Chapter 32

Once Regulus understood the plan, he quieted down. After that, it wasn't much longer until I was in my usual line at the guild building. I held a large sack that was full nearly to the point of bursting and waited a few minutes until one of the workers became free. Then I moved up and emptied my bag, the movement more or less instinctual at this point after my previous visits to the guild. This one turned out to be no different as I waited for the magic stones and drops to be sorted and their price calculated. It took about fifteen minutes for the guild worker to hand me a bag and announce my haul.

"Here is your 9 million Valis in full," The guild employee said politely.

I took the money and walked out of the guild building. I thought about how much of the money to keep personally, but since I already had 1.1 million, I decided to just put all of it toward settling our debt. With the debt gone, we would be accepting new members to the familia and possibly moving out of Babel to a new spot. That would have been a bit annoying before, but now that my teleportation circles are set up, I don't mind. I would have to destroy the circle in the apartment when we do end up leaving, though.

On my way back home, I decided to stop in at the abandoned church to train some wind magic for a little bit since it hadn't taken me long to get to the guild, and Fortuna was probably still talking with Hephaestus. I walked over to the crumbling wall but decided against sitting there today, choosing instead to sit on some shattered steps on the ground. Once I was seated, I looked around at the derelict area, wondering why nobody would try and fix this area since it wasn't too bad, just a bit run down.

After admiring the area, I began to try and form a simple wind spell in my hand. The reason I had become so interested in getting the various elemental manipulations was due to the fact that if I could them and then combine them all into a unique skill, they should become orders of magnitude more powerful than before.

It didn't take too long until a small ball of condensed air was rotating in my hand like a Rasengan from Naruto. With every magic I mastered, it became easier and easier to use spells from other branches of magic since I already knew the principles and roughly how to guide and use the magic. I turned and threw the ball at the stone wall, watching as the ball arched through the air before landing with a small boom as the air blasted outward and ripped the section of wall I had hit apart. I then pointed my finger and imagined producing a bullet of wind to shoot out. This spell took longer, but eventually, a complex magic circle manifested at the tip of my finger and shot out a small bullet of air.

I went back to a simple spell next, taking only a few minutes to master the spell Wind Gust, which whipped up the dust and trash from the abandoned street the church laid on before blasting away to dissipate harmlessly against a wall. Then, I simply condensed the gust into a blade to form the Wind Cutter spell. I launched multiple in quick succession, leaving a few chunks ripped out of the nearly collapsing roof of the church. I cringed as I thought the roof would collapse, but I relaxed when nothing happened, so I just turned away and began practicing the fifth and final spell I would need the other way.

I marveled how it hadn't even been two hours, yet I was already on the cusp of another elemental manipulation skill. I began to believe that maybe the usefulness of being a High Human hadn't been fully detailed by the system when I was choosing my race when I first reincarnated into this world. Finally, once I was done admiring my skills and talent, I moved on to the last spell. I started by trying to create a gale and then force it into the area around my body so that it could protect me. Eventually, I was able to tame the wind and get everything under control, completing the final spell. All it took after that was one more activation of Degenerate before I heard Great Sage's voice in my head.

[Extra Skill: Wind Manipulation acquired]

I laughed as I tossed up my hand and created a miniature tornado on the tip of my finger before I closed my palm and crushed it out of existence. 'That leaves only earth and water before I have all five basic elements,' I thought happily before moving off and away from the church. By now, a few hours had passed, and I was fairly confident that the meeting was over, so I made my way back toward Babel. As I walked, I began to think about recruiting new members. However, there was nobody from the main timeline that I thought I could recruit that would be a good fit for the familia. Since Fortuna wanted a crafting familia, I would get her crafters.

At the thought, my mind immediately went to Welf, but I didn't think that he'd leave Hephaestus for us at this point in time, at least. I decided that I would leave the decision up to Fortuna since I knew pretty much nothing about crafting and luxury goods. Plus, my main focus would remain in the dungeon as I start to gather more high-quality materials and goods inside the dungeon for the rest of the familia to work with. As my thoughts meandered, I felt the presence of a few people enter my enhanced range of senses, which snapped me back to reality immediately.

I felt like laughing as I locked onto the shimmering figure of Hermes as he walked with a few members of his familia. Whatever device he was using to cloak himself from my Magic Sensem was good since it was still giving my Universal Sense a bit of trouble. However, now he faded in and out of visibility multiple times per second like the flashing lights you'd see on a firetruck or police car. With him was a nondescript man and woman who didn't look like adventurers at first glance, but I could clearly see that they moved with superhuman grace that only those with a falna could pull off.

The man entered the street with the woman and began to walk toward me. I figured I already knew what they were up to. Hermes most likely wanted to put me in a tough situation where someone's life could possibly be in danger if I didn't help out. However, what he didn't consider was that if they never caught up to me, then there would never be an opportunity to test me. I remained calm and neutral as if I didn't notice anything going on, but I sped up my walk slightly. I made a show of lacing up at the sun multiple times as if checking the time just to mess with them a bit as my excuse to be walking faster than normal.

Eventually, I sped up my walk even more, forcing my pursuers to walk even faster still so that they could try and catch up. Once they sped up to a level that was jogging for a normal, unenhanced human, they encountered problems when they started bumping into people, slowing them down even more. I felt like giving them a taunting wave as I saw one of the entrances to Babel in the distance, but I didn't want to blow the cover that I didn't know they were there.

I had considered taking the extreme path and killing the god, but I didn't hate Hermes enough to do that. Sure, he was annoying to deal with, but I was sure that he would throw interesting situations my way eventually that may even help me grow. Also, he would be easy to avoid since I could always go into the dungeon and teleport out, confusing the hell out of anyone he would send to follow me. I was broken from my taunting thoughts just as I was getting closer to Babel. I noticed something was wrong.

There seemed to be too many people here, but none of them seemed to be moving quite right. It wasn't like they were poisoned or mind-controlled, but more like everyone was agitated for some reason. It only took me a moment to notice why Hermes was ahead on the road. I did a double take as I noticed him as he came into the view of my Universal Sense. I wasn't exactly sure what his plan was, but one thing was clear.

"I think I've been outplayed," I said to no one in particular as I walked closer to the god who was talking to some mortals who clearly recognized him, causing everyone else to try and get closer to him.