*BONK*

"Hey, you! Leave her alone!"

"No can do, darlings! I already can hear sir Trick's praise, as I bring him his most coveted prize! I am not strong enough to take on the feisty one, but this one is as good as mine."

"Beating up on a child from behind... You're lower than low!"

"Hahaha... I don't care. There's only one thing I care for right now, and it's reaching the sky! Or at least getting a promotion. See ya, losers!"

The flames were starting to lick the barriers, but did not move further in, as if they were unable to go through- which, considering it's a magical barrier that prevents us from fleeing the fight, makes a bit of sense. It didn't stop the heat, though.

"You may have seen my name from my title card, but it is my duty to introduce myself properly. I am Lieutnant Fail. You may call me Overflow, though," he started, as he bowed deeply to me. "I am generous like that. In fact, I am so generous, I will leave the first move to you."

With these words, he opened his arms, inviting me to strike. I eyed the remote control in his hand, before bowing sharply myself. "Gyone Videsar. Charmed, I'm sure." I then swiftly threw my lance to try and knock out his remote, but he merely moved his arm to let my weapon sail harmlessly behind him. I then ran towards him, surprising him a little; and as he stumbled to properly use his remote, I yelled "Callback!", and my lance came back to my hands, knocking him on the back of his head on the way. It wasn't enough to knock him out though, far from it.

Overflow left a chuckle come out of his mouth, before dramatically pressing a button on his remote. For a second, nothing happened. And then, I heard a rumble, before the ground started to shake - and suddenly, a huge cannon came out of a portal behind him, pointing towards me.

Following my instincts, I decided to jump backwards, and it was a good idea I did, for a huge rocket was shot from the the cannon, exploding the ground I was on just before and sending me sailing to the other side of our arena, my weapon sailing uselessly to the other side, far from me. I couldn't even raise my head that I was already hearing his cannon shot another rocket, forcing me to get up and run away, to no avail.

Once more, I narrowly avoided the rocket, getting thrown away in the process, and I could already feel it. This fight was going to be a nightmare, and with the way it was going, I was probably never going to wake up.

I somehow managed to land on my feet, and in a split second decided that the best way to end this fight was to beat him up as fast as I could. The problem laid in his rockets, and the rate of fire he could somehow maintain. Already another rocket was heading in my direction, and so I threw myself, this time in front of me. The explosion sent me in his direction this time, and I took this opportunity to try and punch him. And it would have worked, had he not dodged.

Sadly, this is not some kind of J-RPG, and such a predictable attack had little to no chance of hitting. I tried again to hit him, since I was close to him now, but I couldn't even graze him. He fiddled a bit with his remote, and the cannon went back in the portal, which shrunk a lot. Overflow then put his hand through the portal, and retrieved a gun, that he quickly aimed at me. Fortunately, I was fast enough to grab the hand that was holding the gun, and we started to wrestle for control of the gun.

Unfortunately, I couldn't hold onto his weapon; and, after a punch, he managed to get a hold of his gun and started aiming at me, almost point blank.

I barely managed to move a bit out of the way, and his bullet, instead of hitting any vital part, merely pierced my arm, and-

His bullet.

He shouldn't have bullets. Bullets are illegal.

That's right, I'm fighting criminals. Terrorists. Scum. Something may be outlawed, but they're outlaws themselves. This fight just went from impossible to... I dunno. More than impossible.

He aimed his gun, this time at my face, but I finally managed to grab his hand, and his bullet went flying over my head, before then trying as hard as I could to crush it. I didn't manage to do a lot of damage, but he did let go of his gun, and I managed to kick it as far away as I could. I would have grabbed it if I could, but my left arm wasn't responding anymore.

Your bodycount is already at one, you could reasonably push it to two~

Ignoring the tiny voice in my head, I instead jumped back to get some distance between us, and took out a healing pod to try and soothe my arm. Luckily, the bullet went right through it, so I didn't have to worry about having a bullet stuck inside me. Not so luckily, I was starting to feel dizzy with the loss of blood.

Overflow started fiddling with his remote once again, and several portals started to appear in front of him, throwing saw blades everywhere. It was more annoying than dangerous, as their pathes were rather predictable, but it bought time for him to grab his gun again. The portals closed, and the saw blades disappeared, but not without letting their mark on the arena.

I risked a look outside. The flames were getting bigger than ever, and I was almost afraid that the fire would get into the arena. I could at least take solace in the fact that, should I die, my opponent probably wouldn't survive this hell.

A loud BANG grabbed my attention again, and I threw myself to the floor just in time to avoid a bullet. As I got up, I looked at Overflow to see him playing with his gun, before pointing it upwards and smirking.

"Observe our might and shake, Wild Element! Skill:『Project Singularity』!" And with those words, Overflow shot in the sky, and... nothing happened. I looked at him, and he looked back, his smirk slowly disappearing. He tried again, uttering the same words but with less panache, to no avail- whatever he was trying to do, the sky remained empty.

"Why isn't it working? I've spent countless days making this thing! The maths are right, because I can't be wrong on that, and..."

He started mumbling to himself, suddenly all thoughts of fighting apparently forgotten. I cautiously started moving towards my lance, picked it up, and approached him slowly, and he still didn't stop fiddling with his gun. Whatever was supposed to happen, it not happening was apparently more important than me. And I was glad for it.

I slowly raised my lance, and then slammed it on his head as hard as I could. He briefly let out a cry of pain before being thrown on the ground, letting go of the gun in the process, and this time I didn't make the same mistake as before, and grabbed it before pointing it at him. He groaned, and then went backup, after some struggle.

"Don't move or I'll shot!"

He looked at me, and at the gun, before smirking, and then laughing. I looked at him in confusion, as he laughed and laughed and didn't seem ready to stop. When he finally stopped laughing, coughing in the process, he started explaining. "I didn't think I'd need more than three bullets to kill you. Since it can't do anything else, you've just grabbed a useless metal stick!"

He pressed something on his remote, and the cannon from before appeared, ready to shot its rockets at me. But this time, I was ready, and I spinned my lance, doing the Twinkle Star again-

And the resulting explosion threw me against those walls of light. I definitely heard a "crack" on my left arm's area, which endured most of the damage, and I couldn't even feel it now. I looked to Overflow who was just smirking, holding some kind of dagger, as the cannon went back into the portal. He slowly started to approach me, his intentions clear.

He also apparently couldn't resist gloating.

"I am going to enjoy having you at my mercy. We would have been fine letting you go after you carved a new face to my baby bro, but no. You just had to be a pain. You needed to go out and hunt us. Why though? What do you gain from that? Well, I don't really care."

His eyes were fixed on me, and he was slowly raising his dagger. I could feel the metal of his gun, cold to the touch, sitting in my hand.

"You could have joined us. I don't know why most people hate us, it's not like we're actively trying to make the world a horrible place. We could make use of someone with your skills. With the failure and Miss Magic vouching for you, you'd go far, and quickly too. She may not be much, but the failure's a hero for the common grunt, and you'd have them on your pocket with her on your side. Who knows, you even had the potential to be at the same table as our four leaders!"

I couldn't spot my lance until now, but it wouldn't have helped. Not only is it far from me, behind Overflow, but it doesn't seem right. I feel like it's smaller than it should be. And no matter if it wasn't, I can't get up. I don't feel I have the strength. I cannot feel the fire behind me anymore, but I know the flames are still there, growing maybe stronger, despite feeling like it was getting colder around me. My only mean to defend myself seems to be the gun. The useless, bulletless gun...

"But now, you've become more dangerous than you're worth. Letting you live is a danger to us, and... Why are you still holding this gun?"

Rom said my skill was magic. Linda said anyone can do any kind of skill they want, with the only limit being their inner energy of some shit. So, in theory...

I raised my arm, pointing the gun at Overflow, and just started wishing for something. I wanted him to somehow feel as cold as I was feeling. I wanted a bullet to pierce his dumbass chest, to turn it into a mess like he had done with my arm.

"You didn't hear what I said? There's no bullet in this shit. It can't even do it's job and process magic, either. It's useless! What do-"

The words just appeared on my lips. "Zero Shot."

I pressed the trigger, a "bang!" went out, and Overflow was forced to take a step back, holding his stomach. Where the whatever-I-shot had hit him, there was a clump of ice, and his skin had been exposed.

Overflow looked back at me with incomprehension and a growing anger, so I quickly shot again, and again, and again. Soon he had been encased in a thin sheet of ice, and I didn't stop shooting. Then, using every bit of strength I had left, I got up, approached him, and just smashed where his head was with the butt of his gun.

The ice coffin didn't last long, of course, and he didn't manage to stand up; he was still awake though, I could see his eyes were still open. So I went down on my knees, fixed him in the eyes...

"Why did... It work for..."

And slammed the butt of my gun on his head again.

Instantly, the walls of light went down, and I felt something stir inside me. I tried to get up, but I definitely couldn't. So I grabbed my bag (why didn't it get blown up or anything? It's a serious question. It shouldn't still look in pristine condition.) and searched through my belongings. I used a healing pod, just to get back in working shape, before finding that something had fell down Overflow's pocket.

I grabbed it, and looked at a big, red button on a small black box. An eject button. I looked around me, and as expected, the fire was getting closer. My lance was already getting licked by the flames, and it was broken anyway. Quite frankly, it's bothering me. This thing is the reason I'm here, risking my life. And it didn't make it past... What, my third major, important fight?

I looked at Overflow, sighed, grabbed him by the hair in one hand and pressed on the eject button with my knee. And suddenly I felt something squeezing me, before I disappeared.

Alone.

I was back at the city, bloodied, my clothes torn, with a broken arm and tired as all hell. My main method of defending myself was gone, and I just realised I had managed to lose the two most important kids this side of the world, and all of that for nothing, because I was alone right now. Yep, the Eject Button doesn't carry more than one guy. I had nothing to show for almost dying in a torrent of blaze and guns and rockets.

As I got up, I noticed that most of the passers-by didn't really seem to care that a bloodied human flesh bag was trailing along their roads. I mean, that makes sense- since the world is full of monsters and all- but still...

So, I started my long (not really) trek towards the Basilicom, trying my best to not collide with anyone on my way despite how much my body wasn't answering me. After all, Rom and Ram got teleported because they used eject buttons, and I don't think they can be keyed to another location than the main cities; so it's almost evident they either went back to the Basilicom or came back to the Iris Marsh to fetch me... Great, if they went there alone I'm gonna have to endure whatever Mina will do to me.

Still, I allowed a small smile to grace my face. I may not have caught him, but we pretty much destroyed the lab. That's one ASIC facility down, so now Mina should trust me a bit more. I'm pretty sure if it continues to be like that, I'll be done with Lowee in a month. I can guess I'll take another month for Planeptune, then back to Leanbox and I can finally start to work towards something important, like finding a way back home.

As I finally opened the door to the Basilicom, intending to take a quick shower and then report to Mina, I was stopped on my track by the tornado that was ingoing in the main hall. Or it at least seemed that way, as people were running everywhere, carrying stacks of paper and other items from one point to another. Clearly, I seemed to have caught them at a really bad time.

I spotted Mina in a corner, giving orders to a bunch of soldiers, before she met my eyes and beckoned me to get closer. I waited at a polite distance until she was done, and then we both took a sit around a coffee table, before she started speaking.

"Is there a good reason for you being alone, or are you just daft enough to come back here after somehow disposing of the Candidates?"

Her eyes were cold, and I did my best to keep my voice emotionless, but deep inside I was fuming with anger. I mean, yes I planned to betray them in a way, but to kill kids? What the hell?

But I kept my feelings bottles inside, and simply answered "Nothing much really, they were just hit by an Eject Button some time before I could use one myself." I took a healing pod out as I figured we'd be here for some time for our debriefing, and I would rather do most of it without feeling like total crap. "I kinda expected them to be back here before me, but maybe the decided to go back to the Iris Marsh to find me, or they are wandering the city?"

Her glare lessened, but didn't disappear. She nodded, before taking a sip of her tea (where did she get a cup?) and started talking again. "We received reports of a new dungeon around the Iris Marsh, actually. I hope they won't be going there before we can assess how much of a threat it is, because then it will be on your head."

"Is that what this commotion is all about?" I asked, looking around me. "I mean, I know the Iris Marsh is close to the city, but-"

"A new dungeon is always something to worry about", she interrupted, "because it heralds the beginning of the end for a Nation. As Shares drop, the environment turns into more and more dungeons; then, new monsters appear, disrupting the balance, before the nation itself becomes one massive dungeon, that slowly gets eaten by the sea. It has happened before."

A silence follows, only broken by the movement of the staff around us. I decide to break it to ask something that had been bugging me for a while, "So this new dungeon, what's it like?"

"According to reports, it's a burning laboratory of some kind, where the letter N seems to repeat itself everywhere."

It took me a second to realise what she was talking about. "I told them to wait and think before blasting fireballs everywhere, but of course they didn't listen..."

"Excuse me? Do you know something?" Mina interrupts, putting her cup of tea down with maybe a little more strength than required.

"So we were investigating the Iris Marsh to find an ASIC base, and we found one there, a lab called the N Labo..." and I then explained what happened there, up until Rom and Ram's pyromania started.

Mina definitely seemed lost in her own world. "It is definitely a dungeon, but then... Does that mean..." but before she could finish her thought, a pink missile decided to collide with me, from behind the sofa.

"Gyone, Mina, I can't find Rom I think she's been kidnapped!"

Mina definitely put her cup of tea down with much more strength than necessary.

Author's Footnote

Chapter is out before we had to wait a month! With more time on my hands and a chapter recently posted, my motivation is back to something around above 0! Which is unheard of, really.

Over 'Fail' F10W, or Overflow. His weapon of choice went through many, many changes. At first, it was supposed to be Suleimu's tablet, but that went through the drains as I accidentally gave it to, well, Suleimu. Then, I thought "let's just swap them!" But Suleimu's first weapon was a downgraded version of the tablet.

So naturally, I decided to give the big brother something else. A rapier? Nah, that's Noire's weapon. Steel Knuckles? That's to close to Tekken, and this girl probably won't even appear aside from two or three lines of dialogue, so best not to replace her like so.

Then, I dunno, I was watching some EBF5 gameplay when it came to me. "I'm going to make him be Lance!". Somehow it fits, and it's pretty damn cool too! Of course I made some changes, but yeah, the basic gist of Fail's skillset is taken from that.

Review Time~

DietGingerAle: I think at this point I have like ten different ideas as to how the confrontation with Linda is supposed to go. And none of them are going to be used, seeing as I can't seem to continue following my first ideas.

Ace-Of-Weeb: Thanks! And yeah, I just thought they'd be the type to use a nuke without thinking about the consequences. This is no nuke, but it's a start, I suppose...

The clerk isn't important, that omake was just a way to explain why the Guild doesn't know about his... side activities. Also, to show that even if the Basilicom is safe, a huge chunk of the nation is still under ASIC's dominion, one way or another. In the end, his "big idea" is to unlock the next difficulty of quests in the hopes that he dies doing them.

Guest: Thanks for the reviews! And yes, that was indeed a bit suspicious, but hey it worked out for both the clerk and Gyone I guess.

Sun Drake: It's a name that's on par with Neptunia's naming convention. Between MarvelousAQL, 5pb. and Cyberconnect2, I figured calling someone Over F10W wasn't that much of a stretch.

Maryo Themepark, Somewhen.

"You did a good job, saving him from the N Labo. Still, we lost the location... And after we went through all these troubles, creating a new dungeon..."

"So what shall we do, my lady? Do you maybe..." I gulped. "Want him to die?"

"No. He may still have his uses. Still, to lose to the Wild Element like that, he has proven weaker than expected."

I ignore the not-so-subtle jab at Gyone, and try to give out my ideas. "He's done a good job creating new weapons though. Maybe we should force him to do more of them?"

"No. His recreations of bullets costs way to much, and they are hard to make. We do not have the resources as of now. And using magic with something else than a wand or a staff is pointless. More work for less results. Trick here told me you had located the Killachines?"

I smile, before answering. "Yes, in the depth of the World Labyrinth. We still need to find the mascot, of course, but I have a plan for that as well."

"Good. Do as you see fit, but locate and destroy it. One last thing. The Wild Element?"

"Yes?"

"Should you cross path with him... He needs to die."

She ends the phone call, but I do not hear it. Her last words dance in my head. He needs to die.

I want to- I need to obey Lady Magic. To please her. And until now, I knew I had no problems doing whatever she wanted.

"What did she say, chu?"

I turn to look at Warechu, and we start to walk back to camp, before I answered. "We need to destroy the mascot."

"Nothing new on that front, we knew about that from the beginning. You look shaken up tho. What's your deal, chu?"

"She also wants us to kill Gyone."

He stops walking, before turning to look at me. "That's lame, I kinda liked him- why are you shaking?"

"Because I don't want to kill him!"

He blinks. I blink. He looks at me, eyes open like he's some kinda anime girl or something. And I know why he's looking at me like that.

Until now, I had never even thought about protesting Lady Magic's orders.