Yuriko gave Evan Andrews a flat look, then said, “What do you want?” 

The far edge of the boardwalk had a few stalls, but she had wandered over to a relatively empty garden that had some stone benches, decorative foliage, and small statues. There was a fountain with a statue of a naked woman holding a jar aloft, where the water should have poured out from, but the settings were off. 

As for Evan…Yuriko kept herself from frowning. The man she met a few weeks ago had been an attractive young man, not this worn-down mess in front of her. There was also a strange air around him, a little ominous if she thought about it, though the feeling was faint since he wasn’t all that threatening to her at her level of strength. 

“I want you back!” he hissed, eyes completely deranged, “You can’t leave me!”

Yuriko sniffed. “What makes you think that?” 

“You… I… you…” he sputtered incoherently. “I’ll ruin you if  you don’t!”

“Oh?”

He stepped closer to her. The fact that he was now shorter than her didn’t seem to occur to him. He subconsciously went up on his tiptoes if only to meet her eye to eye. He was rather uncomfortably close at the moment, but she refrained from striking. There was…a whiff of daemonfyre about him. The alcohol? He’d drunk the whiskey or had he encountered the daemons by himself.

“And how will you ruin me?” Yuriko continued. 

“You…” His expression turned into a vicious smirk. “You remember those pictures we took…?” 

Yuriko blinked, then sighed in annoyance. Of course, Lilibeth had been foolish enough to allow the man that had her bound to his little fingers to take photo and video evidence of their intimate affairs. A scene played in her head, though she elided through the sordid details. Hmmm, but the pictures of Lilibeth had little in common with how she looked now, so the threat wasn’t really all that effective. Still, it was an annoyance. 

Hmm, though it didn’t look like she’d have to deal with it much further. She’d mostly kept her perception aura close to her body but did sweep the surroundings every now and then. She caught two people who overheard Evan’s rather loud proclamation, and both were storming their way here. 

Evan, in his deranged state, didn’t stop his threats. “I will spread those in the Network if you don’t come back to me…” 

Yuriko barely avoided rolling her eyes. He might have gone through too much porn stories to think that blackmail of any sort would result in any lasting romantic or sexual relationship. But she was more concerned with the daemonfyre whiff around him. She examined the trace she caught, but other than from his breath, there was little else. Still, her instinct prodded her that there was more to this than what it seemed…ah, but he was out of time. 

A hand clamped down on Evan’s shoulder, while a smaller hand pulled Yuriko away.

“What are you saying you piece of dog turd!” Michael Stonereiz hissed. He kept his voice pitched low so that it wouldn’t carry beyond the immediate vicinity. “How dare you utter such words. You dare! You don’t just represent yourself! You’re one of the Battle Ball Varsity team. Your actions will have consequences not just for you, but for the rest of us! Your offence against Miss Lawson aside, you fool!” His hand on the other man’s shoulder tightened to the point that his knuckles turned pale and bloodless. Evan grimaced in pain, and he looked around in confusion. But his eyes retained the edge of madness within it. 

“This is none of your business, Stonereiz! Don’t act so innocent, you want the same thing, you wanker.” 

Michael seemed taken aback, but only for a moment. That was enough for Evan to wrench his shoulder away from his grasp. He cast a last baleful look at him, turned his gaze towards Yuriko, and huffed. But he didn’t say anything else and fled instead. 

Ironically, Yuriko felt the connecting thread between the two of them thicken to a great extent. She didn’t let it latch on to her actual dream body, however, but it now stood out against the background. She could also see the shimmer of Quintessence just about ready to ooze out of the thread. 

She sighed to herself. She might have to do something to the besotted man, but she wavered in her conviction. The thread produced exactly what she needed, and his threats were negligible. It left a bad taste though, but she decided not to do anything more than keep away from him. If his obsession led to something more, then other solutions would be found. But it did answer a few more questions. The greater the emotional stake, the greater the gains. 

“Are you alright?” Scarlett whispered to Yuriko, her voice tinged with concern. 

“Fine,” she answered after a moment. “He just surprised me.” 

“I’m sorry about this,” Michael said, even as he glared at Evan’s retreating form. “I will let the head coach hear of this. He is a disgrace,” he spat out. 

“Hmmm,” Yuriko shook her head. “I don’t really care about him. I’d rather not deal with him if at all possible.”

“I…I understand,” Michael said. “What he said could not be ignored, though.”

“Do what you will,” Yuriko said, then added, “but thank you for your timely aid.” 

“At your service,” he said while his lips twitched. “I think the program’s about to start, but are you sure you want to stay? After something like that, it’s more than acceptable to retire for the evening.” 

Yuriko smiled. “Hmm, and will you offer to bring us to a place we can…retire?”

“I, uh, I would offer to bring you two to your home, you know, if you need it?” His face was slightly red. 

“I’m fine,” Yuriko said. “I will attend the presentation, though I suspect it won’t be as interesting as I first suspected.” 

“Oh, alright.”

Yuriko nodded to the young man, who was an admirer. She could feel the thread connecting them, though as usual, she didn’t let anything latch to her actual body. Although would threads originating from here actually be able to latch to her true body? Or was there even the concept of a true and incarnation dream body? If she meditated to reach the dreamscape in her incarnation body while her true body remained active, the dream only showed the usual. Only when both bodies went did a difference appear. 

So there was only one dreamscape self, and having both bodies meditate just added the small body that could actually reach the Quintessence. Or was the necessity because she kept other threads at bay? She couldn’t let the multitudes latch on to her anyway, as it would probably affect her mind in unintended and annoying ways. 

The three of them headed towards the presentation area, which was in one of the halls. There was supposed to be food served there, but the buffet line was closed until after the main presentation was done. Michael, being an upperclassman, excused himself and left Yuriko, Scarlett, and eventually, Nora and Jenna to find their seats. 

Idly contemplating the nature of Quintessence and the dreamscape, Yuriko barely paid attention to the presentation of the varied organizations within the university that were now available for sophomores to join. She and Jenna were part of the Occult Research Club but it wasn’t really a proper organisation, more like a niche hobby group than anything, which was why it allowed freshers to join. 

Proper orgs, involved themselves in social issues and joining one was required by the curriculum in order to graduate. Hmm, if Yuriko had to join one, which one would serve her the best? Her thoughts returned to the woman with the violin, Abigail King, and her sorority, Flowers of the Wild. She didn’t know what they meant by Feminine Arts, though she had some ideas. If she had to join on anyway, that seemed the best place. 

And their presentation was another recital, a quartet playing stringed instruments. It was a pleasant experience but nowhere near what Miss King could do. Perhaps Yuriko could learn an instrument, too. 

Scarlett and the other two separated from her to explore the other orgs while Yuriko made her way to that sorority. She took a pamphlet, made note of when applications began next school year, said goodbye to her friends and left for the night. 

In the Void Ocean, Yuriko and her companions rode on the Rascal while they continued on their way to Outpost Omega. A couple of days into the journey, Yuriko wandered over to the ship’s hold and looked at the varied cargoes that the privateers had liberated from their raids. Most of it was chunks of ore or refined metals, while some were the more delicate reagents that could be found in the Ocean’s few habitable biomes. But she thought she sniffed out something familiar, and she was right. 

She pried open the top of the crate and saw a small cache of daemonfyre whiskey bottles. The label on the side said: Inspected in Shanria Station, passed. 

She checked the logs and other data from the library and found out it was at the very centre of occupied space in the Void Ocean. It was at the opposite end of where they were headed, and probably around a Season’s travel from Outpost Omega. 

“Shanria? That’s where people go if they want to continue delving to the next floor,” Mazoga said roughly, “Bunch of greedy fools, they are.”

“And the daemonfyre whiskey?” 

“Goods travel from below,” She answered, “and goods come back. No need to actually go there, just trade in the reagents and whatever you pick from the list comes back.” 

“Huh. So you don’t know who actually makes the things?” 

“Nope. Daemons, maybe?” Mazoga answered. “I’ve never met one or know what they look like. The whiskey’s well traded. It’s relatively easy to get what they want to trade for it. Just a Jin of Astralium or a HiJin of Cold Iron.”

“What are those?” Yuriko asked, and Mazoga stared at her with a strange look in her eye.

“You don’t know? Those things are what can be mined from resource control points here.” 

Yuriko nodded and left it at that. She didn’t want the whiskey, or rather, it wasn’t her goal. It had the same signature as what Kato’s severed thread showed, so she needed to get to the source. So Shanria Station should be her next destination. That it would take her another Season to get there was a painful waste of time, but then…

“How does one get to the next floor?” Yuriko asked. 

“You want to delve further?” Mazoga grunted. “I’m not sure if master is a fool or brave. Ah, but you are powerful, so it is not the former. As for how, well, you must seize control of a territory and you must forge a token made out of the twelve reagents found in the Void Ocean. And unless you pay an exorbitant sum, that is a journey of decades and would require a force of thousands of ships. Probably.”

Yuriko suddenly wondered if just sailing back across the Chaos Sea would have been more straightforward after all. But then, she probably wouldn’t have found a clue to rescue her brother. 

Ten days passed by in a blur. 

Her incarnation body had participated in a couple of photoshoots, though like before, it was mostly with cold weather clothes than anything else. Mira-hi had her do some shoots too, though these ones involved her in bathing suits rather than the usual. Although the last one involved her wearing a sports uniform of some sort. There was also talk of her joining a television show, but details were a bit sparse. She also found a better apartment to live in, this one was about five times bigger than the one she woke up in, and cost about six thousand Torries a cycle. The extra space and privacy were better. 

At the end of the ten days, they arrived near Outpost Omega. However, it was no longer under Milstate’s control.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep