Chapter 346

Return Home (VI)

Cain groaned and slowly blinked himself awake, rousing from the silken sheets and sitting up on the comfy bed. He was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and the levels of stench coming from him were generally unbearable. Glancing to the side, he saw that Emma was sleeping there still, snoring loudly as she occasionally did, drool decorating the pillow.

Smiling faintly, he stood up from the bed as he yawned, walking over to the window and opening it. Outside, the world was already alive--or, rather, alive still. Life never quite dulled or died in the Tower, especially here, in the city. Leaving Emma to sleep still, he left the room and descended into one of the many halls of what was effectively a king’s mansion.

The halls were far from empty, but Cain hardly recognized many people in them. Some were young and some older still, racing about in various levels of gear. They were clearly parties under the Rick’s wing, ushered into the greater world in hopes of climbing that ladder. And just as he didn’t recognize them, they didn’t recognize him--evident by quite a few of them cursing at him to get quick or get out of the way.

It wasn’t strange; it’s been over two years since he was last here, and even then, of all the members of the party, he was the least recognizable one. By now, he suspected, Senna, Emma, Kramer, Jamal, and most others were universally recognized faces. He, however, was not. Not mattering the fact that he hardly looked the part of a ‘high-end Conqueror’, and mostly resembled a struggling one who lucked into the position he was in.

He exited the mansion and landed in the massive courtyard where remnants of the yesterday’s party still lingered. To his surprise, he saw Kramer and Delilah seated near the pool, with the now slightly-older Diya splashing about in the waters. Walking over, the two greeted him with smiles and pulled out a chair for him.

“You’re a bit overdressed for the occasion,” Delilah commented at the Cain’s garb.

“I have teenage-boy levels of security in my body,” Cain joked back, sitting down and popping open a can of beer. “At least next to this mountain of a man.”

“Hollow words,” Kramer said with a smile. “The Tower has this tendency of making me feel really small.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it; everyone feels small in this place, on occasion,” Cain said. “Honestly, you’re bulldozers having gotten as far as you did.”

“Well, at least now we won’t have to suffer any longer,” Delilah commented with a sigh, reclining further in to the chair.

“What do you mean?” Cain asked.

“I mean, you’re here,” she said. “And hard boss suddenly becomes easy.”

“Ah, yes,” Cain said. “I ain’t helping you lot, though?”

“...”

“...”

“WHAT?!!” both Kramer and Delilah exclaimed, startling even the young Diya who looked toward her parents. It was then that she noticed the man sitting next to her father; though she’d seen him yesterday, and had faint memories of him, to her it was still a stranger.

“Oh, yeah, I musta failed to mention that,” Cain said, smiling at their reaction.

“Yeah, you must have! What the hell do you mean you won’t be helping us?! It will take forever to kill that thing!”

“Then forever it shall take,” he said. “It’s not unkillable, don’t worry.”

“Haaah,” Kramer sighed deeply. “Is this one of your lessons? Because, if so, I don’t appreciate it.”

“I don’t teach lessons--I humbly share wisdom.”

“Sure, sure...”

Cain had decided not to help them the moment he learned they were battling U’nul. Star of Hegon was one of the age-defining bosses that shaped the world to come. It was a mechanically loaded fight with insane checks in terms of numbers, and was so overwhelming in terms of things to do just not to die that for years it was thought of as undefeatable back in Cain’s previous life.

It was not a fight meant to be overwhelmed by sheer numbers--there was a distinct peak that people could grind out in terms of numerical advantage, but, in the end, it would never be enough for them to ignore the mechanical intricacies. And while Cain or Quinn or Harmony or Nature could go in and trivialize the fight through sheer numbers, that would be a major disservice to them all as the fight was meant to polish the already-competent Conquerors.

By the U’nul’s fight, most people were extremely familiar and comfortable with their class as well as general onus of fighting. The fight, simply, brought all the little things into focus and tuned them up to eleven, allowing no breathers in-between the mechanical ass-beatings it delivered.

Cain himself had never actually fought U’nul--in part because even with really, really good gear from the later floors, the fight was still beyond demanding and required every member of the raid group to be individually gifted, and in part because few groups ever formed for her after the first clear. Though, on occasion, some rookie groups wanting to prove themselves and shoot to stardom would try and fight her, there were ever four recorded, successful kills throughout twenty-five years.

Though it spoke to her difficulty, it more so spoke to the strong stigma attached to that difficulty. Compared to some of the later bosses, she was effectively a mob--since her entire fight, mechanically, would be packed into the single phases of some Guardians, but her myth persisted, mostly as it happened before true superstars could bloom and emerge due to the limitations of classes and items.

Many years hence, people would still recall her as one of the toughest fights, even if she actually wasn’t simply due to the timing of when they had to fight her. Nonetheless, her actual difficulty in the grand scheme of things notwithstanding, she was an important rite of passage specifically because of that. It spoke volumes that a group that steamrolled ten floors in a few years got so hard-blocked they can barely even touch the edge of the complete fight without outright dying. While additional gear, especially items with special effects, will make certain aspects of the fight easier, the fight itself won’t become any less hectic until everyone gets much, much better.

Cain suspected that even Senna and Jamal, who he long since realized were individually most ahead of others, weren’t actually yet good enough to last the entire fight.

“Right, yesterday,” Kramer said. “You were very shy with information of what happened to you. Care to divulge a thing or two?”

“Ah, it was just a standard affair; I arrived someplace, the world recognized my greatness, and now I’m back.”

“... you could just say no,” Kramer sighed.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Cain grinned. “She’s been stealthily staring at me,” he pointed out. “You didn’t badmouth me too much to the little angel, did you?”

“She just probably forgot who you are,” Delilah said. “The last time she saw you, you looked less like a shipwreck survivor who hadn’t shaved since the industrial revolution and more like a normal person.”

“Ouch,” Cain said, tapping out the beer. “That’s my cue to go get a shower and shave, then.”

“Oh, good. I thought I was too subtle.”

“Hold onto her, man,” Cain chuckled. “She’s spitfire.”

“You don’t need to tell me,” Kramer waved him off.

“What is it with us men and lovin’ the women whose tongues can produce hellfires capable of burnin’ away our armor, eh?” he commented.

“We like who we are beneath that armor more?”

“Perhaps. Anyway, see ya’ later,” Cain waved then off and went back into the mansion, climbing up to his room only to see that Emma had woken and was missing from the bed. The sound of the pelting shower led him to the bathroom where she was.

“Come to join me?” she asked from beyond the shower curtain.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Cain chuckled. “But I’m afraid my stink will make you run off.”

“Why? Did you swim in a barrel of whiskey?” she commented.

“Ah, yes, do awaken a painful memory I had deliberately buried deep down,” he said, sitting down onto the toilet. “I’m sorry for not being ‘ere Em’,” he added. “Must have been tough.”

“It’s fine,” she said as the water stopped and she stepped out of the shower, droplets of water glistening still against her skin. “You promised you’d come back. And you did,” she sat up onto the sink. “I tried not to think too much about it, to be honest. So, what happened?”

“... I sort of, kind of... became Divine.”

“...”

“...”

“Well, fuck you,” she groaned. “What do you mean you ‘sort of’ became Divine?!!”

“Well... no, wait, that’s what I mean,” he said. “Nothing more.”

“No, no, you can’t just drop a bomb like that on me and expect me to know it all!”

“Look, things happened, I ate some strange fruit and--”

“--you ate some strange fruit?! Where did you fuckin’ end up at?! Garden of Eden?”

“What? No--wait, actually... kind of? There was a garden, but instead of a snake, he was, he was like a gnome? And he tempted me--fuck, you’re making me connect the dots. Anyway, I didn’t wanna eat the fruit before coming here and talking with ya’, but then I got captured into this place with this thing that was like ‘if you don’t eat the fruit I’ll kill you’, so I ate the fruit, and it turned out the thing was just trying to teach me stuff and then proceeded to tell me a bunch of things such as ‘one day you’ll be in a cosmic war’ and all other manner of crazy stuff.”

“... Jesus, never a dull adventure with you,” Emma chuckled bitterly, shaking her head. “So, I guess, now I need to call you Your Grace or something, huh? Your Holiness?”

“I’m still a dumbass too in love to even comment on the fact that your legs look like overgrown plains.”

“Will there ever be a thing that will change you?” she grinned. “If becoming, what, a God? If that hasn’t changed you... what will?”

“I changed once,” he said, standing up and walking over, moving some of her wet hair behind her ear as she looked up and met his gaze smilingly. “When you weren’t there to ground me. I’ve lived that change and hated every moment of it.”

“...while I’m sure your words are lovely,” she said. “Your stench is literally frying my brain, and I heard nothing.”

“For a sexbomb that you’ve always been,” Cain laughed as he backed off. “You never got good at taking the comments in stride.”

“Ah, yes, me, a sexbomb,” she rolled her eyes as she hopped off the sink and grabbed a towel. “You have a very warped idea of me, C’. The only reason boys paid attention to me in high school was ‘cause my tits grew out earlier. After other girls filled up, the school forgot I existed. As did the world. And then I had a kid, which effectively neutered men’s desires when they saw me walking Lana outside.”

“...”

“It used to be jealousy that warped the view,” she said, wrapping the towel around her and walking up to him with a smile. “Where you thought every man was out to get me. Today, though, it seems you’ve become a hopeless romantic. And since I have date with my daughters, you’ll have to take care of that yourself,” she pointed downwards with a grin, walking toward the doors before stopping suddenly and turning around, unwrapping the towel for a moment. “To help you along,” with a wink and a laugh, she left. Cain laughed for a second before starting back up the shower, quite tired of the stench himself.