499 Enemies
Nord went silent, a deep frown on his face. Liam added nothing.
Rin was also quiet, but visibly annoyed. It was clear that she was frustrated over the loss. Worse, how Liam outlasted her.
Kamjin raised a brow at the viciousness of the insult, shaking his head a second later.
"Youngins, nowadays," Kamjin uttered. "Anyway. Kid, I wanted to ask, you don't happen to have something called Vicirum metal in your clan, do ya?"
Vicirum...
In fact, Liam did! The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøv€l-B1n.
It was an incredibly rare metal found in the midst of the original Temple of Shadow island. Unfortunately, Liam couldn't utilize it in the least. Even by magical-metal standards, it was incredibly robust, resilient and long-lasting. Aki specialized in working with it. "I do," Liam responded, and the old man beamed with joy. "Ya don't say?" Kamjin smiled with his signature missing teeth. "Well, you should've begun with that!"
"What?" Liam asked with a subtle frown. "You want to join?"
Kamjin nodded shamelessly like the gold-digger he was. "As long as you give me access to Vicirum, I'm down for anything, really."
Liam sighed. Having a person like Kamjin on his side wouldn't be bad... but the man was even more shameless than Liam.
Oh well. "Fine," Liam said, and the old man smiled uglily. "But the Vicirum supply doesn't belong to me. It belongs to someone else."
Well, that was a lie.
Obviously, everything the clan owned belonged to him. Plus, his commands were always listened to.
But Liam didn't want to deal with the hassle.
"Put in a good word for me?" Kamjin asked as nicely as he could. "Whatever," Liam responded. "You have your own ride, right?"
Kamjin nodded. "Yeah." Kamjin pointed towards a beast in the distance. A... rhino, of all things. It was magical, though. Bulky, with a vicious looking horn on the front of its face. It looked bigger than a tank, and was even heavier armored! It was a water and wind elemental, perhaps capable of treading upon water and soaring through air. Liam gave him the directions to the island, and the old man nodded.
A moment later, he jumped atop the rhino and flew away almost immediately.
It looked funny.
Liam made a beeline for his Quartz Dragon next, passing by Rin and Nord as they glared over at him.
Elder Jane looked at Liam with tears in her eyes. Liam furrowed his brows in confusion. They weren't tears of sadness.
They were of happiness.
The perfume! Did Liam finally make friends?
Jane pointed at Liam and looked at Jax. "I raised that man."
Liam sighed. "We have two new people joining us," Liam said casually. "That one there is a blacksmith."
He pointed towards Kamjin, who smiled with his missing teeth. "He snorts Vicirum, so hand it over to him in careful amounts." Then, with his thumb, Liam pointed backwards at Valerie. "That one there is a Formation master. Don't let her near any of my things, cause she's a creep." Valerie blushed.
Definitely a creep, the Elders agreed.
"But they are trustable," Liam added. "Get the torture sessions over with and they can start tomorrow."
Silence.
Torture?!
Kamjin and Valerie's eyes widened a little. "Alright," Liam said, nodding to himself as he made a beeline to his home. "I go into seclusion now."
Shocked silence.
Just like that?!
No stories?!
No gossip?!
No souvenirs?! No explanations?!
The Elders parted to make way for him, still a little incredulous. "Figure things out until then," Liam said over his shoulder. "And tighten up on the defenses. I might have made a few enemies with a couple powerhouses."
Silence again.
Deigning no explanation to the worried figureheads, Liam closed the door behind himself. priv