Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 245: Final Preparations

“Exotische Genüsse” was one of Isaac’s favorite places to be, and not just for the food.

It was perhaps the one place on planet Earth where he didn’t have to suppress his sense of smell.

The team’s favorite restaurant was located right on campus with them, and the cook absolutely loved using the monster materials they brought her.

She was also an artist, who used her senses to their fullest potential to create the best dishes she possibly could. As such, she’d created a workspace that was completely clear of olfactory impairments, whether they came from outside or the trash. A place that was not only free of anything that could possibly be construed as “stink”, it was also filled with the smell of some of the world’s most delicious cooking.

“Oh, hey Isaac.” The cook herself greeted him as she came out of the kitchen “Don’t you usually send one of your assistants for food?”

“Eh, I had some time and you know I always enjoy visiting this place. It smells like the Schlaraffenland.” Isaac said, referring to a fairy tale land where everything was of food. It also held a fountain of youth, but the part of the story that had always amused him was the wall that surrounded the place. It was made of rice pudding and anyone who desired entry had to breach it by way of eating it.

“Oh really?” she asked “They have Hydra stew in the Schlaraffenland? Here I was thinking that serpents didn’t exist in there, silly me.”

“I don’t know, Caroline,” Isaac shrugged “But if that’s Hydra stew I’m smelling, I’d like two servings of that, as well as some bread, I also heard something about boar pie made from the Twrch Tryth, so I’d like a couple of those, and do you have any apple pies left?”

“I can definitely do that, but I’ve also got some lesser Kraken calamari rings if you want some, I’ll toss a couple in for you guys to try,” Caroline offered.

“Wait, how big are those rings?” Isaac frowned. If they were made from even a lesser Kraken, they had to be huge.

“And here I was hoping to shock you by dumping a calamari ring the size of a tractor tire on the table, guess I should have known better than to try that on you,” Caroline shrugged “Worth a try, I guess.”

“I’ll make sure to take a photo for you when I pull that trick on the others,” Isaac promised.

“So, how would you like to pay?” she asked.

“I know better than to come here without proper tribute,” Isaac told her with a wry grin as he pulled several large crates from his storage ring. The storage device was far less secure than the [System]-granted storage space which he could access by sacrificing a Lesser Space Elemental Core, but it was far cheaper and he wasn’t exactly going to be bothered by food being stolen. And while these ingredients were valuable, no one who stood any chance against him in combat would pick a fight over them.

“Oh, these are nice,” Caroline practically crooned over the bounty.

“Could I get my food first?” Isaac requested. He knew how world-class crafters were, and if he didn’t get his order now, he’d be stuck waiting for hours.

“Sure,” she said and retrieved the relevant food items from her spatial storage. She spent a lot of her time experimenting with new ingredients and dishes, and much of the rest for pre-making meals, then storing them in her time-locked [Vault of Delicacies] until someone showed up with the means to pay for the food.

Isaac pulled his new purchases into his now-empty storage ring, thanked Caroline, took one more deep breath of the cleanest air on planet Earth, reduced his sense of smell back down to a bare minimum, and left the restaurant.

He marched into the meeting room, began to pull platters and cutlery out of the cabinet, and plated up most of the food—all except for the gigantic calamari rings.

The others slowly trickled in as he worked and sat down in their chairs with drinks they’d retrieved from the fridge. Just as Amy took her first drink from her beer, Isaac withdrew the first calamari chunk from his storage ring, depositing it not directly on the massive metal platter but a few centimeters above it.

The food item slammed into the metal with a loud clatter, startling the others, including Amy.

Unexpectedly, she just flashed him a shit-eating grin and kept drinking.

Okay, normally she was very easy to startle or surprise into her drink going down the wrong pipe, but not now. Wh- … oh, water breathing spell, cast ahead of time.

“That trick’s a little played out, don’t you think?” Amy asked via a [Throw Voice] spell, still drinking her beer.

“I don’t put nearly as much planning into pranks as I do into saving the world,” Isaac responded, grumbling.

“And this huge thing is … what exactly?” Bailey asked.

“Kraken calamari,” Isaac told him.

“Jep, I am very glad I can’t get fat anymore,” Raul commented as he carved a keg-sized chunk out of the deep-fried kraken meat.

“So, did you guys hear about the time Isaac lost a fight to a cat while you were gone?” Amy said in a conversational tone as they ate.

“For the last time, I’m a scholar and a fighter, not a hostage negotiator or psychological warfare specialist,” Isaac sighed.

“Now I really want to hear that storage,” Karl said.

“Well, see, there was this cat that somehow got in. And when Isaac opened his office, it ran in. So he tried to get it out … and failed miserably. Then …” Amy regaled everyone with a grand tale about how the damn cat had played Isaac for a fool.

The real issue had been that he’d been incredibly limited in what he could do. He was so much more powerful than the irritating feline that turning it into a stain on the ground would barely have required any effort at all, but it was a cat, he didn’t want to hurt it.

And because it was so damn fragile compared to him, basically all his abilities were unusable.

Speed? Whiplash.

Teleportation? [Phantom Step] didn’t allow for passengers, and using [Continent Strider] just to get out of the building was one hell of a waste.

Phasing? Well, the cat couldn’t phase, could it?

Fire? … Obviously useless.

The cat hadn’t been anyone’s familiar, it hadn’t had any listening devices or bioweapons on

He’d grabbed the cat faster than it could blink, held it securely, and carried it out of his office, intending to deposit it outside the building.

Yet the moment he’d stepped into the corridor, the cat had begun to wail, howling so heart wrenchingly that, had Isaac not been looking at it, he’d have assumed someone was feeding the poor creature into a woodchipper, or doing something similarly horrible to it.

Immediately, people’s heads started popping out of their offices to glare at him or look piteously at the damnable feline in his arms. Psychological warfare at its finest.

He’d put down the cat right then and there, then rushed back into his office and locked the door before it could follow him inside.

That had worked … for all of five seconds. Then, the cat had resumed its wailing while scratching at the door like mad. He’d resolved to ignore the cat until it got bored and went away, but then someone knocked on the door and asked him to take care of “his cat”. When Isaac had opened the door, the cat had run right back inside.

The next time Isaac tried to grab it, resolving to take it out via [Continent Strider] despite the waste, but it had scratched him. Of course, the damn feline would have had better luck clawing its way into a bank vault than damaging him, but it still counted as initiating combat, and [Continent Strider] could only be used outside of combat.

In the end, he’d grabbed a cardboard box, stuffed the cat inside, cast his perception-blocking [Skill] on said box, and carried it outside while praying that the box would hold long enough for him to get outside. He managed it, and he’d won on paper, but after spending this much effort on dealing with a single, utterly mundane, Felix catus Domesticus, it didn’t feel like he’d come out ahead.

Once the laughter had died down and the food had been devoured, the real work began.

“So, as well know, our political overlords have, in their infinite wisdom, decided to host the first-ever gathering of the European Union’s S-Rankers. Last time we talked about this, Sun wasn’t coming, please tell me that hasn’t changed,” Isaac opened the conversation.

Thankfully, no one told him otherwise, which meant that at least the walking disaster zone that was the Monkey King wouldn’t be around … and then Bailey started to talk and Isaac just about had a heart attack.

“Actually, Iceland got a courtesy invite to the whole conference as a trade partner and since Fenrir is still technically a citizen, he’s coming.”

Isaac sighed audibly in relief. So no Monkey King, good. Fenrir was hardly a master negotiator, nor did he have any [Skills] for social situations, but he had a good head on his shoulders. It would be nice to have another friend around.

“So we’re back up to sixty-nine S-Rankers, the powder keg grows,” Patrick commented dryly.

“This is mostly a political conference, for the various regulatory bodies of the EU to see if they can work out how to deal with the [System] properly.”

“Because this time, they’ll manage in a week what they haven’t managed for the past three years,” Amy commented.

“At least putting all of us into the one place might lead to some more cooperation between S-Rankers,” Bailey pointed out, ever the optimist, “Patrick, Karl, you’ve put up all wards and reinforced the building, right?”

“Yep, the building’s superstructure is going to survive up against anyone that isn’t directly aimed at it for at least a few minutes, barring battlefield-sweeper attacks,” Karl reported.

“And any wide-scale attack will be restricted to the building itself, anyone outside will be safe for at least a bit if things go pear-shaped, and the staff inside is going to be kept to a bare minimum,” Patrick added.

“I don’t know if it’s a good or bad sign that they’re that prepared for failure,” Raul wondered, “Actually, I have something I need to tell you guys about. You know how there are several other conferences by industry leaders and lobbyists going to take place in and around Brussels during the anniversary? My father just told me that he’ll be attending several. He’s pretty composed usually, but when it comes to his kids … if he decides to talk your ear off, feel free to make up excuses to leave, he’ll understand.”

“Parents, eh?” Amy nudged him with her elbow.

“Parents,” Patrick gave a long-suffering sigh, turning to Bailey “If you ever run into my mother and she starts yelling at you about how you’re not treating me right, feel free to punch her.”

He sounded dead serious.

“Wait, why would she think that?” Bailey asked, sounding more puzzled than anything else.

“Because as far as she’s concerned, anything short of putting me in charge of the whole department within five minutes of me being hired is mistreatment,” Patrick explained, “Like I said, feel free to punch her because logic and reason won’t get you anywhere.”

“Duly noted,” Bailey nodded, “I’ll probably just walk away and leave it at that, though.”

“Anyway, where were we?” Isaac asked, “Right, building protections. We made sure there are no [Skills] in play that allow for intoxication, and as long as no one brings in any alchemical drugs, everyone should be sober.”

“We have people outside scanning for anything like that, so we’ll get an advanced warning and hopefully, we’ll be able to stop messes before things get out of hand,” Patrick added

They talked for a bit more, but most of this had been talked about before, and they were just repeating themselves. All the precautions that had to be taken had been, not just by them but by everyone else.

The members of Research Team Bailey were hardly the only S-Rankers who worked closely together with their government, and all of them had been doing their damnedest to make sure things went well.

And soon enough, the day of the event was here.