Chapter 456

Flying into Kuching was different than what he envisioned. For one thing, there were more flights going into the city, with a small but significant percentage of Climbers in the commercial plane. Then, of course, there were the businessmen, the few tourist and most of all, a not inconsiderable number of army personnel. 

"Miss, kenapa semua orang askar?" Arthur asked, gesturing up to the front of the plane.

"Deployment, lah." Clad in the Malaysian Airlines traditional stewardess uniform, a modified baju kuring that was tight in all the right places, she was quite the eyeful. Of course, she knew that too, so she barely blinked at being spoken to by Arthur, breezing past him once she clarified that he had no further questions.

It sort of amused him that even with his status as a Climber, his luck with women - never the best to begin with - had not significantly improved. Sure, he was well built and the Tower had helped to amplify what muscles he had already, such that he was both sleek and muscular. But so was a high percentage of the population. In fact, the old joke about Malaysian's being the most obese members of SEA - for good reason, did you see how many calories they consumed in their coconut milk curries? - had faded somewhat since the advent of the Towers.

Not that it was all gone - even with the younger population all working out more regularly, with a much clearer goal in mind beyond 'health' and 'fitness' and 'well-being', there were still those who had no interest in the Climber lifestyle. It also helped, that with little else to do, and with even electricity sometimes being too expensive to spend on; exercise had become the default activity - along with various creative pursuits.

Or, as Arthur had experienced, grifting and grinding for more resources.

"Eh, don't feel bad." Mel leaned over from his side, elbowing him in the side.

"Huh?"

"Don't feel bad. She's not interested in your kind."

"My kind?" Arthur frowned, looking down at himself. Since it was Mel, he discounted it being his race. While the stewardess was Malay - or potentially Dalut - she didn't seem the kind either. So... "Climber?"

"Men." 

"How...?" Arthur said, puzzled.

Mel smirked, chose not to elaborate further. After a moment, he chose to accept it. Better for his ego, even if there should have been no way for her to know either way. Instead, that momentary distraction over, he turned back to his ongoing worry.

"Are we ready? Should we have gone?" he muttered to Mel. She almost rolled her eyes, but managed to hold off on finishing the motion, though the way her shoulders rose told him how annoyed she must be by the question.

“Too late. We’re here, no?” Mel said. “Your Master and your Seniors have it in-hand. We’ve got more people coming out now, the newcomers will help too. We can’t wait any longer.”

“Maybe a week…” Which was about all the cores that they had left after selling their surplus off. Ten days was their total reserve for each of them, not including the reserve set-aside for the Clan that came out of the taxes and the funds that had arrived from the new Clan members that had popped out of the Tower in the preceding few weeks.

It was a good thing that they had graduated, even better that Casey – in her role as the Treasurer and Financial Chief of the Clan as designated by him – had a good idea of where the cores were. Or, in this case, had an idea of how many cores they had at each level.

With a flick of his mind, Arthur pulled up the information once again, watching as it flickered for a moment, near glitching before resolving before him.

 

Tower 2895 Beast Cores:

Floor 1: 2981 Floor 1 Cores

Floor 2: 198 Floor 1 Cores, 282 Floor 2 Cores

Floor 3: 318 Floor 1 Cores, 73 Floor 2 Cores, 101 Floor 3 Cores

…

 

The information that came along was all like that, with numbers jumping up or down suddenly as Climbers passed through floors. Sometimes, numbers would just disappear. Arthur disliked thinking about those instances, since he knew there were only two reasons for that and the better one was that someone got robbed.

The other reason for the sudden disappearance in numbers was rather more tragic.

Thankfully, Casey seemed entirely immune to the way – and reasoning – the numbers went up and down, such that she kept a daily count of it all. There was a spreadsheet out there with projections all built out, including the total value of the Clan – based off what the cores might be worth in the open market if they all managed to make their way here.

Of course, none that was exactly true; because getting the cores out of the Tower was always going to be the biggest problem. However, even by conservative valuations, the Clan was easily in the multi-million dollar valuation at the moment; a number that had staggered Arthur who – until he emerged from the Tower – had barely four digits to his checking account.

Not that the Clan was his only anymore, but still…

“Ngm tak!” Mel snapped. “You know we have to come. A few days won’t make that much of a difference. You just got to trust, lah. Delegate.”

“Yeah but…”

“Casey!” Getting up on her seat, pinned as she was in the window seat, she turned to the woman seated behind them. Surprisingly – to Arthur at least – Casey was not in business class – the plane not being big enough to have a first class – and had joined them in the back.

“Yes?”

“Arthur’s whining again. Switch with me.”

“Cannot.” She pointed to Lam who was seated in the aisle. “He won’t let me out.” As Lam opened his mouth to object, she elbowed him in the side. A motion that made the big man let out a little grunt of pain as a rather pointy elbow went into his side.

Arthur, having turned around enough to spot the exchange snorted.

“Fine, I get it. I just…” He pointed at Casey. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Let go?” He pointed at Rick who was lounging not far away, eye mask on, mouth open and sleeping without a care in the world. “He I get. Got too much money to care. But you…”

“What? I’m not as rich as him?” Casey bristled.

“Your family worked for it, lah. He’s just…” Arthur couldn’t figure out how to say it without being outright insulting. Westerners, even if Rick was half-Indian and half-White, were just; well… they were gweiloh. Not caring how their money was being spent or who was working for them, that was a given.

“Really.” Casey gave Arthur a look that made him shrink back a little and away from her in his seat, shifting away so that she couldn’t peer at him through the gap in seats. “He’s not that bad. But we learn to delegate because we have to. No one can control everything. And if you try, it fails.” She paused, considered and added. “It’s like running a fight with the team.”

“I have to trust everyone to handle their parts, but keep an eye on it all?” Arthur said, slowly.

“Just a light touch. You do your thing, everyone does their thing. When they fail, expect one of us to pick up; or ask one of us to help out. But you can’t do it all, because there’s too many threats.”

“Easier said…” Arthur never finished the thought, but he did turn around, trying to stop himself from worrying. They were right, no matter what, the sect would have to run itself. Hell, he managed to give up control of what was happening inside the Tower after all. Mostly because he had no choice, but it was the same thing.

Somehow, that did not make him feel better.

Why, exactly, had he signed up to be a Clan Leader?

Oh, right. He hadn’t – he’d been tricked.