"This is beautiful." Kanaria muttered while looking at the scenery. Since the battleship wasn’t going at very high speed, they were permitted to actually come out to the ship’s deck.
While enjoying the breeze of the wind, Clovis also stepped to the edge and put his hand on the railing. "Indeed."
This was something they had never experienced before. Even if one flew in an airplane, they could only see the outside through a small window. Looking at it directly was not possible before.
There was a different feeling when looking from this battleship and the skyscraper.
"We’ll just have to continue taking one step at a time and keep upgrading our lives. This kind of thing might not be impossible to have in the future." Clovis smiled.
"Mhmm…" Kanaria nodded while smiling.
Jay didn’t have any interest in looking at the scenery. He was actually sitting on the lower deck while reviewing the information about the mission.
Because Melody wasn’t here, he thought he should do a bit more.
Expedition.
Target: All Tier 3 in Revolution Forest.
The details provided all the names and their pictures. There were a total of seven beasts they needed to kill.
While Clovis and he might be able to take them down together, seven was a bit too much. In addition, these beasts were much stronger as their location was far away from the subterranean world tunnel.
He could see that the Tier 2 explorers would definitely shine in this raid. If he were one or two years older, he might actually surpass them and reach Tier 3, considering most of the Tier 2 humans in this raid were at least 19 years old.
From what he could see, they were planning to let the beasts beat these people up so that they knew the true terror of the beasts. After that, their own team would come forth and show them their true strength.
Jay looked around the cabin. The cabin looked spacious and there were a lot of seats in it. In fact, this looked like a cafe instead of a battleship cabin.
Because they opened the deck, the majority of people headed there, leaving only less than ten people inside the cabin.
However, he noticed something about these people. They seemed to be whispering to each other while glancing at him as though they were talking about him.
Jay didn’t believe he had done something that would garner their attention. However, their group might have done that.
"Hmmm?" Jay’s expression turned serious. He didn’t say anything, but he seemed to be bothered. It didn’t really matter if they wanted to talk badly about him, but not his group. That was why he tried to listen to their conversation.
It was hard since he didn’t have an affinity for that, but he still managed to pick someone’s voice not far from his spot.
"Hey. You know… Libation Fiesta… 21st group."
He could only hear a few words, but Jay could understand what he was talking about.
They had been invited by Hana for this expedition. They had no reason to refuse her, especially now that they had decided to work as business partners.
However, for the people here, they had done their best to get a spot in this raid to show their strength and probably got picked by Hana to advance their career even further.
From that perspective, they were like a group that used the back door to enter this raid.
It was understandable but also annoying. They could say they were jealous, but he couldn’t confidently say that they would get this opportunity if Clovis didn’t come from the Hacfield family. The conversation only happened because of his identity.
Hence, Jay was actually looking around, not to stop them from talking about them but to find the culprit.
The group list shouldn’t have been published. So, there were only a few people who knew about it.
The moment he thought about it, he noticed a suspicious person. It was Elina. She was supposed to be with Ivan on the deck, but to his surprise, she was actually talking with other people in the cabin as if she were genuinely interested in them.
’It seems that the culprit is the Drake Group. They’re the ones instigating both the rumor and the explorer identification," Jay muttered inwardly. ’Should I interrupt her? But confronting her will indirectly confirm the rumor. It’s not like Clovis wants his information to be spread either. It seems that I should tell Clovis about it.’
After considering his options, Jay stood up and started heading to the upper deck.
Once he exited this cabin, he was alone in the hallway. There was no staff, guard, or even the raid team in this hallway.
When he walked for a bit, he abruptly halted his footsteps. All of a sudden, he swung his body to the right while using that momentum to hit whatever was in his right.
*Pak!*
The crisping sound of a clap echoed in his ears. Realizing that his elbow had been caught, Jay tried to jump away.
However, the other person actually tightened his grip, causing Jay to be unable to escape.
"My, my. Please calm down for a moment, Mr. Jay Haverson. Don’t you remember me?"
"!!!" Jay turned his head around and saw the butler, who always accompanied Hana. "You’re the butler… What are you planning to do to me?"
"I’m not planning to do anything. I am only here to pass the message of the young lady."
When the butler mentioned Hana, Jay suddenly stopped resisting, which resulted in the butler releasing him.
"Shouldn’t you pass that message to Clovis, not me?"
"That’s the original plan, but he is busy right now. So, I’d like you to pass that message along. From what I can see, you are smart enough to understand the situation. It seems that there are some pests trying to ruin my young lady’s reputation."
Jay paused for a moment and looked around as if wanting to confirm no one was here.
"Don’t worry. No one is here. I’ve asked everyone to vacate this hallway, but we don’t have a lot of time." The butler raised three fingers. "First, they might use this chance to actually isolate you from the rest of the group.
"Second, while we couldn’t care less about their opinions, it would be better not to crush their morale before the expedition. We’d destroy their pride in the raid itself.
"Third, please take this." The butler took out a small metal ball. "I’m not sure if you know about this, but it’s a jamming device."
"Do you want me to mess with their communication?"
"No. This is not a communication jamming device. Instead, it’s a device that can interfere with the radar signal, allowing you to hide yourself from the radar."
"!!!" Jay remembered that Melody had scanned the area after climbing the mountain. Yet she actually missed Hana, who seemed to have been waiting for them the whole time.
"It might become handy for your group. The miss wants to give this to your group."
"I will pass it to Clovis, but I can’t guarantee he’ll accept it."
"Of course." The butler smiled. "I’ve passed all the messages from the young lady. In that case, let me give you a little advice. Treat it as a payment for passing this message in my stead.
"Your current footwork emphasizes the surge of strength coming from the lower body. It gives you good explosive strength, but it takes too long to charge that energy. Instead of focusing on your legs to stomp the ground, why don’t you try moving your entire body down for one or two centimeters? You have an extremely sturdy lower body, so you should be able to do it."
After the explanation, the butler politely bowed his head and said, "I bid you a pleasant time," before disappearing into thin air.
"…" Jay raised his eyebrows because he couldn’t sense the butler anymore.
Still, his focus returned to the previous matter regarding the rumor. While walking, he was staring at the sphere and decided to put it in his pocket.
At the same time, he was curious about the advice from that butler. It was clear that the butler was extremely strong, so that advice might be based on his experience.
While walking, instead of stomping the ground, he actually shifted the center of his gravity down as though his upper body was following the momentum and applied pressure to the lower body.
In an instant, he felt a surge of strength moving toward his ankles before bouncing back to the upper body.
The process was actually at least five times shorter than his usual stomp even though the energy had to bounce.
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’This…’ Jay couldn’t believe what he had found. Clovis’s fighting style relied a lot on speed and dexterity, while his focused on overwhelming strength. But with this trick, he might be able to close the gap between his speed and Clovis’s.
’Still, to shift my center of gravity down, it will cause a problem for my martial arts. But if I can refine this method a bit further, I might be able to become stronger than Clovis.’
Jay clenched his hands into fists, feeling a bit fired up. He remembered that the Star Method for Muscle Affinity focused on the muscle’s utilization. However, he seemed to have misunderstood it. What Clovis’s father meant by muscle was actually every single muscle in their body, not just the ones in their arms and legs.
With a smile on his face, Jay rushed to the upper deck so that he could pass the message and try this new trick, only to be shocked by what he saw.
On the deck, everyone seemed to be looking at Clovis and Kanaria as if they were holding a grudge.