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Chapter 148: The Greater Plan

Tempest Cliff, Tempest Branch Alliance, within a secluded part of the alliance’s small ecosystem.

Herellia did not answer Aurus’ question, instead deciding to stay silent about it as an aura of hesitation surrounded her body. As for Aurus, he was radiating an aura of slight trepidation as his imagination gradually went outside its boundaries, imagining of a situation wherein Herellia would force Aurus to be silent, no matter the method used.

Fortunately, that was not the case, with Herellia letting out a sigh a couple of minutes later. At this point in time, Aurus’ trepidation was at its peak, subconsciously making him roll backwards a bit as a response to the sigh. But once Herellia started talking, this trepidation dissipated in an instant, being replaced with an intense aura of curiosity.

“Alright, alright. I’ll talk,” Herellia finally replied to Aurus’ question in a slightly despondent manner. “You have the right to know about it anyway since you’re a Pillar level member of the alliance.”

“Plus, you’ve interacted with me even more than the other Pillar level members that were with me from the start,” Herellia added, the aura surrounding her being replaced with an aura of ponderation and slight seriousness.

Seeing that she was finally going to spill the beans, Aurus repeated the question one more time. “So…let me ask you one more time. Why did Horell relay you information about Chonk’s army? Isn’t he one of our enemies?”

“Technically, yes,” Herellia answered back. She then added not long after, “But due to some things I’ve done back then, in actuality, that’s a no. He’s not our enemy at all, but instead, a great comrade that would help us out in the upcoming war.”

“How so?” Aurus could not wrap his head around the answer Herellia gave to him, asking this question as a way to understand it better. Fortunately, Herellia was quite understanding, answering his question in a brief and concise manner.

“Simple.”

“Double agent.”

Hearing Herellia’s answer, Aurus finally put the puzzle pieces together in his mind, creating a map of connections. Not long after though, he could not help but think that there might be a chance that Horell would betray the alliance, helping Chonk in the war instead.

Just as he was about to ask this what-if to Herellia, it seemed that Herellia was one step ahead of him, saying, “And before you ask me that there is a chance for Horell to betray me and help Chonk instead, I’ve known that for a long time already. Even Horell knew that while negotiating with him to become a double agent. Did I do anything about it?”

While Aurus was waiting for her to say yes as per his expectations, Herellia instead gave a conflicting answer to him, which somewhat lowered his expectations by a bit. “Hmm…yes and no, to be honest. You do know that I have a skill that allows me to peer through everything and see the direct truth, I’ve told you about it before.”

“Yeah, you did,” Aurus replied with an aura of confirmation surrounding him. He then continued, “What does that have to do with Horell and him being a double agent though?”

“I asked him what he really wanted to do,” Herellia replied as she could not help but recall memories from the past, a slight melancholic tone suffusing through her words. “Although he was thankful for Chonk since he saved him, he just wanted to be free. Freedom to grow stronger in his own way was something he wanted to do all this time. With that goal in mind, he thought that he would be able to eliminate all ties with Chonk after doing a favor for him. Unfortunately, Chonk wanted him to become a spy for his own benefit, sending Horell to our alliance in what I can say as the most avant-garde way possible.”

“By avant-garde, you were referring to the large crater he was in, right?” Aurus said as he tried to remember Herellia’s story about Horell’s origin. “Sure, it was quite avant-garde, but don’t you think it worked very well as you guys brought him into the alliance?”

“The others just brushed it off, to be honest,” Herellia replied as an aura of indifference radiated from her body. “As for me, I had the skill that see through everything and get to the ultimate truth, so I had doubts about him from the start. I told you about it back then.”

Just as Aurus was about to ask Herellia as to what she did to remove her doubts, Herellia was yet again one step ahead of him, continuing her monologue. “I eventually wanted to resolve my doubts about him, to which he cooperated quite well with me after knowing that I had a skill that could peer through the intrinsic truth, as well as knowing his true dream.”

“I then struck up a deal with him, telling him that if ever he was called back by Chonk, forcing him to leave the alliance for some nefarious reason, he would relay information about it to me, so if ever the alliance gets affected, we would have time to prepare,” she added.

“I can’t believe he stayed true to his word.” Herellia could not help but chuckle a slight bit. “I didn’t use any binding or contract skills on the both of us, so this was purely out of his own volition.”

Processing all of the things Herellia said to him, Aurus went silent for a few minutes. It was then that something clicked in his head, prompting him to ask her, “As a double agent, he surely wouldn’t only send you the estimated time of arrival of Chonk’s army. Did he send any other information?”

“He did, actually,” Herellia replied with an aura of calmness surrounding her. “As for what it is, it’s quite similar to what you sent, but less detailed.”

“I see,” Aurus answered back as multiple questions popped up in his mind. “Wait a minute…since Horell is on Chonk’s army, but is a double agent, does that mean he’s going to help us fight against Chonk?”

“Hopefully, that’ll be a yes,” Herellia said as a reply to Aurus’ question. She then continued after pondering for a bit, “I do have a feeling that he’ll attack us at the start though as a façade to fool Chonk, so I think it might be better if we had more defensive trump cards as a whole.”

“So…you want me to create some more defensive trump cards?” Aurus could not help but ask, feeling that the last sentence Herellia said was directed at him. And it seemed that he was right, Herellia radiating an aura of affirmation as she replied, “Exactly. Even if it’s a defensive trump card that only applies to you, it’ll still increase our chances of winning. Of course, making more offensive trump cards would also increase our chances as well.”

“Well, you did say that earlier.” Aurus could not help but slightly chuckle. “Anyways, is that all you have to say for now?”

Herellia went silent for a bit and pondered, replying not long after with, “Yeah. I guess that’s all for now. I’m pretty sure Horell’s going to update me every once in a while, but it’s better if only I know of it.”

Aurus did not take offense to Herellia’s words as he knew what she was thinking, radiating an aura of affirmation as he said, “Alright then. I’ll be whipping some trump cards that would help the alliance. I might come here a day or half a day before the war since I have a special trump card that I would like you to test out before the war starts. Is that okay with you?”

“As long as it can help us, that’s fine with me,” Herellia replied, radiating an aura of slight happiness as she could not help but think Aurus has contributed quite a large amount of help to the alliance’s preparation.

“You have to hold up your part of the promise once the time comes, okay?” Aurus could not help but slightly laugh as he bid his farewell to Herellia, teleporting back to a room within the Tower of Seclusion where Fenrir and Charisa were.

Whoosh!

Not long after his departure from where Herellia was, Aurus appeared in front of the two, who were still grinding their skills all this time. He told them to stop for a short bit as he had a few things they had to talk about. Fenrir and Charisa did not mind their interruption as the discussion the three had was quite fruitful, allowing Aurus to put his mind at greater ease than before.

He then told the two to return to their skill grinding as he headed towards another portion of the room, opening up his skill screen as a certain skill surfaced in his mind not long after browsing through it.

“System, activate [Ancient Modular Flux Equipment Fabrication],” Aurus commanded the system.

Ding!

Not long after, a small yet complex-looking holographic screen appeared in front of Aurus’ field of vision. On it were words that read out, ‘What type of equipment would you like to craft?’

Unlike before where he had to tell the system what type he wanted to craft, there were choices below the question instead, allowing him to choose between a single piece of equipment, or an equipment set.

As Aurus had experience creating single pieces of equipment before, to be more exact, twice, he decided that the first experiment he would do with the newly fused skill was to create an equipment set. He selected the latter choice, with the text and choices on the screen changing not long after.

‘What type of equipment set would you like to craft?’

This time, the choices were three instead of two, being Physical, Magic, and Ignition respectively.

He already had a bit of knowledge regarding Magic-based equipment. As for Physical equipment, he did not bother about it for now as the first equipment set he was going to make was for himself.

“Is this Ignition…the same type of Ignition I know?” Aurus could not help but have his sense of vision fixate on this word as he could not help but recall the destructive effects a piece of Ignition equipment could show. What about a set of Ignition equipment? Wouldn’t that allow him to show extremely destructive power?

Betting on his chances that this Ignition was the same type of Ignition he knew, he selected the choice as the question on the screen was changed once more. This time, the question on the screen was something he expected to pop up at the end of fabrication. But then, as he looked at the additional text after the question, he found out that there was more to equipment crafting than he thought.

‘What kind of name would you like the equipment set to bear? Note that the name of the equipment set can affect the effects shown by the equipment.’

He pondered over the equipment set’s name for a while, since the screen told him that the effects of the equipment would change based on the name he would give. Eventually, a name surfaced in his mind as he thought that it would be great to have two sets for two different purposes. One for magic purposes, and one for Animate slaying purposes.

He then decided in his mind to create the Animate slaying equipment set first as he then opened his mouth to say…

“I would like this equipment set to bear the name…”

“Killer of the Sapient.”