Beyond M-Eclipse: Easy Mode LIVE

———Qyunda———

Her body was split in two, with the bottom half still standing as if not recognizing the massive abnormality.

“Emmie, what the hell?” I said upon realizing what just happened within a split second.

“You two were going to lose, so I decided to give you two some face.” She bluntly answered. “Also, the fight has caused so much commotion I can’t possibly not come to the rescue. Though I didn’t expect to find this.”

Before either of us could speak up, suddenly what should be the top half of a corpse began to move.

“Honestly, it seems like you will always arrive at the most inopportune time.” The fake Karra crawled up to her bottom half that stood still this entire time, how the hell is she still alive? Why does she act like this is nothing more than a minor inconvenience?

She climbed up and placed both halves together and the body quickly merged back into one, and even the clothes that had been ripped up by Emmie’s ambush were also repaired.

“What the hell?” Malk mutters in confusion while Emmie doesn’t look even a bit disturbed, as if knowing that this would happen. What does she already know about all of this?

“Alright…” The fake Karra said while stretching her body and also quickly closing the massive gash on her right arm, cracking her knuckles and even her neck, letting out loud snapping sounds that echoed through the empty stadium. Can she just heal herself at any point? “Good grief. Can’t do anything around these parts without getting turned into pulled pork. Makes you wonder if calling it one of the safer places on Earth is apt or not.”

“Are you going to continue talking with her face?” Emmie asked, not looking like she’s intending to attack.

“I mean, it’s the current one.” She said while scratching one of her horse ears. Those don’t seem to be fake. “...I’ll change later, don’t worry about it.”

“To a different face that’s not your own, despite owning multiple.” Emmie said with a subtle tone of… annoyance? It’s rare to discern emotion out of her words.

“Hey! Stop giving them clues!” The fake Karra yelled out. I think we have heard enough to figure a few things out…

“I need some payback knowing full well you don’t want to face me.” Emmie said, sounding quite petty despite what her tone is saying.

“Ugh! Whatever! I’m leaving!” The fake Karra said before walking away and suddenly disappeared from view.

“...Emmie, who was that?” I asked after a long period of awkward silence. Earlier we were fighting like our lives depend on it, and it ended like that?

“No one you should concern yourself with.” She dismissively replied before walking away. So she knows who that is and can’t even be bothered to tell us?

“...What the hell even happened in the past few minutes?” I said before sitting down on the cold hard floor. There’s enough context clues to sorta understand that fake Karra’s deal, but it’s still mostly speculation.

“Beats me. I’m tired.” Malk said before also sitting down. “Everyone else probably felt the battle as well, they’re going to grill us on this later.”

*Ring* *Ring* *Ring*

“Oh great. Now what?” I said before walking over to the pile of belongings and grabbing my phone. “Hello?”

“” Karra’s voice rang out on the other end. Presumably the real one, since this is her number. Their voices matched perfectly, which is quite spooky to think about. “”

“Yeah? What about it?” I said while also grabbing Malk’s phone and giving it to him. He hasn’t gotten any calls yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he got pinged on Harmonia.

“” Damn, she saw through that without even being there. She’s probably in her house right now, not even peeking out the window.

“...They want us to join the voice chat.” Malk said while showing me his phone. They’re ready to interrogate us already.

“...I’ll talk more in the voice chat.” I said to Karra before hanging up the call and joining a different one.

“” Naturally Kenni has to say some nonsense right before we start. “”

“Ran into someone who disguised themselves as Karra. Not very convincing, wearing jockey silk and earring on the wrong ear. Also no human ears. If it’s not for the fact that her voice and face match completely we would’ve clocked it in a second.” Malk recounted. “Hella strong and uses all the same moves as hers, only a bit more flashy.”

“” Gregori chimed in. That’s quite a rude question to throw out.

“I would say so. She was holding the advantage two-on-one. No way Karra can pull that off.” Malk bluntly answered. She’s not in the call yet so thankfully there won’t be any arguments for a while. Karra is stronger than both of us, but the gap is nowhere near that large. You need a truly massive gap in strength and skill to fight two people at once.

“” Gregori pointed out.

“Probably a shapeshifter, if I were to guess. No way we wouldn’t notice someone with such an uncanny resemblance to a friend.” I chimed in. It’s a pretty scary topic, someone that could very convincingly take the identity of someone else, and in this case, it’s clearly more than that… “Emmie was also there, she interrupted the fight by bisecting the fake, and even that doesn’t do anything. Just put two parts back together and it’s like she didn’t get hit at all.”

“” Kenni said while sounding rather sarcastic. Don’t tell me she also knows who that is… “”

“If there is an asshole that can do something like that the whole time I’m going to present them with a knuckle sandwich.” Honestly it doesn’t seem impossible, but unfortunately our main suspect for any shenanigans was there at the scene, so that’s not really an option to consider in the first place.

“” Kenni mockingly said. “”

“Not if I keep training. I’ll catch up one of these days.” We’re just gonna ignore the other side doing anything similar. “Why are we the ones being called and grilled after all that? Go ask Emmie or something, she seems to know who that was.”

“” Kenni said, probably with a smirk on her face.

“” Orrel chimed in after lurking in the chat for a while.

“...That should mean they don’t see this person as a threat, I guess?” I muttered out loud. If that’s the case then should we even be worried about this person existing? Doesn’t look like they want to fight Emmie let alone those guys.

“” Gregori said. I think if I had a perfect memory I could’ve glanced more into those subtle clues hidden beneath each word, but memory is a faulty thing, so I didn’t exactly catch everything.

“She said a few things, but from her interaction with Emmie it felt like she was lying on certain parts. She said she was sent here and acts like she doesn’t quite know us, but her impersonation is pretty darn good and Emmie already knew her, so that doesn’t make any sense.” I recounted those contradictions.

“” Kenni remarked. “”

“Anyway, she certainly dampens the mood. I guess it’s my exercise for today, but it’s not something I was expecting.” Malk said before standing back up. “We can talk about this later, I’m going home.”

———Lynda———

“You’re here earlier than I thought.” Once again Emmie seems to appear out of nowhere. I’m pretty sure I heard zero footsteps before she opened her mouth.

“I just don’t have a lot to do today, what else is there to say?” I replied while leaning forward. “What are you even doing here today? I don’t think there’s any plan we agreed on, right?”

“There isn’t. I just want you to test something.” She said before showing me an opaque bottle with pills inside.

“...Are those potion pills?” I can’t think of what else it could be.

“Indeed. It hasn’t been sold yet in the mission room, this is something Orrel made a few hours back. I decided to take some for myself to test how well it does.” …Wait. Can anyone seriously create those things?

“H-Hold on, how are you going to-

*Punch* *Crack*

“Puufffhah!?” She suddenly punched me right in the stomach! “Ugfh… Ough…”

“Alright, eat up.” She callously said before feeding me those small pills and making sure I swallow them. I could’ve sworn a bone was broken! “Hmm… Seems to stop internal bleeding, but fixing displaced bones and organs will take some time. It can’t heal something on this level even with multiple pills.”

*Shine* *Mend*

Suddenly I feel a lot better after those pills only make it go from painful to kinda numb. Of course she already has a healing spell on her list. Why wouldn’t she?

“These things could’ve been better.” She said while looking at the few pills that are left in the small bottle. “It’s not as effective as potions from the earlier floors, but I suppose it taking so little space is a good sign. You can have it.”

“Yeah… thanks…” I said while still feeling the lingering pain on my body and taking the small bottle. “...Was that all you had to say or do? Just punching me and be done with it?”

“It’s also a durability test. I’m not impressed.” She bluntly stated. Is there anyone who could’ve tanked those punches beside the obvious few people? “Like you, I don’t have a lot on my plate today. So that’s all I really have to say.”

She walked into the dark foliage and disappeared from view, the sound of her footsteps coming to an end abruptly.

———Wiina———

“...Well that’s another town down the drain. There has been a lot of this takeover going forward. Before we knew it the country was going to collapse.” Karra remarked as she looked through all the news and social media posts.

“There has been a lot of hostile takeover as of late. It’s not exactly as foolproof as they probably think. I doubt those guys know much about logistics.” I remarked in response to her comment. “Using strength alone can’t solve everything. I think they forgot why people can’t be bothered to oust tyrants as of late. They keep overcomplicating everything and now no one outside the circle knows what to do next.”

“...Then what’s going to happen like… a few months in?” She asked.

“Who knows? Using strength as deterrence can’t go that far.” I could look into it, but I’m interested in the end result more than anything. “Let’s just keep that in the back of our mind for now. Don’t you have a stream to plan out for tomorrow? Worry about that instead.”

“Eh. It’s nothing that important. More of a chill stream.” She argued.

“Right…” I guess with her current strength a dungeon stream isn’t really that much of a trouble, especially as she and the others keep training and getting stronger. With a better incentive they will grow even faster.