Kingdom of battles ✓

Chapter 56

An hour passed before Nai, Arashi and I returned to the headquarters. The reason why we needed so much time to reach them was the fact that Nai and I argued for at least fifteen minutes about what to do with our prisoner so he wouldn't see where our guild house was. At the end I agreed with Nai to just knock him out with a few punches, because I didn't want to listen to his temper tantrum.  

After we reached the headquarters we went separate ways, Nai and two other players dragged an unconscious Arashi down to the prison cells, while I seriously walked down the hallways, in search for Kei. When I entered the dining room, full of nervous looking people I quickly realised that everyone already discovered the black crystals on their palms and they were probably in panic because Waru told them what they were. I didn't see Kei between the other players so I quickly walked in the direction of the cave where his office was, finding him sitting on his chair, resting his feet on the desk in front of him and sipping some alcoholic drink from a bottle. 

I sighed and rolled my eyes with annoyance. '' You never learn to stop trying to drown your problems in alcohol, '' I muttered and crossed my eyes, leaning on the wall next to the entrance of the office. 

Kei's head snapped up and his eyes widened with surprise. '' Little swordswoman, you are back! What happened? Where's Nai? '' he asked, looking nervous. 

'' Don't worry, he's fine, '' I seriously replied and raised my palm, showing him the black crystal that was in my skin. '' This is our main problem right now. '' 

'' You know what that is? And unfortunately no, it isn't our main problem. Something else happened, but tell me what this crystals are first, '' he said, put the bottle back on his desk and looked at me with serious red eyes. 

I quickly told him everything about soldier C project and how Renshou began a program that was going to cause everyone turning in to mindless monsters that will be controlled by him. To my surprise Kei didn't seem as surprised by the news as I thought he was going to be. He was nodding through my whole story and when I finished talking he leaned back on his chair, grabbed the bottle he let down before and took another few sips from it. '' Well, everything certainly makes much more sense now than before, '' was the only thing that he said, causing me to frown with confusion. 

'' What? '' I muttered. '' Don't tell me that you already knew about this! There's no way that you figured out something this big before me! ''  

'' Oh, stop getting annoyed, it's not that... It's just that I heard a similar, but less detailed story just a few hours ago when Karoku returned from his mission, '' Kei explain, causing my eyes to widen and then instantly narrow again. He sighed at that and took another sip from his bottle, sounding tired. '' I sent him to level 32, the Capital City, to warn the King of the Locals of Renshou and Masashi. Half way there he met up with Tsukimo, but when they arrived they found out that Masashi already visited their King and convinced him that those crystals that appeared on everyone's palms are actually our doing. Unfortunately their army is much stronger than we expected, specially now that they're allied against us and they managed to capture Tsukimo. ''  

I clenched my fingers in to fists, angry. '' That bastard! He convinced them that they are allies and then he's going to attack them! And how is it possible that they're actually stupid enough to fall for something like this?! ''  

Kei mockingly smirked at me and slowly asked: '' From what I heard, isn't this the exact same thing that the Arashi guy did to you? ''  

'' Shut up, '' I hissed and leaned on his table. '' We don't have time for calling people stupid, '' I seriously said and glared at him. 

'' You just did that, '' he muttered, sweatdropping. 

'' I said that we don't have time for that, do you really have to be mean all the time?! '' I snapped and ignored the face that he made after that, probably trying to imitate mine. It wasn't even near the same anyway, there was no way he could copy my fabulousness. '' What we need now is a plan because right now we have around... '' I narrowed my eyes, mentally trying to calculate the time that passed since when I saw the timer that said that there was seventy two hours left before the soldier C project would start. '' Around seventy, maybe sixty-nine and a half hours left to stop the soldier C project. Even if the King of the Locals considers us their enemy now, it's not as important as this, understand? I am going to need two teams Kei. Will you be able to chose the right people or are you so stupid that I need to write this out for you too? '' I asked and narrowed my eyes, glaring at him.