Chapter 104: An interesting offer (2)

Luke frowned when he heard that maybe some romance in his new life could improve things a little bit, but everything in excess was bound to cause trouble.

"You look troubled," Shalia said. "Offer your protection to some women in exchange for their love."

"I am not sure that kind of thing is so easily negotiable," Luke said.

"I think it is, but you humans complicated everything," Shalia said. "I am fairly certain the notion of mutual love and attraction is a pretty recent invention of yours. It shouldn't have been a long time since you people had arranged marriages."

Luke heard that a few centuries ago, the concept of love wasn't that easy to understand by the masses. Shakespeare was probably one of those who made the idea more common with Romeo and Juliet. Nevertheless, things were way too simple for Shalia. Besides, Luke wasn't so certain that he wanted a harem of people who were too fearful to fight… he would feel pretty bad about it, forcing them to sleep with him because they didn't have the courage to fight monsters. Maybe that was something normal, in other words, but the current Luke couldn't imagine himself doing that… on earth.

"You guys sure are carefree about that in your world…" Luke said. "How are things in yours, Rina?"

"We do believe in love, and while harems exist, they are far too few," Rina replied. "My people have more self-respect regarding that."

"Self-respect… being a moron sure is self-respectful," Shalia snorted.

Luke laughed a little. In the end, he could count on those two to relax a little. The family was another matter since they loved him unconditionally, but having good friends such as those was a first for Luke. He wasn't that sociable in his teenage years since he thought that being edgy was cool and because he was weird enough to ask a girl out that he had never talked to before…

When they returned to the airport, Luke looked a lot more relaxed than before, and while he was training Sonic Blade and waiting for the airplane to take flight again, Mark asked Billy everything regarding Luke's actions, but despite being his closest friend, Billy couldn't tell him that because of Frank, his son was almost killed by that pilot. There were several reasons for that; the first was that Frank never gave the order to specifically kill Luke and because those two would need to work together to recover the little of the country they still had left.

It was night when all the preparations had been done. The trip to Paris would take less than two hours, so they still would reach at night. While landing without being noticed by using parachutes would be easy, it would be hard to get a good grasp of the situation from above… since everything would be completely dark. Despite that, they received the order to proceed… time was of the essence because more crystals were starting to appear in American territory.

"There are many cities with more than one million habitants… so, it should be an amazing hunting place for those monsters," Mark said. "We really have to hurry up."

That was easier said than done. After all, some fools were worried about who was the strongest… Regardless, Luke decided to get some sleep since the night would be long once they jumped from the airplane, and after one hour, he woke up and began to prepare himself.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Mark asked. "Just because you can it doesn't mean that you should. You are pretty stressed after all."

"I didn't snap in a battle," Luke said. "Besides, I won't make the same mistake again."

By that, Luke meant expecting anything from Billy. Getting angry certainly wasn't a mistake, but maybe letting the anger control him was.

"The targets that need to be rescued this time are locked in the West Wing of the airport, so our job is relatively more simple this time," Billy explained. "However, aside from Zombies, we need to be wary of a weird species of a monster called Baku. They are weird spheres of fire that can use magic, and given the chance, they will explode when they are about to die. Thus, they need to be killed as fast as possible. If you have a weapon enchanted with the power of ice, you should use it."

That kind of enemy seemed really troublesome for someone like Luke, who liked to dash toward a large group of enemies to swing his sword around. However, his Sonic Blade should do the trick.

"Be careful, Luke," Julia said.

"I will," Luke said.

While Mark and Julia could help, all the parachutes were being used at the moment, so they had to stay behind. When the back of the airplane opened, they saw that Paris was strangely well illuminated. The monsters known as Baku could put everything on fire, and even from so high in the sky, the group could tell that their numbers were massive.

The mission was simple, but Billy didn't know that the crystal was only two kilometers away from the airport… Frank didn't inform him of that because the survivors also didn't know that. They had been locked inside the airport for several days, after all. They only discovered that while they were falling, so it was impossible to coordinate what they should do. Land on the airport and open a path from outside? That would take too much time. Land near the crystal and then force their way out after destroying it? That would be pretty risky. In the end, by following Billy's head, the group headed toward the airport. They didn't have a proper plan or the resources to take down thousands of monsters that could explode, at least not within. In the end, Billy cursed his actions for being unable to help Luke. If he had some grenades, they could destroy the crystal and escape at the same time…