Chapter 30 - After The Battle

Fable was currently lounging in the medical section of the relic outpost, nonchalantly sitting with his legs up. On either side were his family and Zenith. "Brat, you went a little bit too far, you should have ended it sooner," Jenabell berated, but inside she was pleased to have Mythica beaten in such a way.

"Come on, grandma, either way I got the job done. It really was hard to push myself to hurt a babe like that." Mirabell grumbled a little, a "Dun Dun!" tune escaping her body as she reached over and tugged on both of Fable's cheeks as he screeched in pain.

"Heh, you made us a windfall at least. Good job." Fable laughed with a soft smile. Jenabell, though, wanted to humble him a little bit. "Seems like Zenith really is our golden ticket. Since he joined, it's been nothing but good luck for Allspace." Fable was dumbfounded. "W-wait a minute! It was me!" he complained.

Zenith laughed bitterly, clearly understanding what Jenabell was doing. "Miss Jenabell, I saw quite a lot of applications in the Allspace inbox. Is this because of Fable's strength?" he asked with curiosity.

Jenabell thought for a moment. "Well kid, that's half of it. But earlier today, Scorpius said it would no longer hound any potential members. You never got contacted by them since you were always beside us; those bastards never got a chance."

Zenith had been curious about Scorpius for a while, so he asked, "What did Scorpius really want from Allspace?" Jenabell was silent for a moment, then spoke up, Mirabell's and Fable's faces somber. "We were forced into debt by them with heavy interest. The only way we could pay it off was with certain materials we couldn't get, or give them all the information from Allspace's database. Imagine how useful that would be for a B-rank relic hunter organization, having the database of an A-rank organization."

Zenith was a little confused. "I thought information was freely shared? Why would they try that hard for it?" Jenabell laughed softly. "Kid, don't get it mixed up. Everyone has their tricks and secrets; who would freely want to share stuff with everyone? Allspace has many secrets of locations they haven't had a chance to explore yet. Right now, we just aren't strong enough. Why would we let others take our food?"

Zenith finally understood now. "So with Mythica having lost, because of the deal, I'm guessing those behind her settled the matter with Scorpius, and new applicants don't have to worry anymore," summarizing his thoughts to her.

Fable snickered a bit. "Those Scorpius bastards won't give up so easily. Sure, on the surface they've given up, but they are just gonna plan for what they do from the shadows and observe a bit."

Jenabell reached over, tugging on Fable's ear. "We'll be lucky if no one comes to cause trouble for what you did to that girl." Fable yelped in pain. "G-grandma, OW!!!" Zenith and Mirabell smiled a bit.

Jenabell then stood up from her seat. "Darling, let's go. We need to go review the applicants and plan ahead. Zenith, I was hoping this would be wrapped up easier, and we could do consecutive relic sites. But judging from how things are, the materials we used for the outfits may not even be enough. Thankfully, the credits and materials won as collateral will help a lot. But right now, we need to put it on hold and catch ourselves up a bit. You will need to fill in your time a little."

Zenith nodded, watching Jenabell and Mirabell leave before gazing at Fable. "Being able to cast those incantations for rune abilities instantly..." Fable then interrupted him, his hands behind his back nonchalantly. "Cause I'm the true genius in this galaxy, not those new generation dumbos," he sneered jokingly.

Zenith bitterly laughed and shook his head. He knew it had something to do with Fable's resonance ability, and he wouldn't give any secrets out, so he spoke, "I actually made a bet on you too. I collected it after the battle. An unused F-rank teleporter device." Fable whistled a bit. "Nice. Hopefully, you got one that doesn't lead you to a useless place." Zenith blinked a little, surprised, asking Fable to clarify.

"Well, if every teleporter device led to somewhere cool, then the federation and other factions would be swimming in resources. But the chances of a teleporter not leading to a useless, let's say empty spot with nothing there special, stops that. Out of every teleporter device, only 5% lead to places that may have value, and I stress the word 'may' quite a bit."

Zenith's eyebrow twitched a bit, laughing at his foolishness. "Well, wish I knew that before. Oh well, I'll have to hope. It's sort of like gambling." Fable tried to comfort him a bit. "Don't worry, Allspace is going to grow, and you will make quite a lot. It's our fault for not telling you this sooner since we were the ones who handled the purchasing of teleporter devices. What rank is yours?"

Zenith spoke up. "It's estimated to be White Wolf." Fable seemed a little thoughtful. "Well, with your current strength, you should be able to handle White Wolf easily as long as you don't seek danger and stay close to the teleporter device. A rule of thumb for those useless spaces: they have a tendency to only be the size of around 15 to 30 meters, with simple flat surfaces of rock or whatever."

Zenith was considering some things. "I have hopes that I'll get lucky. You never know, if it's something decent, I could sell it." Fable scoffed a bit. "No way! We're family, aren't we? Allspace will help you. Just give us a 20-30% cut of whatever. Or you can wait for Grandma to fix things and me to recover; we can explore it together." Looking at Zenith, he could see the eagerness in his eyes. "Fine, fine, I know that look. You do what you need to do. Just make sure you tell Grandma about it first, so nothing goes wrong. Also, you have to purchase protection rights from the relic syndicate here; otherwise, if anyone entered teleporter devices willy-nilly and something bad happened and escaped, it would be pandemonium."

Zenith nodded. "I'm in no rush. I'll purchase some things first." Fable smiled, then raised his device up and sent some information to Zenith. "I've sent you a list of low-class rune abilities and my experience with them. Usually, you would need to pay a hefty sum to access these from the federation as they are encrypted. But these ones are made by the seniors of Allspace, for our members only. Don't even think about sharing them," Fable raised an eyebrow.

Zenith looked at his device excitedly and nodded. "Thank you." After he finished, a female nurse came over; she was quite gentle-looking. Fable's eyes gleamed. "Oh, here comes the best nurse in the world! I'm really smiled upon by fate to have you look after me!" quickly playing his smooth moves. The nurse giggled a little, Zenith, of course, rolling his eyes. "Mr. Novaforge, it's time for the routine checkup."

Fable sighed a little. "Please be gentle, I'm such a tender flower, I can't handle pain," he jokingly added. Zenith sneered and spoke up, "I'm leaving, I'm leaving!" unable to handle his words anymore before heading off to leave Fable with his fun.

Zenith first went to retrieve his won bet, which was already transferred to a protected sealed locker where all winning bets were sent. Officially, this was the best way; anyone that tried to cheat would be punished heavily.

The ID bank card, Zenith inserted into his device and transferred the funds, making the card useless as he then threw it away. He then looked at the teleporter device inside the locker; it felt a little eerie. He gently picked it up, holding it with both hands. It was surprisingly light, and despite its surface, felt smooth to touch.

"If I need to become strong, I need to handle things alone. It's risky, but it's also the quickest path." For Zenith, he had long made up his mind. He would one day seek revenge for his father and make it so his mother and sister could rely on him and not have to beg.

After taking the device, he made his way back to the freighter. He noticed a small crowd of people lining up; Jenabell glaring a bit as she sat at a desk placed outside. She seemed a bit annoyed as she looked at all the files on her device. 

"Looks like we are gonna need a bigger ship or a home base at this point," she seemed quite annoyed. Yet in her mind, she had a bigger concern she had to hide: the fact that Fable's strength had been revealed. Having defeated Mythica, who had used an unleashed resonance whilst Fable seemingly relied on rune abilities he could instantly cast, would make him a golden target for those peak organizations to pester until he accepted their offers.