Pallid Pages Part One: Spin the Roulette Wheel
Late March 2045, City-State Union of Caldina, Hermine the City of Gambling
It was late March, about a week after the incident in Gideon.
The location was Caldina, the country almost completely covered in desert and dry wasteland.
The dry areas of old had become deserts, while the dry areas that had become deserts just a few centuries ago were now wastelands.
The few areas that were neither were either oases or fertile lands surrounding the rivers flowing from the Harshwinter Mountains to the north, and most Caldinian cities were built around these.
Hermine the City of Gambling was one of them. It was built around an oasis. Like its title implied, it had an entire district focused on the gambling industry.
Masters often compared it to the likes of Las Vegas.
One notable thing about the casinos and other gambling houses here was that they all differed depending on which organization was funding them.
Caldina was a place where merchants and organizations from all the other countries gathered to do business, and the casinos funded by them often had an air similar to their homelands.
The more elegant-looking casinos were often funded by Altarian merchants, while the ones that had a heavy focus on entertainment value were built by Legendarian design.
Then you had the ones that those from Earth would call “Asian-looking.” The serpentine dragons on them clearly showed that they were built with Huang He in mind.
On one of them, there was a sign which translated to something along the lines of “Mirage.”
That was the name of an organization from Huang He, but they were by no means mere merchants — it was a Huang Hean mafia.
It had roots in the underside of the empire’s society and worked with an iron fist to incite people’s greed and gather money. One of its sub-groups ran a casino here in Caldina.
This wasn’t unique. There were also casinos funded by the likes of the Great Pirate Fleet of Granvaloa — the most infamous of the Four Great Fleets — as well as the vampire clans of Legendaria.
Hermine’s casinos weren’t even the only places that had monetary support from foreign underground societies.
In fact, the Caldinian authorities saw them as venerable guests and good sources of money.
As long as they could tax them, Caldina didn’t care who ran the establishments or what they did there — they even appreciated when other countries made certain businesses illegal, for it increased the number of shops moving here and, subsequently, their tax income.
Of course, there were those who refused to pay the taxes, but they were not an issue, since they would just die while wandering the deserts between the cities and perish before bringing their money back to their countries.
They would either die because they couldn’t get a guide, walk into monster habitats because they were given false maps, or simply get taken out by certain professionals.
There were some guides who claimed to be non-official and agreed to escort those who refused to pay their taxes through the desert, but they sometimes turned out to be Caldinian assassins who led them into Pure-Dragon worm lairs, or worse.
Regardless of how, the non-paying would regularly lose their lives and money, which would then be picked up by Caldina.
If you wanted to avoid such consequences, you had to abide by the rules, pay the taxes, and get the official guides.
That was the kind of country Caldina was — everything was allowed if you paid money, and everything was lost to you if you didn’t.
Back to the topic of Mirage’s casino...
The establishment had Huang He-like — or China-like, for those from Earth — decorations, both inside and out. Despite that, the gambling going on within the premises was more on the Western side. You had roulette, poker, baccarat... most of the games Masters knew well.
Servers clad in Huang Hean dresses that emphasized their legs, similar to qipaos from China, walked around the casino, plates in hand, and handed out alcoholic drinks to the gambling customers. Beauty must’ve been one of the job criteria, for they were all either beautiful girls or boys that looked the part.
Some of the customers were simply enjoying the sight of the servers at work. Many would gather here not to gamble, but to relax after a long day at work while having a meal and drink at the designated eating space. Watching the gamblers and the servers was a strange kind of spice to them.
Among those eating, there was an individual wearing strange clothes. That strangeness made him attract lots of attention. Perhaps his apparel wouldn’t appear strange in some places, but they certainly didn’t suit this casino. It looked like a mix of a military uniform and pilot suit, and neither Caldina nor Huang He had anything like it.
Another notable thing about him was his face. He was a handsome man, but for some reason, there was sadness in his expression. That well-defined face combined with grief made for a combo that moved the hearts of many women here, young and old. However, more perceptive folk would notice that his mannerisms were sometimes too feminine for a man.
The third notable thing about him was the snow-white girl at his side, who was silently eating almond jelly.
They were Hugo Lesseps and Cyco — ex-member of The Triangle of Wisdom and his Embryo, and together, they really stood out in this casino.
High Pilot, Hugo Lesseps
“Haaah...” I sighed, wondering how I’d ended up in a place like this.
I’d left Dryfe and headed out towards Tenchi, on the other side of the continent, in order to broaden my horizons, so it wasn’t strange for me to be here in Caldina, which was on the way there. But I didn’t know why I was in a casino, of all places.
Why was I being forced to wait here?
“I’m underage,” I muttered.
In reality, I was a girl who’d just turned fifteen, so this shady place was just a bit much for me.
I felt like I was about to cry.
Being here was actually harder on my mind than attacking the Gouz-Maise Gang’s hideout.
But “I”... which was to say, Hugo Lesseps... did my best to not cry, and just look sad instead. Crying in a place like this would just make me stand out more.
“You’re such a crybaby,” Cyco commented. “And FYI, you’re so handsome that even making a sad face makes you stand out.”
Shut up, Cyco. Just eat your almond jelly, I shot back.
“Okay, okay. Ah, also, if you don’t wanna stand out, why not just change your clothes?” Cyco asked as she pointed at my Triangle of Wisdom-made pilot suit.
You know I can’t, I responded silently. I don’t have any other clothes besides a few sets of these.
I’d only realized that after entering the desert, and I hadn’t had a chance to buy anything new since then.
I’d also spent most of my money on repairs, and ToW-quality parts that’d made it to Caldina were more expensive than I’d thought.
With the money I have left, I can’t get any pilot suits that don’t stand out and have good stats.
“You can just stop caring about stats,” said Cyco.
Shut up and just get more almond jelly.
“Who do you think I am? Nemesis?” she retorted. “One portion is enough for me.”
I said nothing in response. That name made me remember a familiar face — Ray.
We’d been enemies at our last meeting, but I still wondered how he was doing right now.
I’d cut off his right arm, and he’d lost his left against Francesca... Had he gotten them back yet?
I’d love to meet and talk to him again, I thought. Probably not to apologize, though.
“Oh yeah,” said Cyco. “When you’re down like this, you should act all smug, like you did when Ray was around.”
To be honest, keeping up that act has become really hard lately.
One of the reasons was probably the fact that I’d lost all reservations I’d had for Francesca, but anyway, the Hugo Lesseps character wasn’t as big of a part of me anymore.
If I remember correctly, even my thoughts were more “Hugo-like” before, I thought.
“Oh, I get it,” said Cyco. “You turned fifteen on the other side, so that cured your chuuni... your self-conscious fourteen year-old syndrome.”
“No. I am not in a phase,” I retorted.
“Ehh? You’re a handsome, pompous gentleman who likes saying hot one-liners.”
“No. Hugo Lesseps is not a product of adolescent self-consciousness.”
“‘Lady, we shall stop your tears. I promise that you will greet tomorrow’s morning with a smile on your face,’” Cyco quoted me.
“You even stopped speaking in monotone to say that! Can you not?!”
And that wasn’t a weird thing to say, right?! I know I’m the one who said it, but that’s a good line!
“Ugh... I didn’t expect the very basis of who I am to be put into question at this point,” I complained.
“Did that help?” Cyco asked with a smile.
“...Eh? Ah...” That made me realize that I was feeling a lot more comfortable than I had been a few minutes ago.
So my verbally abusive, monotone Embryo had said that to take my mind away from the pressure of being in a place like this.
“Thanks, Cyc—”
“Anyway, I’m gonna write a report about what’s not right about you and hand it over later.”
“You’ve ruined it in more ways than one,” I muttered.
Anyway, though she had hurt me a bit in the process, Cyco really was helping me deal with being in this place.
Feeling a bit better, I continued to wait for the person I was here with.
“What’s going on there, anyway?” I said as I looked into one part of the gambling area — the roulette space.
Just like in reality, the roulettes had all the numbers from 0 to 36, red or black colors on them, and green on 0. They were European-style roulettes.
Yes — they were almost no different from the ones in reality.
“That reminds me...” I murmured.
Francesca believed that the developers had made the tians accustomed to these games ahead of time.
She theorized that Infinite Dendrogram was the result of someone creating a cutting-edge virtual space from scratch, then using it to simulate an ecosystem of virtual life.
I wondered if creating a civilization this complex was possible without it taking really long. Even on Earth, this would’ve taken hundreds of years. However, Francesca had said it was possible due to several factors, including the function they used for the war.
“Also, doncha think that creating an entire world this detailed in no time and from nothing would be way more insane?” she’d added, and I was inclined to agree.
Back to the matter of games...
Roulette, card games, and even the board games popular outside of casinos all had their equivalents here in Dendro.
You could say the same about food and drink, too. The almond jelly Cyco was eating, for one thing, was basically the almond jelly you could get on Earth.
Francesca thought that this had all been done by the developers’ design to get this world used to Earthly breakthroughs of this kind ahead of time and keep Masters from being the ones to bring them.
It was to prevent them from using real-world games or food to either make some serious money or impact the cultures here.
Francesca said that if the world of Infinite Dendrogram had lacked popular entertainment or good cuisine, you would’ve had many Masters bringing such things from reality and acting as if they were their original ideas.
And if anyone had been successful, it would create many copycats who’d attempt the same thing.
“The devs were probably worried that it’d divert Infinite Dendrogram from its main point,” she’d gone on.
I recalled asking, “But isn’t Infinite Dendrogram supposed to be all about freedom?”
She’d grinned and said, “Sure. At least, as long as it doesn’t stray from the main point — Embryo development.”
According to her, the devs wanted Masters to evolve their Embryos.
“They’ve gotta have a goal like that. This game’s just too extraordinary for it to be just for profit. Ha ha! I mean, come on, you don’t need something of this level just to make some money.”
Then she’d given me her theory.
“If it’s about something other than profit, it’s gotta be something that distinguishes Infinite Dendrogram from the other games. That would be our Embryos. They’re something the devs force upon us, and something no other game has. That made me conclude that Infinite Dendrogram was made so we Masters, as a group, could nurture all kinds of Embryos. Eh? You think it’s this realistic world that makes it stand out? I don’t think so. I have a basis for that belief, but it’s long, so I won’t say it now. Anyway, I’m pretty damn sure the devs made the game so they could have us grow some Embryos... specifically, Superior Embryos such as my Pandemonium, or maybe something beyond that... not that it matters right now. Eh? You wonder how this relates to entertainment and all that? Isn’t it obvious? If the meta was all about trying to make money by introducing the real world’s features to Dendro, it’d be nothing but a glorified business simulator. You can’t develop a good Embryo under those conditions, right? They set up the entertainment culture to prevent Masters from converging on doing nothing but looking for success through easy breakthroughs.”
Francesca’s rapid-fire theorizing had been just that — theorizing.
However, she probably had good reasons for believing what she did.
Anyway, Francesca’s point was that the devs were making sure that Masters couldn’t just introduce easy breakthroughs, but it felt weird to hear it from her because she herself had actually done something like that.
She’d brought humanoid robots — a fictional thing from the real world — into Infinite Dendrogram
The developers probably hadn’t anticipated anyone using the technological architecture here to pioneer humanoid mecha, or they simply hadn’t thought that anyone could do it.
As a result, Francesca was now living proof that you could bring something revolutionary here and turn it into a business.
While remembering that, I looked at the roulette table in the gambling area. It was surrounded by an air of expectation... or perhaps fear.
“I... I shall throw it, then,” said the dealer with a tense voice.
Something was strange, though.
Not about the dealer, but the roulette’s betting table.
There was only one token on it, specifically, the red 1 to 1. It was the cheapest, too, worth a mere 100 lir.
Despite there being many people around the table, that was the only bet on it.
Rules were rules, though, and since someone had made a bet, the roulette had to be spun.
But after the dealer threw the ball on the roulette...
“Ten million lir on 21.”
...someone made an additional bet and placed ten of the most expensive tokens on top of the 21.
“Me too, me too!”
“Same here!”
More additional bets followed as those surrounding the table also bet on the 21.
The dealer became pale, the roulette gradually stopped spinning, and the ball... ended up on the 21.
“T-Twenty-one...” he stammered.
The table was drowned in raging cheering.
The person who’d bet first — and the most — was given 36 times the original bet, which amounted to 360,000,000 lir’s worth of tokens.
That was equivalent to 30,000,000 Euros in real life, and it was enough to buy a whole twelve Marshall II’s with add-ons... with ToW member prices, at least.
“Isn’t that too much?” I muttered.
I didn’t know whether I was heard or not, but the person took the tokens and left the table.
The surrounding gamblers looked blatantly disappointed that they could no longer win by simply copying her bets.
“Ah.” The woman realized something and stopped before pointing at the table, looking at the absentminded dealer, and saying, “This is two hundred lir short.”
Those were the winnings from the first token she’d bet on the red 1 on 1.
That was the straw that broke the camel’s back and made the dealer cry. Even so, he forced himself to give her the tokens.
Not only had she won an immense amount of money — she had even broken the dealer’s spirit.
This person’s appearance was best described as “red and white.”
Her hair was red with a few streaks of silver.
Wearing only hot pants, a bikini-like top on her chest, and a flight jacket, she was brazenly showing off her nice figure. However, the most notable thing about her were her eyes. Each of them had a different color. The left eye was red, the right one silver.
A closer look into her right eye would reveal that its iris had the pattern of a detailed kaleidoscope, and that it as a whole was artificial.
I knew that that was her Embryo.
She casually walked over to the eating space, approached our table, and said, “I made some good money just now, Yu.”
“You overdid it, teach,” I said.
She was the person who’d forced herself into the role of my mentor.
Just like me, she was an ex-member of The Triangle of Wisdom, as well as my sister’s close friend, and the one and only “Blue Sky Songstress” — one of the nine Caldinian Superiors.
She was The Ace, AR-I-CA.
I’d met her about three weeks ago in Dendro time.
After the incident in Gideon, I left The Triangle of Wisdom and tried crossing the Caldinian deserts to go to Tenchi.
Using the sea route was the better option, but ever since Dryfe had created a navy and tried to expand into the ocean, the country’s relationship with Granvaloa had become sour. We’d even started stopping Granvaloan merchant fleet ships, so I really couldn’t go to Tenchi by sea.
I even considered using Altarian ships, but I wasn’t brazen enough to just pass by through the country after causing all that trouble in Gideon.
That left only one route — the desert in the middle of the continent. There were also the Harshwinter Mountains to the north, but that was no place for people, passing or otherwise.
The person who’d passed the place most recently was a Huang Hean Superior and his flying fortress, which said everything about how inhospitable the land was and how much you’d need to pass it. That was why I’d chosen the desert, but since it’d be a long journey and I would have to log out, I wouldn’t be able to ride alongside merchant dragon carriages.
Xunyu the Yinglong had arrived at Altar using a dragon carriage that functioned as a mobile save point, but unfortunately, that was among the best magic items you could get, and I didn’t have anything that luxurious.
Still, even without anything that fancy, I had ways of traveling long distances.
Caldina had these so-called “sandships,” and since ships counted as half-buildings, I could travel by setting the ship’s inside coordinates and my logout location. When looking it up on the internet, I’d thought that was the way to go, but then I’d realized that the diplomatic relations between Dryfe and Caldina were so bad that you had no civilian sandships going between the countries.
I decided I had to give up and go by myself using my Magingear, but then I quickly realized that was impossible.
There was no denying it: I was naïve.
Piloting Magingears used MP, even when you weren’t fighting, and the desert was such an unwelcoming place that even the simplest movements drained a lot. It didn’t help that I was using the unit Francesca had gifted me. It was a custom-made heavy-type machine focused on output, so it drained a lot more MP for less movement than standard ones.
To avoid being wasteful, I stored the Magingear and tried walking through the desert alongside Cyco... but it almost killed me. My job was High Pilot, and my sub-jobs were Pilot and Mechanic, so I didn’t have the stats needed to survive crossing a desert. My END was especially low.
That was when we were attacked by a large number of desert-dwelling worms that saw us as food. I tried fighting back with my Magingear, but while the unit was in good shape, I myself wasn’t — traveling through the desert had left me drained — so we’d ended up in a dire situation.
The worms didn’t seem to be cannibalistic, so La Porte de l’Enfer didn’t have any effect on them, either. But right before things became really bad, I heard a song-like sound coming from the sky. Wondering what it was, I looked up and saw a Magingear. It was my first time seeing one speeding through the skies.
The flying Magingear made a song-like sound as it fired shells at the heads of all the worms leaping from the sand, quickly exterminating them. It was so precise that it felt like the pilot knew where they would leap from — none of its movements or ammo were wasted. It fought with a brilliant beauty, and all the worms were dead in less than two minutes.
Once done with the battle — if you could call it that — the Magingear landed in front of me. The pilot left the unit, and looked at me with eyes of different colors: red and white.
“That’s Fran’s unit, right?” she asked. “Wow, you don’t see a lotta human-shaped Magingears here to begin with, but I didn’t think that Fran made any other full custom units besides my Opera... Huh? Now that I think about it, it’s rare for her to go that far for someone. She’s sociable, sure, but a bit... messed up.”
The pilot spoke without even stopping to wait and give me a chance to respond. Her voice was blatantly full of curiosity, wonder... and nostalgia. She clearly knew the person who’d made this unit — Francesca.
That was why I asked, “You know my sister?”
A moment later, I realized my mistake.
In Infinite Dendrogram, Francesca was a man named “Mr. Franklin.”
Even those who knew “him” wouldn’t make the connection between “him” and the word “sister.” Some would even use it to assume that Mr. Franklin was actually a woman.
I panicked and was about to say that I’d stuttered, but the pilot then said, “You know Fran’s gender and call her sister...? Oh! I get it! You’re her little sister, Yu!”
“Eh...?” I was really surprised that Francesca had told this person about her real self.
People she opened up to were rare. Even in the ToW, it didn’t go beyond me and the sub-leader.
“Huh? But Yu’s a sister, and you’re a man... Are you a crossdresser?” she asked.
“N-No. My avatar is a man, but I’m a girl in real life,” I answered.
“I see! Just like Fran! You’re so alike!” she said as she gave me a thumbs-up, for some reason.
The strange vibe about her was nothing like Francesca’s, but it was still a bit overwhelming.
Still, I brought myself to ask, “Umm... who are you?”
She clapped her hands before answering, “I’m The Ace, AR-I-CA! I used to be a part of the ToW, but now I’m with Sefirot! And I’m a close friend of Fran’s!”
That made me gasp.
The Ace, AR-I-CA — Francesca had told me about her.
She’d started out as one of the ToW’s first test pilots, then left to become one of Caldina’s Superiors.
Her nickname was “Blue Sky Songstress,” and I’d heard that she was combat-capable, even for someone from Sefirot.
The fact that such a person was before me surprised me, and as I tried to figure out what to say...
“By the way, what’s with the outdated red and white two-tone color look?” asked Cyco. “It’s excessive and cringy.”
The sudden insult to the Superior’s appearance made me feel like the air had frozen, and I wasn’t even using La Porte de l’Enfer.
I was a bit conflicted. I wondered why Cyco always verbally abused anyone we met — she’d even done it to Ray and Nemesis — while at the same time slightly agreeing that the red and white hair and clothing combo was a bit... much.
“Yes! Red and white are the colors of the coolest legendary pilot! The excessiveness makes it good,” The Ace said as she gave a thumbs up with a full smile.
She didn’t look the least bit upset. It was like she didn’t even understand that she was just insulted.
“Hugo. No good. My insults don’t work on her,” Cyco complained.
“Can you just... not insult her?” I asked.
Insults make things awkward, I added in thought. Let’s just stop badmouthing people’s fashion, okay?
But now that I thought about it... Francesca was a full mad scientist, the King of Destruction was a half-naked bear, and Figaro and Xunyu were weird in their own ways. Maybe it was a rule for Superiors to have a weird fashion sense.
“By the way,” AR-I-CA said. “It looked like you weren’t having a good time here. You okay?”
“Yes. Somehow... Ah!” I realized that I hadn’t thanked her yet and said, “Thank you for helping me.”
“Don’t mention it. Anyway, you’re not used to the desert, huh?”
“I... Yes.”
Those worms had almost gotten me, and going through this desert any further would be difficult. I’d probably need to switch to accompanying a merchant group or something, but then how would I handle logging out?
“All right, leave it all to me,” said AR-I-CA.
“Eh?”
“I’ll become your mentor.”
“Ehhh...?”
“From crossing the desert to the ABCs of Magingears — I’ll drill it all into your head! Call me ‘teach’ from now on.”
And so, with a forcefulness I’d never experienced before, I gained a mentor.
That was how The Ace had become my mentor and forced me to call her “teach.”
Her constant forcefulness was a bit problematic, but I could tolerate it just fine.
There were two much bigger problems.
First was the fact that her training was actually hellish. She’d started out by making me level up by throwing me into a lair of worms similar to the ones that’d attacked me, putting my unit in danger of destruction.
Then, she made me do “mock battles” (read: one-sided beatings) with her. She’d evaded my La Porte de l’Enfer despite not knowing anything about it, which was completely ridiculous. She’d even made me pay ten million lir to repair my unit, and I was really glad the broken parts weren’t custom-made.
Her vibrant appearance was hiding a darkness that came out whenever she was acting as my mentor. It was hard to complain, though, since I actually was getting stronger.
Not only was I gaining more levels, I was actually becoming a better pilot beyond just my Piloting sense skill level. This positive canceled out the negatives of the first problem, so I could accept it.
But then there was the second problem...
She was likely the apex of all Magingear pilots, and had a wealth of knowledge about machines in general and Caldina in particular, which made her a mentor deserving of respect.
However, as a person, she had a disposition that made me uncomfortable.
“You’re looking for prey even in a place like this?” I asked.
“Yep,” she replied as she looked around the establishment and drank a non-alcoholic cocktail, clearly satisfied with all the tokens she’d won.
She was looking not at objects, but people such as the attractive servers or the young, rich ladies who’d come here to gamble.
“And who do you have in mind?” Cyco asked her.
“Either that Chinese-looking pretty boy with long hair, that lady with a 90cm bust, or that fiery-looking girl!”
“You really don’t have any limits for this, huh? I hope you die,” Cyco put in.
“And you’re as sulky as always, Cy. It’s soooo cute!”
“Don’t hug me. It makes me feel like I’m in danger.”
Yes, that was the problem with my teach’s personality — she hit on anybody she thought looked good.
It also didn’t matter to her whether they were men or women.
In fact, it seemed like she hit on women more often than men.
She’d only have tea with some of them, while taking it far beyond that with others. Still, it was something that a fifteen-year-old like me couldn’t quite grasp.
“If you’re feeling lonely, why not get a lover?” I asked. “You’re in a clan. Don’t you have someone you like in there?”
“Nope. I asked our leader, but he awkwardly refused. I don’t know what Carl’s like on the inside, Albert’s a hardcore, iron-faced terminator, Fatoum is handsome, but married, and the old man and lady are... well... old. There are no good love interests in the clan.”
“Doesn’t Sefirot have three more people?”
“They’re not even worth considering,” she said, strongly implying that she was averse to the very idea of loving them.
Looks like even the strongest clan in the world has some internal issues, I thought.
“Also, getting a long-time lover is fine and all, but one-night stands are great, too,” she said. “Both sides fall in love, are drawn to each other, have a tryst of a lifetime, and part ways with only the sweet memories to show for it. You see that kinda thing a lot in movies from my homeland of Italy. That’s why I’m more about hitting on and picking up than keeping.”
“But... three days ago, you said something about getting a real beauty to sleep with you for a million lir,” I said.
“I did,” she replied as if it was nothing.
“Does that really count as ‘hitting on’ or ‘picking up’...?”
“Looks, words, wealth... I’ll use everything I can to charm them! I’m The Ace of love!”
“...Eh?”
“Though, my Superior Job has nothing to do with my sexuality.”
“Now that’s a relief. For a moment, I wondered if that was one of the conditions for The Ace.”
“Ahahahah! If one of the conditions was to make a number of people fall for me, I’d have gotten it three months earlier than I did!”
She laughed, but it was hard to see it as a joke, considering how she behaved.
“Annnyway,” she continued. “I’ve got a good idea of who I wanna pick up, but when I think about what’s about to happen, I probably shouldn’t do it here... Ah!” She looked at me and Cyco as if she just had a brilliant idea. “Hey, Yu.”
“...What is it?” I asked.
“Let’s have some fun later, shall we?”
So she finally bares her fangs at me, I thought.
“My avatar is a man, but I’m a girl on the inside... an underage one, at that... so I thoroughly refuse.”
“Eeehh? But the three of us could have so much fun, right, Cy?”
“Not in a million years.”
“Oh my, what a shame.”
I really appreciated that she never actually forced anyone to go with her, so all you had to do was refuse.
She’d also told me that she backed down if she found out that her targets weren’t single.
That made it sound like she had limits, but it had to be emphasized that she went for every good-looking person besides those in relationships.
“No chance, huh?” my teach continued. “Fran rejected me, too, so now I’ve been given the cold shoulder by both of you sisters. Oh, woe is mee.”
She went for Francesca, too?
“Aren’t you and my sister friends?” I asked.
“Yeah. That’s why I hit on her with the intention of marriage. She rejected me, but she’s still my best friend!”
...She’d wanted to marry her best friend?
I really didn’t understand her outlook on love. It made me want to turn my brain off.
“So what are you into, anyway? Men or women?” asked Cyco.
“Both, obviously,” my teach replied without even thinking. “I specialize in taking the lead with other girls, though.”
“Is your gender different on the other side? Like Hugo?”
“No way. I’m a woman all the way through.”
Her indifference for what she was saying made me heave a long sigh.
“Aren’t you a better fit for Legendaria than Dryfe or Caldina?” I asked.
“Ahahah! Don’t be stupid,” she laughed before making the most serious face I’d ever seen her make. “My sexuality has nothing on the perverts there.”
The words by themselves were like a joke, but it certainly didn’t feel like she was fooling around.
Hearing that made me promise myself that I’d never, ever go to Legendaria.
Following the silly exchange about my teach’s sexuality, I lowered my voice and began talking about something more serious.
“About the roulette game... are you sure you didn’t win too much?”
“It’s fine,” my teach replied. “It was obvious they were gonna cheat if the bets were too high, so I bet when the hole the ball was going into became obvious and threw a wrench in their plan.”
I was silent. Knowing where the ball was going to seemed impossible... for anyone except her, anyway.
“I don’t use my eye unless they’re cheating,” she went on. “It wouldn’t be fair if I was the only one doing it.”
“But isn’t this place owned by Huang Hean mafia? If you bet and win in ways that stand out... you’ll catch their attention, right?”
“That’s the plan. I’d seriously appreciate it if they picked a fight with me.”
“Eh?”
“If you wanna fight tians who aren’t criminals, you need them to attack you first. Otherwise you’re going to the gaol. Ha ha!” she laughed before adding, “As long as they pay their share, even mafia don’t count as criminals here in Caldina.”
This was the first time I’d heard that she’d come to this place to fight the Huang Hean mafia backing it.
Shaken by the revelation, but hiding it well, I said, “Before we came here, you said that there was something you were supposed to get here. I thought you just meant some money for the journey.”
“Ah ha ha! Please. I’m not poor enough to need to gamble to get through the day. I’m a Superior, and the money I already have is on a whole different level than what I won today.”
Right... Superiors like her and Francesca were basically people who made astronomical amounts of money with little effort and wasted it just as easily.
I’d heard that there was a broke Superior who was making money selling popcorn, but that had to be an urban legend.
“The thing we’re here for is basically a stolen article,” my teach said.
“Stolen?”
“Yeah, I’m doing this at the request of the good old company leader... Well, the main source of it is someone even bigger. I’ve gotta retrieve or destroy the thing that was stolen.”
Retrieving something stolen seemed like a good enough reason to infiltrate a place owned by the Huang He mafia, but I didn’t understand the rest of it.
“What’s the point of destroying it?” I asked.
“Sorry, I said it wrong. We’re supposed to break what’s inside it, not the thing itself. But that’s only if it comes out.”
That made it sound like the item was some sort of container.
But in that case, shouldn’t she have said that the stolen thing was the content of the container?
“What is it, anyway...?” I asked.
“Something that was stored away in Huang He’s treasury. Not too long ago, when Canglong the third prince was leaving for Altar, they decided to give a couple of these to him, and when they took them out and got busy deciding which ones to pick, someone came in and stole it.”
“You mean it’s a national treasure?!”
Not a Caldinian one, either — it was from Huang He in the east. Something that important had made it to the hands of a criminal organization here in Caldina.
Though, since it was in the possession of a Huang Hean mafia, it had probably gotten here through Huang He’s criminal channels.
Regardless, this was big enough to become an international problem.
“It’s exactly that,” my teach said. “We’re bound to get a lot from Huang He if we bring it back to them, and if whatever’s inside comes out, we’ll have to break it... and if it comes down to that, it might as well be us. That’s why I was chosen for the job. We don’t have a lot of members who can fight while being careful not to break something. The old lady’s all about one-on-one fights, while Carl’s unbeatable, but a bit dull, if you know what I mean. I’m the least worst choice among us.”
She’d mentioned breaking the contents of the object again.
It was a foreign national treasure, yet she was speaking as if breaking it was inevitable.
“...Teach,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“Can you describe the stolen object in detail?”
“Ohh, it’s a—”
Before she could finish, the casino became astir.
Suddenly, dozens of people in black suits ran out through the staff doors, and half of them gathered in the eating space — around our table, specifically.
This is...
“Hahahah!” my teach exulted. “See, Yu? I knew that talking about something that big was gonna make them pick a fight with us!”
“You could’ve told me about this...”
“Well, you can look at it as just some observation and perception training!”
Those two words almost made me remember the silver-haired boy I hated, but I did see her point.
The black-suited men who weren’t surrounding us were kicking out the customers, who were complaining, but had no choice in the matter.
“Whoa, now, if you mistreat your customers, you’re gonna lose business,” my teach said cheerfully, not bothered by the situation one bit. “Though... that only matters if this place is still standing by tomorrow.”
She was ready to fight them.
With her hand in her jacket’s left pocket, she was moving something that made a clicking sound.
I’d better prepare, too, I thought.
“Anyway, I’m sure you heard what I said,” my teach said as she looked up at the suited men. “Can you give me the UBM... the Treasurebeast Orb that was stolen from the inner treasury?”
The moment she said that, the air around the suited men changed.
“Do that, and we can forget about the 360,000,000 you lost—”
And we were both assaulted by a barrage of combat magic.
The story of certain treasures
Huang He had a Special Superior Job called “Draconic Emperor.”
It occasionally manifested in the imperial family, which, due to the ancient dragon blood flowing in their veins, were oftentimes called “gulong ren” — ancient dragon kin.
A Draconic Emperor was a living deity closely tied to the very history of Huang He.
While all of them were revered, the manifestation of the Draconic Emperor before the previous one was considered to have been the strongest of them all.
His level had surpassed 2,000, and he’d defeated countless UBMs.
This was due to a mix of his supreme stats, unique skills such as Draconic Inheritance and Gulong Ren Cells, the various techniques he crafted through harsh training, and the many special rewards — Mythical included — he gained from killing many UBMs all by himself.
It was fair to call him a beast among beasts.
His era was one in which Masters almost didn’t exist, so he was easily among the strongest the world had to offer. It was believed that if King of Kings and The Lynx hadn’t existed at the same time as him, he would’ve unified the entire continent under the flag of Huang He.
As he fought off UBMs to protect Huang He, this Draconic Emperor realized that expanding his own strength any further would not help Huang He in any way, and that instead he needed to increase the number of people who wielded immense power.
Thus, he began research into a technique that would allow him to seal away powerful monsters. Of course, they already had monster storage in the form of Jewels, but they could not store UBMs — those weren’t even tameable to begin with. However, the Draconic Emperor didn’t give up trying to wield their powers, and eventually, he created the so-called “Treasurebeast Orbs.”
These weren’t items, but a type of barrier that materialized and acted as live storage for treasurebeasts — in other words, UBMs. The orbs made it possible for anyone to draw out and wield the powers of the UBMs inside. Since such powers were usually reserved to those who had contributed the most in the UBM’s defeat, this was simply astonishing.
Being the only one capable of using this technique to trap UBMs, that Draconic Emperor had done it many times throughout his long life. He’d sealed away tigers, dragons, and monsters unlike any you’d ever see. The trapped beasts’ tiers reached as high as Mythical, and their number amounted to almost a hundred.
When that Draconic Emperor was on his deathbed, he left the young, normal emperor with the words, “I shall die soon. But worry not, for I left you many means to make up for my absence. Use them to protect yourself, bring security to this land, and make the country prosper. This is goodbye, young one. Also... I have been feared my whole life. Everyone besides the King of Kings and The Lynx were afraid of me. You are no exception, but I’ve always found it endearing how you faced me despite your fears.”
And so, the long-lived Draconic Emperor had breathed his last.
Sadly, history hadn’t played out as he’d desired.
The young emperor he’d entrusted the future to died to a disease only a few years later.
That sparked a civil war between his brother and his unborn child... or rather, those who supported his unborn child’s rights to the imperial throne.
Not only did it cause many deaths, but it ended with the child being born as the next Draconic Emperor, while being a person who had no right to inherit the political throne.
It had been a time of meaningless bloodshed, and perhaps the most embarrassing stain in Huang He’s long history.
But if there was one good thing to say about it, it was that neither side had used the Treasurebeast Orbs even once.
That was because both sides had greatly respected the previous Draconic Emperor, not wanting to trample upon his will... and because they simply couldn’t even use them.
The inner treasury, where the Treasurebeast Orbs were kept, could only be unlocked by the emperor or the Draconic Emperor.
No one else could open it, and according to the late Draconic Emperor, if someone tried to enter without using the proper means, they would vanish from this world, alongside the treasury.
There was no emperor or Draconic Emperor during the civil war, so no one could open it to use it in the conflict.
Both the younger brother, who went on to become the emperor, as well as the child who became Draconic Emperor, thought that this was good, and greatly appreciated the late Dragon Emperor’s work on this front.
The Treasurebeast Orbs went unused even after that.
The only exception happened post-civil war, when the emperor gave a tiger orb to a group of people who’d decided to travel to the west.
This was what the emperor said concerning the use of Treasurebeast Orbs:
“These are powerful indeed. However, we must not wage war or quarrel merely because we have them. Instead, we should let them lie dormant until we truly need them.”
Perhaps that wasn’t what the late Draconic Emperor had intended.
However, the people of Huang He, weary from the civil war, readily accepted his words, and the nearly one hundred UBMs sealed within the Treasurebeast Orbs were left to lay dormant without even using their power.
That ended once the treasury was opened a few centuries later, when the third prince of Huang He was heading out to the kingdom in the west... and someone used it as an opportunity to steal some of the orbs.
Hermine the City of Gambling, Mirage
“Mr. Zhang, we’ve disposed of the rats,” an employee reported.
“Well done.” In the gambling den’s manager’s office, the man in charge of the place, and all of Mirage’s operations in Caldina, sighed in relief and sat down on his chair.
His name was Zhang, and there was a Treasurebeast Orb in his hand.
He was looking at a crystal giving a live video feed of the gambling den’s hall, where he saw nothing but smoke caused by several dozen combat magic attacks.
“Phew...”
Needless to say, his relief was due to the death of the Masters he’d ordered to have killed... or at least one of them.
As one who worked here in Caldina, Zhang obviously knew about AR-I-CA.
She’d come here to take the orb in his hand.
She was a Superior operating as part of the strongest clan, Sefirot.
Her nickname was “Blue Sky Songstress,” and she was one of the strongest people in the country. However, that was only when she was riding her Magingear.
That was why he’d given out the order for her death while she was still bare.
In a way, Zhang was lucky. If she’d been replaced by Carl Lourlou the Multifariously Invincible, this attack wouldn’t have done anything to him. He was the ultimate endurance fighter, known for, among other things, his fight against a UBM in boiling magma, and also the destruction of a spellcaster association that’d tried to defeat him with thousands of combat spells at once.
Surprise attacks wouldn’t have scratched him, and they’d have been defeated before the battle even began. However, if the man had demanded the orb, they would’ve still had to fight despite the overwhelming odds.
That was just how important the orb was to them.
They’d received it from Mirage’s headquarters in Huang He about a week ago. All Zhang knew was that it was a bargaining chip in negotiations with a certain clan present here in Caldina. Since Zhang was in charge of Mirage’s operations here, he was in charge of this task.
Once the appointed time came, he would go to a designated spot, present the password, and complete the negotiation. It seemed like a basic trade, but the object in question was extraordinary.
The orb was a national treasure that everyone from Huang He had heard about in stories from their childhood days. He also knew that this would be less of a trade, and more of a creation of a bond with a certain organization. Zhang had been surprised by that and asked the one who’d presented it, “What kind of bond could be worth something like this?”
He hadn’t gotten the answer from him, so Zhang had used comms magic to contact Mirage’s main branch. They’d responded with nothing but the name of the organization, but that was more than enough.
Zhang understood the gravity of this exchange, and that his head was on the line here, along with those of every Mirage member here in Caldina. Thus, even if the one who’d caught wind of it and come here for it was a Superior, he had no choice but to shoot.
“This orb... that clan... Are the main branch planning a coup d’etat?” Zhang murmured.
He knew what they wanted to do, but he couldn’t understand what they were thinking. Even so, he knew he would all be over if he went against the order.
He would be crushed by either the main branch, or that organization. Regardless, his future was so bleak that making an enemy out of the Blue Sky Songstress seemed like the better idea.
“She’ll come back in three days, but the exchange will be done in two,” he muttered.
Unlike tians, Masters were immortal. Zhang knew full well that he had only bought himself three days worth of time. However, that was all he wanted.
That was enough for him and his group to go through the exchange and leave Hermine.
Having made an enemy out of a Caldinian Superior, he had no choice but to abandon this business. That was why he could act without caring about its reputation among the customers or any damage dealt.
Otherwise, he would’ve never used explosive magic indoors. Zhang looked inside the crystal again — at the scene where a Superior had just died.
“...Isn’t this smoke lasting a bit too long?”
The smoke rising from the spot where the two Masters had stood showed no sign of going away.
Is it burning that hard? Zhang wondered, and a chill went down his spine. Zhang was a battle-focused Mirage operative that’d lived through many fights, and the chill was his experience speaking to him.
“Ventilation magic. Use vent magic to spread the smoke away!” he shouted.
“But if it’s a fire, that might make the flames stronger...”
“Doesn’t matter! Do it!”
The member followed Zhang’s order and used a vent magic, Fu, to disperse the smoke.
It exposed a cylindrical object that was continuously releasing smoke. Those with Identification saw that it had the name “Smoke Discharger.”
But there was something that attracted even more attention.
“Is that... scrap metal?”
At the ground zero of the combat magic attack, there was a large pile of scrap metal... or maybe remains.
The wall was covered in various kinds of mechanical junk, including weapons and armor. They had no idea that before the attack had hit, a certain someone had released the scrap from her inventory into the magic’s trajectory.
Needless to say, the person who’d done it was...
“Ohh, you noticed?” a voice rang out from behind the wall. “Too late, though. It’s showtime!”
The wall of scrap suddenly collapsed.
As though its role was over, it fell as if calculated for performance value, and revealed a blue, human-shaped machine.
It was a humanoid Magingear, but those who only knew the Marshall II wouldn’t believe that. This unit was impossibly slender. It almost felt like it was but a chassis without its armor. The design made it look like a slightly bigger, more beautiful version of the power armor Magingears that had once been the norm. The only thing that made it clear that it was bigger than it first appeared was the device equipped on its back.
The unit’s name was MGFX-001 Blue Opera. It was the first unit of the MGFX series. That was the title for custom units that Franklin, the father of all mech-type Magingears, created without paying any heed to the cost.
This particular unit was all blue in color, and so slender and streamlined that it didn’t even feel like a Magingear.
“Sing... Opera!” Blue Opera absorbed the pilot’s MP and activated its engine.
An air-shaking song started to stream through the air. It was merely the sound of the machinery inside Blue Opera, but it was comparable to the voices of proficient soprano singers in its elegant beauty.
The melody wasn’t made by a human voice, but the beauty made it more than worthy of the title “songstress.” The audience here wasn’t moved, however, for they realized that this songstress might be the siren bringing them their doom.
“I’m ready, too, teach,” a new voice rang out as someone behind the blue songstress stood up.
This Magingear was larger than the songstress, and a whole lot bulkier, but it was beautiful nonetheless.
It was a heavy unit with layers upon layers of armor. It was as though they were petals.
While the former was a songstress, this was a blooming flower.
Its name was MGFX-002 White Rose. It was the second MGFX unit, and Franklin’s birthday-farewell gift to his little sister. All white in color, it was no doubt the most solid Magingear of all.
“You hopped in yours too, huh?” AR-I-CA asked.
“Yes,” Hugo nodded. “But next time, please inform me that we are going to fight before we enter the establishment.”
“You’ve gotta learn to sense that by yourself. It’s part of your training!”
“Do you think that anything can count as training?”
“N-Nooooo...”
“You’re stuttering.”
The pilots of the blue and white units were chatting in the same way they had around the table before it was blown up. The Mirage members facing them couldn’t feel so carefree, however.
Someone among them gulped.
These machines were enemies they had to defeat, and it seemed like there was no better time to strike than now, while they were chatting.
However, they felt like everything would end the moment they attacked.
All of them thought that this would be where they died.
High Pilot, Hugo Lesseps
“Eh? You actually keep your Magingear in a Garage?” my teach had said three hours before we’d entered the gambling den. “Well, they’re good for their automatic light maintenance and gun loading, but if you need to use it in an emergency, you should keep it in an inventory with Instant Release on it. There’s no point in using Garages when your mech’s a hundred percent battle-ready.”
Then she’d given me a spare inventory, which I’d moved my Rose into.
That should’ve been enough for me to realize that I would be involved in some battle soon.
At least this experience had made me understand just how useful Instant Release inventories were for spontaneous battles.
It was the first time I’d heard of such a technique, but that was probably because we ToW pilots were mostly focused on tests and didn’t use Magingears this way.
This had to be something my teach had thought of in her battles after leaving Dryfe.
“Is it just me, or did that scrap wall almost break?” I asked.
“Don’t worry. It was right in the trajectory, and it... was tough enough.”
“Why the pause and why the ‘was’?”
“Hmm... Well, this is all scrap from the machine I broke. Maybe it wouldn’t have lasted if I’d used just a little bit less...”
I said nothing and just thought, So she’s basically saying that if the scrap had been only a little more weathered, we wouldn’t have made it.
“It’s fine, it’s fine. I can just dodge it,” she said.
“But... then I would be dead, right?”
“...That’s part of traini—”
“Stop that.”
As we continued the nonsensical analysis of the situation, I noticed something at the edge of my monitor.
It was one of the Huang Heian mafia members. He was preparing to fire more combat magic at Blue Opera.
The unit was lightly-armored, so he probably thought that it could be disabled with a well-aimed surprise attack. He launched his spell before I could say anything...
“And just so you know, apparently, Embryos grow-up more powerful if you die a couple times.”
...while my teach just continued her speech.
His spell headed straight for her back, but my teach avoided it by simply tilting her unit. It didn’t even affect the flow of conversation.
“Eh?” the mafia member said.
He probably didn’t understand what had just happened. It was as if my teach had eyes on her back... or some other mysterious sense.
She was capable of that.
I was pretty sure that no one could land a surprise attack on her. Before her Superior Embryo, traps, sneak attacks, gambling cheats... all dangers were rendered powerless.
“Teach...” I began.
“Yeah. I guess we should start the battle. We don’t want the one with the orb to escape.”
As she spoke, she materialized two rifles in midair — probably using Instant Release — then grabbed them with her Blue Opera.
“...! Fire!” a mafia member shouted.
They all began attacking us all at once.
A rain of combat magic fell on both Opera and Rose, but it didn’t have the effect the casters were intending.
My teach’s Opera repeated the previous feat and dodged every single one of the spells.
Her Magingear was on the smaller side, but still much larger than a human, and yet it didn’t even get scratched.
My Rose, on the other hand, couldn’t dodge at all, so every single attack heading my way landed.
Still, the petal-like layers of armor created a white light that blocked off all combat magic.
It seemed like we were demonstrating the difference and viability of AGI and END-focused builds.
If not that, then we were showing them the power of the most expensive and strongest Magingears built by Dryfe’s largest clan.
Of course, it was worth noting that while my teach was dodging using her skill, I was surviving using nothing but the power of my unit’s gear.
“You’re bad at dodging,” said Cyco. “Your sister probably knew that.”
Probably, I thought.
If you looked at this and one other feature it had, you would truly understand that Rose really had been made for me.
It seemed like proof that Francesca knew me well.
I should write to her soon, I thought. I’ll mention that I met my teach, too.
My thoughts were cut off by my teach saying, “Hmm... What to dooo?”
“Teach?”
“Hey, I’d like to go look for the orb. Can I leave these to you?”
“Hm...” I closed my eyes and thought.
Not so long ago, I’d exterminated almost every member of the Gouz-Maise Gang.
That was enough to believe that I could do it.
But was it something I was okay with doing? I’d absolutely had to get rid of the Gouz-Maise Gang, but what about this mafia...?
“Just so you know, I looked Mirage up, and their Caldinian branch engages in murder, burglary, gang violence, drug trade, kidnapping, and slave trade. Though the latter half is legal if you’ve got the money!”
“...It’s like you read my mind,” I muttered.
Like a certain silverhead...
Anyway, I now understood how it was and was ready to do it.
“Let me handle this by myself,” I told her.
“Sure thing,” my teach replied. “I’ll go look for the orb.”
She moved her Opera and activated the ancient legendary MVP special reward on its back: Skycontrol Wings, Aircluster.
A moment later, Opera vanished, leaving behind no trace of it besides the echo of a thunderous, destructive sound.
I looked at the wall and saw a hole large enough for Blue Opera to fly through. I could’ve sworn it hadn’t been there before.
So the one with the orb is already outside, I reflected. “Anyway...”
With Opera gone, all the attacks were now focused on Rose.
Even so, they couldn’t even scratch its white armor.
The mafia members were looking at my unit with pure fear in their eyes.
They must’ve thought that it was indestructible.
I, on the other hand, didn’t feel the least bit safe or secure.
“It’s a real MP hog,” I muttered. “I won’t last more than five minutes like this.”
“Yeah,” Cyco agreed.
Rose’s multi-layered armor, Fleur d’Hiver, was designed with the Shield Giant’s Thousand Shutter skill in mind, and it created a barrier that blocked off a certain amount of damage.
It could deal with combat magic from low-rank tians with no Embryo stat growth bonuses without me having to lift a finger, but keeping it up cost a lot of MP.
And that was only when I wasn’t doing anything else. If I started using other skills or engaging in complex maneuvers, my MP would downright melt.
MP Potions couldn’t keep up with me, either, so I had to make sure this battle didn’t drag on.
“What’s the count on them, Cyco?” I asked.
“Twenty on average.”
Our main weapon, La Porte de l’Enfer, was based on the number of creatures of their own type the enemies had killed.
Twenty wasn’t a good number for it to be effective.
The battle would surely last long if we relied on it, so we wouldn’t use it this time.
“What about Deuxième?” I asked.
“That should work, I think.”
Then let’s use it.
“Okay, time for high-rank Cocytus to make her debut!” Cyco declared.
“Indeed. Let us decorate this sand-covered oasis with the flower of abyssal ice.”
“Oh? I guess your edgy phase didn’t go anywhere, huh?”
“...Shut up.”
Blushing due to the words that’d escaped my lips, I prepared to fight.
Though the focus on speed contradicted its immense presence, Franklin felt that it suited AR-I-CA well, so he took to creating the first MGFX — a unit he spared no expense on.
Thus, MGFX-001 was born. Combined with AR-I-CA’s piloting skill, it became the only Magingear that could move on the surface faster than the speed of sound.
And the Aircluster it had now made it even more mobile than ever. Blue Opera was the fastest, loudest unit, entrusted to AR-I-CA by her dear friend.
Blue Opera flew through the night sky, singing all the way through.
The five corpse dragons attacked it over and other, but none of their breaths even touched it.
It danced in the air as if playing with them like a sylph.
Why can’t I hit her? Zhang wondered.
As far as he knew, no matter how well-equipped, Magingears could never go beyond Pure-Dragon-tier.
Of course, this one was piloted by The Ace, who surely had the maximum level in Piloting, making it twice as powerful as usual, if not even more than that.
However, Zhang’s five High Dragon Jiangshi were all upper-Pure-Dragons enhanced even further.
There should’ve been no difference between each of them and AR-I-CA’s Blue Opera, and it was 5v1, at that.
Even so, they were on equal footing.
It should be equal... wait, no! Zhang realized.
The Ace and the Great Soul Daoshi.
Air Cluster and Dangai.
Blue Opera and five High Dragon Jiangshi.
Those factors alone made them seem equal, but there was one factor that couldn’t be ignored.
While Zhang matched her on those fronts, he couldn’t forget that this was a battle between a Superior Master and a tian.
“Gh...!” Zhang used all five of his dragons, enhanced himself with Fu, and launched a perfect surprise attack on AR-I-CA.
Even so, she evaded it.
He couldn’t believe that he had failed to even scratch it.
Zhang knew full well that The Ace, AR-I-CA was the greatest pilot in the world, and that her Magingear was the only one that could move faster than the speed of sound.
However, skill and speed alone couldn’t explain this result. There had to be something more to AR-I-CA.
“It can’t be...” Zhang muttered as a thought came to mind.
He quickly used one of the aces up his sleeve.
Following Opera’s sound, he made the High Dragon Jiangshi closest to her prepare to fire its breath, saying, “Death Tornado.”
That activated the Fu inside the dragon, making its stomach area release a powerful magic attack. It was a surprise attack that was coming from a place that normally wouldn’t be used for attacks.
No one could expect it, and normally, it couldn’t miss.
However...
“Whoa!” The Ace evaded it with little effort, and just like the others, it ended up not even scratching her before it faded.
Zhang didn’t say a word as the corpse dragon’s stomach burst and it fell to the ground, paying the price for its attack.
One of his namesakes had just died a useless death, but Zhang couldn’t even care about that.
All that was on his mind was the answer to the phenomenon that’d just happened: the reason behind her ability to dodge a complete surprise attack.
The nature of AR-I-CA’s power was...
“She can see the future?”
Some jobs had the skill called “Prophecy,” which let the user give vague predictions for the distant future.
There were sense skills that could sharpen people’s senses for incoming dangers, such as Killing Intent Perception, which informed the user of nearby hostiles, and Danger Sense, which did the same for danger in general.
However, there were no skills that gave you a detailed understanding of the future, and the same applied to Embryo skills.
In fact, though they gave Masters access to powers far outside the norm, when you looked at it as an MMORPG, Infinite Dendrogram had some abilities that were thought to be impossible even for Embryos.
One of them was time stopping. Since the world of Dendro hosted so many people at the same time, stopping time for all of them at once was considered too great of a feat for a single person. The closest you could get to time-stopping was raising your AGI so high that it looked like other people weren’t even moving.
Besides that, there was Master mind control. While this didn’t apply to tians, players’ minds were immune to all kinds of control. It was possible to control their bodies, though, and it was thought that the mind immunity was due to the player protection system.
Then there was future-sight. It was also considered impossible for one reason: Masters.
A certain ludo Master once said, “When you look at Infinite Dendrogram as an MMORPG, everything can be predicted because everything acts based on programming. However, players aren’t programs. You don’t know what’s on their mind and how they’ll act, and that creates a map with countless possible futures. That’s why it’s impossible to see which one of them is right.”
This Master wasn’t wrong about how the future could easily be changed by the will of the people. It wasn’t something that could be calculated.
But there was an exception to this, and that was an Embryo that saw the future by looking into the hearts of people, Masters included.
Whether it was to protect their privacy, or just a functional limitation, this Embryo wasn’t actually able to tell its Master what others were thinking.
However, it calculated everything.
It turned others’ thoughts into masked data and calculated every relevant factor, inside or out.
Temperature, wind speed, geothermal heat, gravitational pull, all the artificial physical states... nothing wasn’t considered.
Not even the thoughts of those nearby escaped it.
It calculated everything and delivered it to its Master as “danger,” letting her see what would imperil her a few seconds ahead and evade it easily.
That was The Ace, AR-I-CA’s Superior Embryo: Transcendental Calculator, Cassandra.
It was currently the only Superior Embryo that could see the future.
It took the shape of AR-I-CA’s artificial eye, and its unique skill, Calamity Princess’s Prophecy, was basically in the same vein as Killing Intent Perception and Danger Sense.
However, it was on a whole ’nother level.
Cassandra not only knew there was danger — it saw what it was.
It saw the trajectories of all the attacks that could touch Opera’s frame, the air movements the attacks would make, the scattered rocks that would fly in their path when a stray shot hit the ground... Cassandra saw all the dangers several seconds before they happened.
It could be a skill like La Porte de l’Enfer, which was sure to kill anyone who didn’t know about it, or a surprise attack that wasn’t telegraphed at all... nothing could escape its gaze.
And Cassandra’s Master wielded this power well.
Back when AR-I-CA was riding Geists or slow Marshall IIs, the machines couldn’t keep up with Cassandra’s predictions. But all of that changed once AR-I-CA got the supersonic unit that was Blue Opera.
She saw all and dodged all — the power of absolute evasion.
That was half of the reason why she was a renowned battle-focused Master.
“Prescience...” muttered Zhang. “I guess I should assume that you can read all my moves.”
Zhang had lots of battle experience, but someone with such a power was new even to him.
“But that’s it — I simply didn’t know something like this.”
Not having experienced something before wasn’t enough for him to deny it when it was happening before his very eyes. That was the right thing to think.
He also pondered, How far can she see?
If AR-I-CA could see everything to the end of this battle, Zhang had no chance.
But he knew that that wasn’t the case.
If she could see that much, she could’ve handled this a lot better.
For example, she could’ve captured the person who’d delivered the orb to Zhang before it reached him, or handled herself better at the gambling den.
Because of that, he believed that she could only see a few seconds ahead. If she could see further ahead, this battle would be over already.
He was right about that, too.
That means I must lead her into a situation where she can’t evade my attack, even if she had a few seconds to do it, Zhang reflected. He had an ace up his sleeve that could do that.
Not saying a word, Zhang looked at all his dragons — even the one that was lying on the ground.
This is your final mission... Go.
Following Zhang’s will, the three airborne corpse dragons created space between them and began flying about as though to surround Blue Opera.
However, the space between them was so great that none of their breaths could reach her.
“Hmm...? Ohh, I get it,” AR-I-CA said, and suddenly, something changed.
First, the corpse dragon that had fallen to the ground exploded, releasing countless Fu.
The three surrounding AR-I-CA did exactly the same, multiplying the amount of Fu several times.
The Fu began whirling, creating a cage around Blue Opera... or a hurricane with it as the eye.
The spaces between the Fu were wide, but still too small for the Magingear to pass.
The Fu gradually closed the distance, creating a giant, orb-shaped cage around Blue Opera.
Each Fu had enough power to keep Blue Opera inside the cage, effectively making that cage into a coffin.
It was the sign that the Great Soul Daoshi, Zhang Zangqi, was about to release his strongest magic.
It was called...
“Zhenwo Zhendao, Xuanlongba!”
The skill translated to “True Vortex True Blade, Whirling Dragon Dominance,” and it punished its targets using all the powerful wind-blades inside.
It cost all the Fu flying around, and it was equal in tier to the Baolongba that the famous Xunyu had used in The Clash of the Superiors.
He had to sacrifice all four of the corpse dragons he had left.
And Blue Opera was definitely within its range...
The battle’s outcome was decided the moment Blue Opera was caught in Xuanlongba.
It was an immensely powerful skill which had more than enough power to quickly reduce the unit to scrap.
Even if AR-I-CA currently had a Lifesaving Brooch, her Magingear wouldn’t survive the continuous onslaught.
AR-I-CA’s defeat would be certain.
The battle would soon end.
The present painted an image of a future where Zhang won...
“The Calamity Princess Closes Her Eyes — Cassandra!”
...only to take it away the very next moment.
Zhang didn’t understand.
Experienced as he was, Zhang had been able to expose the nature of many of AR-I-CA’s abilities.
However, he couldn’t even begin to understand what was happening before him right now.
Blue Opera had left the deadly storm as if it was nothing, then fired off shells that easily broke through the lightning barrier and pierced the forehead and Fu of the corpse dragon Zhang was riding.
The Fu was the thing supporting its fleeting life, and without it, it ceased all function and began falling to the ground.
The shells then blew off Zhang’s right arm, which Blue Opera then reached for to retrieve the orb it was holding.
The unit then showered the falling dragon in countless metal cans — Grenade Bombs.
Flames soon engulfed both the half-dead Zhang and his last dragon.
Unable to understand what had led to his defeat, Zhang fell to the sand below, concluding the battle in the desert.
High Pilot, Hugo Lesseps
It was the day after the incident with Mirage.
After logging out and taking a nap, I returned to Infinite Dendrogram.
Normally, I would just sleep in here, but I couldn’t have done that after what’d happened yesterday.
There might have been Mirage remnants who’d assassinate me or steal my inventory and unit, and that wouldn’t have been funny.
Anyway, as strange as that seemed, Hermine looked exactly the same as it had yesterday.
One of the underground organizations that had made a nest in the city was gone, but things were continuing on, as always.
Perhaps events like yesterday’s aren’t uncommon here, I thought.
As a result of the chaos, all members of Mirage’s Caldina branch had been arrested.
Like my teach had said, they’d accumulated many sins to their name, but I wasn’t sure if they would really be punished, since I’d heard that Caldina would forgive anything as long as you had the money.
But my teach had said that they couldn’t pay their sins off in this case.
“Sure, money can bend the law in Caldina. That’s why people trade illegal goods all the time here. But listen here, Yu: the sin of endangering or taking the life of another person isn’t cheap. You can try to pay it off by working your ass off your whole life, but even that wouldn’t be enough.”
That was her reason for thinking that Mirage would be properly punished.
“Of course, two of the three worst people I know are dumbasses who go against that, too,” she’d added.
Anyway, I was glad to find out that even this “money is everything” country had some level of morality.
Also, Zhang, the head of Mirage’s Caldinian branch, was considered missing.
My teach had said, “I’m totally sure I beat him, but I don’t know what’s become of him. I’d say that there’s a 70 percent chance that he’s alive.”
I was guessing that, in my teach’s mind, the battle had ended the moment he was defeated and she’d taken the orb from him.
Pushing yesterday’s events aside... I was now waiting to meet up with my teach. We’d agreed to rendezvous in the hotel’s lobby at nine in the morning.
It was ten now.
“She’s a whole hour late,” I mumbled.
“She should have more respect for time,” Cyco commented.
She tends to be late, and is generally carefree. Is that due to her being an Italian? I wondered. But now that I think about it, neither Francesca nor I act very... French. I guess stereotypes have nothing against the individual.
“Ah. She’s here,” said Cyco.
“Finally... Wait, ehhh?”
My teach was showing up an hour and ten minutes past the time we’d agreed on.
Not only was she awfully late, she was accompanied by a vaguely familiar woman.
My teach had her hand around her waist, and she even kissed her as they parted.
“Last night was amazing...” said the girl.
“It really was. I’ll never forget it for as long as I live. Your cuteness will stay with me forever.”
With that, the two split apart.
I suddenly remembered that the woman was the lady my teach had been eyeing back in the gambling den. Apparently, she’d gone on to court her and do the you-know-what.
I’m not sure I know “what,” I added silently. I’m only fifteen.
“Kept ya waitin’, huh?” my teach said, coming over. “Nice morning we’re having. I’m still a bit sleepy, though.”
“I’m not gonna say anything about your way of life, but can you at least come on time?” I asked.
“Sorry ’bout that. I got a little carried away last night. Oh, I just remembered the innocence on her face... She was the best!”
Really, now?
“I hope you die,” Cyco and I said in unison.
“You’re gonna be in sync for that?!”
According to my teach, the orb had been given to a transporter before the end of yesterday.
Since it was a barrier-like thing that couldn’t be placed in inventories, I’d wondered how they’d handle transportation, so I was glad to hear that.
I also asked about something that had me curious.
“We crushed Mirage’s Caldinian branch. Won’t that make us a target of the entire organization?”
It was a famous underground entity, after all, and I didn’t want to have to worry about them all the time.
Some people could easily handle being their targets, but we were Pilots, which meant that we were fragile without our Magingears.
“I don’t think you’ve gotta worry about them,” my teach said.
“Why not?”
“You’ll know when you read today’s evening newspaper.”
“Hm?”
Had something article-worthy happened?
Well, no matter what, we’d finished retrieving the orb here in Hermine. Even though I hadn’t even known my teach was doing something like this.
I’d been thrown into an international problem concerning a national treasure without any warning, and that was... draining, to put it lightly.
Honestly, I wouldn’t want to take part in something like this even if I was fully-informed.
“I’m glad we were able to get the orb without too much trouble,” I said.
“Yep! Time to get back to training as we go for the next one!”
Training... I wonder what she’ll make me do now, I thought. I’ve almost maxed out High Pilot, so it’s almost time to change... jobs... Hm?
“Next one?” I asked.
“Yeah. Didn’t I tell you?” she said as she raised seven fingers. “There’s a whole seven of these stolen Huang He orbs.”
Seven, huh? I see. I see...
“We’ll have to do this six more times?!” I shouted.
“Yeah! Let’s do our best, Yu!”
I could hear my body turn limp.
Hello, Francesca.
I hope you are well.
I went through some things that made me feel like I’m about to die inside.
It looks like I won’t be making it to Tenchi for a long time.
I’m broadening my horizons, but maybe not in ways I ever wanted.
Why am I getting involved in Huang He and Caldina’s national problems right after leaving Dryfe? Was this how you felt when you were traveling across the Earth?
I feel like I just heard you say, “No way, damn it!”
It must’ve been my imagination.
I’m pretty tired, so I’m leaving it at that for now.
I’ll write again if something happens.
Also, let’s talk a lot when I return to Dryfe someday.
I hope my journey is one that gives me more good stories to tell than complaints.
Until next time,
Yuri Gautier
Huang He, a certain place in the draconic capital, underground
The space was under a building of a company that was large even by the draconic capital’s standards.
It was a place of proper business, too, but its — Mirage’s — true nature was in its underground.
In the space, there was a U-shaped table, surrounded by eight men and women of various ages.
“And everything is going as planned, I presume?” one woman asked.
“Yes. Of course, milady.”
One was the head of the Huang He branch.
One was the contraband supervisor.
One was the slave trade supervisor.
One was the intelligence supervisor.
And finally, there was The Fang, the SJ working as the assassin supervisor.
They were all part of Mirage, and they all had an extremely important role in the organization.
At the end of the U-shaped table, there was a platform with a chair placed as high as a person.
On it, there was a young girl who was looking down at the rest. She was clad in robes you’d expect to see on Huang He’s imperial family.
The girl wasn’t there by mistake.
“Excellent. Once the clan in question begins cooperating with us, Huang He will return to me — its rightful ruler,” she said.
Her name was Hualong.
She was the current head of Mirage, and had only risen to the role about a month ago.
She was the only gulong ren besides the current imperial family.
Gulong ren — ancient dragon kin — were the descendants of half-breeds born between ancient dragons and mankind.
They ruled Huang He as the imperial family, looking after its people as themselves, emperors, or the famed Draconic Emperors.
However, there was one time when the gulong ren had fought amongst themselves.
It was the civil war that had come after the Draconic Emperor before the previous one and the emperor had both died within a span of just a few years.
The gulong ren had been split in two groups, fighting a battle which would only end when the child of the late emperor — which one side claimed had the right to the imperial throne — was born as the Draconic Emperor, who couldn’t simultaneously be both.
However, there was one problem: the gulong ren faction that had supported the child then attempted to assassinate the emperor.
The child they’d pushed had no right to the throne, but they believed their faction could still win if they got rid of the emperor.
With that foolish thought, they tried to kill the new ruler.
But their plot was exposed before it could happen.
The one who revealed it wasn’t anyone from the new emperor’s faction, but someone who didn’t even belong to Huang He: it was The Lynx.
No one knew what the rival of the late Draconic Emperor was thinking when he did this, but the result was clear — the assassination didn’t happen, and all those who were planning it were executed.
However, there was one person who’d avoided death.
It was a young girl — the person the assassins had wanted to make the empress.
She was little, so people assumed that she’d known nothing of the plot, and thus she was the only one of the faction who avoided execution.
Or perhaps the emperor simply hadn’t wanted to kill a child.
Regardless, someone related to the assassination plot had no place in the imperial court. Because of that, the child was merely banished.
Some worried that she could spread gulong ren blood to the outside and that killing her was the better option, while others believed that the optimal course of action was locking her up until she died, but the emperor rejected those ideas and simply banished her.
Respecting a child’s life was obviously the kind choice, but it became a source of woe for Huang He.
Over the years thereafter, the girl became a prominent figure in Huang He’s underground society.
She was a gulong ren, after all. You couldn’t judge her capabilities by human standards.
Thus, it was clear that she would become a skilled fighter. That might have even been the reason why the emperor had exiled her — he’d known she could make it on her own. Still, he probably hadn’t expected her to join the underground society.
Anyway, by the time she was an adult, she had great wealth, many subordinates, and something you could call an organization.
Its name was “Mirage.”
Indeed, at the center of the infamous Huang Heian mafia, there was an exiled gulong ren.
The name of the mafia was actually the name for her hideout, a reference to it being an illusion compared to the palace she rightfully belonged in.
We won’t get there in my generation, she would think as she watched Mirage’s progress.
“There” referred to the imperial throne.
Indeed... she was living on while carrying on the will of the would-be assassins from her younger years.
She planned to exterminate the current imperial family and rise to the top.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t known anything — people had simply thought she hadn’t.
And she was still thinking of killing the emperor and becoming the empress herself.
“It will take us a few generations to grow large enough,” she murmured with dissatisfaction.
No matter how quickly Mirage expanded, it would never be able to fight Huang He in her generation.
Thus, she entrusted the plot to her descendants, essentially turning Mirage into a mafia.
Several centuries had passed since then.
“Everyone, the time has come.” Seated in her throne-like chair, the current head of Mirage, Hualong, spoke to her people.
Another thing of note about her was her name. The “long” in it, which meant dragon, was actually only allowed on men born into the imperial family, so her having it was just another show of defiance towards the current rulers. All the heads of Mirage had done this.
“Recently, the inner treasury, which had been sealed for centuries, was opened, and one of the orbs ended up in our hands. With it, we were able to secure the strongest reinforcements. The heavens themselves are telling us that now is the time to act.”
Many would consider that to be a mere coincidence, but the girl was certain that this was their greatest opportunity yet. Her family had been waiting to take the throne for centuries.
“The battle to decide the true emperor draws near!” she declared. “That is when the Mirage will become the reality!”
Thus, she was drawing a picture of the future she desired. The moment that her family would have their revenge for the pain they’d experienced... which was arguably well-deserved.
They would start a coup d’état and take the imperial throne for themselves.
It wouldn’t be legitimate, of course.
The people had no issues with the current imperial family, and their chances of success were low.
However, Hualong thought she could keep them under control if she simply had the power to do so.
At the moment, half of Huang He’s Superiors were outside the country. Thus, if the clan she had in mind, which was said to be one of the best, came here and helped, they should be able to overthrow this country.
At least, that was what Hualong believed.
It was easy to call her idea foolish. In fact, one might even ask her how she’d come to that conclusion. However, she’d ascended to Mirage’s throne while she was still young. Her predecessor had died prematurely and left her without the knowledge necessary to lead this organization.
She’d also been taught about her family’s history and the power of Mirage for as long as she could remember, so her conclusion was the only one she deemed possible.
“Heh heh heh,” she snickered. “I can’t wait.”
The responses of Mirage’s leadership were varied.
“I guess we’ll soon be ministers.”
“I would be fine with just handling money.”
“So, who do I gotta kill?”
Some were thinking the exact same thing as Hualong.
Some were certain of her failure and were thinking about how to survive.
Some were simply trying to do their roles regardless of Hualong’s ideals.
With even her most trusted people being this divided, it was natural to expect infighting, too. However, compared to the chaos that would befall the people soon, any infighting was nothing. They were about to repeat the civil war from three centuries ago — the greatest conflict in Huang He.
As they pictured the upcoming battle, a voice that didn’t fit the scene reached their ears.
“Hello and good evening to all of you, my dear fooools!”
Hualong and her underlings looked at its source — the only entrance to this place.
A woman was standing there.
She was unbelievably beautiful.
If human beauty was like a work of art, hers would be a treasure that would be talked about for centuries, if not millennia. It was the golden ratio of beauty, pushing the very limits of human attractiveness. Her voice, too, was as pleasant as a feather tickling the earlobes. While beauty was in the eye of the beholder, hers would surely be considered perfect by many.
The people of Mirage were no strangers to beauty and pleasure, but even they were overwhelmed by her beauty.
However, those who kept their sanity felt something completely different.
“Fenghuang... Phoenix!”
“Dancing Princess, Huili!”
The experienced fighters on the scene shouted her name, bringing the ones bewitched by her beauty back to reality.
That was just how big of a deal her identity was.
“That’s meee!” the woman called. “I’m Huili, the leader of Huili’s Army of Fools!”
Huili Yuminjun or Huili’s Army of Fools was the clan at the top of Huang He’s clan rankings, anomalous in that every member there was a devotee of Huili, the Superior at the top.
No clan in Huang He matched their numbers or quality.
Hualong raised her voice from atop her false throne. “What do you want, Superior?!”
Huili wasn’t shaken by her demeanor at all. “Oh my. Are you Mirage’s young leader? Aren’t you just the cutest little cutie pie. You’re not as pretty as me, though.”
“You wretch!” Hualong became angry at her behavior.
“Hey, hey, hey, by the way, listen up. You aren’t gonna believe this, but...” Huili said, making Hualong even more angry. “The emperor requested that I come here and destroy Mirage!”
Those words made Hualong’s anger instantly fade as she squeezed out a “Wh-What...?” “So yeah, here’s how it is. Until now, he thought that Mirage was such a big deal that destroying it would be even worse than just leaving it, but with the whole orb thing, them getting outside the country, and that little coup you’re planning, he decided that he couldn’t ignore you anymore. The bad from leaving you is worse than the bad from destroying you.”
She spoke like a little girl with limited intelligence, but her words had endless importance to Mirage, for they implied that Huang He knew about them having an orb, using it in a trade, and their coup.
All of these were top secret matters. The only ones who were supposed to know them were the high-ranking Mirage officials here. Not even the leader of the Caldinian branch had been told about it.
In fact, he hadn’t even been told of the organization’s ultimate goal. He was far too normal — unfit to take part in their ambition.
Regardless, the Mirage leaders present were now suspiciously eyeing each other. They wondered which one of them had leaked the information, but none of them seemed to have a clue.
There was no lie there; none of them had told anyone about this. Even those who’d considered betraying Mirage hadn’t made a move yet.
“By the way, we got this info from the DIN,” added Huili.
“Those damn paper salesmen!”
The DIN was an information organization with no borders. Mirage certainly hadn’t anticipated them having and selling info about the plot of Huang He’s most secretive group.
“Aaanywayyy, His Majesty’s also giving us a good reward, so it’s bye bye to Mirage!” All smiles, Huili eyed Hualong and her people. Her smile bewitched some of them, while terrorizing the rest.
They all understood that that smile meant nothing pleasant. It carried in it the will that could tear them apart.
“Ah. I’m sure you fighting types probably realized it already, but...”
Huili took out one of the two fans on her waist and used it to point at the ceiling.
“...there’s no one alive upstairs.”
Mirage had had a total of over two hundred fighters on the surface and on the path leading here, and Huili was saying that they had all been dealt with.
One of the battle-focused Mirage officials and The Fang, who was in charge of security, already knew they were dead due to no one having come here to deal with Huili.
“Just how many did you bring?” Hualong demanded.
“No one. It’s just little darling me. You’d see me coming if I brought an army, and I made my Five Generals go crush all the other Mirage branches in Huang He.”
“What?!”
The Five Generals were the strongest members of Huili’s Army of Fools, which put them among the country’s strongest Masters, as evidenced by them taking ranks three to seven on Huang He’s duel rankings.
There were two reasons why the leaders here were shocked.
First was the fact that such powerful people had gone to crush the branches they were supposed to be in charge of, and the second was that Huili was capable of silently killing a whole two hundred of their fighters without her generals at her side.
“And that’s why Mirage is over,” Huili went on as she equipped two fans.
It was her Superior special reward of “Phoenix Wings, Suling Er.”
At that moment, one of the officials made a move. It was The Fang, who had a Superior Job focused on dagger use.
He had an AGI build, so he was able to move behind Huili at a supersonic speed and use the fang-like dagger in his hand to attack her neck...
...only to lose his head and both of his arms.
“Don’t touch my hands, okaaay?” the woman sang.
“...Eh?” Hualong voiced her confusion at The Fang’s vanished head and arms.
She knew him very well. He was her bodyguard and an assassin who’d sent many of her enemies to their graves.
She trusted him more than anyone else here, and he was now lying in a pool of his own blood, leaking from the places where his head and arms were supposed to start.
“Oh dear, I’m gonna get blood all over me. Maybe the head was enough?” Huili said as she made a troubled face.
In her hands, she held two bloody fans, making it obvious what happened — she’d killed The Fang using those as her weapon.
“I-It can’t be...” Hualong panicked. “The Fang... He was our strongest...”
Her subordinates were shocked, too.
“N-No way... wait... but the Dancing Princess wasn’t a vanguard...”
“She was this powerful? She wasn’t at the top just because of her looks...?”
No one could blame them for being surprised.
As famous as Huili was, she wasn’t known for her battle prowess.
It was widely believed that she was at the top of her clan only due to her supreme beauty, and that she only had a Superior special reward because her clan had played a big part in the battle against the SUBM.
That was the consensus among Huang He’s tians. The fact that Dancing Princess was neither a vanguard nor a rear guard job played a part in that perception, too.
The belief about the Superior special reward was ridiculous, though, for the MVP had to be someone who’d contributed to the UBM battle directly, not through someone else.
But even then, no one could blame them, for it was hard to believe that someone this beautiful could be such a monster.
“The Fang, huh?” Huili muttered as she looked down at The Fang’s corpse. “Hmm... do we have anyone who could take that job among my fools? It’s a ‘The One’ job, though, so it’ll probably be hard. Will I free up any more Superior Jobs after I take care of you all?”
She looked at the remaining officers as if evaluating them.
On this day, Huili’s Army of Fools and Huang He’s military focused on completely destroying Mirage.
The info provided by the DIN was very clear, so they were able to eliminate all the Mirage bases in Huang He and the people working there.
They were all either killed or arrested.
The same applied to those in the main branch.
The two hundred fighters were either killed or captured, while out of the eight officials that’d gathered, three died, two committed suicide, and three gave themselves in.
And most importantly, Hualong was arrested.
After losing everything her family had worked for in but a blink of an eye, the girl looked as though all emotion had left her.
Thus, centuries of a grudge that had almost sparked a new civil war was cleaned up like the most insignificant triviality.
Then again, compared to what would eventually happen on this continent, it really was a triviality.
A certain clan’s info transmission
Time: March 28th, 6:32AM (Global Standard Time)
Notification: From Zeta to all I.F. members.
Report: Failed to retrieve Treasurebeast Orb containing Thundershield Beast, Dangai.
Reason: Destruction of the other party, Mirage.
Details:
The Caldinian branch was suppressed by The Ace and one other (no details available).
The main branch in Huang He was destroyed by Dancing Princess.
The other branches there were destroyed by Huili’s Army of Fools and the military.
Addendum:
Dancing Princess isn’t the only one making notable moves in Huang He. The emperor found out that other orbs had leaked to Caldina and ordered the Commander-in-Chief to go retrieve them.
Powerful people from Legendaria and Tenchi are moving towards Caldina, too.
It is unknown whether that is related to the current main subject, but the possibility cannot be ignored.
It appears that Caldina will soon host battles over the orbs.
It is unlikely that any faction will cooperate with any other.
Conclusion:
Just as planned. By giving six of the seven orbs I’d stolen to tian organizations which then took them from Huang He to Caldina, I successfully achieved the intended goal.
The info reached many people, making widespread chaos inevitable.
Next up:
We will focus on analyzing all the forces taking part in the battles for the orbs, starting with Caldina and Huang He.
I will also report this to our leader in the gaol.
Just as scheduled, I will play a role in the upcoming war between two countries on the west side of the continent.
The orb I have with me will be a good bargaining chip when trying to persuade someone to join us.
If possible, I will also try meeting the newbie infiltrating Gideon: Gerbera.
It appears that she is planning to do something we haven’t accounted for, so I intend to question her.
Human affairs:
I entrust our Caldina operations to those who aren’t wanted there.
Revision:
All of us are.
Designation:
I entrust it to Murder Princess, Emily.
Remarks:
I request that The Weapon, Rascal the Bloodonyx support her.
Additionally, I have found someone of value in the desert. Entrusting him to my successor.
Caution:
Emily, keep your kill count for this case within three digits.
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