Chapter 464 - Traveling to the lab again (Patreon)

Hera's Status

"Hey Alex, do you know where Hera is? We were supposed to leave today," Blue asked as she looked at her bag. They were about to travel again, and she was trying to see if they weren't missing anything.

"I think she said something about going to the guild. Maybe to train, I don't know. But she should be coming back soon," Alex replied. During the past few weeks,   which was the time it took for Hera to be cleared out of any blame for having killed a man, the explorer and the assassin spent most of their time in the guild training various skills and combat styles. Everyone was worried about Hera, but there wasn't much they could do if Hera herself wasn't around.

"How is she doing?" Helena asked in a low voice, not wanting Hera to hear her worry if she ended up arriving during her conversation.

"Honestly? She seems to be doing OK. I was half expecting her to break down and keep herself locked up in her room or something. But she's going to train. She's talking about weapons and skills and stuff, and if you ask her about a show or something, she should reply like usual. She doesn't start those conversations anymore, but I mean, you can't actually blame her for it. I don't know if she's doing what's the best option for this situation, but she doesn't seem to be kicking herself too much over what happened," Alex explained with a sigh.

"If she's doing OK, why are you sighing?" Bonnie asked.

"Because it's a bit weird. She's being frantic about her training. I know it's just a way for her to try to run away from what's happening but still. I want to do something to help her, but I don't know what. Also, She's basically making me eat dirt. She got a bunch of skills in those few weeks that we got here, and I just got like two, and we both used the A-heart rooms," Alex shook her head.

"Maybe she just went after a few skills that she already had an idea how to get," Blue suggested.

"Or maybe she's hyper-focusing on something to ignore the guilt she might be feeling. I've read about some cases where people would react like that when they ended up killing someone, even if It was just because they couldn't save them from a monster or something. I can only imagine that being the one that actually killed someone would be much worse," Helena looked down, trying to come up with an idea to help her friend.

Unfortunately, no one could figure out a way to help her. They spent another half an hour talking but came to no conclusion. After that, Hera came back home. Apparently, she had just come from her dad's house to let him know she was going to leave the city again. Eridan wasn't exactly happy about that, but he knew he couldn't convince her to stay here. In fact, he and some of the dwarfs had already tried to convince her to stay in Boothudurn for a while. When she returned from Dzviery, Rutigan and the city council were among the first ones to come to see how she was. Even Risli, the elderly shaman, rushed to meet her. Seeing the healer get close to the palace was already rare, but seeing her running was like seeing five rainbows at once. Silah was also among those who were worried about Hera and the group, but it was still very awkward when she talked to the explorer. It seemed like it would take some time before the two could speak naturally as friends.

"Hey, I already talked to my dad, and we're good to go. Are we leaving?" Hera walked inside her house and saw her party in the living room with their bags.

"Yeah. But you can take your time to finish packing. Are you sure you can go? Is the investigation over?" Helena tried to smile but to keep things light but it was clear that she was still awkward bringing that subject up.

Hera kept talking while going upstairs with the party following her, "I don't need time. I'm already done. And yeah, the investigation seems to be over. I talked to Yash, the detective, a couple of days ago, and he confirmed that basically, there's no reason to believe that I… Did it on purpose,"  Hera walked inside the room and pulled a small bag from under her bed, "All ready."

"Is that it? Don't you have to get clothes or something?" Bonnie asked.

"Don't need to. I already have a change of clothes here, soap, a toothbrush, a pocket tent in case we need to sleep outside, a raincoat, and some potions just in case. This is my emergency kit, and I want to get used to using it," Hera explained as she put on the small sling bag on her shoulder.

"Why do you need an emergency kit? And why do you wanna get used to it?" Blue asked.

"Because I don't know if what happened there can happen again. If it does, I'm gonna be ready," Hera replied without missing a beat and started heading downstairs.

"Are you gonna become one of those crazy survivalists now?" Alex followed her. Her bag was in the living room already.

"I don't think they are that insane, and maybe. If that saves our lives, I don't mind being called crazy," Hera shrugged and looked at everyone's bags in the living room, "You're already, right? Can we head out?"

Everyone nodded, and they all left not just their house but the room. They still had to go to the Charring Wastes to pack up Helena's lab and bring everything here. The best way to go there was still by crossing Dzviery. The room was still a mess after the attack, but people could already travel from room to room. The only things that were already working were the guild, and a few of the houses where the people working to rebuild everything were staying. The party headed to the Kobold Road, and in less than half an hour, they were already inside the subway.

"Hera, how many skills did you get in the last couple of weeks?" Blue asked.

"Let's see, I got, glaive, two-handed sword, sword, dagger, scimitar, axe, war axe, and knife combat. Then I got magic armor proficiency, which helps me use the elemental armor spell better. Earth Mastery does the same thing but with earth spells and a skill called Pathfinder, which helps me to find a road or route to a specific place. I don't need to know exactly how to get from A to B, and I have to know more or less the direction I should be heading. The skill also makes it harder to get lost if I'm in a place I don't know. Oddly enough, it doesn't do anything if I'm in a place I already know well," Hera explained.

"So you got 11 skills in the past two weeks?" Bonnie stared at the explorer with admiration.

"Pretty much. I also hogged one of the A-heart rooms for two weeks which I'm sure not everybody is happy about. Oh, and Lurize helped a lot with the combat-type skills. Apparently, he can help me with more than just swords, and having him around already gives me a push in the right direction when I was learning the other ones."

Alex pulled up her tablet and quickly typed the question before showing it to Hera, 'That helps your legacy, right? Those X weapon combat skills make them better.'

"Exactly. That's why I was after them. And I just grabbed a wide range because eventually I'm gonna change them, so I figured it was better to already go after them since I have time now," Hera nodded and looked towards the front of the train, hoping they would arrive soon. She was feeling restless, the only thing she could do now was wait, but there was nothing to do there. And she couldn't actually pull up a book and put some music on her tablet when the entire party was here. Doing so would be very rude, not to mention she knew that they would take that the wrong way.

They talked a bit more about the skills and how she got them, but since the explorer continuously looked over to the front of the train, the rest of the party figured out she wasn't interested in the subject. Some time passed before Bonnie tried to talk about something else, "Did you guys see what happened with the people responsible for the attack?"

"I didn't. Did they figure out who it was?" Blue asked.

"Sort of. Apparently, there was this guy named Chandler something, And he was captured by the centaur in forced to bring the monsters to the room. He has a legacy that can do that, and since if the centaur killed him, she would get the legacy herself, he followed along, trying to find a chance to escape. I can understand why he did that. I mean, what's the point of sacrificing yourself if the result will still be the same? Anyway, he's a smuggler, and that's how the centaurs found him. But he fought against the center as soon as the monsters appeared, and he even managed to use his legacy to recapture the worst ones he had let loose. Now he's working with the authorities to see if they can find the whereabouts of the centaurs and try to see what's going on. Another thing is that the guild is not confirming or denying if this attack had anything to do with the one in Union City."

"I mean, it has to be them, right? There is no one else who would do something like that," Alex asked.

"I don't know. The attack in Union City was planned, and the terrorists didn't even wait for the dust to settle before saying hey, we were the ones who did it. If they did this, why the secrecy? Wouldn't this be a great way to force people to be afraid of them? Unless this was something that they didn't want to do. After all, Union City was mostly empty. The attack was more of a statement than anything else. Here, it was about hurting people. It was about making people suffer. The statement the terrorists put out didn't sound like they were doing this just for the sake of killing people. I think we're dealing with a different group. Which is honestly even scarier than if they were just them," when Helena started speaking, a few of the other passengers leaned in to hear her opinion. It wasn't because they knew her but because she spoke with a certain confidence of someone with insider information, even if that wasn't the case.

The rest of their journey was very straightforward. They crossed from Dzviery to a room called Ocean Trail. After changing rooms, everyone was surprised to see they were inside a moving ship. It was the first time Hera ever saw a room with a moving doorway, but it seemed like the entire boat was part of the room and couldn't be destroyed. When they finally arrived at the island, a few hours after entering the room, everyone disembarked and headed for a doorway to the Red Sand Beach. This room barely had any infrastructure, and because of that, they had to cross over one more doorway to reach a place where they could actually rest for tonight before finishing their journey the next day. It wasn't exactly late, but everyone decided to rest in the hotel. Everyone but Hera. The explorer left the hotel and headed to the guild. She wanted to move and focus on something and not be too lazy around and allow her thoughts to wander. When morning came, Alex was the first to wake up. She tried to sneak out of the room, but as she was leaving, she realized that Hera's bed was undisturbed. Either the explorer managed to make the bed just as well as the people who work here, or she didn't even come back to sleep. To make things even worse, there was no message from Hera on the tablet. Worried that her friend might be in trouble, Alex woke everyone up and told them what had happened. In less than 10 minutes, the party was already heading out to look for their missing friend.