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The Caretaker of Tenants From Another World - Chapter 121
🕑 Added 2022-08-09 23:17:43 +0000 UTCAlt link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KJ2AHkKDjJQ_G-ljoQ4TmIeyRWu395FJFqT7CxBoAso/edit?usp=sharing
Chapter 121
From the headquarters, our car sped down the road with Reggie at the wheel. Ten more vehicles and a squad of netherfolks were nipping at our ankles. However, before we got anywhere near the dormitory, a storm gathered overhead.
"That's not what the forecast told me," Reggie said, gazing up at the dark clouds forming unnaturally in the sky.
"Because it isn't— and eyes front!" Grace shouted.
An army of hulking golems moved to intercept us. They were made of elements like fire, water, and earth. One of them, a violent whirlpool like a localized squall, fired a jet of water at the car.
"How you guys like bumpy rides!" Reggie drove off the road and into the grassy knoll to avoid the blast, crashing through an old wooden fence.
Bumpy was an understatement.
I smashed into the window and was thrown around in the car even with the seatbelt on. Glancing behind, several operatives jumped from their vehicles to do battle with the elemental golems. They carved a path with magical gunfire and spells for others to pass through, but the constructs quickly reformed to block the rest.
Clarissa knew exactly what to do. I just hoped they were holding out at the dormitory.
As the roof of my home was closing in, a brief shimmer from Mercutia's barrier which enclosed the building eased some of my worries. However, that relief was dashed away as soon as we came close enough to see golems surrounding the dorm and climbing over the barrier.
If Mercutia's magic wavered, they would come crashing down into the dorm.
"Geez. One woman army much?" Reggie whistled sharply.
"Reggie, eyes on the damn road!" Grace warned him a second time.
A hard impact knocked everything sideways, sending us screeching across the asphalt. My head was pounding. When I opened my eyes, Reggie was shouting something I couldn't hear and extending a hand to me through the car door.
The moment I grabbed it, he pulled me right out. We both fell hard to the ground. The car wheel was still rotating, but it wasn't going anywhere on its side. Grace was next to me, rubbing the back of her head and cursing like a sailor.
"Put this on!" Reggie dropped what looked like ballistic body armor to my face. The threads had a distinctly otherworldly glow to it.
After slipping it on, I was surprised to find that it was incredibly light like wearing a t-shirt. My two handlers were wearing the same one. They drew a service pistol with a crystal embedded into where the magazine would be.
"What about my gun?" I asked.
"In California? Just chill and hang back. Let us get you there in one piece," Reggie said, then whispered something into his smartwatch.
Both Reggie and Grace marched forward to the dormitory undeterred, guns raised, firing into the approaching horde of golems. Their shots obliterated them and left nothing behind.
Fiery elementals lobbed balls of magma, but my escorts were quicker on the draw to shoot them down. The guns they had in particular, as I was just now realizing, weren't regular weapons. They appeared to be dispelling all things magicall. Each time they expended the crystal, it was ejected like a cartridge and replaced with another.
Another elemental, one made of water fired bolts that froze into icicles. I ducked to avoid them, but the two took the impacts head on. The body armors lit up intensely where it was hit, absorbing the spells which traveled through their arms and into the crystal of each gun to make it glow brighter.
Despite how well-trained they were, the army of elemental golems was keeping us away from the dormitory. We wouldn't be able to help my tenants at this rate.
"Any second now," Reggie mumbled at his watch.
"Any second what?" I searched them for answers.
"Put your hand up!" Grace ordered and did the same.
I did as told and a harpy swooped in to pick me up by the arm. Reggie and Grace were carried by a male dragonewt each. All three of us were lifted high into the sky soaring past the golems. The one holding me had bushy eyebrows that extended past her head like a great horned owl. She cocked her head down at me and grinned.
"Team Leviathan and Ford broke through. They should reach the dorm in ten minutes!" Reggie exclaimed.
"Soon as we land, we'll evacuate the youngest tenants first. Angeline Varcaz and Mercutia Retch will be the last to go," Grace relayed into her watch.
They brought us next to the dorm where my tenants stood on the other side of the barrier. Mercutia opened a hole for Cresta to unleash hell on the golems and create an opening, then closed it immediately the instant we got in.
"Akira!" Ange embraced me the second I entered, then slapped me hard across the cheek when we parted. "What are you doing here? You could have gotten yourself killed!"
"Love you, too." I sighed with relief.
"Is this who I think it is?" Mercutia pushed to the front of my tenants, seemingly well aware of the answer already.
"Akira, you're not authorized to release that information. We're here to ensure the safety of the dorm and subdue Clarissa Raynard. That's all," Grace reminded me harshly.
"What information?" the elven girl asked.
"Not authorized to release what? To keep a daughter in the dark that she still has a family?" I stared Grace down, who shot Reggie a look for back up.
Reggie, however, turned his back to us and lit a cigarette to smoke from.
"I knew bringing you was a mistake," Grace whispered. "What happens if you tell Mercutia, and she decides to side with her mother?"
"Then that's her choice. I'm willing to shoulder the responsibility and consequences of that. Don't you see? All of this was to give Mercutia a choice. Clarissa could have told her at any point, but she didn't. Because she wanted her daughter to make that decision without any ghosts over her head."
Exasperated by my defiance, Grace drew another sidearm. This one wasn't loaded with a crystal, but with physical ammunition. Cresta and Ange tensed up and thought to disarm her, but I waved them off.
"You're putting our lives on the line here!" Grace exclaimed.
"I know the job I signed up for," I said.
My handler couldn't pull the trigger. It was just for show anyway. Even Reggie, who was unconcerned, chuckled quietly and showed more concern for his tobacco.
I looked Mercutia in her sad eyes. It was the demeanor of someone who believed they lost everything. Of someone who came to someplace new in search of a fresh start, but remained haunted by a past now resurfaced with all the trauma once buried.
"Mercutia, I can only make guesses as to why, but Clarissa is your real mother."
"My… real mother?" Mercutia drew such a sharp breath that her voice cracked. "That's… That's not possible. I saw my parents die when the demons attacked my farm! I didn't even know Captain Clarissa until she invited me to join the Royal Black Guards!"
The barrier faltered along with her emotions. When the others noticed it shimmering in and out, the older tenants guarded the younger ones closely.
"When Clarissa had you, she was scared for your life because demons were desperate to go after her. She sent you away to be raised safely by another family. Clarissa has always loved you. So did the Royal Black Guards. They were probably created solely to protect you."
"Captain Clarissa did always treat me like a child… But why would she hide this from me?" Mercutia asked, her voice quivering.
By Ange and Tamara's postures, they wanted to comfort the poor girl. The two probably sympathized with her the most. When Ange tried to grab Mercutia's hand, a powerful explosion rocked the dormitory.
The barrier around us fell away. Several of the golems that had been climbing over it went into free fall. Reggie shot as many as he could until his crystal ran dry, and Grace wasn't able to land a hit.
Irapesha picked Cresta up onto her arm and launched the catsassin as high as she could, who demolished through the last stone golem into smaller rocks that clattered off the roof.
But that was the least of our worry. With the barrier down and Mercutia panicking too much to raise it back, the army of golems bore down on us— then they came to an abrupt stop.
"Hands off the girl, demon." Levitating over the statue army was Clarissa, whose hands and eyes glistened with magic.
Reggie finished replacing the crystal, so he and Grace unloaded a volley of anti-magic rounds at Clarissa. The leader of the Royal Black Guards, however, incanted bolts of snaking magic that knocked both of them off their feet and shattered the firearms. Cresta dove forth to do battle, but Irapesha grabbed the eager cat by the scruff of her neck.
"This isn't your fight," Irapesha said.
"Mercutia, what did they do to you?" Clarissa took a step forward but paused at the elven girl's glare. "They told you, I see."
"Please, tell me the truth… are you really my mom?" Mercutia asked.
Without the buns, I could see the similarities between them. Although Clarissa's hair was brown and Mercutia's was blonde, they shared the same curls and the latter had highlights of a darker shade. The sea blue eyes were the most striking.
"No, I'm not. Your parents are Helga and Elam. They perished during the war. But I am your mother in that I adopted you after their deaths," Clarissa said.
"The war is over," I shouted. "Your fight with the demons isn't real. You can tell Mercutia the truth. You can be a family again—"
"What do you know?!" she boomed, creating a shockwave that knocked us to the ground with a mere stomp.
The ones left standing were Irapesha and Mercutia, whose feet anchored firmly to the earth, and Ange who flew just above ground with Tamara in her arms.
Clarissa continued with rage in her voice. "There can never be peace as long as demons live! If we want to keep Earth from becoming another Weyera… keep families from being torn apart, then all demons must die!"
She brought both hands together to conjure a fireball so large that it would engulf us and the dormitory. But before it could be fired, a giant barrier enveloped the spell and shrunk until it was snuffed out completely.
"Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!" Mercutia threw a child-like tantrum. "The only one tearing families apart now is you! Jeriah, Thane, Saralash… They were living their best lives here until you ordered them to come here. And to do what? Hurt one demon? Well, this demon has been more caring to me than you ever had since I was born! I'm not going to let you lay a hand on any of them, mother!"
"So the succubus has you mind-controlled, too! Curse you, demon. Your people took away my children! You're not taking another away from me!" Clarissa screeched.
The revving engines of armored vehicles and tanks rolling down the road mowed down countless golems. Reinforcement arrived, and Clarissa was out of options. Infuriated, she launched spell after spell, only for Mercutia to protect everyone with her magical barriers.
But Mercutia could only hang on for so long. Her magic began to wane. The barriers she erected shimmered out of existence. A rogue blast of fire came roaring toward her—
Until Grace put herself between Mercutia and the spell.
The incredible blast sent Grace rolling across the parking lot, scorched and smoking like burning firewood.
"Grace!" Reggie cried, chasing after to help her.
While Irapesha and Cresta leapt in to face the army of golems, I raced over to Ivory with one of the broken guns.
"Can you transform into this? Like right now?" I asked in a hurry.
"If you're going to shoot that bitch for hurting Remmy? You're goddamn right I can!" Ivory molded themself into an exact copy of the pistol.
I picked up one of the crystalline magazines from the ground which had barely any glow left and jammed it into the slot. The gun vibrated to life, or maybe that was Ivory shuddering from having a crystal stuck into them.
It was my first time shooting a gun like this, and I needed to aim carefully. I pointed the barrel at Clarissa, who wildly threw spells all over the place, and pulled the trigger. The magical blast plunged into her, and all of the golems crumbled at once.
"A little warning next time?" Ivory returned to elven humanoid form, rubbing their tush.
"Mother!" Mercutia rushed over to Clarissa, who had collapsed to the ground.
Panic washed over me. It dawned on me that I didn't know what this gun was truly capable of. I thought it was similar to what the task force used against Saralash, but it didn't freeze anything. Now that I think about it, the blasts destroyed the golems and vanished spells like nothing.
I hurried to them. Fearful that my actions might have made an orphan out of Mercutia for a second time. Irapesha and Cresta were right there with them. Mercutia tearfully held the unmoving Clarissa to her arms.
Ange pushed through the group, took one look at Clarissa, and said, "Break the armlet. I can save her. Break my armlet and give me my magic back!"
"W-What?" Mercutia stammered. "Isn't this your last chance to stay on Earth? She tried to kill you… She—"
"She's your only mother," Ange reminded her, then faced me as if asking for permission.
"Cresta. It's what Ange wants to do," I said.
Cresta nodded and unsheathed an index claw to break the armlet off. Ange wasted no time, providing healing magic to Clarissa.
Everyone held their breaths.
Then a sharp intake of air brought everyone relief. Clarissa remained unconscious, but she was breathing again.
"Thank you…" Mercutia cried in gratitude. "Thank you so much…"
Tamara and Rakka comforted the elven girl by wrapping their arms around her.
"You can't do this!" Ines shouted, drawing our attention behind us.
A gravely injured Grace, propped up on Reggie's shoulders, held her sidearm with a finger on the trigger. The gun was clearly pointed at Ange, and they ignored Ines, who pleaded for them not to.
"You broke…the armlet…" Grace muttered with great effort.
I urged Ange to stay where she was and walked over to block the gun with my own head.
"You're not going to let us explain ourselves out of this, are you? Here I thought you had a change of heart after throwing yourself in to save Mercutia."
Grace squinted at me as though testing my resolve.
"Ah… fuck it…" She tossed the gun away. "The armlet broke… as a result of Clarissa's magic spells. Happy? Now give me one of those smokes, Reg."
