Chapter 173: Ren’s Secret (2)
The guy who carried Ren home put him to bed in his room. Ren’s place was a small room with just a bed, a closet, and some basic exercise gear. There wasn’t much else in there, but it was super neat and tidy. Everyone was really impressed by how organized Captain Sloan kept his space.
This time, Ren was really knocked out by the drinks. He was just lying there, not moving, his face all red.
"He drank so much; I bet Captain Sloan won’t wake up till tomorrow afternoon."
"Yeah, but after all he’s done, and with the bonus and promotion, I guess he just wanted to party hard."
"It’s all good. Even the Commander had too much, remember?"
The guys carefully closed the door and left, their footsteps getting softer and softer until they disappeared. But in the quiet room, Ren, who everyone thought was totally out of it, suddenly opened his eyes. They were super sharp, like ice-cold water from a mountain, showing he wasn’t drunk at all.
He sat up without making a sound and went to the balcony. He opened the door just a bit to see if anyone was around. The guys who brought him home were far away by now, their footsteps barely audible.
The streets outside were super quiet, everything was pitch-black.
Wearing all black, Ren put his hand on the balcony rail and quickly jumped, landing on the balcony of the room below his. The outside of this place looked the same as his room: kind of old and grey. But, it had some high-tech security stuff. The front door had double locks, and behind them was some kind of big security device. To get in, you’d have to do an eye scan.
Ren opened the door and went in.
Inside, the room looked a lot like his, but it was filled with cool weapons from the Polluted Zone. There were super rare and powerful weapons all over the walls: like gravity guns, white-fire bullets from the Erdtree, railguns, and lots of other things that go boom. There was also this cool black knife with an eye on the handle, which actually looked at Ren for a second before closing again.
This room was Ren’s secret stash of weapons, his personal collection from all the trips he made to the Polluted Zones.
He confidently sat down at a table and picked up a new opticomputer, turning on the virtual screen.
There was a message on the computer from someone named "Kindle." It was sent right when Brandon was called by the Queen.
When Brandon got the call-up, he quickly got everything in order and made sure to leave no clues behind. Then, he bravely headed towards the fancy palace at the highest point of the Tower, vanishing into its deep insides.
He had written an email before all this, spilling loads of secrets. It even talked about what Ren and Luther said to each other outside the bathroom.
Ren clicked on the email that had "Kindle" as the sender. He read it from top to bottom again. At the end of the email, there was a video where Brandon took off his glasses. He looked straight into the camera and said, "If someday I vanish into the Tower, I hope you guys will keep the Kindle flame burning."
The video stopped right there. Brandon’s face in the video was kind and his smile was really warm and honest. The dim light from the opticomputer screen lighted up Ren’s face in the dark room. He watched the video again, making sure to remember everything.
Suddenly, a message popped up on the screen. Ren opened it and a video chat window showed up. There were four or five people there, but Ren couldn’t see their faces clearly because they were hidden.
Everyone was just staring at Ren, not saying a word. The room felt really intense. Some of these people were really far away, like at the edge of their country, and some were close by in Imperial Nexus. Even though they were all far apart, they all felt sad and mad about what had happened to Brandon.
"We’ve got our map," Ren said coolly. "Time to get ready to save Kindle."
The group looked at each other, kind of worried. One of them, after thinking for a bit, said, "This might be too risky for you. What if something bad happens again..."
This guy went by the name "Spore", but that wasn’t his real name. He got it after a close call with a weird plant thing in the Erdtree’s Polluted Zone and almost got parasitized by the spores, which was why he came up with this name.
Before that, he had another name, Cockroach. In the Polluted Zone, he acted like he didn’t know Ren, even though he was buddies with Brandon.
Later on, Ren saved Cockroach from some dangers in the Polluted Zone. After that, Ren became part of their crew, and even though they were often far away from each other, they had the same goal in mind.
Ren quickly said, "If something happens to me, you’re in charge. Tell the others to stay safe and out of sight."
Spore looked like he wanted to argue, but he knew that Ren was the one who knew the most about the Tower and was their best bet.
Finally, Spore said seriously, "Just be super careful, okay? We’re on our way and we’ll have your back."
"Good luck out there, hero."
"You too, buddy."
The video chat ended, and the pictures of Ren’s friends disappeared. In the quiet room, Ren got up.
The knife hanging on his side suddenly spoke up, saying excitedly, "Oh man, are we getting ready for a big showdown?"
"This time, you’re staying behind." Ren carefully removed the pale dagger and set it on a shelf.
"What?! No way! Why? I live for the thrill and blood! Let me come, I want to be part of the action!" the dagger protested.
Ignoring the dagger’s complaints, Ren started picking out other weapons from the impressive collection displayed on the wall.
"You draw too much attention. You’ll give me away," Ren explained.
"I don’t care! You need me. I bet there’ll be lots of action, and I want in," the dagger whined even more.
"You always want the latest and greatest and forget who’s been there for you. I hope you regret this! That Kraken better turn on you... wail, wail, wail."
In the dim room, Ren quickly grabbed the hilt of the noisy dagger, silencing it.
