Chapter 772: Warning ahead

∆So you’re really not going to talk to Hurricroak about her emotional event?∆

’Not until she’s ready, no.’

∆Fair enough.∆

’Also, did your voice change again? It sounds different.’

∆Pfft! Blame the platform programmers on that.∆

’Say what?’

=She meant to say that she screwed with her voice settings too much and now she can’t talk right for the foreseeable future.=

’Ah...wait...wait a fucking minute...’

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The Zhen Clan greatly enjoyed their second time in Pearl Tusk Harbor, much in the same manner they enjoyed the return trip from Roaring Tide on the S.S. Nimona.

There was just something incredibly relaxing about being able to finally enjoy a tourist destination for what it was, and not using it as a means of transportation to someplace that may or may not end in utter tragedy.

A few members of the Zhen Clan were a touch upset about not being able to enjoy more of Pearl Tusk Harbor while they had the chance, but even more of them were just ready to go back home.

That said, they were going to be in a for a bit of a shock in regards to the return trip home.

________________________________________

"Hey, we’re back from our day out. Any luck on finding a caravan back home?"

"Uhh...sorta..."

"Sorta?

"Well...the bad news is that there are no caravans connecting Pearl Tusk Harbor to Stone Claw City...anymore. So the direct route back home is off the table unless we go by ourselves. Which we won’t be doing because-"

"Wait, back up a bit. Anymore? What do you mean by anymore?"

"Yeah, the reason for that is that there is now a brand new, well-protected road connecting Stone Claw to Emerald Eye City, so a lot of people have just been caravanning to the latter before going to the former. Which is what we’re going to be doing instead of hoofing it in the wild."

"Oh...okay. That actually sounds kind of nice, means we can stop the Golden Clover Auction House and meet up with the Goldshires if they’re available. So...why the face?"

"Because, supposedly, our clan is the reason why this road was established in the first place..."

"...beg pardon?"

"And that this was approved by the patriarch, himself."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah...but that’s not the weird part..."

________________________________________

’Alright, Arachnidame. Lacerage. What the fuck did you two do while we were away on Roaring Tide?’

[You mean aside from our regular duties?]

’I am referring to the insanely new infrastructure that came in the form of a brand new road?’

[Ooooh. Yeah, that was us.]

’When, why and how?’

[Well...I guess we should preface this conversation with the fact that we did a bit more than just build a road connecting Emerald Eye to Stone Claw. Actually, those previous activities are the reason why we established the road in the first place.]

’Oh boy...’

What followed was a surprisingly detailed, but brief story about what Archanidame and Lacerage got up to exactly while they were left in charge of the Zhen Clan’s financial decisions and safety.

Needless to say, a surprising amount of activity happened that justified this sudden change in the local infrastructure...mostly.

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*Dink-Donk.*

Wait a minute... didn’t you already write an interlude/scene exactly like this? I swear you left a hanging conversation about this exact scenario in a previous chapter.

|Not exactly, the other scene you’re referring to was just a small snippet of Archanidame’s and Lacerage’s activities on a regular day-to-day basis. What’s being shown is part of the more...major events. You’ll see what I mean.|

Okay...wait a minute, isn’t there usually a bell that indicates we’re interrupting the story? What the fuck sound was that?

|The bell guy is on break because of food poisoning, so we’re using...I don’t know what this is, but it looks like a drum.

Ah...can I try?

|Sure.|

*Dink-Donk*

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"Alright, children. Today, we’re going to learn how to pick a lock using pieces of aether enhanced hair. Are you ready kids?"

"Yes, Miss Aranea!"

"Alright, guys and gals! We got six orders to finish before this week’s over and a whole pack of wolves to train. Y’all ready?"

"Yes, Miss Lucille!"

"Good!"

Following Zhen Liu’s orders, Archanidame and Lacerage have been making sure the Zhen Clan members back in Stone Claw City was well taken care of, while under the disguise of Miss Aranea and Miss Lucille, respectively.

For the most part, the arachnid and insectile kaijin duo have been doing a great job in making sure everything was business as usual, but there were a couple of things that happened that caused them to get a bit more...proactive.

"Miss Aranea! The Gold Quaking Armadillo is causing trouble again!"

"What is it this time?"

"He’s upset that we took his toy bear for cleaning and now he’s holding one of the stableboys as a hostage. Er...I guess it’d be more accurate to say he’s using one of the stableboys as a replacement."

"Again?!"

For example, there was the sudden appearance of yet another wandering ruin in the Zhen Clan’s territory, which came in the form of an impossibly large, fruit rich jungle temple filled with a huge variety of monkey and ape type aether beasts.

A sudden uptick in bandit activity, because the aforementioned wandering ruin attracted a lot of interested parties and a lot of the people that managed to exit out of those ruins while ladened with goods.

And last but not least, the invasion of a fifth tier aether beast armadillo of all things, that threatened to upend the local ecosystem...by literally flattening everything in its way.

Thankfully, they were taken care of by the Zhen Clan’s warriors, and the aforementioned kaijin duo, who managed to convince everyone that their weirdly monstrous forms were just very weird looking [Regalia].

To briefly sum up on how all of these situations ended: conquered(mostly), subjugated with prejudice and violence, captured and in the process of being tamed.

(Un)fortunately, all of these back-to-back events had lead to the Zhen Clan making a lot of material gains that needed to be processed by facilities that Stone Claw City wasn’t able to support or, at the very least, they weren’t able to support yet due to having only recently commission such facilities.

The only place that they could process such materials in a timely manner, or at least exchange for more monetarily useful currency, was Emerald Eye City.

Unfortunately, going to a known mercantile hub city with several wagons full of luxurious goods originating from a frontier city, was just asking to get robbed by people that weren’t just bandits.

It also didn’t help that at random points in the journey, the ground would go from hardened earth and clay to sand, which made it very difficult for heavy wagons to navigate.

As such, Aranea and Lucille decided that the best course of action was to finally build a road connecting Emerald Eye and Stone Claw City.

Which...turned out to be a lost easier than anticipated.

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[...so after we determined we needed to build a road, I used some of the proceeds we got from the bandit bounties to buy several tons of stone from the Diggers Union, had Lacerage slice them into hexagonal bricks because the route from here to Emerald Eye was incredibly curvy and in order to cut labor costs, as well as not risk stretching our human forces too thin, I made sure to make use of the zakos to lay the bricks. Some of those aforementioned zakos actually ended up evolving into variant zakos too, so I consider this whole affair to be one massive gain," Archanidame finished explaining.

’...’

It was a damn good thing Zhen Liu was in his hotel room when he decided to initiate this conversation, otherwise he wouldn’t be able tobhidebjis clearly shocked expression from the rest of his family.

It took a solid minute before Zhen Liu could finish mentally digesting everything he was just told. While a part of him did expect this to happen, given his past experience with the other kaijin, he still found it absurd that this all occurred over the course of several weeks.

That said...he had the distinct feeling that he wasn’t being told everything.

[Young Master? Are you okay?]

’Yeah...I’m fine just...is there anything else that occurred while we were away that I should be aware of? Call it instinct, but I swear there is something I’m forgetting to address in regards to all of these...shenanigans.’

[I don’t think-]

[Wait,] Lacerage interjected. [There are actually two things we forgot to bring up.]

[There are?]

’There is?’

[Well, in order to get the plans for that road to be made, we had to work with the Goldshire Family, so you owe Miss Alicia a favor or two.]

’Oh. Okay, that’s not a big deal...wait, I’m also bringing back a new...dammit...’

[And in order to help better train the disciples, we selectively introduced some zakos and that snowballed into a new weekly arena event that has become a new source of revenue for the Zhen Clan.]

’... I’m sorry, what the fuck?’