Nepgear reached Planeptune's beach shore. Once her feet touched the warm sand, the sound of water waves killed the deafening silence of the night, along with the smell of the salty water. She immediately went and dialed Kei on her N-gear. After a short moment, she heard the call get through.
"Kei, me and IF took care of the—"
"Nepgear. We got a situation."
"Huh? What's going on?"
"There were sightings of hordes of monsters that appeared near Planeptune's border. We're not sure as to where they've originated from, but there's a high risk they'll breach the city's border."
"Roger, I'll head over there and deal with it myself. Prepare the defenses just in case."
"I've already informed Histoire to prepare the military defenses. Retreat if things prove difficult. Good luck."
Nepgear soon took off; she wasn't going to let anything happen to her nation, not on her watch.
(N)
The CPU had no trouble finding where the monsters were gathering, as all it took was an aerial view from the sky. Despite the darkness, she could make out some glowing eyes and glowing orbs in the distance, which told her everything she needed to know. She landed from a safe distance and began observing the scene. There were a bunch of them, and a variety of them weren't usual inhabitants of this area. But there were still quite a few of them, but not enough to call them hoards yet.
Where did all those monsters come from?
This was unnatural; those types of monsters shouldn't spawn near this part. Either they somehow traveled all the way into here or someone spawned them here. She's leaning towards the latter.
I need to dispose of them and find the source of their spawner.
Nepgear wasted no time and aimed her gun blade at the group of enemies. She blasted a few with her M.P.B.L., which finished some of the weaker ones off. The other monsters were now alerted and aware of her presence. The monster wolves were the first to attack; they howled before they rushed to attack her in all directions.
Nepgear took off before they reached her; she quickly evaded an incoming projectile. The earth golems, who possessed the power to manipulate the earth, began throwing rocks from beneath the ground. She quickly evaded the attacks and fired multiple shots back. It went through its body, and some of its limbs were torn off. Then suddenly, its limbs began forming back, its hands were attached back, and the hole in his body was closing as if she hadn't done a single damage to it.
What the goodness?
Nepgear noticed hovering blue dogoos behind the golems; they began extending their tentacles and began healing and buffing the earth golems. The golem was already throwing projectiles at her once again.
Healing dogoos. I need to get rid of them first or quickly kill the others before they have the chance to heal.
Nepgear returned her attention back to the wolves below her. She dropped down right in the middle of them. The wolves growled, and they started slowly circling her while eyeing her. Nepgear stood her ground; she narrowed her eyes at them, as if she's challenging them to come at her. The wolves seemed to somehow understand her intentions before one leaped at her.
She immediately hardened her grip on her weapon and adjusted her feet. She aimed her gun blade up and shot at the first wolf, which severely wounded it, then quickly turned around and slashed the second wolf, who launched from behind. She blocked the attack from the last wolf with her blade, which made him retreat for a bit before trying again. This time, however, Nepgear simply aimed the tip of her blade at him. It couldn't stop itself in mid-air, which resulted in the blade going through the wolf's belly and dropping dead.
This wasn't the end, as Nepgear quickly dodged to the side before the boulder could hit her. There was still the issue with the earth golems and the healer dogoos. She could inflict as much damage on them and take them with no issue if it weren't for those slimy creatures' healing skills. Let's see... She doesn't have the time to get rid of the golem quick enough since they're tank class and could withstand a lot of damage. Her best bet is to finish the dogoos first, but this would be tricky as they're smart enough to hide behind those golems, so I need to go and force them into fighting.
I have to be careful. These types of dogoos are tricky.
One wrong move, and she'll be vulnerable, as they could inflict paralysis on her. The golems didn't want to give her time to rest and started to launch rocks at her yet again. Nepgear aimed her gun blade and blasted the incoming boulder with her M.P.B.L. yet again, which dismantled it and made it rain tiny rocks and dust, which made her let out a few coughs from inhaling some.
Now's my chance!
She quickly ran to cover the distance between her and the golems. She then aimed her gun blade at her feet once she was close enough. She fired at her ground to repeal herself up and flew past the golems; they were not her targets. She prepared her blade and slashed one of the dogoos, which made him explode into a goo puddle. The other four dogs quickly switched to offense and began attacking. One dogoo extended their tentacle towards her; she easily sliced it, and so did the second.
"heEEYAHHHH!"
Sadly, Nepgear wasn't fast enough to block the third attack that came from behind; the dogoo's tentacle managed to get hold of her wrist. She felt an electric shock fill her body as it was shaking violently. The dog was trying to paralyze her. She tried her hardest to resist, but her body was jolting, and little by little, she felt her body becoming numb. At this point, she'll be completely hopeless and venerable. She saw that one of the golems was about to throw another rock at them, and that dogoo was about to martyr itself to finish her off.
Damn it, I got careless. I have to do something quick, or I'll be flattened.
Her finger was resting on the trigger. She focused and poured all her energy into trying to squeeze the trigger with her finger. She felt her finger slowly closing before managing to fire her gun blade, which knocked her and freed her from the dog's grasp before she could be squashed by the giant rock. The same couldn't be said for the dogoo, as he was completely flattening under the rock.
"Ow, that was too close. I can't let myself get careless again." She felt the paralyze reach her lower half, but thankfully she could still move her arms just fine.
Nepgear took out an anti-paralysis potion from her pockets and instantly gulped it with her free hand. She threw the empty bottle, feeling like the numbness was going away and also getting a bit of pain relief as it partly healed her. She wanted the two dogoo limbs that she cut off to begin growing back. She wasn't going to give them time to recover; she used her Mirage Dance to do a quick and clean kill. She took her blade to a dance, and she began spinning and slicing the three dogoos without even looking. All of the healing dogoos were gone, with only a blue puddle remaining all over the place, and some managed to stick to her. She could smell the scent covering her.
Ugh. I need to take a shower after this.
She returned her attention back to the golems who were standing there. Two of them began slowly pounding the ground with their feet; the other one stepped forward. Suddenly, it raised its feet in the air and, with might and force, dug its foot into the ground. Rocks began popping up from the ground and were coming towards her at great speed. Nepgear widens her eyes and quickly flew up to evade the attack.
That was close. She fired a couple of shots while in the air, but the golem formed a wall before the shots could hit them.
Nepgear had enough of this; she quickly flew towards the wall and landed on top of it. She dropped down and aimed at the golem's exposed weak spot with her blade. Her blade cut through the red orb that was in the middle of its body. The glowing orbs were shattered, and the golem began slowly crumbling before her. She fired multiple shots at the other golem's orb and immediately followed it up by hugging the wall and firing her gun to launch herself at the last golem's exposed orb. She let out a yell before her blade pierced the orb, completely shattering it.
The last two golems went down soon after, and Nepgear stood there while still holding her weapon. Her breathing became ragged, and sweat began falling down her face. She stabbed her blade into the ground and leaned on it. She tried catching her breath. She hoped this was the last of them. Nepgear doesn't know how long she can keep up until she's completely exhausted. Not to mention that she used most of her energy fighting with the militia group, and now she was dealing with a horde of monsters all by herself.
But as luck would have it, she heard another howling. She lifted her head and found a black fenrir standing from a distance. This one seemed a bit bigger than the ones she encountered, and it had a scar on one of his red eyes. Nepgear silently cursed under her breath and prepared herself for another fight—a difficult one, it seems, as this was a tough foe. She still has a trump card up her sleeve; she still hasn't used her finisher move as if yet. Now it seems it's good at any time, but she can't afford to waste it. She has to deal a bit of damage and break his guard first before executing it for the most effective result.
Otherwise, she might be in a pickle. As her dear Neptune would say, rest her soul.
The fenrir closed the distance between them and immediately went for the kill with his fangs extended. Nepgear slipped under him. Goodness, it's fast. She quickly fired her gun at the beast's back. The thing quickly turned and tried to slash her with its sharp claws. She dodged the attacks before she closed the distance and attacked it. The feral did something unexpected, one that took her by surprise. The thing grabbed hold of her weapon with its sharp mouth when she tried to deliver another blow.
"Let. Go!" Nepgear fired her weapon, which stunted the beast momentarily and threw her a few feet back. She prepared herself before she launched herself and began attacking and firing it furiously from all sides with immense speed. She then knocked the beast into the air before charging her weapon and firing a powerful energy beam that would blind anyone who was nearby. She averted her eyes from the bright light while still trying to keep her weapon in place. Soon the beast was filled with energy in his body that was overflowing. Soon, the energy began to combust before it exploded. The beast stood there for a moment before he dropped dead.
Nepgear's body couldn't take it as she pushed her limits. It automatically switched to her human form, and she found herself lying on the ground. She felt like her whole body was on fire. She lay there for what felt like an eternity, feeling the shares flowing into her slowly until she had just enough to move.
She tried standing up, but her movement was still stiff. She managed to get up on her feet eventually. She went to fetch her weapon from the ground, and Nepgear began looking around for any sign of a hostile monster, but there were none in sight. Nepgear took out a healing potion and drank it before letting out a relief sigh.
That hit the spot. This should speed up my healing process, but I still shouldn't push myself, as my injuries aren't quite healed yet.
Nepgear silently regretted not bringing extra energy potions, as she wouldn't be able to transform for at least a while. Well, no use crying over spilled milk; she still needs to investigate the area; the culprit might be somewhere near. She began searching around the area where the monster appeared. After a while, she couldn't find anything.
Just once she was able to give up and leave, her eyes caught something in the distance. It's hard to make out in the dark. Once she was close, it turned out to be a body lying on the ground. Nepgear rushed to the unknown person's location. The body belonged to a girl with dark blue hair, a black open shirt with a tie that matches her hair, and black fabric underneath that covers most of her body. Sheesh, no wonder why it was hard to spot her with all these colors that blend with darkness...
Nepgear's first instinct was to check if the person was still alive. She grabbed hold of her wrist and checked for any pulses. Thankfully, she felt one, though it was faint. She sighed in relief, and she began inspecting them, but she began noticing some oddities, to say the least.
First, the girl's hand felt cold for some reason; if it weren't for the pulse, she would have thought it was a corpse. The second was that there was no sign that a monster had attacked, so she could chuck off the cause of a monster attack. The third was that this place was filled with monsters, so why did they not notice her and finish her off? Unless those monsters couldn't make her out due to her camofolge or she could write it off as dumb luck that no monster passed by her, either way, she should be thankful that she was alive and not hurt.
And by far the most interesting thing that caught her attention was the small, black swirl symbol on her tie; she didn't know why.
She turned to look at the girl who possessed the answers she sought, or at least she hoped that she did. It would be a shame if she somehow suffered from amnesia or something like that. Nepgear began searching the girl's body for anything that she could use to help identify the girl. She found none, not even a weapon, which was odd. Are you telling me that she went out adventuring without some sort of weapon? Well, unless she's using her fists as one, just like Tekken does.
She had nothing on her, not even a weapon, which confused Nepgear even further. She could also sense that the girl didn't possess any kind of special power. The only thing she found was the megaphone, which confused Nepgear even further.
So she didn't bring any weapons, but she brought a megaphone instead? How odd.
Nepgear could worry about this later, as her priority now is bringing this girl to safety so she could be further checked for any internal injuries. After she gets treated, Nepgear will bring her for questioning later so she can learn the full story.
She then suddenly felt a slight vibration under her feet. She went to investigate the source, but what she found left her completely frozen by the horror. Before her, hordes of monsters were approaching. Goodness! There are so many of them! It seems Kei was right.
Upon closer inspection, she noticed that those monsters were low-level, not like the ones she fought earlier, which was a good thing. However, it was not for Nepgear, as she was still exhausted from her recent fight and was still in the state of recovering. Add to the fact that she has a person who's in a defenseless state.
She hated that she only had one choice, which was to retreat and run away. She's confident the Planeptune border and military defense could handle them. The only question is, can she make it? She has to carry the body all the way back with her, which was no small feast. The city was close, but she might already tire herself out before she could reach it.
Fighting is out of the picture. I have to retreat, just like Kei said, immediately!
Nepgear quickly grabbed the girl and put her on her back before she made a run for it with what's left of her energy. The monsters were not as quick as her, so she should easily outrun them. But there were still a few who managed to catch up. Nepgear, while she was running, took out her sword and fended off the monsters who tried attacking her from the sides; they were easily dealt with.
She kept running and running while she ignored her body's screaming at her to let it rest. She kept pushing through the burning sensation that was filling her body as her muscles began hurting, and she felt her body could collapse at any moment. She was breathing rapidly so her body could keep up, and her body was filled with sweat as she felt it drip from her forehead. Thankfully, the city's border was on the horizon, so she gave one final push.
Just a bit further, come on!
"Lady Nepgear!" One of the guards noticed her approaching. By the time she reached the border, Nepgear was struggling to stand up, but she tried to push through.
"Haah... There's a horde of monsters heading towards the city... Take this person to get checked. Close the border and prepare the forces... Haaah." Nepgear was completely out of breath.
"At once, Lady Nepgear!" He saluted. "You can count on us to deal with the rest. We won't let you down, I swear."
Nepgear nodded thanks before one of the soldiers took the girl off her and escorted her inside, with Nepgear following behind. The rest of the guards quickly left to prepare the defense and gather the troops.
"Here they come. Get ready, men!" One of the soldiers yelled as he spotted the monsters approaching. All of the soldiers readied and aimed their weapons. Once the monsters were close enough, they opened fire and began shooting everything that moved.
There were waves of monsters rushing through that kept coming in after, but they were quickly killed by the flying bullets. After a while, there weren't any monsters left standing.
"Threat eliminated. Good work, men! Lady Nepgear would be pleased." The soldiers began cheering at their victory.
(N)
It's been a day since the attack. Thankfully, we've managed to stop it before things could escalate. I brought the girl back to the basilicom with me and asked the staff to examine her and treat her. So far, they haven't found anything wrong with her, and they expect her to wake up after resting for a few days at most. I ordered for her to be put in one of the vacant rooms in case she woke up.
Histoire seems to be put off about the whole thing; she said she could feel some negative energy within her, which was concerning to say the least, but it's only faint according to Histoire. But what's even odd is that Histoire said that she kind of recognized the girl from somewhere, but she can't put her fingers on it. She said she'd go through her records to see anything, but it would take her three days, which is hopefully the time when the girl would most likely wake up.
Histoire is not the only one, though... For some unknown reason I can't explain, I felt like I had some sort of connection with the girl, the same as that one I had with my sister and the other CPUs. So many questions, yet little answers. All we can do is wait until she wakes up.
This day keeps getting weirder and weirder, it seems, and probably interesting as well, but we had enough of those for one day.
Nepgear shut her Nep-Note after she was done narrating the entry she wrote.
Later that day, she and Kei were currently discussing the report of their previous mission after a day full of rest. Histoire was busy with the guild's work, as usual.
"However, from what we have gathered from the data, it appears that ASIC set out a lot of hidden hideouts scattered around Leanbox. We don't know the numbers yet, but this could lead to some future problems now that we know they have some sort of mutual relationship with the libertarians in Leanbox." Nepgear was listening intensely to Kei's report so they could discuss and determine their course of action.
"What about the monster attack?"
"Those monsters attacked could be the cause of the ASIC. They might have used them to divert our attention away for purpose."
"If they did, then they are really good at covering their tracks because, for love of the goodnesses, I couldn't find anything..." Nepgear leaned back on her chair.
"Care to elaborate on that?"
"Well, I've sent a group of scouts to scout the area that the monsters come from. From what I've seen in their reports, they found nothing out of the ordinary or couldn't determine where the monsters came from, which can't be right. I have sent another scout just to be sure, and they've all reported the same. It's like they have appeared out of thin air."
"Hmm. That is indeed troublesome."
"I also found some random girl lying in the middle of where the monster appeared. Those monsters, for some reason, didn't seem to notice her. Histoire said that she could sense a faint of negative energy within her, which might explain why the monsters ignored her." Nepgear rubbed her chin.
"Negative energy?" Kei raised her brow. "Is such a thing even possible? To have negative energy in one's body?"
"Normally, it shouldn't. Histoire is still looking at this matter as we speak to see if she can find something in her records. In the meantime, we've run a data search, but we found nothing that matched her descriptions at all. I'm slowly starting to think that she's some sort of ghost since we can't find anything about her or even a record of her in any nation."
"I see... There's a possibility that she could be living outside of the nations. So where is she being held right now?"
"As we speak, she's yet to wake up, so I had her put in one of the basilicom's rooms with 24-hour watch."
"Forgive me for saying this, but are you sure it's wise to let someone like her inside the Basilicom? From what you've said about her, she could possess a great threat, not to mention that she could be a member of ASIC. I would personally have suggested that she be put inside a maximum security cell just to be on the safe side."
"I know, but I've already checked her and taken some precautions beforehand. She's unarmed and harmless and possesses no power, as far as we know, minus the negative energy, of course. She might not be even related to ASIC, so I would rather not be hasty about it. We'll see when she wakes up."
"I can't say I'm in agreement, but I trust your judgment and abilities to take care of things. If you believe it's the best choice, then I would not argue any further. Now, let's move on to the other concerning matter that recently came up." Kei brought another piece of report paper.
"It came to my attention that the famous idol 5pb suddenly went missing after one of her tours yesterday. I've sent IF to look into it. We suspect it's the doing of ASIC remnants, as there seems to be a notable rise in their activities as of late."
"That can't be good. They're definitely planning something, but we have to save 5 pb first."
"She's not the only one. Rei Ryghts, the leader of the citizen group, went missing the same day as Lyrica. I'm confident that they're timing is not just coincidental, and both were targeted."
"Wait. Something's not right. Why did they target Rei Ryghts of all people?" Something is quite right—pun not intended. Rei was probably the nicest person she's ever met, despite her indifferent views about CPU rulings, so what gives? They share the same view to some extent, for crisp's sake!
"We can't tell yet. It might be because of your acquaintance with her." Kei massaged her temple. "For now, our priorities are to find Lyrica and Rei Ryghts and gather as much information as we can so we can properly form a plan against them. I'll let you know if we find anything. In the meantime, be on the lookout at all times and tell me if you got any useful info from that guest of yours."
"I will. Oh, before you go... Is Mina still... you know?"
"She's currently handling Lowee's work. If your asking about that, unfortunately, I've tried countless times to reason with her, but she made it quite clear that she does not want to see you or want to do anything with you. I'm afraid."
"Oh, I see..." What did I honestly expect? That's probably not going to change anytime soon.
"You really should not pay her any mind. She unfortunately let her emotions cloud her judgment, although I do not exactly blame her and can somewhat understand. I might not have fully forgiven you for taking Uni and Noire's lives, but I won't let that deter me from doing my duties as an oracle. The sake of Gamindustri comes first. It's also what she wanted." She muttered the last part to herself.
"...You're right! I'll do my best and focus on protecting Gamindustri. Together." Nepgear's spirit came back to her as she was filled with so much energy that she couldn't help but smile. "Thank you, Kei."
"That is what I like to hear. So long, Nepgear. I'll be in touch." Kei nodded as a smile slipped from her face.
The screen once again switched off. Nepgear got up from her seat and took off to wonder around her basilicom to check if everything was going well before she settled down in her office and began using her newfound energy on doing her work, the usual paperwork. By the time she was done, night had come. Nepgear stretched herself from her seat, and before she was about to retire for the day, she heard a knock on the door.
"Come in." She saw the door slowly open. It was one of Basilicom's staff members. "Um, pardon me for my intrusion, Lady Nepgear."
"No need to apologize." Nepgear raised her hand dismissively. "I have already finished with the paperwork. So, is there something you need from me?"
"Oh, r-right." The lady straightened herself before speaking. "I just got a word from the other staff that the girl you brought in earlier seems to be waking up."
"I see. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I shall head there immediately. You're free to go." The girl nodded before departing. Nepgear soon after, as she doesn't want to be late to give the newcomer a warm welcome and a whole lot of questions, of course. She stopped by the kitchen to grab something for the girl to eat in case she was hungry.
Nepgear footsteps echoed through the hallways, and the staff only offered a brief greeting to their CPU as she walked by before continuing with their work as usual. She reached the room's door, where two guards were standing.
"Lady Nepgear." Both saluted their hands on their heads at the sight of their CPU.
"Thank you. I will take it from here. It would be best if you gave me some privacy with the girl so as not to startle her."
"As you wish, Lady Nepgear."
She was now all by herself. She took a moment to collect herself before she deliberately entered the room as a child who carefully wanted not to disturb his parents. It seems their mysterious guest finally woke up, as she began slowly shifting before she struggled to open her eyes. She blinked multiple times. After a moment, the girl quickly sat up in a state of shock and panic as she scanned her surroundings, which were unknown to her. She hasn't noticed Nepgear yet. She took this opportunity to make her presence known to the girl by clearing her throat.
"I see you're awake. That's good." She set the plate of food aside on one of the tables.
The girl quickly got up and threw her arms up, ready to fight her. It looks like she was right about using her fists as a weapon.
"Woah, easy. I mean no harm." Nepgear raised her hand as a peaceful gesture to show her that she meant no ill intent. The girl continued to stare cautiously at her with her red eyes and didn't drop her fighting stand. She felt like those eyes were glare daggers at her soul, but Nepgear tried her best not to be affected by it. Silence hung in the air until the girl finally asked, or rather demanded.
"Where am I?" Her voice was cold and sharp.
"We're at the Basilicom at the moment. I'm Nepgear, by the way." She pointed at herself. Nepgear was about to offer her a handshake but decided against it, seeing how the girl's fists were currently occupied with something else. So she kept her distance in the meantime and would hopefully work her way up from here until she gained her trust. Silence hung in the air between the two for what felt like an eternity.
"Planeptune...?"
"Um, yes, I found you unconscious outside Planeptune's border and brought you here." As if a switch had been flipped, the girl looked confused before she froze and slowly dropped her guard for a second as she began pondering about something for a while. It seems she's going through all sorts of emotions at once.
"So... your name."
"What?" This made the girl snap back from her train of thoughts as she tilted her head at her.
"You still haven't told me your name yet."
"My name... huh?" The girl mused to herself slowly before she let out a dry chuckle, which confused Nepgear even further. The girl finally looked at Nepgear with such a smile that she had a feeling it was not all that friendly below the surface. The girl seems to calm down as her body shifts into a relaxed pose, but Nepgear could tell that she's still keeping her guard up while she was planning ahead. Though her demeanor also seemed to change to be more calm and collected, she couldn't help but feel like the girl's eyes were fixated on her, like a predator examining his prey.
I have a bad feeling about this. Nepgear, despite having cold feet, brushed it aside as it was not the time and she required answers, but she can't help but feel like she's in the presence of the devil itself, and it looks like she was about to make a deal with it very soon as it uttered a simple five words.
"My name is... Uzume Tennouboshi."
Author's Notes
This took a long time since I was busy with college and also the situation that's happening in Palestine. It took a toll on me after watching the news and seeing dead kids on Twitter. It honestly makes me sad to see my fellow Muslims get killed there, most of whom are children and infants. Anyone who has humanity in them knows that what's happening there is a crime against humanity by cutting basic necessities like food, water, and electricity. I'm glad to see other people from other worlds defending Palestine and going against Israel, thanks to the help of exposing the truth on social media. What's even more sad is that in my country, Saudia Arabia, people are focused on going to concerts and having fun while the people in Gaza are getting bombed. At least show some ounce of shame or that you care. At least those people don't represent the whole country, and they are still people who are making changes.
Anyway, I'm officially done with Victory, and now I'm currently playing MK2. So far, I'm in love with this game; it's so much better than Victory, and that's not because of Nepgear—okay, maybe a little. I'm currently at the Lastation Arc. But I have to say that Victory is downgraded compared to MK2. For example, each dungeon in MK2, despite some being the same in Victory, has a different soundtrack for each unique dungeon instead of that ost that 'Between Earth and Sky' that keeps looping, and half of the dungeon to the point where I had to mute the music in the game because I got tired of it, and the rest are mid, with the exception of one or two that I liked. MK2 OST is so good, and the items, instead of floating icons on the dungeon, have unique models on each dungeon.
I'm going to be one of the minorities that actually likes the use of character models instead of drawing sprite in events. It kind of gives life to the characters, and I wish they made more animated cutscenes with them. It's a shame that in Re;birth 2, they returned to using the sprites; they could have upgraded the models and had your customized outfit appear in them, but this is Ideal Factory we're talking about. I also like the addition of the AP, which prevents you from spamming the most powerful attacks and items. In victory, they threw that, and most of the game is just mashing buttons, but AP forces you to stop so you can strategize and plan your attacks to some degree since you have limited moves, so you have to choose the best approach, and one mistake could screw you. I kind of like this one; at first, it was weird, but I grew to get used to it, and it made my game experience a lot more fun than Victory, and the battle system is more in-depth compared to Victory's basic fighting. Although, to give credit to Victory, it has the defend button instead of standby, which basically leaves you vulnerable to the enemies. I think AP is only used on MK2, and after that, it was abandoned, even in Re;birth 2 which is also a shame since it has so much potential but they went to the simpler route.
One last thing is that the lily rank is tied to the endings of the game, which is cool, but of course they didn't utilize it and made it only battle-oriented. It would have been cool if they got creative, like depending on how much your lily rank with someone, they will act either friendly or cold, hostile during the game events, or some events are locked if your lily rank is low, which signify that the characters don't like you or trust you, or even deping your lily characters with a certain CPU. The way the NPC of a certain nation acts towards you depends on your lily rank with their CPUs. All of this is just wishful thinking at this point.
I also managed to get my hands on an OLED PS Vita for about 133 dollars, so I could play the other Neptunia games, such as the Re;birth trilogy and the spin-off games. And yes, I know I can get them on my PC for a lot cheaper—excluding Producing Perfection. But I'm a Playstation fanboy, and I like collecting all of the trophies of the games I like. I like to play games on my console rather than on my PC. After I'm done playing with MK2, I'll be playing the original Hyperdimension Neptunia. Yes, that one, and yes, I'm aware of the state of the game and the negative reception of it, but I want to give it a try. The problem is that there's no digital copy of the game, only a disc version, for some reason. I'll try to get my hands on one from eBay later; goodbye wallet. Then I'll move on to the Re;birth games. I had to hack my PS Vita so I could expand my storage using a microSD adapter instead of using those ridiculously expensive Sony memory cards. Thankfully, it wasn't hard, and the new method requires no PC to jailbreak it whatsoever, just from the built-in web.
To end things off, this site is a joke. Not only that, my view count on my story has been stuck at 550 ever since two mouths, which makes me discouraged since I want to see how well my story is going, which is also part of the reason why I haven't updated for a while. I also noticed that I don't receive updates about the stories I follow in my email, and I've checked if the email option was on, and it was. And it seems there's an issue with uploading new stories that makes them not appear. Fix your damn site! I'm so done with this site. Apologies for my rambling.
Until next time, bye!
Next Chapter: Old friends
After meeting Uzume, Nepgear gets a visit from an old friend to inform her of something urgent she has discovered.