Weapons of Mass Destruction

Lake City turns out to be quite basic. There are no walls or protections, there aren’t many locks on the houses though I do spot a few rudimentary arrays to prevent break-ins. It seems like no one’s even considered the possibility of a lurker attack or an assault from the monsters in the lake.

All of the houses are made out of a material reminiscent of ice, but it's not cold and there are no sharp angles. Instead, it feels oddly comfortable and warm to the touch.

Some of these houses are unlocked, likely serving as lodgings for the attendees, while the locked ones probably belong to the assorted guilds and natives who move in for the local fishing and trade seasons.

You have reached a safe zone! Congratulations! The next time you enter Beyond you will appear here instead of the Entrance Floor until you reach a different safe zone.

Looking to the center of the city, I also see a teleportation array and two thylarin, likely natives staying in the small house nearby.

"Let me guess, the guild runs the teleportation array and charges 10k to move to the Entrance Floor," Lily notes with clear annoyance, likely already missing the shards she had to pay just to reach the same entrance outpost as us.

Just imagine how many pets she could buy from Luna with all those shards.

"Yes. Starting now you can teleport to this safe zone or out of it... if you have shards," Leticia confirms.

As we pass by, Luna growls at the men.

That makes me wonder what experience they could possibly have had with this mode of transport.

After a moment of looking around, we split up, Tess, Leticia, and Lucien heading to the merchants to find out what they can get for the items we got from the lurkers and if we might get more selling them to the system shop. There we even have a couple of damaged arcane items, though nothing to really hold my interest.

Meanwhile, the rest of us follow Luna, who has been leading us towards one of the bigger houses, which we enter.

An entire wall on one side is transparent, opening out on a view of the dark lake. The view isn't perfect but it’s certainly better than nothing, and I create a manablock chair and sit there. Lily and Sophie also get one each and sit nearby.

"What's your problem with me?" Sophie asks Jean out of nowhere.

The bulky man looks at her. "You're nothing more than a temporary nuisance."

"Do you think I mean to simply hide behind Noname? If you come at me, I’ll be the one to fuck you up."

At that, he shakes his head. This calm, focused behavior runs completely at odds with his prior demeanor.

"You have no chance against me," he says and turns to point at Lily, "you have no chance against me." Lastly, he points at me, "If we fought, you would lose. I hold myself back because of the promise I made to Leticia, but even if I don’t kill you now, the opportunity will come in the future."

"Even if you do hate mind mages, Soph hasn’t done anything to you, you know that," Lily says in an attempt to defuse the situation.

Instead of Jean, it's Lucien who answers. "Don't bother, once he gets like this he won't change his mind."

Sophie doesn't answer, but I can see that look in her eyes. If it comes down to her survival, she won't hesitate to play dirty or even kill him before he can do the same. I know she won't.

Then there’s the other thing I’ve noticed: Luna’s been avoiding Sophie as much as possible. It seems like even the others from Earth are learning to fear and hate mind mages, which I consider very reasonable.

Sensing a familiar presence outside, I stand up and make my exit through the door.

As expected, it turns out to be Duncan, the young man carrying the massive bag on his back, following close behind a small group of natives and attendees. I do take notice of a few Royal Blue B-rank identification emblems on a couple of the attendees. Demons. The group seems like a powerful one, likely visiting from a deeper floor.

A few eyes glance my way, towards the crown especially, but no one tries to probe my body’s mana capacity or anything like that, given the offense it would cause. Though one of the demons does try to probe my heart but he doesn't linger on it for too long.

Duncan looks towards me as well, but overlooks me for a moment before his eyes snap back to me in surprise and a big smile takes over his face.

He quickly makes some excuse to the native next to him and leaves the group to come rushing my way.

"Noname! I didn't expect to see you in Lake City! Congratulations on reaching the safe zone. It's been a while since I saw you, so I thought you might have died or gone deeper."

"Hey. That’s just how it worked out. We just got here a little while ago and now we’re planning our expedition to the second safe zone."

"Oh, you seem to have found a nice group this time," he then looks around as if he were worried about being overheard.

I form a barrier around us and add [Eclipse] to the mix, making sure no one can eavesdrop.

"You always were quick to understand," he smiles. "Listen, I’ve got some pretty nice info, 1,000 shards and it could be yours. If, after a while, you find it has some value or leads to some nice earnings, you can tip me, so you could even say I'm being generous. What do you think?"

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I guess the grind really never stops with this guy.

"Sure," I reply, transferring the shards.

"You probably have heard about fishing here, right?"

"Just a little bit."

"So, the group I joined has a few fresh B-ranks looking to make some shards. Usually, you would want A-ranks, but it's not the season so the pale purple, white, and golden fish won't be around. But, if you know where to look, you can still catch some, and even though they’re not as valuable they are good enough for a few B-ranks."

"Continue."

"Obviously I can't tell you much more about their plans; I have my reputation to uphold! But from my own experience, I know that once you start fishing using a lure, plenty of smaller fish come to the surface all over the lake. The bigger ones will stay near the lure so the B-ranks will get their stuff, but if you get lucky you could catch one or two of the smaller ones."

"That does indeed sound interesting. How would one go about luring these smaller fish?"

Duncan smiles brightly and taps on his backpack.

With a sigh I ask, "How much?"

"Five thousand shards! I promise it’s worth it!"

"Here."

"Thank you!" He quickly sets the bag down while explaining, "Of course, the proper lures are much more expensive and you’d need a specialist to make them, but I have some of the materials they use to make them. Not much, but it should be enough for the smaller ones."

He hands me three small grape-like things. They’re red and the surface is shriveled, and they have a strong scent to them. It's not unpleasant, but it is weird and hard to describe.

"You need to crush them all at once and mix them with a bit of mana, as concentrated as possible. Someone with Mana Potency would be great for that! It will strengthen the effect! See you back here in a day?"

"I'm not sure about that, but I will find you here before we leave."

"That works as well! Good luck!"

As he leaves, I cancel out the barrier around us and walk back into the house looking over the three weird fruits.

I smell them again before carefully stowing them in one of my pockets.

Let's do some fishing.

We’re now all gathered around the lake, surrounded by a mass of other people. Likely accounting for the full population of the outpost. In the distance on the opposite side, the group of attendees and natives are making their own preparations for fishing.

Everything in Beyond moves quickly. They do not rest or slack around. Just an hour after arriving they’re already on the move, ready to fight again.

"So we’re going to do some fishing of our own?" Leticia asks, her voice full of childish excitement.

This prompts Luna to poke her with her nose, but Leticia doesn't let that stop her.

"Are you excited for the fish, Luna? I thought you didn't like fishes," Leticia teases playfully.

"Leticia, each day you get closer to confirming my theory that I'm the real human and you are the golden retriever."

"I wouldn't mind!"

"Leticia."

"I love you too, Luna."

"Silly girl, I love you too." The sigh sounds very weird from the golden retriever.

"Done planting death flags?" Lucien gripes, impatiently interrupting the pair and turning to me. "So you want us to help you fish?"

I nod. "I paid five thousand for the information and ten thousand for the lure. I also made it all possible, so I’ll be taking 50% of whatever we make. The rest can be split among the group."

"I'm up for it," Tess replies before Lucien can interrupt, and when he looks at her annoyed, she shrugs and smiles. "Soph, Grumpy?"

"I don't mind."

"I don't mind either!"

"Luna and I also think that’s fair."

"Leticia... we could get more, you know," Luna complains.

"It's fine!"

Seeing that Jean doesn't complain, Lucien just sighs. "Fine, damn it."

With that last confirmation, we watch as the group sets the lure. Even though I'm not using my senses to the fullest, I can feel them compressing mana, likely in an attempt to increase the lure’s efficiency.

It feels lacking.

After a minute of tense waiting, the surface of the lake near them ripples, and a blue light flows through it. They make a formation, allowing the natives to move out of the way. There are 3 fresh B-ranks and the other 6 consists of D- and C-ranks.

The dark water erupts, and a fish climbs out onto the lake’s surface. The lake’s unique properties allow it to stand on the surface, just as we do.

And yup, climbs.

The fish is reminiscent of a salmon with three pairs of human arms. It’s about the size of a small house and its scales are gray with pale blue edges.

"Oh, they got pretty lucky," one of the natives nearby mutters to the man sitting next to him.

"Looking at that color, I would guess 80 years."

"At least 110! Just look at the size and the length of the arms!"

"There is no way..."

I observe that monstrosity as it uses its arms to maneuver across the surface of the lake and uses jet-like water based attacks.

"No, even kids know the fewer colors there are and the paler the fish is, the older and stronger it is!" the native raises his voice at his friend.

As I move, the rest of the group moves as well and we break out into a run across the surface of the lake.

When I think we are far enough, I pull out the weird fruit, Within my arm an orb compresses, its color turning dark blue really quickly, and soon a mix of light blue and purple flows through—a tricolored, very densely compressed mana.

I stare at it for a moment.

Then I shrug and push further, turning the orb pitch black as it begins to reverberate in my hand, struggling to escape my control.

I squish the fruit and the juice within reacts to my mana; flowing around and encapsulating it, before shining a brilliant white and dropping to the surface of the lake.

It only takes a few seconds for the vibrations to roll through the surface, the ripples rebounding all the way to the opposite side.

Something moves under the surface at an incredible speed and an arm pierces the surface. Human-like, enormous, and thin as a spire.

The fish pulls itself out—revealing another salmon-like creature with six pairs of red eyes and three pairs of these creepy arms.

That fish is twice as big as the one the others lured, and its scales are of a single color only: pale blue.

[Fish - lvl ???]