Beast-Tamer: Limitless Evolution-Chapter 219: No More Playing Around
No More Playing Around
"How’d it go?"
"I’m alive, so that’s a plus in my book."
"... Unnecessarily morbid, but I’ll take that as a good sign." Ellie sighed and decided not to press Osho for any more answers. He told he it was related to the cult and the stars, but he intentionally didn’t give her any details, which she noted and respected.
That said...
"You look refreshed." She said with a raised brow, and Osho looked at her with surprise.
"What made you say that?" He asked, and she just shrugged.
"Call it instinct," Then she frowned. "You didn’t... sleep with anyone, did you?"
Osho: ( ￣-￣)?
"... What the fuck?" He just stared at her incredulously, and her face went bright red as she immediately averted her gaze.
"F-Forget I said anything." She practically squeaked, and Osho frowned.
"We are talking about this later." He said decisively, and Ellie grimaced at the thought, but she didn’t argue.
Soon enough, the two of them arrived in the same room where they had discussed the deep revelations and conspiracies running around.
The people there were the same, but they seemed to be in the middle of a heated discussion, and Osjo threw a glance at Ellie who just sighed.
Their entrance was noticed shortly after, though, and Mrs Jane was the first one to speak.
"Good, you’re finally here." She exhaled.
"... What’s happening?" Osho couldn’t help but frown at the tension in the air. Everything seemed... well, saying everything seemed calm before he stepped out would be a stretch, seeing as they were discussing how to deal with a potential terrorist attack made by people being manipulate by an existential threat, but things were definitely not as volatile, seeing as half the people in the room looked like they wanted to throw hands, and Fredrick sat in the corner with an infuriating Cheshire smile on his face.
This confused Osho a bit. Fredrick had already presented his idea on how to deal with the terrorists, and while it wasn’t exactly ingenious, it was still making use of the resources they had on hand.
Essentially, Fredrick wanted them to use the agents he’d curated from Osho’s desire for an information gathering organization.
Fredrick revealed that, other than simply acquiring information, each member was also quite the capable assassin, to the point that each of them could take out an individual a rank above them with some preparation.
Most of them were at the Adept Rank, so that meant they could eliminate twrgets at the Expert Rank, which was pretty impressive, especially since their potential targets capped at that level.
Before leaving, the group had essentially agreed that Gale would identify the remaining people who were in on it, and these people would move out silently. They didn’t think they could take out all of them, but they hoped to do enough damage to screw up whatever plans they had.
They had been in agreement, so what remained was discussing the details, which is why Osho was perplexed by the change.
"To answer your question," Timothy spoke slowly, sounding stressed. "William here is getting a bit ambitious and wants to try and go a step beyond simply handling whatever attack may be thrown our way." Hearing this, Osho’s frown deepened, and he looked towards the Citadel Lord who had an unreadable expression on his face.
"Meaning?" He said slowly.
"Meaning," Mrs Jane continued. "If we successfully deal with the attacks, William wants to see if the Citadels the diplomats came from are truly under the control of the Outerplanar, or those working for them." Osho nodded slowly. That didn’t sound particularly problematic. After all, if there were more Outerplanar entities within these Citadels, it would do them well to look into it and come up with adequate countermeasures.
"And," Fredrick continued, his smile growing. "If they are indeed under the control of the Outerplanar, he wants to use it as an excuse to conquer and assimilate these Citadels into ours." Now that, that gave Osho a pause.
"Yeah, it sounds insane." Sam huffed, not even seeming concerned by the fact she said that in front of William.
"Does it, though?" Simon piped up with folded arms.
"Of course it is! That’s just placing an even anger target on our back. Do you think the Outerplanar won’t already be on guard when they realize that their plan to quietly control this Citadel was foiled? If we go around conquering Citadels, that’s just gonna give them an excuse to throw even more extreme things at us!" Irene retorted.
"It’s better than simply lying around and waiting for them to increase the pressure. A preemptive strike will catch them off-guard. Moreover..." Osho stayed silent and listened to the argument.
From what he could tell, everyone in his group, Jane, and Timothy were against the idea. While Haggai, Simon, Thompson, Fredrick, Stephen, and William were the ones who wanted to push the idea forward.
While shocked, Osho caught himself and considered the idea for a few seconds. Jane saw this and said slowly.
"What are you thinking, Osho?" Hearing this, everyone turned to look at him. It was strange, but due to him being the impetus that caused so much change in their Citadel already, his opinions carried far more weight than before. As such, everyone waiting for him to speak was an example of this.
After a while, Osho opened his eyes and said calmly.
"I agree with the idea." The moment he said that, two different reactions erupted. Those who were for it showed varying degrees of satisfaction, with Frederick’s grin turning downright creepy.
"Hold on, Osho, are you listening to yourself?" Ellie raised her hands to try and talk some sense into him, but he held up a hand.
"It sounds absurd, but hear me out first." He took a breath.
"When I explained the full scope of everything related to the Outerplanar and how many of the forces out there dwarf the earth by magnitudes, how did that make you guys feel?" Hearing this, the room fell silent.
After a few seconds, Timothy said quietly.
"Small. I could say that the ’frog in a well’ analogy would apply to us quite well, given our situation." This got a few nods from those around the room, and Osho agreed.
"Indeed. Hearing that, it’s discouraging, to say the least," He sighed. "However, I’ve thought over, and I realized, why should we just leave it at that?" He looked at them seriously.
"We are going up against forces that are, quite frankly, beyond our imagination. We can’t afford to be passive anymore. Who knows if or when the ones protecting our planet will fail and we get invaded? Or, like Fredrick said, what if they decide to sell it off to save their own hides?" The question was met with silence, and Osho sighed before looking at his hands.
"I’ve realized that even I have become complacent. I thought that there was no rush. After all, I’m in a good position, I receive high-quality resources, and I’m valued greatly by one of the top factions on Azure Star. It seems like my future is set, but in fact, my future is as uncertain as the sand on the beach. The smallest thing can wash it away." He slowly clenched his fist.
"So, I’ve decided to stop playing around," He looked up. "I will use my ability to get as strong as possible, and by extension, strengthen those around me as much as possible." He looked around.
"Does attacking those Citadels under control of the Outerplanar sound outlandish? Maybe. But so does resisting extraterrestrial factions that have existed for who knows how long. If we can assimilate them, we can control their resources, as we can strengthen ourselves even further." He looked up.
"We may be ants, but that doesn’t mean we can’t stop improving. We will become bigger ants, and even bigger than that. In the beginning, those hostile forces out there may only see us as mere annoyances, but I want to grow beyond that. I want them to see us as a genuine threat to be taken seriously." He looked back at them.
"But for that to happen, we can’t keep sitting on our asses and hope that things will go our way. No, we need to be far, FAR more proactive. Not just defeating the ants to claim their territory. Not just taking control of other Citadels.
If it means going further and entering dangerous zones to acquire powerful items around the planet, so be it. If it means provoking a lot of people into the process, so be it." At that moment, Fredrick spoke.
Well, more like he laughed.
A burst of boisterous laughter erupted from his throat like he’d heard the funniest joke in the world, and everyone stared at him with varying degrees of annoyance, however, when he finished, he looked at Osho. His expression was still amused, but there was a different sort of sharpness there.
"Heh. Good, very good. I was waiting for that. You have no idea how annoying it is that someone has a world-changing ability like yours, and they decide to be so... slow with it." He smirked.
"I suppose you just needed a motivator to get you off your ass." Osho took a breath.
"... You’re right. And frankly, this took too Iong," He shook his head. "Not anymore." His face sharpened.
"I’m gonna make sure our rise is so meteoric and swift that they won’t even know what hit them.’
