Chapter 553 Blowing Out Of Proportion
"Qiu Yue already shared some of it with me earlier, but let's share it with the rest of the group. Do we have an update on the Hamster Pr-"
"Oh, we have already captured a Salamander, it's in our possession already." Qiu Yue interrupted as she leaned over the table to take a piece of the Takoyaki as well. "The moment you left after instructing me, Hamatarou managed to apprehend one."
"…That's fast. What did you learn?" Jin asked as he sat back.
"Apparently, their new King had the precognition that massacring all the other villagers were the only way to survive. Edwardio, the Salamander Guard we captured told us that whatever their new King eats, he gains the power of that particular species as well as their knowledge. Not to mention, they also possess a Totem of Atem from robbing the frogs." Qiu Yue explained.
"Their new King can absorb powers? So which villages have they killed already?" Jin asked as the situation seemed more pressing than he had anticipated. If all the villages were destroyed, there was no saying if he had powerful enough minions to assist as they had promised the Hamster Prince. Also, no help for him meant no new minions and of course no new manpower.
"At the moment, it's only the frogs. Oh, but we happened to rescue one frog survivor. Gaeru happened to have gone out on a hunt that particular day, so he was spared from the massacre. However, he did not seem to take things too lightly, so Hamatarou had to kidnap him when he tried to single handedly take revenge." Qiu Yue replied.
"Mhmm, Qiu and I decided to let out the Salamander Guard after roughing him up a bit and for him to open a secret passage for us. The System should already have the map of the castle in its database by now. All we need is a plan to gather all of them and annihilate them at once." Lynn discussed their plans out.
"Sounds like it will be a nice workout for me," Kraft commented which also made Peppers raise her hand.
"May I blow up the whole place? That should be able to kill the people in the castle all in one go. With Milk's Scan, I can do an area wide scan and annihilate the remnants as well as rescuing the other villages." Peppers asked, and Jin looked at her with a bit of a dilemma.
"…How about we rescue the villages first and bring them to our place before dealing with the rest of the castle?" Jin asked, and Peppers eyes shone like a diamond.
"Oooooh!!! The old Jin is back!! Exploding not just the castle but the entire city itself!! If that's the case, we can just skip right to that step and burn the entire city down. Save us the manpower to rescue them." Peppers suggested with glee (some people just want to see the world burn) and Lynn looked at Peppers with fascination at her proposal.
"They are like giants, you know. At least ten times taller than you. Their buildings are waaaaaaaaay bigger than you can imagine." Lynn told her as if her explosion was not meant to bring down a Titan's City.
"NO WAY!? A Titan's City?!!! Give me a second while I take a look!" Peppers said as she sucked her thumbs of all the food sauce and conjured a magic eye out before teleporting it into the Giant's world. Then, a projected screen appeared at the far side of the table, giving her a bird's eye view of the city. Everyone on the table was equally curious as they stood up and looked through the screen ike a window to that world.
"Estimated distance to cover the entire city, would approximately be the size of accumulative land size of Mexico." The System stated, and it made Peppers contemplate before she started to make some calculations on a conjured blackboard.
"…You kidding me, right? You want to tell me that you seriously have the power to blast an entire country out of the existence?" Jin queried, and Peppers who snapped out of her thoughts, turned and smiled at Jin.
"I can do that. I mean the System would have to remove the limiter of course, but ahhaha I'll probably be out of commission for at least a week… no scratch that. More like a month if I'm lucky even with constant treatment." Peppers answered as she returned to her blackboard. The System chimed in that they could alleviate her pain by placing her in a controlled coma.
However, to Peppers. It would be an achievement. A test of her skills to prove that she was capable of annihilating an entire country.
"Wwaait. You are seriously considering!" Jin halted Peppers way of thinking, but before he knew it, she disappeared.
"HAHAAHHA! Scare you for a second, right?!" Peppers appeared on the second floor as she laughed from above. After which, she skipped down the stairs and returned to her chair.
"Gosh, do not scare me like that." Jin let out a heavy sigh of relief and returned back to his seat only to notice that Qiu Yue had an earnest look on her face.
"Maybe, it's not the worst idea after all." Qiu Yue blurted out.
"What? Destroying the entire city and putting Peppers into a coma?" Jin questioned Qiu Yue's way of thinking. It was one thing to aid them with some of their minions, but another thing to become terrorist on a whole new level, and more importantly, he did not wish to burden Peppers that much for a favour.
"You see, currently we have Lost Tech and Steam Tech in our possession. We can ask Ayse and Weslie to come up with something that may be able to amplify Pepper's magical powers to a point where our little wizard does not end up killing herself." Qiu Yue voiced out her opinion.
"So now our solution is to destroy everything with a big blast?" Jin seemed not to be in favour of that plan.
"No, you don't get it? The threat is the Salamanders which are in that city. The people we wish to help are also in the city. Either way, we are going to get both of them. The explosion that Peppers performs also helps us collect tens or maybe hundreds worth of diverse species within that small region itself, enhancing our food repertoire by many folds."
"While I do not really agree with that method, but yes, with Peppers being the only one to kill them in one hit, we would be able to replicate the Giant Monsters and use them for breeding. If I kill it, it will only be a piece of meat." Lynn added on.
"But the meat you receive and clone will definitely be cheaper than the reproduction cost of those Giant Monsters." Jin countered yet Lynn shook her head. "Remember what Half Ghoul Lord Derek is experimenting on? If he has live subjects, he should be able to turn those Giant Monsters into a more viable food source. Dead bodies can't be of assistance of him."
"Haha, not to mention, you can rebuild that city from scratch. Who knows? Other Giant inhabitants might be able to live in there as well." Kraft said which gave Jin the chills.
"Why does it feel like you want the experience of little humans to be crushed by Giants." Jin accused the fox. He felt defeated that everyone seemed to be supporting that idea.
"I…shall ask that Hamster Prince for his opinion before I proceed. I do not want our actions to bite us in the ass like that mechanical brain titan." Jin sigh as he looked at the decisive faces at the table.
"System, please find out if there will be consequences to such actions. I don't want to be blacklisted from your market nor do I want to end up on a bounty list and be hunted down by some Protectors of the Universe."
"User, please be reassured that such Protectors of the Universe are non existential. If there is, we are technically the pioneers."
"You mean the pioneers of bringing death and destruction?" Jin argued back.
"User protects them by putting them to the System's care." The System rebutted, and everyone laughed with a bitter smile on their face. Somehow they knew that the System was being sarcastic to a point where Jin could only proceed to the next topic.