70 – Call me Sasha

I screamed as the acid spray ate through the skin on my sword arm, leaving it momentarily useless while I escaped with Burstshift, forced to drop Derflinger.

The enemy giant horned lizard sprayed down Derflinger as well from a different hole in its chest, practically gluing Derf to the ground as he was unable to manipulate enough Shinsoo on his own to break out of it.

I materialized my Arms Inventory and quickly unleashed the White Steel Eel to keep fighting while I retreated behind a rocky outcropping and concentrated on getting rid of the acid and healing my arm. Unable to use the water stone's advanced regeneration spell here, the task was much slower with my own Restoration spell and the Armoriont.

Fully synced with the water stone, I dodged the rain of giant exploding boulders and blasted through what I couldn't dodge with Derflinger's Shinsoo waves, a rapidly rotating sphere of liquid Shinsoo protecting me from the onslaught of debris and explosions.

Dozens of Baangs were fired at the winged snakefish while it nimbly dodged in the air.

The White Steel Eel, Derflinger controlling a basic Armoriont clone, and Beastionts in large animal forms fought off numerous drones surrounding me.

A giant timer counted down the minutes before a new wave of battle drone reinforcements would arrive to impede my assault.

However, it never arrived, as I'd finally hit the target on the snakefish.

Liquid Shinsoo swirled around me into a raging torrent.

Sovereign of the Deep: Great Vortex.

A cyclone of Shinsoo tore apart the area, ripping apart the mounted Shinsoo turrets that littered chamber.

The main guardian golem stood its ground and unleashed a huge beam of Shinsoo at me.

I retaliated with a slash from Derflinger, an enormous quantity of Shinsoo having been channeled into him by the water spirits, and released a mighty attack equal to a L6 Slash Beam.

The two attacks collided with a momentary struggle, but Derflinger's beam overpowered the golem's and then went on to destroy it.

O O O

35F, 10 months after the 31F test

I rode one of the many commercial trains for Regulars that went to Train City, which held the starting station for the Hell Train on the 35th Floor.

The window showed the passing scenery of this area, full of mountains and lakes.

It also lightly reflected my face, or rather, the face of my new Avatar Body.

A young woman with platinum blonde hair that went past the shoulders, striking green eyes, a flawless fair face, and pointed ears, under a cloak hood.

Model SASHA Version Alpha 1.

After half a year, the second Spirit Cluster Core had been completed, and then I fully grew a genetically modified female clone, to both get started on Derf's request and to go through the next phase of my plans with a new identity.

The external appearance was additionally modified to match Derf's creator as much as possible from his memories.

I had to retrieve some additional lab equipment from Worm and had a number of failed productions before a live one stayed viable to adulthood. This was still far from perfect, and had many minor issues, but it was good enough to fulfill the requirements of the Avatar Body and have better compatibility with the Bionanite Swarm and Armoriont, as well as my personal magecraft, unlike the Canjon-class puppets.

Because of its body mass ratio, it had worse physical stats compared to the Axion/Dua model I left to continue the disguise with Team Sweet & Sour. However, it had an unexpected advantage.

The Omni-Flight spell and its derivative Burstshift, seemed to cost a bit less mana, and had a higher max velocity when used through this body.

It was still worse than using it through my main body, but the difference from the other Avatar Body seemed to suggest that its compatibility for the spell was higher. Possibly because of the spell's origins as based on magical girl concepts.

Derflinger had insisted on moving to a necklace instead of a bracelet, while my main body stayed inside a Compressed Lighthouse Cube floating beside the Avatar.

I could've stayed in Manbarondenna, which the Avatar strapped around its waist, to be even less conspicuous, but that had the downside of being unable to get out without somebody opening it from the outside, and being sealed off from physical Shinsoo flows to the outside.

Being hidden inside my own Lighthouse meant that I could support the Avatar directly with my Shinsoo and Lighthouse skills if necessary, simply by Decompressing the Cube to a larger size.

There was no need to rely on the Spirit Cluster Core since I wasn't operating remotely, after all.

"Hand over your ticket if you don't want to die!"

"What makes you think I have one?"

I turned to see a Regular standing over and threatening another one sitting a few seats in front of me.

"Don't bother hiding it, I know you have it. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way," said Regular number one, pointing a needle at number two.

Several other train riders stood up and surrounded him with hostile expressions.

"What, you have a whole team here?" Regular number one laughed, seemingly unbothered.

"It's foolish to move around alone when you're headed to Train City," said Regular number two calmly.

"Who said I was alone? Negotiations have broken down!" Number one shouted, more Regulars standing up from the other seats at his signal.

Soon the train cabin devolved into chaos as the two sides began fighting.

Other Regulars who were taking the train started screaming and running away.

"Is that the same kind of ticket we need to board the Hell Train?" Derflinger asked.

"I would assume so," I said, still seated.

"Is it just me, or do these guys seem kinda weak?" said Derf, floating up to get a better view.

"They are weak. They might be D-Rank, but they're just the average, mediocre ones," I said. "But, hm…it's interesting."

"A..ah…a-are you s-strong Miss? P-please help me get out of here…!" The Regular seated to my right asked with a shaking voice, wild eyes, and hands over her head, trying to keep as low as possible under the seat backrests and practically snuggling up to me.

"Oh…sorry, but no," I said with a small laugh. "I'm staying here."

She looked crestfallen and whimpered, turning away.

After a while, the fighting died down, and several bodies were strewn across the cabin.

The defending side had won handily, with Regular number two panting heavily but otherwise unwounded. His team members started checking the compartment while Regular number two adjusted his dress shirt and tie.

"Hey boss, there's still a couple of outsiders here. They seem suspicious. What should we do?" Said one guy pointing towards us after noticing we were still in our seats.

"Hmm? Let me see them."

"P-please I'm just a passenger caught up in this, I don't want any trouble!" The woman beside me pleaded.

"Get up and keep your hands where we can see them," Goon A ordered us. "The boss will decide."

I stood up to comply. We were surrounded in the cabin center for scrutiny, and one of them pulled my hood off.

Their entire group was men apparently, and the instant my hood came off, their expressions changed.

"Damn, what a face!"

"So that's what she was hiding under the hood?"

"Look at those ears, what race is that?"

"Let's take her with us, boss!"

The boss held up a hand for silence, staring at me contemplatively and then the other woman.

"You weren't with the group that attacked us? Why didn't you run away? Sticking around like this makes it seem like you were waiting to ambush us at the end," he said suspiciously.

"No no, I have nothing to do with them! Please believe me, I didn't attack anyone!" The woman said frantically. "I was just too scared to leave!"

I shrugged. "I had an interesting idea, so I decided to watch."

"An interesting idea?" The boss raised his eyebrows.

"Yes," I smiled. "It's your lucky day. I thought to myself, if whoever won the fight had a good showing and wasn't too stupid, I might let them become my subordinates for a while. I'm in need of some meat shields that can think for themselves to deal with any trash that tries to bother me, and you lot seem qualified for the job."

They all looked stunned, a few angry, at my words.

However, I was disappointed to see that there didn't seem to be the stereotypical guy that would retort that I was talking nonsense while surrounded.

"Boss, something feels off here. She's too crazy. Could she be another member of the Ten Families?" A guy whispered loudly into the boss' ear.

"Who are you? Why should we become your 'meat shields' and what will you do if we refuse?" The boss asked.

"Good questions. Call me Sasha, and my background's not important. I'm just a Regular like you, headed for the Hell Train. But I have powers beyond your imagination and I am generous to my subordinates. Those who prove their worth serving me shall receive great benefits. If you refuse, then I won't force you. You will be free to go unharmed after you give me your ticket."

"So you were after the ticket too, after all," said the boss, scoffing.

I gave him an amused smile. "If you serve me then you can keep it. I won't steal from my subordinates. I don't need your specific ticket, after all, and everyone that wants to follow me onto the Train next month will need tickets of their own anyways."

The boss seemed taken aback for a moment.

Then another one of them asked. "What sort of uh, benefits, are we talking about here?"

"Shut up, get your mind out of the gutter!"

"What, it's a serious question, get your mind out of the gutter! Who says I was asking about that?"

"Shut up, both of you," said the boss, and they quieted down with apologies. "There aren't many Regulars who can board the Train with a whole team. We've tried to collect more tickets in the past, but there just aren't enough to go around and all of the holders are strong. The D-Rank section covers up to the 44th Floor. The ones who can gather multiple tickets are all veterans, elite D-Rankers. But you're not a veteran yourself, are you? However strong you are, don't think you might be underestimating the competition? How do we know you are as good as you think you are?"

I smiled wider. "It seems my intuition about you was good. From this exchange, you've already noticed some important things and are seeking more information to rationally make a favorable deal. You know that your own team is not strong enough, but you don't want to leave your teammates behind just yet. You've accurately assessed your own strength compared to your competition. A more brutish sort might have suggested that I defeat them first to prove my strength. What you're asking now isn't just where my confidence comes from, but rather, do I have the means to face the best of the best, and will your team meet disaster if you follow me?"

He furrowed his brows and looked at me with wariness. "Yes. You give off a strange feeling…my instincts tell me you are someone I can't take lightly. But even if you were all that you said you were and strong enough to be fearless in this situation, it doesn't mean that we would be better off with you. I want to get on the Hell Train with my team, but if we're not ready we can always keep training, keep climbing, and come back another year. But you seem like the type that'd walk straight into a fire, one that you might survive, but maybe the rest of us won't."

"Well said. So how about this? I will show you a small sample of my abilities. Pick one of your team members, preferably one of the physically weaker ones. I will grant him a temporary power boost. Then have him face one of your stronger members. I assume you already know their strengths, then you will see for yourself the difference."

The group looked between each other and the boss, who asked if any of them wanted to volunteer for it.

After a few moments, they picked the lankiest member of their group, apparently their scout.

I touched a hand to his chest, then used Structural Grasp to get as much of a read on his body as possible. After ten seconds of analysis, I applied Reinforcement.

Both of these spells were basic enough that I could do them without any consequences, and I had done quite a bit of experimentation on them back during my stint as Dr. Dua.

The drugs and mystic codes I'd developed to cast them didn't work nearly as well as the spell directly cast by me.

One of the big problems with magecraft Reinforcement was that it required a fair bit of customization to the thing being Reinforced, and so without a Structural Grasp, trying to do a common template Reinforcement was just really limiting.

Comparatively, Restoration—the healing spell—was much easier since it relied on the body's own memory of its form and its own processes.

Another issue with Reinforcement was that the difficulty of it rose with the recipient's complexity, pre-existing power level, and Shinsoo resistance or flows.

This meant that, aside from myself and my own creations with the best compatibility and understanding, the enhancements I could give to other people were much more impactful on those who were weaker.

In other words, it was efficient and easier for me to raise up lower level mooks to a decent strength than to enhance the already strong guys, whom I'd have to take much more time to study individually or even experiment with through multiple sessions, and the results still wouldn't feel quite as impressive.

This was quickly demonstrated when the recipient faced off against one of the team's Fisherman, and started fighting him almost evenly, much to his own and the group's surprise, before overwhelming the Fisherman with a kick that sent him flying.

"Damn. That's a hell of a boost," said the boss. "This is only temporary? How long?"

"A few hours, more than enough for a battle. To those who serve me well, I can give permanent enhancements that they can activate on their own," I said.

"C-can I serve you too, Miss Sasha?!" The woman beside me looked on with awe.

"This offer is only to these men, I'm afraid. I haven't seen any of your skills yet and you don't seem to have the right temperament to be one of my guards. But if you really want, I'll let you be my maid."

I didn't really need one, but that was the type of thing you'd expect a haughty, powerful lady in this type of encounter to do right?

"That's fine! I'll do it! My name is—"

"I don't care. I'm just going to call you Maid now. Now what about you guys? Will you serve me?" I turned to ask the leader of the men.

He looked around at his team and seemed to reach a silent consensus, then bowed forwards with a fist over his chest. "Yes. Team Darul is at your service, lady Sasha."

O O O

One of the uses of having some subordinates was so I could divert attention to the Dua Avatar whenever I needed to.

It was still very difficult to directly control more than one complex familiar at a time, and that also applied to the Avatar Bodies and all of my other Armoriont-clones or Canjon-class puppets, which was why I didn't simply bring out a whole squadron of them all in battle.

Even large numbers of Shinheuh were difficult to control because I didn't personally use the Shinsoo Anima methods, but instead relied on my familiar spell after the water spirits did the initial taming. While the water spirits could flow-train Shinheuh to control them via Shinsoo, it was a different matter for me who had no genuine talent as an Anima, and I couldn't effectively coordinate them indirectly through the water spirits either.

The Beastionts were the easiest to direct, since they could be mostly autonomous and had animal intelligence of their own with programmed loyalty to follow basic tactical orders.

But now, some important things had been happening with the canon groups, and I had to respond to some of it.

These events would lead to a gathering of many characters with different interests at the Workshop Battle in a couple of months, where I intended to achieve several major objectives using the Axion avatar.

Number one, to serve as an attention-grabbing decoy so that anyone keeping tabs on me wouldn't link me to Sasha's activities on the Hell Train.

Two, to seize the opportunity created by the chaos of the factional schemes unfolding at the Workshop Battle, and break into the Living Ignition Weapon labs which were located there. These labs held valuable research data and raw Ignition Liquid that I was very interested in, both for Derflinger and for my own experiments.

Three, to fulfill a favor for Ha Jinsung and Hwa Ryun, who remained vital allies for me in the Tower, whose "side" in FUG I needed to win at the Workshop Battle to keep canon events on track to maintain the later political balance of the Tower and my own security.

Let's rewind a bit to understand the reason for this favor, the sequence of events that led to it, and the major parties involved.

The first spark was when Rachel had laid a trap for Khun and the new team he'd assembled.

To recap, Khun was one of the first teammates of Baam on the 2nd Floor. He and Ship Leesoo had uncovered Rachel's fake crippling, and acted like nothing was wrong until the 25th Floor, where Khun separated from the main team led by Ship in order to create a new team for the purpose of isolating her and getting revenge for what he believed was the crime of killing Baam.

Although I wasn't aware of the specifics, Khun had brought together some impressive characters. But unfortunately for him his recruits included a couple of FUG double agents loyal to Rachel.

What followed was Cassano, the Devil of the Left Arm, and Horyang's "brother" from the Living Ignition Weapon experiments, luring Khun to an ambush set by other FUG collaborators. Khun split his team in the process, while Rachel and her loyalists used the chance to attack the remaining members and then escape.

I only knew the early parts of this from metaknowledge, as neither Rachel nor Khun informed anybody that I was in regular contact with, on the Dua side or Axie.

Where I was alerted to it happening was when Team Sweet and Sour had chased Horyang, and then Viole, to the same location, a place known as Arlene's Hand, in pursuit of Cassano.

At which point, the battle turned more chaotic, and the major results were that Viole had been blackmailed onto a new FUG team for the Workshop Battle, he then forcibly recruited two members of Khun's team to protect them, and finally Khun himself was buried under an explosion and seemingly dying in public news.

Team S arrived on the scene to save Khun afterward, then Ha Jinsung and Hwa Ryun got involved to find out who was pulling the strings.

And they discovered that it was a coalition of factions which had formed an anti-Viole bloc, who supposedly wanted to keep a tighter leash on Viole because his self-picked team was too trash.

In reality, they wanted to melt down his body entirely and use him as a component in an Ignition Weapon so that somebody else could use his power as an Irregular.

Scary stuff, which is why I had been careful since entering the Tower to secure allies that could suppress the intel that I was an Irregular and fight back against these guys, why I had to side with the pro-Viole people.

The anti-Viole coalition offered a bet to Ha Jinsung, pitting Team Sweet and Sour against the team which Viole had been blackmailed into joining. Whoever won the Workshop Battle would become Viole's team thereafter.

This was a bet which Ha Jinsung had no choice but to accept because too many of the FUG Elders supported this as a seemingly fair way to resolve both factions' concerns.

He then asked me to help. Except, since the other faction had gotten wind of his new powerful student, I was barred from participating. So I'd have to help indirectly…fortunately, my multiple identities and skills in body puppetry were well suited to this kind of subterfuge.

O O O

"Derf, it's time. Have you gotten the hang of it?" I asked, still concealed in my Lighthouse, and another Derflinger in my hands.

The one outside with Sasha's necklace was actually a fake he'd been practicing remotely controlling.

"Yeah, yeah, it still feels pretty strange, but I've got it," said Derf.

For now, he hadn't remembered anything new, but he'd agreed to try my suggestion of piggybacking off my familiar spell.

It was extremely clunky and he couldn't transfer any mana through this connection from his real body, but he could at least talk and show a minimal amount of his abilities through the other sword.

A similar-looking idol sword would be specially prepared with a ritual simultaneously performed by my main body and an Avatar, using my blood as a common medium. Then I would bring Derf into my familiar bond with the Avatar Body, and then he would use that to control the other idol sword as his own familiar.

The resulting cloned sword had to build up mana of its own and could barely handle 1000 MP worth of spell absorption. Which was not bad at all for a magus, but once absorbed by Derflinger that was only equivalent to a bit more than a single 800 MP Level 4 Sword Beam.

The more complicated User Boost was impossible for now, the best he could do was just to control the wielder's body with zero enhancement, and even that would be very draining compared to his MP pool, and not something that could be kept up for prolonged periods on just the Spirit Cluster Core's MP generation alone either.

Compression could be an imbued effect, so Derf could just trigger it rather than using the skill manually. Of course, it was too difficult with Endbringer crystal or the supersized Decompression, so the fake swords were just made of nanocellulose crystal.

But it was a start. I could teach a 6000-year-old dog new tricks after all.

While Sasha continued traveling to Train City secured by Team Darul, a tiger cat Beastiont pet on her lap, with a snakeform Beastiont wrapped stealthily around her body inside her cloak, we delved into matters with Dua.

O O O