The Harvester

Chapter 410: Gathering

Rakna spent the following day planning for future equipment and skills he could make or improve on, as well as spending more time with everyone. In the afternoon, he went out to his Pavilion in order to meet Eva.

From the perspective of his companions, he only spoke to her for about ten minutes and then came back out with a thoughtful expression. The only thing he told them after coming out is that there wasn't a need for them to rush climbing the Plateaus to participate in the war against the Téra.

The rest of the day was spent much the same way as the morning, with Evelyn working together with him to create new products, which Kara was a witness to as the main lead of Harvest.

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When the next morning came, Rakna woke up in his bed and breathed in peacefully. Obviously, he also felt the warmth of Kaelith currently entangled to him, her tails refusing to let him go.

He sweatdropped. 'Yeah… this one, I can't escape.'

"Don't worry, I'm not going to hold you prisoner or anything," the vixen suddenly opened her eyes and smirked at him. "There's no need to yet."

"Yet, huh?"

"Mhm!" She nodded playfully and snuggled against him with a giggle. "Finally, I got to have a night alone. I was your first but Nyx was still there at the time. Now the balance has been fixed."

"I suppose so," he huffed in amusement.

"So, Throne of Glory is going to test you today?"

"Rather than test, a 'tryout' seems like a more fitting term," Rakna retorted as he sat up, free from the vixen's tails with some effort, to which she pouted. "There's no need to test me, per se. They all know what I'm capable of for the most part after the showcase. I suppose their aim is something other than my strength."

"Hm… makes sense," Kaelith rolled onto her back. "Credo always looked like the kind of old man to judge every aspect before acknowledging someone."

"You met him before?"

"Well, yeah. Once or twice, by proxy of my father," she reminisced. "And I'm warning you, wolfy, but that geezer is nothing short of a monster. He's one of the few truly hampered by the System. I heard once he almost corrupted the code of an entire Plateau because he tried to learn powers that the System couldn't handle."

'…no wonder Eva is scared of him,' Rakna thought to himself. "Frankly, all I see is that I have a very dependable Guild Leader," he shrugged.

"That for sure can't be denied," the vixen chuckled.

Ding!

Rakna raised an eyebrow as he heard a notification sound and looked at the window that popped up in his vision.

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<Gray Whisles><!-- --> Hey, kid, hope you're having a great morning with your harem and all. I was asked to send you the coordinates of the gathering point, so here it is. The leader wants you there in half an hour and don't worry… we weren't warned either.

<Gray Whisles><!-- --> I'm pretty sure Tai and Varq are still asleep… <Gray Whisles><!-- --> Sometimes, I wish the leader would just wait a bit before deciding something.

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The therian deadpanned at the clown's successive messages coming in. One thing could be said, it didn't seem like Ensis was the kind of person to care about availability. Patience wasn't something the old warrior seemed to even have in his vocabulary.

'He decides something and he does it, huh?' Rakna snorted internally. 'Can't say I hate that.'

"You got a message?" Kaelith inquired.

"Yeah… looks like Credo wants us to gather pretty early," the therian said and got off the bed before a mass of nanites abruptly covered his body. Allegro emerged as if from inside his body and formed his usual combat gear. He cracked his neck and Sonata flew to him from a nightstand.

"I see. Better you get going now then," the vixen nodded. "But, first, get your face here," she huffed and crawled to the edge of the bed before pulling him back to her level. She kissed him for a few seconds and let him go with a grin. "Go slay a dragon."

Rakna smiled back. "I'll be sure to do so," he said and opened the room's window, where he knew a certain little guy was. "Hey, Pronos… time for us to go."

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"Aah… six in the morning, I should've known," Lux grumbled as he stood on the surface of Atlantis' water as if it was solid ground. The fallen angel was surrounded by nine more of his guildmates as they gazed in the distance where a dragon slept underwater.

The ones present aside from Ensis were, aside from one, all members that Rakna had already met such as Gray, Lilia, Caer, Merlina, Tira, and the doctor who attended to him after his first use of the Titan skill, Vegas. Only one person was someone never seen by the therian before.

With the pseudonym of Void, his name was Geisman Vanderein. Someone visibly in his late years, with short groomed gray hair, a beard, and an old gaze full of wisdom. Despite that, his body alone was enough to give him a youthful aura due to its lean shape.

He wore a black and white outfit, sporting a trench coat adorned with various ruby-like stones. There was a large and cruel-looking axe attached to his back. It was serrated, heavy, and pliable.

"?irākkō," he spoke up. "What kind of breed is this one?"

"Hm, it's a hybrid," Tira answered as he observed the World Boss through the depths. As one of the highest draconic species himself, he could naturally perceive a lesser dragon. "A mix of a Wyrm and a Lóng, I believe," he added as the image of a long serpentine body with thick scales appeared in his eyes.

"It's a bit nasty, isn't it?" Gray said, his metallic face projecting a grin. "It's a World Boss, after all. It seems it also leveled up quite a bit since it was last discovered. Level 620, huh? That's a 100-level net increase. He was probably a newborn when it was discovered."

"Hm… nonetheless weaker than Rakna," Caer commented from beside his wife.

"Agreed," Lux yawned a bit. "The test doesn't change then."

As they chatted, Ensis stood in midair with his eyes closed, waiting. Not even the arrival of the last two members of the Guild made him react.

One of them was Tairen, the minotaur who had assisted to contain Rakna's first Full Moon, and the other was a handsome young man with spiky red hair, wearing clothes of equally vibrant colors. His eyes were black as coal in contrast with the rest and he sported silver earrings.

"Fuck, I almost didn't get the message," he said as soon as he arrived, wiping his sweat. With 'Blood' as his alias in the guild chat, his name was Varq; an orphan with no surname.

"Hahaha, me too!" Tai laughed boisterously. "It would have been a shame to miss the newbie's test after what I saw the other day. I want to fight him again! I think I can go at full power against him this time around."

"So, when's the guy supposed to come?" Varq asked with a scowl. "I swear to fucking god, if I could have slept more before getting here, I'll hate you all."

Gray chuckled. "He should be here soon. Unlike us, the boy actually has a successful and bountiful love life somehow," he said with an exaggerated sigh. "He must be busying himself taking care of it in the morning."

"…oi, was that an indirect jab at me?" The blood user's expression twitched. "You fucker, what are you saying about others, huh? You're a three-meter-tall robotic clown! What kind of woman would ever be attracted to you?!"

"I'll have you know I had plenty of lovers," Gray said and twirled his cane. "Sometimes, adventure is all the ladies ask. I make for quite a unique trip," he smirked.

"Ugh, damn clown…" Varq groaned.

"Speaking of the wolf," Geisman suddenly said and looked in a certain direction. Everyone followed his gaze and widened their eyes in surprise when they sensed a disturbance in space. This feeling was something even some of them couldn't create with speed alone.

It only took a few seconds and in the blink of an eye, Rakna appeared amidst them as if he had always been there, his two pairs of wings unfurled in their entirety. He greeted everyone with a nod, exchanging glances with Ensis and smiling faintly at Lilia who quietly waved at him.

"Good morning, I suppose," the therian eventually said after retracting his wings, welcoming the appraising gazes of everyone as they tried to gauge the full extent of his power. It was nothing too intrusive so he didn't mind.

"Hey," Varq was the first to respond, with a small but sincere wave of his hand. "I'm one of those you didn't meet, right? I'm Blood; name's Varq. People call me Crimson Scourge… if that title means shit to you."

Rakna smiled lightly. "Nice to meet you. I have to say, you look every bit the way you speak," he joked lightheartedly and the redhead snickered.

"Heh, that ain't the first time someone told me that," he replied with a shrug.

"A pleasure to meet you as well," Geisman greeted the therian with a hand on his chest. "I am Void, and my name is Geisman Vanderein," he smiled. "Some call me the Hunter of Denial."

"Well met, Geisman." The polite and calm demeanor was something Rakna immediately likened to the disarming words that Void usually sent. Though, he didn't exactly expect him to be that old.

"You should've met everyone by now, right?" Gray mused.

"Um, wasn't there supposed to be a twelfth member?" Rakna frowned and he noticed the way the cyborg blinked at my words before facepalming.

"Ah… right… damn, that girl, I hope she could learn how to control that damn thing."

"Yeah, even I keep forgetting," Varq grunted too, much to the therian's confusion.

Wordlessly, Merlina pointed to somewhere Rakna believed there was nobody. But when he turned to look at what she was pointing at, he instantly froze in shock. There stood a stunning woman with long and wavy hair that shone gold even in the diminished light of the morning dew.

Her eyes were as enchanting as they were daunting. Her irises were crimson, but her pupils white as marble, making them stick out more than anything else. Her outfit was nothing short of regal in its details. Gold, white, blue, and red; all these colors meshed together in a way that made her both look like a grand queen and a general leading charge into battle.

Rakna was not mesmerized by her, far from it. Truth be told, his emotions were closer to dread. In his mind, there was simply no way he could have missed her. Her appearance was radiant; the kind of person you would find in a crowd in a split second.

Yet, he didn't know she was there.

No, to be exact… he had unwittingly overlooked her existence.

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Haha. Me laugh in headache.

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Who cares. Anyway. For those who even remember me, I'm alive.

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Had a rough period. I can find the strength to write finally. I'll try to finish half a chapter a day now that I have time.

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