Masteria Online: Shattering the Dark God's Grand Scheme-Chapter 39 - Mimigagos

Of course, Lumi didn’t spare the Mi out of the goodness of his heart.

The monster was property of the Aria Knights, made to train against. He was neither in need of fighting such low level monsters, nor an Aria Knight.

He rushed past Trainee Grounds I and into Trainee Grounds II, the Mi’s almost entirely disappearing and replaced with something else.

[Mimi - Level 5]

It was similar to a Mi, still chicken-like, just bigger and tougher with a slightly darker cyan. The same story repeated itself when he got to Trainee Grounds III.

[Mimiga - Level 7]

These had exaggeratedly muscular legs, and a big puffed up chest. Its feathers were no longer cyan but blue, and were starting to take on a metallic sheen.

Finally, Trainee Ground IV.

"Mimigagos." The monsters croaked like a frog, hidden among the bushes, trees, and architecture. Only the biggest and strongest of them gathered in Trainee Grounds IV, endlessly waging this war against the "evil humanoids", unable to comprehend they were just tools for training.

Unlike the others, these had lived long enough to learn that provoking a human senselessly meant death. It was best to monitor, hide, and flee. It had great informational abilities.

[Mimigagos - Level 11]

Despite being at the Trainee Grounds, he didn’t see a hint of Lena. He could ask, but he knew a faster way to pinpoint her location.

"Light Shift!" Lumi disappeared from his location in a flash of light, appearing directly in front of a Mimigagos.

"Don’t move." Lumi sternly commanded.

"Mimigagos! Mimigagos!!!" The creature squealed out in panic, trying to rally its kind. But when it turned to look, he only saw the cold stares of his kin as they withdrew from the scene, leaving it for dead.

"Mimigagos...?" It squeaked out in shock seeing itself get instantly betrayed, then nervously turned to look at the human again.

Lumi didn’t waste time and raised a picture of Lena.

The Mimigagos took in the scenario with a wide expression. Staring up at Lumi, it considered... The monster wants me to lead it to... that other monster? Do they have conflict? I-

"Mimi!!!!!"Before it could think further, it was brought out of its stupor by a sudden piercing pain. "Mimigagos!" It gestured off to the side with its wing.

Lumi took a step back. "Lead."

Under Lumi’s stern gaze, the Mimigagos was forced to lead it to Lena.

It led him deeper into the forest, until Lumi finally caught sight of Lena’s blonde hair. Once he did so, he broke off from the Mimigagos, completely ignoring it as he teleported straight to Lena.

She spotted him and she bounded over, stopping just short of actually tackling him.

"Hi." she spoke. "Aww~ you came over so fast!" She gazed over at the rapidly retreating Mimigagos. "What’s with that?"

Lumi followed her gaze briefly, then looked back at her. "It volunteered."

"That thing was terrified," Lena said, impressed. "Can I do that? Sounds fun."

"As long as it’s just a monster." He looked her over more carefully now. "You said you got hit. Explain."

She waved a hand dismissively. "Later. Mostly my pride. Come on." She turned and jogged a few steps before stopping, clearly waiting for him to follow. "Treasure first."

He did.

Lena crouched near a broken pillar and brushed aside some azure bushes, revealing a patch of dirt she had been digging. There was a pile of items at the bottom.

"Say." She looked up at him and spoke. "Isn’t this like, technically the Knight’s property? They won’t get mad at us for stealing, will they?"

Lumi shook his head. "It’s technically not even theirs. Not that they even know it’s here."

"Oh." 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"Yeah."

Lena passed a shovel. "Let’s get the rest out."

Lumi nodded.

...

Herene was the floating island where the Empress lived. It was a meticulously crafted landscape. It wasn’t very big, so every inch served a purpose.

Naturally, buried treasure was not one of these purposes. There should be no buried treasure on Herene. After a few minutes, they had unearthed everything, earning a smile from Lumi as the darkened leather notes revealed itself.

"It’s really this..." Lumi couldn’t help but mutter to himself as he picked it up. It held no title, but as soon as he opened to the first page and read, it was obvious what it was.

It began. "Henchmen! Tonight you are under the command of the brilliant Afton S. Crow! Tonight your mission is..."

"Is he stupid?" Lena suddenly blurted out as she was reading over the message. "Why does he write like that in a serious message?"

Lumi smirked. "Remember what he was like?"

"Yeah." Lena giggled, then picked up the rest of the miscellaneous items, handing them to Lumi. "Here!"

[Teleportation Scroll - Destination: Unknown]

[Sacrificing Ring of Light Dispel]

[Scroll of Negate Holy]

[Disguising Powder]

"Hey wait a minute!" Lena exclaimed. "This isn’t treasure!"

"It absolutely is." Lumi replied calmly, flipping the leather notes closed and slipping them into his inventory. "Just not the kind that jingles."

Lena crossed her arms and pouted. "That’s such a Lumi answer. None of this is shiny. None of

this explodes. One of these is literally labeled Sacrificing Ring. That sounds like a scam item."

"One of Afton’s subordinates put this here," he said. "I think the Knights would be very interested in investigating the significance of this..."

"Oh!" Lena finally understood. "It’s treasure because we’ll get a reward for reporting it!"

"Something like that."

They began heading back. Since they had down time whilst travelling back to the populated area, Lumi once more insisted and asked. "The Aria Knights are all very respectable and honorable people. If one of them hit you, you CAN report it."

"Isn’t that stupid?" Lena tilted her head.

"Mn?" Lumi didn’t understand.

"You’re asking me to report an NPC for damaging my HP bar."

"Ah." Lumi thought it over. Yes, it would be hard to truly blame an NPC for something it’s programming decided to do. So he smoothed it over. "I just care about you."

"I know you do." Lena giggled. "I never said it was an NPC though."

"What?" Lumi almost tripped hearing that.

Lena gripped her hands into a fist. "So what happened, is mom asked me to bring in the garbage. Because we have these garbage bins, and we put them near the street so the truck collects the garbage inside, then we bring them back into the yard. Okay? Okay? Okay?"

"So I was going to go to do that! Like she asked! I was following orders! I was being good!" Lena continued, her voice raising a bit. "And then she started mocking me! Saying she wasn’t serious, and to use my head! It was already the evening, too dangerous for me to go outside! She was like, ’Why would you consider doing that, Lena!?’ And then she smacked me for it."

Lumi frowned, his brow creasing. "But... she told you to do it?"

"Exactly!" Lena threw her arms up in exasperation, nearly hitting him in the chin. "I followed instructions! Isn’t that what people want?! That’s what they say they want!"

"It’s like they do it on purpose," she mumbled. "Say one thing, mean another. And when I get confused, I’m the problem."

Lumi began to respond. "Sometimes-"

He was cut off. "Nom."

She lightly bit his shoulder. "Mnnfngnmmmmmnnnnnnn."

Lumi was startled. "Was that a- did you just bite me?"

Lena grinned. "I might have. It was deeply symbolic."

Is she... avoiding answering? Well, I suppose I won’t press her.

"Oh yeah?" Lumi raised an eyebrow. "Symbolic of what, exactly?"

"That I’m a predator now. A dangerous apex creature." She puffed out her chest proudly. "They call me the predator! Because I chase around- I should not finish that joke."

Lumi snorted. "No. No, you should definitely not finish that joke."

"Nuh uh!" Lena cut him off. "Look!" She pointed forward. They were entering the inhabited grounds of Herene once more. "Let’s not waste time. We’re meeting the Empress, right?"

"We are, but..." Lumi checked the time, openly presented on one of Herene’s high-rise buildings for all to see. "That’s at 18:00."

He fell into thought.

She could go get the passive.

That would be great, but there’s a few issues. Alice has quite the personality, and I’m not sure how Lena would take that. That’s if Alice agrees at all, I don’t know Alice’s schedule either.

The other problem is that Lena’s magic control will be completely new to her. She’d be trying to move mana from scratch against a system restricting her. The-

"LUMI!" Lena tugged at his hand. "Whatcha thinking of?"

...she can decide.

He replied completely honestly. "Remember the additional Core Skills that you can obtain? Well-"

"No I don’t remember that." Lena quickly stopped him.

"You." Lumi stopped himself, then asked. "Did you read what I sent you? The guide?"

"I read the instructions you left me. As for the guide, no lol, that’s like two hundred pages." Lena quickly shot out.

"Oh."

"Mhmm."

"Okay," Lumi began, explaining. "There’s some skills you can gain outside of your class that do not require skill points. These would be placed under your Core Skills if you do get them. One of them is Casting Control, which would allow you to manually direct the mana flow of your spells. Depending on your skill, this can make you cast faster."

"Woahhh." Lena’s eyes shined, "It’s like a real world! Actually directing the mana! And I’m guessing you are going to go get that?"

"I got it already." Lumi explained. "I did some training under Chief Knight Alice, she’s in charge of all the Fire Wizards for the Aria Knights. I was wondering if maybe you could get the same skill from her, but her personality can be quite harsh."

"Lumi." Lena put her arm on his hand. "Let me see her darling."

"Alright."

Before they could even begin to move, a series of posters lined on a wall caught her attention. She got near and read. "The Princess..." She looked up at Lumi confused. "There’s a Princess? If there’s a Princess, how is there no king? Did the king die?"