Excerpt from an interview with -*-*-

He took the whole board, and asked me if I still needed to test my nuclear shredder. Now, I didn't think much of it at the time, so I said yes. He then dumped the whole board inside, and everything just... Broke. Needless to say, I was shocked. He spent countless hours on those formulas, saw me take a whole month to build my machine, and they were gone, in an instant! But... I think the worst was the dead look on his face, though.

People often joke about him, you know? "The Thief's a madman, both in the street and in the lab!", or "I'd be surprised if you tell me he wasn't working on a way to blow us all up." But frankly? That's the moment I realised he really was becoming mad. He never told me what he was trying to achieve, but... Ram told me he said he was "misplaced"? I didn't understand at the time, but now...

Rom and Ram... Somehow, they -*-*-

As a matter of fact, the twins did not know the way out, but it didn't matter because the dungeon was done with us, and the next door just spat us right outside. And it didn't even leave a door behind to let us enter again! Rude much.

When I said that out loud, the pink one visibly refrained herself from snorting, but the blue one didn't make a noise. She's a tough crowd, but I'll make her surrender, just you wait!

I'll say it again, but I'm glad they're not trying to kill me; I don't know how to deal with mages, and I don't want to fight young children. And I'm scared, because I don't know what would be the worst: me losing to a bunch of children, or me beating up a group of children. Obviously, they're way more capable than I am, being from this world and mages at that, but...

I cleared my head, straightened my bag, and went in front of them to open the way. Obviously, they were the one who knew where to go, but I would feel like a monster if I just abused that and let them walk in front of me.

We started walking, barely sharing a word, and as always, the world was a sea of white, cold snow.

We walked for several hours, before the sun started setting down, and the cold started to rise. The twins didn't seem to notice, but when I told them to stop for the night, they complied easily; I let them start to push the snow to make some space, while I tried to find a bit of wood to start a fire.

We were close to a forest, so it wasn't to much of a hassle to find the wood I needed, and when I was back to where I left the children, they were talking to each others in hushed tones. Now, I'm dumb, but I'm not that dumb; it was obvious they didn't like my presence to much. Still, I couldn't let them wander alone. What if they were to encounter some ASIC grunts, or something? I don't know what is forbidden for those people, for all I know they would kidnap those children just to sell them to a slaver, or something.

So I made sure to be extra loud when I entered the camp, to make them aware of my presence, and as I expected, they instantly clammed up. It was disappointing, sure, but maybe they'll trust me more later and wouldn't stop existing in front of me.

So I put the wood in a little pile, and started fishing around in my bag for something to light a fire; but to my surprise, the pink one just cast a spell, and the pile of wood started burning. I thanked her, and then searched for food through my bag. It took me a long minute, but I found some can containing a bit of meat that I bought back in Lastation. It wouldn't be enough to sustain me for long, but it was better than nothing!

I took it out of my bag, and suddenly the pink girl started taking her staff and pointing it at me. "Are you a spy from Lastation?"

I blinked. I looked at my can of food, and indeed, it was written, in bold, "Made in Lastation" with what I believe to be Lastation's emblem. I looked at the twins, and the blue one was hiding behind the pink one, who was shaking but held a determined look on her face.

I shrugged, but before I could utter a word, an explosion rang behind us. The twins fell to the ground; in contrast, I got up and summoned my lance to me, before I went in front of them, watching the origin of the explosion, my can of meat laying abandoned in the snow. I'm sure I will come to regret this event, later. I can already hear my stomach rumbling.

"We found 'em, 'boss'!" screamed a voice, before it appeared in front of us, atop a rather small snow puff. It was a man, of modest stature, holding some sort of tablet, and wearing a black suit that just screamed "I'm a bad guy!".

He jumped from his snow puff, stumbled a bit, before he straightened himself and held himself like some kind of hero, or important character. "My name is Suleimu! I, future lieutenant of ASIC, will hold the privilege of capturing Lowee's Candidates! Now, bow before me, or I shall punish your foolish struggles!"

I looked at the two kids behind me (the candidates? So they were not replaced in this nation?) before looking back at the clown in front of us. "And what's your plan, รถ great one?" I said, mustering as much sarcasm as I could.

The man "fufu'd" (and I can't believe there's someone unironically saying "fufu" in real life), before pointing his finger dramatically at me. "It's simple really! I have a three steps plan to ensure the success of this mission!"

I looked behind me, and the twins seemed as impressed with the guy as I was. Which is to say, not at all.

"Step one!" He continued, ignoring our silence. "I'll defeat you, who protect those girls! Step two! I'll kidnap these girls! Step three! I'll rise the ranks as one of the most useful members of ASIC ever!"

At this point, the novelty of seeing another human being (and a bad guy at that!) had already worn off, and I was just tired of hearing him babble on. I looked around us, and noted that no reinforcements seemed to be coming for this guy. Whoever this "boss" he was talking to earlier was, they didn't care enough to come here and face us personally, or even send anyone to help. And I was fine with it.

I looked at the kids once again (they were politely waiting for the idiot to stop monologuing) and then at our opponent, who didn't seem willing to shut up.

"... That way I'll hold dominion over even the Failure in the new world, which means I'll be able to-"

"WILL YOU SHUT UP?!" I screamed, as his babbles suddenly came to a stop. And wow, not only is his speech boring as hell, I just realised how much his voice is a pain.

He looked shocked for a second, before a frown appeared on his face. "Did you just... Interrupt my villain monologue? Do you know, do you even understand how impolite that is? Why, I-"

I looked at the girls once again, to make sure nobody was sneaking up on them and that they were still ok, before I decided to take action, and threw my lance at Suleimu. He dodged at the last second, but before he could say or do anything, maybe about how much of a dishonourable fucker I was, I held my hand in front of me, and with a scream of "Callback!" my weapon went flying into my hand, hitting my opponent on the way.

He fell to the ground, more surprised than hurt, but it was still enough to let me run towards him and try to whack his head with the non-lethal part of my lance. I already caused the death of one girl, and I'd rather not kill anyone else. But to my surprise, Suleimu proved to be rather agile, and rolled to the side to avoid my hit; and in one swift jump, he managed to get back up. At least somewhat, as he seemed to have troubles staying up.

I had a rather clumsy opponent it seems.

He took out some kind of pen to draw something on his tablet thingy. I waited a bit, lance raised high, wondering what he was doing, before I felt something hit the back of my head; I went down on my knees, and when I looked up, I saw Suleimu drawing furiously on his tablet, as knives after knives started appearing in front of him.

It took me a second to understand that he somehow was summoning those knives from his tablet; when I looked behind me, I saw another knife, badly formed and still a bit bloody, resting on the ground. I looked up, and started running towards Suleimu. He himself, finished drawing with a flourish, and his knives went flying at me.

I didn't stop to dodge optimally, trying to get to him as fast as possible, as he was already summoning another wave of knives. That meant that I was taking quite a few hits. Coupled with my badly healed injuries from Lastation, and I'm pretty amazed that I'm still kicking.

A knife lodged itself right into my shoulder; another narrowly missed my knee (that's my requirement for the guard job gone out of the window); and as another stabbed me in the right arm, I raised my arm and threw my lance as hard as I could towards him. It forced him to stop for a second, as his still unfinished batch of knives sizzled out of existence; I managed to get right next to him, and summoning the last of my energy, raised my head and headbutted him. Hard.

Surprised, and more than a bit hurt, Suleimu fell to the ground, holding his nose and letting go of his tablet. I didn't wait before I stomped on it, breaking it in half, and soon enough the remaining knives disappeared, leaving holes in my body.

I kicked the guy twice, before I punched him on the face, to make sure he stayed down; and then came back to out little camp. The twins were looking at me with some fear, and I mean it makes sense, right? Cuz I just beat down on a guy that was already down and all that.

I sat down on the ground, near our fire, who's now nearly out. I didn't care enough to rekindle it, add some wood, or anything. I didn't have quite enough energy for that.

Bah, the girls can light a fire, right? They're gonna be good.

Not like something'll happen.

Probably.

"... Boss..."

"You'll hold dominion over even me, huh? Ain't that what you said?"

"Please... Help..."

"What was it you said exactly... Oh, yes. 'I'm gonna become a high-ranking member of ASIC'."

"I'm... Please... Sorry, I..."

"Quite frankly, I'm tempted to let you die here. What were the instructions I gave for our mission?"

"I... Need healing... B-Boss..."

"'Don't get caught, do not go into useless fights, flee the fights you can't win. Do not relay your connection to ASIC under any circumstances.' And, the most important instruction, given by Lady Magic... Must I remind you what it was?"

"Is... That's all it... Is? Revenge for... For your-"

"It went something like 'use the Wild Element to your advantage' and 'pit him against the Basilicom, and let him cause chaos as he seems keen on doing by himself'. What did you do, Smerlum?"

"I... Did what I had-"

"SHUT UP! Because of you, the... "Wild Element" has a reason to trust the candidates! With the assurance that everything is fine with Lowee's administration, he will turn his sights on one of our real facilities! I swear to Arfoire, Smerlum, if at the end of this campaign we lose the U Factory or the Maryo Themepark, I'm NOT taking the fall!"

"Heh... Hehehe... Of course you'd take his side... You're-"

"SHUT! UP!"

THUMP

"Medic, take care of him. He will still have his uses. We need to change our plans. We need to track the Mascot down, and get more stuff for... Heh, our Greatest Heist."

"Boss, the Candidates are flying away! They're taking the Wild Element with them!"

"Good. Sir Trick wouldn't be happy if we started to beat down his... Urg, 'cutie pies'. Better that they escape than they come back with us bloodied and bruised."

"What should we do... Ram?"

"I dunno, okay? I mean, I kinda still don't trust him at all, but he's dying, here!"

"Um... He did try to protect us..."

"Yeah, well he sucked at that! Come on, he barely managed to beat this guy, he's lucky- wait, where did that guy go?"

"Eep!"

"D-Don't worry, Rom! I'm sure he hasn't gone far! Plus, if he had allies, they'd have intervened sooner than that!"

"We should head back to the Basilicom, Ram..."

"... Yeah, let's just take this guy with us. He did try to help us... And letting him die in the snow is kinda lame anyway!"

I woke up. That's a surprise already because I'm remembering yesterday, and I shouldn't be alive- I slept in the snow, for starters.

I looked around, and I definitely was not in the snow anymore. In fact, I was in a nice, spacious hospital room, in a comfy hospital bed.

I got up, with some difficulties, and I heard something stirring at my side. When I looked, I saw one of the two kids/CPU Candidates getting up to greet me.

"Finally, you lazybum! You've been sleeping in there for ages! Mina wants to see you now!"

I blinked, before I asked "Who's Mina? And where are we? And where's your sister- please tell me nothing happened to-"

"Stop worrying, dummy!" She rolled her eyes, and grabbed me by the arm to get me out of the bed. "Rom's fine, and you're fine now too! Even if you're maybe a spy, at least you tried to defend us from those meanies, so you're good for now."

I rubbed my arm when she let it go (and damn, she's pretty strong for a kid who uses magic), before continuing to talk to her "I'm not a spy, and definitely not from Lastation, but whatever. You still haven't told me who's Mina, or where we are."

She started running towards the door, opened it, and turned back to me. "Hurry up, slowpoke! you can't make an Oracle wait, or something!"

I sighed. "Sure, sure, let me just... Wait, what do you mean Or-"

"The twins were very worried about you, you know."

Lowee's Oracle... I have no way to describe her other than "she's a mom". I'm not saying that as in 'she's a milf ahah get it', no she's really a mom. She's got major mom vibes, a mom voice, and quite frankly I want to call her mom even though I love my own mother very much. The mom aura is strong within this one. "Really? I mean, I'm just a random idiot they found in an abandonned temple, so..."

She raised an eyebrow, and behind her I could see Ram wince. "I was not aware of... Exactly where you chanced upon the kids, but I think I misspoke. I meant that they believe you to be a spy from Lastation; and while I find that hard to believe, I cannot in good conscience let you go your merry way, especially now that Lastation cut all communications with us. So I'll ask you once. What is it you're doing in Lowee?"

Do I bullshit this? Do I fake it? I don't have time to think, so let's go with the first thing that come to my mind. "I've been travelling around the main continent for a month, trying to find ASIC outposts and sabotage them. It's... going pretty slow, but it's going nonetheless."

Why is she looking at me like that? I need to keep looking at her, can't let my eyes betray me, need to- "Okay," she said, breathing out, "I believe you. Needless to say, you are an idiot."

I waited for her to continue, and when she didn't, I merely let out a "What?"

"You have been travelling around, alone, trying to infiltrate ASIC settlements? That is not only foolish but also dangerous! What would you have done, if you were caught?"

"Um..." I was at a loss. Was she... Scolding me? Why? And why did I like it? "I don't think it matters much, at this point I just... Need to complete my mission, or die trying I guess? No way out of that one."

Mina scowled, but then her face became kinder. "Well then, I will not allow it to continue. As of now, you are to join our Basilicom as one of our ASIC hunters."

Ram echoed my "What?!" perfectly.

Author's footnote

This chapter was a nightmare to write. Work is piling up on me, and my father's asking me to work on the week-end because he decided now was the best time to completely destroy the entire fucking house to rebuild it better. I'm slightly exagerating, of course. He's only breaking down half of it: the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room.

So yeah. This chapter is worse than the ones before. It's shorter, took longer to finish, and is more badly written. And I fear it will only get worse and worse.

Review Time ~

Guest : -*-*- is representing static noises. I dunno, I wanted something less stale than just *** or [redacted] or anything, and wanted to transmit this feeling of "it's not forbidden to know about this, but it was just kinda lost in the transfer".

As for Gyone, I didn't really think to much about how he looks like. He's tall, 1m85 or so, and has a normal, human-from-earth build; not fat, but not ripped like an anime teenager. He's from western Europe, so more white than black, and got short hair. That's all I had in mind, aside from the clothing (as of now, torn white shirt, red jacket, purple suit, and the only item that's still in fine condition is a bag.)

Ace-of-Weeb : Lowee is definitely going to be the training arc; Mina and the candidates for magic, and as of now, a position as a Basilicom worker? If I didn't make him stronger I'd be actively making him weak for no reason.

That's it for this chapter...

You know what? No. I can't leave you here. Here's an abandoned plotline. Wrote it in one setting, totally raw. It's free, because I can't really charge money for discarded ideas.

Well, I could. But I won't.

Yet, hehe.

Chapter 7(?) : The Greatest Heist (B side)

After the fight between Kei and Gyone

... I looked up, and saw Kei punching the balcony's railings angrily. Giving her a salute, I looked around, before noticing, at the back of the building, emergency stairs.

I went down quickly, and started running somewhere, anywhere. I needed to get out of the city, but the problem was that- i didn't know where in the city I was. And so, I continued running, my energy rapidly decreasing.

It quickly got to a point where I needed to stop if I wanted to breathe. I knew it wasn't a good idea; case in point, I could see guards already coming this way. They didn't see me, luckily, so I just hid in the first place I found, a dark place in the middle of the houses.

It actually took me several seconds to realize I entered someone's home. Broke into it, actually. Worse, I could see strange items and price tags attached to it everywhere; I wasn't in a house, but a shop.

And there was this... Okay, look, I'm not gay. I mean, I think so. But this dude? He's prime meat. Prettiest boy a human could be. That was actually kind of scary, how I instantly fell at ease around him, even though I was illegally within his shop.

I started taking a step back, to find the door behind me had closed down. I turned my back on the pret- on the guy for a second, and sure enough, there were massive iron locks blocking the door.

"My, my, don't be such a scaredy cat, Gyone. Why, I even went as far as to hide us from those nasty soldiers, outside. Of course, if you do not want my help... You're free to flee the premises, of course."

I gulped, and turned back to look at him. "Who are you, and why are you helping me?"

He smiled, and turned back, beckoning me to follow me deeper. I did so, watching carefully around me to make sure I wasn't being led to a trap. "I happen to have a few... Illicit hobbies, you see. Just recently, I decided to test the Basilicoms' servers' protections around Gamindustri, more for fun than any real wish to help." He paused for a second, to let out a snort (and for fuck's sake even his fucking snorts are cute what the hell is this dude made of!) before he continued. "In doing so, I stumbled upon quite the interesting project, locked in Leanbox' quite badly protected database."

Realisation dawned upon me, and I took a step back. "You know."

"I do," he said as he turned back to face me. "And I want to help."

I blinked. "What?"

"You see, it's been three years since I've stopped getting footage of my lovely Noire, and I am starting to feel things should be done. So far, you are our best bet, and while that does not bode well for Gamindustri's future, I want to make sure you manage to save the CPUs. And so..."

He clicked on a button, and a door opened, letting me see some kind of strange room, with markings everywhere. He wasn't done talking, though. "Instead of working for this pesky Oracle, you will now work for me. This teleporter will bring you to Lowee. Do as you wish, but get those crystals for me, and we'll call it even."

"What if I refuse?" I asked, despite knowing well the consequences.

"I trap you in my shop while I bring the fine soldiers of Lastation to take you. You are free to try and escape, of course."

I sighed. "I hate this world."

It would have led to a quite different start in Lowee, but in the end I discarded it. I like the idea of Gyone befriending Lowee's CPU Candidates, makes for more drama down the line. Plus, I can't call my next finale "the Greatester Heist", sooo...

Anyway, that was a bonus, my first omake, or whatever. The idea actually came with Anonydeath's shop in Chapter 5; he may have been unexpected, but at this point I still didn't know how to handle the end of the finale.