stands right now. Time to go back then. I’m spent.” She said before walking off, not waiting for me. Considering we didn’t come together, it’s only natural for her to walk off by herself. I’m only here to observe her and ruin the moment when needed.

As for me… I guess I could just go home right now. What else am I gonna do? I don’t really have the energy or mood to fight for long anyway…

———Lynda———

“I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised that you’re hanging around here.” Since her house is still in ruin, she is still living inside the school’s campus and therefore walking around in this neighborhood.

“Yeah. What can you really do about it?” She said with a tone of resignation. I mean at least she can try out the famous philly cheesesteaks… “I’ve been holed up in the room for too long at this point, my parents are bitching at me to go outside.”

“...Are they also inside? I never asked you about that.” If the entire house is ruined then no one really has a place to live now, do they?

“Yeah. There’s a lot of rooms in that place. It’s very clean and nice, if obviously rather small.” She answered. Probably something akin to an apartment room then? “Thankfully the cost is considered to be accounted for with the admission fee, so it’s like we’re living there for free.”

“That’s… nevermind. So, what were you doing before now? Or were you just jogging along?” I was gonna talk about how unfair that felt, but us returning students already got a hefty discount for all the trouble. I really shouldn’t be the one to complain. Let’s just talk about weather and stuff.

“I was actually thinking about tackling the dungeon? I realized I never really tried doing that stuff even after everything the school had us do.” She explained. Well ain’t that something.

“Ah, then in that case you might need someone to come along with you… Did you at least check videos of people streaming their dungeon runs here? It’s pretty well-documented with some strong adventurers around here.” I’m not really in the mood to do it, but I doubt she wants to go far if this is the first time she’s doing it. If it’s that casual then I could go along for the ride.

“Not… really. Is it that important?” She asked, completely clueless about it. After everything the school did, she’s still unprepared? We literally have a school trip dedicated to a dungeon.

“Nevermind. I’ll come along for the ride… Wait. Do you even have a permit?” If she never did something like this before, she probably doesn’t have one.

“P-Permit?” Yeah, she has no clue on what to do.

“You need one, or at least someone with one, to enter the dungeon. It’s there so people don’t just rush in and die without any preparation. When people discovered these places the first time, there were streamers who rushed in and died, and many badly injured. It would look really bad for there wasn’t anyone overseeing this whole mess.” I explained things in more detail. Can’t believe there are still people who don’t know about all of this. Maybe I am living in a bubble or something, or this neighborhood is more interested in those things than other places.

“So, you have one, then?” She read between the lines and therefore I don’t need to explain much else.

“Yep, have it ready just in case. I can fight fine bare-handed, but you might need a weapon.” Of course I’m more comfortable with an axe, but I can fight fine without. I don’t really feel like bothering with renting it out. “The guild allowed us to rent out a weapon if need be, so let’s go get one for you before stepping foot inside.”

“Ah, alright then.” She seems slightly overwhelmed. Maybe I talk a bit too much? “Lead the way then. I don’t even know where this guild is.”

“Alright, follow me then.” I said before leading her towards the guild. It’s not too far from the dungeon so there won’t be a long detour.

“By the way, you saw a large… shining light in the sky not too long ago? I swore I saw something like that.” She suddenly asked while we made our way to the guild.

“Oh, so I wasn’t just hallucinating then. Yeah, I saw that as well.” Not really sure what that was, it seems like nothing really happened. Seems to be too high up in the sky to really affect anything, and that’s if it’s something more than a trick of the light.

“Huh… Weird. I didn’t really see any comments about it online, at least as far as I’ve searched.” She pointed out. Probably because it doesn’t look important? If it was something that might affect others then people would’ve started talking. Something that could be chalked up to a trick of the light wouldn’t really garnered much interest.

“Don’t really seem all that important of a topic.” I remarked. Unless she has something else to share about it I don’t see why it’s worth bringing up.

She doesn’t say anything else in return, so I guess it wasn’t meant to lead up to a bigger conversation.

———Wiina———

“...What do you mean, it could’ve leveled a city?” Karra said with an incredulous expression.

“Just as I said. That explosive attack at the end of the mock battle could’ve leveled a city or two. If it weren’t for the fact that we were so high up beyond the clouds it might’ve seriously caused serious damages.” I’m just explaining things in detail. I know she doesn’t really like it when I omit some details, the Jennla incident made it clear even if that wasn’t even really my fault. “But enough about that, didn’t you call me for business? It’s rare that you ever called me for something somewhat urgent.”

“You should be glad that it’s rare.” She said with a slightly annoyed look. “Anyway, here’s a stream idea. You watched today’s stream, right?”

“Yeah? I saw you got sent to Philadelphia thanks to the vote. One heck of a request.” I was thinking about how absurd the request is, but for someone like her it didn’t take that much stamina.  “Were you thinking about going to other places using me to send you there?”

“You sure caught on real quick.” She remarked. That’s definitely something I sure can do. “Probably not something we’re gonna do right away or tomorrow. I still don’t really know where we should or could go.”

“Yeah, you should at least be in the United States at least. Remember when we go to Japan? You didn’t announce anything and it still caused quite a stir.” Traveling law didn’t disappear just because the world has changed so suddenly. They don’t really have a way to account for people flying or warping their way into another country and crossing the border, but they can’t just ignore it either.

“Don’t remind me. Can’t believe there were even posts about that.” She said, clearly rather bothered by the unneeded attention. “Anyway, help me out here. I know you can go around the globe just fine, but where should we go within this hellhole?”

———Lerim———

“A mouse girl and a crow girl? Haven’t there been sightings of someone like that before?” He asked.

“Yeah, from the commotion people keep talking about two days back. Probably the same duo.” It does give me a good idea that it won’t be an easy fight. It doesn’t really give me an advantage. That mouse woman has really good intuition. I suppressed my power and she still figured out that I was putting up a weak front. “I only fought the mouse, but just her alone was quite difficult. I would’ve lost if it was a two-on-one.”

“Hm. That’s hard to tell.” He said, looking at my current state. I don’t have any real damage on me as far as he can see. I did healed myself before dragging that guy back here, but even then I wasn’t really bleeding. “Alright then. If that’s all there is, you’re dismissed.”

“By the way, you got a way to actually contain the dude, right?” I asked one more time just to be clear.

…That face is all I needed to see. Well then. I think it’s time to contact a certain someone. She should have a way.

———Wiina———

“Here’s the thing, if we go to a place like that, wouldn’t it just reinforce the stereo-

*Ring* *Ring* *Beep*

“Wait a sec.” She said before walking away with her phone put to her ear. “Oh hi… Wait, really? Yeah that sounds rather rough… Do I have the…”

She suddenly looked at me, who was she even talking to?

“Hey… Can you help me out with something here?” She suddenly asked in a slightly pleading tone.