Chapter 23: Twenty-One

"You killed 5 Guards, 2 with your sword and 3 with your flames, you also pried the door of the transporter open." Reed scrolled through his pad, tapping here and there as he calculated. "10,000 lixels for participation, 1,000 per kill, and 5,000 more for the door. That reaches 20,000 lixels, should I transfer it now?"

Rose listened to the man and nodded. They were around a table, the others had just had their contributions evaluated and paid for, she was the last. She linked her pad with Reed's and watched as her funds climbed to 20.2K lixels in one sitting—that was beautiful, it could buy her 10 low-grade Mana Orbs at once, 25 days of being alive. Of course, that was if she only spent it on that.

"On another note. . ." He smiled. "We would be happy if you could add us, too, to your pad. Another job may call at any time, how about it, Rose?"

She looked around and each of the current members of S.O.S nodded, including a smiling Elsa that she already added prior.

"Certainly," She said, "I see no problem there."

It wasn't bad to build some connections along the way to her goals. She never knew when something could pop up, the next time she might need some quick lixels, or if they could provide her help in return for hers—anything was currently plausible and she didn't rule them out.

"With that said, then, dismissed." Reed clapped his hand together and broke the group up.

The man did not say what he would do with the bodies of the homunculi guards they had killed, only that they would be shipped with the armaments they had stolen. It wasn't within Rose's rights to butt in. She and Elsa walked out of the building and stood next to the dune-buggy.

"Sweet ride," The girl said, running a hand across its metallic cover.

"Thanks," Rose replied.

"What's your plan after this?" Elsa asked, "Amma go work on one of my 'robots', you'll. . .? What do homunculi even do?"

"I'll buy some mana-orbs and try to find a steady job, after that, I need to look into getting into Alos."

"Alos huh. . ." The short-haired girl nodded.

At that moment, there was a jarring vroom and a shadow flew over them. The two stared up just in time to see a sleek machine, winged, zip under the sun. The air ripped apart as the vehicle shot through the sky and into the horizon.

"A Jet?" Elsa commented, cupping a hand over her eyes to see better, "Must be something far ahead. A rampaging beast headed for the city? That doesn't sound right—it would tear through here before anything like a Reaper is sent."

As soon as her words finished, they could hear the blares of pulses. A roar followed and they saw a winged bird, like that of a giant eagle, fly over the sky with its beating wings. Its beak rang a screeching cry that shook their nerves as it tried to escape its assaulter.

The slummers around them stared up at that point to see the jet whistle by with the roar of mana, chasing the bird down. It wasn't long before the two followed each other higher into the sky, a dog-fight played out with a speed they could hardly follow, and the creature turned around with its beak opened—spewing flames across the clouded canvas.

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The jet skidded to a stop, a bleep rang, a shield of mana surrounded it before it leapt into the fire with azure pulses lighting up the bright sky through fiery red. Gashes of blood splattered down with flesh and the wings of the beast were ripped apart—the weapon jolted momentarily and a blue energy rolled over it before stopping at its turret and then—the creature cried its last as a massive beam pierced through it. Following its fall, a slew of transporters passed overhead, led by the weapon that rode the air and moving towards the city of Alos.

". . ."

"Yeah. . .okay, calling a Reaper on a beast like that makes sense."

"What. . ." Rose could hardly understand what she had just witnessed, what kind of fire power was that?

They both looked at each other and Elsa couldn't help but laugh when she saw the eyes of the girl. "Are ya new here or something? It's normal. Some transports run into monsters beyond them and call in the nearest city for help."

That was normal?

"Welp." The short-tempered girl placed a hand on her companion's shoulder. "I'll get on my way now. Call me if ya ever need me, or just wanna chat."

The girl waved behind her as she walked.

"I hope you're not only eating orbs, too, there's a lot of delicious stuff—like Rose Tea, that shit's amazing, you should try it."

Rose walked out of a shop with a bag of mana orbs in hand. She hopped into the dune-buggy, realized it was at less than 40% and placed an orb in the middle of the steering wheel. With a push of a button, the thing opened up and swallowed it, pushing the charge of the vehicle to 80%. It would seem low-grade orbs only charged it by 40%.

She returned home with her remaining 7 orbs, a packet of 'Rose Tea,' and 4k lixels in the bank. The first order of business she did was recharge her core's barrier. Then she took back the two orbs from the bin, making a total of 8 currently in her possession, and realized they would tide her over for 20 days—it counting her current charge of 84%.

— — —

Reed sat upon his chair, reclining back as he looked at his group, his pad's display floated in the air between them.

"That's that then, we can claim her anytime," He said.

Displayed on it was a blinking light.

". . .and get out of these slums." Nicholas added.

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