Return of the Tower Conqueror

  Through the Desert

Riding the so-called 'Sandhounds' was rather uncomfortable, especially for the men of the group. The creature's back was rather rough and course, and it had a tendency to bobble up and down when going downhill which meant a lot of... traction, of sorts, in the nether area. As such, ever so often, in the midst of the vast desert's eternal silence, one could hear yelps followed by angry curses.

It wasn't as though Emma or Senna had it easy either, but at least it wasn't as bad; Cain had 'forgot' to mention that riding sandhounds was not... the greatest feeling in the world. However, when compared to walking through the same-looking scenery for hours on end, with the sole difference being the height of the dunes and depth of the dips, the speedy mounts were still a win -- the reason why, despite several angry looks aimed at him, nobody actually complained aloud.

Cain led them a bit further south, off the beaten path, where there was a 'world boss' of sorts, Elypso. He was an ante-Human, as far as Cain could recall, and built a fortress of sorts in a small oasis. The reason being that he had to flee the City as his endless string of crimes was close to being exposed.

As far as Cain recalled, there was a decent reward for either his capture or his head, at least compared to the difficulty of fighting him -- which was rather easy. At least, that's what the video Cain watched suggested since it Elypso would 'respawn' every other day after being killed. Though Cain never fought him personally, considering the skill levels of those on the video and Cain's party, it should be a relative breeze. The reason he was going after it was largely items -- everyone in the party needed to be capped out in best possible gear they could acquire at the moment; he even planned on going back to the City to pick up the weapons Taima crafted and to bring the two boys along as help. Furthermore, he also remembered that he'd left the researcher in the city after he went berserk, making him wonder whether the old man managed to situate himself and survive.

Even with the mounts, however, the desert was simply too big; days and nights interchanged quickly, and soon enough, a whole week had passed. The group was currently camping beneath the starlit sky, the campfire roaring, lighting up the night.

While others chattered among themselves, Cain was revising several dozen new Skills he had created -- swiftly cleaning it up down to merely eight. And then the process began again -- creating as many Skills as he could within a specific framework, and then deleting, augmenting, and polishing them down until there were only 2-3 left for that specific scenario.

For instance, Cain suspected that there would be a lot of fights involving dozens if not even hundreds of opponents due to the fact that they were essentially attempting a coup d'etat which, as on Earth so in the Tower, wasn't looked upon kindly.

As such, rather than creating wide-area Skills that would swallow his Mana completely, he settled to being a controller of the battle and decided it would be better to leave the damage dealing to others since they hardly lacked it. Most of the Skills he made in terms of area of effect virtually did no damage, if they did any at all, and were instead designed to control everything -- from terrain to enemies. Because of this, Mana costs were oddly reasonable, and he surmised that he could even maintain perpetual control if nothing went awry.

"Guys, guys, may I point out one thing that everyone looks like they've missed," Kramer suddenly spoke loudly, breaking the cliques and drawing attention to him. Smiling, he turned toward Cain and spoke. "Our grand leader, the one and only... has not smoked a single cig in a whole week, ever since we left that settlement."

"..."

"..."

"HOLY SHIT, YOU'RE RIGHT!" Cain cringed at the choral outburst, glancing at Kramer who saluted him.

"You... you quit?" Emma asked.

"... I'm trying." Cain replied begrudgingly.

"..." within the squealing silence, he noted the encouraging and even proud looks, causing him to sigh. "Keep it up, and I'll just start shooting heroin into my veins instead." he added.

"Oh, shush," Emma nudged him as she took out a bottle of whiskey from her inventory and poured everyone a glass; Cain was rather shocked. It wasn't as though Emma never drank, but she may as well have never drank. Even at their wedding, she only had a few gulps of champagne during the toasts. "I'm really proud of you."

"He's finally growing up," Senna added with a grin; though she tried to cheat her way into a glass of whiskey as well, the only thing she got was a gentle slap across the head and a bottle of water.

"I'd like to point out, though," Cain said. "That it wasn't the love of my life, my daughter, or a guy who knew me the longest, or the other guy who knows me long enough as well, that noticed it. It was a guy that barely knew me until a month ago."

"It was the easiest for him," Yuki broke the short-lived silence as he spoke out in a matter-of-fact tone. "They probably subconsciously just 'think' you are smoking even when you aren't. Kramer, Sigmund, and I didn't have that developed habit so it was easier for us to pick up on the fact that you weren't smoking anymore."

"... ah, great, just what the group was missing -- a fucking shrink." Cain groaned and gulped down the glass of whiskey.

"Did--did... did I say that out loud?" Yuki asked with a somewhat terrified expression plastered on his face.

"Ah, just ignore him," Emma comforted him with a gentle smile. "He's a cranky, old man. How much longer? Three weeks, right? And boom, our Cain turns thirty-three."

"Man, you are old," Senna said. "You're gonna be over twice my age. Sheesh."

"Ah, so you aren't coming to my birthday party," Cain said with a faint grin, startling the young girl. "Tsk, what a shame."

"Wait... she's your kid?" Yuki asked with a strange expression, looking at Emma and Cain. "Man, you musta had her young..." as Senna's cheeks flared red, Jamal coughed and swallowed a laugh while even Daniel looked to be cracking. "W-what? What did I say?"

"Nothing," Emma said, smiling still. "It's true. I kept telling Cain, 'man, we gotta start using protection; your pull-out game is garbage', but, eh, men and their pride, am I right? And boom, what do you know, the fucker knocks me up. I musta been, what? Twenty-two-three years old?"

"Wow--wait," Yuki realized something wasn't adding up. "I..."

"Man, you have no shame," Cain sighed. "Ignore her, Yuki. She was 'bout six years younger than that, true story."

Yuki frowned, and in a moment realized that he was being messed with -- Senna wasn't their actual kid. So far, Yuki suspected that they called her so just because she was young, yet figured she must be their actual kid since he'd heard her call Cain dad a few times, and him calling her a 'daughter' several times as well. Yet, looks like his first assumption was right.

"They adopted her," Kramer clarified with a chuckle. "Or something like that. To be honest, I've no fuckin' idea either. When with them, don't think too much. Or your brain will outright fry."

"Don't think too much -- that a motto to live by," Cain said.

"Well, you sure did for over thirty years," Emma said.

"Ouch. I did think from time to time. Remember our third anniversary? You let it slip you'd like to visit that stupid-ass mountain or whatever, so I sweat my ass off all summer long working to get enough money to take you? And, the whole trip, all you did was bitch and moan about your girlfriends or something. You didn't even thank me!"

"What? I thanked you!"

"Nope," Cain said. "However, you did say that the room was a bit cramped."

"..."

"It cost me 80$ a night."

"..."

"I was eighteen, Em'. 80$ is a fucking million for an eighteen-year-old."

"..."

"And we stayed a whole week."

"... oo, a twist on the relationship!" Jamal crackled. "All this time we thought only Cain ever failed, but ah, how the tables have turned."

"Okay--fine, I'll give it to you: You were thoughtful, once," Emma said, sighing. "Tell them, then, about our four-year-anniversary."

"You still didn't catch on why I took you to Wendy's and called it?"

".. oh."

"Admittedly, after that," Cain chuckled. "I did stop thinking... and trying. So, you weren't far off."

"How'd you guys end up together, anyway?" Daniel asked. "From the bits and pieces you share, it sounds literally like one of those shitty teen romance movies, where an average, kinda nerdy guy meets this absolute bombshell that, for some ungodly reason, ends up falling in love with him. But, that only ever happens in movies."

"Eh, it wasn't like that," Emma shrugged. "It's really hard to describe. You kinda had to know him back then. He... filled a hole."

"Eww..."

"Dude..."

"Wording..."

"Guys, guys, that was intentional," Cain said. "Can't you see she's barely holding her laughter?"

"Ah!" Jamal suddenly exclaimed. "It's 'cause you're both fucking jackasses that like making other people uncomfortable!"

"Eyy, would you look at that? It was an easy problem to solve! Anyway, let's catch some sleep," Cain said as the group laughed. "We'll depart early in the morning and should reach our destination sometime in the evening."

"Aye, good night."

"Nighty-night..."

"See ya' guys in the morning..." the goodbyes swelled as everyone drew up tents quickly and shuffled inside, leaving only Emma and Cain outside.

"... will you ever tell them the actual story?" Cain asked.

"Why?" Emma shrugged. "This way, it's more romantic."

"Our story is plenty romantic," Cain chuckled. "Just with the extra spice of fucked-up."

"Yeah, well, they don't need to know the fucked-up part of it," Emma said, standing up and yawning. "Call me selfish, but I don't want to share that part of you with anyone, C'. It's entirely mine, and I wanna keep it that way."

"Aww."

"Oh, bite me," she rolled her eyes and began walking over to the slightly larger tent where she camped with Senna. "Sleep well."

"You too."

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