The Gamer Chapter 1281 – To spy in many directions (Patreon)

“Urgh… man, you suck,” Scarlett cussed at him, after being given five minutes recovery. “Can’t even break me properly.”

“I was holding back,” John told her.

“Really wish you fucking didn’t,” she groaned and sat-up to take the whiskey he was handing her. “At least you know what to give me against the pain.”

“You know, you will ruin your brain if you keep drinking like that,” he warned her.

“I’m a high level Abyssal with access to one of the world’s greatest healers, my brain will be fucking fine,” Scarlett cussed at him and rubbed her throat. “Which is good for you, because otherwise I’d look like a domestic abuse victim.”

“Please, you’re a domestic abuse connoisseur,” John told her, although he had to agree he was rather thankful for Undine being able to take care of this. Minorly, it saved him from terrible press releases. Majorly, it meant these marks didn’t add up to a constant, bothersome throbbing that could have convinced Scarlett that she maybe was better off treating BDSM as an occasional treat.

Between having a healer and cum that prevented sub-drop, John was really getting treated to the high life.

“So, you want to know about the video you asked me to look for?” Scarlett asked and groaned. Had he fucked her into a proper stupor, she would have been too overwhelmed with endorphins to consider the pain, so that was the cause for her mild annoyance. “Could we not have talked about that before?”

“Well, yes, but someone started masturbating in front of me,” John told her.

“What a fucking idiot would do that with a pervert in the room?” Scarlett mumbled into her glass and downed her whiskey. She smacked the empty glass against his chest. “Another one – make it double.”

John took the glass and walked over to the massive indoor bar that Scarlett kept for her alcoholic needs. “Second reason why I did that is because it’s fun to actually punish you for being such a brat.”

“Oh, shut up, you love it,” the redhead snapped at him. “You’re a verbal abuse connoisseur. A third of the women around you can’t call it a successful conversation if they haven’t insulted you at least five times over the course of it.”

“Well, you’re right that I love the banter.” John returned with the double whiskey, just in time for the massive screen to lower itself down and switch on. “So, we’re both dishonest with what we want to get what we actually want.”

“Aren’t we leading interesting lives?” Scarlett made a waving gesture with her finger. Smiling, John stepped closer, then was stopped by a foot to his chest. “Your shirt, not you,” she told him. “I had enough of you for half an hour.”

“I really should start charging for these,” John joked and provided her what she asked for. “Yes, yes, you pay me in sex and intel… and a healthy economy. Since we got the first out of the way and the last is a constant, can we talk about the middle?”

Scarlett put the shirt on. “Sure. First, I need to clear something with you though – the technomancers of the Dangun Clan are on this, so we might get spotted, do you mind that?”

“Considering I want to have an adversarial relationship with them, no, I don’t,” John responded instantly. As per his current plans, a clash with the Dangun Clan was inevitable. It was dependent on them on how violent it would end up being. He also had not, was not, and would never be shy about his disdain for what they did. John knew diplomacy and he knew when to disregard diplomacy in favour of retaining the sanctity of his honest soul.

One did not lie about one’s opinion on an injustice of this proportion.

“Great, because I already went in and did it all.” Scarlett gave him the evillest of mastermind smirks her pretty face could muster. She looked more sinister than evil, even with the World of Warcraft shirt she was wearing. A difference of elegance, mostly. In any case, she walked around the table and retrieved a cigarette, while the TV flickered to life and played the video John had been shown earlier. “90% sure I wasn’t noticed, but I’m pinning it on you if I get in trouble for it.”

“Sure, go ahead,” John responded, chirpily. He wouldn’t have it any other way. Difficult to elevate Fusion to the prestige of a world power without tickling the ones that currently existed. “Can you jump to the interesting part?”

“You mean this?” Scarlett asked.

The screen switched to the display of the massive gash in the side of the turtle. On the giant screen, the various details were even clearer. “Phone cameras sure have come a long way,” the Gamer mumbled and analysed the wound in some more detail. Even with what he saw there, the most likely and simultaneously absurd explanation presented itself. “That’s a sword wave.”

“Sure, fucking looks like it,” Scarlett responded. “I dug a bit into their archives to find more than just the video and managed to gather the dimensions of the Worldturtle and details of the wound.” The screenshot was replaced with a 3D model, with a large gash on its side. “We are looking at 500 metres of animated granite here, just counting the shell. The attack sliced open an area about 20 metres long and 2 wide, narrowing towards the tips. It went about 5 metres deep, cutting through concrete, metal, dirt, and highly-enchanted, animated granite, all the way into the cave veins of the Worldturtle.” She lit up her cigarette and took a deep huff. “Not even Aclysia with that supersized cleaver of hers could deliver an attack like that.”

“Yet – but that’s besides the point.” John looked at the 3D model of the Worldturtle. “What are the odds you have a nice construction for me where the attack came from?”

“Guess.”

“100%.”

“You’re wrong, because I don’t have a ‘nice’ one this time.” Scarlett tapped her cigarette, letting ash fall to the ground. “None of those fuckers had the bright idea of measuring impact angle or writing down the exact position of the turtle at the time, so I can only give you an estimate based on video analysis.” The program zoomed out, showing a very basic display of where the turtle had been relative to the Japanese coastline. A triangle was soon layered on top, narrowing down the area where on the coast a potential culprit could have stood. “We’re talking an area of about two kilometres here. Not much to go off. Which sucks, because I want to know who could have done that.”

“Yeah, who indeed.” John crossed his arms.

Sword waves were typically ineffective at long ranges. They were a tool that gave people that used swords and other blades a range option, which was already a big boon when one’s primary way of dealing damage was a close quarter combat weapon. Over distance, such waves dispersed, until their slicing intensity was watered down to a barely notable gust.

The approximate distance to the coast was between a hundred and two hundred metres. For a sword wave to have that degree of power on that distance, the person responsible must have either had a highly specific Innate Ability, a tool on the level of Rex Magnar, been above John’s current power, or all of the above.

It could not be understated that hurting a Worldturtle like that from such a distance with that kind of attack was a feat that even Romulus must have respected. That a warship (which the turtle effectively was) got damaged in the line of duty was not that interesting. What had damaged it, that was the true kicker that John, Suel, and everyone else around the globe that had learned about this would now dig into.

“I followed every file I found promising, but I found no other videos from the turtle nor any from the shore. That we even got this one is a miracle,” Scarlett stated. “Our mystery person could be anyone and anywhere. If they can pull a stunt like that, they can run fucking fast.”

“Hmm… I think I should have listened to Suel more carefully,” John admitted, as he gave this some thought. “He specifically asked me if I knew what the Generation of Monsters was before showing me this… so he thinks this is someone new.”

“It makes a lot of sense that something like this would come out of Japan,” Scarlett stated. “Guess who is running the show over there?”

“Protection money,” John put it bluntly. The Dangun Clan was often appeased with cash. Whether that was corruption on the side of the officials or a centrally approved doctrine to extract resources that would otherwise be used to rebuild, the Gamer had not been able to universally confirm. Both seemed to be the case. Originally, it was a limited doctrine, and the situations in which money was demanded bloated with time. “If you mean who governs the disparate pieces, that would be dojos.”

“I liked it more when you knew less.”

“Sorry, I got informed.” John smiled at her, while Scarlett finished up her cigarette. She tossed the butt into a hole that she opened with her powers just that moment. “I do agree though. After World War 2, the only power centres the Japanese Abyss still had were various dojos run by the samurai culture of yesteryear. Sadly, they also have the grudges of the warring states period, so not exactly a force that unifies easily.”

“Still, samurais do have the Iaijutsu,” Scarlett added. “Special techniques, executed in the motion of drawing the katana. Something like that would be able to keep a sword wave focused at that distance, if done masterfully.”

“So, the hypothesis is that, somewhere in Japan, someone with either a monstrous aptitude for Martial Arts or an Innate Ability that synergizes well with Martial Arts was born within the last… Do you think we’re looking at a Latebloomer?”

“Undoubtedly,” Scarlett confirmed.

“So, within the last sixteen to twenty-one years, with an extra room of one to five years to train up to this point.” John started walking up and down, just to be in any kind of motion. His eyes were repeatedly drawn to Scarlett’s thighs and the way they peeked out of his shirt. With that stimulating visual, he came to the obvious conclusion. “This is bad for the Dangun Clan – which is really good for us.”

“At worst, they will spend some time on finding and eliminating this Latebloomer,” Scarlett agreed. “At best, they put up the kind of resistance that makes raiding an unfeasible fucking way to keep Japan down.”

“We need to get involved in that situation before it comes to that point. The last thing I want is for this new Japanese power to ascend and reverse the playbook again. From a geopolitical perspective, I don’t want them allying with the Dangun Clan or the Mandate of Heaven either. Three powerful entities in east Asia spells trouble for us. Best to make this new person our ally.”

Scarlett shrugged and folded her hands behind her head. “That’s your call, Mister President.”

Making a sour face, John complained, “Do you see any good options for us to take here? We don’t have the resources to start a search on a scale that would matter and I don’t want to play our cards by making an open announcement about this. Seems like the best thing we can do here is talk to Nariko and just observe.”

“Yup.” Scarlett waved her hand and the screen shut off. “Which puts an end to this topic. Anything else you need to bother me about?”

“Depends, will I get a lecture on my incompetence if I ask about the Mandala Sphere replacement coming along?”

“I’m not Lydia, I don’t have time for lectures. I have two words for you though: fuck you.”

John chuckled and raised his hands in defence. Scarlett was still pissed that he had lost her master creation in the first fight it had been used in. That had been inevitable, one did not fight someone like Arkeidos without having a few things destroyed. The true insult had been that the materials were lost. That hurt the Gamer too, considering the value.

“Right, how about I do you a favour and we discuss the new names for Collimets?”

“I hate that framing. It’s the actual name for Collimets. Put it that way and we can forget that verbal terrorism every happened.”

“Alright then, the actual name for the Collimets.” John stepped up to the table again and this time he wasn’t stopped by her foot. He picked up the technomancer in the proper princess style and carried her towards the exit of the office. She was done there for the day, he decided. “Suggestions?”

“We call them elemental extreme metals and Collide is the world’s main supplier. Collide elemental extreme metals. C-ele-xiums. Celexiums and Fusionals.”

“…And that’s better than Collimets?”

“To start with it doesn’t start like a mixture of a cough drop producer and cauliflower, so yes.”

John hated that he could actually imagine one of those standard pharmaceutical commercials explaining to him the benefits of Collimet cough drops. “Alright, you win,” he surrendered. “I’ll fill out the paperwork tomorrow.”