The Tale of Mythia

Chapter 62: Cake

(Thursday, 2nd of Dream King Moon, 2021)
Jack opened his eyes to see that he was lying on a bed in the infirmary. He sat up and felt a twinge of pain in his stomach, and looking down, he saw that his entire torso was covered in bandages. It took Jack a moment to recall all that had happened, but then he remembered his fight against Hero. The last couple moments were hazy to Jack, so he looked around for someone who could explain what happened during those final moments in the fight. Jack saw various doctors treating his classmates who lost their respective fights. Jack noticed how Alice was sitting right beside him, cutting up an apple right beside him.

"Oh hey, you're awake, sup dumbass." Alice breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing her best friend awake. "I was afraid you were made an amnesiac again."

"Relax, I won't go down that easily." Jack reassured his best friend before moving onto the next cause for concern. "So, my match, did I win it?"

"No, it was a draw." Alice then noticed how her best friend looked down. "In a way, I guess it could be a win for you though."

"What do you mean?" Jack curiously watched as Alice cut the apple using a pocket knife.

"When you first fought against Hero, you didn't stand a chance, and barely left a single scratch on him, all of us could tell." Alice was still as blunt and honest as usual. "However, all of us were speechless when we saw you fight Hero this time. When you first fought him, you were basically a punching bag for Hero to use that he's the strongest out of all of us. But today, today you shocked everyone by actually standing a chance against him. You showed everyone how far just trying your best can do, and that's just the tightest shit I've ever seen."

"You had to ruin the moment by throwing in that last thing, did you?" Jack asked Alice, who giggled with a smile, and she handed him an apple slice. "Thank you."

"Just a heads up, from next week forward, it'll be back to missions." Alice informed Jack, and he figured that would be the case. "So you should probably rest while you can, because after you recover, it's back to before Tartarus."

"Well I hope that we get to go on missions together in the future." Jack hoped out loud, and noticed Simo walking towards him with Jojo on his shoulder, then Jack noticed a journal in his hands. "Hey Simo, what's going on?"

"Not a whole lot, but I did decide to read through that notebook your mom left behind, then I let Nikola get a good look at it." Simo answered while Jojo leapt off the sniper's shoulder and onto Jack's lap. "He found a list of places you ought to visit according to your mom, so we requested Herakles that we get missions in those areas."

"Thanks Simo, smart move allowing us to go on missions and learn the secrets my mother's journal holds." Jack thanked his sniper while stroking under his familiar's chin.

"Just one problem, all the missions there are S rank difficulty, so they're challenging as shit and require at least eight man squads to undertake." Simo informed Jack whilst handing him some files. "Good news though, by fighting Hero, you've proven that you're capable of taking them. Especially since Hero is fucking terrifying."

"Yeah he is, not sure how I fought him to be perfectly honest." Jack replied before Jojo suddenly jumped off her master and began to waddle towards the window. "There goes my badger, off to harass someone as usual."

"So back on the subject of these missions, what can we expect to find at these places?" Alice wondered out loud.

"Not sure, but there was text written on page 23 that makes me think that this stuff might be useful." Simo commented, and Jack opened the journal up to page 23. "It just says 'Grab the shit from these locations should Herakles fuck up horribly with the Despairs'."