《Spaceship and Dragon》 Chapter 1: Prelude (Part 1) She was supposed to graduate in two months, after 6 years of internship aboard the Motive. Naomi woke up in horror, threw her blanket away in panic and ran out of the room. "I''m going to be late. I can''t be late the third time. Why am I like this?" She brushed her teeth with two hasty strokes, slapped some water on her face, dried it with a towel, then threw the towel into the basket. "Why do I always ''just a bit more sleep''?", Naomi ridiculed herself, "You never sleep ''a bit'', you know that, why do you never learn, oh Naomi?" 5 minutes later, she bolted out of her student apartment, nearly crashed into something in the hallway. "Good morning, Ms. White, going somewhere in a hurry?" "Sorry Mora, have a good day". Naomi waved her augmented hand to the janitor robot without looking back. A "Do not run in the hallway" hologram warning flashed in front of her face. "I''m sorry, Gimmic, just this one, please, I am very late!" Naomi averted her eyes quickly to the left to dismiss the message, while pleading to the monitoring drone above her head. "I will share ''The Garden of Love'' file on the neural net with you in a few minutes, I have seen you riding the elevator to listen to it." The drone finally gave up and flew away. [I must thank Officer Emma for sending me the song.] However, Naomi didn''t like dubstep, despite her effort to like the favorite song of her closest crewmember. [Why would someone so young and cheerful like Officer Emma have the same taste in music as my grandfather?] Naomi regretfully thought. Having arrived at the Dimensional Transferring Station downstairs, Naomi hurriedly swiped her student card before jumping into a vacant pod, typed frantically into the control panel and pressed ''confirm'' for her desired location: The Alexa Corp Hangar #25.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. *** "I''m going to let this one slide. Just this one. Because you''re cute. But just this one. Do you understand?" "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Thank you, sir." "Okay. Have you prepared for the mission? What''s the mission?" "Our 241st mission is to scan Emerald galaxy of the universe 00A26 for possible dark energy rich locations, sir." "That''s right. I trust you understand that Emerald galaxy is uncharted, and navigation through the sector must be handled with more care than usual?" Captain Jack raised his eyes from the manifesto to look at the panicking student in front of him. "Cute, so cute". He thought while utilizing every bit of his mental power to look back at the manifesto. "Yes, sir. If you''ll excuse me, I want to watch Pilot Wang prepare the ship for an uncharted scanning mission, sir." "You do that." Naomi walked a bit away from the captain, then she started to run. She was uncomfortable interacting with the man. She was pretty sure that the man liked her. "There is no way I''m dating a 39-year-old guy." The age gap of 15 years was just too much for her. In front of her lied a long, big, black spacecraft, Alexa Corp mining vessel number 4210, "the Motive", a state-of-the-art universe-jumping mining vessel. It was one of the few spacecrafts recently equipped for universe-jumping. The expansion of the original universe, or 00A01, was the cause for the application of the new technology. Instead of folding billions of light years of space, which costs tons of energy, to teleport to the next galaxy and do the same to carry the raw condensed energy back to the Andromeda galaxy, the mining ships of the new generation would travel to galaxies in parallel universes, on top of the original one. It was a huge spike in profit compared to the old mining method. After all, the efficiency of the energy mining business was the top priority of Alexa Corporation. *** Instead of going to pilot Wang, the mischievous young pilot-to-be turned to the engine room to meet a young mechanic. "No, there is no need to wear gloves for this. I''m just looking for the sonic screwdriver." "Are you even listening to yourself? ''An ungloved hand could short-circuit the tool storage computer and explode the ship?'' If you don''t stop being annoying, I''m going to reset you back to default, Alexa!" Naomi smiled. This has been a usual occurrence on the ship in the recent couple of months. [When I graduate and get my own neural assistant, I''m never going to modify it.] Naomi promised to herself. Chapter 2: Prelude (Part 2) Naomi released a breath of exhaustion after the ship finally entered the Emerald galaxy. For an intern pilot, her job was to go around the bridge and do the manual jobs the pilots are too lazy to do themselves. Press this button, flip that switch, fetch those numbers etc. [People on the ground probably think a modern spaceship will have all the control options neatly presented on a touchscreen or a hologram in front of the pilots.] Well, that used to be the case, until the disaster of the Titan. After the investigation of how a modern, almost fully automated spacecraft could crash into the Twin Tower killing thousands of people during a routine landing, yielded an unexpected result, which was "touch screen fatigue"; control panels of a spacecraft were redesigned to resemble that of an ancient nautical ship, with a lot more manual buttons and switches. Apparently, using touch screens for a long time can cause mistakes, and having every option on a single screen wasn''t a good idea. [How about ''button fatigue for intern students'', have you thought about that?] Naomi knitted her brows in thoughts while drinking water. Pilot Anton looked at her exhausted face and smiled. Brightly. Charmingly. He gave a glance to pilot Wang, then seemingly shook his head a bit. [Oh yeah, especially him.] Naomi rolled her eyes. Seriously though, Naomi thought the Corporation should ban overweight pilots. Half of the errands she ran in the past two hours was for pilot Wang. [That recalibration button was in his arm length, he just needed to move his body a bit more to reach it. Instead, he called me from the other side of the bridge to press it for him!] Naomi furiously thought. From now on the ship would be on automatic cruising. Without the universe-jumping, space-folding shenanigans, there wasn''t much for her to do anymore. She then proceeded to tiptoe away to the engine bay.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. *** The engine bay had two very different engine rooms. A tradition fire-and-heat jet engine room, and a space-age dimensional engine room. One is hot, one is cold. When they are in operation, of course. Emma was standing under a huge sphere with pipes coming from all around it. "Thank you for your work, now let me see if you are alright." She mumbled in a soft voice while opening the computer panel on the machine. Her breath was like white smoke in the freezing temperature. "Warning, talking to machines is a sign of mental instability. Suggestion, user should meet doctor Emily for a check-up." "Don''t trash talk when I''m working, Alexa." Seeing rows of green checkmarks on the computer screen, Emma was satisfied. As she was closing the computer panel, the first sign that something was wrong happened. "Blyat." A cry of pain following a loud "bong" sounded from the other side of the machine. That sounded like her crewmate, Andrei. [He probably banged his head into something, again.] Emma face-palmed. A 2-meter-tall man working as an engineer in a spacecraft with low ceiling in the engine bay is just unfortunate. [That ''bong'' was rather loud, though. Hope he didn''t get a concussion or something.] "Andrei, you''re okay?" "Yeah, I banged my head into the overhead pipe. Man, it''s bleeding." "Figures. You need some bandages, or do you want me to request the healing magic gun?" "Healing magic, please. I''m bleeding rather bad. The blood is in my eyes!" Emma smiled wryly then turned to the requisition panel behind her. A few clicks and teleporter should bring over the dark matter energy manipulator and the healing core from the storage room. The screen flickered. Emma was startled. A quantum computing device should never flicker. It was physically impossible for a full quantum-powered device to flicker. Then, the light went out. It was the most horrifying 3 seconds of darkness. There is nothing worse for her heart than the loss of power in a spacecraft. Thankfully, the power came back. But the lights did not turn back on except for the flashing emergency light over her head. The screen of the computer in front of her was also black. She fumbled away to the med kit with her flashlight, while asking her reliable companion. "Alexa, what''s the situation?" "Answer, Alexa detects a strong field of quantum jamming. All quantum computational devices are no longer operational." [This is bad, quantum jamming is only possible by a space-faring race with knowledge of the dark matter energy. We are encountering an unknown Type III civilization!] She sweat in realization, despite the surrounding temperature of below zero. She quickly bandaged the injured Andrei, then walked him out of the room. She saw Naomi running at her when she reached the door. "Sister Emma, we are under attack!" Chapter 3: The Attack (Part 1) It wasn''t that Jack did not notice Naomi sneaking out from the room. He didn''t mind. To be honest, he would probably forgive the adorable girl for any mistake if it meant that the girl would stay with the Motive after graduation. He had always had a soft spot for cute Asian girls. 6 years ago, he received a rather particular file from the Sados academy. A petite girl, born in the Milky Way, graduated high school at the age of 16 thanks to remarkable achievements, went to Andromeda galaxy to become a freighter pilot. Again, with her impressive performance in the academy, she was selected to be one of the few to receive internship aboard a new generation mining vessel. That wasn''t anything strange. What caught his eyes was the list of augmentations installed all over the girl''s body. It was long. Way too long. She was like a cyborg! Well, it wasn''t a problem for him, and he was pretty sure it was not a problem for anybody else aboard his ship. The Corporation surely wouldn''t assign someone like this to a ship with augphobic crewmembers. In fact, the Corporation didn''t like augphobic people, since most of them would refuse to have a neural assistant installed. [Guess the Corporation is augphobic-phobic?] Jack smirked. The introduction of neural assistant Alexa, designed by and named after the Corporation, saw a 90% reduction in pilot and mechanic errors. Having a miniature dark energy computer constantly monitoring everything you do does seem creepy, however, Jack didn''t pay any attention to it. It''s a machine, it''s not alive, and it has no connection module to the outside world to tell what you do to other people. Except for Emma''s Alexa though. Jack refuses to comment on that. That thing wasn''t an Alexa anymore. "Captain, you need to see this!" Pilot Anton swiped on his screen. A hologram entered Jack''s vision. "What the hell? An estimated yield of 4 sextillion tons? That''s likeˇ­ a whole planet of condensed dark energy!"If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Everyone on the bridge gulped. This entire planet alone can provide the amount of condensed raw energy ore of trillions of galaxies combined. This rock floating here had enough energy to power mankind and other races of the Federation to the next Big Bang, and possibly to the one after that. This next line he said was something he would probably regret forever. "Let''s not contact the Corp right now. We are going to take a look first. Ready to launch the probe!" Everybody immediately understood what Captain Jack is implying. In a normal mining operation, where the ores are spread out across a galaxy, it was difficult to gain any personal benefit. A huge team of scouts, miners, freighters, monitors would work on the mining sites with every planet charted, the yield of every site accurately calculated to the picograms. But now, if they just send a probe down and shoot a few ores into orbit for the ship to catch, everyone would be stupidly rich. Another peculiar thing, was that this planet had lives. Encountering a planet with lives is very rare, one in the billions of billions of billions, but everybody''s eyes were already in the shape of shining credits to pay attention to such tiny, insignificant detail. [They look like a Type Zero civilization anyway, too much green on the planet. Surely they wouldn''t mind us mining ores they don''t know how to use.] Jack laughed in his heart. With this motherlode, he would be able to leave this menial, boring job and buy his own ship. He started working on mining ships 13 years ago due to his adventurous heart. However, he discovered that space mining was painfully boring. Instead of going to different cities of different races to have new experiences, he was stuck with going back and forth between the planet Habitat 7, which he was already tired of, and lifeless rocks. There is only so long you can marvel at planets and galaxies until it stops leaving you an impression. *** There was a state of utter confusion on the bridge. After the computers stopped responding, pilot Anton connected his Alexa to the ship via the manual port on the back of his neck to assess the situation. "I have hailed them 6 times, sir, they are not responding!" He shouted. Anton had no idea how to deal with an enemy attack. Even the manuals of the Corporation didn''t have anything for such a scenario. Because it had never occurred for thousands of years. "Do you know what type of ship they are?" "Negative, sir, they are outside scanner range." The captain placed his face onto his palms, seemingly hard in thoughts. The ship was being hit by a heat ray, the temperature of the hull was rising rapidly. Space battle in real life isn''t like in the movies. There is no ''evading'' a laser ray. Ships wouldn''t be so close as to be able to see each other. With the quantum computers unresponsive, starting the engine to escape was out of question. Alexa wouldn''t be able to handle complicated equations for dimensional navigation. Starting the jet engine would be beyond stupid, as they were already having a problem with heat, and moving so slowly with a conventional engine wouldn''t change a thing anyway. At this rate, the insulation would fail in 20 minutes. The crew would be cooked alive in less than 30 minutes. Chapter 4: The Attack (Part 2) "Wait, they went straight to attacking us? Have we negotiated with them?" "Yes, Anton''s Alexa told me on the speaker that she hasn''t been successful in establishing contact!" Naomi cried. The girl lifted her glasses and wiped away her tears. She must have been terrified when the ship lost power. "How are they attacking us? Heat ray?" Emma asked while thinking about something. A nod from Naomi gave her a clue about what she should do. "You take Andrei, go to the med bay." Emma pushed Andrei to Naomi. "I''m going to go to the tool storage to fetch a darkenergy infused gas tank. The ventilation system is offline, the doc will suffocate." Naomi nodded her head. Naomi picked Andrei up in a princess carry, then ran down the dark hallway. Thankfully, Andrei was too light-headed to notice this. A 1m55 girl carrying a 2-meter man was a sight to behold. [Many of the systems on this ship are managed by quantum computers. Fortunately, the artificial gravity is isolated and runs on dark energy. I would hate to be floating around at a time like this.] Emma thought, averting her eyes from their silhouette and ran in a different direction. *** "Doctor Emily! Are you in there?" Naomi pressed her face onto the laminated glass. Andrei was sitting in the hallway, breathing heavily. It seemed that he was exhausted due to the blood loss. Instead of an answer, a pair of alien hands pressed onto the glass from the other side in response, which startled the girl. "Please wait a bit, Officer Emma is coming!" Naomi shouted. She knew the doctor couldn''t hear her, since the med bay is air-tight and soundproof. However, the act of shouting in this circumstance somehow calmed her down a bit. She could feel that it was getting hotter. As a graduating pilot, Naomi understood how heat dispersion had always been a problem for spacecrafts. After all, there is no air in space, there is nowhere for heat to go except a tiny amount of heat radiation. This reason was also why one of the most common weapons to be used in space battles was a simple concentrated infrared ray. Accurate, deadly, effective. And gruesome. Emma arrived, cutting off her thought process. A cart was stopped behind Naomi. 3 cylindrical air tanks were on it. Emma told Naomi to open the med bay door while breathing heavily. Naomi pulled the manual lever to release the airlock. Reddish air poured out from inside. A tall, fierce-looking alien emerged. It took one of the tanks on the cart, strapped on its back and put the breather on its face. "Thank you." The non-human doctor said in a hoarse voice.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. "I''m going to leave Andrei here with you to rest. He banged his head again, this time more serious. He lost a bit of blood, I''m going to heal him now." Emma took out a device from the tool belt around her waist that looked like a bent TV remote. She inserted a green chip into the rectangular hole on the device. A green, pulsing light appeared, ran along the stark white device, indicating that it was ready to use. All the while, Naomi undid the bandage around Andrei''s head. The wound had stopped bleeding thanks to Emma''s skilled first aid, but it still had the appearance of a ghastly deep cut wound. Emma pointed the dark energy manipulator at Andrei''s head. A few seconds later, the wound had completely disappeared, only some clotted blood remained. "Naomi, you go back to the bridge to see if they need help." Emma commanded. "I''m going to the engineering bay." She then looked at the ceiling and shouted to the air. "Alexa, I''m going to perform manual heat rod release. How long do we have?" A robotic female voice answered her from the speaker on the wall. "Answer, hull temperature is rising at the rate of 100 degrees per minute. Estimated insulation failure in: T minus 15 minutes. Estimated life loss in: T minus 18 minutes." "That''s not enough time. Naomi, scratch that, you are coming with me!" Emma said, jumping onto the cart after rolling the remaining gas tanks out of it. "Push me!" "Roger!" The petite girl with a bob cut put her hands on the cart. The girl''s body slightly lowered, her eyes closed. There was a quiet whirring noise for a second. As Naomi opened her eyes, she exploded into an inhuman, rocket-like speed. The two girls and the cart seemingly disappeared from their original location. Only the chitauri psychology doctor, the human engineer, and echoes of Emma''s utterly horrified shriek remained in the dark corridor. *** "How''s the negotiation? Any luck?" Emma asked the ceiling after pushing the last heat rod out of the ship. Transferring heat from the hull into heat rods and push them out into space would be the usual practice for emergency heat dumping. Emma was buying time for the bridge to figure out a solution for the predicament. "Alexa?" Emma gulped. An unmodified Alexa wouldn''t prank people. "Alexa?" Emma asked again in a shaky voice, while slowly taking out her neural cable. Naomi also understood the situation. She watched as Emma plugged her Alexa into a control panel. Not long after, Emma fell on the ground, disconnecting the cable from the control panel. "Everybodyˇ­ everybodyˇ­" Naomi collapsed on her knees as she watched Emma mumbling with her eyes widened. The look of horror on Emma''s face told her everything. Emma sprung up, grabbing Naomi shoulders as she spoke hastily. "W-we have to get out of here. The bridge was breached. The enemy somehow concentrated their laser and punched a hole through the ship. A torpedo is heading here. It will be here in five minutes and obliterate us!" "I''m going to go back and get the doctor and Andrei. They don''t know anything. I can''t inform them from here, the PA system is destroyed. You get into the escape pod." Emma tried to get up, to no avail. She turned to the ceiling. "I, chief engineer Emma Rodriguez of the Motive, hereby grant intern student Naomi White permission to abandon ship." Tears kept pouring out of her eyes. [This is stupid. There is no ship recording, no control system, no bridge, no captain Jack, pilot Anton, pilot Wangˇ­ everybody I have been working with and come to love in the past 10 years is here no longer.] Nobody noticed anything until the ceiling started melting. At that point, it was too late. Once decompression happens, the automatic airlock would drop immediately. Air in the bridge was sucked away. Everybody suffocated to death. The direct heat from the concentrated ray melted every control in the bridge afterward. [But thisˇ­this is not the time for that.] Emma stood up. However, a hand held her back. "I''m going, you should leave first, Officer Emma." Chapter 5: The Fall (Part 1) "No, Naomi, I command you toˇ­" Emma shut up as she saw a light flashed in Naomi''s eyes. [That''s not a hallucination.] Emma gulped. [That''s Naomi''s threatening signal. Red light means ''last warning''.] Emma retreated as Naomi stood up and entered runner stance. "Wait, take this." Emma put the dark energy manipulator into Naomi''s hand. She took out a multitude of programming chips in different colors and stuffed it into the girl''s pant pocket. Emma wiped her tears. "Plug your ears". She readily obeyed. A sonic boom ensured that knocked Emma and objects in the room away. When Emma came to, Naomi had already disappeared. A lonely feeling immediately dawned on her. However, it was shaken out of Emma''s head as soon as it came. "I can''t leave just yet". Emma thought as she left the engineering bay and bolted to the engine bay next door. "Alexa, display a timer on my retinal." Emma said as she ran at top speed. A small countdown to the milliseconds emerged at the corner of her field of view. "4:23." It read. As she arrived at the jet engine room, she plugged Alexa to the control panel on the humongous jet engine. "Alexa, program the jet engine to fire at the very last moment possible to evade the torpedo." She fiddled with the control panel. Emma had to save the ship. This was her last hope of ever returning. The ship might be non-operational, but as long as it survives, she had a miniscule amount of chance to fix it. "Set the course for the planet below, try to make it loosely follow the trajectory of my escape pod. Account for course correction in case the torpedo hit the ship." "Notification, programming completed." 3 minutes remaining. *** "Alexa, prepare a radio S.O.S message." Emma returned to the engineering room, where the escape pods are located. "Not for the escape pod, for the ship." Emma hoped that everybody will survive, and get united at the ship crashing site.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! She opened the lid to an escape pod, jumped into the open spacesuit inside. She waited anxiously as the suit clicked around her. "Mayday, mayday, this is Alexa Corp mining vessel number 4210, we are crash landing on the third planet from the sun, requesting assistance from any vessel in the vicinity of the Cesari system. Predicted landing coordinate is 53.273, -7.778. Beware of hostile spacecraft of unknown Type III civilization." "That''s good". Emma connected her Alexa to the control panel on the escape pod. "Allow broadcast." She commanded. As per regulation, any communication from Alexa to others had to be confirmed by the user. One minute remaining. Emma anxiously waited in her escape pod. There was sound of two inhumans running from outside the door. Naomi emerged, holding Andrei on her arms, while the doctor also appeared a second later. She looked flabbergasted at Emma sitting in her escape pod. "Why are you still here!" She shouted. 50 seconds. "There is no way I''m leaving without you! Hurry!" Emma beckoned. Naomi threw Andrei into an escape pod, rather violently, then went into an escape pod herself. Emma was sure she was just in a hurry. The chitauri doctor also entered an escape pod, designed specifically for chitauri people. All the pods'' lids closed at the same time. 40 seconds. Emma pulled the ejection handle on the lid. Nothing happened. "F*ck! Aren''t escape pods supposed to be emergency last resort? How the f*ck would such a system fail? F*ck f*ck f*ck!" Emma cried as she pulled the handle again harder, then harder. Alexa told her that other pods also failed to launch. Emma''s brain was working at high speed. "The ship wouldn''t be able to fully evade the torpedo. Once it hits, there is no telling if we could survive. This is bad, this is so bad. What''s to do? What''s to do?!" Emma kicked and punched the escape pod lid in frustration. Tears dripped onto the floor. In the end, she could not save anybody. Emma suddenly heard a knocking on the pod''s lid. She looked up to see Naomi''s beaming smile on the outer pod''s camera. Naomi saluted at the camera, then bent her waist, a common gesture of Japanese people to express gratitude. "Naomi, what are youˇ­" Naomi inserted the red chip into the dark matter energy manipulator. It was then turned on to become a cutting device that resembled a laser sword. She cut at the clamps that were holding the escape pod in place. She then kicked at the escape pod. Emma looked as Naomi and the ship moved further and further away. 10 seconds. The 2 other pods were also released one by one. 5 seconds. The jet engine ignited as programmed. The torpedo could be seen on camera at that moment, closing in at breakneck speed. The torpedo seemed to have realized that its supposedly stationary target, was moving out of the way. It took a few milliseconds to reignite its own rockets and stabilizing. However, as it was flying too fast and was too close now, it could not adjust itself to hit squarely onto the target anymore. The torpedo glanced at the side of the ship, exploding in a small, quick fireball, breaking apart 3/4 of the ship and sent debris flying everywhere. The ship swiveled as it plunged down towards the planet. "Naomiˇ­ noˇ­" Emma moved slowly away from the outer pod camera screen. "Alexa, did she survive?" The robotic voice in her head sounded softer than usual. "Alexa is sorry, Alexa does not know. The explosion scrambled Alexa''s scanning. When Alexa recovered, the ship was out of range." The voice suddenly regained its sharp demeanor. "Warning, concentrated heat ray detected aiming at escape pod of human Andrei." Chapter 6: The Fall (Part 2) "These f*ckersˇ­" Emma pressed a button next to the top view camera screen, labeled "infrared mode". [Unlike the ships, heat shield and insulation on an escape pod is extremely powerful. They can''t roast people in escape pods with a heat ray like ships, they have to punch through the hull with a concentrated ray like before.] [If the parameter is the same, it would take around 25 minutes for the ray to finish concentrating.] [We wouldn''t be even close to reaching the planet''s atmosphere in 25 minutes. That ray can exterminate at least one of us.] Emma had never seen such a weapon before. A concentrated ray that can punch through metal from hundreds of thousands of kilometers away? What kind of lens could do that? Even with the Federation''s manufacture capability, concentrating lens used on military spacecrafts still had tiny refraction imperfections. And even if they use dark matter negative gravity field generator, (which costs a planet''s year worth of energy to turn on for even a millisecond, by the way) to push the photons together, they still couldn''t concentrate the laser ray smaller than ten kilometers, if they fire from 100,000 kilometers away. The fluctuation of the fields would make the ray sway all around, to the point that it would be even less accurate than traditional lens lasers, rendering the weapon useless. As a weapon enthusiast, Emma had researched all sort of weapons on the neural net, spacecraft weapons included. Not that she ever had the chance to operate one. The universe had been peaceful for thousands of years. No civilian would dare to even think of attacking a Corporation-owned spacecraft. In this age, criminals were guaranteed to be found out and punished immediately. Forensics tech had evolved so much, the term "perfect crime" had become extinct. What can escape dark dimension projection that can literally reverse time? The chance of being attacked by an unknown enemy is close to nil, considering how nearly impossible it is to discover new civilization, space-faring ones are even rarer. Too many extinction level events to overcome for that. As a result, the Corporation did not bother with arming any of their mining vessels. Not only to cut down on costs, but also because they didn''t like doing useless stuff.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Back to the subject at hand, Emma needed to find a way to protect her people until they reach the planet''s atmosphere, where air refraction and heat dispersal would make laser rays as fatal as sunlight. *** Anver was keeping the bear-looking beast busy with his spear while Lena reloaded her crossbow. Their third member, a young man, was standing behind Anver, ready to tag in when the leader gets tired. They didn''t expect to encounter this type of beast today. They were in over their head. Lena finished reloading and let loose another arrow on the beast. It roared loudly, switched its gaze to the one that dared to shoot those tiny things at it. It swiped claws at Anver, to get this pointy creature out of the way to pound at the other one first. "Kid, you''re it." Anver dodged as he shouted. The young man raised his spear and poked with all his might at the beast''s butt as it was looking away. "Hya." "Leave the spear! Come back here!" The youth swiftly returned to his original position. The beast turned back and angrily clawed at the air, where the youth had been. The spear handle swung about as the tip was embedded in the beast''s behind, looking rather comical. "Missed me, stupid!" The youth laughed. Anver shouted to cut his laugh short. "Stay focused!" The guy probably had never encountered this beast before, Anver thought. This thing was beyond dangerous. Treating this beast like the small fries the team had hunted before would be very fatal. However, Anver did not have time to reprimand the young man. He quickly and accurately jumped up and speared at the beast''s head. He retreated immediately. "Bingo!" Anver skewered the beast''s right eyeball. That should hurt. The beast raised an ear-shattering painful roar. Anver jumped back in and retrieved his weapon. He unplugged the spear from the beast''s grimacing face. Blood spurted out. That should hurt even more. At that moment, an arrow plunged into the remainder of the beast''s eyeballs. Blinded the beast. "Yes!" Shouted Lena. She proceeded to reload another arrow. The youth seemed to have been inspired by the event. He took another spare spear from the bag on the ground and ran to the side of the beast, recklessly poked at it. "Stand down, boy!" Anver commanded hurriedly. Just because the beast was blind didn''t mean it couldn''t attack. If anything, a blinded beast would be even more ferocious. He kicked the ground, intending to spear the beast to get the stupid kid out of danger. He did not make it in time. The claws of the beast tore through the flesh of the young man. He fell to the ground. Anver immediately stopped in his track. Lena threw her crossbow away, unsheathed her sword as she ran towards the beast. Anver couldn''t believe his eyes. [Why are people around me so stupid?] "He is scratched, there is no saving him!" Lena realized something and hesitatingly slowed her advance to a stop. She turned around to pick up the crossbow. The beast punched at the youth, its claws impaled the tender neck of the human. Anver didn''t let this precious chance go to waste. He jumped at the bear, a spear readied in his palm. The dangerous game of poking and shooting continued, this time with only two people. Chapter 7: The Girl With A Dream I stood as I watched the escape pods slowly moving away, and the torpedo dashing towards me. The world became silent. Time seemed to have slowed down. Eyes half closed, I reached out my hand. I felt like I could gently touch the raging warhead, as it comes and brings me away from all of this. There was nothing in my lungs. Air in the room had been sucked out from the holes where the escape pods used to be. Suffocation. Frustration. But somehow, glad. *** I was born on Earth, the birthplace of the human. I had a rare disease, Osteogenesis Imperfecta, commonly known as the brittle bone disease. My condition was severe. My bone could break if I did so much as running. My family sent me to a zero-gravity facility, Moon 02, an artificial moon orbiting the Earth, cooperatively built by Japan and America for research purposes. I had no friends. Everyone around me was old and busy scientists. Some pitied me and played with me, but they always left after a few weeks. "Station transferring", I was told. My parents visited me regularly at first, but they came less and less often. They were businessmen on Earth. They had to work to pay for my expenditure on the Moon. I knew they loved me. But through the years, they became more and more like strangers. I spent every single day praying that I stopped growing the next week. At 14 years old, my prayers were answered. After a procedure that lasted for a week, my bones were completely injected with the superalloy Adamantium. My parents spared no penny to ensure I got the best treatment possible. I came back to Earth, eager to rejoin society, eager to make friends. However, reality was again cruel to me. After the attack of the anti-augmentation hacker group called Natural Order, discrimination against augmented people was deeply ingrained. Even after regulations were in place to restrict augmentations from connection, protests were widespread against the act of modifying one''s body. People still remembered the horror where augmentations all around the Milky Way exploded, taking the lives of billions of people. Parents held the hand of their child, dragging them away from me as I was left behind, broken-hearted. Bullying was common occurrences. I cried my eyes out as multiple drones surrounded me with holograms like "Trash android" and "Your mom sucks robot d*cks". Nobody wanted to be friends with me. Even the most soft-hearted ones deemed me not worth the trouble.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I survived 2 weeks at school. I reverted to studying on the neural net VR headset, just like before. I plunged into the neural net abyss like a mad scientist to forget about the world. I graduated at 16 years old, 2 years earlier than my peers. I immediately applied to go to the Andromeda galaxy. Thanks to the propagation by Alexa Corporation, citizens of the Andromeda galaxy were much less discriminating against augs. After all, no augmentation tragedy ever happened here. I came here with a dream. To be a pilot, to explore everything there is in the world, as if to make up for all those years I spent in a lonely room. I became fascinated with augmentations. They helped me regain freedom. They gave me the power to face the world. I didn''t care what people in my past said. Augmentations are not "unnatural". We are a product of nature, everything we create is a product of nature. I saved up the money I earned with my part-time jobs in anticipation of the next aug I wanted to buy. As I enjoyed my new life in the Sados Academy, I met Emma when she was still an intern student abroad the Motive. An amazing, cheerful and strong Latino girl with an adventurous heart. She came from the Milky Way galaxy, as did I. She studied in an all-male major, Spacecraft Engineering. It was very admirable. We went to a sushi restaurant and I laughed as she was fiddling with the chopsticks. In the end, she took out the "sonic screwdriver", a short-range telekinesis device she jokingly named after something similar in an ancient TV series, and levitated the sushi into her mouth in the astonished eyes of the people in the restaurant. We watched ancient movies like "Star Wars", "Star Trek" as we giggled about the space logic people of the time imagined. We kissed. We both did not like it though. It was a pity that she wasn''t a man. *** I jerked to the right due to the sudden acceleration. The jet engine fired. That should be sister Emma''s doing. Time resumed. Blood pumped into my head. I feared death. I ran back into the room, jumped into an escape pod and closed the lid as tightly as I could. A few moments later, violent vibrations ensured. A big chunk of metal appeared in my vision. It punched a hole into the spacesuit helmet, creating cracks all over. The tip of the metal chunk was centimeters away from my face. Blinding flashes of electricity poured out from the punctured control panel, and spinning, pulsing red lights covered the pod, further disorienting me. I opened the pod''s lid. The ship was moving away. The debris that crashed into my escape pod seemed to have dislodged the pod from the ship. I had to jump back. There was no surviving in a broken escape pod and failed spacesuit. There was a ''pop'' sounded inside me. That should be my artificial lungs reacting to the low concentration of oxygen in my blood, whether I wanted it to or not. I closed my eyes. A screen to set trajectory appeared on my eyelids. I moved my eyeballs around to quickly select and confirm the options. I opened my eyes and jumped. Time seemed to slow down again. As I was flying toward the ship, I activated my Wolverine Claw augmentation, which should help me hook myself to the ship. Yes, I know, I have Wolverine claws. What are those eyes of pity?! If you have Adamantium skeleton, you''ll install it too! Chapter 8: Clash Of Two Worlds Her head was full of sweat. Red lights were flashing all around her. A robotic voice in her head, although spoken like a soft-natured female, seemingly sounded like perpetual shouts of grief in the claustrophobic escape pod. "Warning. Automatic course correction, failure." "Predicted impact velocity is 562% maximum survivable limit." "Awaiting manual input." It was 30 seconds ago that she heard a loud booming noise from her right side. The panel with the image of the escape pod had part of its right side turned from orange to red, then a loud beeping permeated throughout the small room. "So, this is where I end." Emma wryly smiled to herself. She reached out and procedurally cut off the fuel supply to engine number 1 and 2. But she knew it was useless. There was absolutely no way this escape pod could land well with two of its main engines blown out. The pod has 5 engines, 3 main engines and 2 small engines for course correction. But now, all the remaining main engine could do would be to swivel the pod to the ground for a more stylistic death. [I should have listened to my sister], Emma thought after turning on both small engines, a useless action at this speed of over 30,000 kilometers per hour. [Space mining isn''t a job for a young girl!] [If you want a man''s job that much, you can be an engineer on the ground. Do you know how many spacecraft we lost last year? Five! And 134 people along with those rickety machines.] [What is it about space that you love so much?] The memory of those hours of lecture flashed through her mind. Her sister, in her lawyer attire, with one hand on her hip and the other pointing at her, complained to her with great displeasure. "I''m sorry, sis. I''m a bad sister. I hope you find a good man and get married soon." "You can''t keep rejecting everyone like that."This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. "Pitiful Michael. At least go on a date with him once. It has been 3 Galactic years. He isn''t that bad." Emma spoke to the onboard recorder while pressing the button to detach the fuel tank for the main engines. There was no way to send the message, though, not with the jamming signal of those freaks all over this space section. A tear rolled off her eyes, which was immediately sucked dry by the spacesuit. Emma turned off all the warnings in her head. "This is not what I want to hear when I die." Emma directed the neural chip to switch to music mode. After a series of confirmations explaining the law of the Corporation and how harsh the punishment would be if a pilot listens to music while there is warning onboard, her favorite song, "The Garden of Love", finally started playing. Emma closed her eyes, her finger reached for the parachute switch, but then retracted. "It''ll just get torn right off in the lower atmosphere anyway. Might as well get relaxed." The altimeter was going to zero at an impossible speed. *** Anver was resting as he chucked a mouthful of water from his leather sack. [The man is finished.] He thought to himself. Lying in front of him was his latest team member, a young man he did not even remember the name. 3 streaks of deep, bloody scratches ran along the man''s body. There were also claw marks on his neck. The man was trying to say something, but could only manage incomprehensible gurgles. He lifted his right hand holding a knife. The eyes that knew death was near. They have a mix of fear, hesitation, and some tingles of acceptance. [Sure. Why not.] Anver looked at the shaky, bloody teen, nodded. In a quick, startling motion, Anver grabbed the hand along the knife and plunged it into the youth''s heart. There was a yelp from his left side as he did that. He didn''t mind. "May the Source travel with you in your departure." He spoke as he made a sloppy hand movement in the form of a circle in front of his chest. He then turned to his companion. "Whelp, that does it. Let''s go back. We need a new team member tomorrow." The woman in black leather attire sitting next to him was still staring at the lifeless corpse. Anver raised an eyebrow. "Lena, hello? Are you going?" The woman shook her head and stood up. She took her sword out of the ground and sheathed it. A quick circular hand movement was made as Lena mumbled something. "Tch!" She clicked her tongue after the prayer and followed her leader out of the wood. The night was getting cold and scary. *** As the mercenary team now consisted of only 2 people was walking back, Anver noticed smoke rising from the center of the small village. "That''s the third one this week. Hunting season is starting. We have to be extra careful these days." Lena seemed to be startled out of thoughts as she heard Anver speaking. "No arrow left. Let''s get more than usual this time." She nodded heavily. "We have to keep a distance. I hate these meaningless deaths." "Wasn''t your fault, you know." "Yeah, of course, I know." Lena was back in thoughts again. "We are staying outside until they''re done burning people. I don''t need more negativity today." "Sure." Said Lena, as she removed her backpack and sat down with her leader in front of the village entrance. "How long are we going to have to keep living like this?" Lena unconsciously asked. The leader looked up as he mumbled. "That is something I also want to know, dear Lena." A lone shooting star cut through the beautiful starry night in a long, bright flash. Chapter 9: Awakened Emma jerked violently due to the blast of Dubstep in her ears. "Stop! Cancel! Shutdown! Damn it!" The music stopped, and a pleasant robotic female voice came to take its place. "Awakening successful. Warning, there is a fire in the vicinity." "There has to be a way to wake people up without ear-raping Alexa! My ears are still ringing!" "Objection, user seemed to have enjoyed the same music when the escape pod was on entry." "Not in full volume!" "Objection, user''s ears cannot ring, the music was projected straight into user''s brain from her spine. There was no auditory sensory involved." If it was not for the fact that her entire body was aching, Emma would definitely move her hand and slap it onto her forehead right now. She deserved it for modifying her neural assistant, a practice that was discouraged by virtually everyone on the neural net, Emma thought. Who knew that adding a bit of personality to her neural assistant could hurt her heart (and ears) so much? [Wait, I am still alive? How?] Emma immediately opened her eyes. In front of her was pitch black for a second, but the headlamp was automatically turned on afterward in response. The familiar escape pod control panel appeared in her vision. She flipped the switch to open the pod''s lid. No response. The manual crank was stuck. At least there was no visible fire. "Alexa, where is the fire?"Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. "Answer, outside the escape pod. Fuel leaked from the auxiliary fuel tank is burning." [Well, then I should be alright for a while.] Emma thought. Fire from outside an escape pod could never affect the person inside. There should be enough chemical oxygen to last her a day or two. But there was something else burning in her mind. "Alexa, how am I still alive?" At the speed of nearly Mach 20, and that was after having added the effect of friction and the small engines, colliding with the ground, there was just no chance. This was either a miracle, or some bad joke. Maybe her ship had never gotten shot at by a strange ship, that was monitoring this planet in stealth mode for some reason. Maybe she did not crash-land onto an uncharted planet, and no communication with the outside worlds due to the quantum jamming. May the door in front of her open to her crewmates laughing at her, saying it was a prank. Then she would jump out and punch them to death. Maybeˇ­ they were not dead. Alexa''s voice yanked her to reality. "Answer, according to the footage from the heat pad camera, the escape pod crashed into a massive creature that was manipulating the dark matter energy to displace dimension." "You mean the creature was trying to go through something solid?" "Yes. The creature was most likely trying to enter the ground. The escape pod hit the creature, killing it instantly. However, the displaced dimension field took a while to dissipate, and the escape pod entered the ground, dragging the creature''s corpse with it." Thanks to that, the deceleration time was extended to a survivable amount, Emma thought in astonishment. That was one in a trillion chance. She was very lucky, or very unlucky, depends on how one may look at it. She didn''t know if a quick death would be preferable to being buried underground while being gradually suffocated. With a quick calculation, factoring in the dimensional friction, the escape pod was probably around one-kilometer underground. Without a dark energy manipulator, or as people of the Corporation jokingly call it, "The Magic Gun", there was no way for her to get above ground. [Well, there is nothing else I can do.] Emma pushed the switch on the emergency S.O.S broadcast. Radio signal could not go through one kilometer of earth, so she switched it to short-distance dark dimension communication mode. [I don''t believe someone else that survived could hear my broadcast, then come and take me out of here. That is just impossible. If that happens I will have used up the luck of my entire life.] Emma laughed self-deprecatingly. The small pod somehow felt infinitely big and empty to her. Chapter 10: Domain Tribulation Handril opened his hand. A sword, embedded in a disfigured monster several meters away, trembled. However, it didn''t move much more than that. Handril squinted, further turned open the valve on his mana tank. The final bit of mana gas poured out, hovered in the air for a second before getting sucked into the Moving Stone on his left hand. The sword finally came loose, drew an arc through the sky, then came to rest in his right palm. More than 5000 of their soldiers perished in this fight, however, that was much better than the expected total annihilation. The relatively optimistic result was caused by an extremely eye-catching phenomenon behind the enemy line. "Commander, the last enemy is eliminated." He reported to the Listening Stone. "Yeah." Came a short reply. The voice of his leader was not in a happy tone despite the success. "Commander is too soft-hearted." He thought, while walking toward the source of the signal. The Listening Stone shone brighter with every step it took. A bit later, he found the Crusade commander sitting beside a dying Siege Beast. "As expected." He mumbled. Commander has always had a strange relationship with these vile creatures. The loss of dozens of these Beasts must have pained the Wise One. He walked up next to the commander. The Siege Beast seemed to have been severely injured when the enemy flanked them. A long tendril could be seen hanging out of Beast''s belly, going into the ground. It seemed that the enemy attacked the Beast from right below, and left its body part behind to quickly go to the next target. He waited while the Wise One got up, took out his sword, the tip of which was sent straight to the Beast''s skull. Handril got down on his knees as the Wise One turned back.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. "What do you think that was?" The Wise One asked, tilting his head in the direction where the enemy''s Earth Queen used to be. "Sir, that must have been the Domain tribulation to punish those lowly beings. The Source had aided the ones they judged to be deserving." Brandon smirked. That was the typical answer he expected. The unprecedented flash came from the sky and vanquished the Earth Queen. The Queen seemed to have tried to evade the danger, judging by a huge magic oscillation emitted right before it was hit. Brandon still remembered when the massive wave of magical energy and heat hit his face. The Siege Beasts were dying left and right, and without them, there was no offensive measure that can reach the enemy''s Queen. The situation was disastrous. For the first time in his life, Brandon felt scared. However, the powerful magical attack he expected did not come. A moment later, tendrils stopped emerging from the earth. A monster that was trying to get out of the ground was stuck halfway. Brandon immediately understood. Something had happened to the Earth Queen. Without the flanking enemies, the Siege Beasts regained their operation, destroying the enemy''s retreating army en masse. Having no connection with the hive mind spelled death for the remaining monsters. "Reorganize the troop, kill the bitten, take the stones from the dead, burn the rest, you know the drill. We are going back to the Church in one hour. My mana tank feels thin already." Commanded in an emotionlessly hoarse voice, Brandon pulled out the sword and strapped to his back, after looking at the corpse-strewn forest he was to walk through. "Yes, my lord." "I''m going to take a look at the place where the Earth Queen disappeared. Call Jacques, tell him to pick a couple dozens of soldiers and come with me. We''ll take the Wyverns, I want them ready at the base in 10 minutes." *** Jacques examined the ground. This was more than 500m away from the battlefield, outside the range of Siege Beasts. The vegetations 30 meters away from this spot looked like those after a storm, broken and uprooted outward. Inside this 30-meter area, nothing remained. There were traces of earth magic on the ground. The Crusade commander was standing aside, having a troubled expression. "Looks to me like the Queen was dragged into the ground violently." "My lord is wise." Jacques replied. What could be so powerful? A typical Earth Queen is humongous, spanning 20-30 meters. The effect of the strongest Fire Bomb a Fire Stone can conjure is insignificant compared to this scene. He jerked. The commander noticed the same thing. Both Listening Stones on them were flashing in an irregular pattern. "This isˇ­ unmarked communication? My lord, someone is down there!" Chapter 11: The Landing Jack sucked a lung-full of smoke and breathed out. The Corporation absolutely forbad the act of smoking on a spaceship, but he was the captain. Ruled were upheld in his watch and smoking was his privilege. He had been smoking non-stop for the past half an hour. The washroom was full of smoke. It certainly did not help with the ventilation and oxygen, but damn did it help with the smell. Half an hour ago, he went to wash his face and clear his head. Pilots were scrambling around, navigators were panicking. He needed a little space. He was clear of the situation, and there was no way out. Either they die in this spaceship or they lose the spaceship before having contacted the Corporation. The Corporation would never send rescue without receiving feedback communication. It was a heartless rule, but it was sensible. Having no spaceship meant no return, and the enemies wouldn''t be so kind as to not chase them when they escape to the planet. Then they would die anyway. As he was reminiscing about his old life, before losing the custody battle and with that, his two most important people, the automatic airlock slammed shut behind him. *** Even though Jack thought nothing could surprise him anymore, he screamed like a fangirl when he saw Naomi crawling outside the ship through the washroom''s huge star-view window. Yes, the toilet had a view for the stars. Go ask the designer of the ship if you have any question. Naomi looked back at him in surprise. Then she puffed her mouth in an effort to hold back laughter. Captain Jack was floating in shit! "Jack" and "shit"! She convulsed. Captain Jack''s displeased expression only added fuel to the fire. Naomi crawled into the hole that breached the bridge. She knew very well what was in there, who was floating in there. But she didn''t have any other choice. Being at the front of the ship was her best chance of survival. A ship doesn''t nosedive when it crash-lands unless it''s out of control or everyone on it is dead. Sister Emma must have programmed the ship to orient itself perpendicular to its trajectory when it lands, to spread the ship''s area as wide as possible and use the air as cushion. As such, the tail of the ship would very possibly touch the ground first. If the ship nosedives, Naomi would die. Humans aren''t built to survive nosediving into the ground from space, tail or front, augmented or not. As she entered the site where hell was unleashed, she grimaced at the sight of burnt corpses. Some floated around, some melted to the wall.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Naomi tried to block it out, unfocused her eyes the best she could. Not that she could recognize the mangled faces with their horror-filled expression. Every corpse had been burned beyond recognition. "You can do it. Captain Jack is floating in sh*t. Don''t cry." Mumbled Naomi as she crawled to the nearest emergency oxygen panel. Both the face mask and the tube had melted. After pulling hard on the cord to activate oxygen generation, Naomi jammed her face into the panel to suck at precious air. At least she wouldn''t have to look at the scene behind her the whole time the ship was landing. *** Naomi crawled out of the ship, after her artificial lungs gave her the ''okay'' for the air on the planet. A dark, strange forest opened up in front of her. There were sounds of animals, echoing from the deep pitch-black jungle. Tall trees covered the starry night sky. It felt surreal. Even in the limited range of her night-vision eyeballs, Naomi had never seen so many vegetations. Captain Jack was still busy taking a shower inside the ship. A few minutes later, the man also crawled out. It smelt like he washed his entire body with bleach. "Did you contact the escape pods?" "No, I was waiting for you, captain." Naomi answered. "Wait, howˇ­?" "I know you smuggled a mobile phone onto the ship. You think a Corporation ship wouldn''t have things to monitor unauthorized mobile devices?" Jack mused. "Your last entry was sending a music file to a dorm monitor drone called ''Gimmic''? Is that what I think it is?" He said as he laughed. Naomi blushed. Jack waved his hand. "Don''t worry, knowing how to bribe is a good quality. Now, we must get supplies and tools from the ship. Only then should we be worried about other people." His words slowed down. "Only then, we bury our crewmates." *** The duo salvaged very bit of food and drink they could carry. There wasn''t a tool storage anymore, only a massive hole remained. The tool storage was next to the engineering bay and it was where the torpedo headed into. "Bad luck, huh? I really hope the engines are okay. We''ll check on them later. Let''s get to our next order of business." Said the blond-haired man as he chewed on a protein bar. "At least, it doesn''t seem the enemy is chasing us down here. Weird." Naomi turned her phone on to find other surviving crew members. After a while, sound crackled from the device. "Maydayˇ­ Alexa Corp mining vessel number 4210ˇ­ requesting assistance from any vessel in the vicinity of the Cesari systemˇ­ predicted landing coordinateˇ­ beware of hostile spacecraftsˇ­" "That''s from an escape pod, sir. Strangeˇ­ it is not communicating on radio channels. This is dark dimension communication." Naomi shook her head. "The signal is rather weak, captain. My mobile phone is much less powerful than the communication device on an escape pod. We can''t talk to whoever in the escape pod unless we get closer." Jack nodded. Naomi then proceeded to set up a campfire, while Jack dragged the bodies out of the ship and buried the dead crew members. Naomi wanted to take some mementos, but the captain dissuaded her. "We''ll bury those here. They mean nothing if we can''t survive." Jack said as he threw the mementos one by one into each burial hole. The soccer ball that pilot Anton used to annoy the hell out of people. The Star of Recognition for Exceptional Protector Service belonged to the old ex-cop navigator Zheng Zhihao. ˇ­ Jack paused a bit at the photo frame. He sighed, took out the photo. On it was the scene of the entire team celebrating Christmas. He stuffed the photo into his back pocket, then threw the frame down the last hole. "How can you be so calm, sir?" Naomi watched her leader acting like an emotionless machine, her eyes already wet. No answer came. Dirt gradually filled the burial hole. Suddenly, Jack stopped shoveling, his eyes turbulent. "Unidentified creatures approaching." Jack commanded. "Ready for combat." Chapter 12: The Rescue Jack levitated a bunch of pebbles and shot it towards the beast that was lunging at him. The pebbles whizzed through the air, releasing deafening supersonic booms amid the barbaric roars. The beast became broken like a rag mid-air and reversed its momentum due to the extreme kinetic force. However, another beast immediately filled in. The dark energy manipulator on Jack''s hand was pulsing in red light in between the blue steady light. Naomi was standing next to him, shaking like a leaf in a storm. Their backs leaned onto the hull of the ship wreckage. "We are running out of battery, we have to leave this place!" "Let''s get to the escape pod signal!" "Do not let any of these creatures touch you." "We don''t know what pathogens they might carry." Jack commanded as the two exhausted humans steadily and carefully retreated away. Small, ferocious pairs of lights filled the darkness. *** It was not until morning that the pair finally caught a breath. Thankfully, the intensity of the beast attacks reduced as they advanced. Otherwise, they would have fallen long ago. Jack wasn''t sure what caused the beast number to reduce. However, he wasn''t in the position to question good fortune. They had established contact with the escape pod, which Emma was in. The sound of Emma''s trembling, sobbing voice ignited the small fire of hope in Naomi. If it wasn''t for the occasional attacks of strange creatures, she would have hugged the phone and cried along with Emma. She reluctantly turned off the phone to save power, as they had obtained Emma''s exact coordinate. They walked for another couple of hours, until something came into attention. "This isˇ­ a battlefield?" Jack raised an eyebrow. There were signs of battle and dark energy manipulation. Broken, charred trees. Craters of various depths. Pieces of meat and limbs on the ground. Chunks of metal that looked like they used to be armors. "ˇ­Human limbs? How?" Jack asked himself in astonishment. There seemed to be humans living on this planet. Which is absolutely incredible. This is a planet in a parallel universe! There is zero chance of evolutional coincidences to create the same exact species on a random planet, in a random galaxy, in a random universe, in a random dimension! Humans must have traveled to this place, or they have been brought here for unknown reasons. Naomi became more and more uncomfortable walking in the middle of all this scent of death. Jack discovered a black, smoking pile from afar, at which he told Naomi to never look.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. They finally reached the place where the underground signal was coming from. A black alien in a white blouse was sitting at the center of the scene where an awesome explosion seemed to have happened. Naomi immediately ran up and hugged the alien. Jack scratched his head as he grinned. The only non-human crew member, doctor Emily survived the landing. "I saw three escape pods leaving the ship. Do you know where the last one went?" Jack asked the psychology doctor. He avoided asking Emma as the girl was emotional, and Jack knew Emma had a habit of blaming herself. "Andrei didn''t make it, sir." An alien-sounding hoarse voice replied to him. "The enemy punched a hole through his escape pod. None of us could do anything." The three went silent for a moment. "My escape pod was fried when I opened the pod at the bottom of a river. Floats didn''t work." The alien continued. "I traced the dark dimension communication to here." The chitauri species could communicate directly using dark dimension. They didn''t need a mobile phone. "I only got here a few minutes ago, sir. The creatures in this place seem strangely hostile." Emily sighed. "A battle seemed to have happened over there. There was a pile of burned human reˇ­" Jack shook his head. The doctor stopped. "The tool storage was blown to smithereens. Luckily we have this." Jack showed Emily the dark energy manipulator. "Let''s wait a bit while this thing recharge. The air is full of dark energy, it''ll be full at night. Then we rescue Emma." "Roger!" The two crew members obeyed the captain''s command. *** The scary night came again. Captain Jack took it upon himself to dive into the ground with the dark energy manipulator. He put the only rebreather scavenged from the ship on his mouth, then slowly descended like he was standing on quicksand. Naomi hasn''t had any practice with displacing dimension yet, and doctor Emily, well, she was kinda scary. Racism not intended. Her face popping up inside the small escape pod would probably not scare Emma, but the psychology doctor insisted that a friendly human face would be better. Since the captain had to "swim" through a kilometer of soil and back, the process took a long time. Naomi and Emily chatted near the campfire. They tried their best to avoid the depressing current events, but some of them still snuck into the topics. Then silence ensured. The happiest time of Naomi''s life was the two years she studied at the academy and the 6 years she became a cherished member of the Motive. It was hard not to mention the dead people if she wanted to talk about that. So, doctor Emily told Naomi about a story that wasn''t taught at schools in the Milky Way. Emily was among the rare chitaurians working for the Corporation. Chitaurians were the intelligent race inhabited the Andromeda galaxy, before human came 3000 years ago. Different from humans that eat food and breath air, chitaurians did not need to eat. However, they had to breath dark energy infused air, commonly called the dark gas. This gas would be naturally generated in a planet with rich condensed dark energy ore, through volcanic activities under the surface. When the humans came with the intention of mining their literal life source, the chitaurians, obviously, did not respond in kind. However, the humans were a type III civilization on the Kardashev scale, which meant they had the power for interstellar travel and the ability to harness energy from matters of other dimensions, the dark matter. With the same level of development as humans of the 21st century, the chitaurians at that time were a type Zero civilization. The result of the fight did not deviate from any prediction. The corporation that obtained the exclusive right to the new galaxy, Micro, brutally oppressed the chitaurians, in relative secret. Humans had used every type of energy harnessing and mined every bit of dark energy in the Milky Way, but it was not enough to sustain the ever-growing energy-hungry society. Price of energy was sky-high. People got greedy. The chitaurian population dipped drastically, to the point that they were nearly wiped out. The act of a brave chitaurian, the legendary Zerzhul, who led a team of suicidal rebels to attack a Corporation port and stole a ship, saved the race. As Zerzhul breathed his last in front of the reporters of the Milky Way galaxy, the inhuman treatment of the chitaurians was brought to light. Many chitaurian right groups appeared and oppositions and political activists caused Micro to go bankrupt. Alexa Corporation took over, with promises to treat the chitaurian race with fairness. So far, the big guy hadn''t broken his promise, as Alexa Corporation maintained exclusive right to the Andromeda galaxy until the present day. Chapter 13: Beauty And The Beast The story of Zerzhul was a touching tale of determination. One man and his brave team fought against immeasurable odds, saved a species at the cost of their lives. It might not have been the most appropriate piece of history for a chitaurian to tell a human, but it was the motivational speech they needed right now. At that moment, a sound came from Naomi''s mobile phone. "Emma here, captain Jack has reached my escape pod. He is resting right now. Although this isˇ­ reallyˇ­ uncomfortable, he''ll have to rest for an hour or so, we also need a bit more charge on the magic gun. Expect us on the surface in another 4 to 5 hours, over." "Naomi here, roger that, over." Naomi''s face got brighter. She cut off the transmission, but not before Emma''s voice of complaint echoed into the device. "Captain, you''re so heavy...!" Naomi smiled. Naomi turned to the doctor. "You should rest now, it''s my turn to keep watch, Emily." The doctor nodded and closed her eyes. She didn''t need to lie down, as this was how chitaurians rest. They just locked their entire bone structure and kept whatever posture they were in before they went to sleep. Coupling it with the fact that chitaurians didn''t have lungs like humans, the doctor sat completely without movement. It was like she eerily turned into a stone statue. Silence dawned again. But Naomi no longer felt hopeless and alone in the world. *** "Doc, wake up, there are people approaching this place." The monster statue just instantly opened its eyes. It was a bit horrifying no matter how many times Naomi had seen it. Naomi was on a treetop, pointing toward somewhere. It was early in the morning, 6 hours from latest contact. Emma and the captain had not surfaced yet. Naomi hoped nothing happened to them. As they were no longer inside the escape pod, communication was not possible. "I''d better hide away, eh?" Emily laughed. "I''m sure you will handle our first contact well. I have heard people saying that you are really cute." Naomi blushed. She jumped down from the tree, dust blew up as she landed. Emily stood up, and in one jump, disappeared from the camp. *** Handril picked up the reins and urged the horse. He commanded at the direction behind him. "Move faster." He did not like working with theseˇ­ filthy creatures.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Handril understood that some witches are of use to the church. They can maintain magic for longer and did not need a mana tank. But they are still vile animals that accepted the contract of devils! The Commander wasn''t going along with the team today, as he had stayed at the West church to complete his report. Therefore, Handril could treat the witch as rough as he wanted. Tied to the back of his horse was a disheveled woman with lifeless eyes. She changed her pace into a jog as the horse accelerated. Before long, the woman tripped and fell. Handril did not stop the horse. The woman was dragged for a few meters until she clumsily got up and jogged. This witch was employed to help Handril find the buried human underground. Handril hoped the witch wouldn''t suffocate in the earth before completing the mission. As the small army of a Crusade team leader, a witch and several hundreds of soldiers approached the location, Handril spotted a small human standing amid the huge empty space in the forest. "Halt!" Handril commanded. He observed the human in front of him. The young woman, in a strange white attire, smiled and bended her waist. She spoke in a language Handril had never heard of before. She then waved her hands around. [Oh my god, that woman has a metal arm!] [It''s a witch!] Handril''s expression turned ferocious. The woman in front of him seemed flustered and continued to speak faster in the strange language. He commanded the troop behind him. "It''s a witch! She is chanting the devil''s words! Men, ready your weapon! Capture or kill the vile creature!" The soldiers behind him quickly lined up in front of the witch and readied their crossbows. The witch stopped chanting. She put her hands in front of her as she walked backwards, shakily. [Surrendering, huh? That''s good. Capturing a live witch will surely earn me another promotion. The priest should be very pleased.] "Archer team, stay on target. Soldiers, advance and tie her up. Don''t forget to put a Source Stone locker on her neck." Handril smirked. "Shoot if she tries to resist." Five soldiers wielding mana tanks moved up in between the crossbow archers. As they were approaching the witch, she closed her eyes and lowered her body as if she had accepted her fate. However, the next second, a loud noise startled everyone at the scene. Arrows flew everywhere, but the witch had already disappeared. Handril was flabbergasted. Did the witch teleport? That''s impossible. There was no such power recorded in the church''s manual. "Stay calm, men, she must have gone into the ground. She can''t stay in there for long. We are waiting here until she appears!" "Spread out, search this place. Four people form a team. Do not let the witch escape!" Handril got off the horse and held onto the captive witch''s big, crude metal collar on her neck. The last thing he wanted was the new witch freeing the captive witch and cooperating with each other. *** Naomi hid behind a big tree. Thoughts ran through her head like an infinite train. Why did they suddenly turn hostile? What have I done wrong? What should I do now? However, her biggest concern was, Emma and the captain must be near the surface by now. They''ll be in danger! [I should try to drive them away from this place.] She thought. But her legs weren''t moving. This was the first time she faced enemies alone. When Naomi broke the sound barrier earlier, she had seen the cold stare of the soldiers. They despised her. They wanted her dead. It reminded her of the eyes that looked at her on Earth. Time slowed down. Painful memories poured out. She could feel her heart beat, every pound inside her little chest, drowning out everything else. She was back in her lonely, confined room again. Suddenly, a black shadow leaped out. The soldiers screamed in surprise. Many couldn''t move, stood rooted to the ground or had fallen down with horror-filled eyes. The leader of the human soldiers shouted, and the army regained their composure. He yanked the poor captive woman onto his horse, in a violent manner. They moved away from the open space to chase after the black shadow. Time resumed. But Naomi stood still. "Doctor Emilyˇ­" Chapter 14: Creature From Hell The captain and the engineer emerged from the earth at that time. They threw the two rebreather kits onto the ground, looking very out of breath. The extra rebreather was from the escape pod. The reason it took them longer than expected was the loss of direction. When Jack came down, he relied on gravity to do most of the work. When the two tried to go up, however, knowing where was up and which direction was down became a frightening hard task. There were countless holes dug by the two underground to test where the saliva flowed. However, seeing sunlight after 6 hours and a half, the two had almost forgotten all the fear and panic they felt when they were trying to navigate the dirt. They looked at each other. Emma laughed, while Jack grinned brightly. "So, this isˇ­ why soil divingˇ­ isn''t an Olympic sport." Jack still spared some energy to comment while hyperventilating like a dog in heat. "If it is, sir, you''re going toˇ­ absolutely ace it." Emma replied, with much difficulty, lying flat on the ground. As she was saying that, the silhouette of the little sister could be seen running towards them. She lookedˇ­ panicking? "Sister Emma, captain sir!" Naomi did not leave them any time to rest. She told the two what happened. "Sir, we have to save her! Please give permission!" Emma closed her eyes. Jack shook his head. The appropriate response was self-evident. "We leave this place." Jack commanded as he tried to stand up. "But doctor Emilyˇ­" "She sacrificed to save us. You know, don''t you?" Naomi knew. She just refused to acknowledge it to the point where she forgot about it. The doctor was still donning the dark gas tank behind her back. A planet chitaurians could live on would have a dark red atmosphere. One look at the scene around them could reveal that this wasn''t a chitaurian habitat. She was living on borrowed time. Something finally broke inside Naomi. "I understand. Where are we heading, sir?" It was a clear, emotionless voice.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Emma looked at Naomi wide-eyed as Jack raised an eyebrow. The captain put his dirty hand through the disheveled long, muddy blond hair and scratched his head. He then pointed at the many human footprints on the ground several meters from where he was sitting. "We go to where they came from." *** I kept on running, occasionally let them see me so that they would give chase. The people chasing me were wearing peculiar protections that looked like those I had seen from a human history book. These were humans of an ancient civilization. What did they call it?... Medieval? I had to lead them far away before my time runs out. I decided to stop and battle them a bit. Humans don''t like it when things go easy. They would get suspicious. I chose a decent spot with few trees. So that they could unmistakably observe me. So they could fear my appearance and detest me. I would probably have to get hit a few times to rouse their spirits. *** The grotesque demon stopped running. It turned and confronted us. I ordered my soldiers to stop as well. The hands holding the crossbows were shaking. I didn''t blame them. My hand holding the reins was likewise shaking and sweating. A demon. It was a genuine demon! That metal-armed witch was actually a demon in disguise. Bless us, o the Source of holy power! This was the true form of a witch! I had only seen the illustration of a demon in the scripture. Huge, black body. Two sharp horn on their head. Ferocious red eyes. Long, pointed claws that looked ready to dig into flesh. But the drawing on the old dusty book never gave me much impression. I thought it was a legend. I thought a creature from hell wouldn''t grip its claws around my neck and bring me back with it. It took a gander at us. I unwittingly diverted my eyes away. I felt like I had looked into the abyss. It bared its fangs. It looked ready to fight. The soldiers I had sent to call for reinforcements weren''t back yet. Only us with the demon now. O the holy Source, please give us power. "Arrows loose!" I shouted. Steel tips and feathers rained at the demon. It jumped. I realized it was jumping towards us. "Hiiiiiii". An unrecognizable sound came from my vocal cords. I tumbled off my steed, dragged the captive witch with me. No, not a witch. What I had in hand was another demon, its comrade. The demon jumped past me and arrived in the midst of the panicking soldiers. It swiped its claws at those around. The soldiers tried to fire arrows at it. However, it was too fast. Friendly fires further escalated the situation. The demonˇ­ it was not slaughtering anybody. It left scratches on everyone it touched, but none were fatal. Was it tainting the soldiers with its evil spirit control like those beasts? Was it recruiting my people into its rank? No, I would not let my soldiers join the rank of the devil. "Soldiers! Kill those the demon has touched! If you are touched by the demon, commit suicide. The Source will perceive your sincerity and grant you the path to the Domain!" "Men, be brave and free yourself from the clutch of devils!" My voice resounded. The battlefield became silent for a brief instant. Soldiers pointed their crossbow at each other. Some pointed at themselves. Those without crossbows pulled out their dagger and sword. They either lifted the weapon to their neck or put its tip near their heart. "Never surrender to the devils!" "Uuuooooo!" "Argh!" "May the Source travel with you in your departure! And mine!" ˇ­ The devout soldiers fell one after another. The demon stopped. It looked around, seemingly confused. Hah, I had thwarted your plan, creature from damnation! But I would not simply remain here and let you kill my soldiers! As I grabbed the captive demon on the ground, I released the valve on my mana tank and used the Moving Stone to levitate a sword on top of the demon in my grasp. "Stay your hands, demon! Or I will kill your kind!" Chapter 15: Tale Of The Demon And The Witch 8 years of studying human psychology and 21 years of experience in working as a psychology doctor could not sufficiently prepare me for what happened. "What?" I made a stupid sound. [What the hell are you all doing committing suicide?] Everyone I had touched, even with a single claw, killed himself. Did I smell that bad? [I tried to not kill you, you bunch of unreasonable bastards?] We didn''t have the habit of face-palming like the humans since we had claws, but I really wanted to dig them into my face now. And then the dude who seemed like the leader grabbed the captive human girl he had with him. He unscrewed a tank on his back. A red gas puffed out. [Dark energy infused gas?] I was so stunned by the sheer inexplicability of the situation that I forgot I was about to suffocate. And this guy was carrying the gas that I needed to breathe to stay alive. And that guy, and that dead guy, about 50 in total. If I could steal the gas from them, I could stay alive for a few more days. I needed to find the source of dark gas. Something else happened that surprised me. The leader-looking guy had a tool that manipulated the dark energy in the gas to levitate a sword on top of the poor captive woman''s head. So, humans on this planet knew how to command dark energy even in medieval time. It was probably because of the rich dark energy content of the planet, it''s easier to discover a technology related to a matter if there is so much of it. [But if a planet has so much condensed dark energy ore, why doesn''t the atmosphere have dark gas? Doesn''t this planet have volcanic activities?] The dude was shouting something. He looked like he was threatening. With the sword above the woman''s head, it looked like he was holding the woman hostage. Um, what does a human woman have to do with me? I fought the urge to raise a hand and ask the guy. He wouldn''t understand me anyway. He smirked. Dude seemed pleased of the stupid solution he invented. This entire crowd shared a single neuron as their collective intelligence or something.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I am so done with these humans. To hell with morality and harmony of the species. I grabbed a dead guy on the ground and threw the corpse with half my strength. Sorry, you levitated the sword a bit too high. Before the sword reached the woman, the corpse had pushed both of them away from the pointy object. I sprinted and reached them in a few seconds. I ripped the guy''s head off and threw it at the next guy with a dark gas tank. It had been a long time since I had killed. As per the words of a famous human, if you make a psychology doctor angry, you''d better run. [Ah, but I''m not angry, I''m just disappointed.] Irrelevant thoughts appeared in my head as I decapitated the one that was holding a severed head in horror. [Very disappointed.] And I threw the new head to the next guy. *** Since I wasn''t killing someone of my own species, the killing was easier. Like it was 45 years ago. After I killed the last guy with an air tank, I stopped, looked at the rest, and smiled. I had heard that my species had a terrifying smile. "The Hannibal smile." They said. Not that I knew who that was. I hissed to give a better result. Yes, the result was good. That guy urinated himself. Urgh, that guy crapped himself. A bit too good. They ran in every direction like chickens without heads. A few moments later, blissful silence came again. I was sure they wouldn''t cause any problem with the crew after my mind-throwing performance, so I did not chase after them. I collected the gas tanks from the corpses. Not until it was the turn of the leader guy that I was reminded of the female human. Poor girl. She was staying still among the corpses and even held her breath. She seemed to have been treated harshly. She had a big collar on her neck. Was she a slave? What do I do with the girl now? It doesn''t feel right to just walk away. I scratched my head and walked up to the girl pretending to be a corpse. Before she could react, I grabbed the collar on her neck and broke it. The girl instantly dropped her act and retreated on her butt. She touched her neck with her hands then looked at me, wide-eyed. Oh, now you''re trying to run. I''m starting to feel offended. She forgot that she was still tied to a four-legged creature. She tried to pull it, but it refused to move. Then I saw something amazing. The girl did something, her hand lighted up. The rope that was tied to her hands just moved through the girl''s limbs like they were illusions. Dimensional displacement? Without any dark energy manipulator? Are you kidding me? There were so many strange things about this planet. I sat there as she ran away. Then I walked up to the four-legged creature, gently touching its head. [Bless your naive non-discriminating heart.] I thought to myself. [It would be better if the Alexa Corporation port master was you.] The creature was beautiful. Black hair ran along its brown body. Its legs were squirming with muscles like four pillars piercing the earth. "Are you strong enough to carry 50 air tanks?" I asked the creature. The creature did not understand me. But for a moment, I thought I saw fear in its eyes. *** After tying half the gas tanks to the four-legged creatures and the rest to my body with two ropes made from clothes of the dead, I waved at a spot in the wood. "If you want to come along, come on out." No one replied. [Stay then, racist woman.] I no longer paid any attention to her. I had decided, I would not find my crews. Not yet, anyway. My appearance would hinder them in this backward world. I needed to find a way to survive, by myself. I set out towards the wilderness. Then, I heard small footsteps, cautiously following me. Well, maybe with a companion. Chapter 16: Tanks And Machine Guns A month after the landing, Jack, Emma, and Naomi had fully integrated with people in the village. As they backtracked the human army, the trio encountered a village on the way. They remained outside, observed the people while having their Alexa analyzed the speech of the locals. They survived on foods and drinks scavenged from the crashed spaceship. Following seven days, both Emma''s and captain Jack''s Alexa chips had enough data to compose a language neural package. The neural data packages were injected into their integration module, which acted as a virtual secondary brain, during their sleep. To put it plainly, they could now fluently converse in the language of the locals. Naomi, nonetheless, did not have an Alexa, so her learning of the language had to be done the natural way. They stole many items of clothing during a carefully planned night raid, and patched various parts of those together to form new articles of clothing. They buried their Corporation attires and wore the new garments, completely transformed into a medieval family of a burly husband, a delicate wife, and her lively sister. Naomi''s clothes had been designed to conceal her various augmentations, including her metal right arm, the shock absorbent modules on both her legs, and her augmented eyeballs. She still wore her glasses. Although the design of the glasses was a bit modern, they weren''t very eye-catching since some scholars of this world donned glasses as well. As such, Naomi resembled a tomboy girl with a poncho, a pair of gloves, and a big straw hat. She also acted mute. The infiltration of the village afterward was simple. The village did not have any method to keep track of their citizens. They just waltzed right through the gate, after smiling to the soldiers keeping guard. The village looked like a peaceful German town in the human history book. They learned numerous things after Jack visited the bar, and even the church, many times. The humans in this world had the same level of advancement as humans on Earth in the seventeenth century, according to the Catholic calendar. A day on this planet was roughly 24 hours, and a month consisted of 30 days. A year had 360 days. No leap year. It was strangely similar to the Earth before the comet hit. They had a religion that resembled the Catholic church, albeit they did not worship a human savior. There were also many things that were different from ancient Earth. The fundamental differences were the appearance of dark energy manipulation techniques, the vile beasts, and the witches. The church monopolized dark energy manipulation. They called it "holy magic". They channeled "mana" through a "magic stone", to perform various "miracles", including healing, a communication range of one kilometer, attack using heat conversion of dark energy, defense by dark matter dimensional displacement, among other things.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. The "vile beasts" were the animals in the forest where they came from. Apparently, these beasts carried some kind of pathogen. If their bodily fluid came in contact with yours, you would get infected. The locals called it "being tainted with the devil''s power." All the males that become infected will, without fail, turn into raging beasts that attack and infect others. After a few days, some of them will die, some of them will become docile, but having lost their human intelligence. However, less than half of the infected females will survive, and gain supernatural powers, which the trio suspected as dark energy manipulation. These powers were described as "without any magic stone or mana tank", unlike the church''s form of dark energy manipulation. This was baffling to the team, since no intelligent biological entity had ever been recorded in the Federation history to be able to directly manipulate dark energy. And what did the church do with the witches that carried the same power as them? They burned the witches, of course. It was not even surprising anymore. "Church" seemed to be a synonym of "witch burning" no matter what world they were in. *** Jack was the last to enter the room. Emma and Naomi were already waiting inside. He hanged the coat on the wall, and caught the protein bar Emma threw to him. After the nutritious, but unsatisfying meal, Jack went to wash himself with the bucket of water Naomi had raised from the well earlier today. When the matter of personal hygiene was done, he sat down on the floor. In front of him were two ladies on the straw bed. "I will summarize the situations, and then I will propose the arrangement I have thought of." Jack said. "Feel free to cut in if you find any issue with what I have to say." Emma nodded. Naomi said in a small voice. "Yes, sir." "We can''t reach the ship at the moment. The deeper into the forest we go, the denser the beast populace is. We can''t protect ourselves during the maintenance that would likely take years." Jack continued. "We barely escaped alive the last time." "We need a team of educated people that can manipulate dark energy to perform the maintenance. And an army to protect us from the danger of the beasts. Our options are the church, or the witches." "The church is very hostile to people with the same power as them." "They don''t revere human. Their god is the source of mana. We can''t pretend to be their gods." "I personally discourage this direction." Jack emphasized. No one had any opposing opinion. "Since the church is very powerful both politically and militarily, we can''t directly cooperate with the witch." The captain made the gesture of his right index finger advancing and got stopped by his left hand. "So, we need to build our own political and military influence in this world". His right index finger was joined by his thumb, his middle finger and finally the entire right hand. "And we take the church out of the picture." The right hand slapped the left hand away. "Or we force them to cooperate with us and the witches." The right hand grabbed the left hand in a clutch. "And I have found the perfect starting point to build our army and influence." Jack grinned. Emma and Naomi had guessed what Jack was talking about. "The mercenaries, sir?" Naomi asked the high-spirited captain. She had no idea why the captain was so elated. Most of the things he presented were awful news. "Yeah. We are going to build the greatest mercenary company ever, with tanks and machine guns!" Jack laughed. The engineer and the young intern pilot looked at each other and helplessly sighed. Chapter 17: The Adventurer Guild "I''m sorry captain. I don''t think introducing firearms into this world is a good idea." Emma shook her head to say. "It''s the equivalent of the invention of event horizon bomb in our world." "People will copy our technology. It''ll create an era of endless destruction." Jack''s expression turned dark. "You have a better idea? How are we supposed to combat a religious organization with a monopoly on weapons?" "People always kill each other. Firearms or not." He looked down and knitted his brows. "But deadlier weapons mean more people will die, sir!" Emma argued. "How do you suppose we fix that damn spaceship if we don''t advance the technology in this world?" Jack turned his head upward; his voice became loud. "You think while you teach people new knowledge, they won''t figure out how to build things to kill with it? Do you think you can lock this world in sword-and-spear era forever?" Jack''s breath slowed down. He looked into Emma''s eyes. "Firearms can kill, but it can also save people." "There are beasts in this world that infect human with a touch." "Think about it, officer Emma." Jack said, took out his tobacco packet, and left the room. *** Naomi broke the silence. "I think I agree with captain Jack, sister Emma." Emma did not respond. Naomi put her hands on Emma''s cheeks and touched Emma''s forehead with hers. "We are alone in this world. It is full of enemies and dangers. The only way we can protect ourselves is to be stronger. I''ll be stronger, sister Emma. We can all be strong and overcome the challenges together." "I understand." Emma meekly said. Naomi looked at Emma and smiled. *** 15 minutes later, captain Jack entered the room. "So, do we have an agreement?" The captain asked Emma. Emma replied with certainty in her voice. "Yes, sir. I am sorry for having doubted your decision, sir." The guy grinned. He sat back down on the floor, scratching his head for a long while. Then he said to the two ladies in the room. "There is no problem with doubting my resolve. In fact, from now on, I am no longer your captain. We are in this together. We take decisions together and bear the consequences together."Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. The blond bearded man reached out his hand and said. "Nice to meet you, my name is Jack Rutherford. I renounce from being the captain of the Motive. Let''s be friends." The lady with wavy black hair grabbed the man''s hand. "My name is Emma Rodriguez. It''s my pleasure." Emma said as she smiled. Naomi hesitated a bit, but finally grabbed Jack''s hand. "My name is Naomi White. Please treat me well." "Hey, why did you hesitate?" Jack furrowed his eyebrows. "N-no, I didn''t. S-sorry!" "Anyway, one last thing before I renounce the chain of command." Jack retracted his hand, as the others did, and said. "I''m going to be a merchant. We can''t keep selling our food for coins. I''m going to manage the finance of our operation." He pointed at Naomi. "You''re going to be a mercenary. It''s going to tricky, but you have the best potential when it comes to combat. I''m too old to learn to use a sword. Emma, well, she''s a non-augmented girl. No offense." Emma waved her hand, showing that she had no problem with it. Naomi was still digesting the command. "Emma, try to build some primitive firearms. Not machine gun primitive, something like the flintlock. We must introduce the technologies step-by-step. Is that cool?" "Certainly." "That concludes the meeting." Jack stood up and was about to leave, but he stopped his steps. He turned around. "Emma, you should take Naomi and buy a hooded coat or something. Nobody fights with a straw hat." *** The next day, Jack brought Naomi to one of the biggest buildings in the village of Redshire. The Guildhall of Adventurer, a tall building of two floors where armed men and women frequently move to-and-fro. [''Adventurer''. How eloquent. People that come here don''t "adventure" anywhere but that forest. Or occasional skirmishes by the nobles.] Jack smirked as he thought. Walking next to him was Naomi, wearing a white shirt, a brown corset and black-hooded long coat. The black leather pants greatly suited her, showing the excessively fine figure of the young girl. Which was probably why Naomi showed discomfort wearing it. [Emma really knows how to choose clothes. It''s a mystery why she kept wearing those baggy jeans considering her fashion sense.] [But man, this really puts us in the red. I''m going to miss those protein bars.] The fried protein bars were sold at a stall with a board that said "Miraculous food that fills your stomach in one bite." It was especially popular with the mercenaries. The board was written by the kind inn owner, as both Jack and Emma had not read enough letters to be familiar with the writing. It was a necessary investment. With Naomi working as a mercenary, the trio would have more financial leeway to obtain more money. The registration process did not take long. The Adventurer Guild was always in need of people. The lady at the reception read the recruitment notices to Jack one by one. It was common practice since the literacy rate of this world was too low, especially among soldiers of fortune. Jack also noticed that most of the recruitment notices had the same writing, possibly the receptionist''s. The majority of the mercenary teams that were recruiting were all men. Jack did not feel like letting Naomi join them, for some reason. [It''ll be bad if they try anything to the girl and get all their bones broken as a result.] He thought. "Where can I find this Anver guy?" "He is sitting over there. The Guild doesn''t dispatch a team of two, so he has been sitting here every day waiting for new people. He insists on not joining another team." "What happened to his last team member?" "Dead." The redhead receptionist eerily smiled as she said that. [What a cold response. The worth of lives is too low in this warm-looking building.] Jack shuddered a bit. [Should I be going instead? Can Naomi grow in this environment?] [No, we all have our jobs to do. If any of us can''t do our job, then our plan is as good as doomed.] [Naomi, stay alive. Be strong.] Jack gave the receptionist a few copper coins. "Thank you for your help. Naomi, let''s meet your new employer." Chapter 18: New Member ˇ°Hello, are you Anver Remington?ˇ± ˇ°Yes.ˇ± Anver put his cup of mead down on the table. He looked up to see a muscular guy wearing a brown vest and a yellow shirt. Next to him was a nervous young lady. Purple hair, clothes almost entirely in black. He switched his sight back at the guy after a glance. Something about the girl unsettled him. Maybe the fact that she dressed like a priest performing a sacrificial ritual? ˇ°Are you here about the recruitment notice?ˇ± ˇ°Why, yes. May I sit?ˇ± The man grinned. Without waiting for an answer, he sat down on the chair across the table from Anver. He waved to the girl and she did the same, with a chair next to him. ˇ°Interesting. You look well-built, but you donˇŻt look like you have wielded a sword or a spear.ˇ± Anver looked at the guyˇŻs hand. Too clean. No calluses. [Dude doesnˇŻt touch a hoe, let alone a sword.] His interest was still the same, though. He was desperately in need of people. If it wasnˇŻt for that motherf*cker, he would have already gotten one. ˇ°Oh no, IˇŻm not the one applying for the position, itˇŻs this girl here.ˇ± The blond-haired man pointed to the girl. Anver raised an eyebrow. [This delicate, bashful lady? A mercenary?] AnverˇŻs expression turned dark. ˇ°ThatˇŻs enough, get the f*ck out of my face.ˇ± ˇ°What?ˇ± ˇ°You didnˇŻt hear me? Did Hank tell you to mess with me? How much did that guy pay you?ˇ± The blond dude looked amused for a moment. Talking about the devilˇ­ A familiar scarred face appeared. This red-haired bastard had annoyed him for the entire month. ˇ°Oh, what do we have here, the mercenary team with the worst rating in the entire guild?ˇ± The guyˇŻs stinky loud mouth opened. ˇ°Are you recruiting a new strawman for your joke of a team?ˇ± ˇ°This guy single-handedly filled half of the population in the Domain.ˇ± Hank waved his hand. ˇ°Teams like yours should be illegal.ˇ± AnverˇŻs face turned red. Veins were popping up on his face. ˇ°None of your business.ˇ± ˇ°How the f*ck did you come to that conclusion?ˇ± Hank slammed the table. ˇ°Who would join the guild if people keep dying when they step into this place?ˇ± ˇ°If the guild master is not so blinded by profit, three-people teams would never be a thing.ˇ± Hank gritted his teeth to lower his voice. ˇ°You should keep your devil-tainted hands away from the new recruits, as well as their hopes and dreams.ˇ±If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ˇ°If my words donˇŻt get through your stupid head, there will be a day when my sword does.ˇ± ˇ°And you,ˇ± Hank pointed to the man sitting across Anver. ˇ°You heard me. DonˇŻt commit suicide. It shouldnˇŻt be too difficult to get a proper five-people team that doesnˇŻt throw away the lives of its members.ˇ± Hank turned and walked away. He joined a crowd of a dozen people in another corner of the hall. Most of them were staring daggers at AnverˇŻs position. [So, this dude wasnˇŻt sent by Hank. But this should be the time when he thinks of some excuses and stand up.] Anver looked at the ceiling, hands clasped under his chin. Then he looked down at the floor, hands on his forehead. ˇ°Back to the matter at handˇ­ˇ± Anver looked up. ˇ°I can see that you are desperately in need of people. Your working situation is horrible, you can sit here till the end of the year and nobody will join you.ˇ± The blond man spoke slowly. ˇ°What are you trying to say?ˇ± Anver furrowed his brows. The man grinned. ˇ°This girl here is my sister-in-law, Naomi White, she has always wanted to be an adventurer.ˇ± ˇ°Mercenary.ˇ± Anver cut in. Everyone in this place hated that name. [Naomi? What an uncommon name.] This thought fleeted through his head. ˇ°Yes, unfortunately, she was born deaf.ˇ± ˇ°You canˇŻt be a mercenary if youˇŻre deaf.ˇ± Anver face-palmed. [This is getting worse and worse.] ˇ°Yes, yes, situational awareness and all, right? But behold, the miracle of the Source has cured her! The holy priest touched her ears, and now she could hear again!ˇ± The man praised in an exaggerated manner. [Oh, that must have costed a fortune.] The mercenary mused. ˇ°But, since she was only cured of her ailment recently, she has yet to speak the language.ˇ± The man raised a finger. ˇ°She can understand simple commands. And she can learn to speak gradually. What do you think?ˇ± ˇ°Forget about it.ˇ± Anver shook his head. ˇ°She is a girl, she doesnˇŻt have fighting experience.ˇ± He pointed to the crowd at the other corner. ˇ°YouˇŻve heard what the guy over there said. Even if I am desperate, I am not going to take a fragile girl to the Beast Forest.ˇ± The man smirked. Anver didnˇŻt like his attitude. ˇ°There is one other thing. After being blessed by the Source, she could feel its holy power flowing inside her. She is very strong. YouˇŻll be surprised.ˇ± [Oh, now that is just bullsh*t.] Anver was getting tired of this conversation. He spoke his thought out loud. ˇ°Oh, now that is just bullsh*t.ˇ± ˇ°Ha-ha, would you like a bit of friendly arm wrestling? With this delicate lady?ˇ± ˇ°Why the f*ck not. Come here.ˇ± ˇ°Oh, but I wouldnˇŻt suggest you do it here. She would be troubled if she humiliates you in front of your colleagues.ˇ± Anver really, really did not like the manˇŻs attitude. ˇ°Stop wasting my time. We do it here, or IˇŻll kick you both out of this place.ˇ± 10 seconds later, Anver deeply regretted his hot-headed decision. *** ˇ°She is way too cute.ˇ± Lena exclaimed. She pinched the girlˇŻs cheeks and pulled it apart. The young lady in black hood was panicking over the womanˇŻs show of affection. ˇ°Hmm-hmm-hmmmmˇ­ˇ± ˇ°So cute!ˇ± ˇ°ThatˇŻs enough, Lena, donˇŻt scare our new recruit.ˇ± Anver was still clutching his right hand. The mercenary team was now standing in a large grassland outside the town. The blond man said goodbye after leaving the guild. ˇ°You lost an arm-wrestling match with this tiny girl? You must be getting old.ˇ± Lena said as she covered half her mouth with her hand, not having any intention of hiding her smirk. Anver diverted his sight to the ground. [What a monster. She just slammed my hand right into the table after the countdown. It was so loud everyone in the guild looked at us. Damn it! How can I ever live this down?] He coughed. ˇ°Stop the nonsenses. We are here to give her some basic training. Take this. Do it after me.ˇ± A spear was thrown at the girl. She caught it with both hands. ˇ°Gloves, no.ˇ± Anver pointed at his hand and made a gesture of taking off a glove. ˇ°CanˇŻt hold on to a spear properly with gloves. Splinter is something you just have to deal with.ˇ± The girl shook her head, multiple times, for an entire minute, still hugging the spear. [First day in the team and already disobeyed the leaderˇŻs command. This will go well.] AnverˇŻs disappointment was immeasurable and his day was further ruined. Chapter 19: The Investor After sending Naomi off, Jack headed to the building two blocks away from the Adventurer Guild. He appreciated the view along the way. The breeze was invigorating, albeit with a tingle of animal feces particles. There was no central concentrated animal farm in this era, every house had a few chickens and ducks running around. But the biggest perpetrators were the horses. It was difficult to spot one in this desolate town, but these sh*tting machines really make you feel close to the essence of nature. Humans in this world had this form of primitive lavatories called pit latrines. It was just a hole dug into the ground for people to sit on and breed their anally children. Sanitary mindfulness was pratically non-existent. [Right now, Emma must be working on the plan to get saltpeter. I vaguely remember that dung can be used to get that chemical product. We can also mine and purify it from natural deposits.] Birds were jumping between branches and wildly chirping, bringing out the atmosphere of a peaceful town in an energetic morning. People were singing songs, hoes and axes on hands, ready to tend their fields outside the town wall or bringing home some freshly cut timber. It was a beautiful picturesque moment that could not be seen anywhere in the modern world. [And here I walk, can''t stop thinking about human waste. This is why I can''t have nice things.] Jack smiled wryly, shook his head and hurried his steps to the Merchant Association building. Merchants in this world conduct transactions of large sums in buildings of the Merchant Association. The organization was built for maintaining fairness in trades, protecting merchants and collecting taxes. One needed to pay a small fee to obtain a merchant permit. Coincidentally, Jack had found the ideal person to be his investor and advertise his product. *** Jack returned to the Adventurer Guildhall after having gotten a merchant permit. He also got some new intriguing information from the Merchant Association. Saltpeter trade did exist in this world, primarily used for food preservation and ice making purposes. Be that as it may, gunpowder was never invented. This would speed up their production schedule a notch. Saltpeter production is time-consuming, after all. "Hi, my name is Jack Rutherford. I am a merchant." Jack showed his merchant permit to the receptionist while smiling. The redhead woman smiled back, however Jack seemingly felt a lot less hospitality this time. "Good afternoon, mister Rutherford. I remember you from this morning. Was your name not Naomi White? Did you not decide to join the Adventurer guild? Is it true that you are a merchant now?" "Oh no, I have always been a merchant, the one that joined was not me but the girl I brought with me." Jack grinned. "Say, on the off chance that I have an interesting business proposal for the guild master, what would be advisable for me to do?"The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The redhead receptionist''s expression turned curious. "Please wait a moment, mister Rutherford." She left the reception desk and went up the stairs next to it. A moment later, she returned. With her creepy perpetual pleasant smile, she waved at Jack. "Please follow me." *** "What do you think about my proposal, my lord? If you could invest in just a small amount for us to complete the prototypes, you could enjoy 30% the profit of the weapon sale to every mercenary in this branch!" Sitting in front of Jack was a big-bellied man with a mustache. He seemed to have been a mercenary, or at least a fighter, judging by the muscles that could barely be seen beneath multiple layers of fat. However, he dressed nothing like a mercenary. Luxuries was oozing out of the man''s attire. The man was reading the trade agreement Jack had paid the bookkeeper at the Merchant Association to write for him beforehand. "I want 70% profit." The guild master put down the trade agreement and continued nibbling on the half-eaten apple. Jack sweated. [Who the hell would consent to a 70% commission? People trade like this in this world?] "That''ll be difficult for me, my lord." Jack showed a troubled expression. "I came to you out of respect. The condition you gave me is too unfair." "40% is the best I can go. Any more than that and I will be compelled to seek another investor." "There isn''t a lack of people who find the necessity for a new long-range weapon, my lord." Jack pretended to reach for the trade agreement and get up. "A few teams in the guild have already expressed their interest." Just as Jack touched the agreement, another hand slapped on his. "Wait." The guild master spoke in a hurry. "How much do you need?" Jack grinned inwards. [Gotcha.] "2 gold coins, my lord." The guild master seemed hesitant. 2 gold coins was a large amount, but for an investment, it was reasonable. Quite cheap, even. 100 copper coins equal a silver coin. 100 silver coins make up a gold coin. You can buy a loaf of bread with a copper coin. "Deal. But I want one free prototype." The guild master replied. "That''s a deal, my lord. Let me go to the Merchant Association to write another trade agreement." Jack stood up and prepared to leave. A trade agreement had to be written by the Merchant Association with their special ink to prevent clauses being added after the fact, so it wasn''t anything strange. Before he left, however, Jack turned his eyes to the bookcase in the room. He exclaimed in an exaggerated manner. "My lord, what a magnificent collection of books. I have never seen such a large bookcase before. My lord must be a very well-learned person." The guild master looked pleased with the praise. He proudly bragged. "Of course. Some of these are written by yours truly. All are great chronicled pieces about my exploits as a famous adventurer." [The term ''adventurer'' was probably coined by this guy.] Jack silently thought. "Can I take a look at one of your autobiographies? I would love to read about your heroic displays." "Sure, just don''t take it out of this room." The man pointed to a book with red cover on the case. It was one of the thickest books in the collection. Jack was sure it held an innumerable amount of bullcrap. But matter to him it did not. Jack took the book down and started flipping pages. Slowly, respectfully at first. But when the guild master lost interest in him and concentrated back into snacking on another apple, Jack furiously flipped the book to the end. [What an unhealthy dedication to writing. My arm is getting tired.] Jack clicked his tongue silently. Pages were slowly piling up on his left lap, while the right side was getting thinner. After 10 minutes of book flipping, the book was finished. Jack relaxed his arm, put the book back where it was and bowed to the guild master. "Much obliged to you, my lord. It was fascinating. I''d be taking my leave now." The man did not turn back from his French-window view, just waved his hand. As Jack closed the door to the guild master''s room behind him, he mumbled. "Alexa, did you catch all that?" "Notification, neural data package has finished compiling. It will be applied during user''s next sleep cycle." A robotic female voice answered in his head. "Good work. I have to find a book for Emma later." Jack left the Adventurer Guild and once again headed toward the Merchant Association. Chapter 20: The Witch Burning After having finished the deal, Jack went to the Merchant Association to order a few bags of saltpeter at once. Saltpeter is a crucial component of gunpowder, as it was well-known in the modern world. The quicker Jack could obtain the essential chemical product, the easier it would be for their plan to proceed. As he was about to go back to the inn in the vanishing sunset light, the bell tower of the only church in the town sounded. The three dull strikes verberated every corner of the tiny village, marking the occasion of another barbaric gathering. *** Spotting each other in the crowd of people was hard, but Jack finally found Emma after shouting her name for a dozen times. In the middle of the square was a high stage made of stones and dirt. They had started to become familiar with this place of the town. A moment later, two carriages with an iron cage on top were entering the square. The crowd cheered as they made way for the wagons. Emma did not feel like cheering, so Jack cheered in her stead. The carriages were surrounded by priests in black hood, murmuring in prayers, and a few warriors in white armours. Jack was told they are the knights of the church. One of them was holding up a white flag. A symbol that looked like four small "T"s joined at the tail ends with a big circle, was drawn on it. The church symbol was identical to the aiming reticle on a game Jack played. This symbol was also present on the chest of every church member, which Jack found amusing. Next to him, however, Emma was a lot less calm. She was breathing hard and was looking at the ground. "Emma, you have to look at the stage. The people on the stage can see everyone. If they notice you not looking at them, things could turn bad for us." Jack gently reminded. "You have to look, but don''t let it get to you." Emma gulped and turned her eyes upward. They were wet and trembling. The church knights used a long pole with a clamp at the end to secure the necks of their prisoners. They pushed the prisoners onto the stage. The first prisoner was a man. His eyes were deep red. He was biting at the air, making bone-chilling clacking sounds. Some of the man''s teeth were missing, presumably due to his incessant mouth clapping. His hands were tightly tied behind his back.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. A knight with almost full metal armors, including metal gloves and metal face mask, tied the man to one of the five poles present on the stage. The man tried to bite at him, to no avail. The other prisoner was a dishevelled young girl. She did not look older than 16 years old. There were tears on her face. Apart from the metal clamp, there was a metal collar on her neck. The same procedure ensured, after which she was tied to another pole on the stage. "Burn them!" "Burn the devil incarnates!" "Send them to hell!" The crowd became noisy. Emma was putting her two hands on her mouth, trying to hide her sobbing. Jack hugged her tightly to cover for the girl, as he cheered along with the crowd. A priest got on the stage. He put a hand up. The crowd quieted down. "Behold, citizens of the Redshire village!" The priest shouted. "The devil has gotten its tainted hand on our people in its effort to conquer our peaceful world." "This time, it has turned a man, Dallas Barrie, into one of its beasts." "And it has incarnated into a woman, Falline Ashton." "Make no mistakes, in front of you are no longer humans. This is a demon, and this is a beast." "In the name of the Holy Source, we, children of the Domain, vowed to banish devils from this world!" At this time, the young girl cried loudly. "I am not a demon. I am still Falline, please believe me!" "Mom, dad, I am your daughter! Please don''t let them burn meˇ­!" A stone was weakly thrown at the girl from the crowd. A middle-aged woman, tears flowing out of her eyes like a broken dam, shouted at the stage after her action. A man with balding head was holding her up. "Shut up, demon, how dare you take my girl''s body? How dare you pretend to be her? Die, damned creature!" The man explained to the priest after covering the woman''s mouth with his hand. "I am very sorry, my Holy Father, I could not stop her." "Fear not, my child. We understand your grieving. Come to the church and confess, the Source is all forgiving." The priest smiled, as he pushed a rag into the girl''s mouth. "Now, it is time to purify evils." A few towners helped with the preparation by bringing the burning materials out from a storage shack next to the town square. Two of them was holding a torch. Woods, broken branches were put into a hole under the poles. "Oh noˇ­" Emma''s soft voice was heard. Jack hurriedly covered her mouth. No one seemed to have heard it. The man was still biting at the air, unfazed at the event that was about to unfold. The girl tied to the pole was shaking her head wildly, the rag in her mouth was waving in the air. As the priest approached with two torches on each hand, she stopped shaking, and turned her eyes to the crowd, to her parents. She looked like she was trying to smile. With a rag in her mouth and tears on her face, the smile became either a haunting effort of the last goodbye, or a laugh at her cruel fate. The priest threw a torch into each hole. *** The ex-captain and the engineer walked back to the inn. There was a suffocating silence between them. Jack grabbed Emma tightly by her shoulder. He spoke in a small voice. "One day, we will end this, Emma." "I promise to you." Smoke was still drifting through the air. It was nauseating. Emma couldn''t take it anymore. She threw up. Jack patted her back, while smiling wryly to the passersby. "My sanity is being chipped away in this godforsaken place. We have to end this NOW." Emma spoke decisively after wiping her mouth. Chapter 21: The First Mission After two days of practicing poking spear at slimes, Naomi embarked on her first hunt with the mercenary team of leader Anver. Ex-captain Jack told her about the circumstance of the team and asked her to be careful. From what he had learned by talking to mercenaries in the bar, some mysteries were surrounding Anver''s team. Half a year ago, the team had seven people. However, a disastrous hunt had led to five members being killed in one single mission. They were hunting a mysterious creature called a "Lich". It sounded like a creature that defines a nightmare. A lich was able to raise the dead, turn them into either zombies or walking skeletons, depends on the level of decomposition. A lich had some degree of human intelligence. There was no mention of the fate of the lich. Jack assumed that it had not been slain. The old leader was among the members slaughtered by the lich. The new leader, Anver Remington, despite being an experienced fighter, for some reason refused to expand the team to more than three people. After which, the team had lost five new recruits, while failing several missions. This led to the team''s rating being lowered to the bottom among the mercenary groups. There was no evidence of mistreatment, however. Naomi''s joining Anver''s team was not a favorable decision, but she did not look like someone suitable for combat, and with her speech incapacity on top of that, getting in other teams would be difficult. *** Most of the time, the mission of the team would be to patrol an area of the Beast Forest near the village and take out any vile beasts spotted at the scene. The most important thing that leader Anver had repeated time and time was never to let the vile beast touches you, or any of its blood or saliva spray on you. The sun had begun to set on the horizon, colors were fading away, the last bit of twilight was disappearing from the sky. Right now, the team was facing three vile goblins. A goblin jumped at Anver, wildly swung the wooden club on its hand. The mercenary leader deflected the danger with a shield on his arm. Another goblin shrieked as it ran at Naomi. The thing did not have any weapon. It latched itself onto Naomi''s shield and screamed its lungs out at Naomi''s face.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Naomi was beyond horrified. The creature had a grotesque face that looked like the worst miscreation of nature. Its dark red eyes locked onto hers and its unholy sound pierced her eardrums. In her panic, she was in no mind to remember Jack''s advice to limit her strength. Naomi kicked at the shield with all the might. The creature was instantly pulverized in the face of extreme acceleration. The shield broke into several pieces, as did the goblin. Blood, limps, head, wood pieces rained down on Naomi''s position. The girl immediately tried to cover herself with her long hooded coat. When the organic rain stopped, Naomi stood up. She got rid her coat like she was throwing away a cockroach, and retreated several steps. She took a nervous look around. Lena was looking at her, wide-eyed. In front of the woman, a goblin was nailed to a tree, an arrow protruding from its forehead. Anver also had a stupefied expression. His hand was still holding onto the spear, the tip of which was on the other side of a goblin''s abdomen. The goblin speared by Anver fell onto the ground, motionless, producing a small "thud" sound, which woke up everyone. "Holy sh*tˇ­" Anver murmured in astonishment. Lena dropped her crossbow and rushed to Naomi. She checked the girl from top to bottom. There was no blood on her. The white shirt Naomi was wearing was still clean, except for some marks of dirt. After taking a while to digest the event that transpired, the mercenary leader walked toward the two. Naomi felt dread in her heart. [Would he berate me for that excessive force that nearly endangered everyone?] [Orˇ­ would he accuse me of being a witch because of my unnatural strength?] None of that happened. The team leader smiled as he reached out his hand and patted her head. *** The team was resting outside the village after the long walk. Farmers and lumbermen had all wrapped up their working day and gone home. Teams of armed men and women were coming out of the forest. Some looked tired and quiet. Some were rowdier. They were probably the lucky few that did not encounter many or any beast during today''s patrol. Anver was sitting beside Lena. The new recruit was seated a bit further away, silent, her hands clutching the inside-out dirty coat. "I knew she was strong. I never thought she was that strong. It''s almost like she isˇ­" Anver was struggling to find an appropriate word. "ˇ­A witch?" Lena raisedan eyebrow. "Yeah." Lena laughed. Anver looked at her, confused. "You should know by now, when a witch uses an ability, there would be some sort of ''wave'' in the air. The more powerful the ability is, the more you can feel that wave." Lena tilted her head at the girl''s direction. "And that looked pretty strong." "I knowˇ­ but then, what is she?" Anver turned his eyes toward the girl. Feeling gazes at her, the young girl looked troubled. She hid her head in between her knees, occasionally peeked toward the other two. "If she is a witch, what will you do? You of all people wouldn''t report her to the church, right?" The leader did not answer. "Isn''t it better for us if she is a witch?" Lena smiled. She jokingly punched at the man next to her. Anver shook his head and smiled wryly. He stood up and gestured to the others to do the same. "That''s enough rest, let''s go home." Chapter 22: Era-changing Weapon With the material brought by Jack, Emma had finished making the prototype guns and a hundred cartridges. For the purpose of killing monsters, Emma had chosen the first prototypes to be a modern take on the famous blunderbuss with a striker mechanism. Jack was taking a look at the new gun. It had the length of an arm, with flared brass barrel, brass trigger guard, and an iron trigger and lock. It was breech-loaded instead of loading from the muzzle. The handle was carved from wood. The ammunition was lead pellets wrapped in paper, along with black powder compressed at one end. A brass cap wrapped around half of the paper cartridge, protecting the black power from getting wet. Emma decided to use mercury fulminate, a shock-sensitive explosive material, instead of flint for ease of use and reliability in weather. The chemical was very hard to produce without proper laboratory equipment. Jack reassured her that he would order glassware once the team had more budget, as glassware in this era was a noble product. The brass cap held a tiny amount of mercury fulminate. When the trigger is pulled, the hammer strikes at the end of the cap, exploding the chemical in the cap along with the black powder and thus, forces the pellets out of the barrel. The cap could be collected and reused. Emma produced the guns with almost full use of the dark energy manipulator. From the melting of the metal ingot with heat manipulation, shaping the barrel with telekinesis, finishing the surface and working on the firing mechanism with laser cutting mode, etc., the result was a weapon definitely beyond the production capability of the medieval era. Producing a single gun would deplete the charge of the dark energy manipulation device a couple of times. The most energy intensive process was melting and shaping the barrel. Emma had noted Jack that having some parts of the weapon outsourced, for example, the carving of the wooden handle, or having the raw part for the barrel precut in an elongated cylinder form, could greatly lower the energy usage. Excluding the percussion cap, manufacturing the ammunition was cheap. The lead pellets were made by dripping molten lead into a water basin. The resulting pellets were not in a perfect spherical shape, but they served well as projectiles. "Awesome job." Jack rubbed the gun, then stood in shooting position. "It feels great on hands. People would not hesitate to buy this era-changing weapon." Although Jack had never seen such a crude and primitive gun before, he knew that his engineer had made it to the best of her ability. It was a technological achievement even, which what little resource they had. Emma did not share her ex-captain''s enthusiasm. She smiled wryly. "I still don''t feel like I''m doing the right thing. I hope you can prove to me that I am, Jack." Jack grinned. "Of course, I will do my best." "I know our purpose is to fix the ship and go home, but I never once considered doing so at the expense of people living in this place. I will make sure that our weapons are used to reduce bloodsheds and tragedies, not causing them."This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. He sat down, levelled his eyes with Emma''s. "You can believe in me. I won''t make mistakes anymore." The crews went out to the bar and the two adults drank themselves to stupor that evening. Emma laughed, and Naomi covered her face as Jack drunkenly danced with the waitress and fell face-first into his dance partner''s ample bosom, getting a much-deserved resounding slap. Since Naomi was dragged to the bar right as she was going home from her first mission, she couldn''t find the time to tell the other two that the mercenary team had discovered her inhuman strength. In the end, she decided that it was fine. She did not feel any malicious intent from the other members. [I''ll tell them when I find anything wrong. Each of us has their own mission.] The next day, with the five prototype guns wrapped in a big cloth and secured on his back, Jack set out to the Adventurer Guild. The sun was high, Naomi had already left for her mercenary business. It was time for product testing and advertisement. *** Anver and Lena brought Naomi to a place on the border of the Beast Forest. It was far enough from the village that few people would go here. "Throw." Anver gave the young girl a spear. He pointed to a tree with a target carved on it. He stepped back, arms crossed on his chest. The young girl closed her eyes. That was odd. The moment she opened her eyes, the spear was launched away. It whizzed through the air and came head-on into the tree with a "puck". Right on target. "Bullseye? On her first throw? Did she have experience with spear throwing?" Anver raised an eyebrow. "Maybe it was just a lucky throw?" Commented Lena. However, after five throws, the two discovered that this girl had a miraculous ability of nailing the exact spot every time. It confused them more that the girl would always close her eyes for a brief moment before throwing the spear. After plucking the spear from the tree again, Anver approached the young girl, handed it back to her. "Open your eyes." He made a gesture of using his hands to pull his eyelids open. The young girl looked troubled. This time, the spear went wide. It was not even close to hitting the target. A few more throws were attempted, and the two mercenaries had noted some peculiar characteristics to their new member''s throwing ability. "If she closes her eyes for a moment before the throw, she would nail it no matter how hard it is." Lena had a confused look on her face. "Doesn''t matter if it''s a spear or a stone. It''s incredible!" Anver did not look very happy about it. "Yeah, but she can''t move during her weird eye-closing ritual. Is it mental concentration? I have never seen that throwing technique before. And why is her normal throw so bad?" He shook his head. "One last test before we force her to open her eyes at all time. Closing your eyes during a battle is a taboo no matter how good your throw is." He handed the spear to the girl again. "Strong. Full strength." Anver commanded. The girl looked quizzical. She asked back. "Strong?". Anver nodded. As the young girl entered her throwing stance, the two mercenaries retreated a bit further this time. When she opened her eyes, the spear seemingly disappeared. A low crack echoed, followed by a booming sound as loud as a thunderclap. Half of the tree trunk where the target was carved on had been blown away. The spear was nowhere to be found. The tree fell shortly after failing the struggle against gravity with its wounded body. It took a second or two for the scene he witnessed to sink it, even though it was right before Anver''s eyes. Then he felt his lips stretch wider into gaping grin and his eyebrows arch for the sky. "Or maybe there is no need for her to keep her eyes open." Lena exclaimed, hands on her mouth. "I''ll stop using the crossbow and switch to vanguard." Their days of surviving by the teeth were about to change. Chapter 23: The Upright Mercenary "I do not care about your concern. The Guild has no guideline on how many members there should be in a team, or how low the age of deployment can be." I tiredly replied. "And even if they do, I am the guild master. I have no obligation to follow them." "Letting your adventurers die senselessly like this will have dire consequences, my lord! I beseech you to understand!" The imbecile in front of me spoke disrespectfully. What consequence, you goddamn annoying fudgehead? As long as there are people, there will be parasites without land, without a roof on their head, without anything to themselves but their worthless lives. Adventurers and citizens in this village are commodities. Their lives are my money. I pretended to consider what he had said. He ranted on and on about how people would stop joining the Guild if the death rate was too high, letting children fighting on the frontline is immoral. Ah, apple is really the king of fruits. My chewing sound drowned out the rest of his words. "You see, this village is one among the frontline villages against the vile beasts." I put on a wise, understanding face and slowly explained to the lowlife adventurer. If this scoundrel was not the leader of the best team in the guild, I would not have wasted so much of my precious time with him. "We all have to do our best to protect the citizens that are willing to stay with us in this dangerous place. It is our noble purpose! We have to stand in the face of vile beasts and deliver our sword and spear to their neck!" I stood up, opened my hand. "You should feel encouraged by the brave act of such a team. A team with so few people but they still stood up to add stones to our protective wall between our farmers, loggers and the vile beast! A team where children are taking up arms to protect their families! You should feel honoured!" "I will not hear about this anymore! You''re undermining the effort of courageous adventurers! You should be ashamed!" I waved my hand, refusing to listen to another word. The thorn in my eye finally left my office. A loud crash could be heard outside. The beast is getting more and more uncontrollable. Should I pay someone to dispose of him? When he no longer has any use for me, I''ll take his life. I''ll have them torture him to death. Or I will turn him into a vile beast.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. A smirk widened on my face. My imagination was running wild. I felt the inspiration to write another story. "Fuller Peyton, the heroic adventurer, slaying a hundred despicable vile beasts." I would name it. No, "a thousand despicable vile beasts". I turned my eyes to the pleading letter on my desk. [I implore the honourable guild master to dismiss the adventurer team of Anver Remington, for their lack of personnel, and the adventurer team of Garrett Milton, for their employ of children on the frontline.] It read. I must have seen a hundred letters like this from him. He was as tenacious as a leech. I crumbled it and threw it into the fireplace. Adventurers exist to keep the population in this town stable, and it''d be better if they can die steadily, so I can reap more profit. For every of their life perished, the naive Marquess Margaret pays me a gold coin. "Please give this to their grieving families." She said, with her angelic voice and hypocritic mellow eyes. [Wouldn''t it be right for me to take it then? For this guild is their family and I am their father.] I laughed in my heart. *** "Hi, my name is Jack Rutherford, the merchant. I''m looking for Hank, the adventurer. Do you have any idea where he might be?" "Oh my, good day mister Rutherford." The miss standing behind the receptionist deck replied with her seemingly friendly attitude. "Mister Hank is having a meeting with the guild master." She mumbled under her breath. "As usual." Jack caught that. [There is corruption going on in this place.] Jack thought. [Hank seems to be an upright guy that doesn''t take it. Or he could be pretending and is colluding with the guild master.] [I hope I''m taking the right bet.] Jack looked around the guild. The crowd of Hank mercenary team was sitting in their corner. Stone walls surrounded the hall, propping a thick wooden roof. Windows lacked, only small skylight vents were present. Thanks to the abundance of these openings, the hall where mercenaries met up and occasionally had drinks was bright enough to look different from the only other stone building in the town, the church. These were also the buildings that housed administrative organizations. The Adventurer Guild protected the fields and the area of forest near the town, and the church soldiers manned the wooden gates and walls surrounding the town. The Merchant Guild building was only a small wooden house, and they only served as the middleman in high-value transactions. There was no noble living here. This place was also tax-free, similar to most frontline towns that had their back to the Beast Forest. Only the Merchant Guild collected transaction taxes, as a fee for their service. Thanks to the policy, this dangerous Redshire village attracted a few citizens in the North Osland Kingdom, looking to live risky days in exchange for ease of life. Lots of travelling merchants also frequented here. Loud noises came from the stairs, interrupted Jack''s thoughts. A tall, red-haired man, with a scar crossing his nose bridge from the forehead to the right side of his mouth, came down in heavy steps. There was ferocious fury in the man''s eyes. His hands were rolled into fists full of dark red veins. It was clear that whatever conversation that went on upstairs, did not go well. Jack felt more assured that his character evaluation was not wrong. This man could be a major help in the plan. He approached Hank, and with his best wry, sympathetic smile, spoke to him. "Good day, sir. My name is Jack Rutherford, the weapon merchant. Would you be interested in our latest, most innovative long-range vile-beast-slaying invention?" Chapter 24: The Weapon Test (Part 1) Hank took half a look at the man. Blond head, well-trimmed thick facial hair, annoyingly charismatic smile, there was no mistaking it, he was the guy who was about to be swindled into the death pit of Anver''s team the other day. It seemed that the guy took his advice and switched profession. There was also that arm wrestling match where a young girl defeated that scumbag. His team laughed the loudest. It was the joy of Hank''s day, but he did not think much about it. Anver hadn''t been coming to the guild from that day. If it was Hank, he would start living in the well of Redshire too. Something else was on his mind. Most people were not as lucky as this guy, being able to get a different job. They usually came here because they had nowhere else to go. If Hank could count coins and be smart enough to work in a market that were full of profiteers, cheaters and oppressors, he would switch his profession in a heartbeat. Mercenary guild was the corner where desperate people found themselves in. If someone had another road and still chose this as their destination, there must have been something wrong with their head. [Is this guy also f*cked in the head? Or does he have other motives coming here?] [One is not a merchant if he is retarded. I should be careful.] Noticing something in Hank''s long silence, the man took initiative to speak again. "I had always been a merchant. I was accompanying my sister-in-law the other day, who wanted to join the guild. She had declined the recruitment thanks to your advice." The corner of the man''s mouth raised a bit. "Did you like her performance afterward? She found the man despicable, so she challenged him to an arm wrestling match. He might not dare to ever show up here again." Hank laughed loudly as he heard this. His fleeting suspicion was fading away. He slapped the man''s shoulder. "I liked it very much! Give me words of praise to her, and if she has time, I would like to treat her to a mug of mead." The man coughed. "Anyway, I would like to introduce our latest weapon to you. Would you care for a demonstration? It would be my honor to have you and your team witness the capability of our invention." He rubbed his shoulder as he said it. [He looked strong, but isn''t very tough, is he?] Hank thought in amusement. "That is no problem. However," Hank half-unsheathed the sword on his waist, "don''t try anything funny. I have a personal grudge with people who unfairly profit off others." Hank gritted his teeth in a threatening smile. "I have used up my patience for today." The man did not stop his stupid grin for any moment, neither did he back off. He had guts, or he had confidence in what he was selling. It was probably a type of crossbow anyway, but Hank wouldn''t mind something better for his team. "Would it be good if we test the weapon outside the town? I''m afraid it is rather loud." Hank''s interest was piqued. A loud weapon was a major disadvantage against the beasts. But he had never heard of a loud crossbow before. He sheathed his sword, a "clank" sound echoed in the hall. His teammates turned to look at him. Hank tilted his head toward the door and shook it, in a [Let''s head out] command gesture. *** "Would here be good? Test the weapon against that slime." Hank spoke to the man in a low voice. Jack was still staring at the creature in silence.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. In the Beast Forest, Jack had fought an unending stream of violent creatures. Those he could identify with the tiny source of light in his hand, resembled animals from Earth, some were extinct millennia ago. He never thought much about it. His priority at the time was surviving. In the nerve-wracking darkness where hostiles were running all around him and constantly jumped at him from the conceal of vegetations, every firing neuron in his brain was concentrated on the dark energy manipulator. He shuddered to imagine what would happen if he missed during the battle that stretched his limit to the very last possible margin. If one of the creatures got through the maze of pebbles flying through the air, he and Naomi would have been shredded to pieces. He only thought of the creatures, and the animals in the town as being brought along with the humans to this strange planet. He assumed that the planet was a recreation of human civilization in the ancient time, for whatever reason, albeit with vibrant dark energy environment. However, in front of him was a limus, a creature not from Earth. It was from Avidity, a galaxy in the Federation''s territory. Jack still remembered the basic characteristics of limi. They have inside-out stomach, their entire body is covered in digestive fluid. The outside of their body has a layer of symbiotic bacteria that keeps the shape of the creature. They can also command the bacteria to change their shape to a certain extent. Their body is almost entirely translucent, except for the small black brain, which is their only kill spot. They can regenerate the rest if the brain survived. The appearance of the creature once again made Jack question the mysteries of this planet. [How many creatures of the multiverses are there in this place? Are there other intelligent races apart from the human?] Jack silently thought. "What are you waiting for? Are you pitying the slime?" Hank''s laugh woke Jack up from his musing. "This thing is everywhere. Unless you''re an infant, everybody knows that crossbows can''t kill it. I don''t believe you would be a master marksman who can hit its tiny core." [If it''s really a limus, it would be the last thing I''d ever pity.] Jack shook the thoughts out of his mind. [It''s time for first impression.] He unpacked the guns on his back, took out a gun from the cloth. It gleamed with blinding flare under the sun on top of their head. Hank carefully observed the weapon. It was unlike anything he had seen before. A long, iron stick, wrapped in a wooden handle, with amazing craftsmanship. Every detail on it was sharp as a blade''s edge. There were small, intricate parts that looked like they were not forged with a hammer, but molded to the will of the crafter. Hank''s opinion of the man instantly raised a notch. The thing on the man''s hands wasn''t a mismatched piece of counterfeit quickly put together to swindle money from unaware amateurs. It was a work of art that a noble would hang on their wall and proudly brag about it. Jack took out two small pieces of cloth and inserted them into his ears. He then pressed on the latch on the handle, which allowed him to break open the weapon. A shell from his pocket was loaded into the chamber. He closed the weapon with a "click." "Alexa, is that a limus?" Jack mumbled, making sure no one else heard it. "Affirmation, the creature is ''limus commune viridi'' from the Limus branch, first found in the Avidity galaxy." Jack grinned. [Let''s test if you are really impervious to physical damage, damn masturbating lubricant.] He still remembered when the repeating trouble-maker pilot Anton brought a limus onto the ship. The pest escaped, and that entire week the team had to scrub the ship of its corrosive fluid. Jack was so mad that the slime sneaked into the Captain''s quarter, ruining his VR headset, along with his treasured collection of ancient action movies. He took aim in a quick motion. All the time he had gamed in VR had given him adequate skill in handling firearms. Cheek pressed on the stock, left hand holding the handguard in a light grip. Rifle''s butt firmly on the shoulder. Elbows kept down and close to the body. Align the sight on the target. "Plug your ears or stay back." Jack spoke loudly. He did not care to check if the mercenaries had listened to him. Some lessons are better taught by consequences. Finally, finger on the trigger. Fire and smoke flowed out of the barrel like an air stream from a volcano. Even with his impromptu ear protections, Jack still heard a loud explosive noise transferred through the rifle stock to his skull. A smoke screen stayed in front of his vision for a short moment, before it was blown away along with the leaves in the now strangely more silent forest. Nothing remained of the ''slime'' except for some wet spots of sticky fluid. The area where it used to be was ravaged. The patch of grass was broken and fluttering. Jack had seen many types of more devastating rifles in the military movies of his modern world, but this was the first time he knew the power of black powder. The feel of no-recoil, non-explosive weapons in the games he played wasn''t as good as shooting a traditional explosion-fueled gun. He immediately fell in love with this antique weapon. He broke open the gun, taking out the percussion cap shell with his nail flicking the side of the barrel. The shell flew out, drawing a smoky line in the air. Jack quickly caught and pocketed it. He then turned toward the mercenaries behind him. "What do you think, gentlemen? Wanna have a go?" Chapter 25: The Weapon Test (Part 2) Hank heard the man''s warning, but he did not take it seriously. [How loud could a hand-held weapon be?] He stood close and did not cover his ears, to react in case the man pointed his unconventional weapon toward him or his teammates. It usually pays to be cautious. It did not pay this time, however. The man''s flame-spewing weapon was not deafening, per se, but it startled the hell out of Hank. Even if he was mentally prepared for it, he still fell flat on his butt. Certainly not good for people who kept their sword on their waist, as the thing''s handguard poked painfully into his side. The destructive power of the weapon thoroughly astonished Hank. Hank had heard of the priests'' holy magic that could channel the Source''s power to produce fireballs. He had never seen it though. The priests and their soldiers did not have a good relationship with the mercenaries, if anything, they considered the mercenaries "barbaric", "faithless", but a "necessary evil". The two sides of the coin had the same purpose, but most of the time, never worked together. The church had all the power to look down on the soldiers of fortune. [Was this magic?] Hank gulped. The church absolutely forbad magic outside of its personnel. If anyone were in possession of a magical device, he would face a fate worse than death. Hank instantly felt afraid of the weapon. Even though it would definitely kill a vile beast in one shot or two, the trade-off wasn''t worth the price. He hurriedly stood up and retreated as the man turned to him and spoke word he didn''t hear. He drew his sword and stood in a battle-ready stance. His teammates, and the man, both noticed something wasn''t right and the atmosphere turned cold. The man inserted something into the weapon and stared toward the mercenaries, as they themselves readied their crossbows and the two sides aimed at each other. "Is your weapon magical?" Hank asked loudly. He stood with his buckler in front of him and the sword raised behind him. The man had a confused look flashed on his face in-between his cautious stare. He replied loudly. "Not at all. If it was magic, you should feel it in the air, no?" Hank did not know that. He had never witnessed magic before, how could he know? The man lowered his weapon and crouched down. "I''m going to show how it works." He took out another one of his flame arrows, laid it on the ground. "This is a shell. It''s the crucial component of this weapon." He took off the top of the ''shell''. "This is a pack of pellets. Basically, lead balls wrapped in paper." He put his fingers inside what looked like a brass tube, pulled out another small pack of paper. "This is burning powder," he said, breaking open the packet and poured to content to the ground. "I call it ''gunpowder''."Stolen story; please report. He took out a flint and smeared some of the powder onto it. After he struck it a few times, the flint burned, as well as the black powder he had laid before. The bright flame and the black smoke was exactly like when he shot the weapon. "You see, there is nothing magical about this weapon. The powder burns, its flame flows out of the iron tube, pushing the pellets with it. There is no mana gas or magic stone." The man opened his hand. "You have seen what this weapon can do. Do you not want to wield its power?" Hank took a moment of silence. He sheathed his sword and gestured to his teammate to lower their crossbows. "Sorry for the misunderstanding." He said, scratching his head. "Could you let me try it?" *** After an hour of testing, the mercenary team had been thoroughly persuaded by the new weapon. Seven shells were spent for the demonstration, three of them were paid. Jack had sold one rifle to Hank for the price of 50 silver coins, and twenty shells, one silver coin each. "After you used them, remember to keep the brass part. I''ll refill the shell for 20 copper coin." Jack told Hank, after he had handed the shells to him. Hank was pleased with the transaction. When he looked at the amazing craftsmanship on the gun, he had thought it would cost several gold coins, which nearly made him give up on the spot. 50 silver coins were not exactly cheap, but it was only as much as a well-made crossbow. It was certainly a good investment. "This is exactly what we need to combat the vile beasts. They are too fast, and some of them can even evade arrows." He exclaimed. "With this, vanguards don''t have to keep them still anymore. Most of the casualties are from the vanguards. I can keep my teammate safe now." Jack grinned. "I hope you can give me good words to other teams in the guild. I would love nothing more than my weapon taking part in the fight against vile beasts and protect the citizens." Hank nodded. "I will. If this thing can lower the alarming death rate in the guild, I will not hesitate to have the entire guild carrying it." After a while, Jack spoke again. "There is another matter I want to ask of you. Do you mind sparing a bit of your time?" "Say it." "Can you tell me about the lich that appeared 6 months ago?" Hank''s expression turned dark. *** While talking with Hank, Jack had learned some new information. The appearance of the lich six months ago was sudden and Harold''s team, the team that Anver was a part of, was the first at the scene since they were patrolling the area. There was also an unfortunate logger who saw the fight between the team and the creature. The logger fled the village in the night. He was the only witness to what happened, discounting Anver and Lena, the two surviving members. "So where is that logger now?" Jack asked. Hank contemplated a bit before saying. "I don''t know for sure. When he returned, he did not talk to anyone." "But," Hank raised a finger, "the only connection from this village to other parts of the North Osland kingdom is that road over there." Hank pointed toward the gate of the village. A dirt road was leading from it to the horizon. "He was in such a hurry that he had not packed most of the foods in his house. He couldn''t have fled far. He is very likely to be staying in the City of Brighton, the closest town to this place." Jack nodded. "I see. Thank you. Here''s something for your trouble." Jack reached into his pocket and gave a shell to the mercenary team leader. The man took it without any formality. Hank raised an eyebrow. "What''s the reason for your interest in that creature?" "Nothing special." Jack waved his hand. "I''m a weapon merchant, and researching vile beasts to come up with the best weapon to deal with them is my job." He stood up, patting his pants. "I''ll leave you to your job now. Be seeing you again." Jack took the pack of guns and left the mercenary team, walking toward the village entrance. Chapter 26: I want a katana Leader Anver dismissed us early after the practice. We didn''t patrol the forest today. He probably thought we would spend the entire day practicing spear throwingˇ­ Sensitivity was still a major problem with my augmentations. Since I couldn''t feel the spear in my metal hand as much as in my left hand, I couldn''t do stuff that needed high accuracies like spear throwing, or any kind of throwing, really, without relying on the Pre-action Planning System. I''m sorry, Mr Anver. I don''t think I would get any better even with practices. Mr Anver looked like he had given up after he instructed me to throw without closing my eyes for a few times. I mean, I missed the intended direction by ninety degrees. It''s very hard to release the spear at the right time when you couldn''t feel its weight properly, you know? Then leader told me to throw "strong". Umm, it was a bit over the top. Of course it was! My arm was the closest I could get to military grade aug you know? I spent my entire summer saving up for it! Be at awe, witness my amazing dark-energy powered, superalloy arm, capable of 10 thousand newtons of force! Eheheˇ­ Miss Lena said something to mister Anver, then just grabbed me and dragged me away, in a beaming grin. I resisted in to no avail. To be honest, big sister scared me, just a bit. I was slowly learning the speech of this world with captain Jack and sister Emma''s teaching. Mister Anver taught me a few words too, but whenever I spoke to him, he looked at me, half confused and half disappointed. I told sister Emma about this. She said to me that, um, "your accent leaves a lot to be desired". But there was one word I was pretty sure I could speak like a local. "Cute". Or rather, "cuteeeeee~!". The word was imprinted into my mind whenever my cheeks were being yanked from my face or when I was being suffocated by a certain someone''s excessively forceful embrace. I''m serious, I was not sure if she hadn''t disfigured me and turned my face into something weird! Every time I thought about it, I still shuddered and unconsciously checked if my head was still vertically longer than horizontally! And I also wasn''t kidding about being suffocated! Yes, I know what you''re thinking, "how could a modern genetically enhanced human with superalloy skeleton and augmented muscles be suffocated by a medieval woman?" I peeked at sister Lena. We were now at the town''s marketplace, and she was enthusiastically pointing to some of the weapons on the blacksmith shop''s display wall. You see, if this woman ever got pregnant, she could single-handedly breastfeed the entire town. She must be a cow-human chimera. Yes, that must be it. There was no other explanation. She picked up something and turned to me. Her boobs swayed like a flag being waved in the air and nearly hit my face. I was standing like a meter away from her. I now understand why she was the crossbow-handler in the team. No, it wasn''t because she was a woman and the job of vanguard was dangerous. That''s ridiculous. The reason was simple. She had that biological bipod that enabled her to shoot crossbow efficiently from any stance. "Naomi!" I woke up from my trance, realizing my hands were on my pitiful chest and my eyes wereˇ­ No, my eyes weren''t wet. It was just a bit dusty in the market, you know. I was definitely not crying over all the unfairness in the universe and how life is futile. Big sis was holding a short cutlass in her hand and speaking excitedly. She took my hand and put the sword in it. She made the gesture of swiping in the air. She was telling me to try it out.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. My full attention turned to the sword. I had never held a sword in my life. I felt thrilled. I took a stance from an anime I watched on the neural net and swung the sword, trying my best to copy the main character''s movement when she was heroically fighting the giant robot. "Swoosh". Oh, it felt amazing. A few swings later, I was immersed in it without knowing. I reenacted the entire anime fight right in front of the blacksmith shop. The sound of the blade whizzing in the air, the domineering smile as you downed your foes like cutting through grass, the moment when you plunged your sword into the eye socket of the villain robot and hearing its whimpering "It.. it can''t beˇ­", then you put a foot on the dead final boss'' face, kicking it away and raised your sword to the air, in the middle of the thunderous cheering. The young boy, your companion, and resistance soldiers cried tears of joy when you had finally put a stop to the machines'' insidious plan to destroy the remnants of humanity ˇ­ When I finished, the shopkeeper was laughing loudly as he repeatedly slapped his knee. Miss Lena giggled amusingly with a hand on her mouth. [What have I doneˇ­] I glanced around and saw people looking at me weirdly. I pulled the hood on my coat almost to my chin and embarrassedly handed the sword back to the big sis. She took it, and in a huge grin, opened her arms. Oh no. No more. "So cuteeeeeeeee~!" And my vision turned dark. My artificial lungs worked the best they could. If the chemical oxygen reserve in my lungs hadn''t been spent in outer space, it would have activated as my life was being endangered. My "desperation phase" once again kicked in and time seemingly slowed down. It felt like years had passed since the day I was buried in the mountains of meat. When sister Lena finally released me five minutes later, I wobbled around like a puppet with its strings cut off. I shook my head to regain consciousness and retreated away a hundred steps, just to be sure. In the end, I was not satisfied with the swords in the shop. I tried to tell sis Lena that I already had a sword. She understood me, albeit looking a bit dejected. I desired a sword that didn''t exist in this western-earth medieval world. I wished for the same weapon that the MC in my beloved anime was wielding, and it was the best-looking sword ever. *** "No. That''s a horrible idea." "Please, sister Emma, pleaseˇ­" I cried out, opened my eyes as big as possible and turned my head down while looking up, displaying my best irresistible ''upturned eyes''. "It''s not like I don''t want to make the sword for you, but your request is unreasonable. What do you mean you want a ''human-sized katana''? Stop watching so much anime!" She turned around, put down the half-finished gun, and with a hand on her waist, spoke to me with her finger raised. "You can''t handle a big sword in real life. It has nothing to do with strength. You don''t have enough mass to anchor yourself to the ground when you swing it. The sword would swing you instead." Noˇ­, reality is cruel. Please stop reminding me of it, sister Emma. Let me have my anime dreamsˇ­ Sister Emma put both her hands on her face. She wiped it down in a very, very slow motion. "Why do I have to lecture you of thisˇ­ This is basic physicsˇ­ This is the first thing you learn in schoolˇ­" She sighed and closed her eyes. "Even if I make you a normal sized steel katana, you know, a katana doesn''t suit you at all. Katanas are very fragile, and you have superhuman strength. If I have superalloy to make your katana, I will consider it, but we don''t have any." I relented. "Please sister Emma, there has to be a way. A normal katana is fine. You have to understand, katana is the only sword for me. If anyone who can help me, it''s you, a genius engineer who can solve any problem!" "You can''t strike with a steel katana. You can only slashˇ­" Emma put a hand on her chin, pretending not to hear my shameless praise. "You have the speed to close the distance with your opponent quickly. But normal sword styles are not suited to high-speed slashing like that. You need a very low angle of slashing if you don''t want it to break." Emma raised a finger. "How about reverse grip handling? I don''t know if your mercenary leader can teach you that style, thoughˇ­" A girl was standing coolly in the forest, holding her katana in a reverse grip. Red leaves were falling around her in the cold autumn breeze. Corpses of hostile beasts laid around her. She wiped her sword with the sleeve of her shirt and sheathed it, walked away without looking back. My imagination exploded. Oh my god, it''s so beautifulˇ­ I jumped up and hugged sister Emma while continuously thanking her. She smiled at me and ruffled my hair with her hand. At that moment, the door opened. Captain Jack appeared behind it, but stopped when he was about to walk in. "Oh. Excuse me." The door closed. "No! It''s not what it looks like!" I hurriedly jumped away in panic and ran toward the door. Chapter 27: Suspicion After the ''slight misunderstanding'' had been resolved, the team once again sat down before each other in the dark inn room for a new meeting. For convenience''s sake, the candle on the table was placed in the middle, since light was a bit lacking in the last meeting. This inadvertently turned the appearance of the serious discussion into that of a horror story session in front of a campfire. None of the members minded though, the eerie light shining upon each other''s face from downward was still better than looking like dark lords conjuring plans to take over the world from the previous one. If they were honest with themselves, they were making that exact plan. However, the resemblance was uncomfortable. Jack told them about the new information he received from the mercenary team of Hank Blakemore. "I intend to go to the city of Brighton to investigate. The trading between the city and this village is also good business as well. I''ll buy some commodities in the city and sell them here. We''ll need the benefit. We have only sold one rifle, but we have spent countless coins buying materials to make others." "The city is half a day away on horseback, I''ll be staying in Brighton for a week maximum, so I''ll be gone for about 10 days. That should also be the time it takes for the mercenaries to know of our new weapon. When I come back, we''ll get to selling that." Jack pointed to the guns stacked in the corner of the room with his thumb. "Are you going alone? The road is dangerous. I can go with you." Naomi''s hand was raised. Jack shook his head. "I''ll be going alone. I will not take you or the dark energy manipulator. Don''t forget I have this." Jack tapped his head. "With Alexa, nobody or animal can approach me in the radius of 50m without my knowing. You should stay here and practice, and Emma needs the magic gun for her job." "I''m pretty good at running, you know. Even more so when I have a horse." Jack showed his perfectly white teeth with a smile. Emma fidgeted her hand in one of the many pockets on her pants, took out a shiny object. "You should take this, anyhow." She presented a revolver, made of steel. "I intend to equip each of us with a personal weapon, but I only finished one." Jack reached out to take it. He couldn''t yank it out of Emma''s hand, though. He looked up to see her face. "Took me eight hours to make this thing, so don''t lose the gun." Emma smiled ominously. "If you do, I''ll cut ''it'' off. Seriously this time." Jack shuddered. Emma had gotten really mad every time he misplaced the dark energy manipulator or the chips when he borrowed from her to cut his beard, back when they were crews of the Motive. His ''it'' was endangered at least a dozen times. Emma had a quick temper, who knew if he would become a eunuch if he tested her patience again. "I promise, I will take a good care of your baby." Jack smiled wryly. Emma finally let go of the revolver. Jack took it, and couldn''t resist the temptation. He cocked the revolver and dry fired it a few times. The crisp sound of the hammer striking was intoxicating. Jack flipped the cylinder out, then closed it back in, took aim and fired one more. It was a perfect fit for his hand, and the aesthetic of the weapon was beautiful. Both visually and audibly. "Smith & Wesson Model 686, single-action to reduce complexity, with enlarged chambers and rifled barrel for use with black powder." Emma grinned with a sigh. "Due to the modification, it can fire five shots instead of six."The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. She reached under the bed and took out a belt, with finger-sized brass cylinders attached to it. "There''s also this, I bought a leather belt and sewed bullet pockets to make a bandolier. Twenty .50 black powder magnum cartridges on it. I imagine it would suit you very well." "I didn''t have time to make a holster." She said, throwing the belt to the ex-captain. "Make do with a cloth strap or something." Jack grabbed it out of the air and immediately stood up. He undid the cloth belt he was wearing and intended to wrap the new belt around his waist. Emma looked at him with weird eyes. "Why are you trying it on now? It''s a belt with lots of holes, it''ll fit you. Or do you want to wear it to sleep?" "Justˇ­ shut up." Jack stammered. "Excuse me!" He went into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. "A gun nut and an anime katana fanatic." Emma took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "And I''m the engineer. Do I get to resign?" She turned to see Naomi''s startled expression and squeezed the squishy cheeks together with her hands. She stared intensely into Naomi''s mouth that had turned into squirming bird beaks under the pressure and grumbled in a low voice. "Tell me, can I resign? Please?" "Uuueeeeeeh!" "I know." Emma flicked the ''beaks'' with her thumbs. "It''s my job to make machine guns and humongous katanas for you two." "Muh muh muhˇ­." Emma released Naomi''s face and threw her hands in the air. "It''s okay, I love you guys." She stretched, half-laying on the bed behind her. "Expect your sword tomorrow, Naomi, it''s gonna be a goddamn masterpiece!" Emma laughed as she looked up at the ceiling. Naomi felt a little apologetic, but she decided not to say anything. She turned away to nurse her poor face that had suffered so much physical torture there days. Jack exited the bathroom after a minute. To his credit, the bullet belt was on his right hand, then placed on the table. If the man continued the meeting with a bandolier full of cartridges worn on waist, Emma would probably flip out and reenact a Mexican standoff right there, in this peaceful inn at the corner of the town. "Ehem," the man cleared his throat, "by the way, I have seen a limus outside the town, they are called ''slime'' here, so I thinkˇ­" He hadn''t finished his sentence when a high-pitched voice cut it off. "I know! I''ve seen it too! There are many of them in the shades! They are so cuteˇ­" Naomi instantly stopped when she noticed Jack''s perplexed wide-open mouth and Emma''s thoroughly disgusted expression. "Cute? Cute?!" "It''s as cute as a rat!" "There things eat inorganic stuff, they ruin machinery!" "I know, right?! And clothes! I wouldn''t stand 3 meters near them. Some of them can jump!" "They multiply like rabbits and they don''t die! If anything can cause the demise of the multiverse I''m not surprised if it''s limi!" "Who the hell thought it was a good idea to import the thing from Avidity? I would punch that guy to death!" ˇ­ Jack and Emma spoke at the same time, showered Naomi with their absolute abhorrence of the species. "Iˇ­ I know, sir! They are not cute, not cute at all! Wakarimashita! Gomenasai!" Naomi shielded her head with her arms. She slipped into her mother tongue as she flustered. "Anyhow," Jack coughed, "Why didn''t you say anything to me? It''s an important discovery. There are not only species of Earth in this place, the same could apply for intelligent species too." "But we fought many of non-earth species when we were in the forestˇ­" Naomi weakly replied, "I thought you knew." "You had night-vision, I didn''t." Jack rolled his eyes. "What else did you identify in the forest?" "They were fast and was hiding in bushes, I couldn''t see clearly." Answered Naomi embarrassedly. "I saw a chicken-snake hybrid, a red planet earthworm, a giant salamander, I couldn''t see which color it wasˇ­ I also fought with a few ratmen the other day, people call them ''goblins'' here." "Did you use your absurd strength in that fight?" Jack raised an eyebrow. "Iˇ­ did. How do you know?" "You panic easily. I expect you to let the cat out of the bag sooner or later." Jack waved his hand then chopped Naomi''s head with it. "I didn''t think it would be this soon, though." "Ow." "The man has something to hide, I don''t suppose he''s going to report you to the authority." Jack sighed. "I intended to find out his secret as leverage, so that you have a safe mercenary team that you can work with, not having to limit your power." "How did he react to your inhuman abilities?" He questioned. "He was surprised, but he didn''t mind at all." Naomi put a finger on her chin. "In fact, he trained me to use my ability this morning." "Oh." "I see." Both Jack and Emma exclaimed. Emma turned her head so Jack''s direction. "So, do you also thinkˇ­" "Yeah, very likely." A wide grin bloomed on the man''s face. "Guys?" Naomi didn''t understand what conclusion the two older members had just unanimously come to. Jack scratched his head. He then whispered. "It''s probable that the other female member of your mercenary team, Lena Sterling, is a witch." Chapter 28: The Absurd Military Hardware Naomi covered her mouth with both of her hands. She whispered back to the two serious-looking people in front of her. Sister Lena being a witch should be a horrible thing, but she didn''t know why her voice sounded so excited. "Really?" "Who doesn''t get unnerved when witnesses the overwhelming strength that comes out of your tiny figure? I mean, even I did, and I live in a place where people can do that all the time." Emma explained. "Don''t forget this is a medieval world with a trend of burning people with strange power." "I''m sorry to bring this up, but back in the Milky Way, who were the ones that treated you fairly and did not discriminate against you?" Jack asked with his arms crossed in front of his chest. "Um, the augmented community and people from the aug sympathizer groups." Naomi replied, her gaze fixed on the wooden floor. "Some of them contacted me and talked to me on the neural net." "They helped me to overcome that difficult time of my life, I''m forever indebted to them." "Yeah, the downside of that was you hardly ever did anything else, and your mom told me you were sitting with the neural net VR headset on like 100 hours a week." Emma grinned. "I asked her to send me a few photos of you back in the days, and man, were you unrecognizable." She laughed with a hand on her tummy. Naomi''s face instantly became as red as a tomato. The girl mentioned lunged toward Emma, took her by the shoulders and shook the engineer until she nearly got a concussion. "Naomiˇ­ stopˇ­ stopˇ­" "My mom talked to you? Why haven''t you said anything?!" It took a while for Emma''s brain to stop rattling in her skull, still, her wide grin was still present during the dizziness. Jack got curious. "What did she look like back on Earth?" Naomi hurriedly silenced Emma with her hand and stammered in panic. "Iˇ­ I was a bit chubby, that''s all!" Jack raised an eyebrow. Emma spoke with difficulty through the gap between Naomi''s fingers. "Chubby? You looked like a hamster, wearing the headset with your cheeks bulging with snacks! Ha-ha." The ex-captain amusedly imagined the scene with a hand on his chin, Emma giggled and the flustered Naomi with steaming head in the middle, waved her arms about. The atmosphere, for a moment, became light-hearted as the people involved seemingly forgot they had been thrown into a hostile world with most of their companions dead, despite the talk about the old life. Had they come to terms with the peril they were in and left everything behind? Or did they just bury the sorrows deep inside the back of their memories, pushed desperation down below the surface in their attempt to soldier on the hopeless mission? Naomi was even more surprising. She used to be a very emotional girl. She did not cry as much as Emma, but she got upset over the tiniest things. What happened to her? Jack admired the two people in front of him, as they jested and jokingly punched at each other. The photo of the crews was placed in his breast pocket. He should have burned it, for it brought him nothing but tears every night. He was the captain. This situation happened because of him. Because he got greedy and succumbed to his materialistic desire, he put everyone that trusted him in danger. Resigning as the captain did not rid him of the responsibilities of one. There was also another woman. Her race did not have genders, but she identified as a female. A certain sarcastic psychologist doctor that Jack regularly had drinks with and loved talking to.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. One would think that psychologists and sarcasm didn''t go together, and one would be wrong. Jack thought that her brash, clever comments were incredibly relaxing, much more so than the slow, soft voice of conventional psychology doctors that Jack found sleep-inducing. Emily''s wealth of experience and stories to tell was amazing. She had lived for over a hundred Galactic years, after all. Jack couldn''t believe an ex-bounty hunter could become a psychology doctor. The multiverse was full of crazy events. He wondered if she had a peaceful rest. But it was not the time for them to do so. "Hey," Jack shook his head and raised his voice, "let me continue." The two women stopped their playful fighting and concentrated. "Discounting the augmented community, the aug sympathizers are mostly relatives or close friends with augmented people." He looked at Naomi. "Therefore, we think that Anver has a close relationship with an abnormal person like you, Naomi. People don''t fear what they understand or what they think they understand." "And considering the circumstance surrounding the team, it''s safe to assume that Lena isˇ­ different." Naomi kept her head down in silence. She felt the eyes of concerns on her, and a soft touch ruffled through her purple hair. "Don''t worry about Lena, we will protect her." Emma''s reassuring words were heard, and she felt her mind easing. *** The morning after, Naomi woke up long after the last rooster in town had crowed. [Oh no, I''m late. Why did I stay up to watch sister Emma work last night?] Naomi punched herself in the head. With her left arm, of course. This was something she had painfully learned by experience after many black-outs. Captain Jack had already left. Sister Emma was lying next to her, snoring exhaustedly. The object at the corner of the room, on top of a bunch of rifles, caught her eyes instantly. Naomi activated the shock-absorbent modules on her legs, carefully stepped over Emma and jumped down the bed. The modules worked perfectly, reducing the noise caused to near zero decibels. Naomi picked up the sword. A few lettered were etched on its scabbard. "To N.W", it read. A leather sling was attached to it. She smiled and grabbed the handle. The handle was so well ergonomically shaped that it fitted every inch of her hand. Naomi could almost feel the carbon-fibre handle of the dark energy manipulator from this wooden handle wrapped by many layers of cloth. It was very comfortable. The handguard was minimal. It only extruded a little over the handle of the sword, and had no carving. Naomi did not see any sign of connection between the handguard and the blade. It seemed like the sword was cut out from a single piece of metal. "Sheeengˇ­" The blade slid out and laid before Naomi. She gasped. The blade was black. In fact, the entire sword was black. If a military knife had sex with a historical katana, the result would be this beautiful baby. The blade was as thick as a thumb, curved slightly toward the end. There was even an outward-convexing line of extra reinforcing material running next to the spine of the blade. The edge was serrated from 1/4 the blade to the half-trapezoid tip, and only slopped to one side. It looked like someone merged the blade of an industrial paper cutter and a saw together. The threatening jagged edge pointed toward the hilt, ready to shred any creature it touched to pieces of bloody meat. Naomi didn''t know whether to laugh or to cry about Emma''s absolute functional designing sense, and her katana''s modern appearance. [You went overboard, sister Emma! How would this absurd military hardware fit in the medieval setting?] Naomi moved her lips to refute without making a sound. Naomi swung the katana in the air. Despite the unusual thickness and weight, the sword had great balance. After having played with her new toy a few times, she sheathed the sword in satisfaction. [Oh?] Naomi noticed the powerful magnetic force that guided the blade into the scabbard. She didn''t even have to look to put the sword in. The blade would automatically fly into its safe spot, if its tip was near the opening of the scabbard. It was planet-core magnets, the effect was too powerful for rare earth magnets to achieve. Naomi wondered where Emma had gotten the impossible material. She looked around and found something on the table. "My mobile phone!" Naomi cried, immediately covered her mouth after the fact. Luckily, Emma only moaned a bit and turned on the bed. Naomi read the note below the phone that had been broken apart. [Sorry, Naomi, it was a necessary sacrifice *laughing-with-tears emoji* The phone was useless, so I took its battery to make your katana. Hehe.] [But you can carry the sword on your back now! Wouldn''t that be cool? Please don''t hate me.] Naomi signed. How could she ever hate sister Emma? It indeed seemed like a suitable price to pay for her auto-sheathing sword. She could not use the phone to contact anyone in this place anyway. She found two more notes next to the note written by Emma. One had two sentences written in English by Captain Jack, the other one was written in an incomprehensible, but Latin-character language. [Give the note to your leader Anver. It would explain to him about your new sword training.] Naomi jolted. [I forgot I was late! When do you learn, Naomi? When do you ever learn?!] She hastily put the sword on her back and bolted out of the room, still took care to close the inn door gently. Chapter 29: The Training Jack went to the Adventurer Guild in the cold breezes of an early morning. He asked to meet the guild master, but the receptionist replied that the man hadn''t woken up yet. She also told him that it would be hard to meet the guild master these days. The guild master was not receiving anybody in his office for some reason, which the receptionist remarked as "happens occasionally when he gets inspired". She also said that "it would probably take a week for him to open the door again." Jack was to deliver the weapon to the guild master, as per the contract. Since he had stated in the contract that the recipient of the prototype rifle would be that man, he could not leave it to the receptionist. And he was too lazy to take it back to the inn. So, he thought he might as well take the gun along for the trip. Jack brought along 20 shells. Although the trade agreement did not mention anything about the ammunition, Jack still intended to give them as a sign of ''goodwill'', despite him having none. As he was about to leave the Adventurer guild building, he bumped into someone wearing a mask that covered half his face, and red cloth wrapped around the rest of his head. "Mister Anver?" "Shh!" The man in mask shushed Jack in a hurry, then dragged him to an alley next to the building. "How do you know it was me?" "Ehm, intuition, I guess? I have very good discerning eyes." Jack told him a lie with a grinning face. He couldn''t say he asked a chip embedded in his spine to scan the suspicious man. "Are you going to the guild to receive job dispatch?" Anver pulled his mask down, not hiding his dissatisfaction. "I covered my entire face! By the Source, can you see through clothes?" [Yes, actually.] Jack jokingly answered in his mind. "I''m applying for dispatch. We can''t spend every day training the girl." Anver diverted his eyes. "Isn''t it too early? Why are you disguising yourself?" Jack asked. He knew the answer, but feigned ignorance to jest the man. For fun. Every bit of fun in this place was a treasure. "You have to ask?! How do I show my face in the guild after that arm-wrestling match?!" Anver angrily spoke. His face was just as entertaining as Jack had expected. "You reap what you sow, my dude." Jack patted the man''s shoulder, and gotten his hand slapped away as a result. "I hope that you can continue to treat my ''special'' girl well." He laughed. "She is strong physically, but very weak emotionally. Please don''t hurt her." Anver did not have anything to say to that. The girl was nice, relatively obedience, and mysteriously powerful. He held no ill will toward her. If anything, he was looking forward to her development. He didn''t want to return to the days of recruiting naive, amateur mercenaries to fulfill the member requirement. He took no pleasure in their demise. "Anyhow, it''s good that you''re here." The man''s voice rang up again. Anver looked up to see his annoying white teeth. "I heard you intended to train her in the art of the sword. We have considered it and we thought conventional sword styles don''t suit her." "What do you mean?" "She would break every sword in this world if she strikes or thrusts once. You would agree, wouldn''t you?"If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Anver thought back to the scene where the girl threw a spear and it disintegrated. He shuddered a bit. Although he hated to admit, he agreed to the man''s words wholeheartedly. "So, we are hoping that you could train Naomi in a style that, how do I say it, isn''t so wasteful. I have written a note for her to explain the ordeal to you." Jack said. He flicked two silver coins in Anver''s direction. "Consider this her tuition. I am grateful that you want to train her. It seems that the rumor is not to be believed. You are not a man who would evilly throw young people to their death." Jack turned around. "I have some businesses to attend to, I''ll leave you to yours." He walked away, waving his hand without looking back. "What is she?" Jack heard the question asked in a low voice full of uncertainty from behind. "Supergirl." He threw an unfamiliar word to the confused man in the alley before disappearing around the corner. *** "Late." Anver spoke, arms crossed in front of his chest and annoyance in his voice. The girl who arrived at the village gate an hour after she was supposed to, was repeatedly bowing her head and saying "sorry" in her funny accent. Lena grabbed the girl''s flustered head, smiling wryly. "It''s okay, it''s her first offence, right? Just don''t be late again." She emphasized again for the girl to understand, "Late, bad, okay?", with her finger raised. The girl turned to her, continuing to bow and apologize. Naomi gave Anver the note written by Jack. Anver skimmed the content, then crumbled the note and threw it away. "I have heard it from the dude." He took his short sword out from his waist, flipped the handle to icepick grip and shook his head. "Unfortunately, I am not good with reverse grip handling." "Follow me." He gestured to the young girl and the team walked along the wooden fence surrounding the village. About half an hour later, they arrived at a poorly-constructed shack, with its back leaning against the wooden wall. The place looked like it could fall anytime. A strong wind would definitely blow the entire thing away, as it was already swaying in the autumn breeze. "Ken, old man, are you home?" Anver shouted. After a minute, a middle-aged man lifted the wooden blind, acting as the door to his ''house'', and wobbled out. He had long, black hair with many white strands, wearing a strange costume that looked like a dress on his lower half. It was the first Asian person that Naomi had met on the planet. All the other people in the village were Caucasians. Since Naomi''s dad was a Caucasian American, and her mom was an Asian Japanese woman, she inherited a mixed appearance between the two races. Her Asian look was not strong, and one could mistake her for a white girl at a glance. But the man that was scratching his sleepy head and slowly walking toward them looked 100% Asian. Naomi wondered where he came from, or if there were also Black people in this place. She did not have such question before, it felt natural for a medieval village to be all Whites, right? Leader Anver and the man talked for a while. They both looked at her, especially the middle-aged Asian man who was scrutinizing Naomi from top to bottom with gleaming eyes. Naomi felt like covering herself with a blanket, if she had one. After the discussion was finished, Anver spoke to Naomi. "Morning, train." He pointed to the man. "Afternoon, work." He aimed his thumb toward the forest behind them. "Noon, village gate, meet. Understand?" "Yes." "Good. Lena, let''s go to work." A few seconds later, Naomi''s two teammates could not be seen anymore. She was left with the man who was scratching his head constantly. "I saw your sword. Are you from the Island of Eastern Empire?" A language she didn''t think she could hear again came from the man''s mouth. "Ehhh?" Naomi retreated. She didn''t know if she should reply to the man''s question in Japanese. If she did, captain Jack''s fake backstory about her ears getting cured would be seen through, wouldn''t it? "There is no use pretending not to understand me. I saw your reaction." The man opened his arms. "Everybody has their own secrets. You do yours, I do mine. Doesn''t matter to me." "And it doesn''t matter to your training also." The man smiled with his eyes. Naomi felt a dangerous vibe from his expression. She held her hands in front of her chest, not being sure what was going to happen to her. *** [Soˇ­ tiredˇ­] Naomi was almost crawling. Now she was crawling. Ken-sensei instructed her to run two laps around the wooden fence. It was hell to her. She had never been so exhausted before. Her augmentations did not help much with her endurance. She could run faster than sound in short distance, but she would be spent after a hundred meters at most. "I will die. I will die. I will definitely die. I am dying." Naomi mumbled in-between her short, ragged breath. She was on all fours and people were walking around her, with whispers and concerned eyes, but she could spare no energy to care. She had finished a lap and Death was already sitting on her back. If its bony hands could wrap around her neck and break it now, she felt like that would be a more desirable alternative to continuing this inhuman torture. Little did she know, the days of hellish training was only beginning. Chapter 30: The Raiding Plan She sat beside the campfire, occasionally looked up to the stone statue in front of her. The statue was similar to an ornamental decoration sitting next to the stairs that granted entrance to a castle of some eccentric noble. The only difference was the dirtied, white-turned-brown cloak around it and the metal tank on its back. However, Olivia knew the static, dead-looking rock with flickering fire shining upon its horns and frightening face was a living creature. If one makes the mistake of waking it, a pair of red eyes would appear at once and carve fear deep into one''s subconsciousness. If Olivia stood up and walked away now, the creature would sit here and watch her disappearing figure. It would be aware, but it would not move an inch. She knew, because she had done so many times before. Olivia had abandoned her humanity. She had become a witch, a vessel of the devil. Her family shunned her. They hurled curses and rocks at her. She didn''t know which one hurt more. The church captured her. She was locked in a pitch-black cell that barely fitted one person, with a big metal collar on her neck. The soldiers and the priests in white attires tortured her days and nights. They hit her, then they hit her again because her blood got on their pristine clothes. Between all the abusing, raping and torturing, Olivia had lost sense of time. There was no need to count if she only wanted her time to stop. She wondered why they wouldn''t burn her on the stake like they did with the others. Was it because of the devil''s power resided within her that let people go through walls? If she did enough work for them, would they cleanse her of filth and let her die? But soon, she stopped wondering. Her eyes became livid. She had forgotten about the life before. Death was constantly on her mind. One day, light poured in, the door to her cell opened. She was being taken by some people, somewhere. She was told to do something. The next thing she knew, a body crashed into her. Her eyes came into focus once in a long time to witness an utterly terrifying figure jumped toward her. The person next to her was decapitated. She lied still, her eyes closed tightly, the sound of drum in her chest resonated with the cries of death around her. Why was she afraid? Wasn''t it the moment she had been waiting for? Everything happened quickly. Silence dawned. Footsteps approached her. This was it. Something tugged at her neck and a loud crack boomed next to her ears. Instinct overcame her desire. Panic drove her body to move away. It wasn''t her neck that broke. She turned her head up to look at the two halves of a collar on the ground, the headless corpse, and the next thing she saw made her eyes wide. Her memory skipped, then came the feeling of stones poking painfully into her bare foot. She was running away. Without a collar on her neck or a cell door in her face, nor were her legs or hands constrained. Where was she escaping to? Humanity had forsaken her. Why was she struggling? The demon''s eyes opened. Olivia stopped the line of thoughts that had been haunting her the past month. She looked toward the civilization, where she had travelled to frequently in the forgotten past. It had become strange. The buildings and the faces of people did not feel real to her.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. They were now on the outskirt of the City of Brighton, hiding in the forest. They had been camping out here for a week, and Olivia had a clear idea what the demon wanted to do. For the past seven days, when the sun came down, the demon would wake up, strap on a new tank that it took from the elite church soldiers, and sneak into the city. The demon breathed mana gas. The West Church was a colossal building that towered over the city. She could see it from where they were sitting, the ominous bell tower that signalled either time, or the burning of the defiled. Sometimes both. The demon was about to massacre its way in there and take what it needed to survive. But the demon did not sneak into the city today. After a minute of silence, it waved its hand with sharp claws in her direction. "Tomorrow." "Emily." "Go." "Church." The broken sentence in a hoarse voice sounded like agonizing souls from the abyss calling out at the livings to join them. If anyone but Olivia had heard it in the moonless night amid the eerie forest, perhaps their heart would cease to beat from sheer fright. "Please help." Olivia showed surprise on her face. [The demon is asking me for help? To kill people?] "Help? Kill?" She asked back. Its head shook. "Help." "Take." It poked a claw at the tank on its back, making a ''koong'' sound. "No kill." "If Emily can." Its fearsome red eyes turned gloomy as it said. "Oh." She made a sound.Her eyes glued to the burning woods. The demon was soˇ­ humane. It wasn''t the indiscriminate slaughterer in the bedtime stories she was told as a child. She had fully understood that the demon didn''t find joy in the suffering of people. It was ironic that a terror-striking creature treated her better than the ones of her own kind. On the first day of their fateful meeting, she did not dare to approach the demon. She stayed twenty steps from the last metal tank that was being dragged on the ground. The demon took a few glances at her, then continued its way through the sea of trees. They arrived at a river before sunset. The demon jumped in the water and caught a bunch of fish. It made a campfire and soon, the alluring smell of grilled fish tempted her. She ate the fish in a hurry, her eyes constantly trained on the demon that had become a stone statue. As she had finished the last one, the demon moved it claws slowly, its eyes still closed. Olivia retreated warily. "Emily." The demon spoke, with a claw pointing at itself. Its speech was so frightening that Olivia fell flat on her butt. The demon repeated its action. "Emily. Emily Spike." [Emily Spike? Its name? It has a name?] She thought. "O-Olivia." She stammered. She was talking to a demon! Had the world become crazy? Had she become crazy? "O-olivia?" The demon tilted its head. Its expression seemed strangely human. She shook her head. [Does the demon understand what shaking head means?] A thought fleeted. She named herself once more. "Olivia." "Olivia." That horrible voice again, saying her name. But she did not feel so afraid anymore. The demon used its claw to draw something on the ground as it spoke. It drew a human smiling face. Olivia smiled. "Emily Spike." She said. *** It was time for her to repay the demon for freeing her from her agony, for the food she ate, for the beasts it killed to protect her in her sleep. There was no need to consider anything. Olivia owned the demon her life. "I''ll help you." "ˇ­Thank you." The demon, no, Emily drew a smiling face, with two ''^'' for the eyes, on the ground. Olivia had become used to the demon''s weird, but friendly-looking ''emojis''. She once asked Emily to smile, then she told it to never do that again. ''Emojis'' were much better. "Come". It gestured. Olivia, in slow motion, came closer to Emily to hear what it had to say. The demon drew in the shape of a building. It was the image of West Church. And 14 stick figures. And a sun, with arrow arching downward. [14 guards in the church at night.] [Each guard has crossbow and sword.] [5 priests, sleeping in this room.] [This guard patrols the surrounding of the church.] [This guard patrols the main hall.] ˇ­ The witch and the demon discussed their plan to raid the church till midnight. It was rather stereotypical. Maybe one day, people would tell their children about the tale of a villainous witch and her companion, the murderous demon. [I wanna hear that story.] Olivia thought. Something about it felt comical. She broke into a grin as she closed her eyes and welcomed the warm and reassuring darkness.