Jacob had to go back and start packing the huge corpses one by one, so angry he could barely explain what he was doing to Geneva and Marina, who was helping the last people get on some cars.

“Kevin, I swear to God, the only reason I’m not melting you is that you appear to be the most insane Swiss knife I’ve ever had my hands on. This is literally insane. I’m going insane. There can’t be a Relic that does all these things. And how is your storage space so big? I can’t even feel the end of it! Do you have any items inside of it that I cannot see?”

AH! THIS GREAT KEVIN IS NO SWISS THING! THIS GREAT KEVIN IS JUST THE MOST AWESOME SWORD IN THE UNIVERSE!

“Do you have any item inside of you or not?”

NO! THIS KEVIN EJECTED THE FILTHY ITEMS ITS PREVIOUS MASTER HAD PUT INSIDE OF ITS GREAT SPACE BECAUSE THEY WERE BORING!

“Ok, just don’t tell me which items they were. I’m sure they don’t compare to you, and they don’t need to be mentioned.”

I SEE THAT YOU ARE FINALLY LEARNING JUST HOW GREAT THIS GREAT KEVIN IS!

Jacob preferred not to know because he was seriously risking having a stroke.

…

Once back in St. Peter, after a very windy doorless journey, Jacob dismounted and looked around. Not many people had arrived yet.

He needed to find Helena, his Aunt Linda, and Joseph.

Some news had to be given face to face, not through others.

On his way to Helena’s place, he saw some people chatting about the ones from Blacksoil who had already made the journey.

“Are they still not training? Wow, that’s rich. And they didn’t go out with any hunting party today? Well, those little leeches.”

Jacob walked off. He had no energy to spare for such petty conflicts. He would deal with it later.

Once in front of Helena’s house, he knocked.

Her mother opened the door.

“Oh, hi Jacob!”

Even though Helena’s parents had never really known him before the apocalypse, he had become quite famous in St. Peter, with everyone wondering what his real role was. The smartest people had already figured out that somehow he held a lot of power, but some of the less intuitive, like Helena’s mom, just saw him as a mascot of some sort.

“Is Helena home? I need to speak to her,” Jacob said.

“Oh no, she went out a few hours ago with Andrew. She’s teaching him some Magic!” her mom looked truly enthusiastic about her daughter leading even adults.

“Well, that’s good,” Jacob was happy both Andrew and Helena were socializing a bit. Both of them sorely needed it. Andrew because he was a bit of a chicken – for all it pained Jacob to admit it – and Helena because she was like the golden child in a remote high tower whenever Jacob wasn’t around.

Where every other member of the group socialized, at least to some extent, with each other, Helena had barely done anything with them after the battle with the Charybdes. Helena had been Frederick’s friend, but she had been more and more reclusive after his death. Only Juliet could really get to her, for some reason, and that was mainly because of the similar power level.

Well, whatever, I might as well find my aunt first.

As Jacob was going toward his place, he heard someone shouting.

It wasn’t precise words, it was just the same type of shout that you would hear from some martial arts movie, when people practiced together in a courtyard—oh no.

Jacob saw his aunt’s little cult practice in his own courtyard, shouting to high heavens every time they performed a punch. Most of them were sweating like crazy; they had clearly been there for a while now.

I really would rather not know.

Jacob saw Joseph by the side doing a light spar with the girl. He was using the weird movements of the First Martial Saint, apparently.

“Joe!” Jacob called out.

“Jacob!” Joseph got distracted, and the girl in front of him clocked him in his face instead of relenting.

“Ouch!” Joseph was at the Mantis realm, and the girl was still at the Advanced Stage of the Cockroach realm.

“That was a very good move,” Jacob complimented Louise, the shy girl.

“Thank you. Joseph told me that it was you who said that we should always be ruthless. So, I took the occasion to practice being ruthless,” she said without skipping a beat.

“Impressive, indeed. Next time, kick him as soon as he’s down in a spar. That’s a very good reflex to have. Once you have your enemy down, finish him immediately, don’t relent and be ruthless instead."

The girl nodded while Joseph got up and looked weirdly at Jacob.

“Always a charmer, Jake. I wonder why the first people who came back from Blacksoil think you are a lunatic, indeed. But, on the contrary, you are the person with the soundest mind I’ll ever find,” Joseph's words dripped sarcasm.

“Get inside, smartass. I need to talk to you and my aunt. Sorry, Louise, I’ll need to ask you to wait outside.”

The girl nodded toward Jacob and simply fell in line with the other warriors practicing punches.

“Is that training actually useful?” Jacob looked toward those people.

“Training?” Joseph looked toward the cultists and shrugged. “Your aunt said that either they punch the air for the next eight hours or they will fail the entrance exam to her Sect.”

Jacob inhaled deeply.

Well, let’s get down to it. It doesn’t really get any crazier than this.