Chapter 1691 Interrupt from the Sidelines!

--- Kat ---

Kat continued to glare back at Meg. She simply didn’t have a good answer. There were no clean solutions as far as she could tell… but just deciding to force the issue. *Dammit. It was one thing when these guys were just bandits but things got really complicated once we got here.*

[They did… but we NEED that crystal.]

Do we though? We’ve managed to by over a millennia’s worth of time already. Surely someone else can deal with this last one over a longer period of time…

[But it’s our job NOW not anyone else’s.]

And… you’re ok with all this?

[I mean… not really I guess? But at the same time… yeah sort of?]

That was completely unhelpful.

[Look… we would make things harder, possibly a lot harder but we don’t know for sure what’s going to happen and honestly it’s all been a bit hush hush. I trust Pebbles and Creep to figure something out for everyone. It might not be ideal but I at least trust that they’ll make sure everyone survives. Besides…]

[At the end of the day, for the all the talk about how oppressive the mining companies are we really didn’t see much evidence of that. The town has that beautiful gem cave that never got mined out. The people who live there generally seem happy. It’s not a slum that you desperately want to leave. Perhaps it’s a touch authoritarian, and maybe the job prospectives aren’t as good as you might want… but it’s liveable certainly.]

I guess I understand. I just… maybe I just don’t want to feel like the bad guy. "I really wish there was a better way to do this," sighed Kat aloud for Meg to hear.

"Meh, I get that some demons really do care about this stuff Kat but I’m not one of them. Besides, why did you think that the tech uplift fines are basically just a slap on the wrist and a method to force someone to finish the job? For the people who REALLY want to do it? They don’t get stopped. They normally make more then they ever lose…

"But here’s the thing Kat. People like that? They go from one place to another constantly putting out fires. Never stopping because there’s always more problems. It’s no way to live. Even if I cared about people, fixing all of their problems is not going to help them long term." Explained Meg.

"Wait what do you mean by that?" asked Kat

"Well, the standard punishment for trying to uplift a culture… is to force you to stay on that world for a century or more depending on how ’severe’ the punishment is meant to be… but if you’re trying to help move a society up the tech ladder… well really it’s just an incentive to do it properly. The demons that can caught doing it more than once basically plan the whole operation out, then intentionally get caught… and once caught they’re sentenced to finish the thing,"

"Wait… why is that allowed?" asked Kat.

"Eh… it’s one of those political things. Lots of people think that shoving a culture into the future is wrong an immoral. Plus it can cause all sorts of social issues. It’s one of the reasons I never looked into something like this myself…"

Pebbles glanced at the table he’d built finding the craftsmanship… fascinating. Really. He totally wasn’t trying to stay out of this conversation that had quickly gotten away from him. Best just to let them go about it. Plus… this technically counted as stalling right? And he didn’t have to do any of the work nor risk being yelled at.

"… just that yeah, the people that do this keep doing it. It can cause issues, and as I said, it has to be punished because of the treaty with the angels… but it was like… ’unduly influencing a developing society’ or something like that. I was meant to prevent demon worshipping cults that infect themselves with demonic energy.

"The old guard used to use them as shock troopers against the angels. Cannon fodder really… and the angels wanted to stop it. Though with everything being ’more chill’ now and… maybe not good but at least happy… well the angels allow it so long as it’s just advancement and no major propaganda. Nothing untrue at least…

Kat found… that she really wasn’t sure how to take this. "So… wait a bunch of demons just constantly break the rules and get rewarded for it?"

"Kat… that’s how it is for basically every race all the time. Heck, in this very situation we see the same thing. The rules regarding what nobles can and can’t do to established guilds and towns are probably quite clear, and they are abusing loopholes in them to create major societal issues. We cannot punch the problem away Kat… though I guess you can try if you want.

Seeing that Kat wasn’t going to respond, Meg sighed and said"Look, we’ve gone on a tangent long enough. Hopefully you realise now that things can be complicated, and I have MY way of doing things. The how or the why isn’t relevant right now. So just… look, are you willing to support me on that or not?"

Kat glanced over at Meg. She was clearly done with talking, and the tangent… hadn’t been as interesting for her as it was for Kat. Or so it seemed anyway. It was clear just from looking at Meg that if it came down to it she would be willing to fight, physically, over this. If Kat was becoming a problem she’d be knocked out, or knocked away at the very least.

Kat wasn’t sure what to do… and soon that choice was taken away from her. A massive explosion rocked the area, with a heavy shockwave impacting the town, rattling the homes and cracking many foundations. Kat felt it smack her in the chest, her bones shaking alongside it and Lily felt her eardrums come right to the edge of exploding. Pebbles turned a glare on them, unsteady on his feet when just as suddenly…

Hunter appeared at the edge of the table with her hands up. "Whatever that was I had nothing to do with it!"

Pebbles’ head whipped around so fast Kat could actually hear the man’s neck crack. Once in place though he just stared at Hunter for a few seconds, clearly uncertain of what to do…

When a body appeared face down on the table, a rift in space dissipating above him just as quickly as it appeared. He was a mess of blood and dirt, with a large hole running through the centre of his chest. "Ronldo!" screamed Pebbles.

Ronldo, also known as Creep pulled himself up somewhat… or really he dragged himself over to the edge and let his feet hang off to give himself the illusion of standing. "Hey there old friend. Looks like I won’t be around too long. Shame we won’t get to see our dream complete… but I can give ya a bit of info first,"

His speech as interrupted be a wheezing cough that, as he did so, showed off the bottom of his lungs through the large hole in his chest. "WAIT!" yelled Kamiko. "I can heal him!"

"Please!" begged Pebbles, instantly dropping to his knees, smacking his head on the table in the process but he didn’t even attempt to get up. He simply remained nearly, and nearly impossible to see.

Kamiko leapt across the table towards Ronldo, pulling him up and onto it as she breathed out the largest bubble she’d managed so far and pushed it towards his chest. It just barely covered his wound, front to back and the moment it made impact Kamiko fell forward, exhausted and out of energy. She barely had enough mental bandwidth to send her bubble off to the side to make sure it didn’t hit anyone…

Kat barely noticed she was reacting but a moment later, when her brain caught up to her body, she’d replaced Kamiko where she’d been standing and had a knife sticking through her chest, roughly in the centre of her ribs… and right where Kamiko’s neck would’ve been.

Kat glared down at the man who just grinned a bloody smile. "Had to try didn’t I?"

Kat got ready to smack him when Pebbles shouted, "How could you! She just saved your life!"

"Hehehe, had to try and get the number advantage. She’s a demon so it’s not like she’d die… and I’m sure we can still have a civil conversation. After all… I’m the only one who knows what’s happening up there with the crystal,"

Kat glared, fire burning in her eyes not from the pain, but from the insinuation that stabbing Kamiko was a perfectly acceptable thing to do after she’d just healed him. The knife was still there dammit!

"So… do you want to hear what happened or not?" asked Ronldo.

Pebbles sighed and added, "You know Ronldo, it’s very hard to be your friend sometimes,"

Ronldo shrugged, "I am what I am… I’m sure that demon made of cloth over there understands the truth of things… so once again… do we have a deal? I’m even willing to hand it over for free since I just got healed! Aren’t I generous!"n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

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