Chapter 81: Transition
“What exactly is this?” Marcus asked. He had just stepped into HIS room in the Cromwell castle and found Janette unpacking her stuff onto one, suspiciously large bed. “I told the servants we would share a room.” Janette said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “Aha.” was all Marcus had to say. “I brought snacks.” Janette put a bag on the bed and opened it. It was full of unhealthy food Marcus really liked. Marcus was not sure yet what was going on but he was easily bribed with snacks. He accepted her presence but divided the large bed with an “anti-demon-security-wall” made out of extra pillows.
“Are you worried?” They sat on the large bed and had snacks all around them. Marcus munched on some chips and thought about Janette’s question. “Yes. Are you?” he finally said and she also nodded, reaching for the last strawberry chewing gum. “I got the feeling this raid will push us to our limit.” she said with gum in her mouth and added “Mind you. Cherry said Cromwell is not somebody who takes stupid risks.” Of course Cherry knew him, she knew everybody important in the UK, Marcus thought. They both tried to steer away from the depressing thought of potential death in their near future and jumped from topic to topic. Eventually Marcus asked “Why did you actually choose to become a class holder? Money? Girls?” He said with a lewd smirk.
Janette gave him a thoughtful look and he instantly knew he had hit a sensitive topic on accident. “Nevermi-” he began but Janette started talking “I did not. My younger brother did, Thomas.” Until this moment she had never mentioned with one word she had a brother, Marcus thought. “You remember my horrible teenage picture? I was a mess back then and I hated everything and myself. My family had to suffer because of me and my brother tried to mend fences but I pushed him away. Later, after I started to figure out who I was, we slowly became closer again.” She stopped to eat a small chocolate bar and Marcus stayed quiet.
“Thomas was the adventures one. In contrast to me he had dreams and tried new things, including entering the lottery for a class. And he actually won, only a shitty class of course because the good stuff got sold to the rich.” she laughed but Marcus felt pain in his heart. She was talking in past tense about her brother. “Life gives a shit about your dreams and hopes. With 23 years my brother got diagnosed with some shitty genetic disease that killed him in less than a year. No medicine or class power could safe him, maybe the transformation would have done it but that was not happening for months. He made me take his place and promise to use that chance as best as I can. It was his fucking dying wish.” She cried and it was not pretty. “He forced… to try. ...shitty brat! He knew… he knew… I could not…” Sobbing broke up her words and Marcus took her in his arms breaking the wall.
They stayed like that for a while and once the sobbing stopped he said with a soft voice “I think you are doing a damn good job.” Janette’s head came up laughing. “Damn right I do! Look what a hot wife I have. If he had known I would get to bang Cherry he would have died out of jealousy long before the stupid illness got him.” tears were still running down her face. “I’m cool, strong, I have Cherry and you. I’m crushing it!” She said while laughing and Marcus said “Love you too.”.
They calmed down and Janette looked at him from the corner of her eye “So you have not forgotten about that.” He looked bashful “Hmmm.”. He had said it in the spur of the moment and now it felt awkward. “It is okay to love different people. To love people and not sleep with them. To cherish them so much, you want them to be part of your whole life.” Janette said and Marcus nodded but his face was still red.
Marcus watched Janette sleep next to him. In the end, she had crawled into her sleeping bag and now she looked like a gigantic caterpillar. She looked so stupid, he wanted to poke her just to hear her complain. It was a close battle but in the end the good boy in Marcus won out.
Marcus settled down and thought about her words from before. Of course he knew humans can love several people at the same time. He knew, did he? There was no reason to feel guilty for loving her, in his own way. NO, no, no. There was no reason to feel guilty for loving her. It is okay, that he wanted her stay close to him all his life. You are allowed to be greedy like this when you love somebody. But maybe these were all far too big words. Could they not just like each other, get along and want to stay close? Did it need to be so grandiose and important? But it was a big feeling inside of him… Marcus released the air in his lungs and the tension that he felt.
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He knew he was young and had no experience with love, but he had never expected it would be so weird and complicated. What happened with “boy meets girl”? He turned over and another thought crossed his mind like a shooting star. No. He had enough trouble with the current situation, and she was by no means a girl. But her dark and mysterious eyes stayed with him until he fell asleep.
The next morning started early and they found themselves at 8:00 o’clock in a special dining room where a massive breakfast was waiting for them. Lord Cromwell joined them and after everybody had finished (even Marcus) the lord activated a large interactive screen and explained the raid. “Our target is a new, nearly undiscovered underground dungeon on this world.” The screen showed a barren reddish planet surface. “The structure was only discovered a few weeks ago underneath a previously cleared ruin. As it tuned out the ruin had been something of a surface station to the construction and only a coincidence revealed the much larger structure underneath. I payed a good price for this information before it becomes public knowledge. This is also the reason why we are in a hurry. Right now everything down there is up for the taking but once the news spread the ruins will be overrun.” Lord Cromwell explained.
The screen changed to some general information. “The good news is that the ruins are not far away. It is the second planet through the Denmark gate, Aarhus-1/3 (new international naming system for portals, they finally made up their mind, took them only a decade or so). The bad news is that the planet is rather hostile. Respirators are needed and skin needs to be protected from the environment unless you have really high vitality. Underground the conditions should improve, if you ignore the high potential for monsters.” He said and Kou had a question. “What is the category of the planet?” Rita answered on point “Two. But untouched ruins, especially underground ones can be tricky. Monsters can gather there over a long time.” Marcus nodded, that was what he had heard too.
Lord Cromwell continued “From the early information we can expect the structure to be truly gigantic. Far too large to be covered by one raid team even if we were to dive in ten times. In that sense we will scout the area and grab anything that looks valuable. We have provisions to cover 600 km in both directions and at least a week of dungeon diving.” Marcus was changing looks with his team and Rita spoke up again. “From experience I can tell you what kills most raids is not the first dive but not realizing that exhaustion and wear has reduced your capabilities. Greed kills you.” Good to know that they are aware of that, Marcus thought.
After some more information Rita took the lead and talked tactics “We will generally move as one, but in combat and also through circumstance teams are needed. This is our current suggestion: Team one will be Alistair, Carlos, Janette, Grace and Candis. The second team will be me, Hammond, Marcus, Achara and Kou. If we see problems with the composition we can still adjust it later on. The leaders will be Grace and me.” Rita said and Marcus was a bit surprised by the team composition. The two with the highest level were in one team and not with lord Cromwell?
The lord finished with “If there are no more questions or problems, then we are going to depart in the afternoon and step through the portal by the end of the day.” The breakfast/meeting was disbanded and everybody went to make last preparations. They left around noon with a private jet from a nearby air strip and used rental cars for the last distance to the portal. By now Marcus had seen several of these portal installations and was used to the procedure. They dragged their gear to a large hangar where a monstrous bus was waiting for them. In principle it was like the ones he had seen before, but heavily modified. It had extra armor and on top a 30 mm auto cannon. The inside was also improved and Hammond told Marcus it had more engine power too.
They made their way through the base with Hammond at the wheel. They passed the portal into a nice fervent area of the next planet. Sadly they would only stay here for a short time. Hammond guided the large vehicle down actual roads towards the next portal about 70 km away. They passed by a few smaller cars and also a military patrol but overall the drive was uneventful. The next portal was still large, but a lot smaller than the first and the bus with all its extras only barely fit through. They entered the twilight land of their target world. It was day, kind off. The air was thick with red dust and Marcus was happy that the bus had been upgraded to be sealed. The outside thermometer said 42°C and Marcus hoped the underground would be cooler. “Not the nicest planet, but not the worst.” Hammond said next to Marcus. He nodded and looked at the man “Were you not driving?”, he laughed “Yes, but Janette wanted to drive too and I do not mind.” Marcus heard the engines rev up and his face lost all color. “No.”
