Chapter 308: Bonus Chapter

Thacher School, Ojai Valley, California.

This private boarding school nestled at the foot of the Ojai Valley mountains was one of America’s finest, known especially for its distinctive equestrian program. Every incoming student was assigned a horse to care for on campus; stalls to be cleaned each morning before class, feeding to be done personally each evening after.

Today the ninth-grade students were subdued. Their beloved riding instructor Katie had taken the week off after an accidental ankle sprain. A miserable turn of events all around.

While the students debated in small clusters whether to visit the poor instructor Katie and bring her something, their supposedly ankle-sprained instructor was, in fact, in a luxury apartment in Manhattan, New York.

That apartment was one of the real-world residences of the West District’s second Tour Team, Metaphysics.

“Those Butcher Alliance people have all lost their minds; oh my God, I can’t believe they would do something like this.”

The click of hooves on gleaming marble rang through the room as a woman with a striking figure paced back and forth with agitated energy. From the waist up she looked entirely like anyone else; auburn hair, eyes the vivid green of jade, a wreath of leaves and flowers in her hair, a white European-style gauze dress that made her look like a princess out of some elven realm.

The embroidered hem of the dress trailed down, hung with three small golden bells that chimed clearly with each movement of the powerful equine body below.

Because from the navel down, she was a snow-white mare. A gilded longbow rested across her back, and the bowstring shimmered like condensed starlight.

The holder of the orange title Sagittarius, Katie, ranked fifth among all West District Tourists. She had been injured a year ago; her mental state had been poor since, and she had spent the year essentially sitting out of journeys, “recuperating” at Thacher School. The anxiety of the moment had brought the horse half back out before she could stop it.

“Honestly, I don’t fancy their chances. Poisoning the Jia-2 before Zhang Xingcang’s resurrection might have been workable. But now? Tch. Best of luck to them, they’ll need it.”

A small-framed woman shrugged and scrolled through her phone.

“But this isn’t really our problem, is it? Separate from everything else, I’m actually curious; what’s really inside the Sahara?”

“Not our problem? No, this is absolutely our problem.”

A large man was sprawled on the sofa with easy authority, dressed in a flame-red sorcerer’s robe and wearing a wide-brimmed pointed hat.

“A Latitude 30 Degrees journey controlled by the East District is in trouble, and Return won’t stand by. An and Dreamchaser are close, he’ll step in. And on top of that, they’ve set up this idiotic livestream. Oh, that is genuinely stupid.”

The small flame creature perched on his shoulder, something like a miniature fire dragon, let out an agreeable little cry and puffed a small breath of fire. David, holder of the orange titles Grand Archmage, Master of Flames, and Dragon Knight, was the Vice-Captain of Metaphysics.

“I’m thinking of heading to the Sahara. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] An saved my life in the Sunken Atlantic. By the same token, Lily, you should come too, you were on that ship as well.”

“If Return is really planning to step in, we probably should go.”

Lily frowned.

“Though, didn’t Black Widow say that An was injured when he killed the Puppet Master? And that because of his little sweetheart, Bing-1 isn’t planning to undergo relief bonding with him again?”

“And you believe what Black Widow says.”

The man in the sorcerer’s robe scoffed.

“Those idiots in the Butcher Alliance believed it, and now they think that with An staying out of it there’s nothing to fear. Tch. The way I see it, broadcasting their location like that is nothing short of a death wish.”

“If you’d look at the Agency notification, you’d know their broadcast format is different.”

At that moment a cool male voice came from the staircase, and everyone in the room instinctively stood. A muscular, bear-like man with brown hair came down the stairs at a brisk pace, carrying a wheelchair. The man seated in it had black hair and blue eyes, cradling a crystal ball in his hands. He was somewhat lean, with a downturned mouth and slightly prominent cheekbones that gave him a sharp, unapproachable look.

This was the captain of Metaphysics, Stargazer.

In truth, the rumors said he had, in the process of taking on a fragment, excised all his pessimistic emotions and kept only the optimistic ones, yet looking at the man himself, optimism was the last word anyone would reach for. He was solemn as a school disciplinarian.

“Boss.”

“Boss!”

The others greeted him; Stargazer paid them no attention and continued directly.

“It’s an Agency livestream; an Agency-judged broadcast. Seven cameras randomly displaying what the Agency determines to be the most compelling, broadcast-worthy footage. I’d wager those cameras will follow Return the entire time. The powerful always draw the Agency’s attention.”

He pulled his mouth down slightly further as he said it, looking rather grim.

“And the Death Sahara is in such disorder right now that I suspect even people inside the desert will be able to watch the livestream on their phones.”

Dreamchaser’s luck could not have been worse in every possible respect. Neither fortune nor the Agency had taken his side this time. The grip that great Tour Guides and great Tourists had over Latitude 30 Degrees journeys far exceeded the Agency’s own, and if an opportunity arose to see inside one, the Principals who ran the Agency would not pass it up.

“Well, that’s absolute rubbish.”

The sorcerer complained.

“I was rather hoping they’d get lured into the depths of the Sahara and become fertilizer for the worm creatures.”

This broadcast format dramatically reduced the advantages available to Dreamchaser’s side. They had originally planned to use their familiarity with the Sahara to draw enemies into various death traps. But the moment Return’s group appeared, they would unquestionably be the footage the Agency deemed most worth showing.

In practical terms, every move the group made would be visible under the Agency’s broadcast, with no possibility of covert coordination. The Sahara’s particular environment also made every kind of interference tool completely inoperative.

“Boss, let’s go fight.”

The centaur Katie cut straight through all the complications.

“I’m not satisfied until I’ve killed at least three elite Butcher Tour Guides this time.”

Her unstable mental state had its origin in a West District Butcher Alliance ambush a year ago; an attack that had nearly killed her and that she had not stopped thinking about since.

“Obviously. Why else would I have called you all here?”

The man said impatiently.

“David, Katie, Lily; the three of you are coming with me.”

“Kevin isn’t going?”

David asked reflexively, then quickly added:

“Boss, shall I push your wheelchair?”

Kevin, the bear-like man who had been carrying Stargazer’s wheelchair, gave a simple, good-natured smile. Stargazer pulled his mouth further down and stood up from the chair.

“My legs work perfectly fine, why would I need you to push it?”

Sitting in the wheelchair he hadn’t looked particularly tall, but standing he unfolded like an arctic hare rising on its hind legs; two long legs carrying him to a full hundred and ninety centimeters.

David scratched his hair with an awkward grin. The centaur Katie, seeing this, couldn’t hold back a laugh.

“You’ve been in that wheelchair basically all year boss, you can’t blame people. The forum has everyone convinced you got cursed and actually lost the use of your legs.”

“The stars told me sitting in a wheelchair this year would bring good fortune. Did I not tell you all this? Or have I gone senile?”

Stargazer said acerbically.

“So, what are you still standing around for? Book. A charter. Flight. To the Sahara. Now.”

David made an expression exactly like a scolded cat and got on the phone to arrange the charter immediately. Everyone else began to gather their things. The centaur Katie was in a relatively good mood and remained curious.

“We’ll be fighting the Butcher Alliance people and the Blood Wolf lot, right? S-2 the Lizard Duke is probably going too. Boss, are you bringing the wheelchair? It won’t be easy going in a wheelchair.”

“I’ll have bad luck without the wheelchair.”

Stargazer said stubbornly, reaching out to contact An Xuefeng’s side while insisting firmly: “The wheelchair comes.”

******

“Stargazer and his people are coming to help.”

The Return group had made it out of the airport; Wang Pengpai’s “contacts from outside the danger zone” had a car waiting right at the door. Though Mauritania’s official language was Arabic, the large, face-wrapped man who greeted them spoke French. Wei Xun noticed that Agency people were actually easy to pick out; a cluster of people all standing over a hundred and eighty-five centimeters tall was a fairly reliable indicator.

“A lot of French speakers around, understandably; Mauritania spent a good while under the French,” said the man named Badou, bumping fists with Wang Pengpai.

“Good to see you, brother. Those Butcher people definitely didn’t expect you to show up.”

When he looked at An Xuefeng, his expression turned gleefully anticipatory and he let out an exaggerated wow.

“They’ve really miscalculated starting this livestream, I’m guessing the whole broadcast is going to be footage of you cutting down Tour Guides, am I right?”

The other contact looked at Wei Xun, clearly curious about the much-discussed new Return member. But with “An Xuefeng” standing right beside him, the man didn’t dare approach Wei Xun directly. He exchanged a few courteous words and then they were all in the cars and moving.

“An Xuefeng,” Wang Pengpai, Bai Xiaosheng, Yin-Yang Butterfly, and Zhang Xingcang rode in the first vehicle. Mao Xiao Le, “Wan Xiangchun,” Half-Life Daoist, and Wei Xun rode in the second.

It was almost eleven in the morning, yet the sky outside the windows had grown dimmer and darker, as though heralding an approaching sandstorm.

People on the streets wore head wraps and long robes, moving quickly. The wind howled like a furious creature; it threw grit and sand at the windows of the second-hand vehicle, which groaned under the assault.

“The livestream has started.”

An Xuefeng, in Wan Xiangchun’s face, sat beside Wei Xun and was scrolling through his phone. He pulled up the global broadcast interface.

“We can watch it too.”

Wei Xun opened his phone and entered the stream. The broadcast, titled “Death Sahara: Into the Unknown,” was listed under the global zone. It had barely been running for a minute, and there were already over a hundred thousand viewers in the stream.

Livestreaming a Latitude 30 Degrees journey was an enormous draw, especially one that belonged to someone. This was the East District’s Jia-2 Dreamchaser’s journey; broadcasting it was a direct provocation against the East District. The comment section had immediately become unreadable, East and West District viewers screaming at each other in a wall of noise.

And currently, all seven of the broadcast’s split-screen feeds were showing members of Return’s group.

“An Xuefeng,” “Wan Xiangchun,” Mao Xiao Le, Zhang Xingcang, Yin-Yang Butterfly, Wang Pengpai, Bai Xiaosheng; every single one of them was on camera. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] Everyone except Wei Xun.