Chapter 71: Were You Worried About Me
The first thing he changed was the story about how Meta died. Arit killed Meta, but Mark told Greg that Meta was already dead when he came here to see the Calamity Class. That way, Greg wouldn't have too many questions about how Meta died and Mark wouldn't have to tell too many lies.
When you lie too much, your stories start to make less sense.
Mark also kept Arit's involvement in his injuries out of the story, and he was able to formulate a good enough response to fool Greg into thinking that everything here was caused by only the Anima and Mark, without involving Arit at all!
Arit held onto Mark's arm tighter as she heard him lying about what she did, and she couldn't stop the feeling of guilt that filled her at that moment! Arit knows that she caused a lot of destruction and even killed someone, but Mark was not leaving her side, and he was even lying just to protect her.
Arit felt reassured that Mark really loved her, and she resolved herself to not let Mark's efforts be in vain!
'Kill him! He does not believe Mark's story! Kill him before he can expose Mark! Kill him for Mark!'
Arit tilted her head to one side as she heard a strange voice echoing inside her head. The voice sounded like a mixture of both her voice and the voice of the Anima QUEEN, and Arit had to struggle to make it stay silent! She could tell that she also agreed with what the voice was saying. There is a likelihood that Greg didn't believe Mark's story, but she didn't want to do anything violent to Greg!
She shook her head slowly, and after some time, the voice finally died down!
When Greg finally asked her a question, Arit was in the right state of mind to answer properly.
"And what about you? Are you okay? How did you manage to survive this long with all this anima around?"
"I don't know. I don't remember very much about what happened after I was taken. But I know they only took me to lure Mark here. I don't even know why they kept me alive. all I know is that, one moment I was being dragged across the sea, and then in the next moment, Mark was waking me up."
She lost her memories. This was the only thought that crossed Greg's mind at the moment and he couldn't think of any reason why Arit would lie about not remembering what happened here.
"Is that so? That's unfortunate. Maybe we should get you examined when we get back to the city to make sure there aren't any unknown damages to your system from being here too long."
'He suspects something! He wants to find out about us! Just kill him and get it over with! Mark will understand!'
Arit shook her head before she nodded kindly at Greg. She was getting worried about the voice that kept shouting at her from inside her own head, but she was not going to say anything about it until she and Mark were alone. She was sure that Mark would have a solution to it so she would just ignore it for now!
And since she didn't know what happened to her here, Arit would only get the examination if Mark tells her that it was okay. If not, she was not going anywhere near a doctor! If she goes to a doctor and they find out about QUEEN then all of Mark's effort would be in vain!
Greg sighed as he looked around at all the damage that had been done and he could only thank his patron god that he didn't come here with Mark. Greg had no delusions about his own strength and he knew that if he was involved in this battle in any capacity, then he would be a bloodstain on the wall. He wouldn't even be able to get two steps before someone accidentally kills him.
But Mark was able to handle all this while fighting against two opponents at the same time. Greg turned to look at Mark with new eyes as he tried to reassess just how strong this boy could be. Greg also watched what Mark did against the Calamity Class on the news and knew that Mark was GHOST, but this and that are two completely different things. Wasn't Mark growing too quickly?
It would be very beneficial to have someone like this in the NSA. Greg decided that he would talk to Salazar again to try and recruit Mark. If Mark goes to any guild, then that guild could automatically become the strongest in the world with how fast Mark is growing. They have to keep MArk in the NSA no matter what.
"We should get out of here and get back to the city. I don't know if the NSA helicopter is still on the island…"
Mark suddenly spoke up as he asked Greg a question and Greg snapped out of his musing as he turned to answer Mark that the helicopter was already gone, they left when the last battle began, and that is the reason why Greg was even still here. He wasn't able to get out of the tunnels quickly enough to meet up with them.
Mark nodded as he reached into his pocket and got his phone to make a call. Surprisingly, even after all that battle and carnage, Mark's phone still worked relatively fine. The only damage that his phone received was a cracked screen and some dented edges. Gorilla Glass for the win.
"Hey, Pat…"
[Sigh~! Oh, Jesus Christ, Mark. You're going to give me a heart attack one of these days. Do you know how much I've been calling you?]
For the first time in his life, Mark could hear some actual worry in Pat's voice as Pat sighed in relief over the phone. Mark brought his phone down and saw that Pat left more than fifty calls since Mark left the city. Mark's phone was on silent since he didn't want the noise to distract him during battle so he just didn't notice that Pat was calling. Was he really that worried?
[How are you holding up? Do you need a medic? And… what about Arit?]
"Hello, Patrick. Thank you for worrying about me, but I'm fine."
On the other side of the call, Pat felt his eye twitch as Arit suddenly spoke into the phone. He could hear a cheeky intonation in her voice and he knew that she was teasing him right now! He shouldn't have even asked about her in the first place!
A small smile appeared on his face for a moment before he ruthlessly killed it and frowned again when he realized what he was doing! What the hell was that!? He didn't care about her and she can jump into a volcano for all the fucks he gives!
If anyone ever asks Pat why he helped Mark to save Arit, he would always say that it was because Mark asked him to do it. Mark would always be Pat's best friend and if Mark wanted Pat's help to go to an Anima-infested island to try and save his girlfriend, then Pat would help him a hundred times out of a hundred!
Pat would never agree that a small part of him even remotely cares about Arit! As far as Pat was concerned, she was an eyesore that annoys him without even trying!