CHAPTER 146: WE ARE HERE

We are Here

"That is... a bit difficult. I’m not sure if that is something we can easily grant." The woman said with slight worry.

Osho just smiled.

"If you need to discuss it with your superiors again, then there’s no problem. We can wait." He said politely, and she let out a slightly relieved sigh and nodded.

"Alright. I will go and do just that." She said and quickly went back behind that corner she’d been before.

As for what the group had requested that made her hesitate like that?

Well, it was a clause that stated Osho would have complete privacy to carry out his Beast Evolution experiments. He would receive the resources he needed to do said experiments, but there would be no surveillance, and he wouldn’t need to share his findings or results with anyone, including Stellaris. Unless he wants to anyway.

Naturally, they didn’t exactly say that it was for Beast Evolution. Osho just said he needed a lab for personal experiments related to the Beast Engineering course he was signing up for.

At first glance, this may not seem like something all that controversial. However, as stated before, Legendary Rank Beast Tamers were subject to a lot of scrutiny, especially when they were still developing.

Osho deciding to choose Stellaris as his school was him indirectly tying himself to them, and that meant they could, to an extent, monitor his activities.

They acted as a shield towards external forces, after all, not themselves.

Hence, this request was essentially a ’blind spot’ in the way they could observe him, as they wouldn’t know what experiments he was carrying out, or if what he was doing was potentially dangerous to himself...

Or them.

So it was a bit of a gamble, but sort of necessary if Osho wanted to keep his ability under wraps for as long as possible. He knew it would come to light eventually, but he’d much rather be strong enough to handle whatever gets thrown at him.

There were a few flaws with that logic, but that’s what he wanted to do.

Having a shield is nice, but one can only rely on oneself when it truly comes down to it.

He was aware that this made it seem like he was hiding something (which he was). But he felt like it was better for people to know he was hiding something and be unable to figure out what that thing was, as opposed to suspecting he was hiding something, and digging into it would make them certain.

The group chatted for a while with Gale once more isolating sound around them. The topics were more or less just concerned with what they would do if they ended up entering the college and how soon they’d get going if their request was granted.

It wasn’t long before the woman appeared again, looking slightly confident, and Gale undid the barrier.

"Okay. I just finished speaking with my superiors, and they agreed to your request." She said with a smile, and the others reciprocated it.

"In that case, you have yourselves five new students." Ellie said, and the woman let out a relieved sigh.

"That’s great to hear. I will inform them right now." She said excitedly.

"Before that, do you know when we will leave?" Sam stopped her.

"Oh. Well, I can’t answer that right now. It depends on how soon they decide to send someone. If not, then you will leave with us by the end of the week when our time here is up." She said.

’That’s still an answer, though.’ Osho thought but decided not to point it out.

"Uh, please. There are seats if you want to rest for now." She gestured to some chairs. The group complied and sat, and the woman once more went behind.

Kurt took out a small pouch and removed to ear pieces and put them into his ear as he started listening to music, and as if on cue, Sam and Irene leaned on his shoulders.

Osho noticed but didn’t say anything as Ellie also leaned her head on his shoulder.

No one said anything as they all just enjoyed the silence, the need to converse unnecessary.

They were there for a bit under twenty minutes when the woman came back again, looking pleased.

"Great news." She said, and everyone perked up at her words.

"They said they will send someone to come and collect you all as soon as possible." She explained, and everyone looked curious.

"How soon?" Kurt asked as he removed his ear pieces.

As if on cue, space warped right next to the woman, and a silver-haired man appeared next to her wearing simple shorts and a shirt. His skin was a bit tanned, and he was slightly on the shorter side, with lean but well-built muscles, and a clean-shaven face that was appealing to the eye.

As soon as he did, the woman turned to him and gave a curt bow.

"Master Mateo." She greeted, and the man, Mateo just nodded.

He then looked towards the group and hummed slightly. "Are they the ones?" He asked.

"Yes, sir." The woman replied.

"Hm. Alright. Are you guys ready to go? Or is there anything you still need to do?" He paused. "If there is, then get it done before the end of today, since that’s how long I have to bring you lot back." When he finished, the group finally seemed to snap out of their stupor.

’Spatial magic.’ Osho thought with surprise and slight amazement.

Space was one of those affinities that could be found everywhere, but was still pretty difficult to use, and finding someone or a beast that could manipulate space effectively was difficult. Which is why high-ranking Beast tamers using space magic were both rare and highly respected, as they were the ones who made things like teleportation formations, spatial rings, and spatially expanded structures.

Fighting a space mage was also a pain in the ass.

"No sir, we have everything we need here, and we’ve already met with everyone we needed to meet with. Ellie said and gestured to the luggage they’d been carrying.

Except Osho. The only things he had were the clothes on his back and Gale.

"Great, that makes things easier. Come here." He gestured to them, and that’s sort of when it hit everyone that they were actually going to leave the Citadel.

And they didn’t mean just stepping out of it, but truly leaving the Citadel to go to another place entirely.

While being escorted by a Master Rank Beast Tamer at that.

They quickly reached his side,and he nodded slightly.

"Have any of you been teleported before?" He asked, and they all shook their heads.

"Huh. Well, buckle up. Most people don’t handle it well the first time." He said and snapped his fingers.

Before they could ask what he meant, space suddenly warped again.

Osho felt his vision do strange things as everything around him became... stretchy, sort of. Like reality itself was being pulled taut.

Before he could make sense of what he was seeing, the scene changed, and he found himself in a vast field.

As soon as this happened, a horrifying aura washed over him, but he couldn’t even comprehend what had happened before the scene changed again, and the next thing he knew, he was surrounded by dunes of sand. He briefly saw a massive form that was reminiscent of a sandworm breaching through the sand in the distance like a whale, and the scene changed again.

When he appeared again, he was weightless before he started falling, and he realized they were high in the sky with a vast body of water, and he briefly caught sight of massive shadows beneath the water, but the scene once more changed.

This continued for the next couple of minutes, with the scene constantly changing at a rapid pace, with Osho getting disoriented after the first few changes.

When it finally ended, Osho and the others just stood there, dazed, their brains having a hard time computing the large influx of information, so when they finally realized that the teleportation had stopped...

"Blegh!" Sam fell to her knees and retched while Irene and Kurt fell on their backs. Ellie sat down and immediately started humming, remembering Osho’s words about its correlation to puking, and Osho swayed, but managed to stay standing, but only barely.

"Huh, you guys didn’t pass out. Nice." Mateo remarked and scratched his neck, seeming entirely unbothered by the entire situation.

"Where... are we.. ?" Osho managed, and Mateo pointed forward.

In front of them, there was an utterly massive Chasm. The distance between where they were and the other side was easily over 50 miles, and below was a drop that no one could actually see the bottom of, as there was a dense mist about 500 meters down.

"Ugh... what is this place?" Osho asked as he slowly regained his bearing, circulating his Mana to quickly remove the sickness he felt.

Mateo just tuned to them and shrugged.

"The school is down there."