Chapter 125: Team (3)

While Luke didn't mind answering that kind of question to people like Celia, he didn't want to say it when he was around strangers. He also wanted to warn her to keep that information hidden from others. Knowledge is power, after all. Besides, a mystery brings doubt, and doubt brings fear. He would use both to make people think twice before picking a fight with him, or at least get in their heads and make them hesitate when it starts…

"Okay… it is fun to ride on one of those?" Celia asked. What is the name, by the way?"

"Artiuno, and I guess it is," Luke said. "You just need to be wary of her cold body and the aura that she emits. You will get frostbites if you aren't wearing decent clothes and have Cold Resistance as well."

Celia blinked several times while imagining that it was a joke, but she soon realized that it wasn't. While the monster wasn't emitting such a cold aura, she felt like she was in a closed room with an AC on full power when she approached and was one meter away from it. When she got closer, she began to tremble.

"No wonder you changed your clothes again… I thought you were just trying to look," Celia said.

As expected, people really had a bad opinion of Luke, but he couldn't care less about it. In any case, he checked the levels of everyone around, and he confirmed that most of the soldiers only leveled up three or two times… which was a bit disappointing. If they didn't have help, leveling up to five times wasn't out of the question… As for Amanda and Celia, they had already reached level fifty.

"Come to think of it, that crossbow looks like a fairly powerful weapon… I think I saw something similar in the shop… an electric crossbow that fire bolts that paralyze the enemies while shocking them," Luke thought. "If I remember well, it was a tier eight weapon that cost sixty-four hundred gold coins… but the cost to fire the bolts was twenty… pretty high."

That was the cost of Spark Ball level three, and Spark Ball could paralyze some enemies around the target, so it was much better. Still, with a single bolt in the head… even if the enemy survives the bolt, the brain will be fried up.

Before the airplane could take off, Billy finally appeared with a box of grenades as promised. However, they weren't haphazardly put together. They were divided into sets of ten inside a box that looked like a suitcase. There are one hundred of those there… it seemed a small number, but Luke recalled that he didn't ask for a specific number.

"You can leave that one behind. I won't use it now," Luke said.

"You might need it," Billy said.

"It doesn't matter. I won't use it on this mission," Luke declared.

What would be the point of using those on the mission that would only help Frank? He probably agreed to give the grenades imagining that Luke would use them on that mission… he was dead wrong. In the end, Billy sighed and then shrugged. After twenty minutes, the group was flying toward South America.

The trip itself had been rather calm, but Luke noticed some weird weather conditions while they were flying Central America and the Amazon region… it was too hot… too damn hot. Luke was sweating bullets, and Artiuno looked like she was about to collapse. However, after a while, the temperature began to decrease at a fearsome rate until even the airplane's interior was cold enough to make everyone put on some extra layers of clothes.

"Considering that those people are enduring this weather in full blast, I can understand why they can't escape by themselves," Rina said. "Adding that to the fact that they are inside a monsters' territory… I am surprised that they are still alive, though."

"Why would monsters select such a place as their territory? There is no food in the mountains…" Luke said.

"Because it is easier to defend and hard to attack," Shalia said. "Besides, if they can fly, they can go look for food in the nearby cities."

Luke nodded… that was logical, and he didn't realize that because the other enemies always put their crystals near their sources of food. In any case, dealing with the monsters of an enemy that was that smart, Luke couldn't help but think that things would be a pain in the ass.

"The targets are inside a cave one hundred kilometers away from here. We have their exact location and have contact with them, so finding them won't be a problem," Billy said. "The real issue is how we will take them from the mountains while the enemies are targeting them. The nearest airport that we can use is three kilometers away. Because of those situations, the mission will be divided into two parts: first, Luke, Amanda, and Celia will fly in the area and get the attention of the monsters. While they work as diversion alongside the bird, half of us will use parachutes and recover the targets. The other half will stay in the airplane and clear the area around the nearest airport, and we will meet again there in three days."

Something felt off... that plan was a bit weird. It didn't seem like the other operation. Besides, why three days? They couldn't work as diversion for more than a few hours and the soldiers certainly wouldn't succeed with that small amount of time.

"Why can't I just pick them up with Artiuno?" Luke asked.

"The subjects are in a group of eleven. You can't carry all of them or even make your bird approach this airplane," Billy said. "The difference in speed is that big."

"Her name is Artiuno," Luke said.

"But it is a monster bird, right?" Billy asked.

"In that case, you can call me a moron, and I will call you a liar since we both are exactly that, right?" Luke asked.