?

  I ended up having to call him several times in the morning, but Fabio did eventually show up with my spear in tow, along with a recorded message,; which is like writing a letter but with your voice. After listening to it a few times, I told Diaochan and made one for Fabio to take back. Given that we had only known each other for a day, he was more than a little reluctant to help, but two factors managed to convince the rich kid and his stupid lizard armor to keep assisting me.

  First and foremost was the curse that afflicts many a rich kid or pampered prince: a lust for adventure, a desire to set foot outside their pleasure palaces and test themselves against the ‘real world’. It is the true reason he dons his [Enkidu Mark 3] armor and comes down to the hunting grounds, and honestly, I suspect it is the real reason all the raindrops do it.

  So once he had spoken to the siblings and heard the tale of what had happened, he was hooked. It was like he was getting to take part in his very own real-life stage play, or I guess Drama, as they called the ones that I could stream from the city net.

  Basically, the moment he arrived, he was quizzing me about what had happened and why I was suddenly a man wanted by Clan Irons. He had all sorts of guesses and theories, which were naturally not even remotely close to the truth of the matter, but I couldn’t blame him for not being able to guess the nature of things. You would need to be a sage of truly unparalleled insight and farsightedness to have ever guessed that my own daughter was attempting to wage war on me.

  I gave Fabio the brief version of events, which piqued his interest. Almost as much as the second reason, the De Medici had agreed to help piqued his interest. That reason had the class Engineer, the sub-class Forgefiend, and her name was Ha-Rin. I would actually say that the raindrop asked me almost as many questions about Ha-Rin as he did about what had happened the night before.

  While I certainly agreed that the weapon maker was pretty enough, I didn’t quite understand the sudden infatuation he had with her. Honestly, she was basically always covered in oil smudges and wearing clothes that were so badly torn they were almost revealing, and to make matters worse, she didn’t even bother with makeup or perfume, just fuel stench. What kind of man could fall head over heels for a girl like that?

  It didn’t matter; I wasn’t going to complain about the man who had brought me my spear and the message from Ji-Ho and Ha-Rin. Nor was I going to mock the fact that the only reason he was willing to take one back for me was as an excuse to see Ha-Rin again.

  It took a little while to explain that one of the co-leads of Clan Irons was my daughter, and I insisted on doing a version of my morning training as I did so. Lifting various heavy scrap, doing different stretches and movement combinations that emulated how I would move in real combat.

  “Red Lyn the duelist is famous enough that even people who have never set a single foot below the Sky-Tiers of the Abeyance have heard of her. There was a documentary last year that went semi-viral after she beat a level fifteen O.S.C.T elite one-on-one.” He paused for a moment to meet my gaze.” That is meant to be almost impossible if you aren’t a higher level than them.” I felt my chest swell with pride as he said those words. That was my little Lu Linqi making a name for herself that none could deny. Just like I had always told her to.

  “That is my girl.” I declared proudly. “She was always dangerous beyond where traditional logic would place her.” Fabio shook his head in disbelief.

  “You are really certain that this gangster is your daughter?”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “I am.”

  “Okay, so in that case, why does she want to kill you so bad? And let me tell you, I just came from Clan Irons territory, and she wants your head on a spike.”

  I made a sort of harumph noise deep in my throat as I considered my answer.

  “Linqi and I butted heads many times and about many things.” I began, still trying to find the right words to describe the nature of my tumultuous relationship with my daughter. “She believes that I am stubborn, greedy, short-sighted, and treacherous. Also that I bring instability to any region I choose to dwell in.”

  “Yikes.” He replied with a raised eyebrow.

  “As such, I suspect she is trying to strike now before I become powerful enough to be dangerous. It is what I would do if I were her.” I paused my movements to look at my fat little friend in his ‘overpowered’ armor. “ Which is why I need you to act as a go-between; no one in Irons territory knows that we have any association, while the whole community knows I lived with Ji-Ho and Ha-Rin.”

  That specifically was the moment he began asking me about Ha-Rin. I answered a couple of questions about the girl, though truth be told, I didn’t know things like her preferred restaurants or hobbies, but I was able to direct him towards what her favourite things to stream were. Unlike her brother, Ha-Rin didn’t have much interest in dramas and pretty much exclusively watched concerts, sporting events, weapon contests, and this one show where two bearded men tried to figure out if things were real or not.

  More important than any of that was the message the siblings had left with Fabio for me. Opening what Diaochan told me was called a file, my HUD was immediately dominated by a new window showing the siblings sitting next to each other in the sunset room.

  “Hey, Bu, seems like you fucked up pretty bad last night.” Said the recorded Ji-Ho.

  “Yeah, what did you do? Lyn was piiiiissssed off,” Chimed in Ha-Rin, who honestly seemed more excited and entertained than anything about all this. The pair of them went on to explain that there was already a bounty of ten thousand digi-creds on my head and that the whole community around their workshop was abuzz about it. They also mentioned how they had sent my spear along with a few days' worth of SynthNoods, and hydration pouches with Fabio.

  “We can’t do much until the heat dies down.” Said the moving image of Ji-Ho. “And you might not realize this, but in just a couple of weeks you quadrupled our inventory of usable parts, and improved Ha-Rin’s catalogue of internal weapon customizations so much that we made deals with both Clan Irons and Clan Thugee that will keep us working for months, so you know we feel like we owe you and will do what we can. “ Ha-Rin smacked her brother on the arm playfully.

  “ Don’t forget.” She added insistently.

  “Oh, right, Rin is insisting that we make you something special, something better than those crappy armor upgrades we did. So if you could have your friend drop by again in about a week, you won’t regret it, otherwise, good luck, and I guess tell the raindrop to let us know if you need anything.”

  I did need something, in fact, something I thought they might actually have. I quickly made a recording of my own, thanking the pair of kimchi munchers for all their help, and letting them know I needed any information they had access to about repairing, modifying, or maintaining an AuroraBlitz Chrome Prophet.

  Afterwards, I transferred it to Fabio, who was impatiently swinging his armor’s bladed lizard tail back and forth.

  “Don’t go back there today,” I told him as he left.

  “Don’t worry.” The rich kid replied with a grin. “ I may not be a warrior, but being subtle is well within my wheelhouse.” Obviously, I didn’t know what a wheelhouse was, but it seemed clear enough that Fabio got the message. I certainly hoped so anyway, as I had my own plans I needed to get to work on.

  Once the evolution-suited man was gone, I finished my chosen exercises for that morning and opened one of the SynthNood cups, and its autoheating activated. Within moments, I was devouring the low-quality but searingly hot noodles. From there, I activated my newly re-acquired spear.

  I had only been without the red energy-bladed weapon for a day, yet it remained a major relief to have it returned to me. My body might be a weapon in its own right, but it still felt good not to be unarmed, so to speak. My hunger was hardly sated, but the noodles would be enough sustenance for me to get hunting for the day.

  It was time for the great and powerful Lu Bu to get some class levels to reflect that greatness, and this time, I wasn’t going to be held back by what I could carry. Instead, it would be a pure effort to fill my soul expansion gauge as much as I could as quickly as I could.

  Time to get on that grindset

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