Chapter 12: Calm

Kennen and co only took five minutes to get back to their hotel with no monsters to slow them down.

They entered via the window like usual and Kennen saw a woman sitting in one of the remaining chairs in the reception.

If his memory wasn't faulty, she was with Michael's group but stayed at the back during the whole conflict, like many others, and she didn't seem particularly close with Santana either.

"You guys are back."

She seemed to be quite relieved to see us back.

"Is there a problem?" Evan asked her.

"No! No, just happy that you guys are safe. I was a little worried, that's all."

She looked sincere enough, Kennen guessed that some people sided with Michael's because he promised safety to them, except that their safety also depended on them for now.

"Nice to-"

"You guys are back! Was the search outside fruitful?"

Evan was about to say something back but Michael Santana just came from the buffet hall, probably after hearing them talking, and cut him off.

"Meh… It was alright. Here's for you."

Kennen threw a crystal wrapped up in cloth to him.

Michael opened the cloth and saw there was only one in it, "There's only one?"

He didn't seem happy.

"What? Is one not enough?"

Kennen asked but he obviously knew they wouldn't be able to do anything with a single crystal.

"Of course not! There's dozens of us here!" Michael loudly said and showed a bunch of people behind him, probably to pit them against Kennen's side.

"You think it's easy to get crystals? Why don't you go out and get some?" Evan retorted back.

"Do you expect us to give you all of the spoils we risked our lives to obtain from our outings?" Rafael added.

Jordan, Amelia and her friend all kept silent. They also didn't like how Michael and his people acted so obviously wouldn't let them know that Kennen's friends were clearly exaggerating and that they could easily hunt monsters now.

Kennen saw that Michael was about to say something but he immediately spoke over him, "Don't worry man, we will get you more and you'll soon be able to go out too with your own group and get your own crystals, be patient, I already got you one."

Kennen doubted his words placated Michael but it seemed to placate the people behind him so he just nodded and took the crystal with him to the buffet hall, as for who would get it, he wouldn't know and he wouldn't stick around to find out either since it was doubtful whether they would welcome his presence.

So he and his friends made their way toward the stairs and the first floor where Frank was.

It just so happened that Nina was also with Frank at that moment so they didn't have to go look for her.

"Hey, you guys are back, how was it?" Frank asked the moment he saw them come in.

"You won't believe this mate! Listen…" Evan was eager to tell him the tale of their little trip.

The keypoint of that story was the boost in power they received when absorbing ten crystals and to a lesser degree, the base of pig orcs at the US embassy.

"I'm just one short." Frank sighed in regret, "I knew I should have gone with you guys."

"You were injured, and still are. No point in taking the risk. Moreover, we get you to ten tomorrow. No hurry, just sleep in early today and recover."

"Alright dad." Frank mockingly replied to Kennen.

"God, I can't believe even the embassy got destroyed by the monsters." Nina said.

"Well, we don't know about that, they could have just ran away." Enzo said to her.

"This is an embassy in the Bahamas and is quite small, I don't think there are that many guards in there or that well equipped." Jordan had passed by the embassy before.

"So they could have easily been overwhelmed then…"

"Well, we won't know until we visit the place but the embassy is crowded with orcs."

Kennen doubted that they could storm the embassy even if every member in their team got their tenth crystals. They could see more than 20 pig orcs outside, who knew how many there were inside?

"Well, tough luck with that, especially with that armored version of the pig." Rafael said.

"Yeah, I think we should avoid that area for the time being." Evan also thought so.

Kennen was quite confident they could take on that armored pig orc if it was isolated but they didn't know what that armored pig orc's spec was so it was better to exercise some caution, doubly so when that armored was surrounded by his kin.

They discussed where they should go tomorrow and decided to go along the beach instead of going deeper into the city. Nina and Jordan left shortly after that and Amelia's group followed not long after.

Kennen and his friends hung out a bit in Frank's room before going to the buffet hall for dinner.

The buffet hall at that moment was pretty deserted as only a few people were there but Michael wasn't amongst them. Kennen doubted they would be able to learn who or what power the one who absorbed the stone got.

Maybe Michael would answer him if he asked, but he probably would be snippy about it and it would be an overall displeasing interaction.

"Hey, do you know who absorbed the crystal?" Evan just straight up asked a guy in the buffet.

"It was Michael." The guy answered without any qualms.

They got the information just like that. It was easy enough.

"What did he get?" Evan asked again.

"Apparently, he is very skilled with daggers now."

"Yeah, I saw him create blue daggers out of nowhere!"

They replied happily without hesitation.

"Thanks for telling me, mates. Here's some tequila I got outside." Evan thanked them by handing over some alcohol he took back from the beverage shop.

"Blue daggers, it sounds like he got a class power, just like Enzo." Evan said as they got their food and sat at a table that was more isolated from the other people.

"Definitely a rogue type." Rafael said.

"Perfectly suited to a snake like him." Enzo mocked and hissed like a snake.

"Well, at least we know what he had and it isn't anything that special."

Kennen said as he stuffed himself with food.

He believed that class type powers were the common powers people got and they were pretty average unless they got an unique or more specialized class.

Enzo's archer was a base class and although his summoner's class seemed to be rare, it was still a base class with average powers.

Brandi's swordwoman class was like a more specialized version of a warrior, it wasn't an upgrade over it.

He only had a small sample size but he seriously doubted what Michael had was anything special.

Then, he started to think about the other type of power he had seen.

There were the active augment type powers like Evan and James, and then there was the passive augment like Frank.

Powers like Evan and James seemed quite strong from the start compared to the others while Frank's power was quite weak.

Kennen didn't know if all passive powers were weak like that but guessed that passive had their own strength too. Passive didn't consume any stamina and any increase in power was immediately active.

The other type of powers he could categorize was the crowd control type like Rafael and Amelia. Those powers lacked firepower for combat type powers and seemed one-dimensional but were extremely useful in a team or the user had another form of attack such as a gun.

Nina's power should be categorized as production type as it resembled that of a farmer.

Kennen had read many novels where the production class main character became broken but this wasn't one of those. He believed that Nina's powers were going to be proper farmer-like and that no farmer themed martial art would come out of this.

Lastly, Jordan's powers. It was quite unique. It was a power that would conserve an item at the state when it was used on but it didn't mean that the object couldn't be damaged, otherwise they wouldn't be able to eat the food.

It would just prevent the object from decaying. If it was used on a sword, it would prevent it from being rusted by time and liquid but it wouldn't help the sword dulling with repeated use or breaking.

In the end, it was like an enchantment so it technically put it one the production class.

Kennen and his friends called in early after finishing their meal.

After all, there weren't many things for them to do at night and they also had to get up early so it was better they rest up.

…

Kennen got woken up by the goblins when the first ray of light shone through the sky.

He sent the goblins to wake his friends up and cleaned himself up before also waking up the couple and Amelia's group too.

They all ate some food and prepared to go out.

The couple expressed last night that they wanted to accompany the team to their expedition. Nobody objected to it so they would also be on the expedition.

Kennen had reservations about two non-combatant joining their expedition but didn't voice it since they just have to be a bit safer during their trip so it wasn't worth the bad feelings that may arise from the refusal.

Nobody came to send them off this time, nothing surprising since they were probably still sleeping.

Their objective for this expedition was to farm crystals, like usual. So they could get everyone in their team to their ten crystals, even Jordan and Nina.

Who knew what they could get for their level up? Maybe they could get new skills that would allow them to fight.

They went the opposite way of where they went like time and would walk along the beach.

It didn't take long for them to encounter some monsters.

"Oh, there are three wolves!" Enzo notified the team of the dangers ahead.

"Perfect! Amelia will be able to power up!" James was happy for his girlfriend.

"Enough to get Frank to ten too." Kennen added.

He kept count of everyone's crystal count and three crystals would be enough to get both Frank and Amelia to ten.

"Should we let James and Brandi take the lead?"

Kennen wanted those to gain more experience so they get used to fighting and be less flustered while in fight, especially for Brandi. That girl was more of a liability in a fight than Jordan on the last expedition they were.

Hopefully, they get better with more fights under their belt and what was better than fighting the wolves who were the easiest opponent of them all?

James stepped up right away but Brandi was hesitating and looked like she was trying to bury her head in sand.

"Don't worry, Bran, we got your back and will be helping you." Amelia reassured her friend and showed her that Enzo already summoned his bow and Rafael who gave her a thumbs up.

"I… I don't think I can do it…"

Fear overtook Brandi as she started shaking when seeing the slowly approaching wolves.

"It's alright, Bran, you can do it, they aren't as scary as you think!" Amelia tried to help her friend, "They won't even be able to move once Rafael binds them!"

Amelia seemed to have at least convinced her to try and she slowly stepped up along with James toward wolves.

The three wolves charged toward them a few moments later after noticing their group.

Enzo snipped down a wolf with a power shot and Amelia distracting it so the wolf couldn't dodge it. This would make it easier for Brandi and Frank.

James easily and quickly took care of one with his increased speed to sidestep the lunge followed by a stab to the soft belly of the wolf before finishing it with a stab to the head.

Brandi stood in place as she brandished her sword and since she wasn't as agile as James so Rafael binded the wolf before it could reach her. He didn't bind the legs but the body of the wolf so it was still standing and barking loudly at Brandi while being held back like a dog on a leash.

Brandi started waving her sword in reckless abandon like those people on TV that waved around a torch toward the darkness to keep off whatever was there.

The problem was none of those strikes hit.

Evan couldn't keep watching and yelled at just, "Stop waving your sword! Just stab the wolf!"

She stopped after being yelled at and built up some courage before thrusting the sword deeply into the wolf.

It wasn't a clean kill and the wolf probably felt a lot of pain from being skewered like a barbecue, if the sword was any longer, the tip would have probably come out from his butt.

In the end, they got the three stones after giving some time for Brandi to calm and gave two to Amelia for her qualitative change while Frank just needed one.

"So? What did ya get?" Enzo asked Frank after seeing him not speaking.

"Well… nothing." Frank didn't know whether to laugh or cry, "My power description is still the same and the only thing that changed is my rank going to F from F-..."

"What? You didn't get anything!?" Evan was shocked.

Honestly, everyone else too.

"I mean… I got a lot stronger… just nothing new."

Frank ran and jumped around to show his improved physical ability.

Kennen would gauge him being at the level of an olympian.

"Well, you're no Captain America but you're at least near peak human, right?" Rafael tried to cheer him in his own way.

Frank just gave a dry laugh.

"Don't worry, you'll be as strong as Cap in no time." Kennen also tried to cheer him up.

"Hopefully, you get that America's ass too." Enzo added.

"Ayo! That's sus!" Evan gave a playful push to Enzo.

Kennen turned his gaze toward Amelia to see what she got.

"It changed name, it's Psychic Shock instead of Psychic Attack now. It desorient a target now unlike before where it only gives them a headache."

Amelia explained and James immediately hyped her up right after that and the two started a romantic comedy right in front of them.

Kennen turned his gaze away at the cringe and looked at the horizon.

This was the third day since everything began.

However, the days started to resemble each other.

Farm crystals, sleep, rinse and repeat.

All of it so they could get stronger and find a way to leave the island.

But it felt too easy, the beginning was rough and he was sure many died at the initial surprise but the situation settled down and anyone with guns or a team of powered people could easily survive.

The monsters were dumb and easy to hunt, it seemed that they had no other goal other than hunt human.

He started to have an inkling that was just the beginning and something dangerous would be happening soon.